Ukraine Retakes Key Town in Annexed Donetsk Region

One day after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a series of treaties annexing four Ukrainian regions, Ukrainian troops encircled Lyman, a strategically important town for the Russian invaders in the Donetsk region, one of the four regions Russia annexed. Moscow ordered a withdrawal of the thousands of troops in the town, marking another defeat in the month-long Ukrainian counteroffensive that has erased Russian gains in the northeast portion of the country.

The fighting, in the eyes of the Kremlin now waging on Russian soil, is the first test of Russian ultimatums. Russian doctrine authorizes the use of nuclear weapons if Russian land is threatened. Ukraine, who has denounced the referendums held in the annexed regions as illegitimate, vows to continue their push into the occupied regions. Western European powers and the United States have also condemned the annexation, with Washington announcing a new round of economic sanctions on Friday in response to Putin’s decree. Ramzan Kadyrov, Head of the Chechen Republic and Moscow ally, responded to the defeat by calling for Russia to consider using “low-yield nuclear weapons” to turn the tide of the war back in Russia’s favor.

News of the Ukrainian advance was covered widely across the spectrum, slightly more prominently by left outlets. A good deal of coverage of the war also focused on a series of Russian attacks on civilian car convoys, with the New York Post (Lean Right Bias) reporting on one in Zaporizhzhia that killed 30, and another in southeastern Ukraine that killed 20.