Russia has for years been issuing passports to people living in the eastern Donbas areas held by pro-Moscow separatists since 2014 as well as in annexed Crimea.
Moscow ‘captures’ Bakhmut ahead of Kyiv counteroffensive
Bakhmut, which once had a population of 70,000 people, has been the scene of the bloodiest battle in Moscow's more than year-long Ukraine offensive. The fall of Bakhmut, where both Moscow and Kyiv are believed to have suffered huge losses, would allow Moscow to bring home a key victory after...Putin visits Mariupol in occupied Ukraine territory, his first visit invasion
Just hours after Putin visited Crimea to mark the ninth anniversary of the peninsula's annexation, video distributed by the Kremlin showed him landing by helicopter in Mariupol, the port city that Moscow captured after a long siege last spring. The Russian leader took a tour of the city and was...
