Array
Russian troops fought Thursday to regain lost ground in areas of Ukraine that President Vladimir Putin has illegally annexed while Moscow tried to pound the invaded country into submission with more missile and drone attacks on the country’s critical infrastructure.
Russian forces attacked Ukrainian positions near Bilohorivka, a village in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine. In the neighboring Donetsk region, fighting raged near the city of Bakhmut. Kremlin-backed separatists have controlled parts of both regions for 8 1/2 years.
Putin declared marital law in Luhansk, Donetsk and southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions on Wednesday in an attempt to assert Russian authority in the annexed areas following a string of battlefield setbacks and a troubled troop mobilization.
The unsettled status of the illegally absorbed territory was especially visible in the Kherson region’s capital, where military officials have replaced Kremlin-installed civilian leaders amid a mass evacuation and an ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive.
