THE NEW YORK TIMES: President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine quickly sought to capitalize politically on the Russian retreat from the crucial rail hub of Lyman, saying that it showed that Moscow’s attempt to illegally annex much of the country was an “absolute farce.”
On Friday, after Russian-appointed officials held discredited referendums in four partially occupied areas of Ukraine, the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, announced that the areas, including Donetsk Province, where Lyman is, would be absorbed into Russia and that its people would be Russian citizens “forever.”
Mr. Putin claimed the residents in those provinces had voted overwhelmingly to join the Russian Federation, but Ukraine and its Western allies dismissed the referendums as shams, as most of the citizens had fled the region and many of those left behind were forced to cast ballots at gunpoint. » | James C. McKinley Jr. | Sunday, October 2, 2022
