Russia’s Ministry of Defense published a map that allegedly shows the advance of the Russian army since the beginning of the year, however the names of the settlement on the map indicate that the map is about 50 years old.
The map was published by the Russian Defense Ministry on its official Telegram channel.
A section of the map marked the current frontline city of Siversk which calls the city by its former name “Yama”- a name that is no longer in use after 1973. The village of Yama was established between 1909 and 1913 and served as the administrative center of the Yama District until 1959.
The Russian Defense Ministry also marked Bakhmut as Bakhmut although Russians do not recognize the renaming of settlements.
Evidence that the maps used by the Russian Defense Ministry is also found in several cities in the Luhansk Region shown in the map. This is the currently occupied Alchevsk, which in 1961-1991 was called Kommunarsk.
The Russian map also shows the city of Kadiivka, a name that the settlement had since 2016, but from 1978 to 2016 it was called Stakhanov. It was also called Kadiivka from 1940 to 1978.
These three cases indicate that the Russian Defense Ministry used a map that is at least 40 years old to mark its “successes” and advances in Ukraine.
On Tuesday, Trump indicated a departure from his previous position that Ukraine would need to agree to land swaps before a peace deal could be reached.
Following his meeting with Zelensky on Tuesday, Trump expressed his belief that Ukraine has the potential to win the war and reclaim all its lost territories.
This statement marks a significant change from his earlier viewpoint where he suggested that Zelensky “doesn’t have the cards”, implying that time isn’t in Ukraine’s favor and that Russia is gaining the upper hand in the conflict. He had previously encouraged Zelensky to make territorial concessions to Russia as part of a deal to end the four-year-long conflict.
In August, Reuters reported that Russia controls nearly 44,600 squares or 19 percent of Ukraine, which includes Crimea, annexed in 2014, and a portion of land in the east and southeast of the country.
