Ukraine says retakes part of New York town

Ukraine on Friday claimed to have recaptured a part of the eastern town of New York, in the first success for Kyiv on this part of the front for months.

The announcement came after months of Moscow advancing in east Ukraine and a day after President Vladimir Putin said he aimed to capture the whole of the Donbas region.

Kyiv’s counter-attack came just over two weeks after Russia captured New York, a town that had a pre-war population of around 10,000 people.

“Thanks to the high morale, courage and professionalism of the brigade’s fighters, Azov managed to stabilise the situation, regain control of part of New York,” the Azov Brigade, fighting in the area, said on social media.

Russia claimed the capture of New York in late August, saying it had taken an “important logistics hub”.

New York lies south of the town of Toretsk, where intense battles have been raging for weeks.

Kyiv has struggled to hold the line on this part of the front, with Moscow pushing an advance despite Ukraine mounting an incursion in Russia’s Kursk region.

New York has been a frontline town since 2014, when a conflict erupted between Moscow-backed separatists and Kyiv.

The story of the town’s name is a mystery, but it was marked on maps as “New York” in the 19th century.

Soviet authorities renamed it “Novgorodskoye” — which has “New City” as the root – in 1951 for ideological reasons, before Kyiv switched it back to New York in 2021.