Ukraine's military advances as Putin annexed four parts

The Ukrainian military continues to liberate towns that were previously occupied by Russian forces after Russia senates President Vladimir Putin's decision to annex four parts of Ukraine in violation of international law.

The legislative process is expected to be a formality, although it will take a couple of days. The space for political dissent in Russia has shrunk in recent years because of the tight control of both branches of the Russian legislature and the space for political dissent in Russia.

The maneuverings inside the ornate halls of the Kremlin are in stark contrast to the facts on the ground in the detritus-strewn battlefields of eastern Ukraine.

Much of the territory Moscow claims as its own in the Donetsk region is now under the control of Ukrainian forces. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that the country had recaptured the strategically important city of Lyman in Donetsk, while the Ukrainian military said it had recaptured the nearby villages of Drobysheve and Torske, putting Kyiv in a better position as it seeks to take back the Luhansk region.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in an interview with CNN on Sunday that he believes Ukraine is making progress in a third region, Kherson, thanks in part to weapons supplied by Washington.

Zelensky said on Sunday that Russian forces had been expelled from the Kherson settlements of Arkhanhelske and Myroliubivka.

The battlefield dynamics that we are seeing is a kind of change, Austin said. They ve done very well in the Kharkiv area and moved to take advantage of opportunities. The fight in the Kherson region is a bit slower, but they are making progress. Two of the four regions Russia has annexed are Luhansk and Donetsk. Both of them are home to Russian-backed breakaway republics, and fighting has been raging since 2014.

The other two areas, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, are both in southern Ukraine and have been occupied by Russian forces since the invasion began in late February.

In a formal speech on Friday at the Kremlin's opulent St. George's Hall, Putin announced that Russia would push forward with annexing those four regions after so-called referendums in those areas returned results that purported to show that the majority of people living there voted in favor of acceding to Russian sovereignty.

The contests have been widely panned as a farce that did not meet the international standards of fair and free elections. Reports from the ground suggested that voting took place essentially and literally at gunpoint.