This is Donetsk Oblast. Oblasts are administrative regions with similar powers and organization to States here in the U.S. or Provinces in Canada.
This is Luhansk Oblast.
This is the CITY of Donetsk in - you guessed it - Donetsk Oblast.
This is the CITY of Luhansk in - you guessed it - Luhansk Oblast.
These two oblasts, along with portions of Rostov Oblast in Russia, makeup 'Donbas': a cultural economic region.
Think Cascadia here in the states or even the Blue Banana in Europe.
To combat Russian forces in Donbas, Kyiv established the ATO (Anti-Terrorist Operation Zone). The ATO itself is divided into numerous sectors: most of which are geographic based.
Some are hyper specific to certain portions of the contact line.
Mariupol - in Donetsk Oblast - is not controlled by Russian forces. Nor is Sievierodonetsk in Luhansk Oblast.
Name dropping 'Donetsk' is convenient from a western prospective, but often incorrect.
On top of it all, thousands of cities all across Ukraine have the same shared names: something rather hard from an English prospective.
Context clues are everything this week!
While I have a captive audience...
STOP PLACING 'THE' IN FRONT OF THINGS. THAT MEANS NO 'THE UKRAINE'.
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