NIU YORK, NIU YORK

Russian Military Claims to Have Captured Ukraine’s Very Own ‘New York’

How exactly a tiny settlement in Eastern Ukraine came to be known by the same name as one of the world’s great cities remains a subject of local legend.

A dystopian headline to set your heart racing–Russia’s Ministry of Defence announced on Tuesday their forces had taken New York. Not the Big Apple though, and instead a tiny rural settlement near Bakhmut in the contested Eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk. Russian opposition media outlet Meduza has been unable to verify the ministry’s claims, but reports that heavy fighting in the vicinity on the night of Aug. 19, with Ukrainian forces claiming to still control at least 20 percent of the village. Transliterated as “Niu-York”, nobody actually knows how exactly it came to adopt the name. There’s speculation it may have been the result of German settlers moving to the area during the late 18th century. But what’s bizarre is that census records indicate the title actually predates their arrival by about fifty years, leading some historians to suggest it might originally have been a joke now lost in time.