With governments all across the Western world holding strong in their refusal to formally recognise the seizure of Crimea by the Russian Federation – a move that’s brought about bizarre and pointless political reaction in the Duma – one US newspaper appears to have done so.

Yesterday’s front page of USA Today, one of the biggest-selling dailies in the US, showed a map of Ukraine denoting the Crimean peninsula belonging to Russia. The disputed Ukrainian territory was invaded by Russian forces in 2014, and voted for annexation in March – in what is considered an unbinding referendum. Later that month, the UN General Assembly passed a non-binding resolution declaring the plebiscite invalid.

The front page of Tuesday's USA Today [Newseum]

USA Today, the top selling broadsheet in America based off of daily and digital circulation, has yet to clarify whether the mistake was intentional or accidental, but its main competitors have chosen to mark Crimea as Ukrainian in spite of the Moscow’s control.

USA Today is not the only body to have made the error; CNN was forced to apologise yesterday when one of its reporters declared that the Obama administration was considering army Ukrainian forces, describing them as "pro US".

And in October, FIFA apologised after a map for the 2018 World Cup Championships, which will be hosted in 11 cities across Russia, included Crimea as part of the Russian Federation.