The individual appointed by Moscow as the head of the occupied Luhansk region in Ukraine asserted on Tuesday that Russian military forces now have complete control over the area.
“Just two days prior, a report indicated that the region of the Luhansk People’s Republic has been entirely liberated — 100%,” stated Leonid Pasechnik on Russia’s state-run Channel One.
If this information is validated, Luhansk would mark the second Ukrainian territory to be fully under Russian control since Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014.
In March, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that Moscow controlled 99% of the Luhansk region, which, alongside Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia, the Kremlin claimed to have officially annexed in September 2022.
Previously, Russia asserted it had full control over Luhansk in July 2022, when former Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu informed Putin that Russian forces had captured the city of Lysychansk and nearby towns.
However, Ukrainian forces reclaimed Lysychansk and portions of the Luhansk region during a swift counteroffensive in the fall of 2022, a campaign that also allowed Kyiv to regain significant territories in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions.
