The Moscow-appointed head of Ukraine’s occupied Luhansk region claimed Tuesday that Russian forces now have full control of the territory.
“Just two days ago, a report was released stating that the territory of the Luhansk People’s Republic has been completely liberated — 100%,” Leonid Pasechnik said on Russia’s state-run Channel One.
If confirmed, Luhansk would be the second Ukrainian region to fall entirely under Russian control since Moscow seized the Crimean peninsula in 2014.
In March, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow held 99% of the Luhansk region, which, alongside the Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, the Kremlin claims to have annexed in September 2022.
Russia previously claimed full control over Luhansk in July 2022, when then-Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told Putin that Russian forces had seized the city of Lysychansk and surrounding towns.
But Ukraine recaptured Lysychansk and parts of the Luhansk region during its rapid counteroffensive in the fall of 2022, which also saw Kyiv regain large areas of land in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions.
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