Russia claims ‘97 per cent control’ of flashpoint Luhansk province in eastern Ukraine
- Russia’s defence minister says Moscow’s forces hold nearly all of Luhansk province, bringing it closer to fully capturing the Donbas region
- Ukrainian forces may have pull back to stronger positions in the strategic eastern city of Sievierodonetsk, Luhansk governor says
Russia drew closer to its goal of fully capturing Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland of coal mines and factories as the Kremlin claimed to have taken control of 97 per cent of one of the two provinces that make up the Donbas region.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said that Moscow’s forces hold nearly all of Luhansk province. And it appears that Russia now occupies roughly half of Donetsk province, according to Ukrainian officials.
After abandoning its bungled attempt to storm Kyiv two months ago, Russia declared that taking the entire Donbas is its main objective. Moscow-backed separatists have been battling Ukrainian government forces in the Donbas since 2014, and the region has borne the brunt of the Russian onslaught in recent weeks.
Early in the war, Russian troops also took control of the entire Kherson region and a large part of the Zaporizhzhia region, both in the south. Russian officials and their local appointees have talked about plans for those regions to either declare their independence or be folded into Russia.
But in what may be the latest instance of anti-Russian sabotage inside Ukraine, Russian state media said on Tuesday that an explosion at a cafe in the city of Kherson wounded four people. Tass called the apparent bombing in the Russian-occupied city a “terror act”.
Before the February 24 invasion, Ukrainian officials said Russia controlled some 7 per cent of the country, including the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, and areas held by the separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk. Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian forces hold 20 per cent of the country.
