Russia says it has taken full control of Ukraine’s Luhansk region

⁠The Russian defence ministry said on Wednesday that its ⁠forces had taken full control of the Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine, suggesting they had wrested control of a small sliver of land which had remained beyond their reach since 2022.Reuters could not independently verify the ‌battlefield report and a Ukrainian military spokesman said there had been no battlefield changes in the area in the last six months.More than 99 per cent of Luhansk, one of four Ukrainian regions Russia claimed as its own in 2022 – something Kyiv and most Western countries have rejected as an illegal land grab – has long been ⁠under Russian control.“Units of the ‘West’ military grouping have completed the liberation of the Luhansk People’s ‌Republic,” the defence ministry said in a statement, using Moscow’s preferred name for the region.Luhansk is one of two regions – along with Donetsk – ‌which make up the wider industrialised Donbas area.Putin on Ukraine: end war via talks or by forcePutin on Ukraine: end war via talks or by forceThe Kremlin on Wednesday reiterated its ⁠demand that Ukrainian forces ⁠withdraw from the part of Donetsk which Moscow does not control to end what it called the “hot ‌phase” of the war, a demand Kyiv has repeatedly dismissed as absurd.