Russia has taken full control of the eastern Luhansk region of Ukraine. Russia has taken control of this region after three years since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a large Russian force to start a war in Ukraine. Luhansk was once part of Russia. However, after the Russian Revolution, in 1922, the region was included as part of the Soviet Union. It was under the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic at that time. In 2014, when the pro-Russian president’s rule in Ukraine came to an end, Donetsk and Luhansk became disputed territories between Russia and Ukraine. Around the same time, Russia had taken control of Crimea, a southern region of Ukraine.
The 26,700 square kilometer Luhansk has become the first region to come under Russia’s full control since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. In September 2022, Putin declared Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia as part of Russia. However, those regions were not under Russia’s full control at that time. When Russia made this declaration, Western countries stated that it was illegal and that most countries in the world would not recognize these regions as part of Russia.
A senior Russian official, Leonid Pasechnik, speaking on Russian state TV on July 1st, said that Luhansk is now 100% under Russia’s full control. He is the top Russian official operating in the Luhansk region. Although Pasechnik has made this announcement, neither the Russian Defense Ministry nor the Ukrainian government has said anything about this so far.
Ukraine says that Russia’s claims over Luhansk and other territories internationally recognized as part of Ukraine are baseless and illegal. Ukraine has vowed never to accept Russia’s claims over these territories. Currently, 19% of Ukraine’s internationally recognized territory is under Russian control. This includes parts of Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia, 70% of Kherson, and some areas of Kharkiv, Sumy, and Dnipropetrovsk.
