A Ukrainian soldier on a destroyed Russian tank on the frontline in Luhansk oblast, Ukraine, on June 09, 2022.
Diego Herrera Carcedo | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu informed President Vladimir Putin on Sunday that Moscow and its allies now managed all of Ukraine’s Luhansk area after capturing the final main metropolis, Lysychansk.
There was no speedy response from Ukraine on the Russian declare, which, if confirmed, would mark a major milestone for Moscow on day 130 of the warfare.
After being repelled in its preliminary try to seize the capital Kyiv, Russia has centered on driving Ukrainian forces out of the jap Luhansk and Donetsk areas the place Moscow-backed separatists have been preventing Kyiv since Russia’s first navy intervention in Ukraine in 2014.
The Russian defence ministry mentioned Shoigu had knowledgeable Putin of the “liberation” of the Luhansk area because of the seize of Lysychansk, as soon as a serious coal mining hub.
“As Army General Sergei Shoigu reported [to Putin], following successful military operations, the Russian armed forces, together with units from the people’s militia of the Luhansk People’s Republic, gained full control over the city of Lysychansk,” the ministry mentioned in a press release.
The ministry had mentioned earlier on Sunday that its troops had captured the villages surrounding Lysychansk, encircling the realm, and have been preventing inside town.
Calls to the Ukrainian General Staff and Defence Ministry went unanswered. The ministry didn’t instantly reply to an emailed request for remark.
The Russian defence ministry added that it had struck navy infrastructure within the jap Ukrainian metropolis of Kharkiv, in addition to a base utilized by overseas fighters on the outskirts of Mykolaiv within the nation’s south.
Russian forces seized Lysychansk’s sister metropolis Sievierodonetsk final month, after a number of the heaviest preventing seen since Russia despatched troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24.
