A Russian-backed official claims that Russia has gained complete control over Ukraine’s Luhansk region.

Russia has assumed complete control of Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region, over three years after President Vladimir Putin deployed thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022, stated the Russian-supported leader of the area on Russian state television.

Luhansk, covering an area of 26,700 square km (10,308 square miles), is the first Ukrainian territory to be completely under Russian military control since the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014. In September 2022, Putin announced that Luhansk—along with the partially occupied regions of Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia—was being incorporated into Russia, a move that Western European nations deemed illegal and which lacks recognition from most of the global community. Ukraine asserts that Russia’s claims to Luhansk and other regions, which are internationally acknowledged as Ukrainian territory, are unfounded and illicit, with Kyiv vowing never to acknowledge Russian authority over these regions.

Russia claims that these regions are now part of its territory, are protected by its nuclear capability, and will not be returned.

Luhansk was formerly a part of the Russian empire but changed ownership after the Russian Revolution. The Red Army captured it in 1920, and it subsequently joined the Soviet Union in 1922 as part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.

Together with neighboring Donetsk, Luhansk became the epicenter of the conflict that started in 2014 following the ousting of a pro-Russian president during Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution and Russia’s annexation of Crimea. In both Luhansk and Donetsk, Russian-backed separatist forces engaged in battles against Ukraine’s military. Russia presently occupies nearly 19% of territory recognized internationally as Ukraine, including Luhansk, and more than 70% of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, alongside parts of the Kharkiv, Sumy, and Dnipropetrovsk regions.