This week, for the third time since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia claimed it absolutely occupied Ukraine’s Luhansk area.
The Russian military has held nearly all of Luhansk – certainly one of 4 eastern areas that Moscow has illegally sought to annex – for the reason that first yr of the battle.
It’s unclear why Russia felt the necessity to announce -again – that its forces had “completed the liberation of the entire territory of the Luhansk People’s Republic,” because it calls the area.
Analysts notice that the Russia Defense ministry has a behavior of exaggerating advances when the frontlines are scarcely altering.
Russian positive factors in Ukraine slowed within the first three months of this yr to about 5 km (three miles) a day, in contrast to 11 kilometers within the first quarter of 2025, warfare displays, together with the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW), report. And in some components of the battlefield, the Ukrainians have made positive factors.
Ukraine scoffed on the declare that each one of Luhansk was now beneath Russian management.
“The front line hasn’t moved much at all over the past six months. It’s like some kind of April Fools’ Day prank on their part,” stated a Ukrainian navy spokesman, Victor Tregubov.
Ukraine’s Third Army Corps, tasked with defending Luhansk, stated the Russians had unsuccessfully launched 144 assault makes an attempt on two villages in its makes an attempt to full the seize of the area.
On the identical day because the protection ministry’s declare, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ought to have already ordered Ukrainian forces out of your entire Donbas area, calling the withdrawal essential to finish the “hot phase” of the warfare.
The Donbas contains Luhansk and Donetsk, about 20% of which Ukraine nonetheless holds.
“Kremlin claims in 2025 and 2026 about seizing [Luhansk] are aggrandizing miniscule changes on the front… in order to create the false impression that Russian forces are rapidly advancing on various sectors of the battlefield,” the ISW stated after the most recent Russian declaration.
Russia’s announcement was “aimed at portraying Ukrainian defenses as on the verge of collapse to drive the United States and Ukraine’s other partners into forcing Ukraine to unnecessarily cede territory that Russian forces are very unlikely to seize militarily in the medium term, if at all,” ISW concluded.
The “liberation” of Luhansk was beforehand claimed in 2022 and again final June, when the Kremlin-appointed governor of Luhansk, Leonid Pasechnik stated “100%” of the area was now beneath the management of Russian forces.
In October, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated Russia had solely 0.13% of the area left to seize.
Over the previous week, Ukrainian drones have struck Russian gas tanks and ammunition depots some 100 kilometers (65 miles) from the entrance strains in Luhansk, in addition to a Russian air protection system greater than 130 kilometers from the area’s border, in accordance to geolocated video.
The broader picture reveals that Ukrainian forces made their most important positive factors over the winter since an incursion into Russia’s Kursk area in 2024. Their biggest progress has been within the south, the place they have taken some 400 sq km in Zaporizhzhia – one other area claimed by Russia.
Ukrainian forces additionally retook at the very least 180 sq km in and round Kupyansk within the north in December and have largely held the positive factors, in accordance to ISW.
Ukraine’s commander-in-chief Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi stated final week that Ukrainian forces are prioritizing counterattacks in areas the place Russian forces are weakest.
“The enemy is currently playing by our rules. It is forced to adjust and concentrate its efforts where we are advancing,” Syrskyi stated.
The objective is to drive the Russian navy to reallocate troops to different areas to reply to assaults, simply because the Russians have tried to pull Ukrainian defenses in different instructions.
Late final month, a widely known pro-Kremlin military blogger, Yuri Podolyaka – who has practically three million subscribers on Telegram – expressed doubt over whether or not Russian forces can reverse an unfavorable battlefield state of affairs in coming months and complained about “rather successful” Ukrainian counterattacks.
Ukrainian forces had been “surpassing” Russian forces of their skill to adapt, Podolyaka stated, and the navy management in Moscow had failed to adapt to higher Ukrainian interceptor drones.
Ukraine is additionally attempting to reap the benefits of the dimensions of Russian losses.
“Russian losses this March have reached their highest level since the start of the war,” Zelensky claimed Friday.
“Our drone strikes alone resulted in 33,988 Russian servicemembers killed or seriously wounded, while artillery and other strikes eliminated another 1,363 Russian occupiers.”
“That means more than 35,000 Russian losses in just one month,” Zelensky stated.
“Russian advances have significantly slowed as Russian forces continue to suffer personnel losses and increasingly rely on poorly trained and underequipped infantry to make gains,” ISW famous final week.
However, Ukraine is additionally dealing with deep personnel shortages alongside many components of the frontline, and Zelensky has expressed concern that the warfare within the Middle East could lead to there being much less US weaponry out there, particularly air protection missiles – tons of of which have been sentto defend Gulf nations.