Russia says it is keeping all of Ukraine’s Luhansk while capturing the last city

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told President Vladimir Putin on Sunday that Moscow and its allies are now in control of Ukraine’s Luhansk region after capturing the last major city, Lyschansk.

There was no immediate response from Ukraine to the Russian claim, which, if confirmed, would be a milestone for Moscow on the 130th day of the war.

Repelled in its initial attempt to seize the capital, Kyiv, Russia has focused on driving Ukrainian forces out of the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Kyiv since Russia’s first military intervention in Ukraine in 2014.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Shoigu told Putin to “liberate” the Luhansk region thanks to the capture of Lyschansk, once a major coal mining center.

As reported by Army General Sergei Shoigu [to Putin]”After successful military operations, the Russian Armed Forces, together with units of the People’s Militia of the Luhansk People’s Republic, took full control of the city of Lyschansk,” the ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said earlier on Sunday that its forces had captured villages around Lysichansk and cordoned off the area and were fighting inside the city.

Calls to the General Staff and the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine were not answered. The ministry did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

The Russian Defense Ministry added that it had bombed military infrastructure in the eastern city of Kharkiv, as well as a base used by foreign fighters on the outskirts of Mykolaiv in the south of the country.

Russian forces took control of the sister city of Severodonetsk last month, after some of the fiercest fighting since Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24.