Russia’s ⁠Ministry of Defence says its forces have taken full control of the Luhansk region in ⁠eastern Ukraine, suggesting they have wrested control of an area that had remained ⁠beyond their grasp since the beginning of their 2022 invasion.

“Units of the ‘West’ military grouping have completed the liberation of the Luhansk People’s Republic,” the ministry said in a statement on Wednesday, using Moscow’s preferred name for the Ukrainian region.

There was no immediate confirmation of the development from Ukraine.

Russia’s Defence Ministry added that Russian forces also took control of the village of Verkhnya Pysarivka in northeastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region and the village of Boikove in ‌the ‌Zaporizhia region in southeastern Ukraine.

Luhansk and Donetsk make up the wider Donbas area. More than 99 percent of Luhansk has long been under Russian control and was one of four Ukrainian regions Moscow annexed in 2022. Russia also controls about three-quarters of Donetsk.

The Kremlin ⁠on Wednesday reiterated its demand that Ukrainian forces withdraw from the entirety of Donetsk, which Kyiv has repeatedly dismissed.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy should have taken the difficult decision to withdraw his forces ⁠from the Donbas area “yesterday” to end what Russia calls the “hot phase” of the war.

Peskov’s comment came a day after Zelenskyy claimed Russia had given the United States an ultimatum, saying it would harden its terms for a peace settlement ‌if Ukrainian forces did not withdraw from the Donbas within two months.

Zelenskyy added that he was surprised anyone could believe Russia could ‌hope to conquer the remainder of the Donbas within that timeframe. He said Ukraine wanted a diplomatic solution ‌but ‌would only agree to a ceasefire at the current front lines.

© 2026 Al Jazeera