Does Russia Really Control the Luhansk Region? A Reality Check

The Russian Defense Ministry announced on April 1 that the Russian army had fully established control over the entire territory of Ukraine’s Luhansk region. “Units of the ‘West’ group of forces have completed the liberation of the Luhansk People’s Republic,” the Interfax news agency quoted the ministry as saying, referring to Ukraine’s region.

False statements are a constant tactic of representatives of the Russian military establishment. In the second half of 2025, the Russian Defense Ministry repeatedly claimed to have captured the city of Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region, even at a time when the Ukrainian army had almost completely driven Russian forces out of it.

Ukrainian army in the Luhansk region

Despite the Kremlin’s claims, the Ukrainian army still controls a small part of the Luhansk region, which is about 1%.

Ukrainian forces continue to hold territory southwest of Svatove, at the junction of Kharkiv, Luhansk, and Donetsk regions. This refers to several villages that have long been destroyed.

Chronology of the capture

Russian leader Vladimir Putin first declared the capture of the entire territory of the Luhansk region back in July 2022—four months after the start of the full-scale invasion.

But just a few months later, the Ukrainian Armed Forces recaptured part of the territory, which they still hold today. The recapture took place during the major offensive in the Kharkiv region, when nearly all of that region and part of the Luhansk region were liberated.

Then, in 2025, as one false statement after another emerged from the Kremlin about territories, reports of the “capture of all of the Luhansk region” resurfaced. But those claims did not correspond to reality, as a small area still remained under the control of Ukrainian forces.

The situation had not changed as of April 1, 2026, and Russia’s statement still does not correspond to reality.

Why is this happening? Russia is using information as a tool of influence and as an attempt to pressure Ukraine on the issue of negotiations being raised by the American side. On paper, Putin wants to show that Ukraine is losing and giving up territory, even though in reality, this information is not true—Ukraine is not losing. That is precisely why it is important to understand the actual situation: across significant areas of territory that Moscow claims as its own, Ukrainian troops are still present.

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