Russia again claims to have taken an eastern Ukrainian region. The real picture is very different

Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

This week, for the third time since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine , Russia claimed it fully occupied Ukraine’s Luhansk region.

The Russian military has held almost all of Luhansk – one of four eastern regions that Moscow has illegally sought to annex - since the first year of the conflict.

It’s unclear why Russia felt the need to announce -again - that its forces had “ completed the liberation of the entire territory of the Luhansk People’s Republic,” as it calls the region.

Analysts note that the Russia Defense ministry has a habit of exaggerating advances when the frontlines are scarcely changing.

Russian gains in Ukraine slowed in the first three months of this year to about five km (three miles) a day, compared to 11 kilometers in the first quarter of 2025, war monitors, including the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW), report. And in some parts of the battlefield, the Ukrainians have made gains.

Ukraine scoffed at the claim that all of Luhansk was now under Russian control.

“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,” said a Ukrainian military spokesman, Victor Tregubov.

Arkadii Budnitskii/Anadolu/Getty Images

Ukraine’s Third Army Corps, tasked with defending Luhansk, said the Russians had unsuccessfully launched 144 assault attempts on two villages in its attempts to complete the capture of the region.

On the same day as the defense ministry’s claim, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky should have already ordered Ukrainian forces out of the entire Donbas region, calling the withdrawal necessary to end the “hot phase” of the war.

The Donbas includes Luhansk and Donetsk, about 20% of which Ukraine still 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 said after the latest 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 previously claimed in 2022 and again last June, when the Kremlin-appointed governor of Luhansk, Leonid Pasechnik said “100%” of the region was now under the control of Russian forces.

Yan Dorbronosov/Reuters

In October, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia had only 0.13% of the region left to capture.

Over the past week, Ukrainian drones have struck Russian fuel tanks and ammunition depots some 100 kilometers (65 miles) from the front lines in Luhansk, as well as a Russian air defense system more than 130 kilometers from the region’s border, according to geolocated video.

The broader picture shows that Ukrainian forces made their most significant gains over the winter since an incursion into Russia’s Kursk region in 2024. Their greatest progress has been in the south, where they have taken some 400 sq km in Zaporizhzhia – another region claimed by Russia.

Ukrainian forces also retook at least 180 sq km in and around Kupyansk in the north in December and have largely held the gains, according to ISW.

Ukraine’s commander-in-chief Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi said last week that Ukrainian forces are prioritizing counterattacks in areas where 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 said.

The goal is to force the Russian military to reallocate troops to different areas to respond to attacks, just as the Russians have tried to pull Ukrainian defenses in different directions.

Late last month, a well-known pro-Kremlin military blogger, Yuri Podolyaka - who has nearly three million subscribers on Telegram - expressed doubt over whether Russian forces can reverse an unfavorable battlefield situation in coming months and complained about “rather successful” Ukrainian counterattacks.

Serhii Korovainyi/Reuters

Ukrainian forces were “surpassing” Russian forces in their ability to adapt, Podolyaka said, and the military leadership in Moscow had failed to adapt to better Ukrainian interceptor drones.

Ukraine is also trying to take advantage of the scale 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 said.

“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 noted last week.

However, Ukraine is also facing deep personnel shortages along many parts of the frontline, and Zelensky has expressed concern that the war in the Middle East may lead to there being less US weaponry available, especially air defense missiles – hundreds of which have been sentto defend Gulf countries.

亚历山大·埃尔莫琴科/路透社

本周，俄罗斯自全面入侵乌克兰以来第三次声称已完全占领乌克兰卢甘斯克地区。

自冲突爆发的第一年以来，俄罗斯军队几乎控制了卢甘斯克全境——卢甘斯克是莫斯科非法试图吞并的四个东部地区之一。

目前尚不清楚俄罗斯为何觉得有必要再次宣布其军队已经“完成了对卢甘斯克人民共和国全境的解放”，俄罗斯将该地区称为卢甘斯克人民共和国。

分析人士指出，俄罗斯国防部有夸大战果的习惯，即使前线几乎没有变化。

据包括总部位于华盛顿的战争研究所（ISW）在内的战争观察机构报告，今年前三个月，俄罗斯在乌克兰的推进速度放缓至每天约5公里（3英里），而2025年第一季度这一数字为每天11公里。此外，在战场的某些区域，乌克兰方面也取得了进展。

乌克兰对卢甘斯克全境已被俄罗斯控制的说法嗤之以鼻。

乌克兰军方发言人维克托·特列古博夫表示：“过去六个月来，前线几乎没有任何进展。这就像是他们开的一个愚人节玩笑。”

Arkadii Budnitskii/Anadolu/Getty Images

负责保卫卢甘斯克的乌克兰第三军表示，俄军在试图完成对该地区占领的过程中，对两个村庄发动了 144 次进攻，但均以失败告终。

在国防部发表声明的同一天，克里姆林宫发言人德米特里·佩斯科夫表示，乌克兰总统弗拉基米尔·泽连斯基本应早已下令乌克兰军队撤出整个顿巴斯地区，称撤军对于结束战争的“热阶段”是必要的。

顿巴斯地区包括卢甘斯克和顿涅茨克，其中约 20% 的领土仍由乌克兰控制。

“克里姆林宫声称将在 2025 年和 2026 年夺取卢甘斯克，这是夸大前线的微小变化……目的是制造一种错觉，即俄罗斯军队正在战场的各个区域迅速推进，”国际社会主义组织在俄罗斯发表最新声明后表示。

ISW总结道，俄罗斯的声明“旨在将乌克兰的防御描绘成濒临崩溃，从而迫使美国和乌克兰的其他伙伴强迫乌克兰不必要地割让领土，而俄罗斯军队在中期内即使能够夺取这些领土，也极不可能通过军事手段夺取。”

2022 年和去年 6 月，克里姆林宫任命的卢甘斯克州长列昂尼德·帕谢奇尼克都曾宣称卢甘斯克“解放”了该地区，称该地区“100%”现在已处于俄罗斯军队的控制之下。

Yan Dorbronosov/路透社

10月份，俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京表示，俄罗斯只剩下该地区0.13%的领土需要占领。

根据地理定位视频显示，过去一周，乌克兰无人机袭击了距离卢甘斯克前线约 100 公里（65 英里）的俄罗斯燃料罐和弹药库，以及距离该地区边界 130 多公里的俄罗斯防空系统。

从更宏观的角度来看，乌克兰军队在冬季取得了自 2024 年入侵俄罗斯库尔斯克地区以来最显著的进展。他们取得的最大进展是在南部，在那里他们占领了扎波罗热共和国约 400 平方公里的土地——扎波罗热共和国也是俄罗斯声称拥有主权的地区。

据 ISW 称，乌克兰军队在 12 月份还收复了北部库皮扬斯克及其周边至少 180 平方公里的土地，并且基本守住了这些阵地。

乌克兰总司令奥列克桑德·瑟尔斯基将军上周表示，乌克兰军队优先在俄罗斯军队最薄弱的地区发动反击。

“敌人现在正按照我们的规则行事。它被迫调整策略，将精力集中在我们推进的地方，”瑟尔斯基说。

其目的是迫使俄罗斯军队将部队重新分配到不同地区以应对攻击，就像俄罗斯人试图将乌克兰的防御力量拉向不同方向一样。

上个月底，一位知名的亲克里姆林宫军事博主尤里·波多利亚卡（在 Telegram 上拥有近 300 万订阅者）对俄罗斯军队能否在未来几个月内扭转不利的战场局势表示怀疑，并抱怨乌克兰的反击“相当成功”。

Serhii Korovainyi/路透社

波多利亚卡表示，乌克兰军队在适应能力方面“超越”了俄罗斯军队，而莫斯科的军事领导层未能适应乌克兰更先进的拦截无人机。

乌克兰也试图利用俄罗斯的巨大损失。

泽连斯基周五声称：“今年3月，俄罗斯的伤亡人数达到了战争开始以来的最高水平。”

“仅我们的无人机袭击就造成 33988 名俄罗斯军人死亡或重伤，而炮击和其他袭击又消灭了 1363 名俄罗斯占领者。”

“这意味着仅仅一个月内，俄罗斯就损失了超过35000人，”泽连斯基说。

“由于俄军持续遭受人员伤亡，并且越来越依赖训练不足、装备落后的步兵来取得进展，俄军的推进速度已显著放缓，”ISW上周指出。

然而，乌克兰在许多前线地区也面临着严重的人员短缺，泽连斯基表示担忧，中东战争可能会导致美国武器供应减少，尤其是防空导弹——数百枚防空导弹已被派往保卫海湾国家。