Russia says Moscow now occupies all of Ukraine’s Luhansk region

A Russia-appointed official in Ukraine's occupied Luhansk region said Monday that Moscow's forces have overrun all of it — one of four regions Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in September 2022 despite not fully controlling a single one. “Russia is continuing to use increasingly large numbers of drones in its overnight strike packages in order to overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses and enable subsequent cruise and ballistic missile strikes,” the Washington-based think tank said late Sunday. “The increases in Russia’s strike packages in recent weeks are largely due to Russia’s efforts to scale up its defense industrial production, particularly of Shahed and decoy drones and ballistic missiles,” the institute added.