MOSCOW, April 1 (Reuters) - The Russian Defence Ministry said on Wednesday that its forces had taken full control of the Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine, suggesting they had wrested control of a small sliver of land which had remained beyond their reach since 2022.
More than 99% of Luhansk, one of four Ukrainian regions Russia claimed as its own in 2022 - something Kyiv and most Western countries have rejected as an illegal land grab - has long been under Russian control.
"Units of the ‘West’ military grouping have completed the liberation of the Luhansk People's Republic," the Defence Ministry said in a statement, using Moscow's preferred name for the region.
Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield report and there was no immediate reaction from Ukraine.
Luhansk is one of two regions - along with Donetsk - which make up the wider industrialised Donbas area. The Kremlin on Wednesday reiterated its demand that Ukrainian forces withdraw from the part of Donetsk which Moscow does not control to end what it called the "hot phase" of the war, a demand Kyiv has repeatedly dismissed as absurd.
Russia's Defence Ministry said its forces had also taken control of the village of Verkhnya Pysarivka in Ukraine's Kharkiv region and of Boikove in the Zaporizhzhia region in southeastern Ukraine. Reuters could not independently verify those battlefield assertions.
(Reporting by ReutersWriting by Andrew OsbornEditing by Mark Trevelyan)
