Russia says its troops occupy Ukraine's Luhansk region
A Russia-appointed official in Ukraine's occupied Luhansk region says 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.
If confirmed, that would make Luhansk the first Ukrainian region fully occupied by Russia after more than three years of war and as recent US-led international peace efforts have failed to make progress on halting the fighting.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has effectively rejected a ceasefire and hasn't budged from his demands, which include Moscow's control over the four illegally annexed regions.
There was no immediate comment from Kyiv on the claim made by the Moscow-installed leader of the occupied region, Leonid Pasechnik.
In remarks to Russia's state TV Channel One that aired Monday evening, Pasechnik said he received a report "literally two days ago" saying that "100 per cent" of the region was now under the control of Russian forces.
The development came just hours after the top German diplomat said that Germany aims to help Ukraine manufacture more weapons more quickly as Kyiv looks to strengthen its negotiating position in peace talks with Russia.
"We see our task as helping Ukraine so that it can negotiate more strongly," Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said during a visit to Kyiv.
"When Putin speaks of peace today, it is pure mockery," Wadephul told a news conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha.
"His apparent readiness to negotiate is only a facade so far."
Russia's invasion shows no sign of letting up. Its grinding war of attrition along the roughly 1000km front line and long-range strikes on civilian areas of Ukraine have killed thousands of troops and civilians.
Ukraine is outgunned and shorthanded on the front line and international aid has been vital for Ukraine's resistance against its neighbour's bigger army and economy.
Germany has been Ukraine's second-largest military backer after the US, whose continuing support is in doubt.
"We want to build new joint ventures so that Ukraine itself can produce faster and more for its own defence, because your needs are enormous," Wadephul said.
"Our arms co-operation is a real trump card - it is a logical continuation of our delivery of material," Wadephul said.
"And we can even benefit mutually from it - with your wealth of ideas and your experience, we will become better."
Wadephul also met with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
The top German diplomat's trip to Kyiv came less than 48 hours after Russia launched its biggest combined aerial attack against Ukraine over the weekend, Ukrainian officials said, in an escalating bombing campaign that has further dashed hopes for a breakthrough in peace efforts.
Ukraine's air force said on Monday it detected 107 Russian Shahed and decoy drones in the country's air space overnight.
Strikes in Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region left two civilians dead and eight injured, including a six-year-old child, regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said.
The aerial onslaughts are calculated by Russia to squeeze Ukraine into submission, according to the Institute for the Study of War.
"Russia is continuing to use increasingly large numbers of drones in its overnight strike packages in order to overwhelm Ukrainian air defences and enable subsequent cruise and ballistic missile strikes," the Washington-based think tank said late on Sunday.
"The increases in Russia's strike packages in recent weeks are largely due to Russia's efforts to scale up its defence industrial production, particularly of Shahed and decoy drones and ballistic missiles," the institute added.
The Russians "are attacking civilian targets in order to create panic, to influence the mood of our population," he said.
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