Ukraine-Russia war latest: Moscow claims first whole Ukrainian region after over three years of Putin’s war

Russian president Vladimir Putin’s talk of wanting peace in the Ukraine war is “pure mockery”, a top German diplomat visiting Kyiv has said.

“When Putin speaks of peace today, it is pure mockery,” said Germany’s foreign minister Johann Wadephul, speaking at a news conference with Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha.

“His apparent readiness to negotiate is only a facade so far,” Mr Wadephul said.

He also announced that Berlin aims to help Ukraine manufacture more weapons more quickly at a time Kyiv is looking to strengthen its negotiating position in peace talks with Russia.

“We see our task as helping Ukraine so that it can negotiate more strongly,” he said.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said that a decision by Nato members to increase defence spending was catastrophic for the alliance and could ultimately lead to its collapse, state news agency Tass reported yesterday.

Nato “needs to be guided by common sense”, Mr Lavrov said.

Allies within the alliance last week agreed to raise their collective spending goal to 5 per cent of gross domestic product over the next decade.

Asked about remarks by Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski, who was reported to have said that an arms race between Russia and the West could trigger the fall of president Vladimir Putin, Mr Lavrov instead deflected and said he thought Nato could collapse.

“Since he is such a predictor, he probably foresees that a catastrophic increase in the budget of Nato countries, according to my estimates, will also lead to the collapse of this organisation,” the Russian official said, referring to Nato.

A Russia-appointed official in occupied Luhansk claims Moscow’s forces have now taken the whole of the region that it illegally annexed from Ukraine in September 2022.

Leonid Pasechnik, the Moscow-installed leader of the occupied region, 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 remarks by the Kremlin-backed official to Russia’s state TV Channel One were aired yesterday evening. Kyiv has not commented on the claim made by Mr Pasechnik.

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 being given full control over the four illegally annexed regions.