Reuters: A Ukrainian drone attack on the Russian city of Izhevsk, more than 1,000 kilometres from the front line killed at least three people and hospitalised 35 more, the governor of the region said.
At least two long-range drones operated by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) struck the Kupol plant, which the agency said produces air-defence systems and drones, from a distance of around 1,300 km (807 miles) and caused a fire, the official said.
Meanwhile, Russia has taken full control of Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region, the Russian-backed head of the region told Russian state television.
Luhansk, which has an area of 26,700 square km (10,308 square miles), is the first Ukrainian region to fall fully under the established control of Russian forces since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.
Putin in September 2022 declared that Luhansk – along with the partially controlled Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions – was being incorporated into Russia, a step Western European states said was illegal and that most of the world did not recognise.
“The territory of the Luhansk People’s Republic is fully liberated – 100%,” Leonid Pasechnik, who was born in Soviet Ukraine and is now a Russian-installed official cast by Moscow as the head of the “Luhansk People’s Republic”, told Russian state television.
There was no immediate confirmation from the Russian defence ministry, or comment from Ukraine.
