Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said Moscow’s forces have control of 97% of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine. Russian forces have seized residential quarters of the key eastern city of Sievierodonetsk and are fighting to take control of an industrial zone on its outskirts and the nearby towns, Shoigu said. The Luhansk governor, Serhiy Haidai, conceded that Russian forces control the industrial outskirts of the city.
Ukraine accused the Russian army of abducting about 600 residents in the Kherson region in the south of the country and keeping them in “torture chambers”. Tamila Tacheva, the Ukrainian presidency’s permanent representative in Crimea, said about 300 people, “mainly journalists and activists”, are being held in Kherson city and the rest are in other settlements in the region.
