Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov, during a visit to the command post of the "South" group, announced the "complete liberation of the LPR". This is already the fifth such statement from the Russian side since the beginning of the full-scale war, which causes irony even among Russians.

Valery Gerasimov. Photo: Mikhail Metzel / Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP
According to Gerasimov, in March and April, Russian troops occupied 34 settlements and about 700 square kilometers of territory. In total, since the beginning of 2026, allegedly 80 settlements and more than 1.7 thousand square kilometers of territory have come under Russian control.
"The liberation of the Luhansk People's Republic is completely finished," Gerasimov announced.
The history of the "complete liberation" of the Luhansk region resembles a TV series. In 2022, Putin already congratulated Russian servicemen on the "liberation" of the Luhansk region.
Then there were Putin's triumphant reports at "Valdai" in 2023 and Leonid Pasechnik's next "final" statements in June 2025.
Even this April, the Russian Ministry of Defense already managed to report on the capture of the region on the 1st — then many mistook it for an unsuccessful April Fools' joke.
There are also serious questions about the territorial successes Gerasimov is talking about. The figures from the Russian General Staff are many times higher than the data from independent analysts. While the Russian General Staff claims 1700 sq. km since the beginning of the year, the DeepState project records Russian advances of 622 sq. km over the same period.
Even the Z-community cannot withstand such information pressure. Blogger Vladimir Romanov reacted to the latest news with a short post containing screenshots of previous similar headlines and a clown emoji.

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