Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday ordered Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to press ahead with Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine after troops took control of the entire Lugansk region.

“Military units, including the East group and the West group, must carry out their tasks according to previously approved plans,” Putin told Shoigu.

This is following the recent military gains that Russia has recorded in the eastern region since more than 4 months of it invasion of Ukraine.

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 from three fronts, including from Belarus through their boarder with Ukraine.

Indications from the war showed clearly that Putin invaded Ukraine with intention to capture Kyiv within weeks or even days.

Following stiff resistance from the Ukrainian military, Putin`s forces were forced to scale down their ambition, are now concentrating on taking control of the entire Donbas area and much of the Southern Ukraine as possible.

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Clariform reports that Ukraine’s forces have withdrawn from the bombed-out city of Lysychansk, prompting Russia to claim full control of the eastern Luhansk region, a key Kremlin war goal, but President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed to regain the lost territory.

Ukraine on Sunday said the tactical withdrawal would save the lives of its soldiers who would regroup, to launch a counter offensive with the help of long-range Western weapons.

But Moscow said the capture of Lysychansk less than a week after taking neighboring Sievierdonetsk meant it had “liberated” Luhansk. It said it will give Luhansk to the self-proclaimed Russian-backed Luhansk People’s Republic whose independence it recognized on the eve of the war.

The battlefield focus now shifts to the neighboring Donetsk region, where Kyiv still controls swathes of territory.

“If the commanders of our army withdraw people from certain points at the front, where the enemy has the greatest advantage in firepower, and this also applies to Lysychansk, it means only one thing,” Zelensky said in his nightly video on Sunday.

“That we will return thanks to our tactics, thanks to the increase in the supply of modern weapons.”

Zelensky said Russia was concentrating its firepower on the Donbas front, but Ukraine would hit back with long-range weapons such as the US-supplied HIMARS rocket launchers.

“The fact that we protect the lives of our soldiers, our people, plays an equally important role. We will rebuild the walls, we will win back the land, and people must be protected above all else,” Zelensky said.