The Latest Breaking News from Luhansk

These images show a space rocket bearing flags of the separatist Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics at Russia’s famous Baikonur launchpad before it takes off for the International Space Station.

Ukraine said on Saturday it had recaptured a swathe of the battlefield city of Sievierodonetsk, where intense fighting continued, in a rare counter-offensive against Russia's main assault force that had been steadily advancing in the east.

Families have been torn apart and villages, towns and even cities turned into piles of rubble by the Russian invasion. Kim Sengupta reports from the Donbas where the conflict is intensifying

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russia currently occupies about 20 per cent of Ukraine’s territory, as Russian forces continue to pound towns and cities, tightening their grip on Luhansk province.

Russian forces are trying to assault the east Ukrainian village of Berestove that lies on a main road linking the Luhansk region's city of Lysychansk to the rest of Ukraine, a Ukrainian general said on Thursday.

Russia tightened its grip on a key target in a battle for control of Ukraine's eastern Donbas region while President Volodymir Zelenskiy pleaded for more Western arms to help Ukraine reach an "inflection point" and prevail in the war.

Luhansk governor Serhiy Haidai said the explosion was caused by a Russian airstrike while the Kremlin said it was Ukrainian forces that hit the nitric acid tank - footage was captured by a Ukrainian soldier

Fighting continues in key eastern city as Volodymyr Zelenskiy says up to 100 Ukrainian soldiers dying each day

A regional governor in southern Ukraine says Russian troops are retreating and blowing up bridges to obstruct a possible Ukrainian advance

Russian forces are now in control of around 70% of Sievierodonetsk, a strategically important city in Ukraine's east, Luhansk regional governor Serhiy Gaidai said on Wednesday.

DNIPRO, Ukraine — Ukrainian forces desperately tried to block a complete Russian takeover of one of the country’s two eastern provinces Tuesday, with Russian troops clawing out incremental gains even as European leaders agreed to a partial oil embargo aimed at starving Moscow’s mammoth war machine.