On 22 March, the head of the LPR, Leonid Pasechnik, claimed that "almost 80% of the territory" of the Luhansk region was taken and "Popasna, Lysychansk, Rubizhne, Sievierodonetsk and Kreminna have not been liberated". He noted that the situation in the battlefields is "stably tense" and units of the People's Militia of the LPR were striving to take Popasna and Rubizhne under control.[20] Two days later, Russian forces made advances in Rubizhne.[21]