Over the weekend, Russian missile strikes hit an apartment building and a recreation center near Odesa, killing 17 people. The battle for Lysychansk also continued with the Russian side claiming victory, meaning that the Luhansk region is now practically under its control. Meanwhile, president Putin signed a decree to transfer the rights of Sakhalin-2, a project in Russia’s far east that is a primary exporter of natural gas to Japan, to a new Russian company, potentially forcing Shell and others to abandon the natural gas project.