MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian forces are advancing into Ukraine at the fastest pace since the early days of the 2022 invasion, seizing an area half the size of London in the last month, according to analysts and war bloggers.
The war is entering what some Russian and Western officials say could be its most dangerous phase, after Moscow’s forces made some of their biggest territorial gains and the United States allowed Kiev to fight back with American-made missiles.
“Russia has set new weekly and monthly records for the size of occupied territory in Ukraine,” Russian independent news group Agentstvo said in a report.
The Russian army captured almost 235 square kilometers in Ukraine last week, a weekly record for 2024, it said.
Russian forces had seized 600 square kilometers in November, he added, citing data from DeepState, a group with close links to the Ukrainian army that studies combat footage and provides maps of the front line.
Russia began advancing more quickly into eastern Ukraine in July, just as Ukrainian forces occupied a chunk of Russia’s western Kursk region. Since then, the Russian advance has accelerated, according to open-source maps.
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Russia currently controls 18% of Ukraine, including all of Crimea, just over 80% of Donbas, which comprises Luhansk and Donetsk, and over 70% of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, as well as just under 3% of the of Kharkiv, according to open source maps.
Neither side publishes accurate figures on its own losses, although Western intelligence estimates the casualty toll is in the hundreds of thousands killed or injured, while large swaths of eastern and southern Ukraine have been turned into wastelands.
Russian advance
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who replaced his defense minister in May, has repeatedly said that Russian forces are advancing much more effectively and that Russia will achieve all of its objectives in Ukraine.
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The thrust of the advance has been in the Donetsk region, with Russian forces advancing towards the city of Pokrovsk and the town of Kurakhove. Russia has increasingly encircled territory and then bombarded Ukrainian forces with artillery and bombs, according to Russian analysts.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in its Monday update that 45 battles of varying intensity were taking place along the Kurakhove part of the front line that night.
If Russia manages to pierce the Ukrainian defenses around Kurakhove, it could advance west toward the city of Zaporizhzhia and at the same time protect its rear to allow an advance toward Pokrovsk, Russian war bloggers said.
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The Institute for the Study of War report and pro-Russian military bloggers claim that Russian troops are in Kurakhove. DeepState said via messaging app Telegram on Monday that Russian forces are near Kurakhove.
“Advances by Russian forces in southeastern Ukraine are largely the result of the discovery and tactical exploitation of vulnerabilities in Ukraine’s lines,” the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said in a report.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly said that peace cannot be established until all Russian forces are expelled and all territory captured by Moscow, including Crimea, is returned.
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But outnumbered by Russian troops, the Ukrainian army is struggling to recruit soldiers and provide equipment for new units.
Zelensky said he believes Putin’s main goals are to occupy all of Donbas, encompassing the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and to expel Ukrainian troops from the Kursk region, parts of which they have controlled since August.
