Russian forces have captured the largest Ukrainian territory since 2022
In August, the Russian army captured the most Ukrainian territory since October 2022, reported the AFP agency after analysing data collected by the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
In August, Russian forces advanced, gaining 6 square miles each day, mostly in the Donetsk region, calculated AFP. As noted, the main offensive aims to capture Pokrovsk, an important logistics hub for the Ukrainians. On Sunday, the aggressor's forces were slightly less than 4 miles away from this city.
AFP recalled that the last time Moscow captured so much territory in a month was in October 2022. This was in response to the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region.
In 2024, Russia captured an additional 668 square miles of Ukrainian territory. This is already three times more than in 2023 when Ukrainian counteroffensives proved effective in reclaiming territory occupied by the enemy.
Russians have already occupied 18 percent of Ukraine's territory
In recent months, Ukrainian forces have been unable to launch effective counterattacks within the country's borders. In 2024, the Ukrainian army gained more territory than the Russian side for only eight days.
By 1 September, Russia had occupied 25,575 square miles of Ukrainian territory. Excluding the lands occupied in 2014 during the annexation of Crimea and the invasion of Russian "little green men" in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, Russia controls 18 percent of Ukraine's 2013 territory.
At the same time, AFP pointed out that Ukrainian forces also advanced at the beginning of August during the offensive in the Kursk region. In two weeks, they captured 425 square miles of territory. The offensive in this direction has recently slowed; now, Ukrainians occupy between 444 and 502 square miles of the Kursk region.
