Russia makes speedy advance in Ukraine, seizes 235 sq km of lands over past week
- 26 November, 15:27
Russian troops are advancing in Ukraine in fastest rate than during the early days of the war in February 2022, analysts and war bloggers have reported.
The small-scale speedy advances that started in July, have resulted in capture of larges swathes of Ukrainian lands. Over the past week alone, Russian troops seized record 235 square kilometers of lands in Ukraine, while an estimated 667 square kilometers was captured since the start of November, according to DeepState source close to the Ukrainian army. The 1,000 km frontline between the two countries had almost been static in the past two years.
As a result of Russia’s advances, as of today, Kremlin controls as much as 18% of Ukraine, including Russian-annexed Crimea Peninsula. Russia controls 80% of Ukraine’s eastern industrial area Donbas spanning the regions of Luhansk and Donetsk. Some 70% of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions in the south of the country are also occupied by Russia as well as small portion of Kharkiv. Ukraine, however, holds swathes of lands in Russia’s border Kursk region where its troops staged a large-scale incursion in early August. According to General Staff of Ukraine, as of Sunday, Ukrainian troops hold 800 of the 1,376 square kilometres of Kursk. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy earlier said that Vladimir Putin’s ultimate goal in the war was to occupy the entire Donbas and to oust Ukrainian troops from Russia’s Kursk region.
Meanwhile, Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), claimed on Tuesday that Russia had the strategic initiative on the battlefield.
