Russia has made its biggest advance into Ukraine since 2022
Russia advanced on 477 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory in August, Moscow's biggest monthly increase since October 2022, according to data provided by the Institute for the Study of War and analyzed by AFP.
The Ukrainian army, for its part, made rapid gains in early August into Russia after a surprise incursion into the Kursk border region, gaining more than 1,100 square kilometers (424 square miles) in two weeks.
But this new front has been consolidating to between 1,150 and 1,300 square kilometers (444 and 501 square miles) of advance over the past 15 days, according to data on claimed and confirmed troop movements.
In August, Russian troops advanced 15 square kilometers per day into Ukraine, mostly in the eastern Donetsk region, a rate that indicates a collapse of Kiev's defense lines in the area.
Most of the gains were made towards the logistics hub of Pokrovsk, and by late Sunday the army had come within seven kilometers (4.4 miles) of the city.
The last time Moscow seized this much territory in a month was in October 2022, in response to a major Ukrainian counteroffensive around the northeastern city of Kharkiv, at a time when the front line was much more mobile.
Map of the Institute for the study of war in the Donesk area
Since early 2024, Moscow has resumed pushing into Ukrainian territory, gaining 1,730 square kilometers (667 square miles), three times more than in 2023, when its gains were wiped out by Ukrainian counteroffensives.
But in recent months Kiev's troops have struggled to counterattack on their own soil. Evidently the movement of troops in the Kursk area weighed on the defenses in Donbass, or the lines had not been prepared adequately.
Ukrainian forces captured more territory than they lost to the Russians in just eight days in 2024, and usually by only a few square kilometers. As of September 1, Russia occupied 66,266 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory.
Together with the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Russia in 2014, and areas of eastern Ukraine already under the control of pro-Russian separatists before the 2022 invasion, the advances confirmed or claimed by Moscow cover 18% of the size of Ukraine in 2013.
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This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/la-russia-ha-effettuato-la-maggiore-avanzata-inucraina-dal-2022/ on Tue, 03 Sep 2024 10:30:53 +0000.