In November, Russia conquered the largest area since March 2022

The Russian army has in November in the Ukraine a data analysis by the news agency AFP according to the largest area gains since March 2022 recorded. Like from the AFPAccording to an analysis based on data from the US-based think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Russian forces captured 725 square kilometers of territory last month.

The Russian army achieved almost 90 percent of these territorial gains in the eastern Ukrainian region Donetsk where they successively reach the strategically important city Pokrovsk advanced. The Ukrainian army only controls less than a third of the Donetsk region – at the beginning of the year it was more than 40 percent. The Russian army is now less than five kilometers away from Pokrovsk.

The last time the Russian army achieved higher territorial gains than in November was in March 2022, i.e. in the weeks after the start of the war of aggression in Ukraine. At that time, Russia occupied more than 45,400 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory – and was until shortly before the capital Kyiv came.

Think tank provided data

Last October, according to ISW data, the Russian armed forces had already achieved their largest territorial gains in two and a half years with 610 square kilometers conquered. In total, the invasion troops have advanced 3,500 square kilometers since the beginning of the year. The territorial gains are already six times greater than in the whole of 2023.

Since the start of its war of aggression in February 2022, Russia has occupied a total of 68,050 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory by the end of November 2024. Including the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which was annexed in 2014, and areas in Donbas controlled by pro-Russian separatists before 2022, Russia currently controls 18.4 percent of Ukrainian territory.

The calculations of the AFP are based on the files transmitted daily by the ISW. For its part, the think tank relies on publicly available information disseminated by both warring parties as well as analysis of satellite images.

Zelensky: Territories can only be returned through negotiations

The Ukrainian President Wolodimir Selenskij has, according to a report by the Japanese News Agency Kyodo News meanwhile admitted that his country could only get back some of the territories occupied by Russia through diplomatic channels. He admitted in an interview that it would be difficult for his country to completely reconquer the occupied territories militarily. “Our army is not strong enough for that. That’s true,” the agency quoted Zelenskiy as saying.