Russia advances into Ukraine at fastest pace since start of war

(CLO) Russian forces are advancing into Ukraine at the fastest pace since the early days of the conflict in 2022, controlling an area half the size of London in the past month.

“Russia has set new weekly and monthly records for the size of occupied territory in Ukraine,” the independent Russian news group Agentstvo said in a report.

The Russian military said it captured nearly 235 square kilometers in Ukraine over the past week, a weekly record for 2024. Russian forces captured 600 square kilometers in November, the report added, citing data from DeepState, a group that studies combat footage and provides frontline maps.

Ukrainian servicemen fire from a Bureviy multiple launch rocket system in the Donetsk region. Photo: RFE

The war is entering what some Russian and Western officials consider its most dangerous phase yet, after Moscow's forces made major territorial gains and the United States authorized Ukraine to retaliate with American missiles.

Russia began advancing more rapidly in eastern Ukraine in July, as soon as Ukrainian forces captured a small part of the western Kursk region. Since then, Russia's advance has accelerated.

According to open source maps, Russia currently controls 18% of Ukraine's territory including all of Crimea, more than 80% of Donbas, including Luhansk and Donetsk, and more than 70% of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, as well as less than 3% of Kharkiv region.

Neither side has released exact figures on their losses, while Western intelligence estimates put the number of casualties at hundreds of thousands killed or wounded. Large swaths of eastern and southern Ukraine have been reduced to wasteland.

President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said that Russian forces are advancing much more effectively, and that Russia will achieve all its goals in Ukraine. According to analysts, Russia has surrounded the territory and then attacked Ukrainian forces with artillery and glide bombs.

The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said on November 25 that 45 battles of varying intensity had taken place along the Kurakhove sector of the frontline that evening. If Russia could penetrate Ukrainian defenses around Kurakhove, it would be able to advance westward toward the city of Zaporizhzhia while protecting its rear to advance toward Pokrovsk.

"The advances of Russian forces in southeastern Ukraine are largely the result of the discovery and tactical exploitation of weaknesses in Ukrainian defenses," said the Institute for the Study of War in Washington.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly stated that peace cannot be achieved until all Russian forces are expelled and all territories annexed by Moscow, including Crimea, are returned to Ukraine.

But outnumbered by the Russian army, the Ukrainian army is struggling to recruit and equip new units.

Hoai Phuong (according to Reuters)

Source: https://www.congluan.vn/nga-tien-vao-ukraine-voi-toc-do-nhanh-nhat-ke-tu-dau-cuoc-chien-post323003.html