Russian advance into Ukraine slowed in September, monitoring group says
By Svitlana Vlasova and Catherine Nicholls, CNN
(CNN) — Russia’s advance into Ukraine slowed by almost half in September, according to the monitoring group DeepState, with Moscow capturing its smallest amount of territory since May.
“The Russians managed to capture 259 square kilometers (100 square miles)” in September, DeepState, a Ukrainian open-source mapping site that charts the war’s front lines, said in a report released Wednesday.
“Last month, the enemy occupied 44% less territory than in August,” it said. “Over the course of the month, the Russians managed to occupy 0.04% of the country’s total area, bringing the total figure to 19.04%.”
On Wednesday, the Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, said his troops had regained control over 2.2 square kilometers (around 0.85 square miles) of Ukrainian territory over the past day.
“Moreover, attack and search operations were conducted to destroy the enemy on a 3 square kilometer area in the Pokrovsk district of the Donetsk region. Our assault units advanced from 100 meters to 1,400 meters in certain directions,” he said.
The top Ukrainian general said last week that his troops were fighting across a nearly 776-mile (1,250-kilometer) front line as Russia launched a high number of small infantry attacks in a tactic that he called “a thousand cuts.”
Russia’s method “involves the simultaneous use of a large number of small assault groups consisting of four to six soldiers advancing using the terrain, ravines, and plantings, with the main task of penetrating as deeply as possible into our territory,” he told reporters in Kyiv last Thursday.
“They come out, concentrate, advance again, and then attack our deep-seated targets, paralyze our logistics and troop rotation, and destroy our supply lines. That way, they capture territory without using large numbers of troops,” Syrskyi continued.
Despite it, “overall, the situation is under our control. We have had some success recently,” he said.
‘The price of this defense’
Meanwhile, Russia’s defense ministry claimed last week that since January 1 this year, it had gained more than 3,308 square kilometers of territory in Donetsk and more than 205 square kilometers (79 square miles) in Luhansk.
Collectively known as the Donbas, the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk have rich farmland, important rivers, and a coastline on the Sea of Azov.
The Russian defense ministry also said it has gained hundreds of square kilometers of land in the regions of Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Sumy, and Dnipropetrovsk since the year began.
Russia’s incremental gains on the front line have coincided with its aerial attacks on Ukraine, which have become larger and more frequent since it scaled up its drone production at the start of the year.
At least four people were killed in overnight attacks across Ukraine last weekend, after Russia fired more than 600 drones and missiles at the country. It was the third-largest barrage reported by the Ukrainian air force since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky commemorated Defenders’ Day, in which he honored “everyone who has joined the defense of our state, everyone who devotes their efforts so that the entire country may prevail.”
“We thank every man and woman who defends Ukraine. And we remember the price of this defense. We remember every life,” Zelensky said in a post on X.
The-CNN-Wire
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