The Russian army advanced 725 square kilometers in November, the most in a single month since March 2022 and the first weeks of the war, according to an AFP analysis on Monday based on data from the US Institute for the Study of War.
Russian forces occupied an area equivalent to Singapore, more than in October when they occupied 610 square kilometers, which has not happened since the beginning of the war that has been going on for more than two and a half years, primarily in the east of Ukraine near the city of Pokrovskoe.
In the Donetsk region, where that important rail and road hub is located, Russian forces achieved 90 percent of that progress in November. The Ukrainian military now controls less than a third of that region, compared to more than 40 percent on January 1, 2024.
In recent weeks, Russian forces have occupied many settlements south and east of Pokrovsk, approaching it to less than five kilometers.
The advance of Russian forces has accelerated since the end of spring. Including November, they occupied more than 3,500 square kilometers in 2024, six times more than in all of 2023.
The last time they made more progress in such a short time was in March 2022 (45,426 square kilometers), when they reached the gates of Kiev.
From the beginning of the war on February 24, 2022 to November 30, 2024, Russia occupied 68,050 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory.
With Crimea, annexed in 2014, and parts of Donbas controlled by pro-Russian separatists before the Russian offensive, Moscow now controls 18.4 percent of pre-2014 Ukrainian territory.
AFP’s data is based on ISW data, which relies on public information released by both warring parties and analysis of satellite images.
