Moscow (Reuters) – Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said on Tuesday that the Russian forces had captured almost 5,000 square kilometers (1,930 square miles) of land in Ukraine in 2025 and that Moscow kept complete the strategic initiative on the battlefield.
Putin, at a meeting with high Russian military commanders, said the Ukrainian forces were retiring in all sectors of the front. He said that kyiv was trying to attack deeply in Russian territory, but that would not help change the situation in the war that lasts more than three and a half years.
“At this time, the Russian armed forces fully maintain the strategic initiative,” Putin said in the meeting in northwestern Russia, according to a transcription of the Kremlin.
“This year we have released about 5,000 square kilometers of territory – 4,900 – and 212 locations.”
The Ukrainian forces said, “they are withdrawing along the combat contact line, despite the attempts of fierce resistance.”
The Russian Ministry of Defense reported on Tuesday of the capture of two more villages along the front, which according to the highest commander of Ukraine now extends along 1,250 kilometers (775 miles).
Ukrainian stories about the situation on the front line say that kyiv’s forces have made progress in the Donetsk region, particularly near the city of Dobropillia. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy also said that Ukrainian forces have regained land in the Border Region of Sumy, where Russia has established a support point.
Russian army general Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, said at the meeting of high commanders that the Russian forces were “moving forward practically in all directions.” The Ukrainian forces, he said, were concentrated in curbing the Russian progress.
Gerasimov, general commander of Russia’s war effort, said Moscow’s troops were moving towards the key cities of Siversk and Kostyantynivka in the main theater of operations of the Donetsk region.
He said they were evicting the Ukrainian forces of the city of Kupiansk, under Russian attack for months in the northeast of Ukraine, and that they were advancing in the regions of Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk, further south. They were also advancing in the establishment of damping areas in the regions of Sumy and Kharkiv in the north.
In his statements at the meeting, Putin said that Russia’s objectives remained the same as when he launched his “special military operation” in February 2022, and said he was aimed at “demilitarizing and desnazifying” his smallest neighbor.
(Reuters report; edited by Chris Reese and Rod Nickel)
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