A damaged road sign on the border with the Kursk region directs cars to either Ukraine or Russia. Photo: Kirill Chubotin / SIPA / Scanpix / LETA
The Russian military has recaptured over 64% of the Russian territory seized by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) since its incursion into Russia’s western Kursk region began in August, Colonel General Sergey Rudskoy said on Thursday.
In an interview with Defence Ministry newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda, Rudskoy said that 800 of the 1,200 square kilometres captured by the AFU was now back in Russian hands, adding that Russia had also captured around 75% of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, while “less than 1% remains to be liberated” in the Luhansk region.
Russia formally annexed all four Ukrainian regions in September 2022 despite never having established full control over a single one of them. Ukrainian military expert Ivan Stupak told Novaya Gazeta Europe that it was impossible to calculate the exact area seized by Russia as long as hostilities were ongoing, though he noted Moscow’s habit of announcing the capture of new territories “in advance”.
A significant part of the Kursk region, where hostilities have been ongoing since 6 August, remains in the so-called “grey zone”, Stupak continued, as the forward positions of the Russian and Ukrainian troops were often several kilometres apart, leaving hundreds of square kilometres of territory unclaimed by either side.
Russia likely occupied “much less” than the 75% of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions it claims, Stupak said, adding that in 2023, Russian-appointed Zaporizhzhia Governor Yevhen Balitskiy claimed that Russian held 62.5% of the region, and that changes to the situation on the frontline since then had been “insignificant”.
