Ukraine has retaken 745 sq km in 'precision' operation this year, Zelensky says

President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday that Ukrainian forces have liberated 745 square kilometers (288 square miles) of Russian-occupied land this year in a southeastern counteroffensive, bringing 26 settlements in the Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, and Zaporizhzhia regions back under Kyiv's control. He described the operation as 'precision' and 'exactly as planned.' A DeepState map shows much of the area remains a grey zone, not fully controlled by either side.

President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Wednesday that Ukrainian forces have liberated 745 square kilometers (288 square miles) of Russian-occupied territory this year in a southeastern counteroffensive. In a statement on X, he said the operation went "exactly as planned" and was carried out "with precision," crediting Kyiv's air-assault forces and other units. The liberated area includes 26 settlements in the Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, and Zaporizhzhia regions, located along an approximately 60-kilometer stretch of the front where the borders of the three regions meet. However, according to a battlefield map by the Ukrainian open-source group DeepState, much of the area remains in a grey zone not fully controlled by either side, with some parts still marked as Russian-controlled. A video posted by Ukraine's General Staff showed troops holding the Ukrainian flag in the freed settlements, but Reuters could not independently verify it. Russia's battlefield advances have slowed this year across much of the front, analysts say, though its forces are still closing in on key cities in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region. Moscow has demanded Kyiv give up the rest of the industrialized Donetsk region, which it refuses to do.