Ukraine says it has returned over 600 square kilometers of territory taken from Russia this year

Ukrainian forces have recaptured more than 600 square kilometers of territory since the beginning of this year, Ukrainian army commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Monday.

This is the latest sign of a possible turning point in the war, after years of slow but steady advances by Russian forces.

In May alone, Ukraine has regained 100 square kilometers more territory than it lost, Syrskyi said on the Telegram messaging app.

He did not specify where these territorial victories took place, saying only that in some sectors of the approximately 1,200-kilometer front line, Ukrainian forces continue to hold the initiative.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also declared last month that Ukraine had regained about 600 square kilometers of territory by 2026.

The precise determination of territorial control lines in Ukraine has become very difficult due to the massive use of drones, which have created a vast uninhabited and extremely dangerous area along the front.

However, even independent groups monitoring and mapping the battlefield have reported that Russia's overall advances have slowed or even reversed in recent months, for the first time since the unsuccessful Ukrainian counteroffensive of 2023.

Syrskyi added that Russian forces continue to try to advance in the east and south of the country, noting that the number of daily clashes on the battlefield has increased significantly. He described the situation on the front lines as "difficult and dynamic."

The area around the eastern city of Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to completely capture since mid-2024, remains one of the fiercest points of fighting, he added.

The independent Ukrainian war mapping project DeepState has been presenting Pokrovskoe as being entirely under Russian control for weeks. Russia claimed to have occupied the city in December last year.

In the first months after the start of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022, Ukrainian forces recaptured large swaths of territory through a series of counterattacks. However, a major Ukrainian counteroffensive failed in 2023, and Moscow has made gradual advances on the ground since then.

Ukraine launched a new offensive earlier this year in the south and southeast of the country, which analysts have considered a factor that helped slow down the Russian advance in some sectors of the front.