Seven months into the invasion, Russia controls less land than it did in the early days of the war. See how progress has stalled.
According to a CNN analysis of proprietary data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
Russia’s first massive push, which began on the night of February 23, saw it secure or advance over a fifth of Ukraine’s territory, roughly 119,000 square kilometers (46,000 sq mi) of the 603,500 square kilometers which Ukraine claims and considers to be “temporarily occupied”. “, shows the analysis.
Seven months after launching an invasion — an invasion Western officials thought would be over in days with a Ukrainian capital overrun — Russia controls about three thousand square kilometers less land than it did in the first five days of the war. war, CNN found. (Unverified claims are excluded from the analysis.)
In order to secure what it still controls, the Kremlin on Friday demanded the annexation of four Ukrainian regions, of which it has only partial control, in addition to the seizure and annexation of the Crimea region. in 2014.
At a ceremony attended by the Russian-installed leaders of the self-proclaimed people’s republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, and the regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, Russian President Valdimir Putin signed four separate agreements on the admission of new territories to the Russian Federation. Ahead of the announcement, Putin on Thursday officially recognized Kherson and Zaporizhzhia as independent states.
In late September, pro-Russian authorities hastily organized so-called “referendums” in parts of Ukraine’s four occupied regions: Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Large parts of Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia remain in Ukrainian hands.
The referendums have been widely criticized by Ukraine and the international community as a bogus and illegitimate effort. And even as the process was underway, Ukrainian forces were retaking more territory in Donetsk.
Although a pre-war poll conducted by CNN in February 2022 showed that no region in Ukraine had more than one in five people supporting Ukraine’s unification with Russia, authorities in these occupied regions predictably affirmed on Wednesday that the inhabitants had overwhelmingly agreed to join the Russian Federation.
For the first time in the conflict, the Russian army is in retreat – its stated aim of taking the whole of Donetsk and Luhansk appears to have slipped away after a disorderly retreat from the neighboring Kharkiv region.
On Friday, the Kremlin reiterated that an attack on the newly annexed territories would be considered an act of aggression against Russia. Ukraine’s allies fear the move could create a pretext for a dangerous new stage in the war.
CNN’s analysis of ISW data outlines Moscow’s military woes that may have contributed to decisions made in the Kremlin this week.
In the first month of the invasion, Russia nearly quadrupled the area under its control, adding to the territory of Crimea (annexed in 2014) and the breakaway republics of Luhansk and Donetsk, also created in 2014.
But that would mark the pinnacle of Russian success. Moscow decided in early April to withdraw its forces from northern and northeastern Ukraine, after failing to take the capital Kyiv.
In the months that followed, the Kremlin army and its allies struggled to make substantial gains. Between early May and late August, his net gains stagnated between 200 and 1,400 square kilometers of Ukrainian land per month, according to the analysis.
And as of September 26, Russia’s overall net territory gain since the withdrawal in early April was just over a thousand square kilometers – half the size of Rhode Island, the smallest US state, the data shows.
CNN explores key events of the Russian invasion from the perspective of a territorial struggle in an interactive timeline.
