Ukraine, the progress of the Russian army on the front. Agency: Russia achieved new weekly and monthly records

Front line in Ukraine more than a thousand kilometers long, it had been largely static for two years until the latest smaller-scale Russian advances in July this year, Reuters said in an analysis on Tuesday.

It said, citing assessments by Western analysts, that the war may be entering its “most dangerous phase” given the presence of North Korean soldiers fighting on the side of Russian troops, as well as the use of Western missiles such as ATACMS and Storm Shadow by Ukrainian forces in attacks in deep into Russia.

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The Russian independent portal Agientstwo also wrote that the Russians have achieved extraordinary progress on the front. Both this website and Reuters cite the same source – the DeepState group, linked to the Ukrainian army, which examines the situation on the front and prepares maps showing the location and progress of Russian troops.

“Russia has achieved a new weekly and monthly record in terms of the area of ​​territory occupied in Ukraine,” the agency reported.

According to DeepState's assessment, Russian forces occupied almost 235 square kilometers last week, which is this year – as stated by the Agency – the highest weekly number since the beginning of the invasion. Since the beginning of November, Russian forces have occupied over 600 square kilometers of Ukraine, analysts estimate.

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Pasi Paroinen, a military analyst at the Finnish Black Bird Group, quoted by Reuters, said that the estimates regarding Russian gains in Ukraine from November this year may also include October data, recorded with a delay.

Russia currently controls 18 percent of Ukraine's territory, including the entire Crimean Peninsula annexed in 2014, 80 percent Donbass in the east, over 70 percent of the Zaporozhye and Kherson oblasts in the south, and less than 3 percent of the Kharkiv oblast in the northeast.

According to DeepState data, last week Russian troops advanced at their fastest pace in southern Ukraine, where they managed to capture 187 square kilometers of territory. The main advance was recorded in the area of ​​the village of Velyka Novoselivka in the Donetsk Oblast, where Russian troops launched an assault. To the east of the village, there was a local collapse of the front in an area of ​​over 70 square meters – the Agency wrote.

According to DeepState, Russian forces are attacking primarily in the Donetsk Oblast, towards the cities of Pokrovsk and Kurakhov. If they managed to break through the defenses around Kurakhovy, they could push further towards Zaporozhye, securing their rear, which would allow them to attack Pokrovsk.

According to the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW), citing pro-Russian military bloggers, Russian forces have already entered Kurakhovy. DeepState analysts have not confirmed this.

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“The movement of Russian forces in south-eastern Ukraine is largely the result of discovering and exploiting weak points of the Ukrainian front line,” said ISW.

The authorities in Kiev admit that the situation in the east is the most difficult since the beginning of the year. President Volodymyr Zelensky He estimated that one of the reasons was the almost year-long delay in deliveries of Western equipment to the Ukrainian army.

– Despite the Russian advances, the Ukrainian front has not collapsed and this is the most important thing in defense – said Oleksandr Musiyenko, a well-known Kiev military expert, assessing the situation on the front.

– A defensive operation of Ukrainian troops is underway at the front. In some sections, our troops recaptured positions previously occupied by the enemy and pushed him out. There are sections where the enemy's advance has been stopped or slowed down, Musiyenko said in an interview with the Ukrainian Channel 24 television. – The enemy is attacking and will continue to attack while it still has the potential, but this potential is gradually decreasing, said Musiyenko.