Russia has taken 1,700 sq km of Ukraine in 2026, top general says
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Pro-Ukrainian maps show Russia controls 116,793 sq km, or 19.35 per cent, of Ukraine, but that Russia’s advance has slowed in 2026.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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MOSCOW – Russian forces have taken 1,700 sq km of territory in Ukraine in 2026 and are advancing on its so-called fortress belt in Donbas, Moscow’s top general said while inspecting his forces.
Russia has since its 2022 invasion been seeking to take the whole of the Donbas area in eastern Ukraine, where Kyiv’s forces have been pushed back towards a line of cities in grinding fighting.
“Since the beginning of this year, a total of 80 settlements and more than 1,700 square kilometres of territory have come under our control,” Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, of the Russian Armed Forces, said in footage released by the defence ministry on April 21.
Kyiv has also reported some gains in the deadliest war in Europe since World War II. Top Ukrainian commander Oleksandr Syrskyi said in mid-April that Kyiv’s forces had regained control of nearly 50 sq km of its territory in March.
Reuters was unable to verify the battlefield accounts, and the general staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Pro-Ukrainian maps indicate that Russia has taken 592 sq km in 2026.
General Gerasimov said Russia’s Southern Grouping of forces was attacking the Donetsk fortress belt comprising the cities of Sloviansk, Kramatorsk and Kostiantynivka, and that Russian forces were around 7km to 12km from Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.
Russian units were already fighting in parts of Kostiantynivka, he said. In addition, Gen Gerasimov said Russian forces were advancing in Sumy in the north and Kharkiv in the north-east to create what he called “a security zone”.
According to Russian estimates, Russia controls about 90 per cent of Donbas, about 75 per cent of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, and slivers of the Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions in Ukraine.
Russia also controls Crimea, which it annexed in 2014 after earlier fighting. The Black Sea peninsula is internationally recognised as part of Ukraine by most countries.
Pro-Ukrainian maps show Russia controls 116,793 sq km, or 19.35 per cent, of Ukraine, but that Russia’s advance has slowed in 2026. REUTERS
