The Ukrainian army has regained ground in the eastern Donetsk region in September, following a counteroffensive aimed at pushing the front line away from two key cities for its defense, Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.
Named “Vivaldi”, this operation launched at the beginning of September allowed Ukrainian forces to recapture 172 km2 of the territory occupied by the Russians.
The information comes from an analysis conducted by the France Presse agency, based on data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), cites Agerpres.
Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski traveled this week to his troops in the vicinity of the city of Liman, 10 km from Sloviansk.
The ISW data shows an advancement of the Ukrainian forces both to the north and to the south of Liman.
In the rest of the country, Ukraine has only reclaimed a total of 32 km2 in the Kharkov (north), Dnipropetrovsk and Lugansk (east) regions.
On the other hand, the Russian offensives in the Zaporozhye region (south) and Sumy (north) allowed the Kremlin’s forces to occupy 104.5 km2 and, respectively, 20 km2.
The ISW estimates exclude the unconfirmed, yet not denied, progress claimed by Russia. This institute collaborates with the Critical Threats Project (a project of the American Enterprise Institute or AEI), another American think tank specializing in conflict studies.
Overall, the month of September resulted in a net gain for Ukraine of 80 km2.