Four times the size of the entire country: Putin boasted that his troops had seized 2,440 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory
5 June 14:16
Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has claimed that his army is advancing daily on all fronts and has already seized territory more than four times the size of Ukraine. This is reported by "Komersant Ukrainian", citing Russian propaganda media.
“I won’t name the exact number of settlements right now, because I’m afraid of making a mistake, but the Russian army has brought approximately 2,440,000 square kilometers under its control,” he said at a meeting with the heads of international news agencies.
The area of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders prior to 2014 was approximately 603,600 km². In the transcript on the Kremlin’s website, the word “thousand” was removed from Putin’s quote, leaving “2,440 square kilometers.”
Putin stated that Russia had “completely,” 100%, seized the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic and advanced toward the Donetsk People’s Republic.
“Just recently, Ukraine controlled about 25% [of the LPR], now it’s less than 15%,” he clarified. Also, according to him, Russia occupies “80% of the Zaporizhzhia region.” Putin emphasized that the capture of Ukrainian territories “continues on a daily basis.” In reality, the Russian army has been losing previously occupied areas for the second month in a row. In April, net losses amounted to 116 km², and in May they increased to 281.1 km², according to calculations by the U.S. Institute for the Study of War (ISW). According to analysts’ estimates, from December 2025 to May 2026, Russian forces advanced in Ukraine by only 40.64 km² compared to 515.84 km² during the same period in 2024–2025.
This is the first recorded reduction in territory under Russian control since 2023, when the Ukrainian Armed Forces launched a counteroffensive. Over the past two months, Russian forces have lost nearly all the territory they captured between January and March, according to ISW calculations.
Analysts attributed the slow advance of Russian troops to significant changes on the battlefield, including ground counterattacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, intensified Ukrainian medium-range strikes, with the massive use of drones, the blocking of Starlink terminals for the Russian Armed Forces in February 2026, as well as the Kremlin’s restrictions on Telegram’s operation at the front.
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