By Lidia Kelly and Oleksandr Kozhukhar
(Reuters) – Russian forces have been advancing in Ukraine at the fastest pace since the early months of the war, are moving into the strategic town of Kurakhove and have been exploiting vulnerabilities of Kyiv troops, analysts said on Monday.
“Russian forces recently have been advancing at a significantly quicker rate than they did in the entirety of 2023,” analysts at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said in a report.
The report noted recent confirmed battlefield gains near Vuhledar and Velyka Novosilka, which are in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.
The Russian army captured almost 235 square kilometres (91 square miles) in Ukraine over the past week, a weekly record for 2024, according to a report published by the independent Russian news group Agentstvo.
Agentstvo analysed data from Deep State, a group with close links to the Ukrainian army that studies combat footage and provides frontline maps.
The Institute for the Study of War report and pro-Russian military bloggers say Russian troops are in Kurakhove, which represents a stepping stone towards the logistical hub of Pokrovsk in Donetsk. Deep State said on its Telegram messaging app on Monday that Russian forces are near Kurakhove.
Deep State data analysed by Agentstvo showed that Russia has captured more territory in Ukraine since the beginning of November than in the whole of October, which had seen the fastest pace since the early months of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
“Russian forces’ advances in southeastern Ukraine are largely the result of the discovery and tactical exploitation of vulnerabilities in Ukraine’s lines,” analysts at the Institute for the Study of War said in their report.
Outnumbered by Russian troops, the Ukrainian military is struggling to recruit soldiers and provide equipment to new units, with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy relentlessly pleading with Kyiv’s Western allies for more military aid.
Zelenskiy has said that he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s main objectives were to occupy the entire Donbas, which consists of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and oust Ukrainian troops from the Kursk region, where they have been controlling parts of that territory since August.
(Writing by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
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