Al Jazeera reports a net Ukrainian gain of 241 square kilometres since September 1. A Ukrainian commander says a counteroffensive shortened his defensive line, allowing more concentrated firepower.
Ukraine’s autumn advances have effectively erased Russia’s territorial gains this year, according to an Institute for the Study of War assessment reported by Al Jazeera on October 23. The Washington-based think tank put Ukraine’s net gain since September 1 at 241 square kilometres.
The reversal follows a Russian attempt to attack from two sides and capture the remaining Ukrainian-held fifth of the eastern Donetsk region, roughly 5,500 square kilometres. Al Jazeera attributed many of Ukraine’s gains to Operation Vivaldi, a counteroffensive it reported had stopped that attempt.
The Institute for the Study of War uses publicly available information tied to specific locations to assess changes in territorial control. Its figure is a net gain: territory recovered after accounting for territory lost, rather than the total area recaptured.
That assessment supports Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s statement that his forces had recovered more territory since the beginning of autumn than Russian forces had captured. Ukraine’s General Staff also denied Russian claims to have seized 1,800 square kilometres during the autumn.
General Andriy Biletskyi, who led Ukraine’s Third Army Corps in the campaign, gave a separate account of how the operation changed his forces' position. He said they eliminated a Russian bridgehead—a position held across a river—on the western bank of the Zherebets and crossed to the eastern bank.
Biletskyi said those movements shortened the front his forces had to defend. That allowed them to concentrate artillery and drone firepower and stabilise their defence, he said. These are his operational claims, distinct from the think tank’s assessment of territorial changes.
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