The Russian army kept advancing in eastern Ukraine throughout August, though at a slightly slower pace than in previous months, AFP analysis of data provided by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) showed.<\/p>\n
August saw a flurry of fresh diplomatic efforts, with US President Donald Trump meeting both his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts in a bid to end the three-and-a-half-year war, which has killed tens of thousands and devastated much of eastern and southern Ukraine.<\/p>\n
AFP analysis shows Moscow’s forces captured a total of 594 square kilometres (229 square miles) from Ukraine over the month.<\/p>\n
That was slightly down on the 634 square kilometres captured in July and ended four straight months of accelerating gains.<\/p>\n
The data includes territory assessed by ISW as being totally or partially controlled by Russian forces, as well as unverified claims of advances made by Moscow.<\/p>\n
Ukraine has repeatedly said Russia is not serious about halting its invasion and is playing for time by engaging with Trump’s diplomatic initiative.<\/p>\n
Three rounds of direct Russia-Ukraine peace talks alongside the Trump meetings have failed to yield any concrete progress towards peace.<\/p>\n
In total, Russia controls 19 percent of Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Moscow on 12 August achieved one of its biggest single-day gains in recent months, seizing more than 110 square kilometres in a rare breakthrough on the heavily fortified front lines.<\/p>\n
But in a sign of increased movement on the front, Ukraine was also able to recapture significant chunks of land — advancing around 30 square kilometres a day on at least three occasions during the month.<\/p>\n
Nearly 70 percent of Russia’s advances were concentrated in the eastern Donetsk region, which Moscow claims to have annexed and is fighting to take full control of.<\/p>\n
Russia controls 79.6 percent of the region, according to the analysis — up from 63 percent a year ago and around 31 percent that was controlled by Moscow-backed separatists before Russia launched its invasion in February 2022.<\/p>\n
Moscow’s forces also gained 76 square kilometres in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, where Ukraine conceded for the first time last week that Russia had managed to gain a foothold.<\/p>\n
burs-jc\/asy\/jhb<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Russian army kept advancing in eastern Ukraine throughout August, though at a slightly slower pace than in previous months, AFP analysis of data provided by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) showed. August saw a flurry of fresh diplomatic efforts, with US President Donald Trump meeting both his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8564,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"7","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"left-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"topbottom","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[95,276,1688,277],"class_list":["post-8563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-conflict","tag-russia","tag-territory","tag-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}