Ukraine’s military leadership shared details Tuesday on how much of Russia’s territory its troops have captured since their invasion of the Kursk region two weeks ago, and it is more than Moscow’s forces have seized in Ukraine since the start of the year, according to available data.
Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian military, said on Tuesday that his forces currently control some 1,263 square kilometers (roughly 488 square miles) of Russian territory in Kursk and 93 settlements within that area.
Ukrainian forces have advanced around 28-35 kilometers (around 17-22 miles) deep into Kursk, Syrskyi said, according to a state media translation of his remarks to lawmakers.
Ukraine launched a surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region on August 6, and after one week, Syrskyi said his troops had captured around 1,000 square kilometers (386 square miles) and 74 settlements. Although Kyiv’s advances slowed in the second week of the invasion, its forces continued to capture territory and settlements.
AP Photo
Business Insider was unable to independently verify Syrskyi’s latest figures. However, his assessment suggests that the Ukrainian gains from two weeks of fighting in Kursk have already surpassed the total land area that Russia has seized since the start of the year, per assessed territorial gains by analysts.
As of August 11, Russian forces occupied about 109,338 total square kilometers of Ukrainian territory, according to Mitch Belcher, a geospatial analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, which tracks battlefield movements and developments.
That figure includes 1,175 square kilometers that Russia captured in 2024, he told Business Insider last week.
By Tuesday, Russian forces occupied an assessed 109,416 square kilometers in Ukraine, George Barros, the geospatial-intelligence team lead and a Russia analyst at ISW, told BI.
This means Russia captured 78 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory in the days since August 11, putting its total at 1,253 square kilometers for the year so far. That area is slightly smaller than what Ukraine has said it has captured in Kursk over the past two weeks.
REUTERS/Viacheslav Ratynskyi/File Photo
The shock Ukrainian invasion of Russian lands stunned Moscow and Kyiv’s international allies, including the US, which was not made aware of the operation ahead of time.
Moscow is still trying to respond to the incursion — the biggest attack by a foreign enemy on Russian soil since the Second World War — two weeks later and has redirected some units from operations in and around Ukraine to the Kursk region.
In recent days, Ukraine’s military has shared footage showing airstrikes on a few key Russian bridges and control centers in Kursk, indicating that Kyiv is including airpower in what appears to be a combined-arms operation within Russia.
Syrskyi said that the operation in Kursk is intended to create a “security zone” and stop Russia from being able to carry out attacks against Ukraine from within the area, according to state-run media outlet Ukrinform.
These stated goals are consistent with those that have been shared by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who stated on Sunday that the Kursk assault is aimed at “creating a buffer zone” on Russian territory.
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