Ukraine says it has recaptured more than 600 sq km as Zelenskyy claims Russia is losing the initiative

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Russia is losing the initiative on the battlefield, as Kyiv reports fresh territorial gains in the war. In remarks given in London, he said the situation was better for Ukraine than it had been for two and a half years, while cautioning that conditions could still change quickly. His comments came alongside a separate claim from Ukraine's armed forces chief that Ukrainian troops have recaptured more than 600 square km of territory so far this year.

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Zelenskyy said Russia was not winning the war and suggested the Kremlin may struggle to scale up its offensive over time. He also said he did not see Russian forces being optimistic in the coming months. At the same time, he repeated that Kyiv remains open to finding different ways to restart peace talks and said he hoped the sides could sit down and stop the war.

The Russian president has ruled out holding talks with Zelenskyy any time soon, according to the supplied material. The battlefield claims come as the war continues to exact a heavy toll. Zelenskyy said 23,000 to 24,000 troops are dying on the battlefield each month, though the supplied material does not say how that figure was calculated.

It also says Russia currently controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory. In parallel, Russian energy supplies in several southern regions are facing disruption after a surge in Ukrainian strikes, and fighting has intensified in recent weeks. The developments matter because they point to a possible shift in momentum in a war that has now stretched close to five years.

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Any confirmed Ukrainian gains would be significant both militarily and politically, especially as Kyiv seeks to show it can still alter conditions on the ground despite Russia's larger footprint. The reported disruption to Russian energy supplies also suggests the conflict is continuing to affect infrastructure well beyond the front line. The supplied material says Ukraine has increasingly relied on drones, robots and other unmanned systems as part of a changed battlefield strategy, reflecting manpower shortages.

It also says Kyiv has launched strikes on oil installations while Russia has continued targeting major Ukrainian cities, including the capital. In one recent episode, Ukraine fired hundreds of drones, leaving one person dead and an oil depot on fire on the final day of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

The same material says Russia is reportedly withdrawing forces from the Kinburn Spit in Mykolaiv Oblast as supply-line strikes make its defences there harder to sustain. What remains unclear is how durable the reported Ukrainian gains are, and whether they will translate into a broader shift in the war. It is also not clear how far the disruption to Russian energy supplies will spread or how Moscow will respond on the battlefield.

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