(Kyiv) Russian forces currently control “about 20%” of Ukrainian territory, nearly 125,000 km2Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday in an address to the Luxembourg Parliament.
Posted at 8:09
“Today, approximately 20% of our territory is under the control of the occupiers, (i.e.) nearly 125,000 km2it is much more than the territory of all the Benelux countries”, indicated Mr. Zelensky, in a message of which the Ukrainian presidency sent the journalists the original version.
By comparison, Russian forces controlled, before the February 24 invasion of Ukraine, “more than 43,000 km2 “, he added.
Since 2014, Russian forces have controlled the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Moscow, and, with pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, around a third of the Donbass mining basin.
The Ukrainian president did not detail what was included in the new figure of 125,000 km2.
The Russians have, since the start of the invasion, taken control of parts of southern Ukraine – most of the Kherson region and part of the Zaporizhia region – and made slow progress in the Donbass, in the east of the country, including the capture of Mariupol, at the south-eastern tip.
Their stated ambition is to take control of all of the two regions that make up the Donbass, those of Donetsk and Luhansk, where fighting is currently raging.
One of the Russian negotiators on the conflict in Ukraine spoke on Wednesday of the upcoming organization of a referendum in the territories occupied by the Russians, with a view to annexation, which could take place in July.
After having tried to seize it, the Russian forces however withdrew at the end of March from the Kyiv region, where they suffered heavy losses, and partially from the Kharkiv region, north of Donbass.