Kyiv, Jan. 2 (LaPresse) – Russian forces occupied 4,336 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory in 2025, equivalent to less than 1% of the country’s total area, according to an end-of-year report published January 1 by the Ukrainian open-source mapping project DeepState. “Compared to previous years, 2025 was really difficult for the Ukrainian Defense Forces,” DeepState wrote in its annual assessment.
According to the analysis, Moscow managed to seize 0.72% of Ukraine’s total territory over the past year, including areas in oblasts that were previously unoccupied. At the start of 2025, a renewed Russian offensive allowed Moscow’s troops to make limited advances in previously uncontrolled regions, including the Dnipro and Sumy oblasts, where Russia occupied 0.6% and 1.0% of the regional territories, respectively. Among the regions most affected by Russian advances, Donetsk Oblast recorded the largest percentage increase in occupied territory: nearly 78% of the area is now under Russian control, up 10 percentage points compared to the previous year.