According to Reuters reported on August 12th, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that the Ukrainian army has regained 288 square miles (approximately 745 square kilometers) of territory along the southeastern front this year, and described this operation as 'being carried out exactly as planned.'
Ukrainian military stated that they launched counterattacks in parts of the 1200-kilometer front line and targeted Russian logistics and energy infrastructure.
Zelenskyy said that 26 settlements in the front line area located at the border of Mykolaiv-Petrovsk, Donetsk, and Zaporizhia have returned to Kiev's control. These settlements are distributed across a frontline area of about 60 kilometers long.
He publicly praised on the X platform that “our offensive operation was carried out with great precision—exactly as planned,” and lavishly praised the airborne assault units and other units in Kyiv.
The Ukrainian side of "DeepState," which monitors battlefield situations in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, has reported that the Ukrainian army has regained control over 19 settlements along the frontline.
Deep State claims that Kyiv's troops are still holding six more settlements and repelling Russian forces.
In a video released by the Ukrainian General Staff on Wednesday, numerous images captured by drones were shown, showing Ukrainian troops raising Ukrainian flags in the regained settlements.
However, Reuters stated that "it is not possible to verify the video independently".
An analyst interviewed by Reuters said that the pace of progress by Russian troops in most areas on the front line has slowed down this year, but their forces are still moving towards key cities in Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.
The Russian side has also been continuously reporting progress on the front lines and deep into Ukraine. On the 12th, the Russian Ministry of Defense stated that the Russian army had taken control of the village of Vakhinoe in Kharkov Oblast, and continued to attack Ukrainian troops and equipment from multiple directions.
Meanwhile, the Russian army has carried out deep strikes on Ukrainian military, energy, and logistics facilities. The Russian Ministry of Defense stated that on the 12th, the Russian army targeted a fuel base in Odessa that supplied fuel to Ukrainian troops, as well as port facilities in Chernomorek and other locations. The day before, the Russian army used high-precision weapons to attack military enterprises and transportation logistics centers in Kyiv and Zhytomyr.
