Ukraine liberated 745 square kilometers in Oleksandrivka sector since January, Zelensky says

Ukraine has liberated 745 square kilometers in the Oleksandrivka sector and killed nearly 10,000 Russian soldiers since January, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Aug. 12.

Ukraine launched counterattacking operations in late January along a wide front on the southern front line, where Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Donetsk oblasts converge.

Although Kyiv soon began announcing counteroffensive success with hundreds of square kilometers reported liberated, the movements on the ground, led first and foremost by the country's Air Assaut Forces, were conducted with strict operational security.

"During the operation, we managed to liberate a territory of 745 square kilometers. Twenty-six villages in the Dnipro, Donetsk and Zaporizhia regions were returned to the control of Ukraine," Zelensky said in a post on social media.

"Russian losses amounted to at least 9,550 people killed and more than 6,600 people wounded," he said, adding an unspecified number of Russian soldiers were captured.

The next day, Ukrainian mapping and analytical group Deep State Map made a major update to their online map, often seen as one of the most reliable maps thanks to Deep State's direct contact with Ukrainian commanders, rather than relying only on open sources.

The update showed a wide and long band of territory on the southern front line marked liberated, roughly corresponding to all of the Russian-occupied areas in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast and some parts of western Donetsk Oblast.

Eighteen villages were marked by Deep State as liberated, with a further six seeing Russian troops pushed back. The total area marked as liberated in the new update was only around 260 square kilometers.

Although these territorial changes happened over the past half year, Deep State has refrained from updating the map regularly, citing operational security reasons.

Experts have previously cautioned against claims about measuring territorial gains, as the situation in grey zones along the front line is difficult to assess and control of these areas is often unclear.

The domination by drones of the battlefield, the associated "kill zone" that gets deadlier as one approaches the line of contact, and Russia's focus on small-scale infiltration tactics as their main method of attack, all mean that the front line — and in turn territorial control — are increasingly difficult to accurately map amid the wider contested area.