In spite of sustained attacks on critical infrastructure and threats of nuclear escalation, Kyiv forces continue to deliver painful blows to President Vladimir Putin’s army, quickly regaining control of many areas that Russia recently attempted to illegally annex.

Now, claims on social media suggest that Ukraine’s advances have amounted to half of the gains that Russia made since February.

The Claim

A tweet posted on November 7, 2022, states that Ukraine has “taken back 50% of what Russians newly occupied in 2022 and 37% of what Russia has taken since 2014.”

Additional tweets provide detailed maps of these occupations, repeating the same claim.

Newsweek has reached out to DefMon3 for comment.

The Facts

To verify this figure, Newsweek spoke to the Institute for The Study of War (ISW) which has been meticulously cataloging the map of conflict in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion.

Based on its intelligence, ISW said that, at present, Ukrainian total counteroffensives had led to the retaking of 43,500 sq km of land. At the peak of its territorial control on March 26, 2022, Russia occupied around 133,137 sq km, with an additional 28,615 sq km of ongoing advances at the time.

However, total land occupied by Russia included breakaway regions in the Donestk People’s Republic (DPR) and Crimea, which it had taken before the start of its new invasion on February 24, 2022.

Russia annexed Crimea in early 2014; in early 2022 (just before its invasion) it also voted to recognize breakaway republics in the Donbas region (part of the DPR) where Moscow-controlled troops had been fighting Kyiv-led forces since Crimea’s annexation.

As the tweet states, its claim is based on Ukrainian gains excluding these regions.

So, if we exclude these additional occupied regions and the Russian advances (which never materialized into permanent territorial control), at its peak Russia controlled around 90,873 sq km of Ukrainian land.

If we divide this figure by the number of Ukrainian counteroffensive successes, it appears that Russia has ceded somewhere between 47-48 percent of its gains made since the start of the invasion.

While not exactly 50 percent as the tweet states, there is almost certainly a margin of error here as with any live data (more so with data from a conflict zone). But given the recent dynamic on the frontlines, with both sides making small advances, that figure could soon shift in either direction.

As of now, the claim appears to be broadly correct. For argument’s sake, if we were to antagonize the two to three percent that would completely match the claim on Twitter, this would equate to (at most) an additional 3,994 sq km.

While the circumstances of the conflict are markedly different, Ukraine boasted that it recaptured 6,000 sq km in early September alone, pushing back Russian units in Kharkiv. An additional 4,000 sq km could therefore well be within its grasp in the near term, given Kyiv’s recent record of conquests, increasing Russian setbacks, the continued donation of military equipment to Ukrainian forces, and other equipment it has captured from Russia.

The 37 percent claim is a little further out but probably still within the margin of error too. If we are to include regions occupied since 2014 (based on ISW numbers) numbers, Ukrainian forces have taken back somewhere between 32 to 33 percent of the total territory.

Russia is nonetheless making small advances, according to maps released by the ISW on Monday, November 7.

The maps show that Russia currently holds control over parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, Mykolaiv, and Zaporizhzhia regions, with each of those controlled sections outlined in a solid red border.

In each of those regions, some assessed Russian advances, which are designated by a broken red border, are shown to be taking place slightly in front of the areas Russia is already confirmed to control.

This means that Russian forces are believed by the ISW to have been operating in or launching attacks against those areas demarcated by the broken borders, but they do not fully control them at this time.

As the maps show, sources claim that within the past few days Russian forces have claimed Donetsk airport and some other small settlements.

Throughout the areas where Russia is carrying out assessed advances, some patches of territory are fully surrounded by broken red borders and highlighted in yellow to show where there is claimed Russian control over Ukrainian territory.

This means that Russia’s control over those patches of territory is not yet confirmed despite some stating it as fact.

As of November 7, 2022, ISW also reports that Russia has greatly depleted its arsenal of high-precision weapons systems, has suffered significant aviation losses, and is likely to struggle to maintain the pace of its campaign against Ukrainian infrastructure.

Newsweek has contacted the Kremlin and the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence for comment.

The Ruling

Needs Context.

Roughly speaking, the claim is correct, though there is important context required to understand it.

If we take the largest amount of territory that Russia occupied at the peak of the conflict (excluding the amount of territory it occupied in breakaway regions before the war and advances Russia was making at that time) and divide that by total Ukrainian counteroffensive gains to date, Kyiv forces have taken about 48 percent of the territory previously occupied by Russia at its peak.

Given just how precarious the conflict remains and that data is based on the best available sources, the actual figure may be slightly higher or lower so 50 percent is more or less accurate, with caveats.

FACT CHECK BY Newsweek’s Fact Check team