Ukraine records first territorial gains since 2023 amid Russian army woes
As Kyiv liberates parts of Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhia regions, Zelenskyy says Russia is losing up to 35,000 soldiers a month.
Kyiv, Ukraine – The Russia-Ukraine war’s harshest winter has brought ceaseless pressure from Moscow along the front line and significant aerial attacks that have left millions of Ukrainians without power and heat.
Even though Russia keeps pushing towards Ukrainian strongholds in the southeastern region of Donetsk and plans a spring-summer offensive, for the first time in almost three years, Kyiv began regaining some territory.
The gains amounted to 460sq km (117.6sq miles), or about 10 percent of what Kyiv lost to Moscow in 2025, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Moscow’s inability to replenish its front-line losses is the main factor, he said.
“Russia is losing a lot of people, up to 35,000 a month,” he told Corriere Della Sera, an Italian daily, on March 3.
Because of the losses inflicted by Ukraine, Russia’s army “stopped growing. Losses equal the number of newly mobilised soldiers. They are close to a crisis,” he was quoted as saying.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US think tank, said the gains were more modest – 257sq km (100sq miles) – but admitted that the porous front line and multiple grey areas complicate a better calculation.
Almost all of Dnipropetrovsk liberated, Ukraine says
Ukrainian counterattacks were especially successful in the eastern region of Dnipropetrovsk, where the presence of Russian troops had been insignificant and is now reduced to only three towns.
“Almost the entire territory of Dnipropetrovsk has been liberated,” Major General Oleksandr Komarenko, Ukraine’s chief strategist, said in televised remarks
In the neighbouring Zaporizhia region, where Moscow had occupied almost three-quarters of the total area and advanced towards the eponymous administrative capital, Ukrainian forces have regained nine towns since January.
According to Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, former deputy head of the Ukrainian military’s General Staff, the gains are “tactical but very meaningful”.
But he told Al Jazeera that while Ukraine “amassed some reserves” to advance in Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhia, Russians keep pushing forward in key areas in Donetsk towards the towns of Sloviansk, Liman, Siversk and Kostiantynivka.
To Romanenko, lower recruitment numbers throughout Russia are key to Moscow’s losses.
“For three months, they’ve had nothing to create their reserves with,” he said.
In 2025, Moscow’s aggressive recruitment fuelled by a persuasive campaign and hefty signing bonuses of tens of thousands of dollars replenished the losses, and the monthly number of newly mobilised servicemen sometimes approached 60,000, he said.
But this year, Russia’s recruitment spree seems to be hobbled by financial problems caused by Western sanctions as the people needed to feed the front line seem exhausted.
Putin’s dilemma
Russian President Vladimir Putin appears wary of a public outcry that would stem from a full-scale mobilisation.
“Putin is afraid of conducting a full mobilisation. He’s looking for other ways,” Romanenko said.
One of them is the forced enlistment of university students, especially ones with low grades, as drone operators.
Several Russian universities from St Petersburg, Russia’s second largest city and Putin’s hometown, to Khabarovsk near the Chinese border, force male students to undergo drone flying training, the Movement of Conscientious Objectors, a Moscow-based rights group, said this month
Sometimes, the universities offer payments of 100,000 rubles ($1,260) a month on top of the Ministry of Defence’s salary if the newly trained operators enlist.