Ukraine has declared its counter-offensive in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast complete, and the headline figure comes with a verification gap. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces had recaptured 745 square kilometres (287 square miles) of territory this year, and that the campaign was carried out 'exactly as it was determined'. [1]
The Institute for the Study of War, an independent conflict tracker, puts the reclaimed area lower. It conservatively assessed that Ukraine had clawed back at least 627 square kilometres (242 square miles) in the same area. [1] The two numbers, 745 and 627, are not averaged here; they mark the distance between an official claim and an outside estimate.
Zelenskyy said the Dnipropetrovsk operation alone had liberated 26 settlements and that almost 10,000 Russian soldiers were killed in the process. [1] Al Jazeera also reports, without naming a source, that Russia suffered a reported 39,000 casualties in June and nearly 43,000 in July, described as its highest losses since January 2025. [1] Those monthly counts are unattributed in the reporting, and they are presented here as reported figures rather than verified fact.
