Russian occupiers increased the occupied area of Ukrainian territory by 14.34 sq km last week, which is almost half as much as the week before last, when they managed to seize 26.31 sq km, maps of the DeepState OSINT project show.
At the same time, on the Huliaipole direction in Zaporizhia region, the pace of advance even increased: the enemy seized 6.61 sq km, compared to 4.07 sq km the week before last.
On the Dobropillia and Kostiantynivka directions in the west of Donetsk region, the pace remained almost unchanged – the occupiers occupied 5.2 sq km there last week, compared to 5.72 sq km the week before last.
On the Sloviansk direction in Donetsk region, the enemy significantly reduced the pace of advance, seizing 2.03 sq km in the area of the village of Riznykivka (compared to 5.51 sq km the week before last), and another 2.14 sq km in the area of the neighboring village of Zakitne.
The pace of the occupiers' advance also slowed down on the Kupiansk direction in Kharkiv region in the area of the village of Pishchane – from 7.56 sq km the week before last to 2.21 sq km at the beginning of last week. At the same time, no enemy advance has been recorded there since the middle of the week. The enemy's advance also ground to a complete halt on the Sumy direction.
Conversely, on the Prydniprovskyi direction in Zaporizhia region, on the former shore of the Kakhovka Reservoir, the area of enemy occupation decreased by 3.85 sq km due to counteroffensive actions of the Defense Forces, as the corresponding section in the area of the urban-type settlement of Stepnohirsk shifted into the so-called penetration zone ("gray zone").
An increase in the penetration zone was observed on most directions where the occupiers advanced, except for the Huliaipole and Dobropillia directions, where it decreased insignificantly but still contracted. In total, the penetration zone grew by 17.41 sq km last week.
On other directions of the front, there were no changes.
Thus, according to DeepState data, every day last week the occupied area grew by an average of approximately 2 sq km per day, and the penetration zone by 2.5 sq km.
The week before last, the occupied area grew by an average of 3.8 sq km per day.
As reported, in the final months of 2025, the average daily growth of the Russian occupied area fluctuated at the level of 8-14 sq km. At the end of January of the current year 2026, it began to decline, and in mid-February, the Defense Forces began gradually pushing the enemy back on the Oleksandrivka direction in Dnipropetrovsk and adjacent districts of Zaporizhia and Donetsk oblasts, managing to repeat this success in May. In the interim, in March, the area of enemy occupation grew by 4-5 sq km per day, and in June by 2-3 sq km per day.
