Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
But it doesn’t get close to his claim that Russia has taken four times the total territory of Ukraine.
The Russian government is vastly exaggerating its battlefield gains in Ukraine.
According to a July 4 report by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the Russian military has taken far less ground than Moscow claims.
Analysts used geolocated evidence to map the front lines. Their maps showed that Russia actually seized just 621 square kilometers since January, a tiny fraction of the 3,000 square kilometers claimed by Vladimir Putin in a meeting with the Russian top brass on July 3.
Part of the plan
This discrepancy is not an accident. ISW explained that the Kremlin is running a deliberate propaganda campaign to make its victory look inevitable. It aims to force Kyiv into making significant concessions.
The tallies are off across the board. Putin stated that his troops captured 133 towns and villages this year.
The think tank countered that Russian forces only entered 64 settlements, and many of those were only partially infiltrated.
The true cost
The tall tales become even more striking when looking at specific months. Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the Russian General Staff, claimed his troops took 636 square kilometers in June alone.
The actual number was closer to 30 square kilometers. That is a massive 21-fold exaggeration.
Behind these fake milestones lies a terrifying human toll. The think tank calculated that Russia lost roughly 1,298 soldiers for every single square kilometer it captured in June.
Continuing at this rate would be catastrophic. To capture the rest of the Donetsk region, Russia would have to sacrifice more than 6.5 million troops.
Not even Putin’s most outrageous claim
It probably does not come as a surprise to many that the Russian leadership is exaggerating its territorial gains in Ukraine in an attempt to divert attention from the stalled campaign.
But the 3,000-square-kilometer claim is not even the most bizarre one made by Putin.
Speaking to international news outlets in early June, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, according to The Moscow Times:
Recently, I will not name the number of settlements now because I am afraid of making a mistake, but roughly 2,440,000 square kilometers have been brought under the control of the Russian army.
The thing is: That figure is more than four times the size of Ukraine’s total territory.
Sensing a massive mathematical blunder, the Kremlin’s web team quickly patched up the statement. Officials deleted the word “thousand” from the official transcript.
This quiet edit instantly reduced the public claim to 2,440 square kilometers.
