Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
Not the best strategy if you want to be portrayed as telling the truth …
Speaking to international news heads, Russian President Vladimir Putin painted a triumphant picture. He claimed his forces are moving forward every day.
The Moscow Times reported that the Russian leader even asserted his army had seized an impossible amount of land.
“Recently, I will not name the number of settlements now because I am afraid of making a mistake, but roughly two thousand four hundred forty thousand square kilometers have been brought under the control of the Russian army,” Putin stated according to The Moscow Times.
The thing is: That figure is over four times the size of Ukraine’s total territory.
Sensing a massive mathematical blunder, the Kremlin web team quickly patched up the statement. Officials deleted the word “thousand” from the official transcript. This quiet edit instantly shrunk the public claim down to 2,440 square kilometers.
The official line
Beyond that, Putin insisted his troops had fully captured the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic.
He declared that Ukrainian control in Donetsk had shrunk to less than 15 percent.
To round out his claims, he added that Russia now controls 80 percent of the Zaporizhzhia region.
But independent data tells a completely different story. Reports from the Institute for the Study of War show that Moscow is actually losing land. In April, the Russian military suffered a net loss of 116 square kilometers, which grew to 281.1 square kilometers in May.
For the first time since the 2023 Ukrainian counteroffensive, Russian forces have seen their front lines shrink. In just two months, the army lost almost everything it captured during its winter push. From December to May, Russia gained just 40.64 square kilometers.
Behind the lines
Several major battlefield shifts explain why the Russian advance stalled. Experts point to aggressive Ukrainian counterattacks and a massive surge in drone strikes. Tech issues also hit Russian forces, including the blocking of Starlink terminals and front-line restrictions on Telegram.
The Pentagon has backed up these findings. According to US military reports, Ukraine recaptured roughly 400 square kilometers during the early months of 2026.
Why is the Russian leader making such inflated claims? A source close to the Kremlin told The Guardian that military officials are simply painting a rosy picture.
“They’re lying to him. That’s how the system Putin has built works,” the source noted.
