On Wednesday, the Russian military announced the seizure of another village in Ukraine’s eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, marking a significant push into an area that had mostly avoided intense ground operations by Moscow until now.

The Ministry of Defense reported that troops had taken control of the village of Verbove, situated approximately 13 kilometers (about eight miles) into a region that Russia claimed to have entered back in July.

A battlefield map shared by DeepState, an organization run by Ukrainian military analysts, indicates that Russian forces have made a 10-kilometer advance over the past ten days in this sector of the front.

Such rapid progress is notable at this stage of a conflict that has persisted for over three and a half years, during which both parties have struggled to achieve quick advancements along the heavily fortified front lines.

It is important to note that the Dnipropetrovsk region is not among the five Ukrainian regions—Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Crimea—that Moscow has publicly designated as Russian territory.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently expressed concerns that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, continues to aim for the complete annexation of Ukraine.

At present, the Russian military occupies roughly one-fifth of Ukrainian land.

Nevertheless, there have been few significant shifts along the front lines lately, with both sides incurring substantial casualties.

An analysis by AFP, drawing from data from the Institute for the Study of War, reveals that Moscow has gained around 1% of Ukraine’s territory over the last year.