June 8 (Reuters) - Ukrainian forces have recaptured more than 600 square km of territory so far this year, Ukraine's top military commander Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Monday, the latest sign of shifting momentum after years of slow but relentless Russian gains.
In May alone, Ukraine recaptured 100 square km more of territory than it lost, Syrskyi said on the Telegram messaging app.
Syrskyi did not specify where the gains took place, saying only that in certain areas of the 1,200 km (800-mile) frontline, Ukrainian forces continued to maintain the initiative.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy also said last month that Ukraine had recaptured around 600 square km in 2026.
Reuters was not able to verify the assertions. Independently determining lines of territorial control in Ukraine is difficult because of drone warfare that has created a wide no-man's land "kill zone" along the front. But independent groups that map the battlefield have also reported Russia's total advances slowing or reversing in recent months, for the first time since a failed Ukrainian counter-offensive in 2023.
Syrskyi said Russian forces were still trying to advance in the country's east and south, noting that the number of daily battlefield clashes has substantially increased and describing the frontline situation as "difficult and dynamic".
The area around the embattled eastern city of Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to capture fully since mid-2024, was among the most intense places of fighting, he said.
DeepState, an independent Ukrainian battlefield map, has shown Pokrovsk as fully held by Russia for weeks. Russia claimed to have captured it last December.
Syrskyi also singled out the Oleksandrivka and Huliaipole areas in the southeast and south where the heaviest fighting was taking place.
In the initial months after Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukrainian forces recaptured swathes of territory in a series of counterstrikes. But a major Ukrainian counter-offensive failed in 2023, and Moscow has since been making grinding gains.
Ukraine made a push earlier this year in the south and southeast, which analysts have said helped to disrupt Moscow's spring offensive and its efforts around Pokrovsk.
(Reporting by Anna Pruchnicka; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
