territory claimed by russia have been liberated. on sunday ukrainian military commander clanld the army had retaken nearly 1200 square miles in two weeks. by monday the official number had doubled. translator: from the beginning of september until today our soldiers have already liberated more than 6,000 square kilometers of the territory of ukraine in the east and south. the movement of our troops continues. the drastic jump in the news is the fact journalists are being denied access to the front lines. u.s. officials refraining from putting out numbers. they say ukrainian soldiers have pushed the soldiers back. clearly we have seen them go on the offensive in the last couple of weeks and actually regain quite a bit of territory. again, i think i ll stay out of quantifying it in too much detail but they are actually taking territory back certainly over the last two weeks during the counter offensive positions. cnn s matthew chance has more from ukraine and russia.
lesser extent in the south down here. they ve gained even more ground in offensives. president zelenskyy claims they have recaptured some 6,000 square kilometers of territory. it s about 2,300 square miles since the beginning of the month. this is impossible to verify, but it is even more ground than the russians actually gained in the last several months and it happened fast. i want to show you this animation here, if we can zoom in. you can see the yellow there, how quickly ukrainian troops have recaptured territory that had been occupied by the russians. now russia is responding. ukrainian officials say russian strikes knocked out power in the region. in donetsk ukrainian forces also recaptured a town there after forces crossed the donetsk river. this here is the aftermath. the capture will further complicate any attempt by the remaining russian-backed forces to withdraw, and last night secretary of state tony blinken called the recent gains by ukrainians encouraging.
Ahead is what will happen in new york. new york was a key state in the last midterm election in 2022. republicans managed to run the table on key states, key districts, which is why they took back the house but will the lines change ahead of 2024? that s another major, major question, boris, all of which will have a huge impact on whether it s joe biden in the second term or a new republican president, boris. yeah, again, underscores the precarious position that house speaker mccarthy is in. manu raju from capitol hill, thank you very much. brianna. moments ago, vladimir putin will make important statements they called them this after a serious threat to his power in more than 20 years. we ll have more of that ahead on cnn news central.
Himself from the disaster that played out over the weekend. the prime minister, lower people, various people within the kremlin are speaking on his behalf. where they go from here, i think it will be sometime before the dust really settles and we know what happens, the question about the defense minister, does he get replaced or these very big and concerning issues therefore. does the dust necessarily settle given how much the divisions exposed? nick robertson, good to have you on. brianna? let s go to the white house where john kirby is speaking. the united states closely monitored those events with president biden receiving literally hour by hour updates from his national security team throughout the weekend. those updates continue for him.
Was no u.s. or western involvement whatsoever in the rebellion by the wagner group in russia. in the mean sometime the state department saying the u.s. does not know the location of yevgeny prigozhin. i want to bring in senior fellow at the atlantic fellow michael botcheque. matthew miller said it s the most dangerous situation since the beginning of war. you re waiting to see what putin is going to be saying tonight. i wonder considering this isn t a position of strength that he is in, what he is trying to do here to manage this narrative as you see it. good to be with you, brianna ke keilar. i happen to not subscribe to the fact that this was a coup. i would say russian coup question mark. i say this might have been a