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.
Port city of 1 million people. for so long, idea are been hearing from military analysts that any shelling we were seeing in odesa was simply a distraction. that doesn t seem to be the case right now. looks like russia is serious on trying to take ukrainians south on basically making ukraine a land-locked country. for this, we see that some unexplained activity is going on where are local russian proxies reported that ukrainians are targeting transmissia. which is not true. and the frontline city in ukraine s south is also increasingly attacked. we expect russia will continue its offensive in that reej aren.
The approach to this new russian offensive. what do you know about that, matt? reporter: yeah, we re hearing from a general who was senior general in the russian military. he was describing as of yesterday, gives a glimpse of what russia s ambitions in ukraine are. the problem is we don t actually know this is the official plan and if this general actually represents vladimir putin since this is really just one man s war. this is vladimir putin declaring war on ukraine with this invasion. it s been two months, and we re finally hearing that vladimir putin and russia might have the goal of trying to take over the whole eastern part of the country, the donbas region, which has been at war with russian-backed separatists since 2014, as well as the whole southern coast. essentially rendering ukraine a land-locked country, but connecting another region in moldova, neighboring country to the west, of this region has
Collapse of the soviet union was one of the greatest tragedies in recent history. and now taking part of moldova. outside of kyiv, putin s army has withdrawn. if he is to take the entire southern coast, making ukraine a land-locked country, it will require more sieges on more cities and more civilians will be suffering. no doubt about that, matt. thank you. i want to turn now to the deputy mayor of mariupol. sergei, putin is claiming success in your city. we know there are still troops, still civilians in that steel