No change in enemy advance speed, yet gray zone widens significantly – DeepState
The Russian occupiers increased the area of control over Ukrainian territory by 59.57 square kilometers over the past week from Monday morning, October 13, to Monday morning, October 20, which indicates a stabilization of the average pace of the occupiers' advance, since the week before last the enemy occupied 60.52 square kilometers, according to maps of the OSINT project DeepState.
If the week before last, the Ukrainian Defense Forces liberated 8.9 square kilometers of territory between the cities of Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka in Donetsk region, where in August the enemy advanced towards the village of Zoloty Kolodiaz, then in the past, according to DeepState, they managed to liberate 2.79 square kilometers.
The enemy, as before, advanced the most in Novopavlivsk axis, where the administrative borders of Zaporizhia, Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk regions converge, where it occupied 31.79 square kilometers last week, almost the same as the week before last (32.15 square kilometers).
The enemy significantly advanced in Lyman and Kupiansk axes in the north of Donetsk and east of Kharkiv regions, where it increased the area of occupation by 14.17 square kilometers (the week before last – by only 6.3 square kilometers), as well as by 0.8 square kilometer – in the area of the town of Vovchansk in Kharkiv region, where no advance has been recorded for several months.
In Siversk and Kostiantynivka axes in the northeast of Donetsk region, the area of occupation increased over the weekend after a week and a half break by 11.49 square kilometers, in Pokrovsk axis during the week it increased by 1.32 square kilometers, but taking into account the liberation of 2.79 square kilometers at the beginning of the week.
The "gray zone" of uncertain control increased the most in Pokrovsky (19.44 square kilometers) and Kupiansk (19.41 square kilometers) directions. The "gray zone" in Milove district (10.12 square kilometers) continued to grow and increased slightly near Vovchansk (0.18 square kilometer) in the north of Kharkiv region along the state border with Russia.
In Kostiantynivka axis, the "gray zone" increased by 3.46 square kilometers, in Novopavlivka axis – by 2.93 square kilometers, in Orikhiv axis – by 4.13 square kilometers, where the occupiers did not advance.
In general, the area of the "gray zone" increased by 51.46 square kilometers per week, while the week before last by only 20.46 square kilometers.
Thus, on average last week the occupiers increased the area of control by an average of 8.51 square kilometers per day, and the "gray zone" increased by an average of 7.35 square kilometers per day.
In the last week of August and the first of September, the area of Russian occupation increased by an average of 10.7 square kilometers per day, which was one and a half times less than in the middle of August. At the beginning of the second week of September, the occupiers' advance actually stopped, but then resumed at a slightly lower pace, which has now stabilized.