The Russian advance took place primarily in war-torn Donetsk in the east, where fighting has been going on for almost a year over the city of Pokrovsk.
Russia has taken control of 461 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory in October, according to an AFP analysis of data compiled by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a think tank that tracks the average month-by-month development of the war this year.
The invading forces are estimated to control 81 percent of Donetsk. The region is one of four that Russia said it would annex as early as the fall of 2022, without controlling any of the regions in their entirety. However, parts of Donetsk and the neighboring Luhansk region have been under Russian control since the initial invasion in the east in 2014.
In addition, Russian forces have also advanced in the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region.
In total, 19.2 percent of Ukraine is under Russian control, according to an AFP review. At their peak, at the start of the major invasion in March 2022, it was 27.7 percent.
