Report: Russia Took 196 Square Km of Ukraine Last Week

 Rescuers work at a site of a private house which was hit by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kharkiv, Ukraine October 29, 2024. (Reuters)
Rescuers work at a site of a private house which was hit by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kharkiv, Ukraine October 29, 2024. (Reuters)
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Report: Russia Took 196 Square Km of Ukraine Last Week

 Rescuers work at a site of a private house which was hit by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kharkiv, Ukraine October 29, 2024. (Reuters)
Rescuers work at a site of a private house which was hit by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kharkiv, Ukraine October 29, 2024. (Reuters)

Russia took 196.1 square km of Ukrainian territory over the week of Oct. 20-27, making it the swiftest weekly advance for Russian forces this year, according to the Russian media group Agentstvo which analyzed Ukrainian open source maps.

The 2-1/2-year-old war in Ukraine is entering what Russian officials say is its most dangerous phase as Russian forces advance and the West ponders how the war will end.

Russian forces, which President Vladimir Putin ordered into Ukraine in February 2022, advanced in September at their fastest rate since March 2022, according to open source data, despite Ukraine taking a part of Russia's Kursk region.

"The Russian army has not had such a rapid weekly advance since at least the beginning of this year," Agentstvo, which is considered by Russia to be a "foreign agent", said on its Telegram channel.

It said it had used raw data from Ukraine's Deep State open-source intelligence analysts to make the conclusion.

Agentstvo said that last week, the Russian army took 95 square kilometers near the town of Vuhledar and 63 square kilometers near the town of Pokrovsk. Both are in the Donbas area of eastern Ukraine.

Agentstvo said that Ukrainian defenses in the Donbas were weakened by Kyiv's decision to send troops into Russia's Kursk region as Russia did not transfer troops from Donbas to Kursk.

The advance of Moscow's forces, which control just under a fifth of Ukraine, has underlined Russia's vast numerical superiority in men and materiel as Ukraine pleads for more weapons from the Western allies that have been supporting it.

Russia controls Crimea, which it annexed from Ukraine in 2014, about 80% of the Donbas - a coal-and-steel zone comprising the Donetsk and Luhansk regions - and over 70% of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.



Florida Man Shot Israeli Visitors Thinking They Were Palestinians, Police Say

 Relatives and supporters of Israelis held hostage by Hamas in Gaza mark 500 days of their captivity by spreading a massive Israeli flag depicting an hourglass in the Mediterranean Sea, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, Feb. 17, 2025. Hebrew of the flag reads "Without the abductees, Israel runs out". (AP)
Relatives and supporters of Israelis held hostage by Hamas in Gaza mark 500 days of their captivity by spreading a massive Israeli flag depicting an hourglass in the Mediterranean Sea, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, Feb. 17, 2025. Hebrew of the flag reads "Without the abductees, Israel runs out". (AP)
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Florida Man Shot Israeli Visitors Thinking They Were Palestinians, Police Say

 Relatives and supporters of Israelis held hostage by Hamas in Gaza mark 500 days of their captivity by spreading a massive Israeli flag depicting an hourglass in the Mediterranean Sea, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, Feb. 17, 2025. Hebrew of the flag reads "Without the abductees, Israel runs out". (AP)
Relatives and supporters of Israelis held hostage by Hamas in Gaza mark 500 days of their captivity by spreading a massive Israeli flag depicting an hourglass in the Mediterranean Sea, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, Feb. 17, 2025. Hebrew of the flag reads "Without the abductees, Israel runs out". (AP)

A Florida man was arrested and charged with two counts of attempted murder after shooting at a vehicle with two men who he thought were Palestinians but turned out to be Israeli visitors, local authorities and media reports said.

The website of Miami-Dade County Corrections says the suspect, 27-year-old Mordechai Brafman, was charged with two counts of attempted murder and booked on Sunday for the shooting on Saturday.

A police official confirmed earlier reports from local media that Brafman said in an interview with police that while he was driving his truck in Miami Beach, he saw two people he thought were Palestinian. He stopped, shot at and killed them.

However, the victims survived. One was shot in the shoulder and the other had a wounded forearm. They turned out to be Israeli visitors and not Palestinians, police said.

A representative or lawyer for Brafman could not be immediately identified by Reuters.

Human rights advocates say there has been a rise in anti-Muslim, anti-Palestinian and antisemitic hate in the United States since the start of US ally Israel's war in Gaza following an Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Palestinian group Hamas.