KYIV — Russian forces are advancing in Ukraine at the fastest rate since the early days of the 2022 invasion, taking an area half the size of Greater London over the past month, analysts and war bloggers say.

The war is entering what some Russian and Western officials say could be its most dangerous phase after Moscow's forces made some of their biggest territorial gains and the United States allowed Kyiv to strike back with US missiles.

"Russia has set new weekly and monthly records for the size of the occupied territory in Ukraine," independent Russian news group Agentstvo said in a report.

The Russian army captured almost 235 sq km in Ukraine over the past week, a weekly record for 2024, it said.

Russian forces had taken 600 sq km in November, it added, citing data from DeepState, a group with close links to the Ukrainian army that studies combat footage and provides frontline maps.

Russia began advancing faster in eastern Ukraine in July, just as Ukrainian forces carved out a sliver of its western region of Kursk.

Since then, the Russian advance has accelerated, according to open source maps.

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