You generally get the areas logistically cut off as a bonus, unless they are defended by something like pre-war Azov. And even in that case, despite propaganda advantage, qualified men of Azov could have been used better.

You also start losing territory faster the more your troops are exhausted, and that's important when your population is a third of your enemy's population.

And by exhaustion I mean human losses and morale, and general qualifications dropping. Which is why qualified men of Azov and plenty other units could and should have been used to train new mobilization waves better non-stop while Russians had problems.

And damn fucking obviously with such numeric imbalance the late 2023 attempt at an offensive the Soviet way, with numbers and firepower and not brains, shouldn't have been attempted. That's the "liberated" number. It was very expensive.

What I mean is that right now Ukraine has manpower shortage.

If I were the God-Emperor of Ukraine and could make any kind of decision, I'd devise a new, far shorter line of contact and undertake mass evacuation beyond and near it. I'd perform a planned, organized, in many well thought-out small steps, retreat towards it (preferably laying minefields as vast as life in process). And I'd squeal all over the world that I'm losing the damned war, because if Russia doesn't just implode soon, that will happen.

One ironic thing is - if Russia wins the war, it will soon probably have a coup, or even a restoration of democracy. But Ukraine can't allow Russia to win the war for it to lose the war.