By Rostyslav Averchuk
Lviv (EFE).- While the epicenter of the fighting in Ukraine remains in Donetsk, Russian forces have intensified their assault on Kupyansk, an important railway hub in the north-eastern Kharkiv region. Russia is attempting to capture more territory in an area that it does not formally recognize as its own.
Returning Kupyansk, freed by the Ukrainian counter-offensive three years ago, under its control is Russia’s “strategic objective,” Oleksiy Bielskyi, spokesman of Ukraine’s “Dnipro” military command, told Suspilne public broadcaster on Monday.
Russian tactics in Kupyansk
While Ukraine’s “drone wall,” a network of surveillance and attack drones, repels major frontal assaults by the enemy, the latter continues its attempt to infiltrate the city in a tactic reflecting the changing nature of combat.
Bielskyi confirmed that, although the Russian military has not yet established a firm foothold in the city, groups of its soldiers are present on the city’s northern outskirts and are attempting to infiltrate the city center by blending in with the remaining locals while wearing civilian clothes.
To reach the city without detection, the Russians use large, currently unused, gas pipelines that stretch for kilometers and cross the Oskil River, a key natural barrier in the area.
To move inside the pipes, they use self-made “trolleys,” which they push themselves, with the 10-km-long (6.2 miles-long) route to Kupyansk taking about four days, Yuriy Fedorenko, head of the “Achilles” drone regiment, wrote on his Facebook page.
According to him, three of the four pipelines have been destroyed by Ukrainian forces. However, Russian infantry continues to arrive at the outskirts of Kupyansk through the last remaining one, hiding from drones in a forest.
“The Russians are also taking up positions in houses where there are civilians. This limits our ability to destroy them,” a soldier of the Ukrainian Army’s 10th Corps also said in a video published by his unit on Sunday.
A city under siege
While the defenders contain Russian advances, short-range kamikaze drones routinely attack civilians and soldiers alike across Kupyansk, Anatoliy Repsh, sergeant of Ukraine’s 14th brigade, told EFE.
“We have been erecting anti-drone nets over key streets, yet I am afraid this cannot be done anymore,” he said.
Although some 1,800 civilians, out of over 25,000 before the invasion, remain, life is gradually leaving the city, where 95% of buildings have been either destroyed or damaged by Russian attacks, according to local authorities.
Many of the remaining locals, who are mostly elderly or ill, have been afraid to leave their homes and property, wary of a challenging journey and of what awaits them far from home.
Volunteers and police who have been evacuating the locals are no longer able to enter the city due to the presence of Russian sabotage groups and high concentration of drones, Mykola Polianskyi, a civilian volunteer from Kharkiv, told EFE.
He still urges the locals to leave the city on foot to the nearest village: “It is dangerous, but it is better than staying and perishing in the city. Artillery and KABs (guided aerial bombs) won’t spare anyone.”
The battle for Kupiansk still has not reached its peak; however, Polianskyi warns that the city is on course to suffer the same fate as Vovchansk and Bakhmut, reduced to rubble during Russian sieges.
Russian plans disrupted in Sumy
Despite the pressure in Kupiansk, Russian forces have been unable to make any progress in the Kharkiv or Sumy regions, both of which are close to the border with Russia. Last spring, Russia said it would seek to create a security zone along this border.
“Fighting continues in the border areas of the Sumy region, but the Russian group has lost offensive capabilities as a result of the losses,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said during the weekend, amid reports of successful counter-attacks by the Ukrainian army.
However, Ukrainian military analysts note that Russia is unlikely to have abandoned its plans to capture more territories in regions that it does not formally claim as its own. EFE
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