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Today, the biggest news comes from the Kupiansk direction.
Here, Russian forces tried to break into Kupiansk and fully secure it to achieve the Kremlin’s political objective. Unexpectedly for Russians, the Ukrainians are now the ones pushing to slice the Russian grouping in half and encircle them in the city instead.
Brutal urban fighting in Kupiansk is going on day and night from street to street as the Russians are storming the city. Heavy bombardments light up the night, as Russians try desperately to dislodge Ukrainian defenders.
Sergei Kuzovlev, commander of the western troop grouping, recently informed Putin that Russian forces had completed the liberation of Kupiansk after months of intense fighting.
However, in reality, this is merely the extent of their infiltration tactics, as their actual area of control is much narrower and more unstable, as only small Russian infantry pockets are operating in the city. This indicates that their consolidated territorial gains amount to roughly 30 percent of the town, with the area west of the Oskil River remaining a large grey zone due to continuous engagements between Russian infiltrators and Ukrainian defenders.
Russian disadvantages in Kupiansk are twofold. Firstly, logistics are difficult to maintain, because supplies need to be transported over the Oskil River while Ukrainian drones are constantly surveilling the crossings. Secondly, after Russia established a bridgehead on the right bank of the river, they advanced too narrowly into Kupiansk with only small infiltration groups and too few reserves, making their gains unstable. As a result, Russian forces have exhausted their forward momentum and, over the past two months, have managed only to consolidate their hold on a small number of newly captured streets.
In order to mitigate the risk of Kupiansk being fully seized and Ukrainian forces east of the Oskil River becoming isolated, the Ukrainian command has established the Joint Forces Group under the leadership of Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi. In the ranks of this new corps, Ukraine has its most combat-ready and motivated fighters, whose task is to clear the city. Ukraine's strategy emphasizes agility and attrition to hold the line; that is why they launch localized counterattacks to push back the Russians and expand the grey zone, disallowing the attackers to dig in inside Kupiansk.
Firstly, an operation is currently underway to eliminate Russian strongholds in the northern part of the city. Here, the goal is to take these positions back, as these are now cut off from their main supplies and reinforcements, and liberating them would allow the Ukrainians to completely cut the Russian logistics and further inflow of troops into Kupiansk.
Secondly, Ukrainian special forces raids on the river’s eastern bank are identifying Russian staging areas and relaying the information to the air force to strike them. This further degrades their logistics and limits the number of troops able to move across, thereby diminishing their capacity to dislodge the newly established Ukrainian positions.
Thirdly, Ukrainian forces also conduct assault operations in the southwestern and southern parts of Kupiansk. They aim to regain control here by clearing those groups to concentrate the remaining Russians in the north, and prevent them from infiltrating deeper, while also shortening the line of contact.
Taking a look at the topographic map shows that the clearing operation is supported by Ukrainian soldiers and drone operators located on the heights southwest of the city. This hill ridge provides observation points, improved fields of fire, and better signal propagation for the drones, allowing the assault groups in the south to advance with direct and much stronger combat support than the Russians.
These attacks aim to encircle the Russians from 4 directions at the same time, cutting supplies and stopping more Russian troops from infiltrating into the city, before clearing them out completely.
Overall, Russian claims of complete encirclement and full control over Kupiansk are overly exaggerated and don’t resemble the situation on the ground. Despite Russian announcements, most of the city remains in the grey zone, as Russians are unable to bring in a sufficient number of forces and consolidate their gains. Ukraine will not halt its counteroffensive operations because the strategic value of Kupiansk is great, and the loss of the city would pose a threat to the defenders east of the river.
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