Lyubov Lobunets, 77, left her residence in the frontline city in Ukraine of Kupiansk in the month of August when it was hit by a Russian explosive.
“I was in a five-storey building,” she stated, speaking from a centre for the displaced in Kharkiv, close by. “It’s unclear whether it was a Russian missile or bomb that struck the structure, but it ignited a blaze, and when the blaze engulfed my floor, I was stuck because the entrance was broken and I was unable to get out.”
The national defense troops, she said, saved her life. But by then much of Kupiansk, which had a prewar population of 27,000, had evacuated. “In the months before I left, there were a limited number of businesses operating,” she said. “But that last month, the majority of services ceased. All the social services were relocated.”
While attention has centered on the area of Donbas further south and its cities, including the city of Pokrovsk, this northern city in the northern Kharkiv region on the Oskil River has been overlooked. But the steady demise of the city, as it used to be, dragged out over two years and more, is a metaphor for the cities of Ukraine’s frontline, worn down in the teeth of the relentless machinery of Russian aggression.
Vanished is the central market selling preserved fish, bee honey and vegetables. Dwellings that lined the incline are destroyed by artillery. The open areas outside the city alongside the river are scarred by blast pits.
Yet the elderly resident explained her hesitation to evacuate. “I served as a nurse and my monthly stipend is very small,” she said. “I feared of where I would reside and how to survive.”
Up until not long ago a number of her acquaintances had stayed behind despite a compulsory evacuation order, and as street fighting encroached on some of the city’s peripheral areas. Most who do remain in the city centre are grouped close to the sports stadium.
“A few acquaintances contacted to tell me they had ascended to the highest level to secure a phone service,” said the evacuee. “They witnessed buildings all around that had been destroyed and flames all over Kupiansk.”
Taken over in the early period of the widespread Russian invasion, the city was liberated in late 2022, largely undamaged as enemy soldiers pulled back towards the state line.
The devastation followed subsequently, as the invading army sought to capture it once again, subjecting it to aerial and artillery bombardment. Its forces advanced to their current partial encirclement, with Russian troops now in various spots on the river’s western shore.
When the city’s leader, Andrii Besedin, was spoken with previously, it was in his administrative center in the city centre. Now based in Kharkiv, he has been unable to access the city since June.
“The situation are really difficult in Kupiansk. It is on the very edge of fighting. The invading forces are trying to take the city. They are exerting pressure daily. They have hoisted banners at the outskirts of the city and sought to assert that they have secured it, but it stays in the control of Ukrainian forces,” he said.
Currently, he said, there are no buildings that are unharmed and no services function. There is no gas and no electrical supply. “According to our information, there are just over 600 people on the left bank of the Oskil River,” said Besedin. “Evacuations occur on a regular basis, and now the area for evacuation has been expanded because there are enemy forces on the eastern side, which the defense troops is working to remove.”
In the past proclaimed a “heroic city” by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Russian attack and the defense by Ukrainian troops of the city have been intense and harsh.
While Russian forces have faced difficulties crossing the waterway – which in this location is between 10 metres and 30 metres wide – with their tanks and transports, several have gained access to the western bank by moving through abandoned pipelines, a one meter across, Ukrainian forces say.
On the defense side, the brigades in the area have adopted the tactic of dropping razor-sharp nets from their reconnaissance drones to entangle Russian infantry and vehicles who struggle to see and even harder to break free.
For each faction the common application of drones has made navigating in the urban area and the nearby rural areas perilous, not least in vehicles.
In his operations center, Captain “Caesar” and the troops of the designated unit who are engaged just to the north of the city scanned live drone footage of woods and fields on the eastern side of the river for invading forces’ actions.
They instructed a pilot positioned in the combat zone to remain over a dense area of brush and downed trees where they suspected a invading forces’ location might be located. “Observe! Right here. See.” A group of troops gathered around the display. “Might this represent the entrance to a bunker?” They peered, seeking signs of movement. There was none.
“When we arrived here our formation assumed defensive posts that the previous brigade had relinquished,” said the captain. “Since we have been here, we have not yielded any position and now we are having some small successes regaining control.
“The enemy troops started using the pipeline to traverse the waterway at the last part of July, but now each egress to the pipes are under our control. We’ve also witnessed some endeavors to bring vehicles over the waterway, but on every occasion they try to bridge we destroy them.”
The Russian tactic now is to move minimal numbers of soldiers across to {areas
