"Kupiansk is yours." How Ukraine retook a strategic city in Kharkiv Oblast – and the secret behind the operation
For Sonik, Molfar, and everyone who fought for Kupiansk so that it would not become Russia's gateway to Kharkiv
When Valery Gerasimov, Chief of Russia's General Staff, and Sergei Kuzovlyov, Commander of the West Group of Forces, reported to Vladimir Putin that Kupiansk had been "liberated" on 20 November 2025, a 27-year-old Ukrainian intelligence officer known as Shaman had already been at work in the city for a month.
Shaman's team had slipped into Kupiansk from the north on 26 October, entering via the village of Radkivka, and spent several weeks methodically searching apartment blocks for Russian troops. On 27 October, in driving rain, they moved on to mop up the industrial zone.
"The city was devastated," Shaman told Ukrainska Pravda. "There were bodies everywhere. Before the war I used to go to Kupiansk several times a week – I used to work as a driver. I remember what it was like. Now it's horrific."
During their first mission, which lasted several weeks, Shaman's group killed four Russian soldiers at close range and captured four more.
"The whole time those f**kers thought everything was under their control, we were working right under their noses," Shaman said. "I remember the Russians saying [on the news]: 'Kupiansk is ours.' We looked at each other and were like: sure, if you say so. When we spoke to POWs later, it was clear they'd been completely brainwashed by the propaganda."
It wasn't just their own propaganda that had lulled the Russians into a false sense of security: Ukraine's silence had helped too.
The search-and-destroy unit within the Khartiia National Guard Brigade to which Shaman belonged did its utmost to keep its successful counterattacks out of the news – and (with a few exceptions) off the map regularly updated by the Ukrainian military analyst group DeepState.
And it worked. Everyone from the Russian soldiers crawling out of a gas pipeline to the Kremlin leader himself believed (or pretended to believe) the big Russian lie: Kupiansk had been "taken". On 9 December 2025, champagne glass in hand, Putin awarded Sergei Kuzovlyov, the commander of Russia's West grouping, a Hero of Russia star at a so-called heroes' ceremony, apparently for the capture of Kupiansk.
Meanwhile, Shaman's group was setting out on another mission near the 1.2-metre-wide gas pipeline that had been the Russians' main route into the city since late summer. By then, Ukrainian forces had already regained control of more than half of Kupiansk.
The Russian lie – and Ukraine's silence – finally cracked when President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a surprise visit to Kupiansk. On 12 December – Ukrainian Ground Forces Day – he recorded a video beside the city's entrance sign. Khartiia later announced that Russian troops inside Kupiansk had been encircled.
Newly-minted Hero of Russia Sergei Kuzovlyov was forced to push the city's supposed "liberation" back to "January or February", a deadline that has not, thankfully, been met.
International media headlines branded the episode a "humiliation for Putin" – and that's exactly what it was, as well as a victory for Ukraine's defenders.
But that wasn't the whole story.
In this report, Ukrainska Pravda explains how Ukraine's forces lost control of Kupiansk; how Russian troops seeped into the city and stayed hidden for months; what the operation set out to achieve; and the roles played by Khartiia commander Ihor Obolienskyi and Mykhailo Drapatyi, Commander of Ukraine's Joint Forces.
Ukraine's Kupiansk operation began in late August 2025, and as of mid-February 2026, it is still underway.
Its objective is to regain control of Kupiansk, a key transport hub with direct road and rail links to Kharkiv and a road south via Izium towards Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.
"If Kupiansk falls, convoys of Russian military equipment will roll straight through it," a battalion commander involved in the mop-up operation told Ukrainska Pravda.
Kupiansk sits on both banks of the Oskil River. Russian forces had infiltrated and entrenched themselves on the right (west) bank – the side closer to Ukraine's rear. The left (east) bank was, and remains, under Ukrainian control.
Sources have told Ukrainska Pravda that between 100 and 250 Russian soldiers are estimated to have slipped into the city at the start of the operation. That number may sound small, but in dense urban terrain, a force of that size is difficult to detect and dislodge. At the time, responsibility for Kupiansk's defence on the Ukrainian side lay with the 10th Army Corps, commanded by Brigadier General Serhii Perets.
Two temporary task forces played a central role in the operation to retake Kupiansk and the villages to its north.
The first was the search-and-destroy group set up within Khartiia on the initiative of Colonel Ihor Obolienskyi, Commander of the 2nd Khartiia Corps, and led by corps officer Colonel Serhii Sidorin. It comprised the Khartiia corps headquarters and part of the brigade itself, the 475th Assault Regiment (known as Code 9.2), elements of the 92nd Brigade, and the 144th Separate Mechanised Brigade.
The second was the Kupiansk Tactical Group, created on the initiative of Mykhailo Drapatyi, then commander of the Dnipro Operational Strategic Group and later Commander of the Joint Forces in Kharkiv Oblast. The group was commanded by Drapatyi's deputy, Brigadier General Viktor Solimchuk.
The Kupiansk Tactical Group comprised the depleted 125th Brigade; units from the 101st, 104th and 116th Brigades that were holding the city's defences; the 127th Brigade; the 151st Reconnaissance Battalion; and detachments from the Special Operations Forces, the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) and the Military Law Enforcement Service, which were involved in the mop-up operations.
At present, most of the mop-up operation is being carried out by an infantry battalion from the 425th Skelia Regiment and elements of the 101st Brigade. The work of both groupings was authorised by Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine's Commander-in-Chief.
The Times reported that the "kill ratio" during the Kupiansk operation was 1 to 27 in Ukraine's favour – a remarkable result, if that is the right word.
As of 25 February 2026, the operation is still ongoing, though at a slower pace. It's thought that a few dozen Russian troops are still in the city, and there are up to 10 buildings that have yet to be mopped up.
This is Ukraine's second battle for Kupiansk. The first was in September 2022, when Ukrainian forces retook the city during the Kharkiv counteroffensive after eight months of Russian occupation.
The quiet loss of Kupiansk
Russia's slow push towards Kupiansk began in late 2024, when occupying forces crossed the Oskil River by boat and established a foothold on the right bank – about 20 km north of the city, in the village of Novomlynsk, near Dvorichna.
From there, Russian troops steadily picked off the nearby villages and built up forces above Kupiansk. At times, they also built their own crossings over the river.
But the biggest danger still lay ahead.
Six months later, in late summer 2025, the Russians found a new, simpler route to Kupiansk: the now-notorious "pipeline".
This was the decommissioned Shebelynka-Ostrogozhsk main gas pipeline linking Ukraine and Russia, which runs a couple of kilometres north of the city, crosses the Oskil, and connects to a compressor station in Kupiansk.
In the past, Russia used this pipeline to supply gas to residents of Kharkiv Oblast. Reports about the first "gas war" with Russia in early January 2009 (still available online) describe a drop in pressure across the oblast after the Ostrogozhsk branch was shut off.
Oleh Shapovalov, then deputy head of Kharkiv Oblast State Administration, is cited as saying: "We are receiving 1.1 million fewer cubic metres of gas every hour."
In 2009 Russia used the Shebelynka-Ostrogozhsk pipeline merely to blackmail the people of Kharkiv Oblast; in 2025 it used it to kill them. Ukrainian investigators have established that in early October, a regimental commander, Andrei Sirotyuk, gave orders that some civilians who were attempting to evacuate the city should be shot.
The exact number of civilians killed since Russian troops began infiltrating Kupiansk remains unknown.
Russian troops entered the pipeline near Lyman Pershyi on the left bank of the Oskil and emerged closer to Radkivka on the right bank.
Footage released by the 429th Achilles Separate Unmanned Systems Regiment – deployed to the Kupiansk front in April 2025 – shows Russians appearing as if from underground. In fact, they were climbing out through pre-cut openings in the pipeline.
DeepState reported that some crawled for several kilometres inside the 1.2-metre-wide pipeline, while others used improvised wheeled boards. Ukrainian Pravda sources in the military said a number of them emerged "half-dead" after breathing in gas condensate fumes.
Will Russia unveil a monument to the pipeline in "honour" of this operation? It wouldn't be the first time. In 2025, a section of pipeline was installed as part of an exhibition celebrating a similar operation in which Russian troops crawled through an unused gas pipeline to reach Sudzha in Kursk Oblast.
After surfacing near Radkivka, the Russian troops regrouped in the dense woodland around the village. From there, under the cover that the forest provides in late summer and early autumn, they moved down into Kupiansk itself, roughly a kilometre to the south.
By mid-August, Russian forces had seized the key villages surrounding Kupiansk – Moskovka, Radkivka, Kindrashivka and Holubivka – and dug in within the dense forests nearby, occupying former Ukrainian positions. In effect, the Russians began to outflank the city from the north.
Why was the Shebelynka-Ostrogozhsk gas pipeline never blown up or flooded? How was it that Russian troops were able to use a pipeline as a covert route for the third time after Avdiivka and Sudzha?
According to Ukrainska Pravda sources, engineers from the Khartiia unit studied the pipeline in detail, even consulting former local employees. But all attempts to destroy it failed, at least during the active phase of the Kupiansk operation – whether by drone strikes, multiple rocket launchers, airstrikes or blowing it up from the inside. The only option left to Ukrainian forces has been to identify the exit points used by Russian troops – which change regularly – and eliminate them as they emerge.
"I estimate that in the last 100 days, nearly 600 of the f**kers have attempted to reach the city," one officer from the Kupiansk Tactical Group said in late February. "Only eight made it, and only three of them arrived uninjured. A few come down from the river [from Dvorichna], but most come out of the pipeline."
Once in Kupiansk, the Russian troops' task was to hide in the city and gather intelligence on Ukrainian troop deployments and movements. They rarely engaged in direct firefights; some did not even wear body armour.
"At that stage they were focused purely on reconnaissance. They were preparing for a full takeover, waiting for reinforcements and [UAV] operators to move in," another senior officer explained.
It was part of a broader infiltration strategy.
In 2025, Kupiansk, along with Pokrovsk, became one of the clearest examples of how such tactics are used on the battlefield.
It is not possible to survive for months in a hostile city without supplies – food, warm clothing, even ammunition.
Sadly, some civilians helped the Russians. They guided Russian soldiers through the city and showed them where food, ammunition and generators could still be found, our source in the Kupiansk Tactical Group said.
Shaman from Khartiia recalled: "One Russian soldier that we interrogated – he was about 20 or 21 – said they lived in a basement with some civilians: five elderly women and one old man. They went round the apartments looking for warm clothes and took it all down to the basement, because it was getting cold. He said there was a strike from the Russian side; he tried to save them [the civilians] but couldn't. He moved them [their bodies] into another room and covered them up. Later, we found that room."
How did Russian forces manage to infiltrate such a large urban area, reaching even its western outskirts? And why were Ukraine's defence forces unable to stop them?
Some officers who are more sympathetic towards Serhii Perets, the commander of the 10th Army Corps, say the main reason for the temporary loss of control over Kupiansk was the shortage of well-trained personnel capable of holding the line. The units stationed there at the time included brigades from the Territorial Defence Forces and relatively weak mechanised units, which struggled to cope with the defence.
According to soldiers involved in the mop-up operations north of Kupiansk, some Ukrainian troops avoided direct combat due to inexperience and fear. Some positions were effectively surrounded because the Russian infiltration was so deep.
"In Kindrashivka [one of the villages near Kupiansk], there'd be those f**kers in one house, our guys in another – and they had three times as many houses as we did," one officer said. "That's what the defence was like. It was just personnel [Ukrainian units] who weren't making combat decisions or actually fighting."
Another added: "We asked the troops on the northern edge: 'You realise the enemy is behind you?' They said: 'Yes, but they're not firing at us and we're not firing at them either.'"
Other officers who are more critical of the 10th Army Corps command argue that the leadership effectively "lost" Kupiansk and concealed the real situation in the city and to the north in order to maintain an illusion of control.
Ukrainska Pravda approached the 10th Army Corps communications office for comment, but has not yet received a response. We will update this piece when we receive one.
"F**k! The Ukes are counter-attacking"
The Kupiansk operation itself effectively began in summer 2025.
Judging by the arguments on Ukrainian Facebook, there are two competing versions of how it all started.
Ukrainska Pravda sources in the Khartiia Corps say they were the first to notice the growing threat to Kupiansk in July and August and asked Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi to redeploy them from the Lypsti front. They proposed blocking the infiltration routes, retaking the high ground north of the city, and eventually conducting mop-up operations in Kupiansk itself.
Syrskyi was said to be initially sceptical about the risk of losing the city, but given Khartiia's earlier successes in the Serebrianka Forest and near Lypsti, he agreed.
"It was described in the reports as a 'police operation' – like we just had to go in and clear a couple of buildings. That was done so they [the 10th Army Corps] wouldn't have to report to the president that the city was lost," one senior Khartiia officer explained. "If there are saboteurs in the city, it's a counter-sabotage operation, right? But in reality the city had to be liberated with a full military operation."
In August 2025, Ihor Obolienskyi sent one of the strongest units – the drone-assault regiment known as Code 9.2, commanded by Oleksandr "Flint" Nastenko – to the area north of Kupiansk. They were the first to start mop-up operations successfully, together with a company from Khartiia.
A source from the Code 9.2 command told Ukrainska Pravda: "Our immediate goal was to cut off the infiltration routes. There were two main ones: the pipeline, and the river [Russians coming down from Dvorichna, where they were crossing by boat – ed.].
First we had to clear Moskovka [a village north-west of Kupiansk] because they had reached the asphalt road there. After that, we needed to secure two forest areas – one of them was near Kindrashivka. We cleared the forest in Kindrashivka with the 92nd Brigade."
Later, on 20-22 September, Obolienskyi set up the separate Khartiia search-and-destroy group headed by corps officer Serhii Sidorin.
Sidorin had only just transferred into the Khartiia Corps after what Ukrainska Pravda sources describe as his unjust removal as commander of the Rubizh Brigade.
At roughly the same time, Mykhailo Drapatyi's team also turned their attention to the Russian infiltration into the city. At that point, Drapatyi was commanding the Dnipro Operational-Strategic Group, which was responsible for a large section of the active line of contact. A few months later, in October 2025, he redeployed to Kharkiv Oblast, where he took command of the Joint Forces.
After receiving intelligence about the build-up of Russian troops in Kupiansk, Drapatyi's team also approached Syrskyi and received authorisation to save the city. Drapatyi then initiated the creation of the Kupiansk Tactical Group and appointed his deputy, Viktor Solimchuk, to command it.
The group, led by Solimchuk, started work at around the end of September 2025, sources in its leadership told Ukrainska Pravda.
Solimchuk divided the city into six sectors and assigned them to various units for clearance, including Territorial Defence Forces brigades, mechanised units (with the 127th Heavy Mechanised Brigade standing out in particular), Ukrainian Military Law-Enforcement Service personnel, special forces and others.
Technically, the Kupiansk operation involved:
1) driving Russian troops out of the villages and dense forests north of Kupiansk – Tyshchenkivka, Kindrashivka, Radkivka, Myrne and Moskovka – where Russian forces had built up
2) advancing towards the Oskil River and taking control of the pipeline that the Russians were using to cross to the right bank; cutting off their routes from the pipeline into Kupiansk
3) advancing towards the village of Dvorichna and blocking the northern (effectively the "second") route the Russians were using to reach Kupiansk
4) clearing Russian troops from Kupiansk itself – an extremely challenging task given the dense urban development, including multi-storey buildings.
The hardest part of the Kupiansk operation was most likely pushing the Russians out of the forests around the city. Fighting in dense woodland – especially when the trees are in leaf – is extremely challenging. All the more so given that at the start of the operation, the Russians had deployed UAV operators and even mortars there.
That said, in the early weeks of the operation, the Ukrainian units – particularly Code 9.2, which did the bulk of the work – benefited from the element of surprise.
A source in the Code 9.2 command told Ukrainska Pravda: "During their time in those villages and forests, the Russians had become so relaxed that they didn't even realise a new enemy force had entered the area and begun fighting. In intercepted communications, we heard them saying in surprise: 'F**k! The khokhly [an ethnic slur used by Russians for Ukrainians] are counter-attacking.'
There were days when we killed up to 30 enemy soldiers in a single day. We killed over 800 Russians in three months."
Within the first couple of months of the Kupiansk operation, Ukraine's defence forces brought the pipeline route – through which Russian troops had been crawling under the river, moving into the forests near Radkivka and then heading down towards Kupiansk – almost fully under control (as described in the previous section).
However, they were never able to completely block the second route the Russians used to reach the city – crossing the river by boat near the village of Dvorichna.
At the start of the operation, one of the defence units, exploiting the element of surprise, pushed rapidly towards Dvorichna itself. However, due to a lack of reinforcements to move in and hold the recaptured positions, they were forced to withdraw.
Ukraine's defence forces have had to abandon the option of advancing towards Dvorichna for the time being because of the shortage of personnel.
In parallel with the active assault operations being conducted north of Kupiansk by the Khartiia group, units from the Kupiansk Tactical Group were mopping up the city itself. There were Russians to be driven out even in its western outskirts.
It is important to emphasise that the Russians never had full control over Kupiansk. Their troops could be holding positions in one building while Ukrainian forces were stationed in the next. This is a striking consequence of infiltration and of what the war became in 2025 – and how it will continue to be in 2026.
The Russians in Kupiansk hid in small groups of 2-6 soldiers. They would usually leave one or two fighters on an upper floor for observation, while the main force stayed in the basement.
A battalion commander from the 127th Brigade, which entered the city from the south for mop-up operations, told Ukrainska Pravda: "During the mop-up, we found [Russians] in wardrobes and under beds. One of them… the lads had mopped up the building and reported it was all done, but we could see from intercepted communications that someone was still transmitting [a radio signal]. It turned out he'd hidden in a bath and lived like that alongside us for two days."
In late October and early November, Khartiia's 1st Battalion, previously deployed in the northern forests and villages, joined in mopping up Kupiansk. At the end of November, Khartiia's 4th Battalion – made up of foreign fighters, mostly Colombians – joined as well. Thus the two formations, Khartiia and Kupiansk, began working together.
Shaman from Khartiia, who entered the city at the end of October, said: "No matter how hard it was, we always found something to laugh about. Once we were waiting for a ground robotic system to arrive for a Cargo 300 [wounded soldier] in a serious condition, and it brought three little goats with it! We decided to keep them to warm ourselves up; they stayed with us in the dugout for half the night, jumping all over us.
And once I was on duty and heard someone sneaking up. I looked through the thermal imager and saw two eyes… it was the shepherd dog we had taken in! My heart nearly stopped," he added, laughing.
Our sources say that around half of the Russian soldiers entrenched in the city engaged in small-arms combat during the mop-up operations. They were far less likely to surrender. Meanwhile, the Russians were mining the city remotely using drones, turning it into a booby-trap even after their retreat.
On 3 November 2025, Shaman's comrade, Illia "Sonik" Samborskyi, was killed at the age of 23 by indiscriminate Russian fire while mopping up a multi-storey building in Kupiansk. On 7 December, another of Shaman's comrades, 23-year-old Andrii "Molfar" Oleshchuk, was blown up on a Russian mine on the final day of a combat deployment.
Shaman talked to us about his friends. "Half a day before Sonik was killed, we went to a neighbouring unit to get some rest. He lay on the bed, and I lay on the floor in my jacket. At night, I woke up because he'd covered me up. He was like a brother to me.
Molfar and I joined the unit a week apart, and we seemed to move in parallel all the time – working and training. On 2 December, we all celebrated his birthday together – it was his 23rd."
The mop-up of Kupiansk was complicated by local residents who, regrettably, had not evacuated in time. Not only were they putting their lives at risk, they also blended in with the Russian soldiers, who wore civilian clothing to hide in the city.
The 127th Brigade, which had begun assault operations in Kupiansk in October 2025, witnessed an episode worthy of the movies. While mopping up an apartment building in the south of the city, the soldiers came across two children aged 8 and 11 who had been hiding in the city with their mother and grandmother the whole time.
The brigade had to assign a soldier who agreed – unarmed and wearing civilian clothes so as not to attract the Russians' attention – to escort the family out… along with two other elderly women who ran out of the basement at the last minute, carrying bags and improvised white flags, and followed them.
So it was that in November 2025, two children and four adults left the city on foot.
On 12 January, Khartiia servicemen raised the Ukrainian flag over Kupiansk City Council. As of the end of February, up to 10 buildings remain uncleared; 99% of Kupiansk is under the control of Ukraine's defence forces. The complete mop-up may take several more weeks – or months.
The Khartiia search-and-destroy group killed more than 1,500 Russian troops in the course of the operation, the Kupiansk Tactical Group around 400. In total, Russia lost nearly 2,000 soldiers.
Ukraine's defence forces had thwarted the Russians' plan to seize this key transport hub in Kharkiv Oblast and prevented a repeat of the 2022 scenario. But the ultimate objective of the operation, as far as Ukrainska Pravda is aware, has yet to be achieved.
Why the Kupiansk operation succeeded
The greatest secret of the Kupiansk operation's success was likely its planning, from choosing units with enough capability and resources to mop up complex wooded terrain, to the sequence of strikes – "closing off" the enemy's infiltration points, gaining control of higher ground, and ultimately conducting the mop-up.
While working on this article, we had the opportunity to spend two days observing the work of Khartiia's headquarters – both the search-and-destroy group and the corps – and we can report that every officer at every level did exceptional work.
We saw large-scale physical battlefield modelling, dozens of personnel monitoring combat developments in real time, a corps commander reviewing all possible scenarios of movement (his own forces' and the Russians') on his personal map, and a comprehensive report on the state of the Shebelynka-Ostrogozhsk gas pipeline and the potential impact on it.
In the course of this work, we couldn't help thinking that the Kupiansk operation is, to some extent, a mirror of the Pokrovsk operation.
It may seem somewhat controversial to compare the Kupiansk operation with the mop-up of Pokrovsk. Kupiansk is smaller, and it has a natural barrier in the form of a river and only one main infiltration route. Moreover, Kharkiv Oblast is not the primary direction of Russia's advance.
But it is a good example of how control over a city can be effectively regained instead of belatedly putting out yet another fire.
Furthermore, both cities were infiltrated by a similar number of Russian troops – up to 250 in Kupiansk versus 100-130 in Pokrovsk (as of the first Russian incursion into Pokrovsk in late July 2025).
The key differences in approaches were:
1) Pokrovsk was mopped up from the inside, which produced only a temporary result, whereas in Kupiansk, the infiltration point into the city was sealed off first, which had a long-term effect. Now, only the odd Russian soldier manages to reach Kupiansk.
Sources on the Pokrovsk front told Ukrainska Pravda that the Air Assault Forces Command had also planned to block the Russian entry points into Pokrovsk, but this proved impossible due to Russia's total control of the skies.
2) During the initial phase of Russian infiltration in summer 2025, Pokrovsk was mopped up by the same units that were holding the line of defence, i.e. exhausted brigades, whereas the units deployed to the most problematic area north of Kupiansk were new, strong and well-supplied.
The Ukrainian forces in and south of Pokrovsk only began receiving reinforcements in autumn – and by then it was too late.
Perhaps the only exception to the otherwise high level of organisation of the Kupiansk operation, so far as Ukrainska Pravda is aware, was the tragic attempt by fighters from the 425th Skelia Separate Assault Regiment to break through by vehicle towards the Oskil River north of Kupiansk.
Officers involved told Ukrainska Pravda that the Skelia fighters came to reinforce the Kupiansk front at Khartiia's request – to make a new push towards the river. But they refused to coordinate their manoeuvre with Khartiia, and they ignored its advice regarding the risks of moving across open terrain in vehicles.
Khartiia was ordered to provide Skelia with two M113 armoured vehicles and drivers, leaving the planning and execution of the breakthrough to the assault troops themselves. Ukrainska Pravda was told that one of the Skelia fighters turned up at the departure point without a helmet – completely unprepared.
Both M113s were attacked by the Russians the day they set out. The Khartiia drivers survived. They walked the entire route on the brigade's insistence and thus managed to return to their positions. Several Skelia fighters were seriously wounded; most were killed.
"But what I can say is that it was thanks to Skelia's push that we managed to take the forest. They drew a lot of attention to themselves," a source in the Code 9.2 unit added, revealing a little-known detail.
After the publication of this article, the press service of the Skelia Regiment contacted Ukrainska Pravda, stating that the Khartiia Brigade headquarters, "despite the obvious risks of moving equipment across open terrain", had approved their fighters' attempt to break through to the north of Kupiansk in two M-113s.
"If the risks were known, then the Khartiia command approved an operation in which the distraction of the enemy was to be achieved at the cost of the lives of assault troops of the Skelia Regiment and Khartiia personnel," Skelia said in the comment.
Following this attempt, Skelia, operating as a company tactical group, worked in Kupiansk for two months, mopping up the Yuvileinyi residential district, the machine-building plant, the area around the bus station, and the central hospital complex.
***
There are many elements to the story of the retaking of Kupiansk.
It's a story of Russian lies – lies told to their own and to others. And Ukrainian silence, which for the third time, after the Kharkiv and Kursk operations, has worked in favour of Ukraine's defence forces.
Excellent planning – something we rarely hear about from our sources.
And the "division" of victory, which at times overshadowed the joy of the result itself. But the result is this: Kupiansk is once again under the control of Ukraine's defence forces. And Kharkiv, at least for now, is relatively safe.
Olha Kyrylenko, Ukrainska Pravda
Translated by Ganna Bryedova, Tetiana Buchkovska and Yelyzaveta Khodatska
Edited by Teresa Pearce