File image.
The Russian military has begun to advance in the center of Kupyansk in the Kharkiv direction, according to reports from October 9, amid intense strikes targeted Ukrainian positions inside the city and supply routes nearby.
The Zapad [West] Group of Forces has reportedly taken over the bus station in the heart of Kupyansk, mounting more pressure on Kiev forces who are currently cornered in a narrow strip in the center of the key city, mainly along the Privokzalnaya street connected to the southern entrance.
Ukrainian troops in Kupyansk continue to show resistance. However, this mainly due to the deployment of blocking detachments by Kiev forces.
Vitaly Ganchev, head of the Kharkiv Military State Administration, told TASS that around 70% of Kupyansk is already under the control of the Zapad Group of Forces, revealing that around a 1,000 civilians were still in the city.
“[In Kupyansk] a forced evacuation was declared, meaning people were effectively driven from their homes when mercenaries and armed Ukrainian gangs occupied these positions. We’re receiving information from the military that there are up to 1,000 civilians there,” Ganchev said.
He clarified that the city’s remaining population consists primarily of elderly people and those with mobility issues, meaning those who Kiev forces couldn’t force to leave.
“We are currently unable to make a specific assessment or speak with these people due to the ongoing fighting,” Ganchev noted.
The push into the center of Kupansk is being facilitated by intense strikes. Recent videos from there show guided missile and glide bombs hitting buildings occupied by Kiev forces in the center of the city and its outskirts, as well as suicide drones hitting Ukrainian military vehicles attempting to bring in reinforcements or supplies.
An additional video shows a strike on a Ukrainian crossing on the Oskil River near the area of Osinovo, just a few kilometers to the south of Kupyansk.
This particular strike indicates that the Zapad Group of Forces may be planning to besiege Ukrainian troops fighting in the pocket to the east of the Kupyansk-Kolisnykivka line.
All recent developments indicate that the Russian military will take over Kupyansk soon. Ukraine’s best bet is to pull out and reorganize defenses around the city. However, as usual with Kiev, this will not likely happen.
The most likely scenario is that Ukraine will send in more reinforcements, worsening its human manpower problem and weakening other more defensible fronts, in an attempt to hold onto the falling city to avoid backlash from the media. Of course, this could slow the advance of Russian troops, but the city will eventually be captured.
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for a few days now, the “like/dislike” feature has been disabled in the comments section of southfront articles.
i think this is a mistake, since rating rewards good comments and degrades intrusions by trolls and spammers.
the “like/dislike” feature also helps us, at a glance, avoid wasting time reading trash.
russian patience has been severely tested by the pirate cartel. so called ghost shipping ( not insured by lloyds of london ) are another new target of the central banking cartel in the baltic. the russian people must be furious
so-called shadow-fleet turned into ghost-fleet in western bs-media-speak?