Lyubov Lobunets, 77, evacuated her residence in the war-torn Ukrainian city of Kupiansk in August when it was struck by a explosive from Russian forces.
“I was in a five-storey building,” she shared, talking from a centre for the displaced in Kharkiv, close by. “I don’t know whether it was a Russian missile or bomb that struck the structure, but it started a fire, and when the fire spread to my floor, I was stuck because the exit was blocked and I couldn’t escape.”
The national defense troops, she said, rescued her. But by then a large part of the city, which had a population before the war of twenty-seven thousand, had departed. “Before I finally evacuated, there were a few shops working,” she said. “But that final month, nearly all establishments shut down. All the social services were evacuated.”
Despite the concentration on the Donbas region further south and its cities, including Pokrovsk, Kupiansk in the Kharkiv’s northern area on the Oskil river has drawn less attention. But the slow death of Kupiansk, as it used to be, continued over two years and more, is a metaphor for the urban areas of Ukraine’s frontline, ground in the grip of the relentless machinery of Russian aggression.
Vanished is the small city centre market selling preserved fish, honey and fresh produce. Homes that lined the incline are wrecked by shells. The countryside outside the city bordering the river are scarred by shell holes.
Yet the elderly resident shared her unwillingness to depart. “I worked as a nurse and my retirement income is quite limited,” she said. “I was afraid of where I would reside and how I’d manage.”
Up until not long ago several people she knew had chosen to remain despite a mandatory evacuation directive, and as urban combat advanced into some of the city’s peripheral areas. The majority of those still there in the city centre are clustered close to the sports complex.
“A few acquaintances rang to tell me they had climbed up to the upper story to get a mobile phone connection,” said Lobunets. “They could see edifices throughout the area that had been destroyed and blazes across the city.”
Occupied in the early period of Moscow’s broad offensive, the city was freed in late 2022, mostly intact as enemy soldiers retreated towards the state line.
The ruin came later, as Moscow tried to seize it a second time, exposing it to bombing and shelling. Its forces moved forward to their ongoing semi-blockade, with enemy soldiers now in various spots on the western side of the Oskil River.
When the city’s leader, Andrii Besedin, was interviewed two years ago, it was in his workplace in the city centre. Now based in Kharkiv, he has failed to return to the city since last June.
“The circumstances are really difficult in the city. It is on the real ‘zero line’ of hostilities. The enemy troops are trying to take the city. They are exerting pressure every day. They have put up flags at the outskirts of the city and sought to assert that they have captured it, but it stays in the control of Ukrainian forces,” he said.
Currently, he said, there are no buildings that are intact and nothing works. There is no gas and no power. “According to our information, there are around six hundred residents on the left bank of the river,” said Besedin. “People are being moved out daily, and now the relocation perimeter has been widened because there are enemy forces on the right shore, which the armed forces is trying to push out.”
Formerly declared a “place of valor” by the nation’s leader, President Zelenskyy, the Russian attack and the defense by Ukrainian troops of the city have been intense and harsh.
While invading troops have faced difficulties crossing the Oskil River – which in this area is between 10 to 30 meters across – with their tanks and transports, a number have reached the opposite shore by sneaking via old utility conduits, a metre in diameter, Ukrainian forces say.
On the defense side, the troop formations in the region have utilized the strategy of dropping bladed barriers from their reconnaissance drones to trap Russian infantry and vehicles who have trouble to spot and more challenging to escape them.
For both sides the common application of aerial devices has made moving about in the city and the outlying regions perilous, not least in cars and trucks.
In his command bunker, Capt “Caesar” and the military personnel of the 15th Brigade who are engaged just to the north of the city monitored live drone footage of woods and fields on the eastern side of the river for Russian activity.
They instructed a aerial specialist positioned in the battlefield to linger over a thick section of undergrowth and timber where they thought a Russian position might be located. “Observe! Right here. See.” A group of troops assembled around the monitor. “Might this represent the entrance to a shelter?” They peered, looking for indicators of activity. There was none.
“When we arrived here our formation occupied locations that the prior forces had lost,” said the captain. “Since we have been here, we haven’t lost any territory and now we are achieving minor gains pushing back.
“The invading forces commenced employment of the conduit to traverse the waterway at the end of July, but now each egress to the pipelines are under our control. We’ve also witnessed some attempts to move transports over the waterway, but whenever they attempt to construct a crossing we destroy them.”
The enemy strategy now is to move small units of infantry across to {areas
