Ukraine evacuates citizens and hopes to prevent new Russian occupation of Kupyansk

The Russian military threat on the frontline in northeastern Ukraine has become so great that local authorities in the Kharkiv region have ordered the evacuation of several dozen villages. This concerns more than three thousand residents of settlements east of the strategically important town of Kupyansk, which is in Ukrainian hands. The evacuees also include 279 children.

The authorities are mandating the evacuation because of the continued Russian artillery shelling of the settlements, and because part of the population has so far refused to leave voluntarily. The front is about 9 kilometers from the city.

The Russian threat at Kupiansk – from the occupied Luhansk region in the north of the Donbas – has continued to grow in recent months. Early this month warned the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), an American think tank, already suggested that Moscow might intensify its attacks in the region in the coming weeks, with the ultimate goal of retaking Kupyansk. Russian forces along this northern part of the frontline, ISW analysts said, appear generally “less weakened” than elsewhere in occupied Ukraine.

Putin’s elections

Moreover, a Russian military success – quite rare in the past eighteen months – would be very welcome for the image of President Vladimir Putin in his election campaign.

Not only the Russians are carrying out attacks in this area. The Russian Defense Ministry reported heavy fighting in the Kupyansk neighborhood on Tuesday. According to Moscow, six Ukrainian attacks were repulsed on Monday and Tuesday; This reportedly resulted in 160 casualties on the Ukrainian side. The claims on both sides cannot be independently verified.

Also read
The downing of two Russian military aircraft is as big a deal for Ukraine as the sinking of the Moskva

A Beriev A-50 radar plane flies over Moscow during a military parade, in an archive image from 2019. Ukraine has downed an A-50 over the Sea of ​​Azov.” class=”dmt-article-suggestion__image” src=”https://images.nrc.nl/tmyn8ddVEwXbzjE0KnZXk9xfBwU=/160×96/smart/filters:no_upscale()/s3/static.nrc.nl/bvhw/files/2024/01/data110274141-99ed56.jpg”/>

Since October last year, not a day has passed without attacks by Russian troops on the Ukrainian defense lines in the forests near Kupyansk, a town that had a population of about 26,000 before 2022. It is located more than a hundred kilometers east of the city of Kharkiv and is an important railway junction. That is one of the reasons why Moscow wants to take the Kupyansk. “Every day the enemy storms settlements, fires them with artillery and attacks them from the air,” Ukrainian General Oleksandr Sirskji said last week against the Interfax news agency.

Danger for Kharkiv

It is not without reason that Sirskji, responsible for the defense of the eastern front, drew attention to this part of the thousand-kilometer front line; the battle around Kupyansk could have major consequences for the safety of the residents of the metropolis of Kharkiv, the largest conurbation in Ukraine after Kyiv. Since the turn of the year, Kharkiv has been bombarded almost daily with Russian drones and missiles, causing a lot of damage. There are fears that the city will come under even more intense fire if the Russians succeed in taking Kupyansk.

Journalists from the Reuters news agency recently reported after a visit to the front line, the Ukrainian armed forces in this area have made a switch from an offensive to a defensive position: they described and photographed an extensive network of trenches, surrounded by numerous obstacles against any advancing infantry and armored vehicles, made of barbed wire and dragon’s teeth to anti-tank ditches and minefields.

Zelensky’s order

At the end of November, President Volodymyr Zelensky ordered the construction of robust defenses in the north and east of Ukraine, after the Ukrainian counter-offensive in the south had slowly died down. With reinforced defenses along the borders, Zelensky wants to prevent the Russians from taking the initiative again and capturing Ukrainian territory in the Donbas or the northern border areas with Russia and Belarus. Moreover, such extensive defense lines make it possible to free up army personnel for other places along the front line, or for military training.

Also read
Kharkiv is digging huge bomb shelters with entire classrooms, showers and kitchens. ‘This is our future’

an underground bomb shelter, which will be fully equipped with classrooms, a kitchen and shower.” class=”dmt-article-suggestion__image” src=”https://images.nrc.nl/-BW69w4i0sp1GftbfIsaz9ZE_EQ=/160×96/smart/filters:no_upscale()/s3/static.nrc.nl/bvhw/files/2024/01/data110283291-712427.jpg”/>

Kupyansk was occupied shortly after the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022. But in the late summer of the same year, the town was liberated as part of a spectacular advance by the Ukrainian army in the east. Months of consolidation followed: the Russians dug in to limit further ground loss, and after the successful counter-offensive of 2022, Ukraine had insufficient manpower and equipment left to push deeper into the Donbas.

Last summer the tables were turned again in the Kupyansk area. While the Ukrainian army focused mainly on the counter-offensive in the southern regions – towards Crimea – in the summer months, the Russians undertook a new offensive from Luhansk in the direction of Kupyansk. Although the shifts in the front line are often minimal, the front line is now less than nine kilometers northeast of the town.

Oskil River as front line

Kupyansk is not only important because of its location in the Ukrainian railway network, the town is also strategically important because of the Oskil, a river that largely determines the front line in the Kharkiv region. According to spokesperson Ilya Yevlasj of the Ukrainian troops in the east of the country, the Russians have set themselves the goal of conquering the entire area east of the Oskil, between Kupyansk and the town of Borova, about forty kilometers to the south. Borova had also been in Russian hands for more than six months in 2022.

Meanwhile there are voices in Russia to re-invade northern Ukraine; the Russians should create a buffer zone with a depth of fifteen kilometers in the border area to make Ukrainian artillery and rocket attacks on the southern Russian city of Belgorod impossible. Others go bankrupt even for a new Russian occupation of the entire north of Ukraine.

Belgorod has come under fire several times in recent weeks, including over the New Year’s weekend. At least 24 civilians were killed, according to Moscow. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last week that Russia will do everything it can to prevent air strikes on the city.

To share





Email the editor