More troops, forests and a river: How Ukraine is holding Russia back in Kupiansk

There are two cities in eastern Ukraine where street-to-street fighting is taking place, the two most-coveted targets of the Russian army: Pokrovsk, in the Donetsk region, and Kupiansk, in Kharkiv province. Both are locations of great strategic value, but while all indications are that Pokrovsk could fall into the hands of the invaders in the short term, Ukrainian troops have so far managed to reverse a defeat in Kupiansk that seemed certain a few months ago.

The reinforcements brought in this summer, better coordination between brigades, the advantages of the local terrain, and the concentration of Russian troops around Pokrovsk have allowed the Ukrainian army to continue to stand firm in the stronghold of Kupiansk.

On the screen at Magnet’s command post — Magnet being the codename for the commander of the Ukrainian 151st Reconnaissance and Assault Battalion — a smoking building appears. His bomb drones are pounding this apartment block in the center of Kupiansk. The defending forces believe Russian soldiers have taken refuge there. An hour after the attack on the building, the observation drones transmit images of six figures leaving the building’s entrance, carrying bags. They are civilians running for cover in a basement of the neighboring building. Magnet immediately suspends the attack and orders troops on the ground to move to the shelter to confirm they are not the enemy.

Within minutes, two Ukrainian assault soldiers burst into the basement. They soon confirm that the occupants are civilians and leave for a safer position. The group of residents will remain there. “Evacuating them is impossible; it would cause casualties among our men and among them,” says Magnet. This officer estimates that there may be 800 civilians left in Kupiansk, out of a pre-war population of 26,000. The city has a unique distinction: it is the first major municipality that could be occupied a second time by Russia. Russian authorities took control of it in February 2022, although it was liberated in the Ukrainian counteroffensive later that year.

The command center of the 151st Battalion is located 15 miles from Kupiansk, right on the edge of the so-called “kill zone” — the area from the front line where the danger is especially high due to intense enemy drone activity. Four soldiers from a National Guard artillery brigade, whose Grad rocket battery is about four miles from the city, provide an example of this. They explain that while in May they could reach their position in a matter of hours, even without needing helmets and body armor, today it can take them days to be able to operate their Grads, waiting for an opportunity to evade Russian bomb drones. “On the way to our position, we’ve seen 10 cars destroyed by drones,” one of them says.

But the scene witnessed by EL PAÍS on November 6 on the monitors of the 151st Battalion demonstrates that the Armed Forces of Ukraine have the situation in the municipality under control, despite it being a “gray zone,” meaning that neither side dominates the terrain. Compared to last August and September, when the Russian advance in the city center was lightning-fast, the situation has improved for Ukrainian interests. They have not only halted the invaders within Kupiansk: as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy stated on November 7, his troops have pushed the invaders back by over 1,000 meters in the city’s outlying neighborhoods.

The new Russian infantry reinforcements in Kupiansk have not been trained for defense (the Kremlin has been on the offensive for two years), Magnet emphasizes. Furthermore, in this region of the front, the enemy has not erected the defensive fortifications that were built in Donetsk and in the south, in Zaporizhzhia, during the major, failed Ukrainian counter-offensive of 2023. That is why, the commander of the 151st Battalion asserts, they are able to regain ground.

Accent, the code name of a battalion commander in Ukraine’s 43rd Mechanized Brigade, confirms that with more troops, his army could advance on Kupiansk. “The Russians want a major political victory as soon as possible, whether it’s taking Pokrovsk or Kupiansk, and our biggest problem is that we lack soldiers,” he says. This colonel estimates that his men can remain in their positions for 200 days without rotating for rest. In the first year of the war, infantry rotations were weekly.

Another key to the better Ukrainian resistance in Kupiansk, according to the testimony of officers from four brigades consulted by this newspaper, has not only been the reinforcements that were transferred to the area in the summer, but also that, unlike Pokrovsk, nature is a first-rate ally.

The first thing that strikes you on the roads connecting Kharkiv, the provincial capital, with Kupiansk, is the heavy movement of armored vehicles, both infantry and tanks. The use of these vehicles in other sectors of the front has been drastically reduced because they are easy targets for drones. But the western flank of Kupiansk, where Ukrainian troops are entering the town, is surrounded by large expanses of forest. Among the trees, under greater safety, soldiers rotate through these armored vehicles, making their way to the closest streets in the town.

The opposite is happening in Pokrovsk, where access to the city for the Ukrainian army is so difficult that the special forces reinforcements of the Ministry of Defense who arrived on November 3 had to do so in an almost suicidal mission, by helicopter.

Privid is not yet 30 and has already fought as an assault soldier in some of the most important battles of this war. He is an officer in the 15th National Guard Brigade in Kupiansk, but he knows Pokrovsk like the back of his hand, because he was stationed there a year ago. He still has comrades in the city, besieged by the Russians, and he points out that Kupiansk’s good fortune is that the invaders are not deploying as many resources as they are in Pokrovsk. An illustration of this, Privid says, is the number of bombs Russia drops on Ukrainian positions in the two enclaves: while between 50 and 100 bombs are dropped daily by Russian aircraft on Pokrovsk, the number in Kupiansk does not exceed 20.

Privid admits that “the morale of the soldiers is bad” due to the lack of replacements and that Russia, despite suffering three times more casualties than the defending army, according to counts by independent war analysis organizations, continues to assault positions with its infantry.

The barrier of the Oskil River

But the Russians face another disadvantage in Kupiansk, Magnet explains, because to supply their soldiers inside the city they have to cross the Oskil River, which surrounds Kupiansk on its eastern flank. “Every time they try to build a pontoon bridge across the river, we destroy it, so the ammunition and supplies their men receive in the city center are limited.” They can’t even deploy large supply drones for their soldiers, only small ground-based unmanned vehicles with a maximum payload of eight kilograms, Magnet says.

Accent points out that the Russians “have enormous problems in their logistics lines” and that, to balance the scales, since August they have been focusing 80% of their artillery fire and attack drones against the bases of Ukrainian drone pilots.

Accent’s battalion is defending the village of Kupiansk-Vuzlovii, just south of Kupiansk. This is the main Ukrainian stronghold on the left bank of the Oskil River, a crucial location for preventing the enemy from securing the river crossing. Kupiansk-Vuzlovii is also an important railway junction leading to Luhansk, a province occupied by Russia.

If the Kremlin’s troops drive the Ukrainians out of the area and secure their control of Oskil, Accent and Magnet agree, the defeat would be a serious strategic setback for Ukraine. The invaders could supply their army by train, gain easier access to Kharkiv’s logistical routes, and control the last remaining links between this province and the 30% of neighboring Donetsk still under the control of independent Ukraine. The colonel of the 43rd Brigade warns that this retreat would not only make it more difficult to one day retake Luhansk, but would also provide Russia with a platform to advance on Kharkiv in the future.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition