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Kupiansk, Ukraine – The Ukrainian city, on the eastern edge of the Kharkiv region, is under daily shelling as authorities order the evacuation of families from nearby areas amid the possibility of a second invasion.
When there are a few kilometers left to enter Kupiansk, a large cross appears at a ‘checkpoint’.
Spiked, solid, of a blackish wood but eaten away by the snow and the icy wind, its chaste countenance clashes among the many war gadgets at the checkpoint. But it is also the sign that the situation is not going well up there.
The soldier quickly controls the occupants of the car and lets them pass even faster. There is no time for more. Today the artillery has spat early and the explosions are looking for victims without rest. That’s why the road must be clear.
From the top of the hill where the city hall building stands, pierced like an Emmental cheese and without a window that can still be considered such, Kupiansk appears like a birth.
On the ground, snow and mud mix and trickle down into a half-meter-long hole created by a missile. In the distance, but not so far, a gray smoke protruding from a building says that another projectile hit a target. In the central market, the leaden sky blends with the dust of the rubble. There isn’t much left standing anymore.
Kupiansk, a city at the eastern end of the Kharkiv region, is currently the most violent front in the area. In its bowels, crushed by the cold, people await the next explosion in houses without windows, not even letting themselves speak to the sound of some imaginary sirens, since the real ones can no longer be heard. Thus, the explosions come suddenly, without warning.
The Russians, who in some parts of the city are less than five kilometers away, fire from cover from nearby occupied towns and the bordering Lugansk region.
That is why, they say, some residents fear a new invasion after the city was retaken late last summer. Others, however, have begun to get used to the idea and, they say, are waiting for them.
Networks of local volunteers, self-generated and self-organized, do what they can. But the humanitarian situation is so serious that this week the military governor of the region, Oleg Sinegybov, announced a mandatory evacuation of families with children and residents with reduced mobility from the villages around Kupiansk due to the virulence of the fighting in the region. What he fears is a rapid advance by land that will not allow them to get out of there in time.
The fight is also against time
The operation is also delicate because the roads of the villages, more than the houses, are destroyed by mortars and missiles, the mud is everywhere and the cars have to slow down from time to time.
Igor, head of a company of the 92 Brigade, who for security reasons does not want to give his full name, says that the Russian forces are still trying to advance and are conducting diversionary operations.
“They attack to recapture Kupiansk, strengthen themselves, and secure their position. The route to Lugansk passes through here, which, if they managed to occupy, would be an important success for them, ”he says, from a location that he also asks to keep anonymous.
“Everything is fired here, tanks, multiple launch systems, artillery. A little further on, Kalashnikovs are also used, ”he details.
Many of the soldiers who fight in this area are soldiers with years of experience in the Army. Some have been in these positions for up to five months, from which they also attack with Soviet tanks. But tank commander Igor, who also only gives his first name, says his ability to respond to Russian attacks has improved.
“Before we responded with a shot to his 30 shots, but this is no longer the case. Of course, they dig trenches very quickly, they make many lines of defense and they have a large number of soldiers ”, he affirms.
“I don’t like this job, but it is what it is. They have attacked us and we must defend ourselves, ”she reasons.
War does not understand dead times.
