Ukrainian servicemen shoot from a captured Russian howitzer on the frontline near the city of Kupyansk in eastern, Ukraine, 06 October 2022. Photo: EPA / Sergey Kozlov
The Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov informed Vladimir Putin on Thursday that Russian troops had captured the city of Kupyansk in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region, the Kremlin announced on Thursday evening.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) immediately contradicted the claim, however, which was further undermined by Ukrainian monitoring project DeepState, which confirmed that most of Kupyansk remained under AFU control.
Speaking during a joint visit with Gerasimov to a Russian military command post in an undisclosed location on Thursday, Putin said that 15 AFU battalions were surrounded in the area around Kupyansk. Gerasimov added that 80% of the Kharkiv region city of Vovchansk and 70% of the Donetsk region city of Pokrovsk were also now under Russian control.
Putin, who noted that fighting was continuing in the Donetsk region city of Kostyantynivka, said that Ukrainian servicemen should be given the opportunity to surrender to the advancing Russian military, although Gerasimov said that AFU fighters wishing to do so were being threatened with execution by their comrades.
Calling the Ukrainian leadership a “criminal group” that held power “for the sake of its own enrichment”, Putin reiterated that “the goals of the ‘special military operation’ must be fully achieved”.
Rejecting the Russian claims, the AFU said on Thursday that its troops in Kupyansk were continuing to identify and take out covert Russian military units on the outskirts of the city, and denied the claims made by Gerasimov about the Russian military’s near-total control of Vovchansk and Pokrovsk.
Search and assault operations and the elimination of the enemy were ongoing in Pokrovsk, it continued, while “additional logistics routes to Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad are being organised to ensure the provision of our units”.
Kupyansk has been the focus of intense Russian military pressure since late 2024, and the fall of the city, a major rail hub close to Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv, would be a serious blow to Kyiv as it would compromise vital AFU supply lines in eastern Ukraine.
