The Ukrainian counter-offensive will be long and difficult, said Mykhaïlo Podoliak, a close adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, in an interview with Agence France-Presse on Wednesday July 19. There is a lot of talk about the fighting in the Donbass, and in the Zaporizhia region, but in recent days, eyes have turned to the north, in the Kharkiv region. Ukraine’s Defense Ministry has warned of an imminent Russian counteroffensive in the Kupiansk sector, a city liberated in September 2022.
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With our special envoy back from Kupyansk, Stephane Siohan
Kupyansk is under very high tension. The first person encountered in the city center, Svetlana, a septuagenarian, breaks down in tears, explaining that since the liberation last autumn, there has not been a single day without bombardments.
Andriy Bessedin, head of the city administration, confirms it: Kupyansk is constantly the target of Russian artillery, the front line being about eight kilometers away.
This Wednesday morning, the sirens were almost permanent. The fact that the inhabitants who venture into the street hold their breath, as if something could happen at any moment, is palpable.
Everywhere in Kupyansk, one sees collapsed buildings, the scars of the bombings, but what is most striking is the view that presents itself to the eye from the heights of the city center, towards the line of front, further east.
We can thus observe, in panorama, a great artillery battle, whistles, explosions, shells crashing, raising columns of smoke. An almost cinematic spectacle, but truly frightening. Looking towards the horizon to the east, shells fly up and crash into columns of smoke almost every minute.
Kupyansk (Kharkiv region), 19 July 2023. Ruins of the Museum of History, destroyed by a Russian S-300 missile on the 25th of April. The museum’s director and a other employee died from the strike #ukrainewar pic.twitter.com/pGgkznVBfY
— Stephane Siohan (@stefsiohan) July 19, 2023
Information to be taken with caution
Officials in the Kupyansk administration report an intensification of fighting over the past four days, but remain cautious about Russian intentions, and even claims by the Defense Ministry in Kyiv.
The Ukrainian government has mentioned a Russian counter-offensive in this sector. Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said the Russian army had massed 100,000 men at the gates of Kupyansk, with the objective of attacking the city and launching a counter-offensive towards Kharkiv. Information to be taken with a grain of salt, therefore.
What is certain is that there has indeed been an intensification of fighting for four days, perhaps an attempt at Russian diversion. The Kremlin army maintains permanent pressure in this sector, no doubt in order to fix Ukrainian troops, while the bulk of the counter-offensive takes place further south.
But it is also quite possible that this is a Ukrainian communication operation, in order to push the Western allies to speed up their military deliveries.
For the time being, the Ukrainian army has succeeded in retaking 250 km² since the beginning of June, but it is confronted with the immense minefields installed by the Russians, and by the supply problems, therefore, in Western weapons. .
The 12,000 inhabitants of Kupyansk, out of 26,000 before the war, are trying to survive, hoping that the sky will not fall on their heads.
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