MOSCOW: Russia’s defence ministry announced on Wednesday that its troops had captured approximately half of the Ukrainian city of Kupiansk in the northeastern Kharkiv region.
Ukraine’s military immediately denied any such Russian advance in the strategically important city.
Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield reports from either side regarding the situation in Kupiansk.
The city has been the focus of months of intensified Russian military activity and heavy fighting throughout the conflict.
Russian forces initially captured Kupiansk during the early weeks of their February 2022 invasion before Ukrainian troops liberated it later that same year.
Much of the city has been destroyed as Moscow attempts to recapture it as part of a slow westward advance along sections of the 1,000-kilometre frontline.
The Russian Defence Ministry released drone footage showing a soldier holding a Russian flag while standing on a road within the town.
Ukraine’s 10th army corps described the Russian report as staged propaganda in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
“All such attempts are pointless,“ the Ukrainian military statement said alongside its own video purporting to show a Russian unit being destroyed.
Ukraine’s official Centre Against Disinformation stated that any suggestion of Russian forces advancing into Kupiansk was untrue and constituted a propaganda exercise.
Ukraine’s popular Deepstate war blog, which utilizes open source conflict mapping, reported that the flag incident occurred on the city’s southern outskirts where control remains disputed.
The General Staff of Ukraine’s military reported in a late evening update that one armed clash continued raging in the Kupiansk sector.
The report documented nearly 50 attempts by Russian forces to break through Ukrainian defences near Pokrovsk, another focal point of Moscow’s offensive through Donetsk region. – Reuters