Ukraine-Russia war: Putin’s troops disguised as Ukrainians in assault on key city

Russian forces have breached the outskirts of Ukraine’s northeastern city Kupiansk, part of a region it briefly held after first invading Ukraine, military officials said.

Moscow’s forces attacked the region in four waves and used soldiers disguised as Ukrainian troops but were repelled from the city by Kyiv’s forces, Ukraine’s General Staff said. But why does the control of Kupiansk, a significant rail hub in the area, matter?

Kupiansk was captured by Russian forces in the early days of the February 2022 invasion and then liberated by Ukraine in a counteroffensive months later.

Vladimir Putin’s forces deployed 15 pieces of hardware in their assault on Kupiansk, including tanks and armoured vehicles, as they attempt to expand offensive operations on a sprawling more-than-1,000km front, Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

The Russian attack looked opportunistic and Kyiv appeared to have isolated and destroyed most of the Russian forces that penetrated the outskirts of Kupiansk, Pasi Paroinen, a military analyst with the Black Bird Group, said.

“However, a penetration like that certainly signals confusion and weakness in Ukrainian defences in that area, which could prompt the local Russian commanders to increase their efforts to squeeze or cut off the Ukrainian salient,” he added.

He said the coming days would likely indicate whether the Kremlin was going to react to this by ramping up attacks there further.

The Ukrainian incursion was the largest on Russian soil since the Second World War and succeeded in taking Moscow – and even Kyiv’s closest allies – by surprise.

But despite Ukrainian troops’ success in bedding into positions deep into Kursk, the offensive received a mixed reaction from analysts, with some questioning the wisdom of drawing vital defensive power away from the fight in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, where Mr Putin’s forces have been making steady, grinding gains for months.

Alex Croft and Tom Watling report:

A London-based exiled Russian television chef has been found dead in Serbia.

Alexei Zimin, 52, was an outspoken critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s Crimea annexation. He was found dead in a hotel room in Belgrade earlier this week, according to Russian media. He was travelling to the Serbian capital to promote his new book on Britain, entitled Anglomania.

According to the Serbian authorities, there were “no suspicious circumstances” in Zimin’s death. An autopsy and toxicology investigation was underway, according to BBC News.

Zimin spent his final years in exile in the UK and ran a cookery show on the Russian NTV channel. But the show was stopped after he issued anti-war messages on social media in the wake of Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

A small Russian assault group briefly broke through to the outskirts of Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kupiansk for the first time since Moscow’s forces fled in September 2022, military officials said.

Moscow’s forces, including soldiers disguised as Ukrainian troops, attacked in four waves on Wednesday, but were repelled from the city, an important railway hub with a pre-war population of 26,000, Ukraine’s general staff said.

“They partially entered the suburbs, the industrial zone, and were destroyed by our troops… There were assault actions using heavy armoured vehicles, there were attempts to bring in infantry,” the city’s military administration chief Andriy Besedin said.

The city, now just 2.5km (1.5 miles) from the frontline, was under constant shelling and the population has dwindled to 3,000 people who were being urged to evacuate, he said.

Kupiansk was captured by Russian forces in the early days of Moscow’s February 2022 invasion and then retaken by Ukraine in a counteroffensive months later.

A Russian air attack struck a residential building and energy installations yesterday evening in and near Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa, killing one person, injuring eight and knocking out a boiler plant used for heating, officials said.

“A multi-storey residential building was destroyed in the centre of Odesa, apartments were set on fire, high-rise apartments were damaged, along with about 30 cars,” Odesa regional governor Oleh Kiper said on Telegram.

Photos posted on Kiper’s Telegram account showed an apartment building on fire, smoke billowing out of windows and firefighters stationed nearby.

“Enemy fire also damaged the main central heating pipeline. The boiler plant has been temporarily shut down and repair work is under way.”

Heating infrastructure for one of the city’s maternity hospitals was also damaged, he said.

Mr Kiper earlier said the assault was carried out by drones, but Odesa Mayor Hennadiy Trukhanov described it as a “mass combined enemy strike,” suggesting other weaponry was also used.