“Kupyansk will fall within a week”: Russian agencies relaunch the statements of the commander of a Russian military assault unit engaged in the battle for the Ukrainian city of the Kharkiv region, which according to Moscow is surrounded, together with Pokrovsk, in the Donetsk region. A difficult prediction to evaluate. But statements like these, together with those of the Ukrainians who deny any encirclement, give a sense of the importance of this bloody battle along Kiev’s main defense line, the eventual collapse of which, even according to independent analysts, would open the way for further advances deep into Ukrainian territory.
“I am sure that the city will be completely liberated by next week,” said the officer of the 121st regiment of the 68th motorized infantry division of the Russian Western Forces Group. While in its official bulletins, the Russian Ministry of Defense states that in another 24 hours of fighting around Kupyansk, three attacks by Ukrainian forces from the outside to try to break the encirclement and one from within the 116th Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian forces were repelled.
Again according to the Ministry of Defense in Moscow, in Pokrovsk some Ukrainian soldiers of the 68th Brigade surrendered “because they had been abandoned by their commanders and could no longer tolerate being under artillery and drone fire”. Russian commands say that another 64 buildings were conquered in the area in 24 hours. Russia, however, continues to feel the effects of Ukrainian drone attacks on its energy plants. The country’s authorities reported that as many as 49 unmanned aerial vehicles were intercepted over the Volgograd region. But local media admitted that an attack hit an oil refinery and that one man was killed. According to three sources cited by Reuters agencies, the plant, belonging to the oil giant Lukoil, has “interrupted operations”.
Furthermore, the General Staff in Kiev said that a Ukrainian attack hit “a base for storage, assembly and launch of Shahed-type drones” in the Russian-occupied part of the Donetsk region. The Belgian Defense Minister, Theo Francken, has meanwhile made it known that the “hostile drones” spotted will be intercepted, after reports of overflights in recent days near the airports of Brussels and Liège and two military bases in the country. “The orders and directives are clear: if possible, we will shoot them down,” he said.
On the armaments front, the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte, assured that the countries of the Alliance are “reversing the trend” in the lack of ammunition compared to Moscow, which has long been complained about. “Until recently – said Rutte – Russia produced more ammunition than all the NATO allies combined. But not anymore. Throughout the Alliance we are opening dozens of new production lines and expanding existing ones: we are producing more than we have done in recent decades”. The Ukrainian security services (SBU) have meanwhile announced that the first Russian soldier accused of killing in cold blood a Ukrainian soldier who had surrendered to the enemy has been sentenced to life imprisonment. A crime that would have been committed in January 2024 in Pryiutne, in the Zaporizhzhia region. While two Colombian citizens were sentenced to 13 years in prison by a Russian court because they were found guilty of having fought as mercenaries alongside Kiev’s forces.