Russian Generals Sent Their Soldiers Into The Gas Pipe Again To Repel Kupyansk
- 17.12.2025, 23:22
None of the occupiers returned.
Vladimir Putin has already been reported several times about the capture of Kupyansk, a major railroad hub in Kharkiv region, most recently after Vladimir Zelensky visited there. In fact, Ukrainian forces had virtually liberated the city in a months-long covert operation, locking up some Russian soldiers there.
To retake Kupyansk, Russian military commanders again tried to move troops through a non-functioning pipeline, as they did near Suja in the Kursk region. None of those sent have returned, writes The Economist. Ukrainian soldiers told the magazine that they set up control over the exit of the pipe and destroyed anyone who emerged from it. "Every day [they sent] a platoon," explained Igor Raikov, commander of the drone units of the 13th Operational Brigade Khartiya. - A platoon in a day is a thousand men a month."
Russian generals rushed soldiers to liberate Suja in March of this year. Propaganda presented the operation as the result of ingenious operational planning (TASS called it "legendary" just days after it was carried out). In reality, however, no successful breakthrough was reported during the fighting for the town, and even Z-war correspondents were cool to the report that Operation Pipe had somehow influenced the outcome of the confrontation. Many of the soldiers who marched through the pipe died during or after the operation due to poisoning from harmful substances.
The AFU's operation to push Russian troops out of Kupyansk began on Ukraine's Independence Day, August 25, according to The Economist. But by mid-September, the situation worsened as they forced the Oskol River, which runs through the city, and occupied its center. But in late September, Charter and other AFU units launched a full-fledged counteroffensive.
Over the course of October and November, they gradually pushed Russian units out of the city and took control of two villages north of it, cutting the occupiers' supply routes. The AFU estimates that about 200 Russian soldiers may be hiding in the cellars.
The participants in the operation refuse to say how they managed to avoid the drones, which, thanks to the successful development of Russian unmanned forces over the past year, allow the latter to largely control the front line and the approaches to it. The AFU hopes to apply the methods that worked during the liberation of Kupyansk in other operations. Charter commander Igor Obolensky, who developed the initial operational plan, told The Economist: "These are things the enemy must not know about. This is, first of all, creative thinking, feeling the enemy, understanding his rhythm."
Ukrainian forces "managed to push back the occupiers from Kupyansk and establish control over almost 90% of the city's territory," AFU commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyy said at a meeting of Ukraine's Ramstein Defense Contact Group on Wednesday. He also said he had regained control over 16 square kilometers of territory in the northern part of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. Russian troops have infiltrated Pokrovsk in recent months and have been occupying more parts of the city little by little.
The capture of Kupyansk was reported to Putin on November 20 by General Staff chief Valery Gerasimov. A week later, Putin himself declared that "the enemy grouping in Kupyansk has been completely eliminated" and the city was "completely in our hands," and on December 2 he invited foreign journalists to visit.
A number of Russian Z-bloggers accused Gerasimov of misinformation. And on Nov. 12, the Ukrainian OSINT project DeepState reported the liberation of most of the city. According to DeepState's map, Russian forces in Kupyansk were almost completely surrounded.
The same day Zelensky arrived in Kupyansk and published in his Telegram channel a video taken at the entrance to the town. But on December 17, Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov again told Putin that Kupyansk had been occupied by the West group, and the AFU, he claimed, was "unsuccessfully trying to regain" control of the settlement.