Register now for FREE, unlimited access to Reuters.comRegister
- Ukraine’s advance is the fastest advance in months
- Thousands of Russian troops face a potential encirclement
KIEV/HRAKOVE, Ukraine, Sept 10 (Reuters) – Ukrainian officials shared photos on Saturday showing troops raising the nation’s flag over the main railway city that has supplied Russian forces in northeastern Ukraine as a collapse in Russia’s front line threatened to turn into a rout. .
A Reuters reporter inside a vast area retaken in recent days by advancing Ukrainian forces saw Ukrainian police patrolling towns and ammunition crates piled in positions abandoned by fleeing Russian soldiers.
With the Ukrainians now in the city of Kupiansk, where the railway lines linking Russia with eastern Ukraine converge, the advance had penetrated all the way to Moscow’s main logistics route, potentially trapping thousands of Russian troops.
Register now for FREE, unlimited access to Reuters.comRegister
Natalia Popova, adviser to the head of the Kharkiv regional council, shared photos on Facebook of troops holding a Ukrainian flag in front of Kupiansk town hall. At his feet was a Russian flag. “Kupiansk is Ukraine. Glory to the armed forces of Ukraine,” he wrote.
Ukraine’s security service confirmed that Kyiv had forces inside Kupiansk.
In Hrakove, one of dozens of towns recaptured, Reuters saw burned vehicles bearing the “Z” symbol of the Russian invasion and piles of trash and ammunition in positions the Russians had evidently abandoned in a hurry.
“Hello everyone, we’re from Russia,” was spray-painted on a wall.
Three bodies were in white bags in a yard.
Regional police chief Volodymyr Tymoshenko said Ukrainian police had moved in the day before and checked the identities of local residents who had been living under Russian occupation since the second day of the invasion.
“The first task is to provide the help they need. The next task is to document the crimes committed by the Russian invaders in the territories they temporarily occupied.”
The capture of at least part of Kupiansk, if confirmed, could leave thousands of Russian soldiers trapped on the front lines and cut off from supplies, including in Izium, Russia’s main stronghold and logistical hub in the northeast.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the situation in either Kupiansk or Izium. Moscow has acknowledged that its front line has been breached in Kharkiv, but has said it is adding additional troops to reinforce the area. Regional officials based in Russia have called for civilians to evacuate both cities.
Service members of the State Security Service of Ukraine patrol an area of the recently liberated city of Kupiansk, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kharkiv region, Ukraine, in this photo released on 10 of September 2022. Press Service of the State Security Service of Ukraine/Handout via REUTERS
Read more
The British Ministry of Defense in an intelligence update said: “A Russian force around Izium is likely to be increasingly isolated.
“Ukrainian units are now threatening the city of Kupiansk; its capture would be a major blow to Russia because it is on the supply routes to the front line of Donbas.”
Mark Hertling, a retired four-star general and former commander of US ground forces in Europe, tweeted: “Make no mistake, (Ukraine) is executing a brilliant maneuver focused on ground targets to ‘pack’ the Russians . But the Russians are helping them. — doing very little to counter it.”
ZELENSKIY SAVES SUCCESS
In a video address overnight, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said at least 30 settlements had been liberated in the Kharkiv region during the advance in recent days.
“Our military, intelligence units and security services are conducting active engagements in various operational areas. They are doing so successfully,” he said in a video address.
Ukrainian officials have released a barrage of images of troops sweeping through cities previously controlled by Russia and being embraced by local residents who have been under Russian military occupation for six months.
Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Ukraine’s presidential office, said in a video posted on YouTube that the Russians in Izium were almost isolated.
Ukraine’s eastward advance is by far its fastest success in months, after a long period in which the war had become a relentless movement along entrenched front lines.
It came as a surprise just a week after Kyiv announced the start of a long-awaited counter-offensive to retake Russian-held territory hundreds of kilometers away at the opposite end of the front in Kherson in the south.
Less information has been made public about that operation, but Kyiv has also claimed some successes there, cutting off supply routes to thousands of Russian troops isolated on the west bank of the Dnipro River.
“Now we see successes in Kherson, we see some successes in Kharkiv and that is very, very encouraging,” US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said at a news conference in Prague on Thursday.
Tens of thousands of people have died, millions have been driven from their homes and entire cities have been destroyed by Russian forces since the launch of what Moscow calls a “special military operation” to “disarm” Ukraine. Russia denies intentionally targeting civilians.
Register now for FREE, unlimited access to Reuters.comRegister
Reports by Reuters journalists; written by Peter Graff; edited by Jason Neely
Our standards: the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.