Ukraine: Russia heavily hitting Kupiansk in response to successful Bakhmut offensive

Russia’s forces have intensified their attacks in the Kupiansk direction in response to the Ukrainian offensive and its gains in the eastern flashpoint city of Bakhmut, Ukraine’s military said on Tuesday.

Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Defense Hanna Malyar said on Telegram: “Now the enemy has become more active in the Kupiansk direction, this is in response to our offensive in the Bakhmut direction.”

She added: “They have used this tactic before. For example, in the east, since the beginning of this year, they have been trying to advance in four main directions: Mariinka, Avdiivka, Liman and Bakhmut. But the enemy regularly intensified its actions in other areas as well: Shakhtarsk and Kupiansk.”

Malyar said: “This is done to stretch our forces so that we cannot concentrate on the area where we are conducting the offensive. But we are responding quickly to changes in the operational situation.”

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Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces were moving gradually but surely forward.

On Monday, the spokesperson for the eastern military command Serhiy Cherevatyi said Russia has gathered more than 100,000 soldiers on in the Lyman and Kupiansk sector and its troops have gone on the offensive.

Cherevatyi added that in the Lyman-Kupiansk axis the Russians have concentrated landing units, the best motorized infantry units, as well as territorial troops and private military companies as the reserve.

While in Bakhmut, Cherevatyi said that Russia’s losses in the vicinity of the key eastern city of Bakhmut are now approaching those of the Wagner group during the peak of the battles for control over the city with the mercenary forces.

Washington-based think tank Institute of Study of War (ISW) wrote in an assessment: “Russian forces likely are engaging in offensive operations in this area of the front in an effort to exploit Ukrainian operational focus on other sectors of the front and draw Ukrainian reserves away from critical areas of the theater, namely the Bakhmut and western Donetsk, and western Zaporizhia Oblast areas, where Ukrainian forces are pursuing counteroffensive operations.”

It added: “The poor quality and composition of Russian troops currently deployed on this line, however, will likely hinder Russia’s ability to achieve more than tactically significant gains or make an operationally significant breakthrough.”

Read more:

Russia on offensive on Kupiansk front, gathers 100,000 soldiers: Ukraine

Ukraine says Russia’s losses on Bakhmut front nearing earlier Wagner losses

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