Ukrainian commander urges more defences in the north-east

KYIV – As Kyiv and Washington debate where Ukraine should commit troops along the war’s front line, Ukraine’s top general in the east has called for more reinforcements in a patch of territory where Russia is threatening to make additional gains.

Russian forces have managed to push forward around the north-eastern Ukrainian city of Kupiansk in recent weeks, as Kyiv’s forces made slow headway in their continuing counter-offensive in the south and the east.

Russia’s gains, while not significant, have led Ukrainian forces to dedicate some troops to defend parts of the sprawling front line, which stretches for hundreds of kilometres, despite their being needed elsewhere.

“Enemy units continue to inflict damage with artillery, mortars and aircraft,” General Oleksandr Syrsky, commander of Ukraine’s eastern forces, said on Friday, on the Telegram messaging app.

“Under such conditions, we must promptly take all measures to strengthen our defences on the threatened lines and advance where possible.”

The debate over Ukraine’s strategy has spilled into public view in recent days amid a flurry of news reports, including from The New York Times, in which US officials have blamed Ukraine’s slow progress in large part on its strategy.

Under the Pentagon’s reasoning, Ukraine should have massed an outsize number of forces on one portion of the front line to attempt a breakthrough.

Ukrainian commanders have instead tried to divide troops and firepower in a manner that they consider to be as fair and as equal as possible between the east and south.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky responded bluntly to the US criticism in the past week, saying that shifting Ukrainian forces away from places such as Kupiansk, in the Kharkiv region, is what Russia is trying to accomplish.

“We will not give up Kharkiv, Donbas, Pavlohrad or Dnipro. And that’s that,” he said during a news conference last Wednesday, according to the Ukrainian Pravda news outlet.

“And let all the analysts in the world not even count on it.”

Gen Syrsky’s remarks were another reminder that despite the public focus on the counter-offensive in the south, other parts of the front line remain volatile.

“The enemy is now regrouping its forces and means, while also transferring the newly formed brigades and divisions from the territory of Russia,” Gen Syrsky said.

“Russia’s key objective is to increase the level of combat potential and resume active offensive actions.”

In recent weeks, Ukrainian officials have called for the evacuation of Kupiansk, as Russian forces edge closer and shelling continues far behind the front lines.

On Saturday, two civilians were killed in shelling in a small village just east of the city, according to local officials.

Ukraine took the city back from Russian control in September 2022 after it had been under occupation since the war’s early months, and losing it again would be a major blow.

It appears unlikely, however, that Russian forces would try to retake the city, since that would put them in the position they faced before they were forced to retreat from Kherson in 2022, holding a city with a river at its back and limited supply lines.

Russian forces could instead try to push to the Oskil River, which runs north and south, and then use the waterway as a natural barrier against further Ukrainian attacks.

“Kupiansk will not be occupied any more under any circumstances,” Mr Andrii Besedin, head of the Kupiansk city military administration, said on Telegram.

Hostilities between Moscow and Kyiv continued to rage on Sunday, with Russia announcing its border regions were hit by drones again and Ukraine reporting an overnight strike.

Russia and the Moscow-annexed Crimean peninsula have been hit by almost daily attacks in the past month, since Kyiv warned in July it aimed to “return” the conflict to Russian territory.

Moscow’s Defence Ministry announced that two Ukrainian drones flying over border regions on Sunday were repelled, after the governor of Belgorod region said a drone carrying explosives killed a man.

The governor of Russia’s Kursk region, which lies next to the Ukrainian border, said a drone crashed into an apartment building in Kursk city overnight, blowing out windows on several floors.

Ukraine on Sunday said it shot down four cruise missiles in its north and central regions during another Russian air raid overnight.

The head of Kyiv’s regional military administration, Mr Ruslan Kravchenko, said falling missile fragments injured two people and damaged 10 homes. NYTIMES, AFP