'Our souls hurt' Kupiansk braces itself for return of Russian forces

Nina Marchenko was in her kitchen when a bomb fell on her cottage. It blew off the roof, demolished the concrete summer house in the garden, and killed her dog, Tulik.

- Luke Harding

Bits of fence were tossed into the air. "There was smoke and that was it," she said. "A woman died in another strike nearby. I can only curse Vladimir Putin. He's driven us from our house."

Last week, Marchenko and her disabled husband, Misha, fled their home in Kupiansk, in the northeast of Ukraine. The Russian army seized the city in the early days of Putin's 2022 invasion. Ukrainian soldiers took it back eight months later. For most of the last two years the frontline - across the Oskil River and a series of rustic hamlets - barely changed.

In recent weeks, however, the Russians have been advancing. Across the frontline, Ukrainian defences are crumbling at the fastest rate since 2022. In October, Russia swallowed 300 miles of Ukrainian territory including more than 15 sq miles around Kupiansk. Two-thirds of these losses of territory have been in the neighbouring Donetsk region. Ukraine's southern sector there is close to collapse.

Russian combat units are now less than two miles from Kupiansk. A little to the south, troops have already reached the Oskil River, turning Ukrainian-controlled territory on the left bank into two separate and shrinking bulges. Bridges across the river are relentlessly bombed.

Speaking from an office bunker, Kupiansk's military-civilian mayor, Andriy Besedin, described the situation on the eastern side of the Oskil as "critical". He said 1,400 people were refusing to evacuate from their homes, despite having no electricity, water or gas. Most were elderly people. They were not pro-Russian, Besedin suggested, but simply unwilling to move out or listen to anxious relatives.