‘Life has vanished’: The city of Kupiansk’s steady downfall mirrors the outcome of cities on the nation’s war zone.

Seventy-seven-year-old Lyubov Lobunets, departed from her home in the war-torn city in Ukraine of Kupiansk in the month of August when it was hit by a enemy projectile.

“I lived on the fifth floor of a building,” she shared, talking from a shelter for evacuees in Kharkiv, close by. “It’s unclear whether it was a enemy weapon that hit the building, but it ignited a blaze, and when the flames reached my floor, I was unable to move because the door was damaged and I was unable to get out.”

The national defense troops, she said, saved her life. But by then much of Kupiansk, which had a inhabitants prior to the conflict of 27,000, had departed. “During the period preceding my departure, there were a few shops working,” she said. “But that final month, almost everything closed. Community support systems were pulled out.”

While attention has centered on the eastern region further to the south and its cities, including Pokrovsk, Kupiansk in the Kharkiv’s northern area on the river Oskil has been overlooked. But the steady demise of the city, as it once was, extended over two years and more, is a symbol for the cities of the nation’s front lines, crushed in the jaws of Moscow’s gradual but persistent assault.

Vanished is the central market selling fish products, bee honey and greens. Dwellings that occupied the hillside are shattered by explosions. The countryside outside the city bordering the river are scarred by shell holes.

Yet Lobunets shared her hesitation to depart. “I worked as a nurse and my monthly stipend is very small,” she said. “I feared of where I’d live and how to make ends meet.”

Even until recently a number of her acquaintances had remained despite a compulsory evacuation order, and as street fighting encroached on some of the city’s peripheral areas. The majority of those still there in the urban core are grouped close to the sports stadium.

“Several individuals called to tell me they had climbed up to the highest level to secure a phone service,” said Lobunets. “They could see structures throughout the area that had been destroyed and blazes all over Kupiansk.”

Seized in the initial stages of Russia’s full scale invasion, Kupiansk was retaken in the autumn of 2022, largely undamaged as enemy soldiers pulled back towards the frontier.

The devastation came later, as the invading army sought to capture it a second time, exposing it to bombing and shelling. Its forces progressed to their ongoing semi-blockade, with invading forces now in some positions on the river’s western shore.

When the urban administrator, Andrii Besedin, was spoken with in the past, it was in his administrative center in the urban core. Currently located in Kharkiv, he has been unable to access the city since the summer.

“Conditions are extremely challenging in the city. It is on the real ‘zero line’ of hostilities. The Russians are attempting to capture the city. They are making efforts daily. They have put up flags at the perimeter of the city and sought to assert that they have taken it, but it remains in Ukrainian hands,” he said.

These days, he said, there are no buildings that are undamaged and nothing works. There is no heating fuel and no power. “Based on available data, there are just over 600 people on the west side of the Oskil River,” said Besedin. “Evacuations occur daily, and now the evacuation zone has been extended because there are invading troops on the opposite shore, which the military is attempting to dislodge.”

Previously proclaimed a “place of valor” by the head of state, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Russian attack and the defense by Ukrainian troops of the city have been violent and relentless.

While enemy soldiers have faced difficulties crossing the waterway – which in this area is between 30 to 100 feet in width – with their tanks and transports, some have reached the western bank by crawling through abandoned pipelines, a metre in diameter, defense units say.

On the Ukrainian side, the brigades in the region have implemented the method of releasing razor-sharp nets from their reconnaissance drones to snare enemy soldiers and equipment who find it difficult to see and even harder to break free.

For the opposing forces the common application of aerial devices has made navigating in the city and the surrounding countryside hazardous, not least in transports.

In his command bunker, Captain “Caesar” and the troops of the designated unit who are operating just north of the city monitored drone feeds of woods and fields on the eastern side of the river for enemy movements.

They asked a aerial specialist positioned in the combat zone to remain over a concentrated zone of undergrowth and timber where they believed a enemy outpost might be located. “Observe! Right here. See.” Multiple personnel assembled around the screen. “Might this represent the opening to a bunker?” They peered, looking for signs of movement. There was none.

“Upon our deployment here our formation assumed defensive posts that the prior forces had relinquished,” said Caesar. “During our tenure, we haven’t lost any territory and now we are having some small successes regaining control.

“The Russians began utilizing the gas pipe to move across at the end of July, but now all the exits to the pipes are secured by us. We’ve also witnessed some endeavors to move transports across the river, but on every occasion they try to bridge we destroy them.”

The Russian tactic now is to move minimal numbers of infantry to the other side to {areas