A billboard on the fundamental entrance to town of Kupiansk illustrates the tenuous nature of Ukrainian management in a area that has turn out to be one of the crucial energetic elements of the 750-mile entrance line within the battle.
“Kupiansk is Ukraine!!!” it proclaims to anybody coming into town. The different facet of the signal, seen to these within the metropolis heart, hints at why the primary proclamation is so pressing. It exhibits an armed soldier standing in entrance of a helicopter, together with a cellphone quantity and a query: “Do you have information about traitors to Ukraine?”
At the outset of the battle, Kupiansk, solely 25 miles from the Russian border, fell to Moscow’s forces with no battle and remained beneath occupation for six months earlier than being retaken in a lightning Ukrainian thrust within the Kharkiv area within the nation’s northeast in September.
Now, nonetheless, whereas most consideration is concentrated on the newest Ukrainian counteroffensive a whole bunch of miles to the south, Russian forces are mounting an offensive within the north, looking for to regain these lands. Kupiansk, a strategically vital metropolis that served as a logistical heart for the Russian navy, is correct within the cross hairs, and lots of residents say they dread the return of the forces who terrorized them for six months.
“No one can survive a second occupation,” stated Liudmila Sezonova, who runs a honey wholesale business and stated she stayed house for months all through the occupation, hoping that she wouldn’t be penalized by the Russians for being a Ukrainian patriot.
Source: www.nytimes.com