Ukraine recovers the strategic city of Kupiansk and the Kremlin is criticized

Information is trickling in, but Christmas Day 2025 will be remembered as an important day in the war against Russia. Ukraine has recovered the strategic city of Kupiansklocated in the province of Kharkovin the northeast of the country and a major battlefront in the defense of the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city.

Russian “Milbloggers” – the only source of information on the front on the Russian side – have reported in recent hours that the Russian army was no longer able to maintain its positions in the city and that it had begun a forced withdrawal under Ukrainian pressure.

According to official Russian sources, there were at least two full battalions in Kupiansk – normally between 500 and 1,200 soldiers each – but there were no longer more than 50 units on the ground.

Kupiansk is a fundamental enclave in the northeast of the country. Not so much because it is the last line of defense of the city of Kharkiv, but because it has a major rail and road junction near the border with Russia that connects several operational directions in the northeast and east of Ukraine, particularly towards Donbass. A privileged location for moving munitions, fuel and troops on a large scale.

In addition, it lies on the line of the Oskil River, which acts as a natural barrier: whoever controls the city and its passages controls a significant part of the logistics and access to the interior of Ukraine.

For Ukraine, regaining control of the city will make it more difficult for Russia to stabilize a rail supply line and reduce its ability to advance west toward Kharkiv and into the country.

Its importance is such that it was one of the first Russian objectives at the start of the invasion and recovered by Ukraine in 2022. Recently, Russia defined it as one of the main strategic objectives in the Kharkov province.

This information would be consistent with the visit made by the man himself. Volodymyr Zelensky on the outskirts of town two weeks ago.

The Ukrainian president positioned himself less than two kilometers from the front, within firing range of Russian artillery and drones, all in an effort to deny that the Russians had mastered the city.

Last week and as demonstrated by the Ukrainian open source intelligence project Deep Stateat least three villages north and west of Kupiansk also remained under Ukrainian control.

The northern districts of Kupiansk were also under Ukrainian control at the time.

Criticism of the Kremlin

Russian “military bloggers”, according to War Institute (ISW), not only recognizes Ukrainian advances, but launches all kinds of criticism against the Russian military command for providing false information about what is happening on the front line.

As ISW has been able to confirm in recent weeks, Russia does not currently have the troops or capabilities to carry out joint offensives in different regions of Ukraine.

ISW recently estimated that Russian forces will likely continue to struggle to support the multifaceted offensives desired by Russian forces. Kremlin in different directions due to the long-term material and labor costs of these simultaneous operations.

In fact, the one known as “fortress belt” Ukraine – or “fortress belt” in Spanish – which covers the entire Donbass front from south to north, has greater demands than expected on Russia, which has had to allocate more resources. Which will probably force Russia to choose in the short or medium term where it wants to concentrate its efforts.

It is likely that Vladimir Putin demands, as part of peace negotiations, that Ukraine cede unoccupied parts of Donetsk province in order to save Russia’s personnel and material resources. Moreover, it is even possible that Putin will look further into the future in an attempt to gain an advantageous position on the ground and pursue his main goal: controlling all of Ukraine in the not too distant future.