KYIV, Dec 17 (Reuters) – Ukraine controls nearly 90% of the strategic northeastern town of Kupiansk, its military chief said on Wednesday, but Russia’s defence minister said a Ukrainian counter-attack on the town had been unsuccessful.
The chief of Russia’s general staff told President Vladimir Putin last month that Russian forces had taken control of Kupiansk. Kyiv denied the town had changed hands and a Ukrainian commander said last week that Ukrainian forces had retaken parts of it in an operation that encircled Russian troops.
“Thanks to active search and strike operations, we managed to repel the (Russians) from Kupiansk and take control of almost 90% of the town’s territory,” Oleksandr Syrskyi, Commander in Chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, wrote on Telegram on Wednesday.
Russian Defence Minister Andrey Belousov later told a televised meeting of top defence officials that Ukrainian forces were trying unsuccessfully to take control of Kupiansk.
Reuters could not independently verify the situation in Kupiansk, a strategically important railway hub that has been largely destroyed in nearly four years of war in Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
ZELENSKIY VISITED KUPIANSK LAST WEEK
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy posted a photo of himself at the entrance to Kupiansk last week. In a video clip posted on his social media account, he underlined the importance of Ukrainian successes on the front line “so that Ukraine can achieve results in diplomacy.”
Kyiv is under pressure to make territorial concessions as U.S. President Donald Trump tries to secure an agreement to end the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War Two.
The counter-attack in Kupiansk, if its success is confirmed, bucks a trend seen throughout 2025 as Russian forces have made gradual advances, albeit at what Kyiv has said are heavy losses.
The United States has offered to provide NATO-style security guarantees for Kyiv in talks on ending the war but there has been no agreement on what Zelenskiy called the “painful” issue of territorial concessions.
Moscow has ruled out withdrawing from territory it has seized and wants Ukraine to leave the remaining part of the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine that Russia does not control.
Russia’s military says it controls over 19% of Ukraine. Belousov said on Wednesday that Russia had taken a third more ground in Ukraine in 2025 than it had in 2024, and that Russian strikes had halved Ukrainian energy generating capacity.
Reuters could not verify the information.
(Reporting by Anna Pruchnicka and Max Hunder; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Timothy Heritage)
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