The small town of Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi, just south of the city of Kupiansk proper with its critical railway train hub … is a most tantalizing prize the perennially railway-centric Russians army can’t resist. It has also become the bait with which the Ukrainians have set in train the incipient destruction of the vaunted Russian 6th Combined Arms Army.
The map below, indicating the location of Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi(blue-red dot) at the critical nexus of the rail lines to most of Ukraine but more importantly the main battle ground cities in Eastern Ukraine, tells the story … from Stary Oskol across the border in Russia into Kharkiv oblast, the rail lines from Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi(light orangy-yellow) radiate Eastward, Westward, Northward, Southward and more critically Southwestward towards Pokrovsk-Dobropiliya and the so-called “Fortress Belt” cities of Northwestern Donetsk oblast which Russia aims to capture in order to complete the conquest of Donetsk oblast … Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka, Kostyantynivka and beyond into Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. Via Highway H26, which links Kharkiv to Sievierodonetsk in Luhansk oblast, as well as roads to Borova and Izium, Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi is militarily that critical. And tantalizing to the Russian army:
The Russians are interested in the largest railway station, Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi, as it would improve logistics and increase the railway transport capacity, which is significantly higher than that of road transport. This ensures greater speed and volume of military cargo transportation. All of this is necessary for the further movement of this group along the Oskil River toward the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk grouping.
https://uatv.ua/en/occupiers-have-intensified-in-the-kupiansk-direction-goals-analyzed-by-dmytro-sniehyrov/
Liberating the city of Kupiansk and the railway hub of Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi was among the key aims of the now famously successful Fall 2022 Ukrainian Kharkiv “Thunder Run” counteroffensive led by a son of Kharkiv city born to Russian parents ... General Oleksandr Syrskyi. Russians leave no doubt that they see Syrskyi as a “traitor” to Mother Russia. So now Russia wishes to return the favor by sending a Kharkiv born bona fide traitor back to Ukraine, Lieutenant General Serhiy Storozhenko at the head of the Russian 6th Army, to wrest Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi away from Syrskyi, who is now the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian army.
Except Storozhenko sucks at real generalship, in addition to being the worst traitor in Ukraine’s modern history. His sordid story as a turn-coat is well-known. A once upon a time wunderkind of the Ukrainian military, Storozhenko quickly rose through the officer ranks to overall command of the Ukrainian garrison in Crimea. His sudden capitulation and going over to the Russian side, in spite of the protest of his own soldiers, during the 2014 Russian seizure of Crimea, was a terrible and demoralizing blow to the already beleaguered people of Ukraine at the time.
He was conspicuously paraded about in Russian media, rewarded with Russian citizenship and a promotion in rank by Putin. But it has turned out that Storozhenko is really not good at being a fighting general. He has failed at almost all the tasks he’s been assigned by Russia in this war. Why Putin would put him at the helm of the task force involved in such a crucial campaign is truly baffling. Perhaps to troll Ukraine?
If so, it is not working. Russia’s renewed attack on Kupiansk is increasingly being seen as one of the most disastrous in this war. As if the Ukrainians knew what was going to happen, they slowly funneled the Russian assaults into the Northern sections of Kupiansk, in the general direction of Dvorichna while blocking the Southerly approaches to the city and the location of Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi. A lot of observers and analysts were quite alarmed at the seeming ease with which the Russians got to Dvorichna, the Northern and Western precincts of Kupiansk, especially after their gas pipe line caper and sneaking into town dressed as civilians. I posted a diary about that here: ADAPTIVE INDOMITABLE UKRAINE is Setting Up to Cut Apart Another Russian Salient ... in Kupiansk
Kupiansk 2.0 for the Russians is turning out to be a horror show:
Frontline report: Kupiansk became a graveyard for Russia’s 6th Army — and it’s still digging deeper
As the 22-month offensive collapses into blood and failure, Russian troops are asking if their commander ever stopped working for Ukraine.
https://euromaidanpress.com/2025/10/03/frontline-report-kupiansk-became-a-graveyard-for-russias-6th-army-and-its-still-digging-deeper/
And this:
Frontline report: Russian false reports trigger friendly fire chaos in Kupiansk
Russian Ministry of Defense lies about capturing Kupiansk have triggered wide spread friendly fire as troops kill each other while dressed as civilians. Even Russian analysts now mock their government’s fabricated reports while Ukrainian defenders maintain control with a 10-to-1casualty advantage.
https://euromaidanpress.com/2025/10/03/frontline-report-russian-false-reports-trigger-friendly-fire-chaos-in-kupiansk/
At Kupiansk and the nearby Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi rail head, ADAPTIVE INDOMITABLE UKRAINE intends, with resolute will and skill, to write the final chapter in the history of Russia’s heralded 6th Combined Arms Army which goes back to 1939 during the Soviet Union's existence ... destroying it in detail by funneling it into different unsupported pockets and salients.
SLAVA UKRAINI ! PEREMOHA(Victory) !!
