A small number of Russian soldiers are in Kupiansk, surrounded and trapped under the ruins of a hospital.
According to Ukrinform, Victor Tregubov, spokesperson for the Joint Forces Task Force, stated this on television while commenting on reports by Russian bloggers claiming that there are no longer any Russian troops in Kupiansk.
"This is a disinformation campaign; in fact, it’s quite interesting. I don’t really understand its practical purpose. In fact, a certain number of Russians in the city of Kupiansk, right in the city center, are surrounded by the ruins of a hospital; they are still there. Yes, there aren’t many of them—probably just a platoon. But they are there. Why they were presumed dead prematurely is a big question,” he said.
Tregubov suggested that the Russian side wanted to remove the embarrassing topic of Kupiansk from the news cycle, or, in his words, the Russians planned to strike the hospital ruins, “but it’s somehow awkward to do that when, according to the official version, heroes are defending themselves there.”
The spokesperson noted that the Russians holed up in the hospital do not pose a threat to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
"Their goal is simply to survive. It’s unlikely they’ll succeed. As of now, they’re in a ruined hospital building. Food and supplies are being delivered to them via an airlift. When the building was still relatively intact, that was relatively convenient. You could get it [food] on certain floors. Now that the building is destroyed, and you have to climb out of the basements to collect what’s been dropped, it’s completely inconvenient, because Ukrainians are nearby, and they’ll likely shoot you the moment you climb out. “So they [the occupiers] don’t pose a threat at the moment, but no one is planning to go into their basements to smoke them out either,” Tregubov said.
At the same time, the spokesperson distinguished this issue from the Russian troop infiltration. According to him, there is some activity on the left bank of the Oskil River, with the enemy attempting to “sneak through.”
As reported by Ukrinform, no serious enemy offensive actions are currently being observed on the front line, as the Russians have exhausted the potential of their winter campaign and are preparing for the spring one.
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