KHARKIV OBLAST, Feb 12 — Over the past day, Ukrainian troops repelled two Russian attacks in the Kupiansk direction. The Russian army tried to advance in the areas of Ivanivka and Tabaivka in the Kharkiv region, according to the General Staff.

In the Slobozhanskyi direction, in the border areas, the Russian military conducts intense sabotage activities to prevent the deployment of Ukrainian troops to more dangerous directions and increases the density of minefields along the state border in the Belgorod Oblast.

According to Forbes, Russia has amassed 500 tanks, more than 600 combat vehicles, hundreds of howitzers, and 40,000 troops in the Kupiansk direction. The Russian army aims to seize the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and part of the Kharkiv region up to the Oskil River by the Russian pres election on March 2024.

Oleh Syniehubov, the head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration commented on the Forbes publication’s information about the Russian offensive in the Kupiansk direction.

According to him, the Russian army has been trying to advance in this area since February last year. Russian troops attack daily in the Kupiansk direction with all available arsenal — bombs, artillery, multiple rocket launchers, and drones. In total, high-intensity fighting continues in all parts of the frontline for more than six months.

Read more: General Staff: Russia Has Lost 395,990 Troops in Ukraine

In early December 2024, the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported that the Kremlin had probably tasked the Russian military to capture Avdiivka and Kupiansk before the March 2024 elections. On October 26, 2023, the head of the public relations service of the Ground Forces Command, Volodymyr Fito, noted that the Russian army was continuing its attempts to advance in the Lyman-Kupiansk direction and had concentrated about 100,000 people there.