UKRAINE, KUPIANSK AXIS, KUPIANSK, — The loud mechanical buzz of the heavy drone “Vampire” rising is deafening. All present watch the black spider of it moving through the blue skies.
It’s a sunny, beautiful day. The nearby forest line drops shadows on the launch site for one of the heavy drone teams from the 116th Separate Mechanized Brigade.
Usually, they work at night, striking Russian targets with whatever munition is attached to “Vampires” and mining their logistics in and around Kupiansk.
Now, they’re testing this new drone — Gwara’s journalists are not allowed close to the zero line, which seems as close to the city as it ever had been since Ukraine liberated Kupiansk in Kharkiv counteroffensive in 2022.
In the summer of 2024, heavy drones also began to deliver supplies to the Ukraine’s infantry. After undoing plastic wraps which are used to attach test munitions — two very real 8-kilograms bombs — one of the drone team’s members replaces it with a bag of supplies.
Infantry soldiers often have to spend weeks on their positions because of the danger of Russian first-person view (FPVs) drones, both usual and those using fiber optics. Exiting and entering the position is when they are the most vulnerable targets for Russian troops.
“It’s impossible for us to go right to the infantry,” says ‘Vados,’ the crew’s pilot. When the provision is dropped off, the soldiers get out of their hiding place for three seconds, get the package, and return back to their relative security. “Drone is just plastic, you don’t feel sorry for it. Using them helps to keep our people safe.”
A new problem for the heavy drones — whether they deliver food and water to Ukraine’s infantry or drop bombs on Russian troops in and around Kupiansk — is interceptor drones.
“They are very widespread, patrolling above Russian positions day and night,” ‘Vados’ says. “As soon as they see our drones, they ram into them.”
It’s surreal to watch this small war machine, turned to, if necessary, a life-saving tool, to become smaller and smaller against the backdrop of the deceptively peaceful landscape.
Situation is controlled
Gwara got to observe the testing of a “Vampire” on Sep. 4.
A few days before, Russian sources spread a video with Russian troops unrolling their flag in Kupiansk. 10 army corps reported that Russian sabotage-reconnaissance groups (SRG) responsible for these “stage propaganda materials” are “instantly destroyed by Ukraine’s defenders.”
DeepState war monitors wrote that their data showed Russian presence even in the center of Kupiansk, while video showed the northern part of the city. They added: “It’s too early to talk about complete elimination of the enemy.”
At the beginning of August, our journalists wrote about reports of Russian sabotage groups entering Kupiansk and interacting with locals in civilian clothes. This news was brought by people who had just evacuated from the city and was confirmed by three anonymous military sources working in and around Kupiansk. Local officials denied that saboteurs are in Kupiansk, saying they have “no such information.”
Hare, in the fields west of Kupiansk, Gwara asks: “From what is allowed to disclose, how is the situation in Kupiansk?”
“The situation is controlled,” tightly responds ‘Vados.’
The new drone lands after dropping the “provisions.” The team quickly packs it up into a van, with a plush toy reminiscent of a Christmas deer stuck to the side of the vehicle.
When the night falls, this “Vampire” will deliver supplies or drop deadly FABs in and around Kupiansk — depending on what’ll get a priority.
Driving along with a drone unit’s commander, call sign ‘Grandpa,’ back to where his team is stationed, Gwara directs a question about Russian saboteurs in Kupiansk to him.
“I don’t want to comment, I’m not infantry,” ‘Grandpa’ says. “From what I know, I… Let’s say it this way: my crew drives around with additional ammunition, additional grenades. If a civilian walks around one of our relay points — it seems that Russians are dressing up as civilians, right? — I say: get their face to the floor, and then talk. No need to take risks.”
Another change is this: if the team had previously looked for the lost drones, now ‘Grandpa’ forbids them to. “Categorically, no. I tell them — I need you, not the drone.”
Expect Russians everywhere
The car is hidden under the trees, as are the people talking in the eerie silence of morning in a frontline village.
You can’t help but listen to every sound: the shuffle of dry leaves under the boots, the dog barking in the distance. Every car passing by moves fast — faster than would be allowed where there was no war. Here, even the birds look threatening — something moving in the corner of your eye.
The voice of the commander of the artillery unit in the 116th brigade with a call sign ‘Vovk’ almost blends with the hush of the surroundings. He recently lost many people from his unit — a Russian Shahed drone killed his commander and injured other people from his team.
‘Vovk’ assigns responsibility for the situation in Kupiansk — the fact that Russians got close to it from the north — to the brigades adjacent to their artillery regiment and the command.
At the end of 2024, according to DeepStateMap, Russian troops crossed the Oskil River that runs through the east of Kharkiv oblast to the right bank and, during spring, occupied Dvorichna.
That allowed them to cut off logistics to Kupiansk from the north via control of the P-79 highway, reach Radkivka and Holubivka north of Kupiansk, and start, in small infantry groups, moving along the villages west of the city.
“There’s already firing combat in Sobolivka. I honestly think you can meet Russians anywhere. I believe their goal is to encircle Kupiansk,” ‘Vovk’ says.
South of Sobolibka lies the Kupiansk-Shevchenkove highway. It’s the only road supplying Kupiansk from the west that connects it to Kharkiv, a regional center.
No one expected the combat around and in Kupiansk would get this intense, ‘Vovk’ says, and the city was poorly prepared. The anti-drone nets, according to the commander, began to be installed in Kupiansk just about four months ago.
“Now, we’re buying the bicycles with our own money, so our FPVs could reach Kupiansk, because it’s impossible to enter the city by car,” ‘Vovk’ adds with a small, bitter smile. “Wanna live — then, keep pedaling.”
‘Vovk’ and his artillery platoon are obsessed with masking. The caponier for their AS-90 — a giant menacing-looking howitzer, inside which a tall platoon commander can stand at full height — is dug deep into the earth. The nets masking it are stretched across the large wooden logs.
It’s not overprotection. Russian FPVs and other drones are deadly both for the service people and the artillery machine, and both are lacking in the Armed Forces. Here, everyone’s always listening and watching out for them.
“The time when you could get your machine into the field and shoot is over,” ‘Vovk’ says. “You wouldn’t live for long like that. Neither you, nor your equipment.” He adds, “The war changes and we’re changing.”
Their caponier is dug deep into the wet orange clay, pierced by the roots of surrounding trees. The platoon spent three weeks building it up with their own hands — any equipment here would be immediately visible to the Russian aerial reconnaissance.
When the combat order is received, the team has to get to the howitzer from the dugout, load ammo inside, get it out of the caponier, make their shots, and hide it back in six minutes.
Six minutes is maximum, ‘Vovk’ says. “My boys do it faster.”
These positions are about 7 kilometers (4.3 miles) from the zero line on the Kupiansk axis. Here, everyone is also wary of Russian troops, saboteurs or not.
“They come in civilian clothes and military clothes — depending on their goals: to kill, to gain intelligence,” says ‘Bear’, the howitzer’s commander. “Sometimes, they come to gain a foothold and wait for the support reserves.”
To protect themselves, this platoon installed movement sensors and got their air defence specialist to constantly control the perimeter. He both looks for threats and flaws in the way its equipment and dugout are camouflaged.
“It’s all sparkles and luxury here,” says the howitzer driver. “Meaning, the team is intact, the property is intact, and everything’s fine.”
Everyone gets to the dugout when the voice on the walkie-talkie informs of “something flying.” The fresh smell of wet autumn forest changes to the scents of coffee and soil. The dugout is huge also, with a large two-level bed stuck to the farther wall of it.
‘Vovk’ is shrugging at the question of whether or not their team has enough shells, but says that the state doesn’t support the military enough when the discussion touches on the recent law that allows men aged 18-22 to leave Ukraine.
“You have to think why they’ve done that. Are they afraid for their asses, that the youth won’t (be silent) about what they do?” ‘Vovk’ ponders.
Authorities have to support the military, ‘Vovk’ says. If there’s a lack of artillery machines, there have to be drones — millions of them, like Commander-in-Chief had promised, he says.
“There should be millions of drones. One for each of those (Russian) fuckers.”
To the question of Russian attempts to envelop Kupiansk, the platoon’s armored vehicle driver shrugs.
“Of course, they are concerning. They walk in small groups, and even reach our positions sometimes. But when they can’t do anything here, they start attacking the villages. Think of how many civilians there are.”
He doesn’t believe there are Russian troops in Kupiansk itself and thinks DeepState’s reports are “political.” He remains optimistic: “If they haven’t taken Kupiansk in a year, they probably won’t take it at all.”
In Gwara’s short time with this artillery platoon, they didn’t receive an order to shoot.
As the car moves away from the positions, ‘Vovk’ asks everyone present to watch out for Russian FPVs.
Within Kupiansk
In the aftermath of two field trips to 116th drone and artillery teams, our journalists contacted several sources in the military to clarify the situation in Kupiansk more.
All sources agreed to talk under the condition of full anonymity because our conversations were unsanctioned by the command.
On Sep. 10, a senior sergeant from one of UAV units working in the city said that Russians troops have already dispersed through the center of the city wearing civilian clothes, having gained a solid foothold in the north of Kupiansk. This was confirmed by two other military sources.
“The situation on the ground is a little bit different,” the senior sergeant said when asked to share his opinion on the 10th corps’ communication about “instant destruction” of the Russian saboteurs in Kupiansk.
“Some of the Russians are being killed on the central streets of the city. We barely have the means to hold them off.”
A commander of an FPV drone unit working in Kupiansk told Gwara on Sep. 13 that he was injured exiting his position.
“That’s how the situation in Kupiansk is,” he said jokingly. “But it is really very bad. Moving around the city — there’s a 100% chance that you’ll be hit.”
Russians wearing civilian clothes — sometimes feminine clothes — complicates an already difficult situation further.
“I wasn’t ready for that,” the FPV drone unit soldier admits. “I think that had to be solved earlier, by the evacuation. When there are zero civilians in the city, and there’s an unknown person around, you can identify them. But today, there are almost 1,000 people here. (Checking if) a person is Russian takes time. While soldiers are trying to figure out whether or not they’re local and get close, they can get shot.”
Mandatory evacuation in Kupiansk and the Kupiansk district was enforced only for families with children.
Then, there was the pipeline issue. Seizing Radkivka and Holubivka allowed Russian sabotage troops to use the gas pipeline that goes from occupied Lyman-Pershyi to the forests north of Kupiansk, DeepState wrote on Sep. 12.
Russians used it here like they used the pipelines in Sudzha (Russia’s Kursk oblast) and Avdiivka (Donetsk oblast) — to send more of their troops to the city.
According to service people speaking out on their social media and people Gwara talked to, this could have been prevented. The pipeline lies under the Oskil waters. It could have been flooded a long time ago.
“But we’re providing people with gas and water until the end,” one of our military sources said. “Everything for people. And, in the end, we’re having these issues.”
Ukraine’s General Staff, on Sep. 13, wrote that a counter-sabotage operation has been happening in the city for the last two weeks. That was the first time they implicitly confirmed there were clashes with Russian forces in Kupiansk.
On the same day, Andrii Besedin, head of the Kupiansk’s military administration, said on the state TV that “there’re no Russians in Kupiansk.”
Three days later, responding to the question of whether Kupiansk is prepared for defence, another drone pilot working there responded, short and definitive: “No.”
“They’re coming and coming,” he said. “The ‘meat offensives’ are no more; now they use small infantry troops, split up, disperse, and enter the houses and high-rise residential buildings (in the city). They are already reaching the railways.”
Kupiansk is a vital transportation hub for the region. Seizing railways there and in neighbouring Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi would allow them to transport heavy equipment to the right bank of Oskil. That they haven’t done yet due to the efforts of Ukraine’s drone and artillery forces, our sources say.
To prevent Russian troops from getting into the city through the gas pipeline, the Ukrainian army damaged and flooded the pipeline that helped the Russians get into the city. The 10th army corps reported on that on Sep. 19.
A drone pilot commented, “Aviation and artillery (worked to blow the pipeline), the results are unknown for now. I do hope it got flooded.”
Three military sources also confirmed that Russian troops established drone control over a part of the Shevchenkove-Kupiansk highway close to Kupiansk.
One of them claimed that they had already crossed this highway, sending their infantry to its southern side, keeping to their plan to envelop the city by fully disrupting its logistics.
Like they’ve done with other cities they’ve occupied. Like what they’re attempting to do to Pokrovsk right now.
What now?
The ideal scenario, a sergeant from the UAV unit believes, is where one well-prepared and equipped battalion enters the city and starts to “cut off” the entrance to the Kupiansk that Russians are still using. “Those remaining in the city are being dealt with by other units — while this other brigade doesn’t allow others in.”
The reality, according to him, is that when Russians have already gained a foothold in the city, “this city is fucked.”
During September, according to open sources, Russian troops advanced southward in Kupiansk, reaching its central streets. Yurii Fedorenko of the “Achilles” battalion confirmed the fact of urban fighting across the city.
Only on Sep. 18, the local administration admitted there are Russians in the city, admitting that “the situation is critical” but “controlled.”
Four days later, the spokesman of the “Dnipro” strategic group told “Suspilne” that “Kupiansk axis right now is like the Pokrovsk axis, but on a smaller scale.”
On Sep. 24, as this article is being edited, there have already been reports from the Kharkiv regional prosecutor’s office about Russian soldiers shooting at a 74-year-old civilian riding a bicycle in Kupiansk with a rifle. The incident, prosecutors wrote, happened at the beginning of autumn.
Polina Kulish, our journalist and video editor, contributed to the development of this story.
Hi, I’m Yana, Gwara’s chief editor. Last time I wrote about Kupiansk, I called the pace of the Russian advance on the city slow. Now it seems that it’s anything but. I spent two days with the 116th brigade, and weeks talking to the soldiers in the city, trying to gain a deeper understanding of what’s happening. Thank you for reading this article — writing it meant a lot to me, as well as the fact that you keep Kupiansk in your mind. Who knows what’s next for this city and the Kupiansk axis in its entirety, but we’re gonna watch it very closely. If you want to support our war reporting further, please, consider buying us a cup of coffee or subscribing to BMC long-term or following us on Patreon.
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