UKRAINE, KUPIANSK, Dec. 17 —  The Ukrainian forces control nearly 90% of Kupiansk, a city east of Kharkiv oblast, wrote Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s army, on his Telegram channel. 

On Dec. 12, DeepState, OSINT war monitoring group, reported that Ukrainian troops pushed Russian soldiers out of northwestern Kupiansk, trapping remaining Russian units in the center of the city. 

Syrskyi added, the overall situation on the front remains difficult. He said that in order to conduct a strategic offensive operation, the Russian army has increased its troop strength to about 710,000 personnel (spread across the frontline — ed.).

According to the commander-in-chief, despite significant losses, the Russian army is not giving up on continuing its offensive operations, but they have not achieved any significant operational successes.

Andrey Belousov, minister of defence of Russia, claimed that the West group of forces captured Kupiansk, and collapse of the Ukrainian defence is “unavoidable” during the meeting with the Russian President Vladimir Putin on Dec. 17. 

Gwara couldn’t independently verify information about the situation in Kupiansk. 

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