Zelensky Visits Troops As Ukraine Gains Ground Near Key City

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday he had visited troops fending off Russian advances near the embattled city of Kupiansk that Moscow claimed to have captured last month, which Kyiv denies.

Ukraine said earlier its army had retaken two settlements in the northern Kharkiv region and pushed Russian troops back in Kupiansk — a strategically important city and a key railway hub.

“Many Russians talked about Kupiansk — we can see. I was here, I congratulated the guys. Thanks to every unit, to everyone fighting here, to everyone destroying the occupier,” Zelensky, wearing a bulletproof vest, said in a video posted on Telegram.

He did not disclose his exact location, but AFP geolocated Zelensky on a road at the entrance to the southwest of the city.

On Friday, the Khartia Battalion said the Ukrainian army had retaken two settlements north of the city.

“Kindrashivka, Radkivka, and their outskirts have been liberated, as well as a number of neighbourhoods in northern Kupiansk,” it said on social media.

The Russian army claimed at the end of November to have again captured the city of Kupiansk, which it first seized in 2022 before Ukrainian forces retook it in the autumn of that year.

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Russia has in recent months touted advances on the battlefield, where Ukrainian forces are on the back foot.

Kyiv has repeatedly dismissed Russian claims of sweeping advances as Moscow’s attempts to promote a narrative that Ukraine faces imminent collapse, to influence negotiations to end the war.

Washington is now pushing Kyiv to make major territorial concessions as part of its plan to end the nearly four-year war.

“Russians operate much more effectively in the information space than any of our partners and spread information that doesn’t reflect reality,” Zelensky told reporters, including from AFP, on Thursday.

“We have to refute outright nonsense,” he added.

Russia has not claimed to have formally annexed the Kharkiv region, where Kupiansk is located, and according to Zelensky, the latest version of a draft US plan to end the war could see Russia withdraw from these areas, with Ukraine pulling out of the Donetsk region.