<
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/26/kupiansk-ukraine-war-frontline>
"Lyubov Lobunets, 77, left her home in the frontline Ukrainian city of Kupiansk
in August when it was hit by a Russian explosive.
“I was in a five-storey building,” she explained , speaking from a centre for
the displaced in nearby Kharkiv. “I don’t know whether it was a Russian missile
or bomb that hit the building but it started a fire, and when the flames
reached my floor, I was stuck because the door was damaged and I couldn’t
escape.”
The Ukrainian military, she said, saved her life. But by then much of Kupiansk,
which had a prewar population of 27,000, had departed. “In the months before I
left there were a few shops working,” she said. “But that last month, almost
everything closed. All the social services were evacuated.”
Amid the focus on the Donbas region further south and its cities, including
Pokrovsk, Kupiansk in the northern Kharkiv region on the Oskil river has drawn
less attention. But the slow death of Kupiansk, as it once was, dragged out
over two years and more, is a metaphor for the cities of Ukraine’s frontline,
ground in the teeth of Russia’s slow-moving combine of violence.
Gone is the small city centre market selling dried fish, honey and vegetables.
Homes that dotted the hillside are wrecked by shells. The fields outside the
city bordering the river are punctuated by craters.
Yet Lobunets explained her reluctance to evacuate. “I worked as a nurse and my
pension is very small,” she said. “I was afraid of where I’d live and how I’d
manage.”
Even until recently some of her friends had remained despite a compulsory
evacuation order, and as street fighting encroached on some of the Kupiansk
outskirts. Most who do remain in the city centre are clustered close to the
sports stadium.
“Some friends rang to tell me they had climbed up to the top floor to get a
mobile phone connection,” said Lobunets. “They could see buildings everywhere
that had been destroyed and fires across the city.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
