Russian forces breach frontline river in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region

Russian forces have established a bridgehead on the Ukrainian-held side of the Oskil River in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region, AFP reported on Thursday.

Crossing the river, which serves as the de facto frontline in much of the Kharkiv region, has been the focus of concerted efforts by the Russian military in recent months, with Ukrainian troops holding defensive positions on the river’s western bank and Russian forces attempting to advance from the east.

“The enemy is trying to gain a foothold in the town of Dvorichna, which is already on the right bank of the Oskil, and expand the entire bridgehead”, Andriy Besedin, mayor of the nearby city of Kupyansk, told Ukrainian televised news on Thursday.

Confirming that the situation for Ukrainian forces in the area had become “extremely difficult”, Besedin said that Russian troops were now just two kilometres from Kupyansk and likely planned to use the newly-established bridgehead to flank Ukrainian positions near the city.

According to Besedin, Russian forces launched at least 12 attacks around the villages of Holubivka and Petropavlivka on Wednesday as they attempted to advance towards the centre of Kupyansk.

Though Kupyansk fell to Russian forces along with much of Ukraine’s Kharkiv region in the early days of the invasion in February 2022, it was liberated in a surprise Ukrainian offensive six months later and has remained under Kyiv’s control since then.

While the city has been the focus of intensified Russian military pressure since late 2024, Armed Forces of Ukraine Chief of Staff Anatoliy Barhylevych said in December that Ukrainian forces had successfully repelled all Russian attacks on Kupyansk and denied there was any threat of the city falling to Kremlin forces.

On Monday, Russia’s Defence Ministry announced the capture of the Donetsk region town of Kurakhove, once a key Ukrainian stronghold with a pre-war population of 18,000, but also an important strategic objective for the Russian military that it needs to capture in order to continue its Donbas offensive.