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Ukrainian Special Forces Eliminate Russian Fighters, Take POWs in Kupiansk
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![Photo of Dariia Mykhailenko]( "Photo of Dariia Mykhailenko")
A special operations group from the 8th Brigade of Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces (SSO) carried out successful actions in Kupiansk, the unit reported on January 26.
During reconnaissance of the city center, SSO operators identified a group of Russian servicemen who had taken up positions inside a destroyed supermarket and a nearby residential building.
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As a result of direct action, two enemy servicemen were killed and two others were taken prisoner.
According to the statement, the operation by the SSO group supported adjacent units in the liberation of Kupiansk’s central area.
The operation comes as Ukrainian forces steadily consolidate control over Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region, disrupting Russia’s efforts to turn the city into leverage for potential peace negotiations, The Washington Post reported on January 19.
According to the report, Russian troops continue to probe Kupiansk in small groups but are sustaining losses and failing to secure positions. Ukrainian officials said Russian forces have attempted to enter the city by crossing the river and through an unused gas pipeline, which they have used as a concealed approach route. These movements are monitored by Ukrainian drones, which strike sabotage groups as they surface.
“It’s like whack-a-mole,” Maksym Holubok, chief of staff of the Khartiia Brigade, said. “We’re holding a hammer and those moles keep popping up.”
Despite repeated attempts to break through, Russian forces have not succeeded in fully capturing Kupiansk. Ukrainian commanders described the incursions as isolated actions rather than signs of territorial control.
The Washington Post noted that Moscow had viewed Kupiansk as a potential bargaining chip in negotiations, hoping to pressure Kyiv into territorial concessions, but Ukrainian advances on the battlefield have undermined that strategy.
Ukrainian troops have pushed most Russian forces out of Kupiansk, with fewer than 100 Russian soldiers believed to remain, sheltering in basements and destroyed buildings in parts of the city.
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Despite this, Russian commanders have continued to send reinforcements into the area using an aging gas pipeline running beneath the Oskil River, the report said.
Ukrainian soldiers first became aware of the pipeline last summer after questioning captured Russian troops. At the time, Ukrainian units were close to losing Kupiansk and urgently requested better-trained reinforcements.
Those units were later deployed, and by late September Ukrainian forces launched a counteroffensive that gradually cleared most of the city. By December 2025, Kupiansk had largely been retaken—around the same period when Putin invited foreign journalists to the city and declared it “fully under our control.”
Earlier, Ukrainian troops in the Kharkiv region uncovered and neutralized a Russian effort to set up what appeared to be a “safe haven” inside a drainage tunnel beneath a local roadway.
