Shelling kills civilians in Ukraine’s northeast

| August 27, 2023

Russian forces struck a cafe in a key front-line area in north eastern Ukraine killing two civilians and wounding a third amid fears Russia might retake the area.

The deadly shelling on Saturday was near the city of Kupiansk, which was captured by Kyiv in a lightning counteroffensive last September after more than six months of Russian occupation. Fierce fighting there earlier this month prompted mandatory evacuations and fears of a second Russian takeover.

UK military intelligence said Russia may “increase the intensity of its offensive efforts” around Kupiansk and nearby Lyman in an attempt to take pressure off its forces near Bakhmut and in the Zaporizhzhia region, where a Ukrainian counteroffensive has reportedly made gradual gains. 

Earlier this month, Ukrainian authorities ordered a mandatory evacuation of nearly 12,000 civilians from 37 towns and villages around Kupiansk, citing a concerted effort by Russian troops to punch through the front line. 

After the Russian occupiers left Kupiansk last year, Ukrainian authorities said they found torture chambers and mass graves in the region.

Ukrainian officials have so far reported limited advances in Kyiv’s large-scale counteroffensive launched in early June, including in the southern Zaporizhzhia region and on the outskirts of Bakhmut, the eastern city that became the site of the war’s longest and bloodiest battle before falling to Moscow in May.

On Saturday morning, the Ukrainian regional administration of Zaporizhzhia reported that Russian shelling the previous day of Mala Tokmachka, one of the villages near which Kyiv’s troops were reportedly advancing, killed one resident and wounded another.

Also on Saturday, a new drone attack on Moscow forced an early-morning temporary shutdown of all three major airports serving the city, Russian state media reported. Officials blamed Ukraine for what appeared to be the latest of near-daily strikes on the Russian capital and the surrounding region.

Kyiv has since early this year sought to take the 18-month-war into the heart of Russia, also saying recently it was behind strikes on Russian military assets far behind the front lines.

Russia’s defence ministry and Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said a drone was shot down over the Istra district of the Moscow region, some 50km west of Red Square.

Later on Saturday, Russia’s defence ministry said another drone was brought down as it approached the Russian city of Belgorod, some 45km from the Ukrainian border. It did not mention any casualties or damage.

Belgorod regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov accused Ukrainian forces of shelling a border village using cluster munitions, wounding six civilians. Gladkov did not provide visual evidence for the use of the controversial and widely banned weapons, which contain dozens of small bomblets that scatter shrapnel over a wide area.

Kyiv last month began receiving cluster bombs from the US, but has pledged to use them only to dislodge groups of enemy soldiers. Ukrainian officials have regularly accused Moscow of firing cluster munitions at residential areas, while Russian regional authorities have reported on Ukrainian cross-border attacks in which civilians were hurt.