MOSCOW: Russia’s defense ministry said on Wednesday that its troops had captured “about half” of the city of Kupiansk in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, but Ukraine’s military denied any such advance.
Reuters could not independently confirm the battlefield reports from either side.
Kupiansk has been the focus of months of increased Russian military activity and heavy fighting. Russian troops captured the city in the early weeks of their February 2022 invasion and Ukrainian forces took it back later that same year.
Much of the city has been destroyed as Moscow tries to seize it back as part of a slow advance westward along parts of the 1,000-km (620-mile) long frontline.
The Russian Defense Ministry released a drone video showing a soldier holding a Russian flag while standing on a road in the town.
Ukraine’s 10th army corps, in a post on the Telegram messaging app, described the Russian report as staged propaganda.
“All such attempts are pointless,” it said alongside a video of its own, which it said showed a Russian unit being destroyed. “All such attempts by the Russian occupiers to use localities as a decoration for propaganda videos are doomed to fail.”
Ukraine’s official Center Against Disinformation said any notion that Russian forces had advanced into Kupiansk was untrue and a propaganda exercise.
Ukraine’s popular Deepstate war blog, which uses open source maps of the conflict, said the incident with the flag occurred on the city’s southern outskirts where control is disputed.
In a late evening report, the General Staff of Ukraine’s military said one armed clash was raging in the Kupiansk sector.
The report listed nearly 50 attempts by Russian forces to break through Ukrainian defenses near Pokrovsk, one of the focal points of Moscow’s drive through Donetsk region.
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Russia claims capturing ‘about half’ of Ukrainian city Kupiansk; Kyiv says it’s untrue
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Russia claims capturing ‘about half’ of Ukrainian city Kupiansk; Kyiv says it’s untrue
- Ukraine’s 10th army corps, in a post on the Telegram messaging app, described the Russian report as staged propaganda
- Kupiansk has been the focus of months of increased Russian military activity and heavy fighting
Colombia’s ELN guerrillas place communities in lockdown citing Trump ‘intervention’ threats
BOGOTA: Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla group ordered civilians in areas under its control on Friday to stay home for three days as it carries out military exercises in response to “intervention” threats from US President Donald Trump.
The ELN, the oldest surviving guerrilla group in the Americas, controls key drug-producing regions of Colombia and vowed Friday to fight for the country’s “defense” in the face of Trump’s “threats of imperialist intervention.”
Amid a major US pressure campaign against Venezuela, which many view as an attempt to push out strongman Nicolas Maduro, Trump on Wednesday warned that Colombia’s leftist President Gustavo Petro could “be next” over his country’s mass cocaine production.
“He’s going to have himself some big problems if he doesn’t wise up. Colombia is producing a lot of drugs,” Trump told reporters, when asked if he expected to speak with frequent foe Petro.
“He better wise up, or he’ll be next...I hope he’s listening.”
The ELN urged civilians in areas it controls to stay indoors for 72 hours starting at 6:00 am on Sunday, avoiding main roads and rivers.
“It is necessary for civilians not to mix with fighters to avoid accidents,” the group said in a statement.
Petro criticized the move on social media, saying one “doesn’t protest against anyone by killing peasants and taking away their freedom.”
“You, gentlemen of the ELN, are declaring an armed strike not against Trump, but in favor of the drug traffickers who control you,” he wrote on X.
Colombian Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez dismissed the ELN move as “nothing more than criminal coercion” and vowed the military “will be everywhere — in every mountain, every jungle, every river” to counter its threat.
With a force of about 5,800 combatants, the ELN is present in over a fifth of Colombia’s 1,100-plus municipalities, according to the Insight Crime research center.
The ELN has also taken part in failed peace negotiations with Colombia’s last five governments.
While claiming to be driven by leftist, nationalist ideology, the ELN is deeply rooted in the drug trade and has become one of the region’s most powerful organized crime groups.
It vies for territory and control of lucrative coca plantations and trafficking routes with dissident fighters that refused to lay down arms when the FARC guerrilla army disarmed under a 2016 peace deal.
One ELN stronghold is the Catatumbo region near the Venezuelan border — one of the areas with the most coca crops in the world.
Colombia is the world’s top cocaine producer, according to the UN.
- Souring ties -
Historically strong relations between Bogota and Washington have deeply soured since Trump’s return to office.
Petro, who came to power in 2022 as Colombia’s first-ever leftist president, has openly clashed with Trump calling him “rude and ignorant” and comparing him to Adolf Hitler.
The Colombian leader denounced the Trump administration’s treatment of migrants and what he has termed the “extrajudicial executions” of nearly 90 people in strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific the US claims, without providing evidence, were ferrying drugs.
Petro has also criticized Washington’s military deployment within striking distance of Venezuela, where Maduro fears he is the target of a regime-change plot under the guise of an anti-drug operation.
Washington, in turn, has accused Petro of drug trafficking and imposed sanctions.
Trump removed Bogota from a list of allies in the fight against narco trafficking, but the country has so far escaped harsher punishment.
The ELN, the oldest surviving guerrilla group in the Americas, controls key drug-producing regions of Colombia and vowed Friday to fight for the country’s “defense” in the face of Trump’s “threats of imperialist intervention.”
Amid a major US pressure campaign against Venezuela, which many view as an attempt to push out strongman Nicolas Maduro, Trump on Wednesday warned that Colombia’s leftist President Gustavo Petro could “be next” over his country’s mass cocaine production.
“He’s going to have himself some big problems if he doesn’t wise up. Colombia is producing a lot of drugs,” Trump told reporters, when asked if he expected to speak with frequent foe Petro.
“He better wise up, or he’ll be next...I hope he’s listening.”
The ELN urged civilians in areas it controls to stay indoors for 72 hours starting at 6:00 am on Sunday, avoiding main roads and rivers.
“It is necessary for civilians not to mix with fighters to avoid accidents,” the group said in a statement.
Petro criticized the move on social media, saying one “doesn’t protest against anyone by killing peasants and taking away their freedom.”
“You, gentlemen of the ELN, are declaring an armed strike not against Trump, but in favor of the drug traffickers who control you,” he wrote on X.
Colombian Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez dismissed the ELN move as “nothing more than criminal coercion” and vowed the military “will be everywhere — in every mountain, every jungle, every river” to counter its threat.
With a force of about 5,800 combatants, the ELN is present in over a fifth of Colombia’s 1,100-plus municipalities, according to the Insight Crime research center.
The ELN has also taken part in failed peace negotiations with Colombia’s last five governments.
While claiming to be driven by leftist, nationalist ideology, the ELN is deeply rooted in the drug trade and has become one of the region’s most powerful organized crime groups.
It vies for territory and control of lucrative coca plantations and trafficking routes with dissident fighters that refused to lay down arms when the FARC guerrilla army disarmed under a 2016 peace deal.
One ELN stronghold is the Catatumbo region near the Venezuelan border — one of the areas with the most coca crops in the world.
Colombia is the world’s top cocaine producer, according to the UN.
- Souring ties -
Historically strong relations between Bogota and Washington have deeply soured since Trump’s return to office.
Petro, who came to power in 2022 as Colombia’s first-ever leftist president, has openly clashed with Trump calling him “rude and ignorant” and comparing him to Adolf Hitler.
The Colombian leader denounced the Trump administration’s treatment of migrants and what he has termed the “extrajudicial executions” of nearly 90 people in strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific the US claims, without providing evidence, were ferrying drugs.
Petro has also criticized Washington’s military deployment within striking distance of Venezuela, where Maduro fears he is the target of a regime-change plot under the guise of an anti-drug operation.
Washington, in turn, has accused Petro of drug trafficking and imposed sanctions.
Trump removed Bogota from a list of allies in the fight against narco trafficking, but the country has so far escaped harsher punishment.
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