'Masquerade' tactics: Ukrainian commander on Russian claims of 'capturing' Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi

Yurii Fedorenko, commander of the 429th Separate Unmanned Systems Brigade ACHILLES, stated this on Espreso TV.

"Regarding the alleged capture of Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi by Russian forces, Putin was briefed about this as early as November 1, 2024. Let's divide the situation around Kupiansk into three parts and examine it in detail. First - left-bank Kupiansk and Vuzlovyi. The difficulty in holding this bridgehead is that for us to get from the right bank to the left, we need to use crossings over the Oskil River. Obviously, the Russian army keeps the crossings under fire control. But the relevant units of the Ukrainian Defense Forces quickly restore complete or partial destruction of the crossing, as a result - communication between the right and left banks remains. The Defense Forces can carry out evacuation, combat supply, and provision of our bridgehead with everything necessary," Yurii Fedorenko commented.

According to him, every day when bad weather occurs, the enemy attempts with varying numbers of assault-reconnaissance groups to infiltrate between our combat lines. It was recently discovered that during dense fog, several Russian soldiers moved behind the settlement of Kurylivka. Subsequently, they were detected and destroyed. Kurylivka remains under full control of the Ukrainian Defense Forces.

"The Russian forces very often resort to 'masquerade' tactics - they dress in our uniform, pixel camouflage, posing as representatives of the Defense Forces. Their task is to penetrate as deeply as possible between our combat lines, then unfurl the 'aquafresh,' photograph themselves with a Mavic, die on the battlefield, but Russian propaganda already has something to talk about. And reports to Putin are built on this basis. The question arises - are Russian generals deliberately lying to Putin? In my opinion, Putin more or less understands the situation on the line of combat contact, though sometimes he confuses cities that never existed in Ukraine, but we'll chalk that up to age," noted the commander of the 429th Separate Unmanned Systems Brigade ACHILLES.

In his opinion, Putin is generally well-informed about the situation on the front, so the question should be considered - why are Russian generals lying to the Kremlin leader? On some sections of the front, for every one of our aviation sorties, the enemy can carry out 12-14; the advantage in manpower - for every one of our fighters there can be 15 invaders, with similar ratios for other types of weapons. Regarding drones, the current situation is somewhere at parity, in some places we have the advantage, and in some places we significantly dominate. Overall, the enemy has spent billions on the war.

"In 2025, the enemy has failed to achieve a single operational breakthrough. When there are no significant achievements on the battlefield, Russian propaganda kicks in and discusses successes that don't exist for their domestic audience. The Ukrainian military is showing unprecedented resilience. In military terms, in the near future the enemy will not be able to overwhelm us, that is, gain the advantage to reach the operational level. That's precisely why they are now actively targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure and striking residential infrastructure," Fedorenko noted.

• Earlier, Andrii Kovalenko, head of the Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council, refuted statements by Russian Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov about the alleged capture of Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi in the Kharkiv region by Russian forces.