Gerasimov Escalates Lies About Kupiansk, Claims Capture of Unreached Settlement

Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the Russian General Staff, claimed that the settlement of Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region had been captured, even though Russian forces have not come close to the area.

According to the Agentstvo media, Gerasimov stated this during an inspection of the “West” group of forces. Footage from the inspection was released Tuesday morning by the defense ministry of the aggressor state.

Gerasimov asserted that Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi had already been taken and that Russian invasion troops were now “conducting inspections and clearing urban neighborhoods.”

In response, several Russian pro-war Telegram channels immediately questioned the accuracy of the commander’s claims.

According to the DeepState map, the distance from Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi to the territory currently controlled by Russian invasion forces is at least 10 kilometers.

The settlement is located approximately five kilometers south of Kupiansk, where Ukrainian Defense Forces are conducting a clearing operation against Russian troops.

The gray zone has not even reached the outskirts of this settlement, and it remains entirely under Ukrainian control.

Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi is a large settlement that is home to a railway station of the same name. The station is a major railway hub providing connections to Kharkiv, Valuyki, Sviatohirsk, Belgorod, Popasna, and Kupiansk-Pivdennyi.

In 2022, Russia used the railway infrastructure of the station to transfer its forces from Russia’s Belgorod region to the temporarily occupied territories of eastern Ukraine.

Ukrainian Defense Forces liberated the settlement in the first half of September of that year during the Kharkiv regional counteroffensive.

In late December 2025, Russian forces lost control of areas of Kupiansk that they had previously infiltrated over a period of time using small infantry groups.