Kyiv has said Russian soldiers wearing Ukrainian uniforms fought to enter the city of Kupiansk on the front lines in northern Ukraine.
The attack on Wednesday, which was repelled by Ukrainian soldiers, took place in four waves, and Russian soldiers were driven out of the city by Thursday.
Captain Andrii Kovaliov, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian military, told Ukrinform, the country’s national news agency, “Russian soldiers wore uniforms resembling those of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. This violates the laws and rules of warfare and constitutes a war crime.”
Newsweek contacted the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation for comment via email.
The Russian soldiers used 15 pieces of military hardware, “including tanks, armored combat vehicles and an UR-77 mine clearing vehicle,” Ukrinform reported, citing Kovaliov. Ukrainian soldiers destroyed two armored personnel carriers, The Telegraph reported.
Describing the attack, Andriy Besedin, Kupiansk’s military administration chief, said: “They partially entered the suburbs, the industrial zone, and were destroyed by our troops. There were assault actions using heavy armored vehicles, there were attempts to bring in infantry.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised the Ukrainian soldiers’ defense of Kupiansk in a post on X, formerly Twitter. He wrote on Thursday: “This morning began, as always, with a report from Commander Syrskyi. Not just the Donetsk region but also the Kupiansk direction—our warriors there have performed incredibly effectively.
“I am grateful to all of them for their resilience and for eliminating the occupiers, including on the southern fronts and in the Kursk operation. I am proud of all our people and every unit holding their positions, providing Ukraine with the opportunity to convince the world of one fundamental truth: humanity must prevail. This is what Ukraine is fighting for.”
If Russia’s attempt to take the city in northern Ukraine had been successful, it would have allowed it to “push further west into the Kharkiv region which is already under attack,” analysts told The Telegraph.
Kupiansk, which serves as an important railway hub, had a population of more than 26,000 in 2022. It has since been evacuated and, as of February 2024, has a population of less than 10,000, according to the Ukrainian publication ZN,UA.
In May 2023, there were similar reports of Russian troops wearing disguises, as military personnel escaping the occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region allegedly disguised themselves as Ukrainian civilians.
Ivan Fedorov, the exiled mayor of the city of Melitopol who made the claim, said at the time that to prevent Russian soldiers from posing as civilians, “another filtering has now been added when leaving the temporarily occupied territory—when they check all civilians in cars and try to prevent Ruscist military personnel from being disguised in cars.”
Earlier this month, the North Korean troops deployed to the front lines to fight for Moscow were reportedly disguised as Russian soldiers from Siberia.
Elsewhere in the conflict, reports have surfaced of Russian President Vladimir Putin reducing payments to injured soldiers amid high troop losses and increasing war costs.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who is preparing to return to the Oval Office and put his plan to end the conflict into motion, recently told Putin in a phone call not to escalate the war.
