As the 22-month offensive collapses into blood and failure, Russian troops are asking if their commander ever stopped working for Ukraine.
The Frontline
Euromaidan Press
Today, there are interesting updates from the Kupiansk direction in northeastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv Oblast.
Kupiansk axis: A grinding Russian offensive with catastrophic results
Here, Russia’s offensive against Kupiansk has turned into one of the greatest disasters of the war, a grinding campaign that devours entire brigades yet yields no meaningful gains. The fact that these fruitless but bloody efforts happen under the command of a general who was once a Ukrainian officer has started raising dreadful suspicion in the Russian ranks.
Since being pushed back after the Ukrainian counteroffensive in late 2022, Russian armies have hurled themselves against Ukrainian defenses on several axes near Kupiansk but each of these has become a graveyard for Russian troops.
Near Synkivka, armored columns once tried to break through, but Ukrainian counterattacks and artillery fire forced most of them back. The forest belts remain littered with destroyed vehicles and dead Russians, while Ukrainian special forces raids keep Russian troops pinned down.
To the south, near Pischane, the Russian attempt to split Ukrainian forces in two has turned into a killing zone through the infamous funnel. Here, Russians pour infantry into a narrow corridor, only to be slaughtered by Ukrainian artillery, FPV drones, and ambushes from three sides. Every attempt to widen the corridor has collapsed, leaving Russian units undersupplied, exhausted, and easy prey.
North of Kupiansk, in the Russian bridgehead, Russian troops did seize Dvorichna after months of attritional assaults, but the prize turned out to be hollow: armored vehicles cannot cross the Oskil and support an advance, and Ukrainian firepower blocks any further breakout. The result is a static bridgehead where infantry is fed in and destroyed with no prospect of operational success despite some advances to the southwest with most Russian soldiers being cut down as they attempt to move into the town.
In all, Russia has spent 22 months, at least 2 combined-arms armies, and 13,000 soldiers in the Kupiansk direction for nothing but blood and ashes. Ukrainian artillery, aviation, and drones strike not only the frontlines but also logistics hubs behind them, with extended supply lines further choking Russia’s offensive. What was supposed to be a swift advance to threaten Kharkiv
Oblast and eliminate the major Ukrainian bridgehead east of the Oskil River has turned into a drawn-out massacre, with casualties mounting each day.
Defector general Storozhenko at the center of suspicion
This disaster has fueled a strange speculation: could the Russian commander of this offensive, Lieutenant General Serhii Storozhenko, in fact be Ukraine’s best spy?
Storozhenko was once a decorated Ukrainian officer, the commander of the 36th Marine Brigade. But during the Russian takeover of Crimea in 2014, he defected, and witnesses recall how he encouraged his men to surrender weapons and side with Russia, though he later claimed he had simply resigned.
A week after the phony referendum that followed up, he received a Russian passport and soon headed a new brigade for the enemy.
By 2022, he commanded the 35th Army in the Kharkiv region, which suffered a humiliating collapse at Izium. Instead of punishment, he was promoted to Lieutenant General in 2023 after whitewashing several post-operation reports, and given command of the Russian 6th Army, which is now being bled to death outside Kupiansk.
Under Storozhenko’s watch, Russian losses are truly catastrophic. His 6th Army has repeatedly been thrown into frontal assaults that Ukrainians describe as senseless meat attacks. Casualties have skyrocketed so much since the start of the Kupiansk offensive, that some Russian analysts whisper about deliberate sabotage.
His track record reinforces the suspicion: defeats at Izium, stalemate in Kursk, and now a complete disaster at Kupiansk. Ukrainians joke that if he is not their spy, he might as well still be connected to the Ukrainian military, because it is strange for a Russian commander to inflict this amount of damage on his own forces with such consistency.
Spy, fool, or both?
Overall, a general once branded by Russians as a loyal defector to Russia is now presiding over a catastrophe so severe that Russian soldiers do not know whether to question his competence or allegiance. The irony is bitter: a man who betrayed Ukraine in 2014 may have turned out to be the single most effective instrument of Ukraine’s defense, orchestrating Russian defeats from within their own chain of command.
The Kupiansk offensive drags on, with Russia still trying to grind forward, but as casualties mount, speculation only grows that General Storozhenko is either one of the most incompetent commanders Russia has, or Ukraine’s most successful double agent.
