Authorities in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region have ordered the forced evacuation of families from dozens of towns around the strategic city of Kupiansk, Ukraine’s railway and transportation hub in the Kharkiv Oblast.

A total of 40 towns near Kupiansk are being evacuated due to the approaching front and intensified Russian attacks in northeast Ukraine, reports Do Rzeczy.

In recent months, Russian forces have been pushing forward towards Kupiansk, and the city was completely destroyed after prolonged shelling.

Russian troops had captured Kupiansk in the early weeks of the war in 2022. Then, in September 2022, as part of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Kharkiv Oblast, the city was recaptured and remained under the control of Ukrainian forces.

Kupiansk, however, remained close to the front line and was regularly shelled, and, according to some reports, the Russians have already broken through to the center of Kupiansk.

As Do Rzeczy reminds readers, in March 2022, Russian forces withdrew from the northern front following the failure of its campaign in the Kyiv region. Since then, despite fierce and brutal fighting, the front line has remained relatively unchanged in the southern and eastern directions.