Kathrine Frich
Voices from the battlefield rarely reach the public without filters.
When they do, they offer a raw glimpse into the human cost of a war often reduced to maps, arrows and official statements.
One such account has now emerged from eastern Ukraine, shedding light on the intensity of recent fighting and the toll it has taken on those sent to the front.
Fighting around Kupyansk
Ukrainian forces announced on Sunday, December 14, that they had recaptured part of Kupyansk, a key city in the Kharkiv region.
Ukrainian media outlets, including apostrophe.ua, reported that Russian troops were struggling to maintain momentum in the area.
According to those reports, Kupyansk and Pokrovsk had been expected to fall earlier. Instead, Russian advances have slowed, adding pressure on units already stretched by months of fighting.
It was against this backdrop that a video from the Kupyansk area began circulating online.
“Thrown into hell”
In the recording, a Russian soldier from the 27th Motorized Rifle Brigade describes the conditions his unit faced during an attempted assault.
He said the attack had to be abandoned after encountering strong Ukrainian resistance.
“It’s total chaos here. They were just killing us, throwing us into a meat grinder,” the soldier said. He added that nearly his entire company had been wiped out.
“Our entire company that we came with was completely destroyed. There were very few wounded; most of them are dead,” he said in the video.
Two days of destruction
The soldier said he survived by chance. He described drones attacking from multiple directions, constant mortar fire and bodies scattered across the ground.
The person filming said the blast waves from nearby explosions were so powerful they left him stunned and thrown aside.
“I’ve never been in such hell before. Almost everyone was killed, practically everyone. In two days, those bastards killed everyone,” the soldier said, referring to Ukrainian forces.
Pressure from above
Polish Radio, citing information from the Atesh partisan group, reported that Russia’s military command is under intense pressure from the country’s top political leadership.
According to the report, Russian generals have been warned that failure to achieve strategic objectives could bring serious consequences, adding to the strain on units already suffering heavy losses.
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