‘There is no life’: Kupiansk’s slow demise reflects the fate of cities on Ukraine’s frontline

Smoke rises from a burning building as firefighters continue to extinguish the fires following Russian attacks on Kupiansk on 6 April 2025. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

Lyubov Lobunets, 77, left her home in the frontline Ukrainian city of Kupiansk in August when it was hit by a Russian explosive.

“I was in a five-storey building,” she explained , speaking from a centre for the displaced in nearby Kharkiv. “I don’t know whether it was a Russian missile or bomb that hit the building but it started a fire, and when the flames reached my floor, I was stuck because the door was damaged and I couldn’t escape.”