Ukrainian Troops Fought Inside a 1.2-Meter Gas Pipe Near Kupiansk

During Operation Veles in the Kupiansk direction, Ukrainian troops fought rifle battles inside a gas pipe about 1.2 meters in diameter and advanced several kilometers that way, a source in the Khartiia brigade told Ukrainska Pravda.

The operation aimed to stop Russians from advancing to the right, Ukrainian-held bank of the Oskil river. Corps soldiers descended into the main gas pipeline and moved along it, fighting, for several kilometers. “We fought inside the pipe itself, and that is a space where maneuvering is very limited — that is the whole difficulty. Nobody in Ukraine has done this before us,” the source said. As a result, Ukraine's defense forces cleared at least part of the pipe of Russians. In parallel with the fighting in the pipe, the corps destroyed occupiers who had earlier passed through it to the right bank, climbed out and dug in in the forest.

Why the pipe matters

Since summer 2025 the Russian army has used the Shebelynka–Ostrogozhsk gas main, which runs under the Oskil, to reach the right bank. It was the main way the occupiers entered the forest north of Kupiansk and the city itself. Blowing up such a solid structure is almost impossible, so Ukraine's defenders had to either destroy Russians on the left bank with drones or clear them on the right bank after they emerged from the pipe. Gaining control of the pipe, even partially, lets the Ukrainian force keep Russians away from its positions on the right bank.

Earlier, the National Guard's 2nd Khartiia Corps said that during Operation Veles in the Kupiansk direction the defense forces walked more than 15 km underground into the Russian rear and took more than 30 occupiers prisoner.