What was claimed and denied over Kupiansk and Zaporizhzhia
A look back at reports on Russian strikes and a contested territorial claim in Ukraine's regions, as they stood by 23 November 2025.
What did the regional picture in Ukraine look like on 23 November 2025? Two reports from 21 November framed it: a deadly strike on Zaporizhzhia and a contested Russian claim about Kupiansk.
In Zaporizhzhia, a Russian glide bomb hit a high-rise apartment block on 21 November. Five people were killed and three others were injured.
The same day, Russian Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov announced that Russian forces had captured Kupiansk, the administrative centre of Kupiansk Raion in Kharkiv Oblast. The Ukrainian military denied the statement.
As of 23 November 2025, the two accounts of Kupiansk stood in direct contradiction: Moscow asserted control of the city, while Kyiv's military rejected the claim. The Zaporizhzhia casualty figures, by contrast, were reported as a matter of fact, with the dead and injured counted after the strike on the residential building.
