Russia takes control of the city of Kupiansk in northeastern Ukraine

Russia said Tuesday it had captured a large part of the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kupiansk and that it wanted to expand its advance much deeper into the Kharkiv region.

Control over Kupiansk will allow for further advances deep into the Kharkiv region, including towards Izium and Chuguiv, the Russian army said in a statement.

The Russian army said it controlled more than 65 percent of the buildings in Kupiansk.

Kharkiv is not among the five regions of Ukraine that Russia claims to have annexed, as its troops were largely pushed out of the region in a successful counteroffensive by Kyiv’s forces in 2022.

US President Donald Trump gave an unusually upbeat assessment of Ukraine’s battlefield performance Tuesday, saying Kyiv’s forces have far surpassed expectations, as he met President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Ukraine is doing a very good job of stopping this very large army. It’s pretty amazing. You know, this is a war that should have ended in three days, four days, Trump said on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, reflecting conventional wisdom from the start of the war in February 2022.

People said it was going to be very quick, and you got to hand it to the Ukrainian soldiers, and everybody involved, it’s still going on. And that’s not a good thing for Russia. This was supposed to be quick. And so, Russia doesn’t look very distinguished, having taken three-and-a-half years of very hard fighting, and it looks like it’s not going to end for a long time, he added.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday that US President Donald Trump now has a much deeper understanding of the realities of the war in Ukraine and could be a game changer” in efforts to end the conflict with Russia.

Zelenskyy told reporters after his meeting with Trump in New York that the US president had previously relied on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s assessments of the war but now trusts Ukrainian intelligence and battlefield reports.

One by one, he understood that Putin is just sharing some information which is far from the real situation. Now he trusts much more to me, he said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told journalists last week that Kyiv was still battling for control of the city.

In the Kupiansk area, intense actions are ongoing, and there are appropriate forces there, he said.

Kupiansk, an important transport hub, was initially captured by Russian forces in the first months of the assault before being retaken by Ukraine.

Russia says taking the town will help it advance in the neighboring Donetsk region.