From "The Analyst":

RUSSIANS STRIKE INTO KUPIANSK FOREST

The Russians began an offensive after extensive northern front regrouping, aimed at Synkivka, which is the key to opening up the attack path to retake Kupiansk.
The odd way the Russians have gone about this is completely different to their usual doctrines.
No preparation was made for the assault in advance - none of the usual essential artillery or air raids. They have also tried frontal assaults before with no success.
Previously the forest has been heavily fought over as the Russians tried to gain ground to prevent a Ukrainian flanking attack and give themselves more options to attack the village. However they failed to achieve any of these goals in the recent past.
Ukraine had sown the forest with trenches and mines, and the whole area is hopeless for carrying out mechanised assaults of any kind.
The latest attack had the Russian frontal assault on the village in the open ground, carried out by MTLB troops carriers with assault groups, which captured some Ukrainian trenches and held some ground northeast of the village.
To aid there advance the Russians have managed to infiltrate special operations ‘partisan’ units well behind Ukrainian lines to try and damage their logistics in the region.
This is a new departure for the Russians.
As the Russians moved in to capture a Ukrainian trench, Ukrainian drones spotted the appearance of heavy artillery and were successful in directing counter-battery fire at the attackers.
The Russians seem to have been on a timetable and went ahead with these attacks despite the fact they had been forced to redeploy most of their reserves to deal with the rebel forces incursions into Belgorod and Kursk.
Yet again the importance of drones in alerting Ukraine to upcoming attacks and tactical movements proved critical in the defence.
I think it’s also necessary to remind ourselves what the forested areas now largely look like. The battle lines and a significant area either side are basically decapitated tree stumps and very rough terrain. There are no trees where the battles have taken place. It’s something of a WW1 style landscape. It’s also still late winter and there’s no greenery. When it rains it’s a bog, and it’s very difficult all of the time to supply small units of troops in trenches and foxholes.
So how this unfolds in the next few days is difficult to foretell. It all depends on Russian capacity to sacrifice more men for not a lot.
Meanwhile the brave defenders do what they can to resist.

Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦!