Ukraine’s next move: can Putin be outsmarted?

Has Ukraine’s much-heralded counter-offensive already begun? At the end of last month, defence minister Oleksy Reznikov promised that ‘as soon as there is God’s will, the weather and a decision by the commanders, we will do it’. The past few weeks have seen an upsurge in what the military describe as shaping operations, preparing the ground for battle, with attacks on Russian fuel and weapons depots and command centres. This week’s incursion by Ukraine’s anti-Kremlin Russian units over the border into the Belgorod region could also be an attempt to distract Moscow and make it disperse its forces away from likely lines of attack.

This looks like Schrödinger’s counter-offensive, already begun yet still in abeyance, at once absolutely crucial and unlikely to make a great difference. Either way, come it must, not least because Kyiv is at once fighting a military campaign against Moscow and a political one in the West.