Ukraine's counter-offensive against Russia under way

 Ukraine's counter-offensive against Russia under way

Was this the week that Ukraine's long-anticipated counter-offensive finally got under way?

Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to think so. "We can definitely state that this Ukrainian offensive has begun," he said in a video interview published on Telegram on Friday.

In some ways, it's already been under way for weeks, with Ukraine conducting what's known in military jargon as "shaping operations": long range artillery and missile attacks on key Russian logistical targets far behind the front lines.

Monday seemed to herald a change, with small detachments of lightly armoured Ukrainian units moving forward across the open fields towards Russian fortifications in southern Ukraine, south-east of Zaporizhzhia.

"Now the so-called 'fighting reconnaissance stage' is taking place along the entire length of the front," Serhii Kuzan, co-founder and chairman of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Centre, told the BBC.

"That means there's a probing of Russian defences."

Some videos and accounts suggested that they quickly ran into trouble.

"Somewhere this happens more successfully with small losses," Mr Kuzan said. "And somewhere less successfully, where the Russians fight back."

Mr Kuzan declined to name specific towns, saying only that they were all in the area south of Zaporizhzhia.

FULL ARTICLE AT: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65860294