The Ukrainian counter-offensive was supposed to change the course of the war. The Ukrainians, backed by large deliveries of Western weapons, would punch through the Russian lines and move inexorably toward Crimea — and victory. It did not happen. The hopes of Ukraine and its Western partners have shattered against the hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers and millions of mines that stretch across the line of contact from Kupiansk in the north to Robotyne in the south. Two weeks ago, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valerii Zaluzhnyi admitted that things had reached a 'dead end'. It was...
