Ukraine seizes the initiative in the east

Ukraine’s army launched a surprise offensive in the country’s north-eastern Kharkiv province. It has met with spectacular success. In the space of a week, boasted Volodymyr Zelensky, the president, on September 8th, his armies had liberated 1,000 square kilometres (386 square miles) of territory from Russia. Remarkably, the bulk of that has come not from a push in the southern Kherson region, which , but from the smaller armoured thrust south-east of Kharkiv city.