Ukraine’s counter-offensive is drawing near

“BREAK THEp spine!” shouts the man in Russian, chiding his colleague. “What, you’ve never cut a head off before?” The video shows what appears to be a knife-wielding Russian soldier beheading a Ukrainian one, alive. “Put it in a fucking bag,” demands another voice, “and send it to his commander.” The footage, posted by a popular Russian far-right account on , a social-media site, on April 11th, provoked outrage in Ukraine. “Everyone must react,” said Volodymyr Zelensky, the country’s president. “We are not going to forget anything.” Mr Zelensky’s army will soon have a shot at revenge.A Ukrainian is due in the coming days or weeks. Almost no one knows precisely where or when it will come. Only five officials have all the details, noted Oleksiy Danilov, Ukraine’s security chief, on April 6th. But Russian troops are braced. On April 12th British defence intelligence said that Russia had finished building three layers of defensive lines along 120km (75 miles) of the front line in Zaporizhia province in anticipation of a Ukrainian assault towards Melitopol, including dragon’s teeth anti-tank obstacles stretching south-east along the 37 highway from Shyroke. Conquering Melitopol would help Ukraine sever Russia’s land bridge between the occupied regions of Donbas and .