Fighting has intensified at multiple points along the 1,500-km front line. Ukrainian forces are making steady progress along the northern and southern flanks of the wrecked city of Bakhmut, which Russian forces have been occupying since May. Battles are also raging along the southern front in Zaporizhzhia, where Ukrainian forces are making minimal gains and coming up against formidable Russian fortifications.

Hanna Maliar, Ukraine’s deputy minister of defense, recently claimed that Kyiv’s forces had destroyed six Russian ammunition depots in the space of 24 hours, a remark that hinted at Ukrainian tactics. “We inflict effective, painful and precise blows and bleed the occupier, for whom the lack of ammunition and fuel will sooner or later become fatal,” she said.