Putin Talks Tough While Ukraine Makes Gains

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The Ukrainians are making progress in their long-awaited counteroffensive. Meanwhile, the Russian president is talking like a gangster and rattling the nuclear saber—again.

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A Slow, Bloody Business

While we’re all distracted—understandably—by the spectacle of a former U.S. president under multiple criminal indictments, the war in Europe grinds on, consuming lives, burning cities, and threatening global peace. The Ukrainian counteroffensive is now clearly under way, and Kyiv’s forces are making incremental but concrete gains along the front. The Ukrainians are, for the moment, calm and confident; the Russians less so.

Ukrainian officials have been of this early stage of the counteroffensive because they know it’s going to be a long summer. “Hot battles continue,” according to a that no positions have been lost, while other areas have been “liberated.”