Good morning. Last Wednesday, when the dominant story in Ukraine was grinding warfare in the southern Kherson province that had no imminent prospect of a breakthrough, Vladimir Putin spoke confidently about Russia’s unbreakable might. “We have not lost anything and will not lose anything,” he said. The best news out of Kharkiv was about an escaped chimpanzee being wheeled back to the city zoo on a bicycle.
Six days later, nobody’s talking about fugitive apes. A lightning Ukrainian advance has swept through Kharkiv region – with Volodymyr Zelenskiy last night putting the territory captured at 6,000 square kilometres (2,320 square miles). On Sunday, Russia released a map that tacitly acknowledged it had been all but driven from the region; in a matter of days it has lost more ground than it had gained since the beginning of April. The most pressing question facing Ukraine now is when to stop and consolidate its advance.
