A shopping centre is a place in the city where a drone will always find people to kill, especially in areas close to the front line, where shops may have closed but shopping centres have become key hubs. Even during wartime, they attract people; even near the front line, they may still be open, and Russia has increased the frequency with which it targets them. Yesterday alone, a shopping centre in Sumy and one in Pavlohrad, in the Dnipropetrovsk region, were attacked. In the first case, it was at night; in the second, it was in the afternoon, and the number of dead and injured continued to rise throughout the evening. Even towns further from the front line than Sumy and Pavlohrad are living with the same fear; the signs that Moscow has chosen to strike everywhere with force and persistence are felt by everyone, from the east to the west of the country. For months, in a city like Kyiv, going to bed meant asking oneself one question: will the sirens sound tonight? Usually, when Moscow is preparing a major missile attack, there are early warning signs thanks to the movements of the launchers, which Ukrainian intelligence is able to track; when it comes to something on a smaller scale – perhaps just drones – you simply switch off the light and fall asleep whilst waiting. Nowadays, the sound of the siren – which used to shatter the silence of the night – even drowns out the noise of daily traffic, with alerts lasting for hours, with no set end time, forcing Ukrainians to face the dilemma of whether to stop what they are doing to seek shelter or to take the risk. The arrival of jet-powered drones – faster and more powerful than the already heavily modified Shaheds – has extended the rear lines: the whole country is now a rear line. The jet-powered drones, which have been the bane of Odessa’s existence all summer, are now reaching everywhere; one likely managed to reach as far as Moldova to carry out an attack on Wednesday against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s journey to Norway.Everything that happens in the city causes a stir because it disrupts the normal flow of daily life, because it concerns the life and death of civilians rather than soldiers; yet if the cities find no respite, it is also because the front line has all but ground to a halt. Moscow is advancing by no more than a few kilometres a day, at a pace that represents no real conquest but rather a gruelling trudge across the Ukrainian plains. In some sections of the front, the Kremlin’s army is not only failing to advance but is actually retreating, and this is the summer surprise brought about by Kyiv’s manoeuvres, which have succeeded in creating the conditions for a counter-offensive in the Lyman area, in the northern part of the Donetsk oblast.It was a military operation characterised by tactical acumen and secrecy; Ukrainian soldiers have been working on it since May, but nothing has been revealed because nothing was meant to be revealed – above all, nothing was meant to come to the attention of the Russians, who were struck in a location where they evidently did not expect to have a significant presence. Ukraine’s 3rd Army Corps has succeeded in cutting off the Russian army, liberating 200 square kilometres of territory. This is a very important area, which Moscow, however, had underestimated. The Ukrainians identified the weaknesses in the Russian defences in good time to take them by surprise. This sector of the front is significant because it serves as the base from which to launch further offensives towards Izium and Sloviansk, one of the fortress cities of Donetsk, which Vladimir Putin is determined to hold because he knows how difficult they are to capture by force. This is an area that Russia had only managed to secure after two years of fighting and heavy losses. Having taken it, Moscow intended to hold it for future offensives, whilst concentrating its forces on other sectors of the front. Kyiv spotted the gap and launched a slow, painstaking operation, first using reconnaissance drones, then with troops hidden in the forests. The plan was to encircle the Russians without letting them feel the pressure in the early stages, just as a spider does with its victims who fall into its web. No one was to raise the alarm; everything had to appear routine; the news was not to reach either Valery Gerasimov, the head of operations in Ukraine, or the ‘voenkory’ – the military bloggers who follow Russian soldiers and often reveal the truth about conditions on the front line when the Kremlin does nothing but repeat that ‘everything is going according to plan’.According to Putin’s foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, Moscow is said to have proposed a deal to Trump’s envoys: block Ukraine, stop supplying it with even the meagre amounts you currently provide, and we will end the war. On the front line, progress is slow; what Putin describes as a ‘charge’ is more like a crawl, and at times a retreat. Yet this stalemate goes unnoticed; what is more evident is the smoke rising from Ukrainian cities, the freezing cold, the unbearable winters, the exhausted Ukrainians, Kyiv paralysed by the sound of air-raid sirens: powerful images to be held up before the eyes of those who certainly have no idea where Lyman is and who chant of the Ukrainian army’s defeat at the hands of the indestructible Moscow.