As signs point to counteroffensive, Russia and Ukraine step up attacks

KYIV – Signs of an imminent Ukrainian counteroffensive mounted on Monday with stepped-up military strikes by both sides, Russian forces moving into defensive positions and even

an unexplained explosion that knocked a supply train off its tracks

across the border in Russia.

Ukraine’s defense minister Oleksii Reznikov said in an appearance on national television that the military was “reaching the finish line” in preparations to launch a counteroffensive and that commanders would decide “how, where and when”.

The day began with Russia launching broad aerial assaults across Ukraine, its second wide-ranging attack in four days.

In Pavlograd, a city in central Ukraine, dozens of buildings were damaged, including schools and homes, local officials said, and missile strikes set off a massive fire that lit up the night sky.

In Kyiv and elsewhere, explosions echoed across the pre-dawn landscape as air defenses shot down what the Ukrainian military said were 15 of 18 Russian cruise missiles.

But even as Moscow ratcheted up its attacks, its forces are bracing for a counteroffensive, moving into defensive positions in the south, according to Ukrainian and Western officials.

Britain’s defense intelligence agency said on Monday that Russia had “constructed some of the most extensive systems of military defensive works seen anywhere in the world for many decades”, not only near the front line but also “deep inside areas Russia currently controls”.

At day’s end, Ukraine reported that its pilots had carried out four strikes on areas where enemy soldiers were concentrated. They said rocket and artillery fire had struck five areas where weapons and military equipment were concentrated, as well as an ammunition depot and a logistics centre.

The Ukrainians had less to say about an explosion that was reported to have derailed a freight train in Russia’s Bryansk region on Monday, the latest in a spate of apparent attacks to hit the area bordering Ukraine.

Photos and videos circulating on social media showed a large fire burning and a train tilted askew, with at least one carriage lying on its side.

Rybar, an influential pro-war Russian military blog that posted one of the videos, said that train cars carrying oil products and timber were lying on their side.

The Russian railway company said in a statement that “an intrusion by unauthorised individuals” had set the locomotive on fire and blocked traffic on the rail line. NYTIMES