since the start of this year and perhaps before, the ukrainian army has been planning a big counter—offensive to push the russians out of the areas they've been occupying. commentators in the west have been hugely optimistic. though when i interviewed president zelensky in kyiv a few months ago and spoke to him off camera about the counteroffensive, i noticed he was a great deal more cautious. well, it started a month ago, and i asked frank gardner, the bbc security correspondent, how it was going. well, i think there were some unrealistic expectations of the ukrainians, because so much had been given to them in terms of western hardware, western training, western financial help. the last six months prior to when the offensive began injune, all the time that the ukrainians were getting trained up in the west and building up these armoured brigades, the russians used that time to dig