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Ukraine’s soldiers are ready to fight Vladimir Putin’s “even with our bare hands” if necessary, a senior military official has said, as Kyiv claimed its counteroffensive had already liberated 100 square kilometres of territory from Russia. Brigadier-General Oleksii Hromov that Kyiv had so far recaptured seven settlements in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia – two of four regions in which Moscow claimed on Thursday that it planned to hold regional elections in September. With both sides seeking to claim their enemies losses greatly outnumbered their own, Reuters reported that corpses of dead Russian soldiers were strew along roads leading into the Other remains of the Russian troops fighting in the region were found dumped in the grass and fields nearby where they died, the news agency reported. Ukraine’s much-anticipated counteroffensive has had so much hype, it even has its own cinematic promotional trailer. The operation, full details of which remain a closely guarded secret, has been nicknamed Ukraine’s D-Day (in reference to the Second World War operation that, coincidentally, also took place in the month of June). The Ukrainian military has, for its part, been busy, reportedly creating a dozen new armoured brigades (of around 3,500 soldiers each) for the operation. Nine of them have been trained by the West, Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said back in April. The Ukrainian interior ministry has also confirmed the formation of eight new “storm” brigades, comprising som...