Extract from ABC News
Lieutenant Colonel Igor Shepetin knows what Russian forces are capable of better than most.
The Ukrainian battalion commander and his comrades faced wave after wave of attacks from Russian soldiers and Wagner mercenaries during a fierce battle for the city of Bakhmut.
"They used all the forces and means they could," he told the ABC.
"Aviation, [artillery] and massed attacks that came in waves. There was constant pressure."
Lieutenant Colonel Shepetin's battalion was one of the last units holding out in the city, in the face of relentless shelling. He says the Russian forces will stop at nothing to win.
"[They] said they were out of ammunition — but that was lie," he said.
Having seen Russia's tactics first-hand, he has a warning for anyone who expects a rapid collapse in the face of Ukraine's counteroffensive.
"The enemy is training and is more prepared than when the armed aggression began," he said.
"Russia has already prepared as much as possible for a defensive battle.
"They're entrenched, not only creating temporary structures, but permanent ones too."
Ukrainian soldiers and tanks advancing on Russian positions have faced many lines of defence.
Russian forces have booby trapped the front lines with landmines, dug anti-tank ditches, installed jagged concrete barriers called "dragon's teeth" and established a complex network of trenches.
Lieutenant Colonel Shepetin says he knows Ukraine's progress in being closely scrutinised.
However, he says most people criticising the pace of the counteroffensive have never seen a real war before.
"People who sit on the sofa and watch it only from the TV screen, maybe they want fast victories, but war is a very complicated, scary and bloody process," he said.
"People lose the most important thing — their lives.
"We, among the commanders of our army, try to protect people's lives as much as possible. We do not want to send people to perform the task at any cost."
As Ukraine probes Russia's defences, hoping to break through, it can expect casualties. It's an unavoidable reality in this stage of the war.
"In an offensive battle, the losses are at least three to four times greater than the losses of people who are on the defensive, so we calculate this and want to conduct offensive actions with minimal losses for us," Lieutenant Colonel Shepetin said.
With successes around Bakhmut, Ukraine is also focused on reaching Melitopol
While Russia still controls about 20 per cent of Ukrainian territory, officials in Kyiv say troops have made some encouraging gains in recent days.
"The last few days have been particularly fruitful," Oleksiy Danilov, the head of Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council, wrote on Twitter.
In the east, Ukrainian officials say troops have had "partial success" to the north and south of Bakhmut, while in the south, the military says Ukrainian troops have advanced up to two kilometres.
In all, Ukraine claims to have regained more than 37 square kilometres in just over a week.
However, Ukraine isn't discounting the possibility Russia could regain some momentum or even launch a fresh attack on another axis.
"We cannot let such events happen to us again," Lieutenant Colonel Shepetin says.
"We cannot relax."
Ukrainian intelligence is warning that Moscow could be planning an attack on the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to try to thwart Ukraine's counteroffensive in the south.
On Tuesday, Ukraine's armed forces warned that Russia had placed what looked like explosives onto the roof of some reactors.
Russia has repeatedly denied such a plot, and accused Ukraine of planning its own attack on the plant.
Ivan Federov, mayor of Russian-occupied Melitopol in the Zaporizhzhia region, says he has given up trying to predict what Russian President Vladimir Putin will do.
"Of course it's possible," Mr Federov told the ABC.
He says Russia is desperate to stop Ukrainian troops reaching Melitopol as they push towards the south.
"It's a direct highway to Crimea," he said.
"And Russians understand that our Ukrainian troops don't want to stop at Melitopol. We want to liberate all our territory."
Regaining Melitopol would cut off vital Russian supply routes to Crimea and allow Ukraine to shell Russian positions on the peninsula.
However, Russia retains air superiority over the regions it occupies, making Ukraine's push a risky one.
It's a source of frustration for Mr Federov, who says Russia has used the past 16 months to build up its defences, while Ukraine's Western partners have been slow to hand over some high-tech weapons.
"If we had enough weapons, enough military equipment, enough rockets last year, Russian would have no opportunity to build such different lines. And now, of course, we have a problem," he said.
"And this problem is costing us the lives of our soldiers."
Guarding against an unpredictable Putin
While defence forces focus on the counteroffensive, Ukraine is extending military-style training to more civilians, giving them the skills they need to arm themselves and fight in the event of a renewed Russian assault.
At a training facility outside Kyiv, volunteers including teachers, nurses and paramedics work their way around a course, learning both how to save lives as well as take them.
One course teaches volunteers how to detect landmines, with loud explosions ringing out as the buried mines are detonated.
Volunteers are also taught how to don protective suits to shield themselves from chemicals and radiation.
At another station, volunteers learn the basics of trauma medicine.
Dressed in pink, clutching a machine gun, 34-year-old Olena is learning how to repel a Russian assault on her village.
Her husband Dima is fighting in Ukraine's east and Olena says the training makes her feel closer to him.
"Handling a machine gun, wearing a bulletproof vest, being in this armour even for a short time — it's hard. I can't imagine how our defenders stay in all this for a long time," she says.
Olena says she never dreamt she'd be wielding an AK-47.
"I never did it before the war. My children played with toys, not guns," she says.
"But there's already been an occupation of the Kyiv region … [and] maybe there really will be an attack from the east.
"Civilians will have to protect themselves and their families."
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