Less than a week before the Russian war in Ukraine reaches its eighth month, there are fresh signs that Ukraine will imminently step up its counteroffensive at Kherson, in an attempt to definitively wrest the illegally annexed southern region from Moscow’s slipping grip. In a clear signal that something big is about to happen, the Russian-installed governor at Kherson, Vladimir Saldo, said up to 60,000 civilians will be evacuated because of the imminent threat of Ukrainian counterattacks.

Russian press reported that residents are being taken by boats to the left bank of the Dnieper River, where temporary evacuation centers have been set up. Mr. Saldo’s warning hinted that Ukraine may be about to trot out more big guns than one: In addition to shelling directed at Russian forces, he claimed that Ukraine may target infrastructure such as the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station — which could in turn trigger flooding. 

The new commander of Russian forces in Ukraine, Sergei Surovikin — who burnished his credentials, so to speak, in Syria — echoed Mr. Saldo’s sense of urgency in an interview on Russian television yesterday, saying that Ukraine may use “prohibited methods of war” in the Kherson region. 

Somewhat less ambiguously, Mr. Surovikin also said that “the enemy continually attempts to attack the positions of Russian troops,” and it is obvious that Ukraine has a good idea of where they are. Speaking to Sky News, a British military analyst and professor, Michael Clarke, said that “the Ukrainians have conducted a complete news blackout on what is happening in Kherson because the Russians are holding a line between Snihurivka and Mylove, and that line they have been holding onto for over a week now as Ukraine moves south.” It is his assessment that whenever the Ukrainians have a news blackout, it means “there is a big offensive push on.”

Under the circumstances, exactly what the possible Ukrainian counteroffensive entails was not immediately clear, but according to Mr. Clark more details are likely to emerge in the next 48 to 72 hours. Another sign that something major is about to unfold was presaged on the diplomatic front. The British defense secretary, Ben Wallace, yesterday made what British media called an unscheduled dash to Washington. Official readouts of meetings at the Pentagon and the White House were markedly devoid of details, but London’s Telegraph newspaper reported that much of the talk focused on Russia’s use of Iranian-made drones to attack Kyiv. 

The British armed forces minister, James Heappey, fueled more intrigue when he told a Sky News reporter that Mr. Wallace was meeting with his American counterparts for “the sort of conversations that [are] beyond belief really, the fact we are at a time when these sorts of conversations are necessary.”

The weaponization of infrastructure shows no signs of abating.  President Zelensky has claimed that nearly a third of Ukraine’s power plants have already been destroyed. Energy infrastructure at Kyiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhia, Mykolaiv, and other Ukrainian cities has come under  Russian attacks. Ukrainian media report that 1,100 cities have no electricity, and there are unconfirmed reports of electricity outages in the capital region.

Amid the backdrop of another round of escalation in the heart of Ukraine, at Kherson, yet more intrigue grows around the explosions at the two Nord Stream gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea last month. London’s Daily Express reported that Sweden and Denmark have “shunned” a formal joint investigation of the Nord Stream leaks, citing reasons of national security. 

The pair of ultra-modern Russian-built pipelines, at least one of which was badly damaged in the mysterious attack in which Russia is widely believed to be the culprit, runs between northwestern Russia near Estonia and northern Germany. According to the Daily Express report, a Swedish investigator said one of the reasons Stockholm rejected the proposal for a joint investigation team is that it would have tied the country to Germany. 

Separately, the German cybersecurity chief, Arne Schönbohm, was summarily fired yesterday over his ties to Russian intelligence services. According to the Agence France-Presse, a representative of the Federal Cyber Security Authority said Herr Schönbohm had “permanently damaged the public trust” in the “current crisis situation regarding Russian hybrid warfare.”

All in all, it is shaping up as an interesting week on the Continent, and quite possibly a decisive one.