 Western support for Ukraine's expected counter-attack has angered Russia. The West is no longer hiding that it is really behind the planning for Ukraine's much-vaunted counter-offensive and will pull out all the stops to ensure its success, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a briefing. The West openly states that it will do everything possible to make the counter-offensive of the Ukrainian armed forces which is planned for the near future a success. That is to say, as you can imagine, they do not even hide that they are behind all this military planning, not only tactical guidance, which we have repeatedly talked about, but also the ongoing disposition of forces according to their strategic plan, she said. Zakharova also stressed that representatives of Western countries by openly demanding that the Russian side suffer the maximum possible losses, once again are loudly confirming their direct involvement in the conflict. Before this, the New York Times citing classified Pentagon and US intelligence documents that surfaced on the internet reported that the Ukrainian armed forces planned to launch a counter-offensive in the south next month. According to the newspaper, by the end of April, Ukraine is expected to have prepared 12 combat brigades with a complement of 4,000 servicemen each. Ukraine has made extraordinary efforts to conceal the start of its strategically vital counter-offensive. Ukraine's Deputy Defense Minister, Hannah Malia, stated last week that the counter-offensive would not be announced. When Ukraine's military paused to regroup towards the end of 2022, extensive Russian fortifications designed to slow any Ukrainian advances started to spring up, along, behind and sometimes far removed from the front lines. Satellite images of thousands of new defensive positions show Russia has been digging in at key strategic points in readiness for an offensive by a Ukrainian military, re-armed with state-of-the-art Western weapons.