Hello and welcome to the Battleground podcast with me Saul David and Patrick Bishop.

It's good to be back after a short break and I'm extremely grateful to Julius Strauss for

standing in for me so ably last week. The outlook then was notably gloomy for Ukraine and it hasn't

improved much since, I'm sad to say. But appearances can be deceptive. Both the respected Washington

think tank, the ISW and British intelligence, have noted that Russian forces are continuing

to make tactical gains in Donetsk, following the capture of Voolodar, but at what cost and for

what purpose? The cost is clear, more than 1,250 casualties killed and wounded a day during the

month of September, according to a briefing by British intelligence, which equates

to a whopping 37,500 for the whole month. Since last October, Russian forces have reportedly

lost at least five divisions worth of armoured vehicles and tanks in Donetsk alone. And yet,

despite the recent gains, say the ISW, Russian forces have not demonstrated a capacity

to seize operationally significant objects. This assessment is important because many Western

commentators, in typically doomsday fashion, are suggesting that the fall of Voolodar might

presage a more significant breakthrough. Not, according to the ISW, which writes,

The Russian seizure of Vulidar will not on its own radically change the operational situation

in Western Donets-Oblast, and Russian forces will likely struggle to achieve their operational

objectives in the area during the ongoing offensive operation in Western Donets or blast.

Russian offensive operations that are

pursuing operationally significant objectives, like a Russian effort to seize Chassiv Yar or to push

the Ukrainian forces off the left east bank of the Osgyll River, have either stalled or are resulting

in particularly gradual gains over long stretches of time.

Yeah, it's kind of more of the same, really, isn't it?

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