Hello and welcome to Bahagran Ukraine with me Saul David and Patrick Bishop. In a moment we'll be

hearing from young Hungarian war reporter Boldi Giori,

who spent the last week in Kramatost, a Donets city that is coming under increasing pressure

from the Russians. But a more immediate problem for the Ukrainians is whether or not they can

hold on to the city of Pekrofts. We mentioned last week that it looked set to fall after

18 months of incessant Russian attacks.

Yet surprisingly, at the time of recording, it is still holding out.

Yeah, it is.

I mean, these things tend to drag on, don't they, Saul?

But anyway, the latest we got from the Institute for the study of war shows that actually

the rate of Russian advances into Pocrosk have slowed in recent days.

Russian troops are still struggling to close that pocket. There's been endless reports of them

finally closing the circle and leaving the defenders completely cut off. But that doesn't seem to have happened,

not least because Ukraine's been launching a number of counterattacks, particularly on the northern

shoulder of the battlefields, which appeared have had some success. But clearly it's not going to

end here, is it, because there's a big political element to the operation.

Putin's determined to capture it and convince Trump that Ukraine is losing the war.

But, you know, as always, this comes to the cost.

So we've got some new numbers to show just how painful it is for the Russians.

You've got 170,000 troops in there,

and they've actually suffered, according to President Zelensky. This is a record 25,000 killed

and wounded in the Pogrovsk Theatre in October alone. This is climbing up. It was 15,000 in January. We ask ourselves

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