Hello and welcome to Battleground Ukraine with me, Roger Morehouse and Saul David. In a moment, we have an interview with Baldi, the young Hungarian war reporter who we've

had contact with over the last couple of years, who's been down to Cherson, fascinating interview.

Warning for our listeners, it does contain some rather gruesome details. So if those of a

sensitive disposition might want to jump across that particular section of the podcast. Now this week,

after the positivity of the last few episodes, we have a sort of frustratingly mixed bag of events

to report. That long-awaited pushback against Russian forces is yet to materialise, and Russia

has shown itself able and, of course, willing to hit even the most sacred targets.

But Ukraine has been making further inroads into Russian logistics in its medium-range strike offensive,

even threatening to isolate the Crimean Peninsula.

Also, we've had the remarkable spectacle this week of Belarus's own mini-Putin, Alexander Lukashenko,

publicly apologising to President Zelensky. A sign of the Times? More on that in a moment.

First of all, despite our positivity of the last few weeks in reporting aspects like Ukraine's long-range

strikes against Russian oil infrastructure

and its hugely effective drone campaign against Russian personnel,

changes on the ground are still hard to come by.

According to the ISW this week, Ukraine made a net gain of only about 10 square miles last week,

a positive, of course, but in reality, more evidence of stalemate on the

front lines than of anything else. Is it justified to hope to see developments in this respect,

Saul? Not necessarily something akin to the Ukrainian liberation of Hearson, but the beginnings

of some decisive shift on the ground, or is that just wishful thinking, do you think?

No, I think it is reasonable to expect some big changes, but we've obviously got to be patient.

I mean, it's true that many of those listening might well ask if Ukraine is now in the

...