Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Battleground Ukraine with me Saul David and Patrick Bishop. Well, it's been a remarkably quiet week with few dramatic events on the battlefield, although

there have been some very interesting developments on the diplomatic front.

The lull is quite welcome, we have to say, given that Patrick and I are currently on the road,

in Poland on our way to a tour of Ukraine where we'll be meeting up

with some old friends of the podcast and making some new ones and I have to say Patrick it is

quite unusual for us to be in the same room recording together is we have actually met

before it has got to be said but to you know it's great to all to be together as a team.

So, yes, indeed, an exciting time ahead. We'll be talking about that a bit later on.

But first, there has been some news on the ongoing Ukrainian offensive.

Nothing that suggests that the main effort is underway, but interesting incremental gains being made nonetheless. One is the degradation

of Russia's capabilities by striking at bridges connecting Crimea with the southern front. And the other

is further operations across the Denepe River with the apparent aim of getting a foothold on the left, i.e. the eastern bank.

But first, those bridge attacks. Tell us about those, Saul. Well, they seem to be quite significant.

They took place on the 6th of August against two key road bridges between Crimea and the occupied

Kerson-Ablast. One of the bridges crossed the Hennichesk straight and connected Hennichesk rayon to the

Arabat Spit and the other was the Chonar Road Bridge on the M18 and that's the jankoy to

Militopol highway. Now inevitably Patrick occupation officials have tried to downplay the damage that

was done but they do acknowledge that repair work is underway and that traffic has been rerouted.

According to the reliable Institute for the study of war, the damage to the bridge across the Hennichess Strait was, and I quote, likely forcing Russian forces to redirect military traffic from the Arabat spit to longer

western routes between occupied Crimea and occupied Kersen Oblast.

While the attack on the Tronar Bridge has caused a major bottleneck in Russian resupply of its

forces in Kesson Oblast that will likely pose significant disruptions to logistics and chances for delays and

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