My name is Nicholas Danforth and this is the War on the Rocks podcast covering strategy, defense, and foreign affairs.

I'm here today once again with Mike Kaufman to give us the latest on the war in Ukraine. Mike, good to give us the latest on the war in Ukraine.

Mike, good to be back here.

Thanks for hosting again.

So tell us what's been happening on the three fronts.

All right, so I think there's a bit of a catch-up. If we look around what were the three main

axis of advance and including a fourth, which was the Russian counterattack up north.

If we start with the last bit first,

the Russian counterattack at Kremina,

that situation I think predictably stabilized.

Ukrainian forces themselves wasn't able to counter- that situation I think predictably stabilized.

Ukrainian forces themselves were unable to counterattack and substantially reduce the salient that the Russian forces had tried to create.

And in many respects I think probably stabilize the situation at least for now.

Although it's still developing I think Russian military is going to keep trying to push there

and try to get an opportunity that at least they sense while the Ukrainian military is focused on the

summer offense. If we look around the Ukrainian offensive operations, what I think we'll find is in a rehab pushing down towards Tukmach.

We've had several series of Ukrainian forces try to push through east of Rabotna and actually

take at least now kind of the northeast edge of the town probably by the time this podcast

comes out right now we're recording this on a Friday afternoon in downtown DC

but Ukrainian forces may ultimately press the Russian military out of her boat night in the coming days and weeks.

That said, there hasn't been a dramatically changed dynamic in the fight on that axis, and Ukrainian forces are still largely just at the Russian

main line of defense there although as I've come to understand I think there's probably

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