From the New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernice and this is the Daily.

The Ukrainian military has begun a major offensive to drive the Russians from southern Ukraine.

But directly in the path of the fighting is the country's largest nuclear power plant.

My colleague Mark Centura on the world's race to save it.

It's Wednesday, September 7.

So Mark, our show hasn't been on the ground in Ukraine for a while.

So I wanted to start with you by asking about the state of the war.

We talked about how the Russians started this big offensive in eastern Ukraine after having

pulled out of Kiev and the West.

But we haven't really talked much about where the war is since then.

So catch us up, where are we now?

Right, so in June, Ukraine was sort of facing its darkest days.

They were losing 100 to 200 soldiers every day.

There was a point where they were basically at an ammunition.

But then the Western weapons, which had been promised, started to show up on the scene.

And these are long-range missiles and other weapon systems that allowed the Ukrainians

basically to start to stabilize their defensive positions in the east.

And as the summer progressed, they started to use those newly acquired Western long-range

weapons to hit Russian positions deep behind enemy lines.

And there is some urgency here for the Ukrainians.

The winter is coming, fighting gets harder, and also they have to maintain the support

of the West because without the West and the Western weapons, they would not be able

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