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Hello, David here with a new mini-series from the briefing room.

We're packaging up some bits you may have heard before on other programmes, which are still very relevant,

so they can explain specific things that are going on in the world.

In today's briefing room explainer, the conflict in Ukraine, a quick rundown on how it developed.

Here's Michael Clark visiting professor in the Department of War Studies, King's College, London,

and a former director of the Royal United Services Institute.

When the Russians first walked in on the 24th of February, 2022, what they intended, quite clearly, was a military-backed coup, because they intended to seize the government in Kiev within 72 hours and then suppress any problems they had in the major eastern cities within three or four

weeks after that. That had to be the intention because they didn't devote enough troops to do anything

more. They had fewer than 190,000 troops in a territory that's the biggest territory in Europe,

apart from Russia itself, and a country of 44 million people. So it's far too

smaller force to invade the country. When we talk about a coup, most people think of it as an

internal struggle. And there was some sense of that in what the Russians were trying. They had a

puppet government ready to move in and take over, and they had at least two or three squads in Kiev,

all of whom were tasked to get hold of Zelensky and his family and kill them.

And we all remember there was lots of wild firing in the streets of Kiev.

You can hear the artillery.

That is outgoing fire from Ukrainian forces.

The fear here is that very soon Russian forces will be making their way down here.

At least two and probably three of those assassination squads were gunned down.

No survivors, they were just summarily gunned down by the Ukrainians.

And what really happened was that Zelensky came out on the streets, less than 48

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