I'm Frances Dernley and this is Ukraine, the latest.

Today we hear from a journalist who was just on the ground with Ukrainian forces in Kk, Russia, reflect on the latest battlefield

and political developments and look deeper into Putin's recent foreign trips and reflect

on what it tells us about the tensions in Russian society.

Bravery takes you through the most unimaginable hardships to finally reward you with victory.

The first duty of my government is security and

defense to make clear our unshakable support of NATO and with our allies towards

Ukraine.

Keep standing strong.

Nobody is going to break us.

We're strong.

Where Ukraine is.

It's Friday, the 23rd of August, two years and 186 days since the full-scale invasion began.

And today I'm joined by our senior foreign correspondent, Roland Dollophant,

regular on the Telegraph's Moscow desk and editor of the Central Asia and South

Caucus's bulletin James Kilner, and freelance journalist fresh from his very own incursion into Russia,

Tom March. I started, however, by reporting the latest update from the battlefields of Ukraine and Russia.

So let's start in Kursk where Kie' audacious operation continues.

Contrary to much initial speculation, there is now strong evidence,

as we predicted, that Ukraine does indeed intend

to stay in Russian territory for some time, though how much time will depend on the scale of the Russian response. Kieve has now advanced 28 to 35k's into Russia's Kursk Oblast as the incursion enters its third week.

That's coming from Ukraine's Commander-in-Chief Alexander Sersky.

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