All right, Alexander, let's talk about what is going on in Ukraine. And let's start off with what is going on on the front mics.

That's a good place to start because the Russians are making a lot of gains.

Well, indeed, that situation on the front. I mean, they're pounding the Ukrainians right across the front lines,

and the results are starting to show. So just literally, before we started making this program,

about five minutes before, confirmation from the Russian Defence Ministry that a village

called La Stochkin, west of Avdavka, has been captured.

It seems in reality that the Russians have captured a whole string of other villages,

west of Avdavka, the Russian Defence Ministry is very conservative about giving that kind of confirmation.

But anyway, the key takeaway is that the Russians are advancing from Avdavka westward, and they are advancing fast. They're taking place after place.

The Ukrainians have been pounded. They're losing lots of men and machines, and there doesn't

seem to be any way that they can stop the Russians, and there don't seem to be any fortified

lines that the Ukrainians can fall back to, or indeed create before the Russians advance

still further west towards two important towns

Mirovgrad and Pakrovsk beyond which is the Dnieper so you know it's a really bad

situation in Avdavka but the point is it's a pretty bad situation wherever you look.

So if you go back to the place where the famous Ukrainian offensive of the Samarovia region, the Russians are now rapidly taking back under their control, all the gains,

such as they were, that the Ukrainians achieved during

that time. You remember that village of Rabortino that the Ukrainians captured about 30 times.

Anyway, it looks as if the Russians are in the process of completely taking it back under their

control. They control around half of it, according to the very

latest reports. So Ukrainians badly smashed up there. The bridgehead across the Nipur and Klinki

that we were hearing so much about. That's apparently gone. Russians are pounding the Ukrainians

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