You are listening to the War on the Rocks podcast on Strategy, Defense and Foreign Affairs. My name is Ryan Evans. I'm here talking again with Michael Kaufman of CNA's Russia team. We haven't spoken in a couple weeks. A lot has changed in this war. It's much more focused on the east and the Donbass in particular.

Mike, thanks for joining us to help us sort through what's going on.

Yeah, thanks for having me back.

So, as I mentioned, we're basically seeing Russia completely refocused on Don Biss.

There is no more northern front to this war.

All the action is really in the east and the south.

What is the state of play briefly walk us through it?

So if you look to the general campaign in the Dunbos,

and in part also in the southern region

around Zapar Asia, there's probably three things worth mentioning that are happening.

You're seeing a series of Russian attacks, some that look like main attacks and others

they look like probing reconnaissance and force attacks.

Coming in from the north from a zoom Russian forces are trying to push

towards Slaviansky and Kramatorsk.

And they're also trying to push southwest towards Barinka to get a partial development of the Ukrainian

forces and to disrupt the ground lines of communication, the rail line that runs

towards those cities. So trying to get around them to the west of Kermatorsk as well.

For the readers or listeners I should say rather, who are listening and maybe looking at a map,

these are cities that don't appear on some of the battle maps and war maps of military control in Ukraine.

So where are these cities close to?

If you look at the city of Isum, which the Russian military spent weeks fighting for in the first phase of the war, right?

And you're starting to look kind of southeast of Haike.

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