You are listening to the War on the Rocks podcast on strategy, defense, and foreign affairs.

My name is Nicholas Danforth, and I'm here again with Mike Kaufman.

Great to be here with you, Mike.

Great to have you host this podcast.

No, let's start off.

Tell us what the latest is from the front lines.

I think there's been quite a bit going on in the past week or so and just to be up front it's a very imperfect picture and

as this offense has been unfolding and a lot of us those who are following the war have

been trying to put together fragmentary

evidence visual evidence that kind of lags the conflict typically by at least a day

or two so you'll often get footage from battles that took place a couple days ago

people trying to geolocate that footage battles that took place a couple days ago.

People trying to do locate that footage

and trying to get a sense of how the lines have moved

based on where they see images of fighting,

where they see Ukrainian troops may be advancing

or putting up flags in towns.

And as always, as an offensive unfolds, there are lots of competing claims, right?

Russians will claim that Ukrainian military military political leadership might claim

that they're doing pretty well although they have been rather mum

about what's happening as offensive they've been keeping a lot of radio

silence as to where they are and how things are going compared to previous operations.

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