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North Korean troops are fighting Ukrainians in Russia

and quite possibly being killed by US missiles

finally permitted by Washington to be used deep into Russian territory.

Meanwhile, Iranian rockets land on targets in Ukraine.

It's over a thousand days since Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of his neighbour,

and the circle of those involved in the conflict seems to widen.

But though the situation changes, the central question doesn't.

That question being which side can best stay the bloody course of this war,

Ukraine and the West, or Russia and its allies.

Where do things stand now?

Step into the briefing room and together we'll find out.

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

and former director of the Royal United Services Institute, gives a quick rundown on the recent story of the Ukraine conflict.

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

...