I'm Arthur Snell. A major war is taking place on the European continent with Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Bringing you a series of special episodes to help you understand the crisis as it unfolds. This is Doomsday Watch.

Welcome back to Doomsday Watch. We hope you're finding these war bulletins valuable.

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Today we're joined by Jack Watling.

Jack has positioned himself as probably the preeminent expert on Ukraine's war here in the UK and he's just back from Ukraine's home and give us some up-to-date feedback.

And this week we're bringing you a double header.

First I discuss with Jack the situation on the ground in the war and then later in the week we're going to talk about the regional, international and strategic factors including the ongoing issue of how we supply weapons to the Ukrainians.

So stay tuned.

Jack welcome. Thank you for having me.

So Jack as I mentioned you've just traveled there before we go any further. I'd love to hear sort of what your impressions were. I know it's by no means your first visit to Ukraine.

How did it feel and how did it compare with some of your earlier visits?

Somewhat disjointed. So on the one hand you have the shops opening, people going about their lives trying to return to the cities in many cases, particularly in Kiev.

Traffic jams are a feature of life once again. And yet at the same time there is an air raid siren every day.

Sometimes that means a missile is on route to the city that you're in. Sometimes it means it's going somewhere else.

But there is this continual fear and at the same time the number of people who are walking wounded clearly recovering from battlefield injuries is very evident in the street.

Testaments of the fact that while the fighting might not be encompassing all of Ukraine's border at the moment, the threat is there.

And the intensity of the fighting in the Donbass is very, very high.

And so kind of war is all around you and yet there is a strange return normality in much of everyday life.

Yeah. And I guess obviously in Kiev in particular, that must be the case.

But as you mentioned the Donbass there, that's where the war has really been raging for the past few weeks.

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