Hello and welcome to Newsar from the BBC World Service coming to you live from our

studios in Central London I'm Julian Marshall.

And we begin today with the ebb and flow of the war in Ukraine.

It's flowing for the government in Kyiv,

as Ukrainian forces increase the amount of territory

under their control in the Russian region of

Kursk, but Ebing, as Russian forces continue their seemingly unstoppable advance on the eastern front,

edging ever closer to the strategically important

Ukrainian town of Pecrovsk from where civilians are being evacuated.

Well, for the second day running Ukraine has come under Russian missile and

drone strikes targeting its energy infrastructure and cutting off electricity supplies.

Sophia is a resident of the capital Kyiv. She told us how the regular power cuts are affecting her.

For me, I have an electric stove, so if there is no electricity electricity I can't cook any food neither do a cup of

coffee or tea or anything so I have to adjust my schedule according to the electricity

schedule which means sometimes cooking at 2 a.m. in the morning for the next day.

You don't have electricity so you don't have a refrigerator therefore you have to cook on a daily basis and that

depends on the electricity.

Laundry is a problem as well because no electricity, no laundry,

hot water for showers because of the boiler.

If there is no electricity, you wouldn't be able to have a hot shower.

The heat wave right now, it's 32 degrees Celsius and Kiev, so you have to manage to sleep in heat somehow. You wouldn't have Wi-Fi to

connect to the world, but also your mobile network is going to be very bad and

...