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Apply with £100,000 annual income or £100,000 savings or investments with HSBC UK or Premier status abroad. Thank you. Hello and welcome to the battleground Ukraine podcast with me Saul David and Patrick Bishop.

After the excitement of the past two weeks, particularly the announcement that the West is sending

main battle tanks to Ukraine, the news this week is lower key but still significant. It comes both

from the battlefield, where Russia is making small but potentially important gains in multiple

locations along the front line, and also from Kiev and Western capitals, where officials are hinting

at the possibility of NATO countries sending fighter jets and long-range missiles to Ukraine.

Well, the question of Russian advances and the impact this is having on Ukrainian morale is

addressed by our guest and friend of the podcast, Julius Strauss, this week.

The response to Julius's appearance on the podcast last week,

we're so enthusiastic that we've invited him back again for a second week running

to give us another dramatic account of life on the front line,

this time near Orikiv in the Zaporizia Oblast.

So Julius has been down there. He also assesses the mood in Kiev,

where he is now, and he offers some fascinating insights on Putin and what might lie ahead.

But first, let's talk about those Russian advances, Patrick. Now, according to the respected

Washington, D.C. think tank, the Institute for the Study of War,

the Russians have recently made small gains in a number of places around Bakhmut, as we've

been talking for many weeks.

...