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Apply with £100,000 annual income or £100,000 savings or investments with HSBC UK or Premier status abroad. Hello, and welcome back to Battleground Ukraine with me, Patrick Bishop and Saul David.

Well, the tempo of events shows no sign of slackening. Last week, we were talking about huge

gains made by Ukraine in its counteroffensive in the north-east. It seemed then that this

would be a game changer, a turning point in the war when Ukraine effectively gained the upper hand.

And now it looks like this is definitely the case. The proof lies not so much on the battlefield,

but in Vladimir Putin's reaction to the setback, in his first address to the nation since the

conflict began, he announced that he intended to throw more than 300,000 reserves into the battle.

And at the same time, he made his most chilling threat yet of his readiness to use nuclear weapons.

Now, last week we promised an interview with the legendary war correspondent Anthony

Lloyd, but circumstances have changed. Ant is now on his way to Ukraine and in the meantime,

we thought we'd talk to another friend of the podcast who's just had eyes on the ground,

that is Asko Crucialnitsky, who's been touring some of the liberated areas. I caught up with him at a

motorway service station on the way back to Kiev, hence the banging and crashing in the background

for which apologies. And I asked him what he's seen and what he made of it all.

So Ascold, you've heard the Putin speech, the first he's made to the Russian people since the war began.

How did you read it?

I think it's an expression of the panic that's gripped the Kremlin following the rather spectacular Ukrainian advances on the battlefield over the past fortnight or so.

Putin is desperate to portray the situation as not veering off course.

...