all right now to give us more perspective in terms of what is happening at this moment in the Ukrainian War theater we're being joined by Dr njel gold Davis who's a former British ambassador to Belarus thank you very much indeed Ambassador for joining us here in vion now let me in fact start off by asking you this in the course of the last 4872 hours what we've witnessed is a sharp uptick in the number of aial attacks that Russia has carried out in different parts of Ukraine what do you think is the Russian strategy here yes it's this is not new of course Russia has been doing this since the beginning of the war but it is a notable uptick and I think particularly significant is that Russia is again targeting cities in the very far west of Ukraine notably the historic city of Lviv uh which has been relatively unaffected uh by the war so it's uh once again a an effort to demoralize or try to demoralize Ukrainian popul ation to uh continue this sort of attritional Relentless sense that the pain that can exert on uh Ukrainian population uh will not go away and also in some cases specifically ahead of the winter season to Target Ukraine's energy infrastructure which of course it will increasingly need as the temperatures begin to fall and also in the aftermark of the Kirks incursion that Ukraine has resorted to do you think there is an urgency on the part of the Russians to gain a more decisive advantage in the amount of land that they controling yes I think that the uh the there are many battles taking place simultaneously uh in Ukraine and now with the kurus incursion in Russia as well there's the the air battle if you like not fought with planes but with missiles and drones there's a naval battle around uh Crimea as well where Ukraine has actually done remarkably well I would say and is continued to demonstrate its Ingenuity and then there's the the the battle on land and the story there is that Russia has in recent weeks been making slow gains uh along parts of the long front in the donbass and uh one of the objectives I think of the Ukrainian incursion into uh into uh Russian Sovereign territory in kurus was to try to get Russia to draw away some of its forces uh that are conducting that offensive what we've seen in fact is Russia going to Great Lengths to avoid doing that and Russia's response to Ukrainian incursion has been to pull in forces really from everywhere except its own offensive front in Ukraine and from murans up North even Vagner forces in in Africa have been pulled back um to to try to defend Russian territory so the Ukrainian hope that its own a daring uh and surprising offensive might halt the pressure that it faces in its own territory that yet has has not yet been realized all right we'll have to leave you there thank you very much indeed Ambassador for joining us and getting us that perspective then for all the latest news download the Von app And subscribe to our YouTube channel