in day to day tactical operations and are making decisions that would normally be made by morejunior officers. the command structure of the russian army, is top down, with instructions reaching the frontlines much slower than is the case for the ukrainians. it might explain why russian forces are sustaining such heavy losses and in some areas now going backwards. these are ukrainian soldiers standing at the russian border this morning. the counter offensive which began on the ouskirsts of kharkiv, has gathered pace and is pushing north and east from the city. president zelensky, say the ukrainian troops, we have arrived, at the border we are here the remnants of the russian brigades that were beaten back around kharkiv are now being redeployed further south to izyum. the gateway to donbass it sits just above the main body of the ukrainian forces that are still holding back moscow s eastern push. if the invading russian army were able to advance from there, then they would soon able
reach its goal through a hiring freeze and what s described as natural churn no firm timescale has been given. let s talk to our political correspondent david wallis lockhart. tell us more about the reactions of this. ., ., ., this. the government at the moment is lookin: this. the government at the moment is looking to this. the government at the moment is looking to help this. the government at the moment is looking to help people this. the government at the moment is looking to help people with - this. the government at the moment is looking to help people with the i is looking to help people with the cost of living but crucially they want to do so in a way that doesn t cost the tax payer any money on one of the ideas being pitched is cutting one in five civil servants which would be 91,000 civil servants and they think it could save £4 billion a year that could be redeployed to help with the cost of living and we had this morning from the ministerfor living and we had th
that eastern donbas bird pentagon said russia s only plotting forward and uneven progress buying british defenses the depleted units which are being redeployed are suffering from weekend morale. meanwhile as you mentioned here in the capitol, missiles rock the city on thursday secretary-general visited. we got a firsthand look. cleanup crews out in central kyiv be seen apartment building shattered by two missiles with interesting about this strike though, if you look on the other side of the street that s military weapons factory for that is apparently what the target was pretty talk to a gentleman who has property inside one of these buildings and he said it is pollutant targeting civilians not military targets is what really angers him. the attack feeling killing female journalist was working for radio free liberty and also
that the ukrainian military can hold out here in mariupol is another minute the russians can t redeploy and it is another minute the ukrainians can deploy more force here into the donbas. i think today we are seeing a continuation a little bit of what we saw yesterday. some things to think about is really how the defenses are. what you don t see very well here because it is hard to depict is ukrainians have essentially built some defensive lines in several plays i will do light blue. south of izyum is a key marker here. here around donetsk is where the troops from mariupol would be redeployed, essentially pushed north. you see ukrainian defenses here and i will zoom in to show what is going on in this spot. i will try to zoom in here in green. you are seeing them try to push in and around these locations. what they re doing is small
i don t think the fight is over. it will be over some day perhaps in the next few days but the fact that use ukraine forces have held onto their position much longer than anybody at anticipated is having a significant operational effect, because it is tying down many thousand russian forces and russian affiliated forces who could otherwise be redeployed northwards for the main battle but is now starting, the battle for donbas. that is really important because russian resources are not unlimited. i lost a lot of equipment and people in the campaign any north, a failed campaign to take kyiv in the north, the remnants of that force are being redeployed for the battle for donbas and it makes a real difference. the defenders of mariupol having lasted so long as we