this time last year, we were seeing clear signs that ukraine s much heralded summer offensive wasn t doing very well. russia had had plenty of time to prepare its defences and ukraine simply couldn t break through them. the next phase, inevitably, would be a russian spring offensive, after the snow and mud of the winter gave way to firmer ground under the tracks and wheels of the tanks and armoured personnel carriers. ukraine s supporters around the world were nervous. might this be the moment when russia came crashing back, recapturing the ground it had lost and even maybe threatening kyiv, the ukrainian capital? the delays in getting the big us support package through seemed to make things much worse. and yet it hasn t happened. russia has made some gains, admittedly, but there s been no actual breakthrough. the bbc ukraine correspondent, james waterhouse, is back in london briefly, and i asked him for his view of what was happening. after ukraine weathered that initialstor
obviously there is a lot we do not know, but it fits a pattern of attacks we have seen, including last year byjihadists linked to the islamic state, which is probably the islamic state khorasan, which is in central asia, and has carried out attacks in moscow and this attack is close to their home territory. we know the sites that were targeted, two churches, one a synagogue, these are religious venues. can we make anything from that in terms of what was actually targeted? so the islamic state and individuals that follow it see themselves as part of a religious struggle. they see a western war on islam and they see a religious struggle. they say western war on islam done by christians and dues against muslims, so by striking religious targets, they believe they re defending their faith. as you said earlier, we re still working to confirm a lot of the facts here and figure out exactly who was behind this but in your assessment, do you think this has the hallmarks of an act by a
of that competition. this time last year, we were seeing clear signs that ukraine s much heralded summer offensive wasn t doing very well. russia had had plenty of time to prepare its defences and ukraine simply couldn t break through them. the next phase, inevitably, would be a russian spring offensive, after the snow and mud of the winter gave way to firmer ground under the tracks and wheels of the tanks and armoured personnel carriers. ukraine s supporters around the world were nervous. might this be the moment when russia came crashing back, recapturing the ground it had lost and even maybe threatening kyiv, the ukrainian capital? the delays in getting the big us support package through seemed to make things much worse. and yet it hasn t happened. russia has made some gains, admittedly, but there s been no actual breakthrough. the bbc ukraine correspondent, james waterhouse, is back in london briefly, and i asked him for his view of what was happening. after ukraine weath
from the bbc s headquarters here in sunny london. in our programme today: is russia s summer offensive turning out to be as successful as ukraine feared? this summer, notably, for the first time, they are saying things like, we don t really know what our goal is other than to stay alive. the idea of pushing the russians to the border, certainly in the east, feels far fetched to them. who owns the moon? and what are different countries planning to do there? you look at pictures of the moon, and it looks as bare as anything, but people have valued what s up there as being anywhere between sort of billions of dollars and quadrillions of dollars. and with the euros in full flow, who stands to gain from football success? if you get to a stage, and we ve seen this in certain leagues in europe, one team dominates too much, then perhaps that will begin to affect the popularity and the appeal of that competition. this time last year, we were seeing clear signs that ukraine s much he
sites in the area. meanwhile, the european union s foreign affairs chief, josep borrell, called for an independent investigation into israeli shelling that damaged the gaza office of the international committee of the red cross on friday. jordan condemned what it calls israel s systematic targeting of civilians and aid agencies. in tel aviv, tens of thousands of people attended what organisers said was the biggest anti government protest since the war began. prime minister benjamin netanyahu is under continued public pressure as the families of 116 hostages held by hamas in gaza plead for a ceasefire. our middle east correspondent, yolande knell, has more on saturday s strikes. there have been more deadly israeli strikes on different neighbourhoods of gaza city. in beach camp, or shati camp, large strikes there. you can see these dark plumes of smoke in social media videos, several homes flattened, shocked people rushing to help the casualties who are at the scene. and t