thanks for having me. so we ve been following your reports from kharkiv any reports from all the reporting they ve done in ukraine closely. can you just give us an update on the scale of what s happening in terms of this phase of the war and with russia appears to be trying to accomplish? it s tough and as you can around the articles that we ve written, they have narrowed their focus. they have thousands of troops kind of located in the east preparing for a larger offensive but taking much less ground that set out for in february. so that just looks different this time instead of having armored columns and infantry advances and helicopter insertions. they re kind of advancing very slowly from predetermine front lines of established in the last month and a half, two months. so a lot of that is going to look like a lot of artillery fire and then slowly moving their troops underneath that artillery fire as they weaken ukrainian positions.
so that just looks different this time instead of having armored columns and infantry advances and helicopter insertions. they re kind of advancing very slowly from predetermine front lines of established in the last month and a half, two months. so a lot of that is going to look like a lot of artillery fire and then slowly moving their troops underneath that artillery fire as they weaken ukrainian positions. it sounds more efficient the way described that way. i don t know anything about military tactics and i m not a veteran like you are. see these things at a personal level. but it sounds from a latest perspective the way they are describing that, that this is going to be a massive show of force that it s going to be grinding but it also seems to have more military chance of success than the earlier tactics that they ve used in early parts of the war. is that a fair assessment? i think for the most part, i think it s going to be a lot slower and i think a lot of it has to do wit