good morning. and welcome to way too early on this wednesday, april 20th. i m jonathan lemire. russia declared yesterday that the next phase of the war was under way in eastern ukraine, claiming it sames to, quote, liberate, the donbas region. british intelligence is saying that russian forces are still struggling. according to the uk, the ukrainian military continues to beat back russia, attempts to advance, even amid the increased shelling and strikes. british intelligence also says that russia s inability to progress is impacted by the resilience of the ukrainian military and by the same environmental, logistical and technical challenges that have hindered russia s forces. and they expect to be launched in the coming weeks. at least one killed and three others injured when a russian rocket hit the see of kramatorsk. and also rocked the southern city of kyiv. this agency the state emergency service of ukraine yesterday said that russians heavily bombarded the city of luha
that there are no members of the australian defence force involved in this incident. our focus as a government and as a department of defence is very much on incident response and on making sure that every support and assistance is given at this difficult time. our reporter in sydney, phil mercer, has the latest. officials have confirmed that three us marines have died in this aircraft crash. this took place on the tiwi islands, about 60 kilometres to the north of darwin, the capital city of australia s northern territory. so right at the north in the middle of australia, on melville island, one of the tiwi islands, this vertical take off aircraft has crashed. this is an osprey, one of two us vertical take off aircraft that have been involved in military drills between australian forces and us military forces in the northern territory. we understand that 23 people were on board. three us marines have been confirmed to have been killed. at least five others have been flown to
and founder of the eurasia group. they might also have a view on new research that suggests home working.is not working. google, apple, meta are among those who now demanding their workers spend at least three days in the office. we talked in the first hour of the programme about ukraine s path to nato membership and the obstacles in the way of that. let s concentrate this hour on some of the things that have been achieved at this nato summit. notably, the path that s been cleared for sweden to join. we brought you the news last night on this programme that turkey had dropped its veto and will now put sweden s accession to a vote in the turkish parliament, which we expect will be a formality. there has been reaction in moscow to that today. a kremlin spokesman said russia s security would be furtherjeopardised by sweden becoming a member. becoming a member a concern wholly dismissed within the alliance. what is more important to the swedish prime minister, ulf kristersson,
between saying the fight is going to take months and also saying that different phases will take place at different times over those months. welcome. this morning, the white house working to downplay differences with israel on the timeline of this war. u.s. officials telling cnn the biden administration wants to transition to a lower intensity phase of the war within weeks, while israel says the fighting will last more than several months. meantime the house heading home without passing aid to ukraine and western intelligence agencies are gaming out just how long it can last without additional help. one american military official saying ukraine is certain to fail without us. we re going to take a closer look at that ominous timeline. on verdict watch this morning. jurors deciding how much rudy giuliani should pay for his election lies, specifically about two poll workers. they ll be deliberating again this morning. cnn this morning starts right now. good morning, ever