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for more than a year, russian forces have been fighting to capture the eastern ukrainian city of pokrovsk, and in recent days they have made significant advances. russian officials are reporting that they have the city surrounded. for russia, seizing this city would clear the road towards a total capture of the donetsk region. but while ukraine attempts to hold the line, western sanctions on russian oil are starting to bite - turkey turning to non-russian oil now, poland striking a deal for us liquefied gas, and new sanctions have forced the russian company lukoil to sell its stake in bulgaria’s only refinery. will any of this, though, deter russian advances? and can ukraine hold the line in pokrovsk? and if pokrovsk falls, what’s that going to mean for the whole wider war in the east? we’re going to be answering all of your questions today on those issues and more with our expert panel. i’m james landale. i’m paul kirby. i’m laura gozzi.

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and i’m lucy hockings. welcome to ukrainecast. before we begin, james, good to see you in what looks to be a little bit of a damp and chilly kyiv. what have you been up to? we have been out and about essentially trying to, at the moment, just trying to assess the mood and resilience of ukraine, as the winter begins to come closer. because there’s a real question now of just how long can this country go on? this is going to be the fourth winter of this war. the russians are very clearly targeting energy, so there are a lot of concerns about what that might mean in the months ahead, not just in terms of just the sheer discomfort of people having to live in cold flats with no heating and no electricity, but also what it might mean in terms of the economy, because this is a country that does require

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energy to function - as any country does. and i think there’s real concerns that that’s going to be the pinch point in the months to come. and, james, when it comes to pokrovsk, in our ukrainecast edition earlier this week, we were talking about how significant it is. how much do we know, though, about what is actually happening there? because the russians are saying they have it surrounded. yeah, and, first of all, there is a lot of confusion and uncertainty about precisely what’s going on on the ground. a lot of people talk about there now being quite a significant grey zone within the city, namely areas that are not really controlled by either side. you have official statements by both sides, both the russian government and the ukrainian government, the russians saying they’ve got the ukrainians surrounded, the ukrainians officially on the record saying that that’s not happening, that’s not true. i think, talking to our own sources in the region, and our team here have been talking to some soldiers on the ground, they all say that the situation is definitely critical.

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some of them are more optimistic, some of them are more pessimistic, but they certainly say that the russians are making gains that they haven’t made in past months. and i think the real significant change here is the fact that the russians are no longer, as they’ve done in past times, the names we know on ukrainecast, we know these names of bakhmut and avdiivka, and places like that, where the russian tactic was simply just to throw men and lives at the problem and eventually slowly take ground. what the russians have been doing here is taking advantage of the comparative advantage over their drone strike capability. and they’ve been targeting some of the ukrainian drone operators who are slightly behind the front line. and what that has meant is that some of these ukrainian drone operators have had to step back a bit. that has allowed there to be gaps, which the russians have managed to creep into - very, very small teams, two or three people, two or three soldiers, just getting into those gaps

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and slowly but surely...“infiltrating” is the phrase that the military use. and that has put the ukrainians on the back foot. and i think where the stress now is on ukraine’s supply lines, in other words, getting kit in, ammunition in, getting wounded people out, those lines, those supply lines, those “logistical lines”, they call them, are now increasingly under attack from russian forces. and that’s where the real pinch is coming. and, paul and laura, you’ve been writing about this all week. it’s been the story on the bbc news website that you’ve both been covering. yes, we’ve been looking at the maps as well, and it’s very clear that the russians have been able to encroach on these significant roads that go out of pokrovsk to the main cities like dnipro. yeah, or zaporizhzhia, which is the, let’s say, the capital city of the zaporizhzhia region, which is another region that russia has been claiming for years now. and what about the response from nato countries to what we’re seeing this week?

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so far, there’s very little that they can do. i mean, they’re watching the ukrainians, and the ukrainians are being very bullish, aren’t they, james? the fact is they say, “we’re still in control, “we’re holding the line.” they’re insisting that this cauldron that the russians are trying to create is not happening. is that correct? what they’re insisting is that the act of surrounding hasn’t happened yet. i think there’s a definitional debate about what “surrounding” actually means, because if the two horns, if you like, are getting closer, it means that getting people in and out is now really, really tough. and the messages we’re getting from soldiers, they say, “look, it’s completely chaotic, “it’s utterly confused.” they’re not sure what the strategy is of the ukrainian military commanders. a few days ago, the ukrainians sent in some special forces to try and stiffen some of their defences. but some of the soldiers that we’ve been in contact on the ground have been pretty dismissive of that, saying that was more of a pr exercise than a substantive military action.

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the one cautionary note is this, the russians have been trying to take this city for well over a year, and, back in january, there was similar talk of pokrovsk is the next one that’s going to fall. so, some ukrainians say, “look, you know, “let’s just not automatically jump to a conclusion here.” but, you know, the meetings that i’ve been having here with senior members of the government, they say, “look, the likelihood is that this city will fall.” they don’t say when, they don’t know when. and a debate has already started beginning here in ukraine, particularly within, you know, in the social media, about whether or not the government’s tactics are right, because some people are saying the government is making the same mistake that was made with bakhmut, that was made with avdiivka, namely, they hold on too long and at too great a cost in terms of lost lives and lost equipment. and, james, the messaging for the russians as well is surely important here, they want to be saying to the us, to president trump, “look what we’re doing,

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“we’re making progress”? yeah, no, absolutely, this is not just a strategic sort of issue in terms of russia hoping to gain a closer foothold on the path to taking more territory in donetsk. this also has a huge diplomatic edge. the ukrainians are very clear that russia would want to use the seizure of pokrovsk as a message, something president zelensky said is giving the russians something to sell to the americans, in other words, to go to donald trump and say, “look, hey, you know, this idea that the battle is over is “nonsense, we’re making progress. “look at pokrovsk, just give us, you know, sort of... “we’re going to hang in there.” in other words, to try and put pressure on president trump to in turn put pressure on ukrainians to sue for peace, as has happened at various stages since donald trump came to power. ok, well, let’s get to some listener questions now. and this one comes from angus in stroud, who says, “regarding the frozen russian assets being discussed

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“by the eu and the fear from belgium that releasing funds “to ukraine could put off other investors “in case the same thing happened to them, “surely this would only affect investors “from despotic states committing illegal wars? “is losing those investors really such a worry, “or am i missing something important?” laura, you now have a reputation as being the...sort of the queen of the frozen russian assets - you know everything, you’ve looked into this in depth. what’s your answer there for angus? well, i think it’s important to remember that investments usually don’t just come from, as he put it, despotic states. it can be individual private citizens that also use banks and financial institutions, like the one at the centre of the frozen assets, frozen russian assets debate, which, as we’ve mentioned before, is called euroclear, it’s based in belgium. and i think the fear around this is that seizing those assets in the way that

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the eu has suggested doing would basically create a worrying precedent that sovereign reserves would be in danger of being taken in future for political reasons. so, this is what...you know, this is one of the major concerns around this, around the frozen assets. but i think, as we’ve said before, it’s also worth noting that the reason that belgium is resisting this idea so much is that it’s really worried about the legal repercussions of allowing the eu to use these frozen assets, and what would happen if russia sued them successfully and demanded the 140 billion euros back in one go? we know that they’ve now... belgium has blocked this idea a couple of weeks ago at the eu summit then. and we also know that there’s another eu summit at which they’re due to discuss this again coming up in december, and that the european commission and the belgian government are holding talks this week to come to an agreement before then.

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so, they’re holding talks, paul, but is anyone coming to belgium’s aid here with some kind of sensible solution to this? there is no obvious solution that seems to have come out so far, and that’s what worries the belgians. the belgians are right in the middle of a political crisis - their government could fall, they’re trying to sort out a budget. meanwhile, there are drones that many of the belgians in government believe may have something to do with russia, russian saboteurs. there are drones over military facilities, there are drones that have stopped planes flying from airports all week. and this has really upset the belgians. and they think... are they officially blaming the russians? well, there is talk, belgian media are certainly saying that the government is blaming the russians for this. they’re not saying it outright, in the way that the danes never said it outright, they wouldn’t rule it out, the danes said, when the drones came over denmark very recently. so, with belgium, it’s the same, but they do believe this is probably the russians. and there has been a spat between one of the key belgian

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ministers, theo francken, and dmitry medvedev, a very significant member, former president, member of the security council in russia, an open spat between them, so they’re suggesting there may be something to this and the row over euroclear. and, james, you had something you wanted to say on the asset front as well, the frozen assets? yeah, i mean, the view from ukraine is that these frozen assets at some point will be used. you know, they’ve almost priced that in. they have made it very, very clear that without this money, ukraine will basically go bust, it will not be able to keep its government going, and that there are other consequences. if this money is not provided, then the imf has already started warning that it will not be able to continue giving loans to ukraine, because, under imf rules, it can only give loans to going concerns. and if it doesn’t get this frozen cash from the europeans, then it’s going to be in real trouble. the essential view at the moment is, from here,

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is that the belgian issue is solvable. they think that the belgians have not been handled well by the european commission, and that actually a bit of better politics needs to be engaged to get the belgians onside. there’s talk already of maybe having a separate summit before the december summit to see if they can get some progress on it there. but you should make no mistake, in kyiv, they’re expecting this money in some shape or form. and their ultimate calculation is that the western powers, the european powers, will prefer to use frozen assets than make the loans themselves, or guarantee the loans themselves. and they think ultimately, that will be enough to get the belgians over the line, once there’s been enough sort of sorting out of how they share the risk. let’s move on to our next question, which is from michael in dursley, who asks, “what is to stop ukraine “from gaining their own nuclear weapons? “what is to stop them from buying them “from another power and training them on russia “and demanding that they leave the country?”

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laura. well, this brings to mind comments that zelensky made late last year and earlier this year, in which he basically said that at this point, ukraine’s only defence against russia is either nato membership, which, as you know, is not forthcoming, or having its own nuclear weapons. and, paul, i guess we should remind people about the budapest memorandum. yeah, so the budapest memorandum goes back to 1994, and ukraine basically gave up all its nuclear weapons in return for a deal with russia and the uk. and these were supposed to be the countries that guaranteed ukrainian security over the years. they’ve lost their nuclear weapons, and they’ve lost their security because the russians invaded in 2014 and then again in a full-scale manner in 2022. so, obviously, now they can start thinking about nuclear weapons, but is it realistic? and that’s the big question in kyiv, isn’t it?

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yeah. james, what is the ukrainian position? well, officially they are signatories to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which means they have agreed that they are not going to develop nuclear weapons. they have also... they’re also signatories to an agreement, as all countries are who are signed up to the provisions of the un nuclear watchdog, the iaea, which is essentially a firm commitment to say that any nuclear energy produced here is going to be used for civilian purposes and not military purposes. however, if... in answering the question, if ukraine wished to change its position, it could always do so. i think that the problem is, though, it’s not that realistic. it could potentially build a small nuclear weapon itself. it could use some of the waste from its own nuclear energy, plutonium rods and things that have been used in its own nuclear plants, to build a smallish nuclear weapon. it wouldn’t be terribly sophisticated compared to modern nuclear weapons, but it’s possible they could do that

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over a relatively short period of time. but that, again, would be in breach of what they’ve promised they’d do. the second thing they could do is try and buy some nuclear weapons from another country. again, very, very difficult. very, very difficult cos other countries have said they’re not going to do that. i think the scale of international opposition to ukraine would be such that if they decided to do that, an awful lot of other support from the rest of the world would dry up instantly. so i think it’s a very unrealistic option, i think, for the ukrainians to consider. whenever zelensky talks about it, it’s more a sort of a nudge to say, “hey, nato membership, it’s nato membership. “that’s the game in town. “otherwise we’ll have to think about other things - nuclear.” but it’s something he just sort of says from time to time. the real focus is on nato. we get questions all the time on what could be a potential game-changer in the war. that question from michael about nuclear weapons, and this one we’ve had as well from leslie, who asks, “from what i hear, it seems the swedish gripen could be “a game-changer for ukraine, “whether it’s the newer e version

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“or the older c/d version. “however, ukraine needs them yesterday. “how long is it likely to take before they can take delivery “and train sufficiently to fly them effectively?” firstly, james, what is the gripen? well, a gripen is a swedish warplane. and i was at a briefing the other day with president zelensky, and he was asked about this. and he was singing the praises of this particular weapon. the ukrainians have got about 150 or so on order, and the key thing - and again, i’m not an expert in aircraft - but the key point that he was making is that these weapons, these aircraft are very user-friendly. he said you can pretty much stick any weapon you want on them. and the second point he made about them was that it takes less time to train a pilot - about six months to use them, rather than a year and a half with an f-16. and so those are the two key points that he said was why they’d gone for this particular aircraft. and, paul, is there a possibility that sweden

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can get some new ones and hand off the old ones to ukraine? that is the idea. although, as, certainly, james has said, they’ve put in an order for 100 to 150 of the newer ones, the so-called gripen e, the swedes are themselves upgrading their air force with the gripen e, and they will have the older versions, the c and d versions, that some of those could go to ukraine in the way that we’ve had during the war, that other countries have passed on their older weapons while they’ve upgraded them themselves. so germany, for example, the czechs. the czechs have handed over their migs to the ukrainians, so that could happen. well, before we get to our next question, let’s chat about what we saw this week with turkey, which, paul, felt like quite a big change in terms of when they were looking at their oil supplies. i think that donald trump’s decision to impose sanctions on lukoil, in particular, the two biggest... ..rosneft and lukoil, the two oil producers that russia has.

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there are already sanctions on the third- and fourth-biggest, but lukoil is significant because lukoil provides crude oil to countries like bulgaria, and it has a huge refinery in bulgaria. but in turkey, the turks have never really gone along with the sanctions that the west has imposed on ukraine, but there does seem to be some sort of game-changer here where the turkish refineries have decided, actually, we’re going to stop getting our oil from lukoil and we’re going to get our oil, for example, from kazakhstan. this hasn’t been confirmed, from what i understand, but certainly the reports that are coming out are that the contracts are changing and there is a sort of... ..there’s a deadline imposed by the americans of november the 21st, when you basically have to have got rid of all lukoil produce from russia. so lukoil is having to sell all its assets across europe,

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and that includes, for example, bulgaria, where lukoil has a lot of petrol stations, but it also has this very significant refinery which provides 80% of turkish oil. well, on the topic of oil, one of our listeners, judith, has this question for us. hello, ukrainecast. this is judith in wiltshire. why does it seem so difficult for the czech republic and hungary to stop buying russian oil and gas? how much of this is practical questions? new pipelines are very expensive and take decades to build, etc. and how much of it is political? thanks for all your hard work. really love the programme. thanks for that question, judith. laura. well, i think judith is absolutely right to point out that it’s... ..that there’s two components to this issue. there’s the practical, and there’s the political. and i think that these central european countries are landlocked, right, so it’s difficult for them to get...

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..to get oil and gas any other way than through pipelines, whereas other european countries have, you know, been able to ship them over. but the political element here is also really important, and if we look at countries like hungary, like slovakia, you know, they’ve been much closer to the moscow government for basically... ..well, certainly since the war has started. we know that viktor orban, the leader of hungary, has been over in moscow. he keeps relations with putin, and so there is also a kind of resistance to moving away from the russian supply of these products. and also it’s not just the... it’s the slovaks and the hungarians, but it’s been very hard for the europeans as a whole to get rid of their gas and oil, but they’re very keen to do so by 2027. so, really, the slovaks and the hungarians are kind of outliers on this. but there is this pipeline, this druzhba pipeline,

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that goes under, through ukrainian territory, through slovakia and hungary. and so it’s going to be very hard when you’ve got a hungarian government and a slovak government that are so close to the russian coat-tails as they are. judith, thank you so much for that question. we have one now from barcelona, from quentin, who is there and listens to the podcast, who says, “what will happen if ukraine runs out “of people willing to fight in this war? “and when could this happen?” james. i don’t think ukraine’s ever going to run out of people. it has the largest army in europe. the figures are something...you know, almost 900,000 personnel. you know, it’s a very large army at the moment, so i don’t think they’re going to run out of people. i think what there is, though, is there is an imbalance between the size of ukraine and the size of russia when it comes to numbers,

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and there’s also a differential in terms of the way both countries are prepared to treat the members of their armed forces. that said, ukraine is clearly aware that they do need to get more recruits. they have not formally mobilised their youth at the moment, so at the moment, you know, you can be forced to sign up to the army if you’re aged between 25-60. but if you’re younger than that, there’s nothing obliging you to fight. what they are doing, though, is they are trying to induce young people to join up. so if you actually sign up and you’re between 18-24, you get access to zero-interest-rate mortgages, you get free health care, free dental, you get... if you sign up for more than two years, you then get a year off where you are free from any kind of military mobilisation. and literally just in the last few days, the government here has proposed a new set of contracts for everybody,

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so those over the age of 25 as well, cos one of the real deterrents to people here is this idea that if you join the army, it’s kind of open-ended and you’re never going to get back. so what they’re doing now is they’re saying, “look, actually, if you sign up for, say, “one year, two years, three years, whatever it is, “you get certain benefits “and you’ll be told... “once your time is up, you’re definitely free from the army “for a certain period of time.” so there’s clearly an issue there. what i think’s really interesting is this - if you talk to senior military commanders in europe, they still raise their eyebrows at this. i was seeing one just a few weeks ago in the uk, and he said to me that he reckoned that ukraine was the only country he could think of in history which was fighting a war for its survival and was not sending... the phrase he used was something like “was not sending its angry young 20-year-old men “in to fight”. james, we’ll let you get back into the warmth. good to see you.

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thanks very much. good to see you guys. paul, laura, thank you very much. and thank you all for watching. we’ll be back with a new q&a episode next week. in the meantime, please check out our ukrainecast feed wherever you get your bbc podcasts. lots of analysis and great questions there for you as well. but see you soon. bye-bye. ukrainecast from bbc news.

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live from singapore. this is bbc news. the bbc’s director-general director-general tim davie and ceo ceo of news deborah turness. resigned resigned after criticism that a panorama panorama documentary on president president trump misled viewers. the the longest us government shutdown shutdown in history nears an end. end. the senate holds a rare sunday sunday vote as us media report a a deal has been reached to back a a stopgap funding measure. plus, plus, super typhoon fung wong hits hits the philippines, displacing displacing nearly 1 million people. people. just days after another deadly deadly storm tore through the country.

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