by islamic state, so called. in this programme, i want to look at the way the world has changed during my 50 years as a foreign correspondent. and we are in iraq because it s played such an important part in my career. it s easy to assume that bad news is the only news, but my experience has been rather different, as we ll see. with our cameraman sitting in front and our security adviser driving, we are getting near mosul now. there, it looks pretty recent, actually, doesn t it? until a few days ago, this territory was held by islamic state. craters were made by ieds roadside bombs. islamic state captured mosul two and a half years ago. now the iraqi army is on the offensive but the ground is littered with hidden explosives and booby traps left by is. when we get there, gents, please be aware of your footing, in case there s any mines or anything that hasn t exploded yet. there you are. and then you will be able to say, well, i told them! just off the main road are some w
And this is going to break, i think, the front lines. where they will do this attack, i m not going to speculate, although the ukrainians have said that their objective is to sever the ground lines of communications that enables the russians to go along the south east coast into crimea. we achieved combined arms effect during the fight to baghdad, and it is terrifying for the enemy, and the difference this time from kharkiv last fall, where the ukrainians did carry out a very successful attack, is that when the lead elements culminate, after 72, 96 hours, as far as you can physically go, there are follow on forces that will capitalise and exploit the momentum and continue this. and then i think you get the battlefield, you make it dynamic, the russians have to react, they have to move to re establish
I m not going to speculate, although the ukrainians have said that their objective is to sever the ground lines of communications that enables the russians to go along the south east coast into crimea. we achieved combined arms effect during the fight to baghdad, and it is terrifying for the enemy, and the difference this time from kharkiv last fall, where the ukrainians did carry out a very successful attack, is that when the lead elements culminate, after 72, 96 hours, as far as you can physically go, there are follow on forces that will capitalise and exploit the momentum and continue this. and then i think you get the battlefield, you make it dynamic, the russians have to react, they have to move to re establish a defensive line somewhere in the rear of where they are, and where they were. and noting that on the russian side, this is a force that has been
This is going to break, i think, the front lines. where they will do this attack, i m not going to speculate, although the ukrainians have said that their objective is to sever the ground lines of communications that enables the russians to go along the south east coast into crimea. we achieved combined arms effect during the fight to baghdad, and it is terrifying for the enemy, and the difference this time of kharkiv last fall, where the ukrainians did carry out a very successful attack, is that when the lead elements culminate, after 72, 96 hours, as far as you can physically go, there are follow on forces that will capitalise and exploit the momentum and continue this. and then i think you get the battlefield, you make a dynamic, they russians have to react, they have to move to re establish a defensive line somewhere in the rigour of where they are, and where they were. and noting that on the russian side,
Coast into crimea. we achieved combined arms effect during the fight to baghdad, and it is terrifying for the enemy, and the difference this time from kharkiv last fall, where the ukrainians did carry out a very successful attack, is that when the lead elements culminate, after 72, 96 hours, as far as you can physically go, there are follow on forces that will capitalise and exploit the momentum and continue this. and then i think you get the battlefield, you make it dynamic, the russians have to react, they have to move to re establish a defensive line somewhere in the rear of where they are, and where they were. and noting that on the russian side, this is a force that has been battered, that many of these units have been in constant combat for well over a year, they are not pulling units offline and reconstituting them, in other words replacing the losses of people and equipment, they arejust adding people to the front lines. that is not the way you produce a cohesive, coherent, wel