facilities used by rebel forces. energy bills for millions of households in britain are to rise by 80% in october. now, though, hardtalk. welcome to a special edition of hardtalk with me, stephen sackur. it is six months since vladimir putin ordered a multi front military invasion of ukraine. he set in motion a war which has already taken a terrible human toll and had profound consequences for european security, big power relations, and the world economy. putin calculated it was an aggression he could get away with. six months of interviews with key players may help you decide if he was right. in late 2021, us and uk intelligence made it clear russia was massing a major fighting force along ukraine s eastern and northern border. this didn t look like a sabre rattling exercise. it looked like an invasion in the making. at first, the ukrainian government led by volodymyr zelensky downplayed it, didn t want to believe it. but by mid january, kyiv s defence minister, oleksii