they'd been outgunned. rishi sunak calls for conservative unity after this week's two big by—election defeats to labour. now on bbc news, it's newscast. hello. it's adam in the studio. and it's chris in the studio. right, let's dive straight into today's big news, which came at 7am, which gives you a hint about what it was, because that's when big economic statistics come out. and we learnt from the ons that the economy shrank by 0.3% in the final three months of last year. now, if you add that to the 0.1% shrinkage in the three months before, we're now technically in a recession.

yeah, in an election year. and that r word, we'll kick around, you know, the extent to which it's a recession comparable with others, and what it actually means and the extent to which people will feel any different, given that it's a sort of rear—view mirror look at what's been going on in the economy in recent months. if you're in politics in general, if you're in government in particular, the r word isjust one of those horror words. and so for those in government in an election year, it's the last thing that they need to see. and it is equally not remotely surprising that opposition parties leapt in front of cameras and microphones within, if not nanoseconds, then certainly hours of 7:00 this morning to try and pin the blame on the government, as you'd expect them to do. you've gotjeremy hunt, the chancellor, making the argument that things are getting a little better. and i suppose if we take a couple of steps back, there's a fair question to ask about to what extent we might have been in a situation similar to this under different political management, given what has happened in big picture economic and geopolitical terms, and indeed the pandemic, in the last four or five years. right, let's kick this around

with some very wise visitors who've popped into the newscast studio. here is dharshini david, bbc chief economics correspondent. hello. and to torsten bell, who is the chief exec of the resolution foundation. hello. remind people what your outfit actually does, torsten. the resolution foundation does not offer you marriage advice. - instead, we are an economic research institute that focuses on the - living standards of people on low and middle incomes. _ ok, now, dharshini, i was feeling very smug this morning because i thought, i know what a technical recession is. it's two quarters of negative economic growth. and then it turns out actually no—one can really agree exactly what it is or whether a technical recession actually exists. well, i always feel that, you know, economists need that other resolution foundation. they need the, you know, relationship advice to actually get on, because you're right, they don't really agree on much because, quite frankly, what else do they have to do apart from bicker with each other and look at spreadsheets? i say that... excuse me? this has gone downhill fast! all right, the economists. are arguing already, thereby proving the point. there you go. so, the point is, though, that to some people, this is a recession, but to some other people in the economics profession,

it isn't really. well, indeed. and we use the most common example is that sort of, when you look at two quarters, and yes, things have gone down overall, but increasingly there are other people saying, and in america they use a different version. let's look at the length of this. let's look at the depth of it. let's look at what's happening on the broader picture here. and actually, when you look at what's happening with this recession, it's, at the moment, it appears to be more of a dimple than a pit, a relatively small dip in activity overall. but nevertheless, as you say, coming at this crucial time and on the back of what we've seen happening over the last few years, it is pretty notable. but yeah, i always feel that word technical actually is unhelpful, because it's either recession or it isn't, but people just differ on what they think it is. the thing i always find myself wrestling with on days like this when you get some data, is that the likes of us lot and then people who are on the political stage will commentate until the cows come home about it. but i'm conscious that from the perspective of newscasters, from the perspective of people

around the country, a lot will think, well, you know, tell us something we don't know. because the lived experience of the economy will be one of perhaps things feeling a bit flat for a very long time. and then along come these figures sometimes which get revised later down the track and which by definition are backward looking. so they're not about the right now, but several months back. yeah, i think we should. that's a good thing to have in your head, chris. - i think generally, i think- politicians should probably have that in their head too. - and i think most people hearing the news at 7am or 9am or late tonight will be thinking, - yeah, no "something" sherlock, because we've all been living. with that for some time. i actually think probably that's more true with these figures i than it is generally, _ because what we're really saying — normally when we see a technical recession, | whatever you want to call it, i being declared, that normally happens when you're seeing quite i a steep decline in economic output. something really bad has happened. banks have gone bust. _ i remember those ones. or something really bad in terms of interest rates going up. - because this is very

small compared to... well, let me come back — i definitely is small compared to the financial crisis, although as someonei that was in the treasury. during the financial crisis, i don't think that should be our only benchmark. i you can definitely have a big recession that isn't - the global financial crisis, | just to reassure everyone. it's not dimple or global financial crisis. - there are things in between. hopefully we won't experience too many of those. _ so i think this one is more backward looking than normal. _ normally, as i say, - a recession gets declared. people are losing theirjobs right there and then, - and we're seeing big steep falls in output. _ now, luckily, that isn't the kind of thing that's happening now. i instead, what's happening is, if we just step back and say, i what's the big picture? _ well, the big picture is the british economy hasn't been growing for the last two years. - that's the actual big picture of what is going on here. i yes, if you look at just the gdp i figures, which is the exciting thing everyone talks about in recession world, then, ok, it's only two- quarters of the economy actually i shrinking, and that's what getsl you your technical recession. but what we all care - about as punters is what's happening to our living standards. _

what's happening to gdp per capita is the real thing that matters. - how big is the economy- per person in the economy? and actually that's been i shrinking now for two years since the beginning of 2022. the only thing that's holding up l the gdp figures overall is actually much faster population growth than we are used to. _ you guys have covered that. in your episodes on migration, 600,00—odd net migration figures running tojune 2023. _ if you look at what the 0ns said just a fortnight back, _ they found another 700,000' population over the age of 16. so there's more people than we expected. - more people, that means the more| workers, that means gdp is higher. but in the end, we care about our |living standards, gdp per capita.| as i say, that's been- shrinking for seven quarters. it's actually been shrinking i for more consistent quarters than we've ever seen on record. i and those records go back to 1955, land that's my slight, you know, | question i would raise with some of the coverage today - and some of the discussion, which is because if you look atjust gdp, you say it was only two - quarters, it's only 0.3. - we're not seeing unemployment shoot through the roof. those are all true. - but we have had seven i quarters of this economy, two years of this economy being unable to grow. - and remember, that's happening

on the back of 15 terrible years i for the british economy generally. so if i was listening _ to the news today as a punter, l then i would probably be saying, obviously that's what's - going on in the short term. and then i've been saying, i when is this all going to end? well, the interesting thing is and we took a look at those figures and crunched them, looking at gdp per head. and if you go back to the start of 2022, and you look at where we are now and what population's done, inflation has done and gdp, we're the equivalent of £140 each worse off than we were just two years ago. and that's just two years. and as you say... we're poorer than we were in 2019. you know, we have seen some growth from before that. - but, you know, this is not- an economy firing on all cylinders, whether you want to call it i a technical recession or not. i this is what stagnation looks like. i here is the chancellorjeremy hunt.

labour's line is this is rishi's recession. hard to allocate blame precisely. but i mean, there have been quite a lot of things happening in the global economy. there are. i mean, this is, we talked about the pandemic being a global virus. and what we've seen over the last couple of years has been a global economic virus, in the form of that cost of living shock based on global wholesale costs. and we've seen that impacting economies around the world. and as a result, we've seen economies around the world doing what we did and hiking up interest rates to try and get that down. and all of that has an impact. we are all different. we experience viruses in different ways and show different symptoms. so, you know, for example, we also learnt in the last 24 hours that japan's gone into recession. germany also shrinking towards the end of last year, the eu teetering on the brink of recession. we are not the only ones who have been suffering, but there are some things, of course, that set us apart. things like, for example, we've talked a lot, well before, haven't we, about brexit and how that appears to have had an impact on things like investment and the availability of skilled workers. all those things add up. so yeah, this isn'tjust a domestic

story, but certainly the fallout and the pain does feel very personal for many people. also into the mix here we've got inflation, which has been sky high and now isn't quite as high, but the government still wants to get it lower, and the tool or a tool for driving down inflation is putting up interest rates. but that in so doing ends up taking out sort of some of the oomph out of an economy that doesn't have much oomph anyway. so if you're the chancellor or the prime minister in that scenario, any chancellor or any prime minister in that scenario, that is tough. yeah. i mean, look, the underlying substance is what's tough. . it's tough for everybody. yes, it's also tough for politicians. - i mean, if you step back, obviously, there's a lot of mixed things - going on here about things that i are affecting maybe not the whole global economy right now, - but definitely the european economy when it comes to gas prices over the last two years. - and those — it may feel unfair. if you're a politician being judged about things that aren't totally under your control. _ but, you know, life's not fair. - it's not fair for the punters paying for that petrol and it's not fair for politicians. - but i'm afraid that's the deall and politicians lead into that. i mean, you know, it's— the prime minister himself who set a target for getting inflation down and getting growth to happen. .

so if you set that up, i then you are going to be held to account to it. - and to be fair to rishi sunak, whether or not he'd said - that he was going to be held to account, politicians i of all parties, in the end, if an economy is not growing, one of the reasons why, - you know, democracies overall tend to grow faster then - is because of economic accountability. - governments that don't see i the economy growing well do tend to get kicked out. _ now, sometimes that's their fault, and therefore it's good they're kicked out because we get - the economy growing again. sometimes it's bad luck, . but you know, those are the shakes. what was interesting about listeningj to the news this morning, i'm notjust showing off that i got up really early today, is that the news at 6am, before these figures came out at seven, was actually the treasury have hinted to journalists that at the budget, to pay for any future tax cuts, which we all think are coming down the line, there's going to be even more spending cuts in future than had been pencilled in already. so it was kind of clear that the government wanted to get their version of the future out before the 0ns got their version of the past out at 7 o'clock. chris, what is the... what do you think is the theory behind the treasury letting everyone discreetly know that that's their plan? is it just so that actually

if you turn on the radio at 6am you hear the words "tax cuts" before you hear the word "recession". is it as basic as that? i think that's a bit of it. and then there's the broader conversation that's been going on for, i mean, for weeks now around the countdown to the budget. and we've seen some ministers lean into it quite heavily and then row back a bit. we've seen articles in the newspapers at the weekend from the prime minister and the chancellor a couple of weekends back, then we had the chancellor saying, "0h, actually, maybe it's not quite as good as we thought, blah, blah, blah." but in all of those utterances, he's using the phrase or the words "tax" and "cut". and then the big picture thing here is, is one of conservative mps saying to the chancellor, but more broadly the tax burden being high by generational standards, a desire therefore from the conservatives' perspective is to try and bring it down to show that they can deliver more than just language around tax cuts, because the last couple of years they've talked a lot about tax cuts, and meanwhile, the tax burden has been climbing, not least because this whole business of what we call...

i don't know why i'm about to use the word fiscal drag in the company of our two esteemed economists, but people getting dragged into higher tax thresholds as a result of inflation. and so there's a real desire to try and do something on tax. and then also politically to make things a little tricky for labour, because what does labour then do when it's presented with tax cuts in a budget? does it say it would accept them? and where does that leave the public finances that they might inherit if they were to win the election? so that's the ongoing conversation that we're going to see in the next three and a bit weeks, i think it is now, isn't it, until budget day? and, dharshini, something i hadn't really clocked until i started looking into it today. the cost of government borrowing has gone up recently, even though the story was that oh, actually maybe it won't be as expensive as we thought it would be. it's not going to be as expensive as we thought at the time of the autumn statement, but those borrowing costs have crept up again in the last few weeks. so that is almost being used to couch some of what we've been hearing there from chris. the idea that money might be a bit

tighter for the chancellor when it comes to meeting those fiscal rules he draws up himself and also having cash to do with what he pleases. and if we get those tax cuts, where is that trade off? and the thing i know that torsten's talked about this a lot, is that if you look past the election, there are those totals pencilled in for public spending, which look pretty grim. you are going to have to have cuts and services if that's going to go ahead. and that seems to be the same at the moment for either political party. right, totally different subject. what's your favourite taylor swift song? my favourite taylor swift... i'm actually slightly worried that taylor swift has become - worryingly central to our politics. well, it's funny you say that... l take the united states. i'm slightly nervous that. you two are now going to... i'm worried that you two _ are going to start on this and we're going to end up with a uk version. of a taylor swift conspiracy theory. and all i would say, - is that this country has got enough problems already. well, like all swifties, i was reading about this in the economist of all places. this is the thing. oh, it's gone, it's gone. that is the problem. i think it was the lexington column.

i think it is the column about kind of american politics and american society. it was all about taylor swift. what did you learn? we're going to discuss that. but i'm going to let you two go because you've clearly dodged picking your favourite taylor swift song, which either means you don't know her back catalogue very well or... impartiality. i'm pleading impartiality here. but also i've got to say, every time i come on newscast, you talk about taylor swift. what is going on? almost like he's got a problem. all too well. ok, now we are going to talk about the political significance of the artist, taylor swift, mainly because chris read an article about her in a very serious magazine while he was on holiday. this is what's fascinating, i think, about the kind of cultural and political and media significance of this, because i got wind on my half—term holiday with the kids that we'd be talking about taylor swift. and then i was flicking through the economist and there was an article about the whole thing this week with the super bowl and all that kind of stuff. and i thought, this is interesting, isn't it? because this isn't the sort of nerdy

going mainstream, it's the opposite. it's the mainstream going nerdy and it's being examined in a kind of global news magazine to explore the kind of significance on all sorts of cultural and political levels of the ultimate kind of mass market phenomenon. chris, i mean this in the nicest way, but you are like an amateur observer of taylor swift. ifeel we need to rope in some professionals. we'rejoined here in the newscast studio by zing tsjeng, who is one of the presenters of the good bad billionaire podcast. hello. thank you so much for having me. and you've just done _ an episode about taylor? yes, we have. we've done an episode on taylor because she recently entered - the ranks of pop billionaires. and she is very rare in the sense. that she is the only pop billionaire to have made all this money purely through music. - so, when you think of other musicl billionaires like jay—z and rihanna, they've made money through deals like fenty beauty, fenty lingerie. i jay—z takes in a quite tidy profit from his alcohol brands. - taylor swift is the only musician so far in history to have become a billionaire through music alone. she's basically like an entire individual sector

of the economy, isn't she? yes. actually, there's a a term - that's been bandied around called the taylor swift effect, _ or swift—enomics, which is what it means when the taylor swift circus comes to town. - so, famously... i on hertour, yeah. when the taylor swift circus rolls in, cities benefit, you know, - infrastructure benefits _ because nobody wants to get caught short on a train that lets you miss the taylor swift concert. - hotels get booked up, - restaurants get booked up. it is an economic phenomenon in its own right _ and taylor swift fans are known as swifties. and the biggest swiftie in parliament is the conservative mp dehenna davison, whojoins us now. hello. thank you for having me on to talk about my specialist subject. thank you for wearing some taylor swift merch as well so that we know you're the real deal. dehenna, should wejust be very transparent? would you like to explain to newscasters how i know that you are such a big swifty? oh, my gosh. adam, if i recall, at some point, i think last year, you and i encountered each other on a nightclub dance floor at a taylor swift club night.

this is great. yeah, a club night. it was all taylor swift all night. wow. it was one of the most incredible nights of my life, obviously, because you were there, adam, but also because it's the most safe, fun, happy club experience i've ever had. dehenna, for people who haven't quite bought into the whole taylor swift mystique yet, what's her secret? what's so amazing about her? she means different things to different people, i think. but for me, i think the reason that i'm such a big fan and remain a big fan to this day, i first got to know her when she was a teenager writing songs about teenage life, you know, falling in love for the first time, break—ups, boyfriends, feeling like an outsider. at that point, i was going through that same stuff in my life as a teenage girl, as so many of us were. and i think as taylor swift has grown, her kind of songwriting is more mature. she's written about experiences you have later in life, falling out of love, about moving to a big city for the first time, friend fallouts, you know,

more grown up scrutiny. you kind of feel like you've grown up with her and end up in this kind of weird parasocial kind of relationship with, to me, big sister taylor swift. but you can't deny her songwriting prowess, her musical achievement. just looking at the list of awards and accolades and records that she's broken just goes to show that she really is a phenomenon in the musical sense and in an economic sense, as well now. now, chris was alluding to the conspiracy theory in america around the super bowl. just explain to people what that theory is. right. and hold on to your hats, - because it is pretty out there. or your football helmets. or your football helmets or whatever americans wear in terms of safety. equipment for football. so, basically, there's a right—wing conspiracy being peddled - by the fringes which has kind of gone mainstream, - which is completely false, by the way, _ it's important to front load that. that taylor swift and her- relationship with the nfl player travis kelce is a kind of a -

deep state ploy to getjoe biden re—elected as president in this year's election. i surprisingly, for something that seems so incredibly out there, i it's actually gained traction. so i think there was a recent survey that came out just today that said l that one in four americans believe that it could be true. _ i think it was one in five, which is still quite a lot. it's a lot, yeah. for something that has emerged very much on the fringes - of right—wing discourse, you know, that is quite a long way— for it to have travelled. stepping half a step back from that particular strand of all of this, though, is, and i'm mining every paragraph from this article that i was reading on my half—term is the intriguing taylor swift effect on the super bowl, which in itself is a kind of huge event, isn't it? but the viewing figures of which seem to be through the sky because of all of the talk of this relationship between a sports star and then this global phenomenon... showbiz synergy. ..in taylor swift. dehenna, i'mjust wondering what it's like for you as an almost professional swifty, seeing your idol being

dragged into politics, which is kind of yourjob, your actual profession, in america in not a great way. it's a fascinating thing. i mean, there are so many conspiracy theories around taylor swift. i do think there's an element of her being a kind of strong, independent woman who's made it on her own and the kind of drama that that would always have and conspiracies that arise from that. but i think for taylor, it's been fascinating seeing her kind of political evolution. in her early days, you know, she deliberately didn't talk about politics. you know, in a very early interview, she said. _ "no, it's not for me to tell people how to vote. "i just make music. " you know, i think she was told basically all throughout her career, "don't be like the dixie chicks." the dixie chicks who famously on stage at a show called out president bush and then were effectively completely cancelled by the country music community. i think that there is concern around from her management, certainly, that if she comes out politically and we saw that in the miss americana documentary, that she would just halve her fan base. and yet actually she seems to have kind of transcended

those boundaries. you know, taylor herself has endorsed democratic candidates in the past. she's endorsed joe biden and allowed the biden campaign use of one of her songs, only the young, in the last presidential campaign. and yet, despite that, 53% of americans in a survey last year said they would consider themselves a fan of taylor swift. that's my favourite statistic of all of these! what an extraordinary statistic that is. it's incredible, isn't it? i think it's kind of an approval rating that any politician would be absolutely dreaming of. totally. you mentioned miss americana, which is this netflix documentary that was kind of behind the scenes of taylor's political awakening in 2018, when there was a big, important senate race going on. and she endorsed the democrat. i, for work purposes, watched that bit of the documentary again this afternoon. and it's interesting because taylor's. .. talking about her on first—name terms. taylor swift...

the kind of way she ends up endorsing the democrat is not because she herself is a democrat or has the political identity of democrat or thinks of herself as centre—left. it's because she was like, "oh, hang on, the republican candidate "to me seems homophobic and isn't standing up for women's rights." so, actually, taylor swift seemed to start with the issues and then decided her political allegiance from that. now there's two ways of looking at that. 0ne, that's actually howjust a lot of people who don't have political allegiances make their decisions about who to vote for in an election. or, a slightly more cynical version is that, oh, that's how you can be political as a celebrity, because you're going, "oh, no, but i'mjust thinking about the issues "and picking the right person based on what my heart "tells me about the issues." what's your business brain telling you there? it's a very bipartisan way- of approaching which political candidate to stick your neck out for. - and it's worth noting, i think, in that particular case, - the democrat candidate didn't actually win. - so, despite taylor's enormousj influence and she was massive even at that time, you know, -

that wasn't enough to sway voters in that particular race. so, i think that if she does- come out and support, you know, whatever candidate that is in this year's presidential election, - i think there will be a lot of hype and a lot of kind of hot air- being talked about, you know, the power of taylor swift. - but will it be actually enough to sway pe0ple _ and make them change their minds? i'm not quite sure about that. - tay—tay did not sway—sway, as stephen colbert said at the time. on that, if i may, there was a poll that i think came out a few weeks ago where americans were kind of surveyed to see whether or not they'd be more likely to vote for a candidate who was endorsed by taylor swift. and in that, 18% of all voters said that they would be more likely or significantly more likely to vote for a candidate endorsed by taylor swift. and so i wonder, if it is looking like a very close race, whether that endorsement could be enough to tip enough people over the edge, particularly with those younger audiences, who obviously do tend to be more liberal and kind of aligned with those causes that taylor swift aligned herself with. that's fascinating. 18% — that's high. that's a a heck of a number,

particularly when it's, as you were saying, 51% of people regard themselves as taylor swift fans. if taylor swift had come out for remain in the brexit referendum, there would be like a remain landslide, potentially. i don't know if my maths works out there, by those metrics. because, again, what fascinates me, though, is the extent to which such is the power, the phenomenon of taylor swift, that people, a significant number of people, it would appear from that number, are not detaching, i don't know, escapism, the music being their escapism, detaching it from decisions they might be making about the pound in their pocket or whatever other sort of concerns they have politically. but are actually seeing someone as so influential, in their world view, that, for a substantial number, it could sway how they vote. there's a new taylor swift album coming in a matter of mere months. i'm personally not convinced by the title, but let's see. it's going to be huge. oh yeah, definitely. a huge moment at least. the album isn't huge. the tortured poets department, i which if you, and i'm sure dehenna

would know about this, - if you are deep into swiftie lore, is a call out to her ex—boyfriend joe alwyn's whatsapp group . with paul mescal and andrew scott. it's going to be huge. _ gosh. yes, i know. you're amazed. _ just what i was about to say! you've done the research. i honestly, there is so much lore behind all of this. we can teach you so much. i'm on a steep learning curve, but i'm enjoying it. yes. she announced it durin- the grammys when she picked up her, - i think, maybe her 13th gong. yes. — i'm glad i've got you to fact check this! - and that's all i've ever wanted from a swiftie. and, you know, she'sjust a master of, you know, i knowing exactly when to drop the bits, you know, titbits, i bits of lore, bits of easter eggs tojust entice her fan base, - to keep that adoration, to keepl that, you know, as you called it, parasocial relationship going. zing, thank you very much forjoining us and for the great podcast series about the super wealthy. thank you. — dehenna, i've got to ask the impossible question for any swiftie,

absolutely. and, chris, thank you for giving us an opportunity to talk about my favourite two subjects, politics and taylor swift. it was a great combo. hello, there. good afternoon. lots good afternoon. of snowdrops but for many grey, damp lots of snowdrops but for many grey, damp and drizzly today. the ground already saturated out towards the west and a band of heavy rain sweeping east overnight tonight. it could potentially lead to more surface water flooding,

potentially lead to more surface waterflooding, large puddles as this heavy rain pushes south and east through the night. moving into shetland and lingering across east anglia and the far south—east of england but clear spells developing behind temperatures won't very far, staying in double figures and some isolated showers towards the north and west as we head into tomorrow morning. a soggy start to the day across the south—east of england towards the south coast, east anglia and across shetland. the rain will clear but it could linger for some as we head into the first part of the afternoon. it will turn gradually more showery, the cloud breaking up to leave bright and sunny spells. it will stay largely dry through the day and on sunday, some isolated showers in the west of scotland and western wear wales perhaps and northern ireland. mostly dry at temperatures well above the seasonal average, peaking between 10-14 seasonal average, peaking between 10—14 and may be 15 celsius. next week, temperatures will dip down

towards the seasonal average, it will be feeling cold are particularly at night but still rather unsettled. various areas of low pressure moving in from the atlantic, including another one on sunday night and into monday. that will bring showery outbreaks of rain, pushing south and east, gradually fizzling out. lots of brighter skies behind it. north—westerly wind. some isolated showers in the north and west. a dip in temperature, feeling fresher by a couple of degrees. it will be feeling cooler too on monday night with many of our temperatures widely dropping back into mid to single figures. another weather front on tuesday with strong and gusty winds on wednesday with more heavy persistent rain for the south of england. this is next week the temperature outlook for capital cities. it will feel cooler, unsettled, wet and windy at times. goodbye.

live from london, this is bbc news. ukraine's president zelensky blames the fall of the front line town of avdiivka to russian forces on a lack of long—range weapons. he says his troops were outgunned. the mother of kremlin critic alexei navalny is unable to collect his body from a russian morgue. a family spokesperson tells the bbc the authorities are hiding it. we know that the law has never been applied to alexei. and so we have no doubt that they will try to hide his body as long as possible. human rights activists say police have arrested more than 100 people

at navalny memorials across russia. and keeping up the fight for compensation — hundreds of sub—postmasters forced into bankruptcy are still demanding redress. hello and welcome, i'm samantha simmonds. we begin in ukraine, where president zelensky has blamed the fall of a key eastern town on a lack of long—range weapons. ukrainian troops have withdrawn from avdiivka, which is almost completely destroyed, after being besieged by russian forces for months. it's moscow's most significant military success since may. mr zelensky has told the munich security conference that ukrainian forces were outgunned by ten to one and the decision was taken to save the soldiers' lives. more from munich shortly. but first, our correspondent in kyiv — james waterhouse — told us more about the significance of avdiivka.