nicole: i act nick connolly -- i asked nick connolly in kyiv about this.ick: it is something you hear time and time again, i don't know when my next delivery of munitions will come from. you can have all the artillery pieces in the world but if you don't have ammunition, you are stuck. any amount of experience and bravery is not going to do much about that. we have seen now that this war is moving into a slower phase of more position warfare. this is about how much ukraine and russia can mobilize their economies and produce enough weaponry and munitions and get them to their soldiers fast enough. there's a real push in ukraine and a real awareness that this is crucial, given that russia spent the last couple months building up supplies and training a lot of people to fight in ukraine. nicole: nato chief jens stoltenberg says kyiv needs ammunition more than it needs fighter jets, but kyiv is still asking for those aircraft. so clearly differing expectations today. nick: i think kyiv thinks that they can get both. i think the history of this war as shown tha

brent: our ukraine correspondent, nick connolly, he has more from the city of bakhmut. ck: after weeks and months of false starts, it seems like a withdrawal might finally be on the cards. there's just one safe route left between the city and ukrainian territory. we heard from a top general who has complained russia is sending its best prepared and most experienced troops despite huge losses and we also know the u.s. has long been pushing ukraine to get out. they are convinced the potential gains from forcing russia to commit cute resources are simply not worth the risk of seeing ukrainian troops encircled there. most of the planners, military planners, the experts, they say this is not a city with a huge strategic importance. it is just one of many cities in donbass in that part of eastern ukraine but symbolically, it has taken on a huge significance in the last couple of months. it has been the top of everyone's newsfeeds. president zelenskyy refers to the city as a fortress, trying to explain to ordinary ukrainians that it was worth risking ukrainian soldiers lives fo

our correspondent, nick connolly , he caught up with the german defense minister in kyiv today and i asked nick what stood out from the german defense minister's visit. nick: he is making a lot of those older tanks. lots of them are going to be only arriving in ukraine towards the end of 2023 if not early 2024 but i think it is important for him to talk about that because the previous announcement of the more modern tanks, it seems like germany and a handful of other countries will be on time but if you read the german press, it seems that a lot of other european countries are going to be much later than suggested or even promised but i think if you take a step back and look at the bigger picture, this is about the mood music, trying to turn a page and get back to more productive dialogue fan had been the case. i asked him how he had spent his time talking to ukrainian politicians, what kind of feedback he got from them. let's have a listen to what he had to say. >> i had two meetings with my ukrainian counterpart. in all those talks, not a word of criticism has been voiced towards ge

we have make connolly. nick walks as foreign correspondent with doctor weller. he has been reporting extensively out of ukraine for the last few months. welcome back. next on the panel is professor of gong massacre. he is skeptical about sending more arms to ukraine. and last but not least, we have bus island motley. she is security expert at the german council on relation . she's also based on button, but she's joining us remotely today. let me start with you. you've been on the ground. you've seen the situation there. now russia has been attacking residential areas and ukraine claims now that russia is preparing for an offensive for the 24th of february. can ukraine really hold its ground quite literally? well, i think that's definitely the conviction in care of i think they are positively surprised at least what in terms of the kind of homes that are being supplied in the last couple of weeks after long period frustration and kind of cools on the west to send more we've had to kind of flurry of announcements of new equipment of to the question mark hangs over