w. c. connelly and heave nick, as always. thank you. and here are some of the other stories that are making headlines around the world. international investigators say that russian president vladimir putin played an active role in the shooting down of malaysian flight image . 17, back in 2014 prosecutor say that they have quote, strong indication of that hootin offered missiles to pro russian rebels. but they say they do not have evidence that he ordered the attack. the plane was shot down by russian anti aircraft missiles over eastern ukraine. the u. s. says that china has a global fleet of spy balloons, similar to the one that was shot down by the u. s. air force last week. the white house says that over the past few years, chinese spy balloons have been spotted flying over 5 continents. arts of sports news. now news in american professional basketball, le bron james of the los angeles lakers, has become the all time leader in career points in the m. b 8. james scored his record breaking points against the oklahoma city thunder in los

c, w correspondent, nick connelly joins us from keith so. so nick, ukraine has been sounding increasingly urgent about the situation in back. more can you bring us up to date on the fighting there to we just heard from one of ukraine's top generals who said that the russians are basically throwing everything they have at, but not including some of their best prepared units that this has been on the caused some time now, but it does seem increasingly desperate for ukraine's defenders or did you. but what we understand by some of waterleaf, there's only one remaining route in and out from ukrainian control cherokee. up to recently there were 2, and there has been a lot of talk of getting out while it's still possible avoiding being in circles. we understand the u. s long pressure and key of to get out. they think that basically the kind of cost benefit analysis doesn't work out. the basic ukraine can't do enough damage to russian forces at, you know, reasonable price and cost to itself in terms of, you know, people on the ground and tech. so t