Image: There is evidence all around of Russians being ambushed
As we followed their route through the village of Yampil and on to Torske on the edge of the Luhansk border, we saw scores of burnt military vehicles and scorched forest trees, which highlighted the ferocity of the battle.
There are repeated signs the Ukrainians have ambushed their enemy, often it seems, laying in wait for them and attacking them from the front as the Russians try to flee to their defensive positions deeper into the Donbas.
The Ukrainians have the city of Kremina in their crosshairs now. Seizing it will open the gateway for them into Luhansk and the entire region, and leave them poised to reclaim the twin cities of Lysychansk and Severodonetsk.
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The road from Torske to Kremina is scarred with bombed vehicle wrecks.
We saw Ukrainian soldiers loaded with ammunition and kitbags heading off down the road into Luhansk to do more battle.
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“Everything will be Ukraine,” one of them shouted after us with a cheery reassurance. “Hear that?” another called, motioning above us.
There’s a constant backdrop of shelling, of the firing of Grad rockets, and at one stage we hear a jet in the air followed by the terrifying thunder of bombs raining down in the direction of Kremina.
“They will drop more here soon,” he cautions.
The pockmarked yellow bus we are nearby has the body of a Russian soldier hanging out of the driver’s seat. The bus door is open, and his arms are dangling down above the road, as if he’d desperately tried to climb out before death claimed him.
His hands are black with ingrained dirt. His head is gouged open. Death and war are tragically ugly yet simultaneously pitiful.
His relatives in Russia have likely no idea of his fate or how he met his end on this mangled, broken bus at the end of a road pitted with vehicle carcasses.
The stretch of roadway next to the bus is covered in a blanket of Russian uniforms and other discarded clothing and belongings. It’s a chaotic, muddled mayhem reeking of panic and fear.
Image: A car crushed by a powering tank
Digging a grave
A short distance away, a woman called Anna, who’s wearing a colourful woollen headscarf, tells us of the ferocious fighting outside the farmhouse where she lives with her husband. She’s only just retired from farming and probably looked forward to some relaxing time after a lifetime of hard graft.
Instead, she tells us how a Russian soldier had run into her yard days earlier, trying to hide from the onslaught.
He was wearing civilian clothes but had a weapon and green army body armour. When he’s gunned down, she can’t bear to leave his corpse on her yard for the birds and rats to eat.
She can’t stop crying, recounting what happened. It’s still very fresh and raw for her. She and her husband drag the body to the field at the back of their home and dig a grave, on top of which they place the green flak jacket.
The documents they find on him show he’s 30 years old and from Moscow.
Image: A Russian life marked with respect by one Ukrainian mother
“He was the first military person I’d ever seen dead,” she tells us between sobs.
“I felt nothing, nothing. He came to kill us.” But her voice trails off as she’s enveloped by weeping.
The trauma of this war has not yet stripped Anna of her basic humanity. He’s around the same age as her own son. Another young man dying in a war he never chose to fight in.
The shells keep landing close and make her constantly flinch. “It’s so scary. It’s so, so, scary,” she says. “When the houses are on fire, it’s terrifying.
In the midst of horror
“This house was burning just here.” She nods towards her neighbour’s home.
We ask if she’d prefer to go to her shelter to hide for a bit and feel safer.
“Can I go? Is that OK?” Even enduring all this death and torment, she’s unfailingly polite to strangers.
She hugs our Ukrainian colleague Artem, who’s around the same age as the dead Russian soldier. He’s a warm, friendly face to her in the midst of this horror.
Image: Equipment and body armour is left strewn at roadsides
And yet all the political talk is of worse to come – an impending tactical nuclear attack. It’s a threat US President Joe Biden appears to be taking seriously, and which the Ukrainian troops we spoke to seem unnervingly prepared for.
“We are not afraid of anything any more,” a soldier calling himself Lynx tells us. “We know what we’re fighting for – we’re fighting for our land.
“We’re not afraid of nuclear or chemical weapons. We’ve started, and we won’t stop until we liberate all our land.”
‘Mentally, I’m ready to die’
The rest of his unit sitting atop their armoured personnel carrier are equally undeterred by the nuclear threat.
“Mentally I’m ready to die,” Oleksander says, “so if it (a nuclear attack) happens, then it will happen.”
When you’re prepared to give your life in a war, the manner of that dying takes on a very different significance, it seems.
We travel with the crew across an increasingly boggy forest with pools of muddy water dotted everywhere.
The seasons are rapidly changing, and the incoming inclement weather is what the Ukrainians are trying to get ahead of.
Only military vehicles can easily traverse terrain so taxing, and the deteriorating conditions will challenge even these.
The Ukrainians are in a race against winter as well as a ferocious battle with Russian troops – and they cannot afford to lose either.
Alex Crawford is reporting with cameraman Jake Britton and producers Chris Cunningham and Artem Lysak
Israel has begun a pause in fighting in three areas of Gaza to address the worsening humanitarian situation.
The IDF said it would halt fighting in three areas, Muwasi, Deir al-Balah and Gaza City, from 10am to 8pm local time until further notice, beginning today.
In a statement, the IDF said it would also establish secure routes to help the UN and aid agencies deliver food and other supplies.
Image: Palestinians carry aid supplies. Pic: Reuters
Israel’s announcement of what it calls a “tactical pause” in fighting comes after it resumed airdrops of aid into Gaza.
While the IDF reiterated claims there is “no starvation” in Gaza, it said the airdrops would include “seven pallets of aid containing flour, sugar and canned food to be provided by international organisations”.
Reports suggest aid has already been dropped into Gaza, with some injured after fighting broke out.
He told Sky News: “This month, up to now, 1,000 children or 1,000 people have died of starvation. I’m really not interested in what either of these sides are saying.”
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On Saturday, reports referencing US government data said there was no evidence Hamashad stolen aid from UN agencies.
The IDF’s international spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, described such reports as “fake news” and said Hamas thefts have been “well documented”.
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3:49
Malnourished girl: ‘The war changed me’
Airdrops ‘expensive and inefficient’
It comes as the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said as of Saturday, 127 people have died from malnutrition-related causes, including 85 children.
They include a five-month-old girl who weighed less than when she was born, with a doctor at Nasser Hospital describing it as a case of “severe, severe starvation”.
Health workers have also been weakened by hunger, with some putting themselves on IV drips so they can keep treating badly malnourished patients.
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2:10
Aid waiting to be distributed in Gaza
On Friday, Israel said it would allow foreign countries to airdrop aid into Gaza – but the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has warned this will not reverse “deepening starvation”.
UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini described the method as “expensive” and “inefficient”, adding: “It is a distraction and screensmoke. A manmade hunger can only be addressed by political will.
“Lift the siege, open the gates and guarantee safe movements and dignified access to people in need.”
UNRWA has the equivalent of 6,000 trucks in Jordan and Egypt waiting for permission to enter Gaza, he added.
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1:17
PM says UK will help drop aid to Gaza
MSF, also known as Doctors Without Borders, warned on Friday that 25% of young children and pregnant women in Gaza are now malnourished, and said the lack of food and water on the ground was “unconscionable”.
The UN also estimates Israeli forces have killed more than 1,000 people seeking food, the majority near the militarised distribution sites of the US-backed aid distribution scheme run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
In a statement on Friday, the IDF had said it “categorically rejects the claims of intentional harm to civilians”, and reports of incidents at aid distribution sites were “under examination”.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has also previously disputed these deaths were connected with its organisation’s operations, with director Johnnie Moore telling Sky News: “We just want to feed Gazans. That’s the only thing that we want to do.”
Bob Geldof has accused the Israeli authorities of “lying” about starvation in Gaza – after Israel’s government spokesperson claimed there was “no famine caused by Israel”.
Earlier this week, David Mencer claimed that Hamas “starves its own people” while on The News Hour with Mark Austin, denying that Israel was responsible for mass hunger in Gaza.
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11:30
Israel challenged on starvation in Gaza
Sir Trevor asked the Live Aid organiser: “The Israeli view is that there is no famine caused by Israel, there’s a manmade shortage, but it’s been engineered by Hamas.
“I guess the Israelis would say we don’t see much criticism from your side of Hamas.”
In response, Geldof said “that’s a false equivalence” and “the Israeli authorities are lying”.
The singer then added: “They’re lying. [Benjamin] Netanyahu lies, is a liar. The IDF are lying. They’re dangling food in front of starving, panicked, exhausted mothers.
“And while they arrive to accept the tiny amount of food that this sort of set up pantomime outfit, the Gaza Humanitarian Front, I would call it, as they dangle it, then they’re shot wantonly.
“This month, up to now, 1,000 children or 1,000 people have died of starvation. I’m really not interested in what either of these sides are saying.”
He added: “If the newsfeeds and social feeds weren’t so censored in Israel, I imagine that the Israeli people would not permit what has been done in their name.”
Asked about the UK government’s reaction, Geldof said it was “not enough”.
“This is a distraction thing about ‘let’s recognise the state ‘ – absolutely, it should have been done ages ago, but it’s not going to make any material difference,” he said, referring to calls for Sir Keir Starmer to recognise Palestine as a state.
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7:41
Gaza: ‘This is man-made starvation’
In the Sky News interview earlier this week, Mr Mencer added: “This suffering exists because Hamas made it so. Here are the facts. Aid is flowing, through the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Millions of meals are being delivered directly to civilians.”
He also claimed that, since May, more than 4,400 aid trucks had entered Gaza carrying supplies.
It comes after MSF, also known as Doctors Without Borders, warned 25% of young children and pregnant women in Gaza are now malnourished.
The charity said Israel’s “deliberate use of starvation as a weapon” has reached unprecedented levels, and said that at one of its clinics in Gaza City, rates of severe malnutrition in children under five have trebled over the past two weeks.
MSF then described the lack of food and water on the ground “unconscionable”.
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2:10
Aid waiting to be distributed in Gaza
In a statement to Sky News, an Israeli security official said that “despite the false claims that are being spread, the State of Israel does not limit the number of humanitarian aid trucks entering the Gaza Strip”.
It then blamed other groups for issues delivering aid. They said: “Over the past month, we have witnessed a significant decline in the collection of aid from the crossings into the Gaza Strip by international aid organisations.
“The delays in collection by the UN and international organisations harm the situation and the food security of Gaza’s residents.”
The IDF also told Sky News: “The IDF allows the American civilian organisation (GHF) to distribute aid to Gaza residents independently, and operates in proximity to the new distribution zones to enable the distribution alongside the continuation of IDF operational activities in the Gaza Strip.
“Following incidents in which harm to civilians who arrived at distribution facilities was reported, thorough examinations were conducted in the Southern Command and instructions were issued to forces in the field following lessons learned.
“The aforementioned incidents are under review by the competent authorities in the IDF.”
Yehuda searches through a downstairs room looking for a plastic bag containing the most precious of objects.
It’s a small, blackened Rubik’s Cube that belongs to Yehuda’s son Nimrod – one of 20 living Israeli hostages still being held by the terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.
“He likes PlayStation and Rubik’s Cube,” says Nimrod’s mother, Vicky.
“They found the Rubik’s Cube in the tank. It was complete but a little bit dark and they brought it back to us.”
Image: Vicky Cohen
We spoke to Nimrod’s parents Yehuda and Vicky about the emotional rollercoaster hostage families in Israel are going through – as hope rises and fades of a ceasefire agreement with Hamas.
“I still have hope that maybe I will see Nimrod again,” says Vicky.
“It almost breaks my heart because I still had expectation,” she says – in spite of the latest failure to find resolution in talks between Israel and Hamas in Doha.
“But I still have hope that maybe something good will happen,” she says.
“We heard our prime minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] say visiting Washington and meeting Trump was very successful – and heard members of the coalition talking about our prime minister eventually understanding he needs to end the war. But until now nothing.”
The delegation coming back to Israel doesn’t mean a total collapse of ceasefire talks, but US envoy Steve Witkoff said the response to the latest ceasefire proposals by Hamas showed “a lack of desire”.
And so the rollercoaster of emotion for the hostage families continues.
Nimrod’s father Yehuda Cohen said: “Of course it’s a disappointment but it’s not the first one. A long time ago I learned not to get my expectations up so the disappointment won’t be too deep.
“The solution is very simple – I’ve got it on my shirt – ceasefire and hostage deal. Meaning the only way to get all the hostages is ending the war.”
Image: Nimrod’s father Yehuda
Yehuda shows us Nimrod’s bedroom at the family home. It’s exactly as it was when Nimrod left to return to his army duties a few days before the October 7 attacks.
Except in a corner, there’s a box of uniforms and personal possessions, including a wallet which Nimrod had left at his army outpost – all returned to the family by the IDF.
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Image: The IDF handed Nimrod’s parents a box of his possessions left at his army outpost
It’s just like the bedroom of any other teenager – Nimrod was 19 when he was kidnapped. But two birthdays have passed since then. Nimrod is 21 now – a milestone spent in captivity a few weeks ago.
It’s believed there are 20 living Israeli hostages in Gaza – all male – and that Hamas is holding the bodies of 27 more hostages who have been killed.
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3:10
Starvation in Gaza continues
But even if a deal is agreed, the first phase is expected to secure the release of only half of the living hostages – and Nimrod’s parents say their son, as a soldier, is not likely to be one of the 10.
Yehuda says: “A partial deal means that the probability my son will be on that list is close to zero. So he’s going to be one of the last ones to be released, and that’s why we have to fight.”