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  • Let's return now to the war in Ukraine.

  • Officials there say at least 12 people have been killed and 43 others wounded after Russian forces hit a DIY store in the northern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.

  • Two glide bombs hit the building on Saturday and some people are still missing.

  • Ukraine is still calling on the West to lift restrictions on the use of Western-supplied weapons in order to strike targets inside Russia and prevent similar attacks from over the border.

  • This call has now been backed by the head of NATO.

  • Instead Ukraine has had to largely rely on artillery and drones to push the Russians back.

  • Our defence correspondent Jonathan Beale reports from the front line.

  • They are now one of the most potent weapons of this war.

  • Cheap, mass-produced drones being used to deadly effect.

  • And here on the front they're helping Ukraine slow Russia's advance.

  • But still not enough.

  • We can hold them back with drones and hurt them badly, but win with them unfortunately no.

  • What do you call them?

  • This is Peaky Blinders.

  • It's what they call themselves.

  • Peaky Blinders after the cult TV series.

  • But flat caps are where the similarity ends.

  • They've been trained by Western special forces.

  • In just a few weeks they've hunted down more than a hundred Russian soldiers.

  • Terror from the sky.

  • Today they appear to be hiding, so they look for something else.

  • So you're stealing Russian rifles from the Russians, yes?

  • Yes, yes, it's Russian.

  • This is the second time that Alexander's fought for this territory, his home.

  • He once farmed the fields nearby.

  • Then he grew strawberries, now he's planting bombs.

  • But he knows what they're doing won't end this war.

  • Right now it's like two more or less equal gladiators fighting each other and neither can defeat the other.

  • Yes, the conflict might be frozen maybe for several years or even decades, but this war will last a very long time.

  • The Russians are learning too.

  • When the Peaky Blinders try to fly a kamikaze drone into a target, their signal gets jammed.

  • Russian drones are as much of a threat to Ukrainian forces.

  • Most take shelter under trees.

  • Easy now, but harder in the winter.

  • For both sides it's a constant game of hide and seek.

  • Ukraine says it has now slowed down the Russian front line, it has stabilised the situation, but there's still quite a fierce artillery battle going on.

  • Their much harder task will be to push the Russians back.

  • They might just weather this storm with the arrival of more Western weapons.

  • But what Ukraine really wants is permission to use those weapons to intercept Russian resupplies.

  • But they're hamstrung.

  • We can't stop the preparing of attack.

  • So you need to target inside Russia to stop them advancing here?

  • Of course.

  • But you're not allowed to?

  • No.

  • And does that make sense to you?

  • No.

  • Not at all.

  • Ukraine remains determined to fight.

  • But they're still looking to the West to give them the tools to win.

  • Jonathan Beale, BBC News, Kharkiv.

Let's return now to the war in Ukraine.

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