Hall began his report to Jesse Watters and the audience this way:

On the one hand, the big surprise for everyone – except perhaps the Ukrainians – is just how poor the Russian advance has been. And that’s put down to a number of factors. First of all, people are surprised at just how dilapidated the Russian army has been. Lots of people before this conflict had talked about how they spent the last decade putting billions into their armed forces, training them up. They had the latest kit. That turns out to be false. A lot of their tanks are rusty. They’re breaking down. They don’t have the right treads, the tires are popping.

Secondly the conscripts, the people fighting for them at the front tend to be 18-year-olds who didn’t expect to come into Ukraine. Their morale is low. They’re being hit left and right by these Javelin missiles and none of them are fighting terribly effectively.