Putin talks peace as he’s hit by more missiles | Ukraine: The Latest | Podcast

[Music] I'm Dom Nichols and this is Ukraine the latest today we discuss whether more Ukrainian strikes in Crimea and Russia have pushed Putin to start talking about negotiations and here of another senior Russian military official sacked in what is starting to look like a purge of the top echelons of Russia's defense establishment bravery takes you through the most unimaginable hardships to finally reward you with Victory if we give president zalinski the tools the ukrainians will finish the job Slava ukraini nobody's going to break us we're strong we're ukrainians every weekday we sit down with leading journalists from the telegraph's London Newsroom and our teams reporting on the ground to give you the latest news and analysis on the war in Ukraine it's Friday the 24th of May 2 years and 91 days since the fullscale invasion began today I was joined by assistant comment editor Francis dley and I started with the latest news from Ukraine not a lot lot of movement on the front lines or including vchan in the area to the North or Northeast of har however quite a lot of stuff uh Going Up in Smoke in Russia and Crimea so first the Ukrainian drones hit a number of Russian defense industrial facilities in the Republic of tasan yesterday now that's an area of Russia about 500 km due east of Moscow near the border with Kazakhstan Russian media Outlets said employees had to evacuate a thermal power plant two oil refineries a petrochemical facility and a chemical plant Ukrainian longrange uh strikes hit Russian defense industrial and oil refining infrastructure in the nearby lauga special economic zone on April the 2nd and this seems to be a continuation of that footage online that you'll find shows drones again flying in daylight towards their target reports unverified that some were shot down but there's footage of others that that seemingly got through I think it's absolutely incredible they can get that far into Russia then separately a missile attack on a Russian Communications Hub just outside the city of alusta in occupied Crimea that that's said to have caused significant damage to equipment and numerous casualties so this is coming from the pro Ukrainian partisan group aesh this morning now USTA the city that's on the Southeast coast of Crimea about 50ks due east of s a stop hole telegram Channel Crimean wind claimed that the communication Center was hit by at least six atams missiles with a number of high ranking military personnel present now we can't verify the numbers or the rank it's not clear if the target was the com Center the person or both but Something's Happened down there now possibly connected to that there's footage going around you'll see of an S400 air defense system that was completely destroyed thought to be by the attack comes by the sort of submunition carrying so not the single unitary Warhead I one one big bang lots of small bomblets that would cover an area so an air defense system like that would have the launchers in one place The Radars slightly separated and then the control center again separated from both for those two just for protection purposes really but the bomet version of atams is able to cover a large area and these things absolutely did for the S400 we don't know when the footage was taken the news has come out today so suggesting it was in the very recent past and the News comes just a day after another S400 was said to have been destroyed in the donet region there's footage of that online as well on the one that's reported today it's very bizarre there's clearly no short range air defense protecting those 400s there's a we're watching it there's a drone in the air filming the whole thing it continues the move if not to make Crimea a no-go zone for the Russian military it is increasing yet again the cost to the Russian forces to Putin of operating there which may be why he's suddenly talking about peace negotiations but I don't want to snaffle any of France's sandwiches he'll come onto that shortly now Russian M bloggers are claiming that the mod in Moscow has dismissed missed uh the commander of the 20th combined arms Army liutenant General surab akov uh Institute for the study of War say that this move in particular would be notable as this would be the first removal of an officer actively commanding Russian forces in Ukraine but again continues this motion this recent round of dismissals which we were speculating a couple of days ago is this because well is there a purge for some reason is there some sort of plot for Putin or is he feeling Bolden that he's won the election all that kind of stuff we don't know but that's what five or six senior defense officials it's gone in in a week or in 10 days now the 20th combined arms Army is currently heavily committed to operations in the vicinity of L man in the dbass thought not to have been very successful amov himself was linked to that Strike last year he was commanding those was it about a 100 Russian troops that were were out in the open on a parade they were hit by a long-range missile High Mars I think it was he was heavily criticized for that as I say continues the the theme of removing senior Russian defense officials now premin spokesperson Demitri pesc yesterday denied that there's any campaign against Russian mod officials instead asserting that all these arrests are part of stalwart fight against corruption but it was only a week ago or just over a week ago May the 13th to be precise when pesov was specifically asked in the context of senior Russian leadership he was asked about gasimov General gassoff the head of the Armed Forces and PES said quote no changes are foreseen yet hardly the ringing EST of endorsements for the head of your Armed Forces but anyway isw analysis says pesco's claim that these removals are just a consistent effort to deal with corruption difficult to square with a sudden flurry of dismissals and arrests at the rate it is and with such publicity so yeah don't quite know what's going on there but it doesn't seem like it's over yet next one for me the Estonian police and Border guard board said yesterday that on the previous night so the night of Wednesday Thursday Russian border guards removed 24 boys being used to Mark shipping routes in Estonian Waters in The NAA River that's the river demarcates the international border between Estonia and Russia it's in the far Northeast of Estonia Echo distant between talin which is about 100K to the west and St Petersburg 100K to the east now Estonia had placed the first 50 of a planned 250 boys a couple of weeks ago in accordance with a treaty they signed in 2022 with Russia signed before the force scal Invasion the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Russia's removal of the boys as they say fits well within the broader pattern of Russia's provocative Behavior that's a nice way putting it they said that Estonia would treat the event as a provocative border incident prime minister Kai Callis she said Russia uses border issues as a means to create fear and anxiety it's thought that the Russian border guards are well they're just pushing the edges again they're trying to create contention along the border between Russia and obviously a NATO member trying to see how NATO react try and work out how much they can get away with now also another report from isw polish foreign Ministry spokesperson pav vonsky said yesterday that Poland is considering using its air defense systems to protect Ukrainian airspace against Russian strikes Ukrainian officials have submitted a formal request to Poland we are told but no decision made yet that would be a big step uh very interesting very interesting move a couple more for me I note today's British defense intelligence update says over the last week Russia's deployed units from its Africa core to in the fighting around V chansa in northeast of har the Africa core was created around December last year thought to number about 2,000 regulars and mercenaries some of whom in the the vgan group 1.0 Africa core detachments are thought to be operating across Syria Libya Bina Faso and njer Russian mod almost certainly redeployed detachments from the Africa core through last month in preparation for the offensive in the north it's highly likely this is British defense intelligence saying highly likely that Russia is reinforcing its war on Ukraine with resources previously assigned to Africa and I just note there is obviously quite a lot of speculation and some pretty reasonable evidence I would suggest that Ukrainian forces are operating uh in Africa Sudan in particular uh as part of a campaign by keev to to hit back at Russian interests wherever they can and I think that the consideration is that they are having to go at the new styled Varner group but yeah there was there's much speculation that Russian military intelligence the GU are operating in Africa against AR and just finally for me Berlin I knowe today the keave independent noted or reported in the last hour Berlin's handed over 10 leopard 185 tanks for D mining tanks 1.8 million rounds of small arms a Dax armored engineer vehicle an armored recovery vehicle and lots a few other bits and Bobs of military aid in the latest delivery I mean Germany is after the US second in the sort of table of who's donating what military kit to Ukraine but there's a big empty bit in The Ledger for longrange missiles but never mind well done Berlin now then quite a Whistle Stop tour there but Fran say I didn't mean to seal your thunder your sandwiches Thunder earlier on mixing my metaphors but what can you tell us about this well is peace about to break out is Putin a reformed man thanks Dom I don't know what You' do to my sandwiches even if you did Snapple them as we all learned from the trip to Ukraine you don't eat you resort to feeding your pizza to dogs but yes the news the story that was being reported so extensively yesterday which is I think still the most significant of the week and hasn't yet been confirmed and green lit from the White House is this idea that Anthony blinkin and others are now in favor of donated weapons to be used by keev on Russian soil but as you say Dom the story that is sparking the most discussion today further to that report from Estonia is an exclusive piece from Reuters that Putin is ready to quote halt the war in in Ukraine with a negotiated ceasefire recognizing the current battle lines so that is coming to four Russian sources who Reuters say are familiar with discussions in Putin's Entourage the sources they say claim Russia is to prepared to fight on all the way to keev if this is refused so to quote one of the sources a Russian Source who's worked with Putin apparently and has knowledge of top level conversations in the Kremlin quote Putin can fight for as long as it takes but he is also ready for a ceasefire to freeze the war now there are so many ways that one can read this is this Moscow trying to signal to the West that it wants negotiations or is it merely Kremlin gossip being fed to journalists in a sense I would argue it doesn't matter there is indeed evidence that Russia would indeed welcome negotiations but not because they want to see an end to the war but rather because it would give them a chance to reset and regroup plus weaken the likelihood of Western weapons going to Ukraine for fear it will disrupt talks there would be significant advantages for Moscow of a ceasefire though that's not to say that there might not be for Ukraine too that that has of course been rejected by President selinski and his military officials it Bears repeating that almost every Russian expert we've spoken to on the podcast including some of the most distinguished in the world do not believe that Moscow would uphold to the principles of a ceasefire they think they would resume the war as soon as possible and it was convenient for them to do so if they felt they had an advantage unless proper security guarantees were in place which would be unlikely if the war was frozen because Western Powers would be reluctant to sign them Putin knows this of course my own view for what it's worth is that this is Moscow trying to sell a weak position a strong one it wants to imp consiliary for all the advantages I've just mentioned when in reality it must know that it cannot Outlast the United West in a long War nor despite what it threatens is it capable of a march on the capital of keev any time soon just look at the losses Russia is suffering on the front lines right now both sides are fighting an attritional war with major advantage advances appearing less and less likely From moscow's perspective with each passing day now that American weapons deliveries are on Route and permissions given to attack Targets on Russian soil by Britain laia and potentially as I say the United States so that's not been officially confirmed yet if there were to be major advances in this offensive I think we'd be expecting to see more signs of that now when I say major I mean hundreds of kilometers seized in the same manner as the counter offensive that Ukraine did two years ago or so uh that of course toally change the battle map within a very short space of time the main the gains that Russia are making at the moment are not insignificant we've talked about the impact on them on locals there but they are not gain changing strategically and so I think that's is an important point to emphasize as is treating this story with a great deal of caution we must always ask what is moscow's word worth and the evidence would suggest very little to nothing now just staying on Russia before turning to Ukraine Moscow has denied a claim by Donald Trump that he'll use his personal relationship with Putin to free Wall Street Journal journalist Evan gasovi that reporter who's been held for more than a year in Moscow despite no date being set for his trial on alleged spying charges something The Wall Street Journal denies Trump said on his truth social platform yesterday that Mr kovich would be freed immediately after the US election if he wins adding Putin President of Russia will do that for me not for anyone else and we will be paying nothing that's a direct quote if you didn't uh get that the Kremlin denied any deal with Putin and said sorry with Trump had been done and there were Punchy words from TJ ducko a Biden campaign advisor who said Trump doesn't give a damn about the innocent Americans unjustly imprisoned by Putin he has called journalists enemies of the people and pledged to imprison reporters who coverage doesn't like not all that dissimilar to what is happening right now to Evan gusich in Russia it is strange though to see Trump starting to talk about this subject out of the blue has he been engaging with bat channels in Moscow that's what some people are speculating or is it mere campaign rhetoric one for future historians no doubt now the other story from Moscow is that Kremlin propaganda continues to push the Ukrainian Military Intelligence was instrumental in that fatal attack on a concert hall near Moscow with even its spy Chief now arguing this despite a consensus among all the major Western intelligence a agencies suggesting keeve had nothing to do with the incident which killed of course 144 people now I know some of you would say well of course they would say that it would be far too damaging for the alliance if Ukraine had had any involvement so the West would just deny it uh if they did believe it but bear in mind if Western intelligence Services really believed that ke was in some way involved I can guarantee that it would have leaked by now the fact there has been no such story I think speaks volumes as to the validity of these claims by Moscow it's far more likely I would posit that the FSB bungled it they made a mistake and it's far easier for them to blame a government that they're at war with rather than a group of terrorists which appears more more embarrassing as well as of course there being huge propaganda advantages for the war effort if they claim as they are that ke is behind it but turning to keev and its allies now zinsky as he often does has made a surprise visit to the front line arriving in harke amid the renewed Russian offensive there the entire city and region deserve our support he said gratitude and respect as does every Ukrainian community and person who refuses to give in to the enemy he posted that X along with footage of him shaking hands with officials there now another interesting story which speaks to ke's predicament at the moment particularly in relation to the manow crisis is that Ukraine has started releasing prisoners to serve in its Army this is the scheme that was signed into law by zalinsky last week with officials believing the new measure could free up to 20,000 prisoners to be mobilized now I know what you're thinking isn't this just echoing exactly what Moscow did with all of those tens of thousands of convicted rapists and murderers Etc not really and the reason is is this is applying much much stricter criteria with only Ukrainian prisoners with less than three years left of their sentence allowed to apply to be mobilized for special units in the armed forces politicians are insisting that anyone convicted of murder rape or other serious offenses will be blocked from Service as will former high ranking officials found guilty of corruption so this is I think quite clearly whilst obviously a story that is totally understandable as being one that is leading to people being quite critical of Ukraine and crying hypocrisy when there was so much criticism of what from Ukraine of what Moscow was doing with its prisoners that this is still quite a different scheme that will lead to I think quite a different outcome in terms of the numbers but also the kinds of people that are being released I think the implication is this will be sort of people involved in embezzlement or other things like that rather than violent crimes as an aside just whilst we're on this subject the number of people locked up in Russian prisons dropped by 58,000 last year according to Russian Independent Media a substantial drop and I think we can guess where many of them now are either at the front or in the ground and just quickly Dom some rapid fire Stories the US is expected to announce an additional $275 million in military aid for Ukraine today the fourth in installment of Aid after the aid package was passed that all vital one the Biden administration of course promised to supply a regular flow of weapons to the front lines as swiftly as possible and this obviously would play into that another important Story the first batch of Ukrainian Armed Forces Pilots have graduated from F-16 training at an Arizona Military Base According to the Air National Guard the pilots are now headed to Europe for additional training according to someone who's familiar with their movements as listeners will know Ukraine is set to receed more than 60 f-16s from Norway Denmark the Netherlands and Belgium something that Britain's been involved in negotiating as well as those Powers it will be very interesting seeing what the impact of the f6s are and I recommend listening to the episode talked about I think it was a couple of days ago it's the one with in the title that talks about Ukraine's theory of Victory and whilst f-16s are not in themselves a game changer I think there is evidence that the f16s could well indeed be critical for the next phase of the war after the current one that we are in so whilst many do downplay the significance of f-16s now they are still important and this is still something to be monitoring closely as of course we are and just finally Putin's Putin's Europe's Europe's coolest leader Czech president Peter paval has been taken to hospital after injuring himself whilst riding a motorcycle his office have said they've said the injuries are not serious but a short observation was required one has to ask could this man be any more masculine I think you'll have to be lifting a few more weights to match him Dom right now I think you're being pipped by David noes oh sorry sorry Francis who you have you finished was that it I um I mean traditionally I'm I'm used to jokes being funny so I was just waiting for the he doesn't like it uper there it is what uh thank you thank you Francis uh he's here all week folks so you buy tickets uh right let's go on to final thoughts I I've been trying to work out quite where we are in this War I note the the land War incremental gains for huge cost as we've been reporting for for a number of week weeks now it's thought that the average daily Russian casualty figure is over a thousand at the moment so killed killed wounded missing captured but killed and wounded very much doing the heavy lifting in that in that sort of statistic now the long-term economic damage is starting to become visible Putin's made an economy missed his his chief of Defense so that's the way he's thinking the Black Sea that's a kind of you know that's not really working out well for Russia at the moment there are strikes inside Russia we think the oil processing capacity the last stat I saw I think it was Bloomberg I can't remember if it was I think it was bloomo we saying it's down by 133% not huge but you know that's a number and going up so all that is the context to to what we've been talking about today with these these potential well it's not I don't think it's even potential peace negot negotiations but but Putin wants to tr try and portray himself as the sort of conciliatory figure here and pesy old zalinski who's continuing the war but I think if he is serious if this progresses this this Shard if you like of Peace negotiations I would expect I think we should keep an eye out for more nuclear saber rattling because he would just try and see if that would get the West to well possibly willfully believe that Putin is serious about negotiating so I think they'll be I think they'll try they'll try and ramp it up a little bit just as he is along the edges as we heard in Estonia they're trying to push the edges geographically see what they can get away with NATO I think there'll be a little bit little teaser here a little tester to see what he can get away with in policy terms and I think that's going to come down to some nuclear saber rting so we'll we'll hear more from the from the usual Talking Heads and the meddev and and all the rest of it but I think that's what we should keep an eye out for but just make no mistake take take a step back and yes of course the violence on the ground is still extreme and a huge number of people are dying but actually the war is not going anywhere fast the land war and of course the whole thing is much more than just what's happening on the ground and it's not a great picture at the moment for Russia so I wouldn't be surprised if he does see how far he can push this sort of Peace negotiation tactic for a little while before he tries something else anyway Francis if you've recovered and your sides are no longer split from the outbreak of Mer Earth what's your final thought for the week thanks Dom a slightly different final thought to end the week registering the impact of this war on Ukraine's Wildlife migrating Eagles are apparently avoiding flying over War torn Ukraine experts have discovered deliberately avoiding the conflict remarkable story this so between March and April the greater spotted eagle leaves its wintering areas in southern Europe and East Africa and heads North to important breeding grounds in bellarus shame they couldn't go to Poland really it's just next door the usual route takes it straight through Ukraine but incredibly tracking data shows the birds are making diversions to avoid the conflict spending less time stopping at their usual refueling sites in the country so experts from the UEA that's the University of East Anga just a few miles from where I grew up it's a lovely Place uh and the British trust for Birds tagged 19 birds and found they traveled an extra 52 miles on average with females spending 246 hours in the air compared to 1903 hours before the war males taking an average of 181 hours to reach breeding grounds compared to 125 hours prec conflict it's the first study to demonstrate how war is having a major disruption to the migratory patterns of rare birds speaks volumes this doesn't it I've spoken before about about the remarkable fact that even decades after the removal of the fences that used to DeMark East and West Germany during the Cold War dear today still refus to cross that invisible border that was once there physically for decades they have become conditioned to think an obstacle is still there as we've often discussed on the podcast War leaves an indelible scar and not just on [Music] [Music] Humanity a few weeks ago David interviewed Scottish freelance journalist Jen Stout a fluent Russian speaker and friend of the podcast Jen has spent months reporting from Ukraine her new book Night Train to adessa is out now so do head to the links in the show notes if you're interested she spoke to David about her time in harke why she loves the city so much and the realities of reporting as a freelancer from Ukraine here's their conversation Jen it's such a pleasure to see you again can we start just by talking about your recent trip to Ukraine where did you go first I went to a camp for kids from the East it was there's a lot of these projects going on in the Carpathian Mountains because it's relatively safe there there's not a lot of strikes of course sometimes there's still Sirens but this was way into the countryside so you really couldn't hear the sirens it was like stepping out of the war and obviously just a very beautiful picturesque place this was a project run largely by people from har actually and it involved a Scottish musician Nigel Osborne he's a composer and he's been pioneering these methods of music therapy in war zones for many many years we worked in the Balkans he's in Lebanon frequently and so they took kids from Frontline Villages from De occupied areas and gave them this week in the mountains where they would sing and create songs and do lots of other kind of art and puppetry as well and it was just a sheer Delight David it was a lovely lovely place with Incredible people um and the kids were really interesting very resilient and you know clearly needing a break you said it was like stepping out from the walk and you paint a bit paint a bit of a picture for us what is it like the C happs for those of us you haven't been well you know you go to the vi and the vi is a big bustling very bustling City now there's so many people there and the traffic's quite mad and get on a train down towards three and then drive over these rutted tracks in the Land Rover which is great fun and it's in the foothills of the carpatian so the mountains are in the distance still with snow on them but there's lots of cherry blossom the camp there it's Adel visce and it's it has lots of Geo does it's quite modern actually we built it a few years ago and just an incredible sense of Peace you know and it's so strange because you're reading the telegram channels you're reading the news and you can see that there were strikes that night there were strikes all the time that I was there not in the west of of Ukraine but certainly in har and you know there's Sirens going off in the cities but you're just temporarily in this other world and I can't imagine how strange it must be for those children that was going to be my next question what was that reaction to coming into a place of such a piece after as you said the front just being on on the front I was just there for a couple of days but I talked to the organizers a lot about this and they said that usually a lot of the issues with the kids would come after a few days maybe someone act out you know maybe some behavioral issues as you could imagine of course with what they've been through but they really do have an an impressive program of resolving these tensions through expression and feeling through talking about feelings through music and dancing and art every single night in the camp the kids do a presentation it was a very packed program and they would sing and dance and put on sketches and stuff it was really impressive can you tell us a little bit more about the music therapy itself did you were you able to watch much of that what were they doing yeah I sat in on some sessions so Nigel and his son Rudy who both who both involved in this work they would sit with a small group of children for about an hour and just get them into different rhythms get them moving a little bit in one session then Nigel would with the kids sort of help them to write a song and he's speaking Ukrainian speaks very good Ukrainian so he's saying what should the song be about and they say oh how about the mountains I love of the mountains and the the clear beautiful sky very beautiful and romantic I mean I was at a music therapy session in hardke last year or two years ago which I made a radio piece about with kids in a Cancer Ward and it was so clever what they did was take the kids all around the world they say where should we go next what would a volcano sound like and they do plinky flunky noises for a bear or a cuckoo and in the camp in the carpathians the kids would just shout out the name of a country and Nigel who just somehow has all of this in his head stored up would sing or do the Rhythm or the guitar of a song from that very specific country it's incredible what he does actually stored up in his head where do the kids go to after a week like this do they go back to they go home some of them are have already been displaced some of them are from Heron or marup some of them are living in places we would consider extremely dangerous and difficult but for many many reasons that I know you've discussed in this podcast not everyone can or will leave those places so it's important that they get a break from that situation from the carpathians then you went to Har a city we know you love dearly you've been been to many times what were you looking to find in hark going back just some context it's extremely dangerous though at the moment it is it is I'd actually traveled into Ukraine with a fellow writer a fellow Scott Gabriella Bennett who's researching a book and trying to explain different levels of risk for people who haven't been in Ukraine before as you know it's quite complicated so she stayed in Kev and the vi understandably and I decided I would go to hardke but it's the choices you need to make about which hotel you stay in because they did attack hotels the bigger ones have been targets because also there's 13 12-hour blackouts and as a journalist you need a generator you need the Internet you need to get some food and all that stuff so you can do your job so you can't just stay in an apartment and these considerations all just takes up an awful lot of your time logistically the morning I arrived there were strikes in the city center I mean my friends there are so used to this that I was talking to Natalia zubar who features in my book quite a lot as a great friends we're on her balcony it's very Central and the sirens are going off and there's a big big explosion and she didn't even blink she just kept talking about whatever she was on a roll with but another friend of mine of was actually a lot closer to that explosion which later we found out was a gliding bomb now these bombs are terrifying they're so big I mean they're just dumb bombs that they've put Wings on aort of basic satellite system and she told me later when I saw her that she felt almost like a mini concussion she felt quite sick all day and a lot of people were talking about this it's creating a lot of fear in harke because these boms are being sent right into the city center they're also being used to hit the villages around harke like their Hatchi was hit the other day just destroying like entire blocks I mean huge destructive capacity of these weapons and they're also of course using them on the front line positions to devastating effect which is very very worrying so yeah the atmosphere in hary was pretty bleak I have to say it's not like before where people are still feeling quite determined and hopeful because we really don't know what the Russians are going to do even lavro has mentioned hary being next in line and whoever knows what they say and what they're actually going to do but there is the chance they just bomit to Rubble there's the chance they make it unlivable I think that's the fear so there's a lot of rumors flying around people are reading or are watching YouTube videos where there's a lot of speculation if the Russians destroy the sewage system that's it the city is over people leave on mass you can live without power you can live without certain things and they have done for a long time but at some point people might have to leave and also when people were talking about the possibility of a ground Invasion and for lots of reasons that does seem unlikely they weren't able to take hary last time the terrain is very difficult for that and also the city would be ferociously defended Street to street but it's that uncertainty of of what's going to happen there isn't really so much air defense to speak of the city is just so vulnerable did you get any sense that some people have left already I I've noticed amongst Ukrainian friends some people start have started talking about it I don't know anybody personally I think who's left but do you do you detect that kind of change at all in hary or all over in hary particularly but all over them interesting I think I had this in K as well I think people have contingency CLS in a way they maybe didn't before like perhaps they've got things packed a little bit more they're making sure that the car's got Petrol in it things like that um no one I know wants to leave person I was talking to I mentioned on the balcony I said yes we have a plan she's very Breezy about these things her and our colleagues have a plan he said well we'll Evacuate the city if the Russians make it too and she named a small village and I looked it up on the map and I'm like that's inside the city limits that's when you're going to leave it's like yeah yeah yeah so yeah remarkable as ever remarkable resilience in the face of all this interestingly I think the power being off for so long is actually harder than a lot of other things because you know if you're cut off if the internet is cut off if you're sitting in the dark and it's cold life becomes very very miserable quickly there's generators everywhere so you go to the cafe and you set up with your laptop and you can still do a bit of work and talk to your friends but the length of the power Cuts is extor me because they've destroyed every bit of electricity generation capacity in the region in haras they destroyed the thermal heating plant it's a dire situation in terms of electricity and as the officials said we could re try and rebuild these things but without air defense what's the point you described hearing an explosion in the distance and described one of your friends being a lot closer and it feeling like a concussion could you talk us through what almost like an average day felt like when you were there how how many strikes are there what do you do when it happens what are the reactions of people around you well from your own experience there's an aid siren and there's an aid siren because usually there are channels of information that you can find out what the siren is relating to is it the takeoff of a MIG somewhere is it definitely missiles coming is it drones is it for actually going to be for a different region and you can safely ignore it so that's partly why you look around and the sirens going but people are just driving the car and having normal life whereas sometimes I think more now people are going into shelters because particularly of this threat of the gliding bombs you can't shoot them down you need planes you know need these promised f-16s as I understand it so yes an average day when I was there was a lot of aied sirens throughout the day and throughout the night I think the morning of the 11th I woke up to a siren and almost immediately there were several loud explosions was quite surreal cuz the it was just about Dawn it was about 5 in the morning and so the light was just creeping into the sky and I was staying somewhere where there's a rooster just next door and there very noisy guy and it just started up and the explosions silenced him a bit and you could hear him falter and a strange start of the day and the sky all lit up with orange and I think that was the missiles hitting the Paris station and it's every day almost it's it's very very heavy I know that several people were killed in a strike in hardke yesterday obvious we had the huge strike in adessa that killed several people again the other day and the gets me is this news I understand why but a year and a half ago maybe that would have been headline news and it just isn't now it's just normal har if as a as I understand it a sort of special place in your heart it's one of your favorite cities could you tell us why I first went to hardke in 2018 I didn't really know anyone I was on my own and some contacts put me in touch with some other people I met an actor called B danowski and he just spent the whole day taking me around giving me a tour of the whole we spoke in Russian together then he he wouldn't speak in Russian with me now for understandable reasons I was struck by the variation in the architecture it's just extraordinary every single style that you can imagine is piled into this beautiful historic City Center and you can learn a lot about the history of Ukraine through that architecture through through those building styles and the kind of ideologies that work during those periods as well that for me makes it very exciting it's also a big industrial city and a city of many universities and that gives it a real bustling exciting young sense like quite a radical feeling it's always been at the kind of cutting edge of things I think you know look at the hary School of Architecture the hary school of Photography real experimentation there's a great feeling of like whatever the phase is that comes before hrom takes over do you know what I mean when it's like genuinely radical and interesting and not not just lots of POS people having salads and stuff you know what I mean it's it's great to see you in London yeah I love London just just very quickly before we move on you said you're in the center of Pary from only being there once and he really likes it but as I said was only very very very briefly but I do remember that look one side there's AED Church Cathedral the other side it looks like there something from SAR the other side some brutalist thing that is that kind of what you mean you can look at different buildings and realize oh that was from you know maybe the 30s or 40s well that kov and whatever all the different of bits and pieces that's exactly I mean yeah I think that hardc significance is often underestimated or maybe forgotten it was of course the capital of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic in the 1920s and it was really the center of that idea of the Ukrainian nation which had such a Resurgence at that time with the stalinist policy of Kat Roots it's not really good translation but you know for a while Ukrainian language Ukrainian um books and plays and newspapers were permitted and it really flourished and then of course they were all murdered by the nkvd so the history there is so and so important to this period it's so important to understand it's also strategically of course a very important city lot my friends say who controls hard controls Ukraine um why is that it's the gateway to dumbass in that sense it's you know a huge Railway Junction it's a massive hub for supplies and Logistics and of course it's always had a lot of heavy industry including military production as well so we know it's of course it's a huge prize in Russia's eyes I do think there's something punitive about how hary is being attacked by Russia as well though because of course it was one of those places in 2014 where there was the Russian stirred up Insurgency and thugs coming into the city center trying to take over the administration buildings and and that that was that was rejected by har but there was there were a lot of people injured at that time it was very difficult time for the city now really especially these last two years har is being cemented in its identity as a Ukrainian city of course when I was reporting in Ukraine over these last two years there's always so much that doesn't make it into the Articles into the radio pieces and I also I keep quite a detailed diary and I take a lot of pictures and I I often just record sound to remember the atmosphere of of the place and so I had all this material and I sat down last Autumn up in I was renting a house in Shetland still and and just sat down and didn't really see anybody for about seven weeks and and wrote this up and just put everything into it all the places that I love so much I wanted to describe them vividly and beautifully to make everyone else love them as much as I do and to put in a lot of context so historical context cultural context not in a dry and lexury way but tell it through stories and anecdotes because I think that is how you bring people in and you help them to understand the significance of all this and really it was it was getting to do the kind of Journalism that I'd always dreamed of I think there's three things we can do as journalists and one of them is find stuff out which is always love doing sort of more investigative stuff when you actually find out something new and tell people and then there's repackaging what we already know which especially when I worked in TV there was a lot of that and that's necessary but I got bored and then there's being lyrical and deep and you can combine all these things obviously but particularly doing more long form writing and then putting all these experiences into the book I got to write more deeply and it's I think it's very hard to get into that kind of writing and especially hard to get into foreign reporting especially if you you don't have the the resources of some and you can't do all those unpaid internships and all that so I took this perhaps slightly radical route which was when I left Russia obviously I just took myself off to the border of Romania and reported there and managed to pick up enough commissions of paper and radio to keep going and that's how I ended up traveling all around Ukraine but I mean with a huge amount of help with Ukrainian friends and volunteers and colleagues and colleagues from the Foreign Press as well who would just help me out all the way along so much of your book is your interactions with your friends with your contacts with people you meet across Ukraine who are the characters that stand out most for you looking back on your your your trips and your time who who stays in your memory something that you will not forget of course my friends who I'm I'm so fond of who I love so much Ivana in ban who I mentioned Natalia zubar who's just such a character I mean just huge knowledge of many things but just a perfect character for a journalist you know she speaks with such enthusiasm of belligerant about things yeah and and they all help me to understand the bigger context and I had that privilege of just sitting down with them I would stick around for a week or two they'd invite me around we'd have a cup of tea that kind of time that you can just sit and talk and make notes and you're not rushing from one assignment to another but yeah there's a lot of people who stick in my mind but to be honest there's so many places as well that stick of my mind my friend went he' helped me pre feed the book he's wonderful and he said Jen I've never known anyone to romanticize places as much as you do and I'm fine with that I don't I think that's okay so it's almost this image that sticks in my mind of standing on the train I was coming from pakros in dumbass on the evacuation train back to Neo and it was in the evening we're crossing this huge vast River and the Sun is just setting and the sort of tree fringed banks of the river with these white sandy beaches and the white and golden doed monasteries nestled in the Hills this huge sweep of these rivers and and the Railway Bridge and I I was looking out at it and the the conductor on the train who'd been so kind to me all the way and giving me ginger biscuits and worried about me and she came to stand next to me and I couldn't really think you know I said something so Bland it was very beautiful and she didn't say anything and then after a minute I realized that she was crying and it just broke my heart and she said when will this end you know and I couldn't really think of anything to say so I just put my hand on her arm and weed and watch the river go by and that really stays with me when you think about journalism and and the war in Ukraine how has freelance journalism or you do changed in the the past two years what would you want listeners to understand about I don't know the challenges the risks the attention given to it by Edison how has that changed since February 222 I think the main thing to understand about freelance journalism is that the rates have not only not gone up for many years but having some sometimes actually Fallen significantly there are lots of reasons for this you know dwindling budgets and there are people going out who maybe has some Financial backing who will accept a much lower rates and that undercuts it for everybody but it really is the rates are fairly bad I would say for across the board I'm not sure that's sort of that well understood obviously journalism as a an industry is not in great shape and budgets for foreign reporting less and less so I think that is a significant thing in terms of who gets to go in reports and how safely they can do it um over the last two years I mean in the beginning you just had to to do the news you were really just you just stand in the middle of Kev with a camera and point at whatever was happening behind you and that was the news and there was a lot of people who went as bloggers or you know a lot of what I think was not really journalism but more like very partisan like here I am here's a dead body look it's me again hello it's me again that kind of inyou face YouTube blogging which I find slightly annoying now of course yeah that there's less editorial interest I like to think that there's an appetite for for the stuff I do I'm say I'm being optimistic my prospects but I think for the kind of long form indepth contextual stuff where you really do have a unique angle I think there's more desire for that for for context and depth and nuance and storytelling you know this is It's All About storytelling isn't it to reach people of Interest Ukrainian journalist friends what do they tell you about their situation I think it's very difficult for Ukrainian journalists now particularly those who had started to work as fixers it's a silly name but a local producer someone who organizes your travel and perhaps is also a driver a lot of their work is through the TV Crews coming and being with them on the roads for several days or even weeks at a time there's less of that work I mean for so many Ukrainian journalists they lost their job on the 24th of February you know papers just folded everything was finished and they had to suddenly adjust they also had to become War reporters overnight without the requisite kit there are organizations again the RO P trust as one but there's lots of organizations who do try and help Ukrainian journalists but you can help so much but if the economy is barely on a Lifeline those jobs aren't coming back in in the foreseeable future so people have had to Pivot or do other things and yeah I really feel for them so just to finish remind our listeners the name of the book and where they can find it the name of the book is Night Train to Odessa with One S of course and you can find it online and in all the major book shops Chen is there anything we haven't spoken about that you think is important for our listeners to here I'm very keen that people who feel able and want to do visit Ukraine I know that might sound a little bit risky but KV Lviv you can go there it's relatively safe it has air defense ukrainians really they really need support and they need solidarity at the moment and they need needs understanding and a few other Scots that I've advised and helped to go to Ukraine in recent weeks it's really been like a life-changing event for them it's really been quite transformational some of them are trade unionists they're talking to other Trade unionist building those links which as an newj member I feel very strongly about that and Nigel Osborne the composer that I mentioned he put it so well he said crans are they're tired they're tired out it's been a very long two years and what we can bring is fresh energy and solidarity so I I yeah I think it's important to go if you have the wherewith all and the desire Jen thank you so much for your time thank [Music] you Ukraine the latest is an original podcast from the telegraph to support our work and to stay on top of all our Ukraine news analysis and dispatches from the ground please subscribe to the telegraph you can get your first three months for just one pound at www.telegraph.co.uk Ukraine the latest or sign up to dispatches our Foreign Affairs newsletter bringing stories from our award-winning for correspondence straight to your inbox we also have a Ukraine live blog on our website where you can follow updates as they come in throughout the day including insights from regular contributors to this podcast we also do the same for other breaking International stories you can listen to this conversation live at 1: p.m. London time each weekday on Twitter spaces follow the telegraph on Twitter so that you don't miss it to our listeners on YouTube please note that due to issues beyond our control there is sometimes a delay between broadcast and upload so if you want to hear Ukraine the latest as soon as it's released do refer to podcast apps if you appreciated this podcast please consider following Ukraine the latest on your preferred podcast app and leave us a review as it helps others find the show please also share it with those who may not be aware we exist as the disinformation war ramps up we are relying on your support more than ever you can also get in touch directly to ask questions or give comments by emailing Ukraine telegraph.co.uk we do continue to read every message you can also contact us directly on Twitter you can find our Handles in the description for this episode as ever we are especially interested to hear where you are listening from around the world Ukraine the latest was today produced by Rachel Porter executive producers are David nlls and Louisa Wells

Channel: The Telegraph

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Length: 50min 30sec (3030 seconds)

Published: Sat May 25 2024