Global News Podcast - Dodging Russian drones in Donetsk

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

A special report from the frontline in eastern Ukraine where Russian forces are advancing. Also: remembering the renowned Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong'o, and saving lives with a defibrillator on Mount Everest.

This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Andrew Peach and in the early hours of Thursday, the 29th of May, these are our main stories. Russia intensifies its assault on eastern Ukraine, making big advances in Donetsk. The World Food Programme says hordes of hungry people have broken into one of its warehouses in central Gaza with reports of deaths and several injuries. We look back at the life of the renowned Kenyan author Mugugi wa Tiongo who's died at the age of 87. Also in this podcast...

It was a Sherpa informing me that that bit of kit which we got up there, which I have so close to giving up because it is arduous, had saved a young French lady's life." Getting defibrillators to Mount Everest and the museum that lets you order items from its archive. Let's begin with a special report from the frontline in eastern Ukraine, where Russia has been intensifying its assaults and made the most significant advances since January. President Zelenskyy has warned that Russia is gathering 50,000 troops across the border from the Ukrainian city of Sumy.

Here's my colleague, Yulia Tselemai. We're in the town of Rudinsky, which is just north of the embattled city of Pokrovsk. What I can see in front of me is just large-scale destruction, multiple buildings which have been destroyed and from the pits smoke is still rising up so something's still burning in there. We know there was a large attack about 24 hours ago. I'm not sure if you can hear it but we can hear the continuous sound of bombardment. There's another bomb that's gone off right now.

Barely seven minutes into being on the ground in Rudinsky, we hear a Russian drone above us. We run to the closest cover, a tree. The sound of gunshots grows closer. Ukrainian soldiers trying to shoot down drones. Then an explosion. What sounds like another drone making impact. The drone above us continues to hover. This is the terrifying whirring sound of what's become the deadliest weapon of the Ukraine

War. Could we come? Let's make a run for it. Stay or come? Come. A few tense minutes later, we decide to dart a hard shelter into a building a hundred feet away. What we've seen and heard here today is evidence of the intensity of the fighting along these front lines. But also, in the past two to three weeks, it's really felt that Russia is pushing harder,

that the assaults are becoming more intense. And we're seeing on the ground here today evidence of that. We can still hear a drone outside in the sky, and we're just waiting for things to be clear to go back to our car and then drive out of here at high speed. Half an hour later when we can't hear the drone anymore we move quickly to our car and drive out of Rudinski. By the side of the road we see smoke billowing and something burning. It's likely a downed

drone. In a town further away from the front line, we see a row of homes destroyed by a missile overnight. Belitsky is now increasingly being hit. Its residents exhausted. 61-year-old Svetlana has lived here all her life. It's getting worse and worse. Before you could just hear the explosions from far away. Now they're here.

Go to the city and see. It's the same there. And in that direction, see, the baker is gone. It's extremely dangerous to go right up to the front where the infantry units are located in the trenches. So we've come to a place which is like a safe house, a pit stop, where they come back to rest for a few days. Maxim used to work for a drinks company and joined the military two years ago.

There are times I've spent 30 days in my position. There was one instance when we didn't sleep for three days because the Russians kept coming at us wave after wave. I ask how his family copes with his job. He breaks down. Maxim is a soldier fighting for his country, but he's also just a father missing his two-year-old boy. Yolga Suleiman reporting.

As the war rages on, what are the prospects for peace talks or a ceasefire? US patience with Moscow seems to be wearing thin. President Trump has again expressed his displeasure at the lack of momentum in talks over a war he once promised he'd be able to end in one day. We're going to find out whether or not he's tapping us along or not. And if he is, we'll respond a little bit differently. I can say this, that I'm very disappointed at what happened a couple of nights now where people were killed in the middle of what you would call a negotiation.

I'm very disappointed by that. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he'd briefed Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, on what the Kremlin is calling a peace memorandum, a proposal he's planning to present at a new round of talks suggested for next week. With his assessment, here's our Ukraine correspondent James Waterhouse, who's in Kyiv. The Kremlin still wants the terms to be agreed and this is a continued Russian approach of wanting talks first and then a ceasefire. And that is tantamount to this war simply grinding on.

But Ukraine, the reality for Ukraine, is that it needs America to underwrite any kind of European attempts to back it up with long-distance weapons and military packages in the future. Because of that fact, despite Donald Trump's lack of sympathy, shall we say, lack of commitment when it comes to supporting Ukraine in the long term, Kiev has to say, we are keen, we are down for such a format. But as to what will come out of it, I mean, we've talked about official phone calls, summits now for three months, and there has been no concrete result really coming out of them. And we must be clear here that there has been no hint of compromise or climb down from the

Kremlin when it comes to its terms for ending this war. And that is why Zelensky is like a broken record when he's calling for Donald Trump to follow through with this threat of further sanctions for Russia. We had a rare second such threat this week But none have followed so far Donald Trump said Putin was playing with fire with the drone strikes he inflicted over Ukraine over the weekend But you know, I think Ukraine is getting used to yes potentially heightened rhetoric now and then aimed at Russia by America but Ukraine's also on the receiving end of

hostile remarks from Donald Trump. And what isn't following is any kind of direct pressure applied to Russia to Ukraine's frustration. James Waterhouse in Kyiv. The World Food Programme says hordes of hungry people have broken into one of its warehouses in central Gaza with reports of at least two deaths and several injuries. This on the same day that the UN Security Council heard accounts of worsening violence and destruction in the territory.

Delegates in New York were given example after example of what civilians have been experiencing since the resumption of hostilities. The UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East peace process Sigrid Karg had this to say. Civilians in Gaza have lost hope, Mr President. Instead of saying goodbye, see you tomorrow, Palestinians now say see you in heaven. Death is their companion. It's not life, it is not hope. Also at the Security Council meeting was an American surgeon, Dr. Fraser Sidrois, who's

just come back from Gaza. The foundations of life in Gaza, family, health and community, have been shattered. The medical system has not failed. It has been systematically dismantled through a sustained military campaign that has willfully violated international humanitarian law. Civilians are now dying not just from the constant airstrikes, but from acute malnutrition, sepsis, exposure, and despair. I did not see or treat a single combatant during my five weeks in Gaza.

My patients were six-year-olds with shrapnels in their heart and bullets in their brains, and pregnant women whose pelvises had been obliterated and their fetuses cut in two while still in the womb." As the Security Council was meeting, the EU's top diplomat, Kaya Kalla, strongly criticised the controversial new aid distribution arrangement in Gaza run by the American and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Addressing this in New York, the Israeli ambassador, Danny Danon, accused the UN of aiding Hamas.

I urge the UN, do not let your egos get in the way. Cooperate with the new mechanism. It has begun and it is operational. Shift your focus from dramatic press statements and intimidating NGOs to the work you are supposed to be doing. Meanwhile in Israel itself, the families of hostages still being held in Gaza have been meeting to mark 600 days since the Hamas attacks of 7 October. Israel believes only 20 of them are still alive. Our correspondent Barbara Plet-Asher is in Hostages Square in Tel Aviv.

The mood has been sorrowful because none of them expected to be here 600 days after their loved ones were abducted and hopeful that those who are still alive will remain alive and come back out of Gaza, angry and frustrated with the Prime Minister, Prime Minister Netanyahu, for continuing with the war, for actually going back to war in March, breaking the ceasefire and going back to war, a ceasefire that might have brought some of their loved ones home, and also calling on President Trump to take action, appealing to him really. You remember the White House was able to negotiate

the release of one of the American Israeli hostages by dealing directly with Hamas. And so one man said President Trump put pressure on Hamas but also put pressure on Prime Minister Netanyahu. They believe that Mr. Netanyahu is continuing the war for political reasons, to appease the hardliners in his coalition. And so I feel that maybe Mr Trump can make a difference. And there was some expression of hope about some words that had come out of the White House today where the US envoy for the Middle East, Steve Whitcoff, had expressed optimism that perhaps another ceasefire might be possible. Our correspondent Barbara Pletosha in Israel.

The Kenyan author Ngugiwationgo, a giant of African literature, has died at the age of 87. Among his best-known novels were Petals of Blood, Devils on the Cross and A Grain of Wheat, which was set in the wake of the Malmau rebellion just before Kenya's independence from Britain. A learned man will no doubt dig into the troubled times which we in Kenya underwent and maybe sum up the lesson of history in a phrase. Why? Let us ask them, why did the incident in a real camp capture the imagination of the world? That was Ngugiwa Tiongo reading from his novel A Grain of Wheat. He was an outspoken critic of President Daniel Arap Moi, which landed him in prison in 1977 and eventually led to a life in exile in the UK and then

in the US. In 2013 he spoke to the BBC about his time in prison and his determination to write in his native language. In prison they try every possible way to strip you of your personality, you know, like having your own name, like wearing the same clothes every day It is a kind of food every single day same kind of hour and so on having to be locked up in yourself or 24 hours or whatever length of time the thing is fit for you Having God stand By the door and you're going for the bathroom visits and so on I mean and there's no door to have somebody to visit. So you are stripped

of your privacy completely. I want to fight back, but I could only fight back in the only way I could, through my pen. So that's why I wrote my novel, Devil on the Cross, Shaitan Mutharafaine, in a toilet paper. My argument was like this, you know, they have put me in prison for writing in an African language. My mother tongue is Koyo. So how do I fight back? I cannot run away from prison. There's no communication between me and anybody outside. But I could write. The author Ngugiwa Tiango who's died. Now a man on a mission to save lives has taken his cause to the world's highest peak after losing four close friends to cardiac arrest. David Sullivan founded a charity that provides defibrillators and CPR training in the UK. Now he's been to the Himalayas where he placed a defibrillator on Mount Everest and it's

already saved a climber. He told us what happened. We've put the defibrillator at around 20,000 feet and we went higher up in a helicopter and we'd done CPR training at 23,000 feet. So it was amazing. I'd been back three weeks and on Friday, my phone went at quarter to four in the morning and I've got children here, there and everywhere at the moment.

Oh God, what's happened? So I went down to my telephone and it was a Sherpa informing me that that bit of kit which we got up there, which I have so close to giving up because it is arduous, had saved the young French lady's life. You know, we are just so proud and my friends who I lost would be so… I don't know what they'd be doing looking down to seeing that what we're doing and the changing they helped make in saving people's lives is what it's all about. And these people were up there and there was just nothing for them if they had a cardiac arrest for them to survive unless they got to base camp where of course there's a huge

great big field hospital. But on the actual route up we are now working with the Nepalese government to place defibrillators more regularly up there. David Sullivan. And coming up on the Global News podcast. They say like after the summer when the bear has been eating fruits and berries, then it's a lot more sweet. So what I remember from the goulash was much more sweeter.

Why Slovakia is asking restaurants to start serving bear meat. For many years Joel Laskwanek was a respected paediatric surgeon specialising in gastric operations on children in Brittany in France. Now he'll be remembered as the country's most prolific paedophile. A court has found him guilty of raping and sexually abusing almost 300 patients, many while they were sedated. The crimes came to light through his diary, in which he described his assaults in graphic details. Lascuanec has already been convicted of accessing child abuse images and later of raping and sexually assaulting four children, including two of

his nieces. This is a case that's horrified France but also raised questions of whether warnings were ignored and child victims weren't listened to. Our correspondent Andrew Harding has been following the trial. I'm outside the courthouse in Vannes in southern Brittany. Joël Lusquarnac has just driven past in the back of a police car heading inside. He's a hunched beetle-like figure these days, white hair and a bald crown. That's the sound of the judge asking people to be seated, at which point I'm no longer

allowed to keep recording. But we're expecting now to hear Luskwanec speak for the last time before the verdict. He's already confessed to 299 counts of rape or sexual assault, almost all involving children. Standing now and speaking in a dry, weak voice, the retired surgeon tells his victims, I've become aware of the immense pain my crimes have caused them. I'm not asking the court for leniency, just grant me the right to regain that humanity I was so lacking. I've come back outside court, lawyers and victims mingling here. I'm going to meet Louis Marie, 35 now.

He was abused by Luskanek during an appendix operation when he was 9 years old. I saw no sincerity from him. I just hope he cannot hurt people anymore. But I don't expect him to change. It's striking how few journalists are here today compared with last year's Pelico rape trial where half the world's press seemed drawn by the courage of Gisele Pelico in confronting her rapists, which partly explains this. A recent protest by Le Squarnac's victims outside the court in Vannes. Angry that their suffering seems to be prompting little more than a collective shudder in France. My name is Manon Le Moine. I was a victim in the case of Joelle Le Squarnak. We've had

to become militant to make our voices heard. Do you feel that France has not taken this trial and this issue seriously enough? That's for certain. Our government and our society are not outraged. The rape of children seems too complicated to acknowledge. France denies this exists, which is why we've had to mobilize. And the French medical establishment is facing particular criticism. Hospitals were told more than 20 years ago that Lesquarnak had downloaded videos of child rape. Those in charge shrugged and let him carry on working and abusing his patients.

Last week at the trial, officials traded blame and none seemed willing to accept responsibility. I'm Hugo Lemonnier, I'm a freelance journalist. I've wrote a book called Trapped in Dr. Le Squarnak Diaries. The authorities at that time didn't pay attention, they didn't care. It seems like they still don't care. And when we've asked to the authorities what has changed since Le Squarnak, the response was nothing. It's frightening because we know that there's not only one Le Squarnac. That speaks to a broader frustration here in France, a sense that a rather ordered,

hierarchical society still struggles to confront certain uncomfortable issues and certain powerful elites. A last word here in Vann from Frederick Giffard, a lawyer representing some of Lesquanek's many victims. There is a silence. There is a general silence. About child abuse. Child abuse. It's extremely shocking.

But hopefully, the children of yesterday are now asking for more justice and proper recognition. And do you think that's coming because of trials like this? I hope. I hope so. That's a report from Andrew Harding. It might sound a bit odd, but a Peruvian farmer and his supporters are celebrating after losing a court case, which they'd fought against a large German energy firm. The reason they're celebrating is that as far as they're concerned, the case

has established an important principle about businesses and how they can be held responsible for the effect their activities have on the environment. To explain all this, I spoke to our Europe regional editor, Paul Moss. Well, you'd have to excuse the cliché, but this is a sort of David and Goliath contest and very much a long one. Saul Luciano Ullia lives on a farm near to the town of Juarez high up in the mountains of central Peru where he farms corn and wheat and barley and potatoes. Now in this part of Peru the mountains glaciers are melting because of climate change and that has caused

a fear in many places of flooding and there have been warnings that people will have to build very robust flood defences. Well what Mr Yu-yu argued was he thought, well hold on, climate change wasn't caused by farmers like me growing potatoes, it was caused by big industries around the world and therefore they should pay for the flood defences. And what he did was he launched what was effectively a test case. He sued the German energy giant GWE. Why GWE? Well because GWE was founded in 1898. It began its first, opened its first power station in 1900. It's been basically emitting CO2 for 125 years. Experts calculated GWE was responsible for 0.4% of all the CO2 ever emitted by industry.

So what Mr Yuya argued in court was, well, therefore they should pay 0.4% towards the cost of my flood defences. Just explain the court's ruling. It's obviously relatively complicated. Well, as you said, they lost the case. flood defences. Just explain the court's ruling. It's relatively complicated. As you said, they lost the case. But the only reason that Mr. Uyar's case was dismissed was because the judge said they looked at his farm and they decided his particular farm was not at serious risk of flooding. However, unusually the judge praised the way the case had been argued.

He said it had been argued with great cogency by Mr. UER. And crucially, what he said was that if you could show that a company admitting carbon dioxide had caused climate change which led to flooding, well they are responsible for preventing flooding. And indeed he said if they don't take any action to prevent flooding, they're then going to be liable for the cost that that flooding causes. And that was poor Moss. Eating meat from a bear might sound a bit of a grisly prospect. It'll soon be offered though in restaurants in Slovakia with a cull of brown bears introduced in the country earlier this year. The government says the extra meat should be put to use instead

of thrown away. But is there a market for it? Here's Linda Meta-Sova, who's a food tool guide in Bratislava. I ate the meat once, but it's not something that would be very common here, maybe among hunter community. I've heard the taste is based on what the beer actually eats. They say like after the summer when the beer has been eating fruits and berries, then it's a lot more sweet. So what I remember from the goulash was much more sweeter than usual. I've never even mentioned brown bear meat in our food tours. Yeah, it's just not really a thing. We have different meals and

based traditional Slovak cuisine is based on flour, potatoes, and then like those non-expensive meals that were easy to make in the past and meat would be reserved for special occasions such as holidays. With more about the scheme, here's Rob Cameron. An adult brown bear can weigh more than half a ton, so potentially there could be huge amounts of bear meat on the menu if the government fulfills its quota of culling some 350 animals. Bears are a protected species in Slovakia, but the rules have been relaxed after a spate of high-profile attacks on people,

some of them fatal. The government said it was wasteful that culled animals were being sent to disposal facilities. In a Facebook video, the Deputy Environment minister, Filip Kufa, said bear carcasses would no longer be destroyed, but instead offered to Slovak pubs and restaurants for consumption under strict hygiene conditions. Environmental groups and political opponents have criticised the move. They said the focus should be on conservation and on preventing bear attacks. Let's turn to Central America now on a trade row within the $100 million banana market. Panama's government has declared a state of emergency in a key province where US

banana giant has sacked thousands of workers after they went on strike and ground production to a halt. The staff in Boca del Toro were protesting against pension reforms. I've been out of work for four weeks now and how am I going to support myself if I'm just at home? It's because of the government that we're here. It's not how we want it to be, but we're fighting a law that the government knows has affected our workers and our future generations.

That's why we're fighting. Our Latin America's online editor, Vanessa Bushluter, told us more. This strike was triggered at the end of April by a law that was passed by the conservative president of Panama Panama who was trying to fight a shortfall in the country's pension system. So he, with the help of Congress, passed this law and the unions, not just the union of the banana

workers but also the teachers unions and unions representing other workers, think that this reform is a privatisation through the back door. So they have taken to the streets and protested against this law. Now a tribunal declared the strike illegal and that's when Chiquita decided to sack 5,000 banana workers which of course has made the situation worse. Chiquita said that the strike was an unjustified abandonment of work and that's the reason it gave for sacking those 5,000 workers. It also said that it had lost 75 million dollars by the strike. The strike has now gone on for a

month and what union members tend to do in Panama is they tend to block the Pan-American Highway which is a very effective means of protest. That means that transport companies can't get food and water and other essentials into that region and of course this makes the situation escalate quite rapidly. So the government has taken the decision to declare the state of emergency in order to give it more powers to circumvent this strike. Although they have said, it has to be said, that they will not remove the barriers erected, these roadblocks that the protesters have erected by force. The reason for that is that when the government in the past has tried to remove

roadblocks by force, the situation has really blown up. So for now they want to avoid that situation but they want to be able to, for example, have the security forces bring in food, bring in essentials. When you go to a museum, do you wish you could take a look behind the scenes or walk around on your own, even go through the archives? While London's V&A Arts Museum is trying something new at their soon to open facility in East London, it's going to let visitors walk through its vast collection containing items such as Elton John's stage costumes, Roman frescoes, mid-century furniture, and you'll be able to order items you'd like to take a closer look at from the archives.

James Menendez spoke to the V&A's Deputy Director, Tim Reef. It's a combination of the storage, the back-of-house workings of the V&A, but designed as a self-guided, free-to-access public experience. So it's trying to pull off both of those things and what it means is that visitors can completely immerse themselves within the V&A collections and archives and wander around the back-of-house world. And as part of that there's amazing new service called the Order and Object Service where you as a member of the public, regardless of background or training, academic credentials, can order up to five objects

for a personal appointment here at V&A East storehouse. Right, and then they go along and those objects turn up and what is it? Just to look at them or will people be able to touch, feel them? Very much depends on why people want to see the objects and obviously the objects themselves. So that might mean observing, it might mean touching, or it might mean handling. And it very much depends on what the object can take, because obviously our core mission is to safeguard them, but also why people want the objects. Oftentimes people who are working on a project of any shape and size don't necessarily need to

touch or handle an object, but seeing it up close and discussing it with an expert can be what they need in order to take their creative practice forward. Yes, and presumably that expert offering some supervision just to make sure things don't get damaged, right? Of course. Yeah, yeah, of course. Tell us about some of the key pieces that people might be looking to order. Yeah, well, that's the really interesting thing about it. We're putting the public in control, so we don't really know what they're going to order. Yeah, well, that's the really interesting thing about it. We're putting the public in control.

So we don't really know what they're going to order. But so far, it seems that people are particularly interested in shoes. We have 3,500 pairs of shoes at Storehouse. Obviously, our fashion collections are much sought after. There's a 1950s pink Balenciaga taffeta dress, which is the most popular object at the moment.

We've had a 17th century Iranian astrolabe. So all sorts of things. And that's the thrill for us is you put the public in charge, you see what they order, and that will be fascinating for us as an institution here, a properly public, self-guided experience, which is also where we store our collections, where we work on our objects. And for us, bringing that whole world to the visitor and demystifying what we do and making transparent everything we do is part of how we engage with our audiences into the future. And that was the V&A's Deputy Director, Tim Reef.

That's all from us for now. There'll be a new edition of Global News to download later. If you'd like to comment on this edition, drop us an email globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk and you'll find us on X at BBC World Service. Just use the hashtag globalnewspod. This edition was mixed by Rosan Wynne Dorrell, the producers were Stephanie Zakristen and Rebecca Wood, the editor is Karen Martin. I'm Andrew Peach. Thank you for listening and until next time, goodbye.