Global News Podcast - Hope for Ukraine peace as Trump meets Zelensky in Washington

Episode Date: August 18, 2025

US President Donald Trump has hosted Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, at the White House for what Mr Zelensky called their “best” meeting so far. The two men met before being joined by key European leaders for talks on ending the war in Ukraine. President Trump said he believed a peace deal was possible, and pledged to help European countries offer security guarantees to Kyiv in the event of an agreement with Russia. NATO’s Secretary General, Mark Rutte, praised Mr Trump’s role in the talks, while Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, called for an urgent ceasefire. Also: Hamas says it's accepted the latest Gaza ceasefire proposal from regional mediators while Israel is said to be reviewing the details, and why an African group wants to replace the traditional world map.The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: [e-mail]

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This podcast is brought to you by WISE, the app for international people using money around the globe. With Wise, you can send, spend and receive up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Plus, Wise won't add hidden fees to your transfer. Whether you're buying souvenirs with pesos in Puerto Vallata or sending euros to a loved one in Paris, you know you're getting a fair exchange rate with no extra markups. Be smart. Join the 15 million customers who choose Wise. Download the Wise app today or visit wise.com. Tise and C's Apply. This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Valerie Sanderson, and in the early hours of Tuesday, the 19th of August, these are our main stories. Talks have been taking place at the White House involving President Trump, President Zelensky, and European leaders in efforts to end the war in Ukraine. Hamas says it's accepted the latest Gaza ceasefire proposal from regional mediators,

while Israel is said to be reviewing the details. Also in this podcast. Kids singing not just that song, but also others that Thompson used to sing before that are connected with mass crimes that happened during Second World War. How symbols from Croatia's Second World War fascist party have infiltrated the country's rock music scene. As we record this podcast, talks have been taking place at the White House following a meeting between President Trump and the Ukrainian President Zelensky.

who were then joined by European leaders, the goal to move forward on ending the war in Ukraine following the Russian invasion in 2022. Monday's event came in the wake of Donald Trump's meeting with Vladimir Putin at a summit in Alaska last week. The mood music in the Oval Office was cordial. Mr Zelensky called it his best meeting so far. The talks have been focusing on Ukraine's security.

President Trump said he'll help European nations provide Ukraine with security guarantees in the event of a peace settlement with Russia. President Trump is sure a peace deal is attainable. I don't think there's any issue that's overly complex. It's at a point now where people want to do things. I really do believe. I've known them for a long time. I've always had a great relationship with him. I think that President Putin wants to find an answer to.

And we'll see. In a certain period of time, not very far from now, a week or two weeks, we're going to know whether or not we're going to solve this or is this horrible fighting going to continue, we'll do the best to get it ended. And I believe you have two willing parties, and usually that's good news, but two willing parties, I wouldn't make a deal.

President Zelensky said he was looking forward to a future trilateral meeting with the American and Russian presidents. What is very important, that all the sensitive things, territorial and et cetera, we will discuss on the level of leaders during a trilateral meeting and President Trump will try to organize such meeting

and he said that he will come or not come. Ukraine will be happy if you will participate. If you want me there, I will be there. Thank you. And I think this is very important. So security guarantees bringing his back and all our people, not only warriors, first of all, warriors, and all the civilians, journalists,

a lot of people in prison. and so we need them back. The NATO chief, Mark Ritter, praised Mr. Trump. From today onwards, we get this thing to an end as soon as possible. I really want to thank you for your leadership, what you are doing for Lodi-Me, but of course also all the European colleagues. It is really crucial. And the fact that you have said, I'm willing to participate in the security guarantees,

is a big step. It's really a breakthrough, and it makes all the difference. So also thank you for that. The German Chancellor Friedrich Mertz, while praising the U.S. president for meeting Vladimir Putin last week, emphasized his view that there should be a ceasefire in Ukraine as soon as possible. The next steps ahead are the more complicated ones now. The path is open. You opened it last Friday.

But now the way is open for complicated negotiations. And to be honest, we all would like to see a ceasefire. latest from the next meeting on. So let's work on that and let's try to put pressure on Russia. Our correspondent in Washington, Arunaday Mukherjee, told us what had come out of the meetings so far. In terms of progress, well, I think given the kind of air of positivity and the statements that we've heard coming in from people who were involved in the conversations and the leaders who've spoken, it seems to be a fairly positive meeting with Vladimir Zelensky himself saying that these were the best conversations I've had on this

and then sort of smiling and later saying, well, hopefully there will be even better conversations. A lot of leaders essentially talking about how these were constructive conversations. Yes, in terms of progress, they seem to be all responding positively. At least, you know, there were fears, given what we saw the last time,

Vladimir Zelensky was at the Oval Office. You know, we all know how that turned out. So this definitely is a marked change. There were concerns that, you know, what would have happened after the Alaska Summit, you know, what kind of concessions there would be talking about, but clearly today, given the statements, the body language. Things seem to have gone relatively well, at least for now. Interesting, though, that we're getting reports that

President Trump called President Putin during the meeting with European leaders. He didn't wait till that had finished. We have seen some of these reports, but we haven't gotten an official confirmation on this. But yes, I did see some of the conversations. But what I did hear President Trump say is that he is going to be having a direct conversation with President Vladimir Putin after the conversations. He says, Vladimir Putin is expecting a call from me. Now he is relaying all the developments of today now to Vladimir Putin. Now, this is where it's going to be critical because the next steps that a lot of people are hoping to expect is that possibility of a trilateral meeting between

Ukraine, Russia and the US. If they are able to get to that point is when we will be able to confidently say that, yes, there has been progress, visible, tangible progress that has been been made. But at the moment, Donald Trump himself saying that I'm not sure whether we're going to have a trilateral meeting. I'm going to speak to Vladimir Putin and then let's see what comes off it. The leaders of Germany in France, they want an immediate ceasefire. They say that is necessary while negotiations with Russia continue. Is that any closer? This is where we saw President Trump sort of depart from his earlier stand, right, when he had said that, look, I don't think a ceasefire at the moment is required. We're looking at a permanent peace because he felt a ceasefire may not

hold. He reiterated that during a press interaction today with Vladimir Zelensky sitting right next to him. He said that, look, I don't think a ceasefire is necessary. And again, he pointed out why they need a permanent peace. The fact that European leaders continue to push for that suggests that there are diverging voices when it comes to this very critical issue. But it doesn't seem, at least in the conversations for now, that Donald Trump has changed his mind. And another point of concern is, of course, the pressure that President Zelensky is under to cede territory as a prize for peace? There was a huge concern among European diplomats that when President Zelensky comes,

President Trump might just sort of pressure him into agreeing into some sort of deal. And given the interview that President Trump had given to Fox News, he'd said that, look, I would urge Vladimir Zelensky to make a deal, which is why you saw this kind of rallying of support around Vladimir Zelensky of these European leaders. They all sort of came together, sending out the message that we have your back. So they are united in this. We haven't heard much about conceding territories or territorial swap, something that President Trump has talked about in the past. We haven't gotten any kind of confirmation about where they stand on this conversation.

But Vladimir Zelensky has made it very clear on two points. One, there will be no compromise on Ukraine's territorial sovereignty. That's something that they have been very clear about. And two, he's also cited constitutional constraints. He said that is not a possibility because it's not going to be allowed by the Ukrainian constitution. So we can't even go on discussing that. Arunidae Mukherjee in Washington. Well, for any peace deal to be agreed, Ukraine will need to be certain it's safe from future Russian aggression.

With his assessment of how such a guarantee might work, here's our security correspondent, Frank Gardner. When is a security guarantee, not a security guarantee? The answer that Ukrainians point to is the failure of the US, Britain and Russia to honour the promised assurances given to Ukraine when it agreed to give up its Soviet-era nuclear weapons in 1994. Justin Crump, a military analyst who runs the private intelligence firm Sibberline, says the history of distrust will be hard to surmount. Ukraine censors very much that promises have been broken in the past. And also the two areas western on Bas, Zabrija and Hurson, have also both been formally taken by Russia.

So in theory, that's unfinished business for the Russians anyway. All right, so what would a security guarantee for Ukraine look like in 2025? Membership of NATO is off the table. Donald Trump has made that clear. Instead, what's being talked about is something called an Article 5 style guarantee that would come into force once the fighting stopped. The idea would be that if Russia attacked Ukraine again, then a multinational force, possibly including the US, would come to its defence. But even with US involvement, which with Donald Trump in the White House may be a movable feast, this prompts a number of awkward questions. Do Europe and the West collectively have enough troops and weapons to deploy to Ukraine, perhaps indefinitely. And most critically, is this force really going to be robust enough to deter a massive rebuilt Russian army if President Putin decides to come back for more in a few years' time? Frank Gardner. So we know that discussions have been focusing on security guarantees and prospects for a trilateral meeting involving President Trump, Zelensky and Putin.

Andrei Zagorotnik is a former Ukrainian defence minister and he gave his reaction to the talk so far to the BBC's Sumi Somerskanda. So there's been a serious worry about the possible pressure on Zelensky and basically that Putin had mentioned some of the terms which he wanted to promise some sort of ceasefire or cessation of hostilities at least for some period of time. and obviously that was quite dangerous for Ukraine because there was no single indication

that Putin wants to stop the war, at least at the moment. And any promises with verbal promises and especially promises you can't enforce coming from Putin, basically we had like many, many cases when he gave something and then changed his mind later. So yeah, so those war was seems like we still have to assess what happened,

but from the early indications, that didn't happen. So there's been a very constructive discussion. They returned back to the ceasefire demand, which is obviously good because Putin, as you can see, uses his pressure, military pressure on Ukraine every day. So any demands of ceasefire will remove that card from him. But we'll see. That's much more difficult than many people thought, especially in D.C. And at least the process so far is not going in the wrong direction.

That's very good. I believe that that's also because there's been a very substantial representation there from Europe and also from NATO, EU, you know, like a massive Allied meeting. And that's a very good format to proceed with decisions, I think. Yeah, Andri, we do get the sense of relief from many of the Ukrainian voices that this meeting so far has gone much better than back in February. At the same time, we heard President Trump repeat again that Russia said for a long time that Ukraine should not be part of NATO.

Are you worried that, you know, that is something that President Putin is insisting on, and President Trump is perhaps standing behind, at least appears to be at this point? Well, yes, because it's not about NATO and it's not about these terms. Putin, unfortunately, had much, much bigger goal than that. And we just need to understand that. He brings up various kind of terms in order to derail the process and put the process in a different direction. And in reality, it's not about NATO, it's not about Donbass.

It's about him trying to destroy Ukraine and the Eastern European and probably European and security architecture. And Europeans know about that very well. All the heads of states, including the Prime Minister of UK and NATO General Secretary and so on, they know what are real goals of Putin are. So we need to be careful when, you know, we discuss something which is not like really the issue. But we'll see where it goes. It's very difficult to predict where this process will go.

But to see such a massive, you know, very powerful team working together on the resolution, well, I mean, that's absolutely the best we can wish for. Former Ukrainian Defence Minister and now fellow at the Eurasia Centre, Andrei Zagrodnoch. Still to come. This wasn't a very good projection because of that very distortion with green. and appearing to be the same size as Africa. Why an African group wants to replace the traditional world map. Vanity Fair calls Britbox a delicious streamer.

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Plan your detour at go-turkia.com for a gripping adventure. Could the latest Gaza-Sisphar plan proposed by Egypt and Qatar succeed where previous ones have failed? Amaz says it's agreed to the latest proposal. has so far not responded. The plan is based on one put forward by the US earlier this year in a bid to end the conflict between Israel and Hamas, which has now lasted for 22 months. More than 62,000 people have died,

according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza, and out of 50 Israeli hostages, just 20 are still believed to be alive. A correspondent in Jerusalem, Emma Nader told us more. This is a plan that was originally proposed by the US envoy Steve Whitkoff as early far back as June and was negotiated on as recently as last month in Qatar with the delegations there. And it broke down. And it broke down

over a number of key sticking points, we understand, including the withdrawal of troops, where Israeli troops would withdraw to in this initial 60-day ceasefire period, and how it would ultimately lead to a permanent end to the war. So we understand that that is back on the table. It would involve, two stages of hostages and Palestinian prisoners who are in Israeli prisons being exchanged over two stages. What we don't know is how Hamas's position has shifted. We have heard from a Hamas source who's been speaking to the BBC saying that Hamas has now agreed the current proposal unconditionally and without amendments. So it does sound like there is a softening of

Hamas's position, perhaps. What's unclear is how Israel will respond to this proposal. As we've heard in recent days from Prime Minister Netanyahu here, that a so-called partial deal, which would see hostages released in stages, he had ruled that out. And it said that Israel was going just for a comprehensive all-in deal. Has there been any reaction from Israel at all so far? Well, Prime Minister Netanyahu has made a statement, but hasn't directly addressed this news so far. But he did seem to acknowledge that there is huge pressure on Hamas, as he called it, appearing to refer to the plan by Israel to invade Gaza City, which has been extremely controversial both here in Israel and internationally. It could

have untold catastrophic consequences for the million Palestinians who are in Gaza City. And it has indeed seemed to revitalise the energies of the mediators in Egypt who've brought now the discussion this far. However, we've also heard from members of Prime Minister Netanyahu's cabinet coalition, including one far-right minister who said that it would be surrender to stop fighting now and not push for the total defeat of Hamas. So it is unclear how Prime Minister Netanyahu might respond, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of protesters here in Israel,

who've been on the streets this week, calling for a deal and an end to the war. Emanada in Jerusalem. It was Croatia's biggest ever music concert, huge numbers of young people came to see Marco Perkovich, better known as Thompson, perform in Zagreb last month. But Thompson isn't just any rock singer, he's an ultra-nationalist who performs a fascist salute at the beginning of his most famous songs.

The Croatian government has defended him for his nationalist views, but human rights groups say he's normalizing neo-fascism and creating dangerous divisions. Our Balkans correspondent, Guy Deloni, reports from Zagreb. Thompson's management claimed they'd sold more than half a million tickets the last month's megagig at Zagreb's Hippodrome. That's a startling turnout for an act who's been banned in multiple countries for his alleged Nazi sympathies.

But Croatia's Prime Minister Andrei Plankovic didn't see that as a problem. The left-wing opposition and media are not happy the 500,000 people came to this concert that young people came in an atmosphere of unity. But in fact, it's not just left-wing groups who have a problem with Thompson's use of the phrase Zadom Spermni. It means for homeland ready, and it was the call-and-response salute of the Nazi-allied

Croat nationalist Ustasha movement during the Second World War. Croatia's highest court has ruled its use unconstitutional. That explains why rights groups were alarmed when the Prime Minister posed for a pre-performance picture with Thompson and outraged when governing party MPs joined in the chants. That really opened, as people are trying to describe it, Pandora's box. Tenabanyaglav works for documenta, centre for dealing with the past. Kids singing not just that song, but also others that Thompson used to sing before,

that are connected with mass crimes that happened during Second World War. And the government is creating kind of atmosphere now when this is okay to. Thompson's supporters claim that his use of the chant should be viewed in the context of his time in the military during Croatia's War of Independence in the 1990s. Matia Shdahan is a conservative commentator. I think it would be best described as Croatian version of Slava Ukraini. And just like Slava Ukraini today does not mean the same thing as in World War II,

so Zadom Spremni also means something different. But there's no altering the unsavory history of Zadom Spermni. It was coined by the murderous Ustasha, then revived in the 90s by an extreme right-wing militia called the Croatian Defence Forces. But now the government seems keen to rehabilitate the chant. Thompson's popularity has ebbed and flowed over the past three decades. His detractors say his current peak is an unwelcome reminder that Croatia still has to reckon with the troubled past before it can truly move into the future. Guy Deloni in Zagreb.

Police in Dubai have recovered a rare pink diamond worth $25 million and arrested three people. Detectives said they used artificial intelligence to help them track down the gang in just a few hours. Joanna Keen reports. The criminals plotted for more than a year to steal the precious diamond. They rented luxury cars and arranged meetings at expensive hotels to convince a jeweller they were wealthy buyers.

The trader was then lured to a villa where the gang stole the pink diamond. With the help of AI and specialist teams, police in Dubai carried out multiple raids and tracked down the criminals eight hours after the theft. They recovered the jewel from a refrigerator which was bound for Asia.

The diamond is said to be so rare there's only a 0.0.1% chance of finding another like it. Joanna Keene. Jordan's Crown Prince has announced The Kingdom will soon reintroduce compulsory military service more than three decades after it was suspended. The move comes as the country's forces face mounting security concerns

tied to Israel's ongoing war in Gaza and heightened instability across the region. Hesham Shawesh from BBC monitoring told us more. The official reason that was given was that it would reflect a profound national vision to strengthen Jordanian national identity and shape the character of young people, but we can't ignore the regional context taking place. Their latest announcement comes amid mounting regional tensions

in view of Israel's expanded offensive in Gaza and the announcement of its latest settlement expansion plan in the West Bank. We've also seen Israeli violations of holy sites in the West Bank in Jerusalem, like the Alaksa Moss compound, where Jordan still retains its custodianship of holy sites. So that is another reason why Jordan sees a threat, possibly, from Israel. We've also seen remarks from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week of a greater Israel vision. That was condemned in Jordan and by other countries in the region. So we have been witnessing over recent weeks, a real ratcheting up of tensions.

But in the latest announcement, which was given by Crown Prince, El Hussein bin Abdullah, we didn't see any mention of Israel. Instead, the real focus of all the reporting was that it would strengthen Jordanian identity amongst the country's youth. The Jordanian government delivered a press statement and they said that 6,000 males born in 2007 who will have turned 18 by the 1st of January will be called up and that will eventually rise to 10,000 over the next few years

and each conscript would receive a modest monthly stipend as well and they'll be trained in physical training, field skills and small arms training as well. Hesham Shawish Look at a map of the world and comparison it to say a globe or a picture of the world on Google Earth or equivalent. The continent of Africa is too small on the map and Greenland is too big. Indeed, Greenland is almost the size of Africa. It's a well-known flaw in the way we generally convert the three-dimensional world to a two-dimensional representation. No map projection can be perfect, but the much-used Mercator method,

introduced in 1569, is now being challenged by the African Union, which has thrown its weight behind the idea of changing that map to better reflect Africa's size. The former president of the British cartographical society is Mary Spence and Evan Davis asked her why there are distortions in size on so many maps. Well, I think it's probably historical because the Mercator map was invented for navigational purposes

as most people know because the distortions come into it land north and south, north and south of the equator. but it was easy to draw. However, it was always recognised that this wasn't a very good projection because of that very distortion with Greenland appearing to be the same size as Africa. There was an attempt in the 1970s to, or not an attempt, a successful attempt to create what the Gauls Peters projection, where every country was equal area.

And that was very popular because it did exactly what underdeveloped countries wanted to see the countries in a true size, relative to the rest of the world. But it looked funny. Everything was very tall and skinny. Yeah, I remember that one. Yeah, not the right shape, you know. I think sort of trendy students might have had it up on the wall in their university bedroom or something.

But the countries and continents didn't look like the, yeah, you have to make some compromise, though, don't you, if you're taking 3D into 2D? You can't do everything correctly. But after the Gors-Peters one, that ran for a long time, but then people got fed up. with it not looking quite right. So the Robinson projection and other equal area projections came along, which were neither equal area, equal area being the thing that makes it comparable with another country. But the things just looked right.

And now this equal earth projection that they're talking about adopting instead is good in that it is better than the Robinson's because it's actually equal area. Mary, talk me through where you think the kind of serious map people are, people like members of the cartographical society, when it comes to which should be the default map, for example, used in schools and in atlases and in newspaper pictures of maps for purposes of where things are happening in the world? What would you say? Would you say it's time to move on from the Merketer projection? Oh, totally, totally. I mean, that's long since. And I mean, so many newspaper blunders where they've used the wrong map projection to illustrate that

For example, North Korea couldn't get its missiles as far as North America. But if you put it on the right projection, you think, holy gosh, yes, you can go all the way to the other side of North America. So it's almost very important. And in the cartographic world, we're always railing against this because these maps are being created by people who, through no fault of theirs, don't understand the significance of this. Mary Spence, speaking to Evan Davis.

And that's it from us for now, but there'll be a new edition of the Global. News Podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast, all of the topics covered in it, send us an email. The address is Global Podcast at BBC.co.uk. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag Global NewsPod. This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll. The producers were Carla Conti and Oliver Berlough. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Valerie Sanderson. Until next time, bye-bye. Thank you.