Global News Podcast - 'Peace must not mean a surrender of Ukraine,' Macron says after talks with Trump

Episode Date: February 24, 2025

The French and US Presidents met to discuss the war in Ukraine on the third anniversary of Russia's invasion . Also, the UN Security Council backs a resolution calling for an end to the conflict.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. WISE gives you the real exchange rate, which means you'll spend less on fees and more of your money gets where you need it to be. Download the WISE app today or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply. 1942, Europe. Soldiers find a boy surviving alone in the woods. They make him a member of Hitler's army. But what no one would know for decades, he was Jewish. Could a story so unbelievable be true? I'm Dan Goldberg. I'm from

CBC's personally, Toy Soldier, available now wherever you get your podcasts. Toy Soldier, available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Bernadette Keough and in the early hours of Tuesday the 25th of February, these are our main stories. On the third anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the US and French presidents discussed the conflict at the White House. At the UN, the US has joined Russia and North Korea in voting down an EU resolution which condemns the invasion and backs Ukraine's sovereignty. The man poised to become Germany's next Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, says defence, the economy

and what he called the unresolved issue of migration are among the key issues facing a new government. Also in this podcast... It was a dream for me to be honest with you. To actually do it was quite an emotional experience for me and I feel ever so grateful. A potential breakthrough for people with spinal cord injuries. And the singer, Roberta Flack, has died. When he was last in office, President Trump considered his French counterpart, Emmanuel

Macron, as one of his closest allies in Europe. Their friendship was on display again at the White House when Mr Macron became the first European leader to meet Mr Trump there since he returned to office. The French president's priority was to find common ground with him on ending the war in Ukraine and ensuring that Europe plays a role in any negotiated peace with Russia. President Trump said that he wanted a deal with President Putin as soon as possible. We're working on deals right now, transactions right now, and in particular the big one is to get the war stopped, whether it's ceasefire or direct to an agreement. I'd like to go directly to an agreement, but ceasefire will always happen

a little bit quicker. And every day you're saving thousands or at least hundreds, but thousands in some cases lives. So we want to see if we can get that done. Up until President Biden left the White House last month, there was little sign that America or Europe was willing to try to end the war in Ukraine anytime soon. But President Macron said that so much had changed since Mr. Trump took office, that it was time to speak to Mr. Putin. I stopped my discussion with President Putin after Butchers and the war crimes

because I considered that, I mean, we had nothing to get from him at the time. Now this is a chance, there is a big change because there is a new US administration. So this is a chance, there is a big change because there is a new US administration, so this is a new context. So there is a good reason for President Trump to re-engage with President Putin. Listening to both presidents was our reporter in Washington, Bernt Debesman. It was certainly very cordial and very friendly, you know, when it was all smiles as the two

kind of greeted each other outside the Oval Office. And there seemed, at least publicly, there seemed to be very little discord between them. At one point in an Oval Office kind of mini press conference they gave this morning, Macron did jump in and correct what he thought was an incorrect assertion from Donald Trump that Ukraine is paying Europe back for its aid. Macron jumped in and said, no, actually, that's not the case. We're paying for 60% of it. But besides that, it really was very friendly. At the press conference this afternoon, Trump began by describing their long friendship and the long friendship between France and the United States going back to the kind of beginning of the United

States. So it was really quite warm. And what did they agree on substantively and also were there any areas of real difference? Well they did seem to agree, at least in theory, that Europe and NATO countries should pay, kind of contribute a larger share and a larger bulk of the defence aid to Ukraine. Where there wasn't necessarily an agreement was what the security guarantees for Ukraine would be after the war. President Trump kind of was quite quiet on that, whereas Emmanuel Macron said that the United States has to play a very substantive part in guaranteeing Ukraine's sovereignty

going forward. So there seemed to be a little bit of a disconnect there. And furthermore, there was also kind of an agreement that this rare earths mineral deal, which the Trump administration so badly wants and has been kind of the subject of back and forth for over a week now. Emmanuel Macron seemed to think that it's actually a good thing.

I mean, if this is the way that the United States remains involved in the peace process in Ukraine, then this is a deal that should be welcomed. So there's quite a lot of overlap between the two men this afternoon. And did President Zelensky appear to be mentioned? He did. This morning, President Trump said that he believes that President Zelensky could be here at the White House within possibly this week or next week to sign that deal. The Trump administration sees that deal as the first step towards ending the fighting,

which Trump said could happen in his few weeks. But he did say Zelensky would be here very soon. Bernd Debusman. It's Ukraine where the war really matters so what do Ukrainians think about a possible peace deal? Our correspondent in Kiev James Waterhouse has been finding out. Ukraine's war effort is becoming more divisive at home and abroad. Next to Kiev's 120-year-old funicular, this cable car on the snowy hillside, a woman complained about drafting officers bundling a man into a car. This woman has a different view.

Everyone should fight, except the sick, because if everyone had done that from the start and not hidden, we would have had peace for a long time already. For Ukraine it's an impossible balance. You have the not wanting tens of thousands of deaths to be for nothing versus not wanting the losses to continue. Now US President Donald Trump has turned Western support on its head. His labelling of President Zelensky as a dictator, blaming Ukraine for the war, suggesting Russia has all the cards, they all represent a realignment, firmly with Moscow.

And Oksana is baffled. Some people don't understand us, so they listen to Russia position, but many people understand us. I know many, I have many friends from Europe that support Ukrainians. What is all about? Pushing his pram is Misha. Now, he's exempt from military service because of his IT job

but still feels disappointed in Donald Trump. I'm not aware, I'm a civilian but the people who are protecting my life, the life of my kid and it's unfair to them in the first place. We feel bitter but we also need to persevere even if the world doesn't support us as it did a month ago. There is no doubting the yearning for peace in Ukraine but if Donald Trump does not provide security guarantees to prevent Russia from invading again then according to soldiers like Dimko a ceasefire would not mean peace.

I'm a drone pilot in the Unmanned Systems Forces. I fly drones for Ukrainian army. What impact has all of the politics had on you personally as well as your comrades? To me personally it doesn't change a thing. I still am willing to defend my home. I know that if the United States will pull out all of the aid that they give to us, it's going to be just more deadly. But we are still going to stand our ground, still defend our home, still defend our family.

Major cities like Kiev have kept functioning under the weight of Moscow's invasion but its air defences have been kept very busy. We're in Bodyspil, a Kiev suburb. I was last here when I first landed in Ukraine. Here is a crater caused by a Russian drone. They are launched every night, designed to put pressure on the population. The blast shattered Zoya's window. She's taking us up to her apartment where her sick elderly mother stays and her anxiety is palpable. But when I ask her about Donald Trump's vision of a quick peace, she says,

Our country is our country and it must remain ours. Giving up territories is wrong and unnecessary. There has to be an agreement. Where there is agreement, as Europe and Ukraine work out how to stand up against Russia, is that they still need the support of America. James Waterhouse in Kiev. Well in New York the cracks in the Western Alliance which we heard about earlier have also been played out at the United Nations General Assembly. It's adopted resolutions drafted by Ukraine and its European allies which America described

as pursuing a war of words rather than an end to the war. In a further sign of those gaps between the USA and its once close allies in the West, the UN Security Council has adopted an American resolution backed by Russia which calls for an end to the war. Our correspondent Neda Taufik is at UN headquarters. Here at the UN what was supposed to be a symbolic moment to reaffirm Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity as it marks its third anniversary of the Russian invasion instead turned into a dramatic day of diplomatic tension among allies. You know, you had the United States not only siding with Russia, Belarus and North Korea in the General

Assembly, but Washington went a step further to produce its own competing texts in the General Assembly and in the Security Council. And the British and French ambassadors said that was done without any warning or any negotiation. The Trump administration's language didn't blame Russia for the invasion, and it didn't reaffirm Ukraine's territorial integrity. And just a few moments ago, the Security Council passed its first ever resolution on Ukraine that watered down U.S. text, because, remember, in the past, Russia has held a veto. This time around, that resolution passed. Europeans, though, are saying there can be no peace when aggression is rewarded. past Russia has held a veto. This time around that resolution passed. Europeans though are

saying there can be no peace when aggression is rewarded. Nedatavvik in New York. The man poised to become Germany's next Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, says defence, the economy and what he calls the unresolved issue of migration are among the key issues facing a new government. His conservative Christian Democrats came first in yesterday's elections and he promised to hold coalition talks soon with the third placed Social Democrats to have a cabinet in place by Easter. But he's ruled out bringing the far-right

AFD into government even though they finished second and he now faces protracted negotiations. Our Berlin correspondent Jessica Parker sent this report. When it comes to coalition building Friedrich Mertz isn't awash with options. Provisional results suggest the centre-right leader could cobble together a deal with the centre-left to have a narrow majority in Parliament. Mr Mertz today urged centrist parties to get to work, given the far-right Alternative for Deutschland's growing popularity. The fact that the AfD has doubled their vote share,

this is now the last warning sign for Germany's political parties of the democratic middle to find common solutions. Mr Mertz has pledged that he won't go into government with the AFD. Sections of the party are classed as right-wing extremists by domestic intelligence services, but a fifth of voters backed them at this election. The party consolidated its support in the former Communist East and continues to enjoy a marked rise in popularity amongst young people. Its leader, Alice Weidel, believes they can leapfrog Mertz's CDU at the next election.

We were able to build a very good base which is strategic and has the best conditions to overtake the CDU. This means becoming the strongest party and taking on the task of forming a government at the next election. It is one thing that centrist parties and the AFD seem to agree on. The performance of the next German government could prove decisive in the far-rights' popularity in Germany. Is it at a peak or will it continue to grow? Jessica Parker. Still to come in this podcast,

a marathon runner has set a new Guinness World Record for completing the course on crutches. As you approach the start line, you wait for quite a long time for your wave as you just start off. And I was thinking, okay, just take it easy because don't hurt yourself. But once I crossed that line,

the competitive spirit kicked in and I went for it. This podcast is sponsored by WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. If you're sending or spending money abroad, you should use WISE. You'll have up to 40 currencies in the palm of your hand. WISE gives you the real exchange rate, which means you'll spend less on fees, and more of your money gets where you need it to be. Download the WISE app today or visit They say they build a hospital, they never built. They say they build the schools, they never built. It's bad. Stories about money are often stories about life.

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Survivors of a stabbing attack in England have spoken for the first time about what happened last July when three girls were murdered by a teenager. Twenty-six children were taking part in a yoga and dance workshop in the seaside town of Southport when Axel Rudekibana, who was 17, burst in wielding a knife. A teacher and a 13-year-old girl both helped children to safety despite having been stabbed themselves. They've spoken to the BBC's special correspondent Judith Moritz. A warning, parts of her report are distressing. It was the start of the summer holidays in Southport and a special event was organised. A Taylor Swift themed yoga and dance session for children run by two teachers. But a morning of fun turned to trauma.

This is the first time that anybody who was in that room has spoken publicly. A school girl whose identity we've protected and is supported by her parents and the yoga teacher reveal what happened that day. He opened the door and just grabbed a child. He then grabs the next child and the next child. I saw him stab the child in front of me, saw him coming for me. I saw him stab my arm and that's when I turned and he must have got my back. I remember his

eyes the most because he looked possessed. He moved right next to me. I just felt something go in my back. So I don't... My brain just said, he's got me. So he got me and then he got me again. The teachers and their teenage helper knew they had to get everyone to safety. I remember shouting for them to get down and get out. I thought that he wasn't going to stop until he killed everyone. I just thought I needed to get some help. So we all run towards the door and call 999. Having been stabbed five times, Leanne moved more of the girls to safety. The other teacher, Heidi, saved a girl by sheltering with her in a toilet.

I just kept saying, there's children inside, there's children inside. My brain's going 100 miles an hour but my body won't do anything. I just don't know what else I could have done. Three little girls would not survive. Seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stankham and six-year-old Bibi King both died on Hart Street. Nine-year-old Alice Aguirre was taken to hospital but died later that night. People have told us how you try to help the kids, get them out. It's incredible bravery. You just don't feel brave when you're the adult.

The truth is that more children may well have died if you hadn't done what you did. The police said we'd all be dead if me and Heidi hadn't done what we'd done and that gives nothing for the children who did die. That doesn't take that away. The physical wounds from that day are healing, but the psychological impact is impossible to measure. The survivors have chosen to speak as part of the healing process, in tribute to the little girls who didn't make it, to give voice to those affected and to make change. Judith Morris reporting.

In the US, the heads of various government agencies have found themselves issuing conflicting advice in the wake of a demand from Elon Musk that all federal workers outlined by email what they did at work last week. While some agencies, such as the Department of Transport, have told staff to respond, others, including the FBI and the Department of Defence, have told their staff to hold off on replying. Here's our North America correspondent, John Sudworth. Taking on US government bureaucracy has quickly become one of the defining missions of the new Trump administration and Elon Musk the very public face of that effort. Yet as unions and opposition politicians express alarm about the pace and scale of the cuts so far, over the weekend President Trump urged Mr. Musk to get more aggressive and he duly obliged. All federal

employees would be sent an email demanding a five bullet point outline of what they'd achieved last week, he said, with failure to respond taken as notice of their resignation. Some government agency heads, many of whom are fiercely loyal to Mr. Trump, have told their staff not to comply, a potential sign of tensions beginning to open up inside the administration. Mr. Musk, though, shows no sign of letting up.

In a new post on X, he said that federal workers who failed to return to in-person work this week would be placed on administrative leave. John Sudworth It's long been accepted that if you're paralysed from a spinal cord injury, it's incurable. But the results of a medical trial using electronic stimulation therapy has produced some very interesting results. It was a very small study, just ten participants. Over a year, they took part in regular physical rehab sessions, hooked

up to pads which transmitted electrical pulses into the dormant spine. Claire Trevady was paralysed when a group of abnormal blood vessels in her spinal cord burst. She explains the effects the trial has had on her. A couple of months in I started to notice more sort of twinges in my quads and they have just got stronger as the study has gone along which has allowed me to take my first steps using a walking frame without any support on my leg which was, I have to say, when I first had my injury, it was a dream for me to be honest with you. It was something I

hoped I'd always do but to actually do it was quite an emotional experience for me and I feel ever so grateful. Tara Stewart is chair of spinal research which funded the pilot. Tara also took part in the trial after a horse riding accident left her paralysed from the chest down. It's a bit like a hearing aid for the nervous system. What the stimulation does is it basically amplifies the nervous system's ability to send signals and to recover it. It sort of reactivates that dormant tissue, if you like. That then sort of gets everything moving and with the exercise alongside it, helps recover what functions can be recovered.

From a participant point of view, incredibly simple and totally non-invasive. What happens is they put electrodes over your spinal cord on the outside of your skin where they wish to stimulate your cord below wherever you've had your injury. And then they just turn the machine on and program it to deliver the stimulation. And as a participant, you can barely feel it actually, it's not painful at all. And then what you do is you do very specific tasks which are function based to help recover the functions that you want to regain, like the hand grasp or stepping or sit-ups or something like that. Certainly, I didn't recover quite the function that some participants did, but I did see improvements in my breathing function and in my torso function. But what has also been interesting, as happened with me and

some of the participants, is we've also seen the gains continue after the trial. So I am starting to get movement back in my legs and starting to be able to move my legs forward. So that's incredibly heartening as well. And so this is a fantastic start and the first functional restoring treatment for spinal cord injury in history. But we do have lots of other therapies that can pair with it because it will have a different effect on different people because the amount of spare tissue left will vary from person to person. You know for those people that need extra help we're looking at plasticity enhancing drugs, we're looking at intermittent hypoxia as another therapy, all of this sort of thing but the big thing we need is the investment

to get it to the next stage. Tara Stewart, to China now where the government is taking on a unique approach to encourage couples to get married. Rates of marriage are currently the lowest they've been since record-keeping began in 1986 with just over 6 million couples tying the knot in 2024, over a million less than the year before. Celia Hatton's been looking at this for us. The latest way that they're doing this is to discourage extravagant weddings and also high prices paid for bridal dowries, what's called the bride price. That price can reach up to 20 or even 30,000 dollars, which is a huge amount for some poorer families. And so the government thinks that if they cut down on those two things, that maybe the number of people who

engage in marriage will increase. So they're blaming the cost and the extravagance that these things are a deterrent to people getting married. They are. But I think a lot of people who are even thinking about the idea of marriage. It's how much marriage in general costs. So an apartment raising children. Many younger people in China look at rising unemployment rates or really the lack of economic prospects inside China at the moment. And they just don't really feel like they want to make a legal commitment to another person. We know even more women going into secondary education and higher education in China than

men. They look at the idea of marriage and it has a lot of traditional gender roles still attached to it. This expectation that women will do most of the housework or that they might step away from their career once they decide to go through with a marriage. And so some of the bigger reasons why young people aren't getting married aren't really being addressed by the Chinese authorities.

And why do the authorities think more young people should get married? Why do they believe in marriage so much? In short order, they want more babies. So they don't support children being born out of wedlock. The Chinese population is shrinking, it's aging rapidly, and they need more children bluntly because they need people to be able to pay taxes in 30 years to support this rapidly aging population. You know, marriage rates dropped 20% last

year from the year before. Marriage rates are at a 40-year low, and that's really worrying for the Chinese authorities. There is a concern by the ruling Communist Party that young people in general just aren't buying into the traditional ideas of success that so many generations before them have embraced. And I think that goes along with it, these concerns that maybe young people in China simply don't look around and think that they might be more prosperous than their parents. They might be the first generation to really have that concern in a very long time. And so I think the Chinese authorities are worried that maybe their legitimacy might be called into question if they can't deliver, if they can't give an optimistic future for

young people in China today. Celia Hatton. The American jazz and soul singer, Roberta Flack, has died at the age of 88. She won four Grammys during a career that spans some five decades. But in 2022, it was announced that she was suffering from ALS, a form of motor neurone disease that left her unable to sing. Electra Nace Smith looks back at her life.

Roberta Flack, classy, sophisticated, refined. Killing Me Softly was her second number one and gave her her second Grammy, the first artist to win two Grammy awards in a row for Record of the Year. It was the actor Clint Eastwood who'd given her her big break, choosing her cover of a 1950s folk song to feature in his first movie as director. The daughter of a church organist Roberta Flack excelled as a child at classical piano, gaining a music scholarship to Howard University aged just 15. It was that classical precision that led some to dismiss her music as boring, but that was to misunderstand her great talent, versatility. From gritty soul

to smooth ballads and gentle duets, she was the spellbinding soul-stress with the classically trained technique. Electra Naysmith on the life of soul icon Roberta Flack, who's died at the age of 88. A marathon runner has set a new Guinness World Record for completing the course on crutches. Chris Terrell, who was 72 when he ran the Brighton Marathon last April, finished it in 6 hours, 11 minutes and 11 seconds. Our correspondent Ben Schofield has been to meet him in Brighton in southern England. Four months after a hip replacement and against the advice of his surgeon Chris Terrell, crossed the finish line of the Brighton Marathon and became an unlikely world record holder.

He's run more than 50 marathons and says he'd planned to take this one easy, but a shout out from race starter Paula Ratcliffe and a rousing seaside crowd propelled him on. As you approach the start line, you wait for quite a long time for your waves, your wave is due to start off and I was thinking, okay, just take it easy Chris, don't hurt yourself. But once I crossed that line, the competitive spirit kicked in and I went for it. He'd shattered his hip playing cricket, had a replacement joint fitted, but he still wanted to keep his place in the 26.2 mile race and

raise money for the Royal Navy and Royal Marines charity. I didn't know there was such a thing as a record, a world record. And I kept stopping for people, friends, Royal Marines in the crowd or sailors who I knew. They said, Chris, I'm a selfie, so I kept stopping. If I'd known that there was a world record to a break, I'd have said sorry in a hurry. He plans to run the Brighton Marathon again this year, but this time without the crutches. I kept stopping. If I'd known that there was a World Record of Break, I'd have said, sorry, hurry. He plans to run the Brighton Marathon again this year, but this time without the crutches. Ben Scofield reporting.

And that's all 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 or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag globalnewspod. This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll and the producer was Stephanie Tillotson. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Bernadette

Keough. Until next time, goodbye. This podcast is sponsored by WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. If you're sending or spending money abroad, you should use WISE. You'll have up to 40 currencies in the palm of your hand. WISE gives you the real exchange rate, which means you'll spend less on fees, and more of your money gets where you need it to be. Download the WISE app today or visit wise.com. Tees and tees apply.