Global News Podcast - Putin announces three-day Russian ceasefire in Ukraine

Episode Date: April 28, 2025

The Kremlin announces a short ceasefire in Ukraine, coinciding with celebrations marking the end of World War Two in Europe. Kyiv calls for a 30-day end to fighting. Also: Israel's actions in Gaza on trial at The Hague.

This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Andrew Peach and at 13 Hours GMT on Monday 28 April these are our main stories. President Vladimir Putin announces a unilateral ceasefire with Ukraine from 8 to 10 May. Ukraine says it wants a 30 day pause in fighting. A Palestinian official tells the International Court of Justice that Israel is blocking humanitarian aid as a weapon of war. The Palestinian people are being starved, bombed and forcibly displaced by Israel, their unlawful occupier.

Large parts of Spain and Portugal have been left without electricity after a massive power outage. Also in this podcast, 10 people go on trial in Paris accused of stealing millions of dollars of jewellery from Kim Kardashian. It's just over a week since the Russian President Vladimir Putin declared an Easter ceasefire in the war with Ukraine. It was 30 hours long and both Russia and Ukraine accused each other of breaching it. Now the Kremlin has declared a further three-day ceasefire beginning on

the 8th May to coincide with events marking the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany. As we record this podcast, Ukraine has said it wants an immediate ceasefire of at least 30 days, while the White House has said President Trump wants a permanent ceasefire. Our Europe regional editor Danny Eberhard gave me details of the Russian announcement. Vladimir Putin says this is based on humanitarian considerations that will be greeted with a huge sigh of irony from Ukraine. In a Telegram post on social media by the Kremlin they've given some more

detail so Russia believes that the Ukrainian side should follow this example it's saying the ceasefire would begin at midnight on the 7th to 8th of May and carry on till the end of the May the 10th. That coincidentally obviously covers the great victory parade as they call it on the 9th of May in Moscow at which a number of world dignitaries are expected to attend including President Xi of China, Prime Minister Modi of India, President Lula of Brazil and a number of other people. So from Russia's perspective it's a good idea to have some sort of ceasefire in place at that time. But it's a unilateral declaration so we've not heard yet from Ukraine.

Well it's pretty hard for Ukraine to say no, isn't it? On the other hand agreeing to it allows Russia to be calling the shots and Russia potentially to be cosying up to President Trump. Russia potentially to be cosying up to President Trump? Well this is the situation that happened recently with the 30 hour Easter truce that President Putin also declared that again that was a unilateral declaration. It was only ever implemented in a very partial way in terms of airstrikes. There were continued clashes on the front line, both sides accusing each other of aggressions on that level. So it remains to be seen what would happen in the event

of a three-day ceasefire. Obviously, both sides are trying to show President Trump that they're willing to entertain his ideas. Now, the US has been pushing for a 30-day unconditional ceasefire. Ukraine, back in early March, agreed to that idea and Russia did not. Russia now says it's ready for peace talks without preconditions, but peace talks without preconditions are not the same as a preconditions, but peace talks without preconditions are not the same as a ceasefire without preconditions. So I expect Kiev will pick up on that difference. And President Zelensky has obviously very, very skeptical about these Russian moves. His chief of staff also similarly has posted today, all the Russian statements about peace without their ceasing fire are a simple lie so there's obviously a great deal of suspicion on the Ukrainian side.

Your regional editor Danny Aberhard with me. Israel's actions in Gaza are being scrutinised by the International Court of Justice in The Hague in particular whether it's breaking international law by refusing to let aid into Gaza. Since the 2nd of March, Israel has cut off all supplies to the 2.3 million people there and the food that had been stockpiled during a ceasefire at the start of the year has all but run out. Speaking at the start of the five-day hearing, the Palestinian representative, Ammar Hejazi, said Israel was continuing to breach

international law. As I address you today, the Palestinian people are being starved, bombed and forcibly displaced by Israel, their unlawful occupier. Israel has not allowed food, water, medicine and medical supplies or fuel into Gaza for the past two months, a policy supported by the highest court in Israel, which rejected petitions to allow aid into Gaza on several occasions. This man-made catastrophe of unprecedented proportions targets life itself. A man-made catastrophe of unprecedented proportions targets life itself. Death looms large, including by starvation, which has already claimed the lives of 59 Palestinian children.

Israel says unless Hamas releases all its hostages and is disarmed, it will continue the blockade. Last year it also banned UNRWA from operating in Gaza, accusing the UN agency of being infiltrated by Hamas. It hasn't sent anyone to the Hague, instead the Foreign Minister Gideon Sarr held his own news conference in Jerusalem, accusing the UN of using the court as a political tool. We respect international law. What is happening here is a gap between international law and

international law institutions because the General Assembly of the UN can send to the ICJ any matter for so-called advisory opinion and by that politicise the conflict, politicise the issues under a legal disguise. Our Netherlands correspondent Anna Holligan has been following the story. We've heard some really graphic and harrowing testimony indeed. The catalyst for all of this was Israel's ban on cooperation with the UN's agency for Palestinian refugees, as you say, but inevitably it's provided a global platform to address the wider context here. The first Palestinian representative we heard from was the Palestinian's ambassador to international

organizations in the Netherlands, Ammar Hejazee. He began by accusing Israel of conducting a genocidal campaign attempting to raise Palestinians. He said that these crimes mean Palestinians are at risk of irreparable harm. Israel, he said, is turning Gaza into a mass grave for Palestinians and those coming to their aid. And then the first lawyer we heard from representing the Palestinians was Paul Reichler. And he said, as a polling and apocalyptic as the situation was in December, that was a reference to when the UN General Assembly voted to refer the situation to the ICJ. He said, it's worse now. The floodgates

of horror have reopened. Gaza is a killing field. He said the Palestinians' right to territorial integrity, the right of people to self-determination, those rights are being violated by Israel. He also referenced some previous ICJ advisory opinions and accused Israel of deliberately starving civilians. He said, we're all witnessing it, if not complicit in it. This situation is avoidable and reversible. So that's where we are at now. And in fact, the Palestinian submissions

will dominate today. 39 countries in total taking part in these oral hearings, five-day block of hearings. Israel isn't one of them, but Israel has made written submissions, so essentially given a statement in advance in its defense, outlining its position. And that statement won't be read out in court, but it will be available on the ICJ's website a little later on today. And in fact, just as the ICJ hearing was starting, Israel's foreign minister, Gideon Zahr, held a press conference. He mentioned Israel doesn't stand a chance. He said the ICJ process had been completely politicized and that Israel was facing systematic legal persecution while it fights for its existence. So heavily, heavily loaded, at times distressing graphic

testimony in court. This will go on for five days in total, and then it will be several months before the judges at the UN's highest court will give their advisory opinion on the matter. The polls have opened in what's being described as one of the most consequential elections ever in Canada. It's not that often that the outcome of a vote in the world's second biggest country by landmass gets so much attention but Donald Trump's repeated jibes about Canada becoming the 51st state of the US has changed all that. And what a few months ago looked like a shoe-in

for the opposition leader Pierre Poilévre is now a very different contest, as I've been hearing from our North America correspondent, Neda Taufique in Ottawa. Look at how much has changed in the political landscape here. You had just a few months ago the conservative Pierre Poliev really on track to seem to be the next prime minister. His party was leading liberals by 20 points. After a decade of the former prime minister Justin Trudeau in office, he said that he was a changed candidate. He kind of labeled the last decade as the lost liberal decade and told Canadians that he would come in and be able to tackle things

like immigration, the cost of food and housing. But then we saw Donald Trump win the election and with his kind of rhetoric talking about making Canada the 51st state of the United States, starting the tariff war with its northern neighbor. Well, concerns then really switched from some of the more domestic concerns to really big fears about the future of Canada. In fact, the liberal leader, Mark Carney, said Donald Trump posed an existential threat to

Canada. And so what we have seen is that the U.S. president has really rejuvenated the Liberal Party's chances. They are now in polls leading. Mark Carney has really essentially said that he is the one who can best work with Donald Trump and really stand firm against him. Remember, he is a former central banker of the Bank of Canada who dealt with the financial crisis in 2008 in this country and then certainly helped guide the UK during Brexit when he was the governor

of the central bank there. So much to kind of go over when it comes to this election. But why we're really seeing liberals ahead in these days is because Canadians who would normally go for some of the smaller third-party candidates are now feeling fears and gravitating instead toward the Liberal Party. The Liberals have also been boosted by the change of leadership. Justin Trudeau stood down. And they've been Mark Carney, who's a finance guy, really a technocrat rather than a politician, but to at least not look like the same person who's been in charge for years and therefore to blame for things Canadians are finding difficult

right now. Yeah that's right. Remember during the leadership contest for the Liberals you had somebody like Christia Freeland who was with the Trudeau government. She was for many seen as the next liberal leader but it was her connection to Justin Trudeau that really played against her. Instead you had this overwhelming support to make Mark Carney the next leader. He has never held elected office. He's never been a politician. It really is his experience in central banking and with these other crises that many thought kind of made him the man of the moment. You're hearing this phrase a lot now, man of the moment,

because he's not a particularly charismatic politician who's won over hearts and minds here. It really is for people a sense of Pierre Poliev seeming just a little bit too close to Donald Trump. He is in many ways very different from Donald Trump. You know, he is a full-time politician. He's not as brash as Donald Trump in his rhetoric. But as Mark Carney put it, he said somebody who worships at the altar of Donald Trump is going to kneel before him and won't stand up and fight against him. Neda Tafik with me from Ottawa.

The Houthis in Yemen say a US airstrike in Sadr in the north of the country has killed at least 68 people. Houthi-controlled TV said a detention centre housing African migrants was hit. Here's Rachel Wright. The migrant detention centre in Sadar was reportedly holding 115 Africans when it was hit on Sunday night. Despite the humanitarian crisis in Yemen caused by 11 years of conflict, migrants continue to arrive in the country by boat from the Horn of Africa. There's been no response as yet from the US military to reports from a Houthi-backed

TV station about the bombing. But the US administration did say it had launched an attack on the capital, Sana'a, overnight, which killed around eight people, including women and children. In fact, the US says it has hit more than 800 targets since the middle of last month. One of its attacks drew particular attention after it had emerged that an American journalist had been invited to a messaging group in which top officials from the Trump administration, including the vice president, were discussing details of the attacks about to be launched. The US airstrikes are in response to the Houthi rebels' missile and drone attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, which began after Israel invaded Gaza but

have all but ended since March. The Houthis, who are backed by Iran, say the attacks are in solidarity with the Palestinians. The attacks forced even major shipping companies to stop using the Red Sea, through which almost 15% of global seaborne trade usually passes and to take a much longer route around southern Africa instead. A huge power outage has hit swathes of Spain and Portugal. Airports, the railway network, traffic lights, even the Madrid Open tennis tournament have all been affected. This is Elvira, an office worker who is at her desk in central Lisbon when the outage started. Today I was working at the office when it suddenly happened.

Everything went dark and we lost both electricity and internet. So this is a problem of, as I know, all the north of Portugal. We are still without power and it's really disrupted the workday. We don't have access to internet yet so we don't know any information from the media. It's been almost an hour and we are still in the same situation. Our correspondent in Madrid is Guy Hedgeco. I was actually on a train here in Madrid at Chamardin station which is one of the main stations in the city when the outage happened and a member of staff came on the train and told us to get off the

train and evacuate the station. We know that other rail services around the country have been affected. Underground rail has also been heavily affected. You mentioned the traffic lights there, which seem to be affected around the country as well, certainly in bigger cities at least. So obviously that creates a certain amount of chaos. And people here certainly are desperate to find out if they can get back on their trains, if there's going to be any service later today.

There's just a great deal of uncertainty. Now the Spanish power grid operator Red Electrica says it's beginning to recover power in the north and the south, although also said that process could take between six and ten hours. So we'll update you on this in the next Global News Podcast. Still to come in this edition, North Korea breaks its silence on its troops fighting for Russia in Ukraine. It's a month since the earthquake in Myanmar, which killed more than 3,700 people. The country's in the midst of a civil war and its military rulers, who took power in a coup in 2021, have been accused of hampering rescue efforts. A ceasefire was agreed to aid recovery, but

the government has continued to launch attacks attacks killing both rebel fighters and civilians. Our correspondent Quentin Somerville has just come back from Myanmar's rebel-held areas where he saw the ceasefire being repeatedly broken. Here at the Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the celebrating mass, the entire front of the church collapsed during the earthquake, bringing down the bell. They've now erected it on its own tower. Some of the congregants here celebrating Mass are in pews outside the building. Most of the towns and cities here were long abandoned because of the war. It's rural, there are fewer high-rise buildings, so when theake hit casualties were few. In fact the locals thought it was just another

junta airstrike. Father Philip, the local priest, says the greatest threat to his congregation though comes from above not below. The conflict affects everything you know people all have to leave their original homes and find a safe place to be able to continue to leave the shelter somewhere safe. No place is safe sincerely speaking. Only thing is when we have a jet fighter fly down the sky. Myanmar's military dictatorship agreed to ceasefire out of sympathy for the victims of the earthquake and to help humanitarian efforts, it said. It began on April 2nd and is meant to last until the end of the month. Opposition rebel and ethnic groups agreed to abide by it too.

I've just arrived at the town of Peking Coco and here on April 4th at about nine in the morning a barrage of artillery strikes came from the Hunters base which is about three kilometers from the street I'm standing in. Hit this shop here killing 45 year old farmer by the name of Kala. Kala's widow is 31 year old Mala. She's seven months pregnant. When the shells started to land we were all at the front of the house. Then shells landed near us. We hid at the back of the house but he stayed where he was. The artillery shell landed and exploded near him. He died in the place where he thought he was safe. He was a good man and a good husband.

Further down the street, more devastation, I'm standing in front of, I think this was the local mayor's house and it was hit by an airstrike, that was at 2pm on April 4th. That's two days after the truce was supposed to be in effect. The hunters warplanes were still flying overhead here and four men died at this spot. Since the military coup of 2021 a civil war has engulfed most of the country and the situation here in Mobi is fairly typical. You have armed resistance and ethnic groups surrounding a local military base which shells them regularly. Most of the civilians have fled the town which is in ruin. I'm just about to move forward with the KNA and the KNDF resistance forces.

We're moving to positions, the front line where the Hunters forces are based. You can hear explosions in the background. It's still attacking at the moment. There are dead junta forces. We tried to breach these lines last night, but they were unsuccessful. Stefano is a rebel platoon commander. He's been fighting here from the start.

His men, he says, are observing the truce and protecting civilians. The military junta is not. We see it as a joke that they announced a ceasefire. The people believed their announcement and went home. When they returned home, they bombed them, and in one day, four or five people lost their lives. That's why the ceasefire of the military council is only on paper. It's not true He liked the whole world Quentin Somerville with that report North Korea's confirmed for the first time that it sent troops to fight for Russia in the war against Ukraine

After months of silence over the deployment Russia also confirmed the North Koreans presence with President Putin Russia also confirmed the North Koreans presence, with President Putin praising their role in helping regain territory that had been held by Ukrainian forces inside the Kursk region. Our correspondent in Seoul, Jean McKenzie, told me more. After months of silence, we've had all these briefings from Western intelligence officials, you know, from the US and from South Korea and from Ukraine itself that the North Korean forces are involved, but both Russia and North Korea all along have refused to acknowledge this. And yet today's announcement from the North Koreans, it really couldn't be more public. So it is on the front page of the state newspaper, the Rodong Shinmun, so for the whole country

to see. And this is something that we thought for a long time would play very badly in North Korea, that they wouldn't want to tell people at home that these soldiers were involved in Russia. Now the North Koreans, they have been praising though the troops for what they say is liberating Kursk from Ukrainian forces. They say this was a sort of illegally Ukrainian invasion, the forces were heroic, they were brave, and that they annihilated Ukrainian forces. So kind of the very language you would expect from these North Korean propaganda articles. But as you say, this follows statements from Russia over the weekend where they acknowledged

this role for the first time. And then today we have this statement just in from the Kremlin with Vladimir Putin thanking North Korea and praising the troops for their courage. So it is interesting that after refusing to acknowledge this for so long both countries now seem to be suddenly going all in. Kim Jong-un has today said that he's going to build a monument in Pyongyang to remember the success of this battle and that flowers are going to be laid on the tombstones of the soldiers that have fallen. So these are very very public gestures now. Western intelligence such as we've had any has suggested that perhaps that the engagement of North Korean troops

wasn't such a triumphant success and huge numbers of them may have lost their lives. Yeah Western intelligence has put the number of casualties at around about 4,000 and we think the number of North Koreans that were actually sent to Kursk was around 12 to 15,000. So these are huge numbers. And again, that's one of the reasons that we thought the North Koreans wouldn't want to acknowledge this. But Russia is now claiming that it's been successful in Kursk, that it's managed to push the Ukrainians back. Ukraine is challenging that.

But perhaps now we think this is an opportunity for Pyongyang to present this as some sort of victory, to use this as positive propaganda. But it's most likely that this admission has been led by Moscow. They were the ones that first came out and said this over the weekend. And so people are questioning, well, why now, as you said? Some thought is that perhaps the Russians want to make this public because they can now start to use the threat of North Korean troops as leverage when they try to negotiate peace settlement. Another thought here in South Korea though is that perhaps Moscow and Pyongyang want to negotiate the return of these North Korean prisoner of war. So Ukraine's managed to capture two North Korean soldiers.

North Korea is desperate no doubt to stop them coming here to Seoul and they can't try to negotiate their release or their return without acknowledging that this partnership has occurred. G Mackenzie with me from Seoul. A new investigation by BBC Africa Eye has exposed the members of the Kenyan security forces who shot protesters at the country's parliament last year. Demonstrations against a proposed finance bill spiralled out of control when thousands of young Kenyans flocked to parliament to stop the bill at its final reading.

Renato Serina reports. And a warning some listeners might find this story distressing. On June 25, 2024, Nairobi became the scene of a deadly standoff. Around 100,000 people hit the streets of Kenya's capital protesting a government-proposed bill to raise taxes in an effort to address the country's growing national debt. At the same time, MPs were about to vote on that bill, which would have hiked the prices of some everyday items. Taxing basic commodities so people couldn't afford them anymore. that bill, which would have hiked the prices of some everyday items. TAKSING BASIC COMMONITIES SO PEOPLE COULDN'T AFFORD THEM ANYMORE.

Activist Hanifa Adan was among the protesters. It's already really hard for everyone as it is, and the taxes are going to make life much harder for all of us. As the bill was discussed in the chamber, protesters clashed with the police forces sent out to contain them. Now the numbers start getting bigger and people actually start getting arrested. Edemba Allens is a journalism student in Nairobi. He was also at the demonstrations. People are even climbing on top of those water cannons. People are being arrested.

Now numbers are increasing. People had one sole goal. To enter the parliament. As the protesters drew closer to parliament, the finance bill was voted in. Eyes 195, nose 106, the eyes have it. The demonstrators hear the news and push all the way to the parliament. It is happening guys, it is happening! Some break down the fences and set foot on the grounds.

They don't make it inside. As security forces push them back, gunfire erupts. There was a guy next to me in white overalls. I don't know where he was shot, but he was shot. You could see blood. Two men were shot dead in this gunfire, but it didn't dissuade the demonstrators. Half an hour later, they made it into the parliamentary building. buildings. As they left, gunfire triggered a stampede and a third 27-year-old finance student, Eric Schienne, was hit.

BBC Africa I analysed more than 5,000 photos and videos from that day to find the shooters of these men. Our evidence reveals a masked officer shot dead 25-year-old Erickson Maticia and 39-year-old David Chege. It also shows a Kenya army soldier fired into the stampeding crowd as it exited parliament, hitting Erick Shiani as he fled. Lawyer Faith Odiambu saw some of the footage. The fact that you shoot his head,

it was clearly an intention to kill. You have become the judge, the jury, and the sentence executioner for Eric. Eric deserved a fair hearing. He did not deserve the death penalty. You're shooting us! Why are you shooting us? An estimated 30 people died during protests, some violent, happening throughout Kenya on

June 25, 2024. Most of them were shot using live bullets, according to the Human Rights Commission of Kenya. We put our allegations to the police and Kenya's defence forces, the KDF. The police told us, the National Police Service cannot investigate itself. It can only offer support as demanded by the Independent Policing Oversight Authority, IPOA, which is responsible for investigating alleged police misconduct. The Kenya Defence Forces, KDF, said,

The IPOA has not forwarded any request to look into any KDF personnel involved in the operations. The KDF remains fully committed to upholding the rule of law and continues to operate strictly within its constitutional mandate. If you'd like to watch the full documentary from BBC Africa I, Blood Parliament, you'll find it on the BBC News Africa YouTube page. Now to Paris, where a high-profile trial has begun of a group of men called the grandpa bandits who were accused of stealing millions of dollars worth of jewelry from the US celebrity Kim Kardashian. This happened back in October

2016 when she was the victim of a hold-up at her luxury hotel in the French capital. Our correspondent Hugh Schofield's been telling me more. Some people will remember this incident nine years ago, yes, nine years ago, when Kim Kardashian, not perhaps quite as famous as she is today, but still pretty famous with millions and millions of followers on her various outlets, was held up at gunpoint in her very discreet, very private, very expensive hotel room just off the Place de la Madeleine in central Paris. And as she recounted the story later, it happened when two men burst into her room with masks and police tunics on, and one of them said, the

ring, the ring, the ring. And what he's referring to was the engagement ring, which she'd flaunted on her own channels, on media and so on, this $4 dollar engagement ring given her by the rapper Kanye West before they married. The robbers wanted that and they took that and other jewels leaving her trussed up and gagged in the bath and made off. But it all started going wrong very quickly. They dropped some of their booty, they left a number of clues and they were picked up and arrested or at least these people on trial now were picked up and arrested a few months later. Whenever you hear details of this story you're always thinking how could anyone possibly

have thought this would work? Tell us what's been said in court. Nothing has been said yet and probably nothing will be said today because it's a long trial, four weeks of hearings and Kim Kardashian herself will appear and no doubt will attract much more razzmatazz than there is this morning on May the 13th. What shield the court is the story I've just told you, but I mean a lot of focus is also on this other aspect of the fact that they were all allegedly hardened criminals with backgrounds in holdups and robbery who all decided to come back for this one last job, all in their 60s

at the time, now in their 70s. So some quite old men on trial here. And one of the talking points is this fact which doesn't seem to be contested, which they really had no idea who Kim Kardashian was. All they'd heard was what she'd been saying on social media and what they'd heard from sort of channels of kind of Paris back chat that that there was the wife of a famous rapper in town who had this famous jewel and then through some leak some informer maybe the brother of the chauffeur of Kim Kardashian though he can test this he's on trial they they found out where she was and did what they did but it all went horribly wrong and they the the money they got was not very much but the jewels have never been discovered or found and

have probably been all dismantled in Antwerp and have disappeared around the world. Hugh Scofield with me from Paris. And that's all from us for now. There'll be a new edition of the Global News Podcast to download later. If you'd like to comment on this edition, do drop us an email, globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk or on social media on X you'll find us at BBC World Service and use the hashtag globalnewspod. This edition was mixed by Nicky Brough, the producer was Isabella Jewell, the editor is Karen Martin. I'm Andrew Peech, thank you for listening, until next time, goodbye.