Global News Podcast - Russia and US hold high-level talks over Ukraine war

Episode Date: February 18, 2025

Senior Moscow and Washington diplomats hold their first meeting since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Also: Pope Francis cancels engagements due to hospital stay, and the new Scottish tartan - with a dark past.

This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Valerie Sanderson and at 1400 Hours GMT on Tuesday 18 February these are our main stories. The Russians and Americans meet to discuss ending the war in Ukraine, so what's emerged from the talks in Riyadh? The Pope cancels his weekend engagements and will remain in hospital for some days yet. Israel pulls out troops from southern Lebanon as part of the truce previously agreed but not all of them are going. Also in this podcast... As we made our descent and made touchdown it was just a very forceful event where

all of a sudden everything just kind of went sideways and then the next thing I know is kind of a blink and I'm upside down still strapped in. An extraordinary escape for dozens of passengers after an airplane crashes at Toronto International Airport in Canada. Discussions on Ukraine between the US and Russia have finished in Riyadh after four and a half hours. President Vladimir Putin's foreign policy adviser, Yuri Shakov, said that the talks on ending the war in Ukraine were successful and that the two sides discussed arranging a meeting between the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, and the US President Donald Trump. Speaking after the end of the session,

the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio described it as the first step on a long and difficult journey. He said the goal was a fair, enduring and sustainable end to the war. The goal of today's meeting was to follow up on the phone call the President had a week ago and begin to establish those lines of communication. The work remains. Today is the first step of a long and difficult journey, but an important one. And President Trump is committed to bringing an end to this conflict, as he said when he campaigned for President and he wants it to be end in a way that's fair, he wants it to end in a way that's sustainable and enduring not that leads to another conflict in two to three years. That's not going to be easy to achieve

but he's the only one in the world that can begin that process. Donald Trump is the only leader in the world that could initiate that process and today was the first step in that process. These were the first direct talks between the Kremlin and Washington since Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago. I was joined by Europe regional editor Danny Eberhardt. We had talks led by the Secretary of State from the US Marco Rubio and Sergei Lavrov, who's the Russian Foreign Minister, as well as a couple of senior delegates on either side. So what happened, four hours plus of talks, the people coming out, so a couple of the Russian delegates have said that the talks went well.

One of them, Yuri Osakoff, he said that it was hard to say whether the two sides were getting closer, but they discussed principal positions and that they would nominate separate teams in due course for negotiating a peace in Ukraine. Kirill Demetriyev, who's one of the other Russians, he said it was held in a calm and respectful atmosphere and that there was a new logic. Basically, he said that the sides had rejected the logic of President Biden he was referring to a confrontation and there have been similar reports from the State Department that there were basically will be a move to appoint representatives to discuss peace at a later stage and there's not a clear

plan as to when President Trump might meet President Putin one of the Russians indicated that it would be unlikely to happen next week, but it's clear things are moving very fast. So how are these talks being viewed in Russia? Here's our Moscow correspondent Steve Rosenberg. Three years ago, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the position of the Biden administration was no negotiations, that we need to isolate Russia, we mustn't reward Russia for invading a sovereign nation state. And fast forward to today, and you have this incredible image from a palace in Riyadh

of these two delegations, senior Russian and US officials, the first high level in-person contacts between the two countries since 2021. Isolation, what isolation? And I think the geopolitical optics of the images coming out of Riyadh today will be, to put it lightly, very satisfying, I think, for Moscow. If you listen to what the Trump administration

has been saying in recent days, whether it's Donald Trump or whether it's the Secretary of Defense or whether it's the Secretary of State, all of that, I think, will have been music to Moscow's ears. You know, U.S. officials saying that basically ruling out Ukraine being able to join NATO, or ruling out a return to the pre-2014 Ukraine borders, or ruling out a place for Europe at future peace talks on Ukraine and of course last week you had the Munich Security Conference and you had JD Vance's stinging criticism of European leaders that went down incredibly well in Moscow all these signs of division and disunity in the Western Alliance you put all of that together and I think that is fueling Russia's confidence at the moment. Confidence that Russia can

get a deal to end the war in Ukraine on Russia's terms. While the US and Russia discussed the future of Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky hadn't been invited to Riyadh, nor were the Europeans. Danny Eberhard told me more. Now the big problem about this whole issue is that European powers who are very much taking a role in helping Ukraine defend itself from Russian aggression, they are not at these talks and neither, crucially, is Ukraine itself. So President Zelensky is currently in Turkey and will be coming to Saudi Arabia tomorrow Wednesday but will be in a very, very awkward situation.

So that is the elephant in the room. You've got two powers, Russia and US, holding direct talks, but there's a lot of unhappiness amongst US allies about how this whole process has been conducted. It's also not clear to them how talks about both sides having to make concessions but from a European and a Ukrainian perspective what they've seen so far is that they are expected to make lots of concessions and the US seems to be accepting a lot of Russian conditions even before the talks started on issues such as territorial concessions and on Ukraine, whether it cannot

join NATO. Meanwhile, the conflict continues. Our international editor Jeremy Bowen met soldiers who are fighting against Russia on the Ukrainian front lines. We've come to a village outside Sumi in a small wooden house But a cat we are just going into a place where they're fixing drones and in the room there are Number of large Ukrainian soldiers. Hello. Good morning Drones never seen so many drones in my life They're really deadly. I'll tell you that.

Even the small ones can carry around one kilogram of munitions with the bigger ones that you can see over there, can carry like three kilos. The diplomatic eruption in relations between the United States, Ukraine and the rest of Europe that's been happening in the last few days hasn't reached this place. I can't say exactly where we are. We've agreed not to give it away, but suffice to say we're close to the Russian border.

And the soldiers here are getting on with what they've been doing now for three years, which is trying to win the war against the Russians. One of the soldiers preparing the drones for action was Andrew. Andrew was a drone pilot until the Russians discovered his position. He survived the attack, but one of his legs was amputated. When you hear Zelensky saying, I will not accept any deal that doesn't include Ukrainians being part of the negotiation. Would you agree with that? I didn't really have

much time to think about it. It's like 24-7 job and you know we are more it's more important for us like what's happening right now on the front line. We drove back towards Sumy through the snow and bitter cold. Ukrainians used to grumble about the way that Joe Biden, when he was president, always needed a lot of persuasion to increase the firepower he was prepared to offer them. But they always knew that he was on their side. Donald Trump is a different matter. They're still reeling at the speed with which he brought President Putin back from international isolation.

I've come here to try and talk to some of the people around here about whether they think Putin and Trump can do a deal, and frankly, they're skeptical. I'm just going to talk to Boris. He was a colonel in the Soviet army for 30 years. His son and his grandson are fighting in the Ukrainian army at the moment. We need to think about peace, but we shouldn't surrender. I don't see any point.

We will resist until we have enough strength. Europe seems like they are ready to help us. There is actually a hope that Europe will support us. President Putin does not want Ukraine to be a viable sovereign independent country. He's made this very clear. So let's assume he doesn't drop that. You cannot see the Ukrainians, whether it's President Zelensky or anybody else, agreeing to that, whether or not they're in the negotiations. And it just shows that whatever President Trump might think,

making peace here will not be quick and it won't be easy. That report from Jeremy Bowen. Pope Francis remains in a stable condition in hospital where he's being treated for a respiratory infection. The Pope, who's 88, was admitted four days ago with bronchitis and the Vatican has now cancelled the pontiff's weekend events. From Rome, here's Bethany Bell. The last update we received was last night. We were told that the Pope was in a stable condition. He didn't have a fever.

But earlier yesterday, doctors treating him said that they'd had to change their treatment because they said tests had showed that the Pope had what they called a polymicrobial respiratory tract infection. And they said it wasn't clear as to how long he would need to stay in hospital. We were told by a Vatican spokesman that the pope was in good spirits and had been reading the newspapers and was also very grateful for all the messages of goodwill

for his recovery that he'd been receiving, particularly, the Vatican statement said, from those people who were themselves in hospital. Now to that remarkable story that unfolded in Toronto after a passenger plane flipped over and landed upside down with 80 passengers and crew on board, injuring 18 people. The routine flight from Minneapolis in the United States to Toronto Pearson Airport landed in snowy conditions. An investigation is underway. Stephanie Prentiss has compiled this report. The plane just crashed. 23. Yeah, we've got a aircraft. There's upside down and burning.

A Delta Airlines plane completely upside down and lying on the runway outside Toronto's International Airport terminal. Inside... Oh, it's just a plane crash. Oh my God. Social media videos show passengers hanging upside down in their seats, in their words, like bats. Others show people climbing along the plane's ceiling and cabin crew lifting them out of an upside down door. With everything, drop it. Come on.

Peter Carlson was on board. As we made our descent and made touchdown, it was just a very forceful event where all of a sudden everything just kind of went sideways. And then the next thing I know is kind of a blink and I'm upside down, still strapped in. One minute you're landing, kind of waiting to see your friends and your people and the next minute you're physically upside down and just really turned around but it sounded I mean it was just cement and metal. One eyewitness described a fireball along the left side of the plane. Ontario's Air Ambulance says it airlifted a child to hospital with critical

injuries with two adults also thought to be seriously hurt. Aviation expert Dan Ronan says it's surprising more people weren't injured. The survivability of this crash is really the remarkable thing. This plane struck the runway and then it flipped over. It looks as though the right wing may have struck either the concrete of the runway or another runway light or something. The tail section and the wings took the brunt of the impact and then the fuselage stayed intact. With the fuselage intact, ground crew can be seen spraying the plane with foam on the snowy runway as the first shocked passengers stumble away from the craft and turn around

to look at it. Oh my f**king god! There were also reports of a second fireball, which firefighters on the ground contained. For those still inside, survival became a team effort. Everyone on that plane suddenly became very close in terms of how to help one another, how to console one another, how to console one another. And yeah, there was definite what now? Who's leading? How do we find ourselves away from this? While the snowy and windy weather was initially blamed for the bad landing, officials have

now said the runway was dry at the time of the incident and there were no crosswinds. Two runways at Pearson were closed off and a full investigation is underway. For Pete Carlson, he says he's shaken but there was one positive thing about the accident. The most powerful part of today was there was just people. No countries, no nothing. It was just people together helping each other. And that report from Stephanie Prentice. Still to come, the black represents the dark times, the grey the colour of the ashes. Red

and pink colours are symbolic of the legal tapes used to bind papers to symbolise the fact that these were legal trials. There's a new tartan in Scotland, but it's been designed to mark a very dark past. Israel has withdrawn troops from villages in southern Lebanon, but some soldiers seem to be staying on Lebanese territory, and that's been criticised as a violation of the terms of the truce that's been agreed. I spoke to our Middle East regional editor, Sebastian Usher, who's been agreed. I spoke to our Middle East regional editor, Sebastian Usher, who's in Jerusalem. Well, there was originally a 60-day deadline for all Israeli troops to pull out of southern

Lebanon. That was extended until today. And what we have seen, what we've heard, is that the majority of Israeli troops have withdrawn from the villages that are close to the Israeli border. Now, many of those villages are seriously devastated. There have been hundreds, if not thousands of Lebanese who used to live there who've been desperate to get back home even though they know that their houses might not be in any shape for them to live in anymore and some of those residents have been able to go back today. Now the Lebanese army is meant to take over the Israeli positions and to ensure that they're safe for all those Lebanese residents to return. And as you were saying, Israel has not completed its withdrawal. It's

leaving some soldiers on strategic outposts, five of them on hilltops overlooking the area as a form of security. The Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sarr was saying that it's temporary and that it's partly to do with the fact that what he is saying is that Hezbollah militants have not pulled out as they should have done under the agreement 30 kilometres from the border beyond the Lethany River and once that's done and Israel is assured of its security on that border then these troops will be pulled out. But how is it working on the ground? Hugo Bachega is in southern Lebanon.

So I'm just outside the village of Kifar Kila which sits right next to the border with Israel and all morning there has been this huge queue of cars waiting to return to this community. What is happening here is that they're waiting for the green light by the Lebanese military. The authorities are telling residents to not return to these communities before Lebanese soldiers inspect those villages. I think the main risk here is from an exploded ordinance. So they're waiting here to be able to return to this village. But again, this is a significant day here because this is the end of this deadline for the Israeli withdrawal. We had a statement this morning saying that

Lebanon will consider any remaining Israeli presence in this country as an occupation of Lebanese territory. So we're here inside the Lebanon as residents are still trying to return to these villages, many of them carrying the yellow Hezbollah flag, which shows, you know, how present, you know, the strong presence that Hezbollah has in this part of the country. And we've seen a lot of destruction in many of these villages and obviously, you know, the work and the plan to how to rebuild these villages is just getting started and rebuilding these villages also the cost from economic damages is estimated to be around 10 billion dollars.

Hugo Bachega. Health clinics in Nigeria are among those facing uncertainty following President Trump's suspension of US aid spending. Three weeks into the new administration, it's still not known what the full impact of America's withdrawal from the World Health Organization and freeze on aid funding will be. But among those affected are millions living with HIV and AIDS, many in sub-Saharan Africa. West Africa correspondent Nkechi Ogbonna spoke to an HIV patient in Nigeria and now reports from the commercial capital Lagos. It already seems to be affecting HIV-positive Nigerians like Anike, whose name we have changed

because she fears the stigma of her condition. She is said to lose access to the drugs she takes daily. I'm not feeling comfortable because I'm feeling as if I'm dying already. I worry about it too because ARV drugs are for life. The mother of five has been living with HIV for 19 years. Kept alive, she says, by antiretroviral drugs which prevent HIV developing into AIDS. But now, her drug supply has stopped, and she's worried. I always fall sick, rashes in my body, tooling every time, and tiredness. But when I started taking the medication, I feel all right.

Nobody knows I am HIV positive or not. Nigeria and other countries in sub-Saharan Africa have relied on a flow of drugs funded by PEPFAR. That's the U.S. president's emergency program for AIDS relief. In Nigeria alone, America has spent almost $8 billion. For Anike and many others, that funding flow has stopped for now. I must confess to you that there is a telephone line I have, I have to switch it off because of the bombardment for requests for medication. Number two, I am telling you by the end of March,

all the general hospitals, all the government hospitals, including private hospitals in Nigeria, should be ready for bombardment of sick people, bombardment of people who want treatment. That's Rex Adjani-Fuja, Director at Hope for HIV Aids International, a non-government organization and beneficiary of US aid operations in Nigeria. He believes the $3 dollars the Nigeria government approved in the aftermath of US aid for the immediate treatment of people living with HIV is insufficient.

That is pay not. When you compare figures, you compare the data. ARV drug alone costs between 15,000 and 30,000. So you are giving me only 10% of that amount of ARBA alone. What about other opportunistic infections? It's in places like this, Africa's most populous country, where the impact of decisions taking in Washington are likely to be most sharply felt. His move has reignited a debate about aid and renewed calls for African countries to ditch their dependence on foreign aid. But in the meantime, the uncertainty and the fear caused by President Trump's new policies are real. Beneficiaries of US aid like Anike have a message for him.

HIV drug is for life. And that report from Nkechi Ogbona. Scotland's tartans are associated with various families or clans and regions of the country. Now a new tartan has been created not for a clan but for a coven, or rather the hundreds of women who were tried and executed in Scotland for witchcraft. It's been designed by the Witches of Scotland campaign and has been officially added to the Scottish Register of Tartansans as Ella Bicknell reports. When you think of Scotland and witches, often this comes to mind.

When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning or in rain. Vile is foul and foul is fair. Horror through the fog and filthy air. Shakespeare's Macbeth might have been a work of fiction, but its witches have deep roots in a dark period of Scotland's history. In the 1560s, the Protestant Church passed the Scottish Witchcraft Act, making it a crime to practise sorcery. Over a century and a half of witch hunts, thousands of people were persecuted, hundreds executed and the vast majority women.

Some victims were erased from the records altogether, but that hasn't stopped a legion of modern-day supporters from seeking justice. We were trying to think a wee bit outside the box and it was then that I thought, how brilliant would it be if we could record the history of Scottish women and men who died as a result of the Witchcraft Act in Tartan. Claire Mitchell-Casey co-founded the Witches of Scotland campaign back in 2020. For this project she enlisted an Inverness-based kilt designer to bring her vision to life, every thread of the tartan carrying a deeper meaning.

The black represents the dark times, the grey the colour of the ashes, red and pink colours are symbolic of the legal tapes used to bind papers to symbolise the fact that these were actual legal trials and they were part of the state and church. The tartan also includes three stripes representing the aims of the organisation, an apology, a universal pardon and a national lasting memorial. The first was achieved in 2022, when former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon declared the witch trials an egregious historic injustice during International Women's Day commemorations. The other two goals have yet to materialise.

In the meantime, interest in the tartan is growing, especially in the United States where witchcraft trials hold their own dark legacy. Zoe Venditotsi is also part of the project. People are wanting to make wedding dresses, obviously kilts, different little accessories and things that have got it. Proceeds on the sale will go to charity, but Zoe hopes it will also spark conversations about women's rights. It's become a bit of a cliché, but if you don't understand your past, your future's kind of doomed to not be as good as it could be. And unfortunately we're seeing a lot of

really scary things around the world. We are seeing women's rights being rolled back and it echoes what happened during the witch trials. So we feel if people understand how scapegoating people can end up in real horror, we've got a better chance of that not being repeated. Double, double toil and trouble. Fire burn and cauldron bubble. The campaign may not have the supernatural power of Shakespeare's menacing fates, but there is hope that this kilt crusade can help rewrite the fates of Scotland's witches. By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.

Ella Bickville. And that's it from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, send us an email. The address is globalpodcast.bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on x at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag at globalnewspod. This edition was mixed by Vladimir Mizechka. The producer was David Lewis. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Valerie Sanderson. Until next time, bye bye.