Global News Podcast - Ukraine marks third anniversary of Russia's invasion

Episode Date: February 24, 2025

European leaders reaffirm support for Kyiv on third anniversary of Ukraine war. Also: record breaking snow in Japan and tackling minds - the health benefits of fishing.

You're listening to the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. This edition is published at 14h GMT on Monday 24th February. European leaders promise continued support for Ukraine on the third anniversary of Russia's invasion. The man who will be Germany's next Chancellor, Friedrich Mertz, says the rapid gains by the far right are a final warning for mainstream parties. And China says the former head of its biggest aircraft manufacturer has been expelled from the Communist Party for taking bribes.

Also in the podcast, record-breaking snowfall in Japan and... We get to open people's minds to new ideas help them laugh when things are tough like now we report from the screen actors guild awards in Los Angeles three years ago today Ukraine was hit by a devastating assault as Vladimir Putin sent his forces over the border with orders to take Kiev. Russian jets and attack helicopters strafed Ukrainian positions as Russia started what's become the biggest conflict in Europe since the Second World War. The anniversary of the full-scale invasion comes after the US President Donald Trump dramatically changed American policy, going so far as to blame Ukraine for starting the war. He reportedly wants to secure a peace deal by

Easter and has reached out to Vladimir Putin. Ukraine's allies from Europe and Canada have been marking the anniversary by visiting Kiev, where they met President Zelenskyy. Today we all know that this is an absolutely unprovoked and criminal war by Russia against Ukraine, an aggressive war. Just as it was then, today it is important not to hide this knowledge and to call things by their proper names. Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the world couldn't return to an era of might makes right, while European leaders insisted that Ukraine and Europe must be involved in any peace talks. I spoke to our correspondent in Kiev, James Waterhouse, and asked him about the morale in Ukraine three years on.

President Zelensky gave his anniversary press conference and in years gone by it's had a defiant tone. It's been emotional at times, but at the moment he appears very pragmatic, almost business-like at the fact that America has completely upended its foreign policy. It has smashed the international norms to pieces and seemingly aligned with Russia. That is what Ukraine is dealing with politically. It is trying to look inward,

and most of all it's trying to look at European allies, which is why we're seeing the flurry of diplomatic activity today, on how it is now going to step up where America is increasingly less keen to. We've spoken to soldiers and it's impossible for the political goings on to not affect morale when you're on a front line and you are seeing America almost turn its back and you are seeing these baseless claims that President Zelensky is a dictator, that Ukraine is to blame for this war.

I mean, this is more than a sea change. I mean, this is this is something that will define Ukraine and Europe's future going forward. Now, at the moment, this is all to do with a proposal by America to get access to Ukraine's natural minerals. America wants access to $500 billion in exchange for the military aid it's given to date and what it would in the future. And at the moment, Ukraine is resisting signing such a deal. So that's what's drawing a lot of criticism towards Kiev. And you really feel that Ukraine would say no if America tried to impose a ceasefire that it didn't see as acceptable.

And if that did happen, then it poses a lot of questions on the continent. You mentioned politics. Will anything concrete come out of that visit today by European and Canadian leaders to Kiev? I suspect nothing seismic in the grand scheme of things. We may well have a statement of intent. There are two notable absentees, Sakhir Starma, the UK Prime Minister, and Emmanuel Macron of France. They are both scheduled to visit Donald Trump separately this week in the White House, where they're looking to bridge the gap, this widening gap, communicate European concerns, but also

to lay out their own vision to Donald Trump in the hope that he might come back to the table with defensive support. There is talk from the UK, certainly, of providing what's called a reassurance force, a small grouping of a few thousand soldiers to police a ceasefire once it is eventually signed in Ukraine. So the UK is trying to kind of break cover and lead the way on that, but where there is consensus is that they still need the safety net of America if fighting was to break out again.

And at the moment, there are the likes of Poland pressuring Ukraine to calmly engage with Donald Trump. But what we're hearing here is that their relationship between Washington and Kiev is far from ideal and certainly not a working one. Now it's said that Vladimir Putin thought this would be all over in three days. Three years on, you've been there the whole time. What are your thoughts? It's taken many twists and turns this war.

I mean, I think this was a city that undoubtedly contemplated Russian tanks and boots being in the city center where I am in Kiev within days as was widely expected. And those twists have included Russia not planning for it to go beyond a few days, suffering logistical problems, encountering a Ukrainian level of defense that few predicted. There was Ukrainian liberation that came from nowhere, so the retaking of swathes of territory in the Northeast. Standing in the southern city of Hursan, when President Zelensky said it would be the first of many places

to be liberated, that did not transpire. The failed counteroffensive by Ukraine. This war of attrition which takes us to now and a seismic changing in geopolitics. It's a seemingly never-ending war but of course it will end one day but for Ukraine it's all about the terms. James Waterhouse in Kiev. So how do Russians view the invasion or the special military operation as President Putin calls it. Yuri is a Russian veteran who served in Ukraine as a radio operator.

Everything there is actually more serious, more scary, more horrible. You don't see everything on TV. Every Russian fighter hopes that it will all be over as soon as possible, to go home to their wives, to their mothers, to their children. Basically, to survive, but to survive and win. I asked our Russia editor Steve Rosenberg for the view from Moscow. I sense a fatigue here with the war, what is still referred to as the special military operation. Now, of course, the consequences of Russia's invasion have been devastating, first and foremost for Ukraine, in terms of the scale of death and destruction.

But there have been serious consequences for Russia too, in terms of the number of casualties on the battlefield, the attacks, drone attacks on Russian towns and cities, and the pressure on the economy. Now Russian officials often repeat that the country has survived three years of economic sanctions. But there is a lot of pressure on the economy and Russians feel that day to day. I mean interest rates at 21%, prices are rising fast in the shops, price of potatoes went up 90% last year, the Russian

papers today reporting that the price of bread will probably go up by 10 to 12% from the 1st of March. So I think there is a fatigue here, people hoping that this war, and people do refer to it as a war on the street, people hope that the war will be over at some point soon and that life can return to some kind of normalcy, normality, but that may be wishful thinking. Yeah, you say, of course, that Russia has survived for three years. All that time we heard that the economy was creaking, the country was close to, well,

not collapse, but suffering serious problems. And yet it still goes on. So can you see any end to the fighting? Well Vladimir Putin claims that he wants peace. I mean he's claimed that for some time. And what does that mean in reality? Russian officials point to President Putin's so-called peace proposal that he presented in June last year, which doesn't really read as a peace proposal. It looks more like a demand for the capitulation of Ukraine. And that hasn't changed.

So Russia's position remains that it wants to keep the territory it has seized in Ukraine, and it wants a little bit more as well. It wants Western sanctions to be scrapped, and it wants a promise that Ukraine is not going to join NATO. And if it gets all those things, and I think it's confident that Donald Trump will somehow give Russia those things, then President Putin will present that to the Russian people as a victory. But in terms of a timeline, there's some suggestion that Donald Trump wants something done by Easter. What's the view where you are?

Well, you know, Russian Russian officials when asked about timelines Don't give many details. They say that first of all Washington has to Analyze and understand what Moscow calls the root causes of the Ukraine crisis Basically, Moscow does not believe it is responsible for any of this Even though it was Russia that launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago. That was President Putin's decision. But the Moscow's official position is this is not our fault.

This was the West fighting a war against Russia on the territory of Ukraine. This was the West trying to turn Ukraine into a bridgehead for NATO to attack Russia. This is how three years of war is presented here in Russia. This is the Russian narrative that you hear in the state media here. And so the Kremlin's position is the United States, the West, have to think about and accept Russia's narrative on this war. Steve Rosenberg in Moscow. Next to Germany and Friedrich M Merz of the Christian Democrats may have won the election yesterday but he faces big challenges ahead. A troubled economy, continued war in Ukraine and rising anger about immigration. His first task is to agree a coalition and he's already reaching out to the third placed social democrats who were booted out of government.

The far-right AFD finished second, doubling its share of the vote to a record 20 percent. The party received high-profile backing from inside the Trump administration, prompting a rebuke from Mr Maitz. Nick Robinson in Berlin sent us this report. That was the sound which greeted Friedrich Merz, the man who is set to be Germany's next leader as he entered a hall full of excited Christian Democrat supporters here in Berlin last night. Merz hopes to form a coalition with the party that got hammered in this election, the Social Democrat, but reaching agreement could take weeks.

He had some better news this morning because as the votes were counted it became clear that lots of smaller parties had not made it into the Parliament and he might be able to have a strong two-party coalition. Now in the meantime Mertz has got the United States and Donald Trump in his sights. He condemned the American interference in this campaign. You may recall that Elon Musk campaigned for the AFD, declaring it to be just as drastic, dramatic and shameful as that coming from Moscow. I am communicating closely with a lot of prime ministers and heads of EU states. And for me it is an absolute priority to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that we achieve independence from

the US step by step. I never thought that I would ever need to say something like that on television, but after the latest statements made by Donald Trump last week, it is clear that the Americans, and in any case these Americans, this administration, mostly don't care about the fate of Europe one way or another. Now, voters are more interested in the two topics which dominated this campaign, cutting immigration and reviving an economy in recession, as I heard in a noisy bar in Berlin as the results came in. I'm so happy. The problem is the economy.

We have no growth. It's unbelievable. And it's not what Germany is all about. One thing many voters hoped Germany was not about was a return, a revival of the far right. But the party, the establishment, tried to marginalise, and which Elon Musk tried so hard to boost, the AfD, Alternative for Deutschland, came second with its best ever performance nationally.

Outside its traditional East German strongholds, the party also performed strongly with young men and in parts of West Germany too. They think they've earned a share of power. But the CDU, the Christian Democratic Union, say they'll never cooperate with the AfD. Last night, the party's co-leader Alice Weidel said that this was to ignore the will of voters and it would backfire.

The election result is very clear. German citizens want political change. They want a blue-black coalition. This has been ruled out here, and we have to accept this for now. But for the union, it's not a good result that inspires trust. Blue and black are the party colours. The elections expose cracks in Germany's normally calm politics. Some of the voters I've been speaking to are dismayed, fearful of the AFD's rise.

In general, like, what this party stands for, it scares me, of course. Like, my wife is not German, I have family which is not from Germany, they migrated here. So, of course, like, I have a fear that basically the future will be not that bright as it should be. This election has certainly not ended Germany's divisions or indeed its problems. It marks what is merely the beginning of this country coming to terms with what looks certain to be a new place in the world. Nick Robinson in Berlin. It is ten days since Pope Francis was admitted to hospital in Rome with breathing difficulties.

The latest update said the night passed well, the Pope slept and is resting. The 88 year old leader of the Catholic Church remains in a critical condition after what was described as a respiratory crisis on Saturday. He also has a kidney problem which the Vatican says is currently under control. Nowhere is concern for him greater than in Argentina where he was born as Jorge Mario Bergoglio before becoming the first Latin American pontiff in 2013. But as we heard from the BBC's Veronica Smink in Buenos Aires, Pope Francis remains a somewhat divisive figure in his homeland.

Certainly there's pride in having such a world-known figure, but personal adoration towards him, I have to say that it did waver a bit. First, it was a lot of offense and disappointment that he hasn't visited Argentina in the almost 12 years since he's been elected, despite visits to neighboring countries, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay and Chile. And it's also true that he's a bit of a controversial figure here, because many assume that he's a Peronist, something he himself has denied. And Argentina has a huge, very historic long rift between Peronists and

anti-Peronists. So many people here have been following who he receives from Argentina, what political figures they assume that he supports this and that. He's always tried to stay neutral, but he seems to have been caught up in this longstanding rift. Veronica Smink. The last major awards before the Oscars were handed out in Los Angeles on Sunday night at the Screen Actors Guild ceremony. Demi Moore's comeback success continued and there was recognition for the papal thriller Conclave.

Actress Kristen Bell hosted the event kicking off with a song. Emma Vardy sent this report from Los Angeles. These awards are voted on by actors themselves and are usually a good indicator of who's going to do well at the Oscars. The Vatican thriller about the election of a new Pope won Best Cast. It's star, Ralph Fiennes, collecting the prize. I've not been elected to speak. I've been designated to speak. Demi Moore for the substance.

She's been winning multiple accolades for her performance in The Gruesome Horror about the pressure to be beautiful in Hollywood. Demi Moore's popularity in this role continued as she was awarded Best Actress. I just, there's just the words are kind of beyond me so I'm just gonna have to just say thank you. Thank you so much. Timothy Chalamet! In the biggest surprise of the night, Timothy Chalamet won Best Actor for his role playing Bob Dylan in a complete unknown, beating Adrian Brody in The Brutalist.

I know the classiest thing would be to downplay the effort that went into this role and how much this means to me, but the truth is this was five and a half years of my life. I poured everything I had into playing this incomparable artist, Mr Bob Dylan, a true American hero, and it was the honour of a lifetime playing him. The musical Amelia Perez about a transgender Mexican drug lord had been an Oscar's best picture front runner, but after a controversy over old social media posts by the film's transgender star, Carla Sofia Gascon, its Oscar hopes have been somewhat derailed, although Zoe Saldana has continued to pick up awards

as best supporting actress. Oh, wow. To be in this room is a true honor. This is my community. And the actor goes to Shogun. In the TV categories, Shogun was the biggest winner of the night, winning Best Cast Ensemble. And Baby Reindeer continued its string of award wins, with Jessica Gunning taking Best Actress. And there was a lifetime achievement award given to Jane Fonda.

And there was a lifetime achievement award given to Jane Fonda. We get to open people's minds to new ideas, take them beyond what they understand of the world and help them laugh when things are tough, like now. The 87-year-old actress gave a fiery political speech directed at Donald Trump's administration. Make no mistake, empathy is not weak or woke. And by the way, woke just means you give a damn about other people. There were also tributes to LA's firefighters after the devastating wildfires last month. The crisis has seen many red carpet parties cancelled but the handout of awards in this city of Entertainment continues. Emavadi reporting. And still to come on the Global News Podcast. In this short episode, I'm going to take you on a time journey

to show you how I make my flies. The unlikely pastime helping young people improve their mental health. Over the weekend, Israel sent tanks into the occupied West Bank for the first time in 20 years. Israeli forces have been expanding their military operations in the territory, occupying three refugee camps where they say Palestinian militants have a strong presence. They expelled civilian residents and ordered the UN's Palestinian agency to cease all work. The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the deployment in the West Bank, which Israel refers to

as Judea and Samaria, showed Israel was fighting terror wherever necessary. For the first time in decades in Judea and Samaria, we are brought in tanks. This means one thing. We are fighting terrorism by all means and everywhere. A spokesperson for the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas called it a dangerous escalation that would not lead to calm. Nigel Adderley heard more from Mohammed Taha of the BBC Arabic service. It is very significant that tanks would enter Jenin camp. This didn't happen in the last 23 years. So it's very important military action.

The Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, said that the aim of this move is to evacuate completely some of the refugee camps in the West Bank like Tolkaram and Jenin, and that will guarantee that the people who are living in these camps wouldn't return home again. And the aim of that is to make sure that the presence of these camps would end, and these camps are one of the oldest camps in the whole world. They return back to more than half a century. What's the reaction been from Palestinians? It is very devastating.

There are around 40,000 Palestinians evacuated from these camps. They were refugees previously from the 48 wars, and they are now refugees again. So where they would go? Are we going to see another new camps? Are they going to be out of the West Bank? What is the situation of these growing numbers of refugees that they don't have any homes at the moment? And the most significant point as well that the Israeli Defense Minister announced it

also the end of work of UNRWA, which is the UN agency that looks after the refugees in the West Bank. So these people would completely have no home, no schools, no hospitals, nowhere to stay. They don't have even tents to stay in at the moment. Meanwhile, there's no news about the release of more than 600 Palestinian prisoners who were supposed to be released on Saturday night. The White House has said it has backed Israel's decision to delay their release. What impact could these developments have on the talks around the ceasefire?

Hamas said there will be a devastating impact on the ceasefire deal. We don't know what is that devastating impact yet. Israel is very keen not to release these prisoners in exchange of six hostages that were released on Saturday and it looks like Israel and the United States want to extend the first phase of ceasefire and not to enter the second phase of ceasefire. Why? Because the second phase of ceasefire is including the full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, including the withdrawal from Philadelphia corridor that is separating Egypt from Gaza Strip, and also talks about the permanent situation of Gaza. Israel wants to extend the first phase that is including only exchange the release of

prisoners and hostages without talking about the full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza or without any talks that might include Hamas as a ruling power in Gaza. The United States would send their envoy, Witkov, to the region in the coming few days and the aim of that, as announced by US officials, is to extend the first phase without entering the second phase of the deal. Mohammed Taha of BBC Arabic. It is a fall from grace for one of China's leading executives. Tan Ruizong, former head of the biggest Chinese aircraft manufacturer,

has been expelled from the Communist Party by an anti-corruption watchdog. Our Beijing correspondent, Stephen MacDonald, told me more. He's accused of taking large bribes, accepting banquets and breach of the rules, and engaging in what they described as power for sex transactions. This is all to do with his time as the chair of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China, which is the second biggest military contractor here in China, so a very big important company. And also it should be viewed as part of the more general crackdown on the military here by the party's anti-corruption investigators.

Yeah, and what will happen to him now? Basically, the announcement came today that he'd been stripped of his party status and you might think, well whoopie-doo, you know, being stripped of your party status. But what that means is it's going from here into the hands of the prosecutors. Basically, he's going down, he's looking at serious time in prison and it's in keeping with all of these cases which have been built against generals, the lieutenant generals, major generals, two defence ministers, especially in the rocket force here, they've all gone down on these anti-corruption charges. Now of

course there's been a big part of Xi Jinping's drive from the time he took power really and it's only more recently turned its attention to the military but this is a very strong and feared part of the Communist Party really. If they come knocking on your door you know you're in big strife and generally speaking when these allegations are levelled against you, you've got no hope. And so that's what's going to happen to him. He'll end up in prison along with these other senior members of the People's Liberation Army. And I should add

that some analysts have said that this is sort of a worrying sign in a way for Xi Jinping if he wanted to, for example, launch an invasion of Taiwan. He'd need his military to be in tip-top shape and instead the anti-corruption investigators are cutting a swathe through the upper echelons of the People's Liberation Army. Stephen McDonnell in Beijing. Japan is one of the snowiest places on earth but some parts of the country have broken records this winter. Parts of Aomori in the north of Japan's main island are now under five metres of snow,

resulting in widespread travel disruption and fatalities. Forecasters are warning there could be more heavy snow to come. So how unusual is this? Shama Khalil is our Tokyo correspondent. It's very unusual. Meteorological agency officials have described it as the heaviest snow Japan has seen in years. It's arguably the biggest talking point here in Japan in all of the news bulletins. And it's not just in the normal places that you'd expect snow because again this is snow season, it's skiing season, you expect that in places in Hokkaido for example, the northernmost area. But in the western sea of

Japan coast it's been pummeled by unrelenting snow that as you've said is as high as five meters in some areas. The Niigata and Yamagata prefectures have been hit the hardest. But we've also seen snow in the Kyushu prefecture southwest where you don't normally see snow. And one of the most stark warnings has come to the Ishikawa prefecture, including the Noto Peninsula. If you remember, last year on New Year's Day, it was hit by a powerful earthquake. And the worry here is that some people are still in temporary housing but also some of the destroyed housing could actually collapse under that heavy weight

of snow. Yeah, I mean, five metres of snow, it sounds incredible. How are people coping and are the authorities managing to help them? The local authorities are managing to help as much as they can. The biggest worry is in remote rural areas where you get elderly that are trying to clear the snow from their own homes. There was a video, for example, last week of an elderly man standing in front of this home and then this huge pile of snow fell right next to him. And so these are the dangers that authorities are warning against. But also, this was a long weekend and so the authorities are still warning people about traveling because there have been train disruptions, traffic

disruptions, internal flights have been cancelled. So the authorities are telling people if you do not have to travel, don't travel as well. But also they're warning of power outages, avalanches and fall in trees. These are still risk within the coming days and possibly weeks. Shai Mahal in Japan. Relations between the United Kingdom and possibly weeks. Shai mahalo in Japan. Relations between the United Kingdom and United States will be in the spotlight this week when the British Prime Minister visits the White House. But cooperation between the two nations is alive and well, certainly when it comes to the moon.

British and American researchers are preparing to launch a probe on a two-year mission to map water near the lunar surface. Professor Neil Bowles from Oxford University led the team that built one of the lunar trailblazers' main instruments. He's been talking to Amal Rajan. We know that there are possibly water ice at the poles, but what we didn't expect to find until about late 2000s or so was water where the sun was shining on the moon, and that's one of the key aims of our mission to go and actually map the water across the surface of the moon not just at the poles this time. And given there's no air on the

moon how does the water get there? That's one of the big mysteries. At the poles it gets so cold because the crater is very deep and they cast very very long shadows which enable the temperatures to drop to minus 180 degrees C or something like that. So at that temperature the water is stable as ice for millions to billions of years. But on the surface where the sun is shining there has to be a mechanism for either bringing it or making it at the lunar surface and that's one of the things we're trying to work out. And is the idea partly that if you can work out how the water gets there and stays there

or moves around the moon you can work out potentially how to trap it which is useful potentially for human bases. Certainly this is all the information that's very very useful for future human exploration or indeed robotic exploration because if you can get to the moon you can get to most other places in the solar system a lot easier because the gravity is so much lower so if you can extract water for people to use to drink or etc or turn into rocket fuel by breaking it back into hydrogen and oxygen, then that's a really useful thing to be able to do. Space scientist Neil Bowles.

Finally, fishing. Sitting on a riverbank with a rod and line may not seem the hippest of pastimes but it's being embraced by thousands of Gen Z'ers. In the UK, young people have been taking up fishing as a way of managing their anxiety or depression. Some have even become fishing influencers, showing off their catches on social media. As Carla Conte explains. It's not really a pastime you would associate with Gen Z in 2025, but it looks like more and more young people are going fishing, or angling to be precise, which is the sport of fishing with a rod in line, where catching fish is the aim.

But what you might be surprised to hear is that thousands of teenagers are turning to the sport to relieve symptoms of anxiety or depression, or simply as an escape from the chaos of urban life. The practice has even inspired a new wave of social media influencers, with videos showing off their skills or teaching their audience how to tie the perfect fly. In this short episode I'm going to take you on a tiny journey to show you how I make my flies. But if you're looking for a perfection tie, look away now. This is angling influencer Amy Battems. When she's not on YouTube sharing her catches with her followers, she works as a receptionist in South London.

Battam says she has suffered from anxiety most of her life and that fishing is what gives her respite from it all. Now, it is a legal requirement in many parts of the world to have a fishing licence if you are going to practice a sport. And according to the UK-based Angling Trust, thousands of young anglers have already been awarded their rod licenses. So next time you want to pay for that expensive therapy session or go to a yoga class, why not give fishing a go instead? You never know how hooked you might get. Kala Conti And that is all from us for now but the Global News podcast will be back very soon. This Conte.