Global News Podcast - Zelensky rules out giving up Donbas

Episode Date: August 13, 2025

President Zelensky has vowed to reject any proposal from Russia that would mean Ukraine ceding territory or withdrawing troops from the eastern Donbas region. He was speaking ahead of a meeting between Presidents Trump and Putin in Alaska on Friday. Donald Trump has said any peace deal would involve "some swapping of territories" and it is believed one of Vladimir Putin's demands is that Kyiv surrenders the parts of the Donbas it still controls. Also: A surgeon operating in Gaza tells us he has to recycle surgical parts from dead bodies to save the living, and the owners of the video game Fortnite take on Apple and Google over access in an Australian court. Plus: the UN tells torturers in Myanmar: "We know who you are", the heatwaves blasting much of Europe, the US puts a $5 million reward on the head of a gang leader in Haiti, a former first lady of South Korea is arrested, the American woman convicted of conspiracy to murder in Britain -- disguised in an Islamic headscarf, and how AI is helping to keep elephants in India safe.The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: [e-mail]

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You don't look, let's please. I'll do that as a compliment. See it differently when you stream the best of British TV with Britbox. Watch with a free trial today. This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Valerie Sanderson, and in the early hours of Wednesday, the 13th of August, these are our main stories. President Zelensky vows to reject any proposal from Russia that would mean Ukraine giving up territory or withdrawing troops from the eastern Donbass region. The U.S. has issued charges against a gang boss who controls most of the capital of Haiti and offered a $5 million,

award for information leading to his capture. The wife of South Korea's jailed former president has been arrested on charges of stock manipulation, election meddling, and bribery. Also in this podcast, we've downloaded these videos of executions. I hope that every perpetrator of those crimes is concerned that their name is in our files and in our evidence. A new UN report Details torture of civilians by the authorities in Myanmar. Days before a summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, President Zelensky says his forces will not lead the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian army has been defending the area against Russian aggression since 2014,

long before Mr Putin's full-scale invasion. The Donbass is prized by the Russian president and may be a key, demand when he meets President Trump in Alaska. But on Tuesday, the White House tried to lower expectations of what could be achieved on Friday. Mr. Trump's press secretary, Caroline Levitt, told reporters that the summit in Alaska is one step towards peace. The goal of this meeting for the president is to walk away with a better understanding of how we can end this war. And the president said at this podium yesterday, when he joined all of you in the room, that he hopes in the future, there can be a trilateral meeting with these three leaders to finally bring this

conflict to an end. But this is a listening exercise for the president. Look, only one party that's involved in this war is going to be present. And so this is for the president to go and to get, again, a more firm and better understanding of how we can hopefully bring this war to an end. Nevertheless, President Trump has said that any peace deal would likely involve some swapping of territories. With Russia keeping land, it is seized in the invasion. A position at Mr. Zelensky has always rejected and did so again at a youth forum in Kiev on Tuesday. As for the negotiations, they are important at the level of leaders. But it's impossible to talk about Ukraine, without Ukraine, and nobody is going to accept this.

On Wednesday, Mr. Trump will take part in a virtual call with Mr. Zelensky and other European leaders ahead of Friday's summit in Alaska. In Kiev, Mr. Zelenskyy spoke to journalists. Among them, our defence correspondent, Jonathan Beale. A lot of what he was saying was restating what he said when he heard about those talks first between President Trump and President Putin in Alaska, which is that essentially he's not been invited

and he's not sure exactly what they will be speaking about. He said it was a personal victory for President Putin to be invited on US territory. He's already stated President Zelensky that any deal without him in his words is a dead deal. He also has made clear that, that ceding Ukrainian territory goes against the constitution. Today, he was more emphatic saying he would not give up the Dombas.

Tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have lost their lives there, the areas of Lahansk and Dernetsk. And the reason why President Zelensky said he would not give up the Dombas is because he says he believes in future it could be used as another launch pad for Russia to launch another attack in the future, just like he said Crimea was used to launch the full-scale invasion. So that is essentially what he is saying ahead of that meeting with Donald Trump, who is talking about land swaps.

Certainly President Zelensky at the moment not entertaining thoughts of a land swap. He welcomes Donald Trump's efforts for a ceasefire, but he wants a ceasefire before negotiations start. Well, you mentioned the Donbass, and there are reports coming in that Russian forces have breached Ukrainian defences in the strategic area of Pagrowski in Donbass. Is that what you're hearing where you are? Yes, so President Zelensky again addressed this.

And what he said had happened was that small groups of Russian soldiers, I think he said three groups in all of about 20 to 30 Russian troops, had made an advance of about 9 to 10 kilometres. One of those groups, he said, had been hunted down, had killed or captured. He said the other two would be hunted down as well. but he admits that the situation in Percross is difficult. He says the city of Pagros has not been surrounded, as some people have suggested, but he admits the fighting is difficult, and he is sending more troops there.

And he is also clearly worried that Russia will be sending more troops to take more territory in that part of eastern Ukraine the future, because he says their focus was for some time Russian forces retaking Kursk. Troops are now being deployed to that Pekrosk region. And clearly, in his view, he thinks President's Putin wants to show President Trump ahead of those Alaska talks that Russia is winning this war and Ukraine is losing. Now, he says that's just information warfare, but that is clearly his concern. Jonathan Beal, President Trump's former national security adviser, has warned him about President Putin ahead of Friday's summit.

Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster told the BBC that it could be a mistake if the president fails to directly convey to Vladimir. Putin, the concerns Mr Trump has already been airing in public. General McMaster warned that President Putin knows exactly how to flatter his U.S. counterpart to serve his own agenda. Here's our security correspondent, Frank Gardner. Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, a highly decorated former U.S. Army General, served in the first Trump administration as his national security advisor for 13 months. Speaking to the BBC today, he voiced his fears that Friday's Trump-Putin summit risked playing into the Russian leader's hands.

I hope that the people preparing President Trump for this are saying, hey, don't engage in this serial gullibility with Vladimir Putin because Putin will try to appeal to your ego. He will flatter you. He will hold out the prospect of a big deal. Frank, what he'll say is, would it be great, Donald, if we can work together on nuclear weapons and reduce nuclear weapons and maybe I can get China to come in?

Reducing nuclear weapons stockpals and reducing global tension, would certainly be a welcome byproduct of any future ceasefire or peace deal in Ukraine. But European leaders worried that any deal reached with Putin should not come at the price of Ukraine's freedom. Asked if he thought those leaders still had the ear of the U.S. President, he said they did, especially Sekeir Stama and the NATO Secretary General. But J.R. McMaster added that they must convince Donald Trump that the outcome of the war in Ukraine was inextricably tied to Europe's security and the what he called the axis of aggressors, i.e. Russia and its allies, were working together to help it prevail.

Frank Gardner. Security forces in Myanmar are systematically torturing people, according to a new investigation by the United Nations. Its latest report says the significant evidence of widespread torture. The Burmese army overthrew the elected government in 2021 and is thought to have detained tens of thousands of people in order to crush. dissent. The UN team leader, Nicholas Kumjian, says the testimony they've gathered makes it possible to identify who committed some of the atrocities. We have an awful lot of evidence and an awful lot of names in our database. And so much information is on social media and on the internet. We've downloaded these videos of executions. I hope that every perpetrator of those crimes is concerned that their name is in our files and in our evidence. The UN report was published in Geneva where our correspondent

Imogen folks gave us more details. This report is really, really shocking the amount of repression that has been taking place. We hear reports of terrible, terrible torture in prisons, things like electric shock treatment, people having their fingernails pulled out, sexual violence, gang rape, people being strangled. Many people who have died. as a result of torture, and also the kind of fear that is being instilled in the population, for example, that children are sometimes detained and tortured to put pressure on their parents who were perhaps seen as dissidents. And we're talking about what, tens of thousands of people being involved?

Many, many thousands, yes. But I think one of the most interesting things about this report is that the UN investigators, although they were not allowed in by the regime into Myanmar, they have 1,300 sources and over 600 eyewitnesses. They also have really extensive electronic evidence from social media. They've had videos of people being executed inside detention. So they know, and they have also been able to identify some of the perpetrators. They're not naming them in public, but they've been.

They know that the people committing these violations are very often Myanmar security forces. They know their names. Some of them are senior. And this is evidence which they say they will pass to international courts like the International Criminal Court. And the government in Myanmar, it was overthrown, wasn't it, back in 2021? That's right. But we shouldn't forget that UN human rights has been investigating Myanmar, keeping its eye on Myanmar. Long War, 2021, we had an investigation team set up after the events of 2017 when a million Rohingya Muslims were hounded out of Myanmar, and they are still living in Cox's Bazaar in Bangladesh, and all the reports show that terrible violations took place then. So, Myanmar, to put it bluntly, has a very poor human rights record.

What the UN investigators on this latest report are offering to do is share their new evidence, which continues to show systematic patterned, planned human rights violations of the most serious, serious nature. Imogen folks, we asked the Myanmar authorities for a response, and we're still waiting for one. A prolonged heat wave in many European countries is stretching resources with firefighters scrambling to tackle outbreaks

that are devastating huge swathes of land. Portugal reached a new national high of 46.6 degrees Celsius in June and Spain also set new records, with temperatures topping 44 degrees Celsius in several regions. Stephanie Prentice has this report. Helicopters dumping water over the town of Tarifa in southern Spain, trying to put out the second major fire there in a week. Further north, near Madrid, scorched earth in the city of Treycantos

where a fire that's still active has killed one man. It's one of many active blazers across Spain, with thousands of people evacuated and firefighters working through the night. Across Europe, it's a similar story, an early onset of heat waves, record-breaking temperatures, and fires that are difficult to contain. In Italy, an intense heat wave is sweeping across the, the south, with planes trying to put out fires on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius for a fourth

day, and thousands more fires reported by officials than last year. Marta Fragario, a climate and environmental journalist based near Milan, says the government is moving too slowly on climate goals, but the impacts of global warming can't be ignored. Some people and the government are still denying the impact of climate change, But the point is that tourists are choosing new destination in Italy, such as lakes and mountains over sea. So it's also having a very big economic impact. Seaside are empty and tourists are choosing other destinations. Parts of Croatia have been battling fires since the middle of June.

Vedrana Simiciewicz is a Croatian climate journalist and mountaineer. One of the biggest consequence of heatways in Croatia is warming of the Adriatic Sea, which is quite dangerous for the species in the sea. She's just been climbing Montblanc, a regular trip with a big difference this year. I have to say that it's really concerning. And I'm talking specifically not only about glacier melting, but also about permafrost melting. The ice inside of rock walls, six or seven meters deep inside.

and now because of the heatways, this ice is tolling, melting, and because of that, we have really large rockfalls all over the place. In France, temperatures of up to 44 degrees have also been recorded, with some areas offering free entry to swimming pools. Paris is one of many European cities that residents say are not built for extreme heat with historic architecture and limited air conditioning. Peter Young is a Paris-based journalist who's been investigating how climate change could be driving inequality in the city.

I think particularly in Paris, there's more of a feeling of being sick and tired of the sea. It's not something that is pleasurable at this point. And I'm particularly reporting in a neighbourhood called Obervilliers, a very poor suburb where there's a high number of immigrant communities. The housing is often old. It's quite a bleak picture and people are often sort of lacking any sort of resource. Europe is warming faster than any other content. at twice the speed of the global average since the 1980s, according to experts.

Scientists warn of a dangerous cocktail of climatic conditions, fueling the wildfires across the Mediterranean, with warm weather predicted until the end of August. Stephanie Prentice. Still to come, a surgeon operating in Gaza tells us he has to recycle surgical parts from dead bodies to save the living. External fixator pins are being taken off of patients that have died or have had their X-fixes removed and reused.

The spinal equipment is incredibly limited and the screw sizes are completely random. Haiti is in an official state of emergency due to gang violence. Now, one of the ringleaders is being pursued by the US government with a $5 million reward on his head. The notorious Jimmy Barbecue Chirisier runs Vivansam, an alliance of gangs that have taken over most of Haiti's capital, Porto Prince. Many of his soldiers are children who he's forcibly recruited.

The US government is accusing him of working with an associate in the US to channel funds to the gangs, bypassing US sanctions. Announcing this, the US attorney, Janine Piro, said her department will also go after, to anyone else who helps him. Haiti is a hot spot right now. There is incredible violence going on there, which is why the State Department has gotten involved

and why we have made the decision to make it very clear that we're coming after you if you give money to Cherisei A. Our Central America and Caribbean correspondent Will Grant told me more. I think we heard there in that clip just the fact that they believe that this was part of a grand conspiracy,

network of financing the gang network in Haiti, led by Cherizier. The accusation is also against a naturalized U.S. man living in North Carolina called Basil Richardson. He has been arrested last month in Texas. And it was said that he was raising funds for the G9 and for Vivansans, which was being channeled to barbecue in order to pay for his gang members and pay for illegal weapons in the country, essentially to hold down their control of the capital Porto Prince, which is at somewhere like 90% control of the capital. And tell us more about Jimmy Chorizier himself. Well, he's a former elite policeman who, in essence, flipped to running the gangs in about 2019. He had pretensions, I think, of high office, still does, really. It's sort of almost a media

personality has given interviews and so on, is the most visible face of the gang issue in Haiti, in that he is a media personality to an extent and certainly the best known of the gang leaders, although there are, of course, others. He is very powerful, and he has, of course, created this alliance with another important gang group to create Vive en Somme, and certainly is extremely ruthless. He controls swathes of the capital and interrupts transport, for example, when it comes to aid coming in to help the beleaguered communities of the capital. So is Haiti essentially lawless? It is looking very much so. I mean, let's cast our minds back to last year and earlier this year, when it was hoped by the

United Nations that a Kenyan-led police force would have some impact on the security situation in Haiti. So far, it's had next to none. It has taken back control of the international airport, The presidential palace is on lockdown, but beyond that, when it comes to the law and order on the streets, there's very little difference at all going on, and the humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate very, very fast. Will Grant. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says a new offensive to take control of the entire Gaza Strip will start soon, starting with Gaza City. Civilians have been advised to leave. Adil Khalil is an orthopedic surgeon from Texas.

who's currently working at the Al-Ali Hospital in Gaza City. He told us that he's recycling surgical pins and plates from dead bodies because his equipment is restricted. Before his current visit, he previously worked in Gaza last November. Even back in November, it just blew my mind how destroyed everything is. I mean, it literally looks like a sci-fi movie, just apocalyptic. It actually seems worse at this time around. I don't think there's really very many buildings left that have not sustained damage.

So, I mean, we go between hospitals to get cases done. So I do go out into the city a little bit. You know, I do spine surgery. So that is being done at a neighboring hospital. And so we have to get in an ambulance and move to the other hospital. And you just see the destruction around the city. So we know that there have been these aid drops happening over the past couple of weeks. And apparently more aid is getting into Gaza.

But again, today, there's been an update on the number of people who have died from malnutrition. and the Hamas-run Health Authority, putting it at five in the past 24 hours. It's terrible. That's one of the most striking things, I think, you know, it's largely a young population. Their capacity to withstand injury and recover was always pretty remarkable. I think now people's reserves are quite depleted. We've operated on an 18-month-old whose hemoglobin just happened to be just over six on arrival, which is severely anemic. What kind of injuries are you seeing this time around? A lot of gunshot wounds and injuries that are a result of patients going to these aid distribution sites and getting shot.

You know, I do orthopedics and spines, so we're seeing a lot of fractures from these gunshots. And so significant amount of bone loss, large open injuries from entry wounds from these high caliber gunshots. When I came in November, it was largely explosive injuries. That's what stood out in the north that there's been in very high level of bombardment. So a lot of it was explosive injuries. And now we're seeing quite a mix of explosive injuries, plus a lot of gunshot wounds from these aid distribution. events. You are an orthopedic surgeon. You specialize in spinal surgery. Do you have the facilities you need to do that sort of surgery there? No, it's very limited. The amount of equipment that is

able to be brought in has been severely restricted. You know, when I came in April, we were able to bring equipment with us through the ruff up order in November and this time we're limited to only bringing personal supplies. And we do pack some of what we can get in as far as what we need to do our daily work. But it's incredibly restrictive. So external fixator pins are being taken off of patients that have died or have had their X-fixes removed and reused. The spinal equipment is incredibly limited and the screw sizes are completely random. The amount of equipment that has been getting in is very insufficient. Right. So you're effectively recycling things like pins and screws and the sorts of things that you use to fix these injuries from patients who have already deceased.

You're having to do that. Yeah, yeah. You say you're being restricted. Can you just clarify exactly where those restrictions are happening? At the border. Okay, so you're responding to the advice from the WHO and they're responding to the rules coming from the Israeli authorities? Yeah.

The orthopedic surgeon, Adil Khalil, speaking to Rebecca Kesbby from Gaza City. The Israeli military says it's examining reports of civilians being harmed while approaching aid distribution centres in Gaza, run by the U.S. and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. South Korea's former first lady, Kim Kahnhee, has been arrested after a court issued a warrant. It means she and her husband, former president, Yen Tsuk Yul, are the first presidential couple to be jailed. Jay Seng Li has the details.

Kim Kani is the first wife of a South Korean president to be arrested. She's been accused of stock manipulation, election interference, and bribery. and she's said to have accepted luxury gifts from a shaman from the very influential Unification Church in exchange for business favours. Kim Kuni is the wife of the former President Yun Songyel who was impeached over that botched attempt to impose martial law last December. Now, he's already in jail. He's charged for insurrection.

Jay Sungli. A US woman who was hired as a killer and tried to shoot a man in the UK at point-blank range while using an Islamic headscarf to hide her identity has been found guilty of conspiracy to murder. Would-be assassin Amy Betro from Wisconsin flew into the country as part of a plot to attack a family in central England in 2019

before going on the run for nearly five years. Joe Black reports. Resembling a scene from a film, CCTV shows Amy Betro wearing a knickab to disguise her face as she walks up to Sikanda Ali and points a gun at him. She tries to shoot him at close range, but the gun jams, and his car can be seen screeching away, as he seizes the opportunity to flee.

Can I get a taxi? Hours later, this is Betro ordering a taxi, so she can return to the scene. Speak it off from where? Better fish and chips. I'm on the corner opposite of Azo. And in the darkness of the early hours, she is picked up again on CCTV. This is her second attempt as she shoots. three rounds at the windows of Sikanda Ali's family home, but the property is empty. The would-be assassin flew to the UK as part of a revenge plot orchestrated by two men,

Mohamed Aslam and his son Mohammed Nazir, wanted to attack a rival family. The court heard they were involved in a feud with Sikanda Ali's father, Azlat Mahumad, and wanted to kill him, or a member of his family. Aslam and Nazir were found guilty at a separate trial. Betro's defence was that it was a coincidence that minutes after the attempted assassination, she happened to be near the area. And the perpetrator was another American woman who sounded like her, used the same phone and wore the same sort of trainers. She said she had been in the UK to celebrate her birthday and attend a boat party. The jury didn't believe her.

Joe Black. Wildlife officials in southern India say they prevented dozens of elephant deaths after installing AI-powered early warning systems along railway tracks. The surveillance towers were set up on known elephant migration routes in the border areas of Tamil Nadu and Keral Estates. This report from our South Asia Regional Editor and Balesan Etherajan. Forest Department officials in two jeeps are trying to push a wild elephant away from a busy road in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

It's not only on the main. roads. Similar incidents happen along railway tracks as well. When elephants cross the track, any speeding train can hit them. In the past decade, 36 elephants were killed by trains in Tamil Nadu Street alone. Then came the AI-powered early warning system. Dozens of AI camera towers were established along accident hotspots in November 2023. When elephants are detected within 30 metres of the railway track, alerts are sent to forest and railway officials. They then coordinate to slow down trains and guide the elephants away to prevent collisions. Since their installation, no elephant deaths on rail tracks have been reported in that area.

The early warning system has been installed in other parts of India as well as in some African countries. And Barisan Etherajan. Every day around the world, tens of millions of gamers log on to Fortnite, to fight huge battles in a virtual world. But in the real world, its developers, epic games, have been fighting battles of their own, and they've just scored another victory in a court in Australia.

Will Chalk has the story. Ladies and gentlemen, Fortnite fans from around the world, wherever you are watching from, welcome. Since its launch in 2017, Fortnite has become less a game, more a huge ecosystem. Merchandise, tournaments, streamers, It feels like it's everywhere.

We got fans up in the building. We got the players on site. But back in 2020, its dominance was put under threat. Now, bad news if you like playing Fortnite on your phone. The game has been removed from Google and Apple's app stores. In a row over money, both Google and Apple booted the app off their stores, meaning it could no longer be played on phones or iPads. Why?

Well, Fortnite is free to download and play, but makes its money by selling different appearances for people's in-game avatar. Usually, when you buy something on an app on your phone, that payment will go through Apple or Google, who take a commission. Five years ago, Fortnite tried to bypass this and let people buy content cheaper direct from them. Fortnite have said that they will sue the phone makers. And sue they did. For five years now, Epic Games has been fighting legal battles against Apple and Google around the world, arguing the phone companies were misusing their market power, which lessened competition in app development.

And they've been winning. Last year, the game made it back onto the app store in the EU. Earlier this year, it was reinstated in the US. And now it's won a partial court victory that looks set to pave the way for the same thing to happen in Australia. To a cynical degree, anything that isn't Apple or Google getting their way is progress. Yost van Drunen is a games business professor at NYU Stern School of Business in the US. They are, in fact, in a David versus Goliath kind of battle. Because even though Epic makes about $5 billion a year, that's a drop in the bucket for Apple, that's a drop in the bucket for Google, these are trillion-dollar companies.

What they do is extract a rent, and it makes it very difficult for any company, including the Robloxes and the Microsofts that sit in these ecosystems to have any kind of leverage. We've got no word yet on exactly when the game is likely to return to app stores in Australia, but it's unlikely to be soon. The judgment, which hasn't been fully released yet, ran to 2,000. thousand pages and on many of the charges epic games weren't successful in statements apple welcomed that some of the charges were rejected while disagreeing on the ones that was successful while google said it will assess its next steps once it's read the full decision still epic games has described the ruling as a win for developers and consumers in australia and as any gamer knows you've got to take the wins when you can get them separate them with acorn will not survive

Will Chalk reporting. And that's it from us for now, but there'll be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, send us an email. The address is Global Podcast at BBC.co.uk. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag Global NewsPod. This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll, the producers, where Alison Davis, Peter Hyatt. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Valerie Sanderson, and until the next time,

bye-bye.