Global News Podcast - Zelensky says Russian attacks ongoing despite Putin announcing 'Easter truce'

Episode Date: April 20, 2025

The Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky says Ukraine is prepared to join Russia in observing an Easter ceasefire, but insists that Moscow's forces are still attacking. Also: scientists say they've discovered 'new colour' no one has seen before.

This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Rachel Wright and in the early hours of Sunday the 20th of April these are our main stories. President Zelensky has said Ukraine will echo Russia's actions after Vladimir Putin declared an Easter truce but the Ukrainian leader said Russian attacks were continuing and Moscow could not be trusted. The Houthis in Yemen say US airstrikes that killed at least 80 people on Friday have also caused a serious oil spill. And a 14-year-old cricketer has become the youngest ever to play in the Indian Premier League.

Also in this podcast, secret messages written 3,000 years ago revealed in the centre of Paris. Everybody sees it every day. So everybody's south. Okay, it's already steady. We don't have to do anything more. But in fact, we had to. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Ukraine will abide by an Easter ceasefire, which has been announced by Vladimir Putin. But he says Moscow's forces are still attacking in some areas. The Russian leader said he'd ordered his troops in Ukraine to refrain from any offensive operations until Monday, but that they would respond to what he called provocations.

The unexpected announcement came just days after the US President Donald Trump threatened to walk away from talks about a peace deal unless progress was made soon. From Moscow, here's our Russia editor Steve Rosenberg. This is not the unconditional comprehensive ceasefire that the United States had originally been pushing for and that Ukraine had agreed to. Still, Vladimir Putin has ordered his troops to hold fire for a period of 30 hours. Russian side announces the paschal truce.

Speaking to Russia's chief of the general staff, President Putin announced an Easter truce in Ukraine. He claimed to be guided by humanitarian considerations. He said he expected Ukraine to follow suit, but that Russian troops should be ready to repel any possible violations and provocations by the enemy. Russia's truce, he added, would show how sincere the Ukrainian leadership was about peace talks. The announcement comes a day after President Trump warned that America would take a pass on brokering a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine unless he saw progress soon. President Putin is likely to use this

unilateral truce to convince the White House that Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago, is serious about ending the war. But critics of the Kremlin will be sceptical that such a brief pause in hostilities, if it happens, will lead to lasting peace. The Ukrainian MP Lisa Yasko spoke to the BBC from the centre of Kiev just minutes after the truce came into force. Once Putin announced this kind of one-day ceasefire that was immediately when we actually got an air siren because the drones were entering Kiev and we had this one-hour attack on Kiev

with drones during the last hour. So it doesn't feel like a ceasefire. And also for me personally, ceasefire for one day, even if it happens, it's like a joke. On Saturday evening, a few hours after the announcement of the ceasefire, Julian McFarland spoke to our correspondent in Ukraine, James Waterhouse, and asked him what his assessment was of what was actually happening on the ground. I think there's a bit of recent history here. I mean, Vladimir Putin announced a similar last-minute ceasefire at the start of 2023 over the Christmas holidays. As a seeming goodwill gesture, we reported from the front line then in the city of Bakhmut

and there was no lull in fighting. Bakhmut would eventually be captured by Russian forces and reduced to rubble. This is also a Russian leader who once said he wouldn't invade Ukraine and we're already hearing tonight both sides accuse each other of breaking this ceasefire. President Zelensky has reported continued fighting via his generals in the east. However, from speaking to troops along the front line here, from hearing what pretty plugged in military bloggers are saying, that does seem to be a lull. It does seem to be quieter, they say. There are fewer sirens tonight, which we haven't seen in a very long time

across the whole of Ukraine and where I am in the southern city of Odessa. This time last night, there were air defences ringing through the night sky. As you can hear, it's pretty much silent now. And James, I mean, it's striking that Putin's surprise announcement came just a day after President Trump indicated he was losing patience with trying to break a peace between the two sides. What game is Russia playing? It's the age-old question. It's the evergreen question, isn't it? What is Vladimir Putin thinking when he either exercises this war or tries to engage with Washington. Clearly, Moscow is enjoying improved relations

with the US and clearly it is wanting to perhaps negotiate a relaxation of sanctions, for example. It's already not had to relax any of its demands as to how this war should end. It's demanding more Ukrainian territory and Washington isn't really pushing back. So perhaps it is now more willing to dance to America's tune. But I think what is equally interesting is how President Zelensky has effectively called the Kremlin's bluff here as well, saying, look, 30 hours, make it 30 days.

If you are serious, we will be as well. Because President Zelensky can't afford to be antagonistic in this moment, because Donald Trump, we know from previous months, will only take a dim view of Kiev and not Moscow so it's tricky for President Zelensky this could turn into something but few in Ukraine think it'll turn into anything meaningful or stable that would allow this war to end. James Waterhouse in Ukraine. The United States and Iran have spoken positively about a second round of talks on limiting Tehran's nuclear programme. A senior US official said very good progress was made during the

meeting in Rome. They described them as direct and indirect discussions. The two sides have agreed to hold further negotiations next Saturday. The Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aradji gave this summary of the meeting in Rome to Iranian state television. It was a good meeting and I can say that the negotiations are moving forward. This time we managed to reach a better understanding on a series of principles and goals. The negotiations need to continue and enter the next phase before the expert meetings can begin. In 2018, President Trump pulled the US out of a 2015 agreement known as the JCPOA, which saw Iran limit its nuclear

activities and allow inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, in return for sanctions relief. I heard more about Saturday's talks in Rome from Kazran Najee of BBC Persian, who's in the Italian capital. Well, there were talks at the embassy of Oman in North Rome, and Omanis are hosting and facilitating these talks and it happened there but the talks ended rather sooner than we expected here. I think the talks lasted about three hours given that they had to have lunch in the middle and it was shorter than we expected and that raised the suggestions that maybe the talks didn't go as well as they may have.

But otherwise, the Iranians are putting a positive glass on it, as you heard. They're saying that it's a step forward and that there was a positive atmosphere. But nevertheless, they were supposed to agree on an agenda for the negotiations they haven't even done that so although they have agreed to meet again I'm not sure whether the talks were as positive as the Iranians make it out to be. But what are the specific sticking points to reaching a deal? Well, the whole idea is that the US wants to limit Iran's nuclear program so that it

cannot have the ability to build a bomb in return for lifting of sanctions that have crippled Iran's economy. So that's the basis. In all that, President Trump has all along said that Iran must not have a nuclear weapon. And the Iranians are saying that we're not after nuclear weapon. Our program is peaceful. But central to that is Iran's enrichment program. Iran has accumulated a lot of highly enriched uranium that allows Iran to build a bomb in

a matter of weeks if it wants to. And that has raised concerns all along in international community and amongst the American leadership. The main sticking points in all this is that Iran is insisting that it has the right to enrich uranium. And that is not acceptable to the U.S. so far. So we have to wait and see whether there is regular room between those positions and whether they can move forward. I can add that in 2013, the talks that led to JCPOA, the agreement, the first step was that the Obama administration agreed to Iran's limited enrichment capacity inside Iran.

Kazran Naji from BBC Persian. On Saturday evening, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated that he was committed to preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. So where do Iran hawks in Washington stand on the current talks process? James Kumarasami spoke to Fred Flights, a former CIA analyst who had a senior national security role in the first Trump administration and ises of the United States and to basically exhaust all non-military options before he considers military action. So he's given this process two months. We've now had two rounds of talks. We don't know where the US is on that. My belief is probably very little was accomplished.

Looking at it from the outside, it seems as though the Iranians are insisting on having some enrichment capability and America's point of view is that's completely off the table. Do you see a point of compromise, a place where a deal can be struck? Well Iran thinks they have the right to enrich uranium and Iran doesn't have such a right. It was one of the worst compromises of the Obama administration when they conceded to Iran the right to enrich uranium. This is a bad offer made by John Kerry to try to get insanely weak JCPOA agreement approved. And Trump withdrew for that, calling it the worst deal ever.

And I don't think he's going to make a similar mistake. But Iran is much closer to having the capability to make a nuclear bomb now, isn't it? I mean that is, that's the reality of the situation. We had the commander of the US Strategic Command testifying before Congress last month, General Cotton, saying Tehran has reduced the time required to produce sufficient weapons-grade uranium for a nuclear device to less than one week. Well according to the Institute for Science and International Security, Iran can enrich enough uranium to fuel one nuclear weapon in less than a week and 14 weapons in 14 months.

Now, how fast it would have a weapon is another issue, probably six months to a year. When Trump left office, Iran could only enrich enough uranium for two weapons in 5.5 months. There was a huge surge in Iran's enrichment capability during the Biden administration because of Biden's incompetence. Fred, just in a brief sentence, how dangerous is the current situation? I think it's severely dangerous because Iran could have an operational nuclear weapon in six months to a year. And as Iran gets closer to the brink of beginning a nuclear test, we're looking at massive attacks on Iran by Israel. So this is the time to

strike a deal to stop a huge amount of carnage and fatalities. I think Trump's serious about it. I hope the Iranians are too. Former CIA analyst Fred Fleitz. The Houthis in Yemen say US strikes on a Red Sea fuel terminal on Friday have caused an environmentally damaging oil spill. The attacks on the port of Ras Issa killed at least 80 people. Here's Mike Thompson. Friday's headlines were all about the many human casualties caused by the US strikes on Ras Issa. Now the claimed environmental damage could dominate. The Houthis say the big oil spill could have a disastrous impact on sea life and lead to

the closure of large fishing areas, a dire prospect for food insecure Yemen. The group has appealed for help from international environmental organisations to deal with the incident. The US stepped up air strikes on the Houthis after they vowed to resume attacks on international shipping in protests at Israel's aid blockade in Gaza. Mike Thompson In the Gaza Strip, hospitals have repeatedly come under attack since Israel resumed its

military assault four weeks ago. Israel accuses Hamas of hiding its fighters behind the sick and wounded, which Hamas denies. Now medical supplies are running critically low due to Israel's ongoing blockade of Gaza. The BBC spent a day with Dr. Wissam Sukka at a Doctors Without Borders clinic in Gaza City. Our Middle East correspondent Yolande Nel reports. Gaza's healthcare is itself a casualty of 18 months of war. With many hospitals now out of service, small clinics like this one run by Doctors Without Borders struggle to offer life-saving care. Since the ceasefire collapsed a month ago, Dr. Wissam and three other GPs can expect up to 400 patients in a day. Thousands have fled to this neighborhood seeking safety.

Most of our patients are displaced people, even they live in tents in the streets. With little food and clean water, there's a rise in malnutrition and diseases, from stomach bugs to scabies. Small children are worst affected. It's just days since Israel bombed Al Ahly Hospital, saying it was being used by Hamas, something the armed group denied. The main local trauma hospital can no longer admit patients. Now more of Gaza's seriously wounded are coming here, but there's only limited care they can give. We provide them the wound care and physiotherapy, give them 10 kilos. We receive complicated cases and we don't know where to refer these patients.

On top of everything, Israel closed all crossings to Gaza a month and a half ago, saying it's putting pressure on Hamas to release remaining hostages. In the small pharmacy at the clinic, Dr. Wissam points out the essential medicines that are running out. They can no longer help patients with some chronic diseases like diabetes. We don't have insulin, we don't have treatments for epilepsy, we don't have basic medicines like anti-fever drugs. After a long day, there's the long walk home for Dr. Rissam. There's little fuel in Gaza to run a car. Her thoughts turn to her children, who've been displaced with her nine times, and looking after them.

I have daily struggle. I feel that I live in a nightmare that doesn't end. For now, there's no respite. Yolande now reporting from Jerusalem and as Israel is not allowing international journalists to enter Gaza, that report was recorded by a local journalist working with the BBC. A French Egyptologist has unlocked what he says are secret messages written 3,000 years ago on the Luxor obelisk in the centre of Paris. The obelisk was a gift from

the ruler of Egypt in 1830 and was erected on the Place de la Concorde. Jean-Guillaume Ouellet-Palatier, who is from the Sorbonne University, told me how he began studying the markings during the Covid lockdown. I was in Paris and I was living near the Obelisk and during the Covid period we had to move only one hour and one kilometre. So every day I came to see the Obelisk and one day I said, oh my god, there is something strange about this monument because all the Euroglyphic signs are pointed in front of something but I don't know what. I was very lucky because of the Olympic Games of Paris 2024, France put something to climb the obelisk and to clean it. So I just climbed and I discovered some new hieroglyphic signs.

Can I just point out to our listeners that the obelisk is massive. It's about 22 metres high and it's been there for a very long time and no one has noticed this before. So tell us Jean-Guyam, what were the secret messages that you discovered? Jean-Guyam It was every time something to prove Ramesses II was a true pharaoh to rule Egypt because Ramesses II had a problem. He was born before his father became Pharaoh. He wasn't built by God, if you want. And when Ramses II began to rule Egypt, he had to prove every year, every time, he was

divine. And to prove he was divine, he used cryptographies to prove it. On the obelisk, there are several messages explaining that. Like, for example, in the front part of the obelisk, there is a secret way to read it. For example, the face in front of the Sen, the river Sen, there is cryptic message on the top of the obelisk. You can see the pharaoh wearing

a crown. It was to show to the nobles and the royalties he is the true king of Egypt. Do you think the reason that these messages have not been read before is because they are on an obelisk which is in the centre of Paris? Exactly. It's because everybody sees it every day. So everybody's salt. Okay, it's already steady. We don't have to do anything more. But in fact, we had to. And there is two cryptic lines at the top of each column of inscription. If you read only the first signs on the top, but not on the vertical way, but on an horizontal way, you can see the cryptic name of the pharaoh.

So overall, Jean, you have basically helped to rewrite Egyptian history. How does that make you feel? It's quite, wow, I don't know what to say. I'm very happy. I'm a little bit afraid of course. Here in France they call me the Champollion of the 21st century. Jean Guillaume Ouellet-Palatier and the Champollion he was referring to there is Jean-Francois Champollion, the French scholar who deciphered hieroglyphics in the 19th century. Still to come, scientists have found a new colour. It's blue-green, teal, but the thing that characterises it

is that it's just so incredibly saturated. It's more saturated than any colour that you can see in the real world. The Taliban government in Afghanistan says it's expressed deep concern to Islamabad over the forced deportation of Afghan refugees from Pakistan. A Taliban statement issued after talks in Kabul said Pakistan's foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, was strongly urged to prevent the violation of the rights of Afghans. Mr Dar assured the Afghan leaders that refugees' grievances would be looked into. Hafiz Zia Ahmed Taqal is from the Taliban's foreign ministry.

Mr Ishaq Dar stated that Afghan refugees would not be mistreated and that serious steps would be taken in this regard. He emphasized that the property and assets of Afghan refugees belong to them and no one has the right to seize their goods. Pakistan has been trying to deport hundreds of thousands of Afghans who've had their residence permits cancelled. The US Vice President JD Vance has held what were described as cordial talks with senior officials in the Vatican. Mr Vance is a convert to Catholicism and it's been

widely reported he was hoping for an audience with the Pope. But, as our Europe regional editor Paul Moss reports, there have been serious disagreements recently between the two men. He did get a photo op, but not perhaps the one he wanted. JD Vance was shown smiling broadly as he strode through the Vatican corridors, surrounded by its famously colourful Swiss guards as well as Vatican officials. We're told they discussed international tensions and the challenges faced by refugees. But it's only two months since Pope Francis condemned the White House administration,

saying its removal of immigrants in particular was a disgrace. Mr Vance had tried citing medieval Catholic teaching to justify the crackdown, but the Pope swiftly dismissed this. Meanwhile the church's charity arm says Donald Trump's decision to cut foreign aid has been catastrophic. Cynics have suggested that having a one-to-one meeting with the Pope would have allowed JD Vance to bathe in his reflected moral authority. But that opportunity seems to have been denied. Whether it was because Pope Francis wanted to avoid it,

or just because he wasn't well enough, we may never know. Paul Moss. President Trump's administration has rebranded the government's official Covid website with the banner Lab Leak to promote the claim that the virus originated from a Chinese research laboratory in Wuhan. Instead of giving health guidance about the disease, the website now criticises many measures which were taken to contain it. From Washington, Iony Wells reports. There is no global consensus on the cause of the COVID pandemic. Some support the theory that it originated naturally and spread from animals. The lab leak hypothesis, which has been contested by scientists but has gained ground among some intelligence agencies, suggests it was a leak from a laboratory in Wuhan.

China has dismissed the lab claim as political manipulation by Washington. Donald Trump's administration has now officially rebranded the government's COVID page to support the lab leak theory. Instead of offering resources, the page now lists arguments for this theory and attacks various health measures that were taken at the time.

It calls social distancing arbitrary and says lockdowns caused immeasurable harm. Donald Trump was president when Covid first hit in 2020 before Joe Biden was elected in November that year. Irony Wells, next to sport and a 14-year-old has become the youngest ever player to appear in cricket's Indian Premier League or IPL, one of the sport's biggest tournaments. Here's Zubair Ahmed. Vaibhav Suryavanshi had already made headlines by playing first class cricket at the age of just 12. On Saturday he was handed his debut by the Rajasthan Royals after their captain Sanju Samson was ruled out due to injury. Born in 2011, three years after the

IPL was launched, Vaibhav is the first player in the league's history born after his inception. Rajasthan Royals head coach Rahul Dravid had spoken highly of the youngsters' progress. Last week he had said the team would not hesitate to give him a chance this season. India has a rich tradition of giving debuts to players at young ages. The cricket star Sachin Tendulkar made his test debut at 16 when he was still in school. Subair Ahmed Beijing has hosted a half marathon, which the organisers say is a world first, with humanoid robots competing alongside human runners.

Competitors from Chinese universities and businesses have spent months preparing their robots. Wendy Urquhart reports. 21 humanoid robots competed against thousands of human runners in Beijing on Saturday. The robots were kitted out with trainers, but that's really where the similarities end. They were all made in China by several different companies and just like us, some were short, some were tall and one could even wink and smile. It's the first time these robots have raced alongside humans over a 21 kilometer course and China is hoping that this event will generate future investment in its robotics industry.

Wendy Urquhart. Now there's a brand new colour in the world no one has seen before until now and it's called Olo. Scientists in California describe it as a vivid blue green. During an experiment laser pulses were directed into participants' eyes to stimulate cells in the retina. Simon Jack heard more from Professor Ren Ung from the University of California Berkeley, who works on the project. It's blue-green, teal, but the thing that characterises it is that it's just so incredibly saturated. It's more saturated than any color that you can see in the real world.

And what do you mean by saturated to the lay person? Let me try to give an analogy, okay? Let's say that you go around your whole life and you see only pink, like baby pink, you know, like a pastel pink, okay? You go around your whole life that way and then one day you go to the office and someone's wearing a shirt and you say, what is that color? And it's

just the most intense baby pink you've ever seen. And they say, it's a new color and we call it red. And how have you managed to make this possible? you've done something to stimulate the retina? How have you done it? That's right. This is a new system. It's in a laboratory at UC Berkeley. It's a big team effort. It looks like an optics table that you set the edge of a bunch of mirrors and lasers and other optical devices. And you peer into it and a laser beam goes into the pupil of the US subject and we stimulate individual

cells on the retina. We have to track the motion of the retina, we have to see the cells clearly, so we have to be able to focus to that level, and then we put laser microdoses of light into individual cells one at a time, but very quickly and very precisely. What we do is we stimulate to make this new colour that we call Ollo, we stimulate only the so-called M-cone cells, the M-photoreceptor cells on your retina, which never happens in normal viewing. Does that mean it really exists as a colour at all if you have to tamper so much with

the retina? It's quite an existential question. It certainly exists. It's possible to see, I would say it's very technically difficult to do today. And it's certainly basic science today. No one's going to see this on their smartphone or their TV anytime soon. But the reason that we're studying this is because we think it's a way to get into a deeper way to study vision science and neuroscience to make new discoveries.

Take a colorblind person for instance. Most of us know someone that's colorblind. If you find someone that's completely red-green colorblind, for many good reasons and a lot of research over the decades, vision scientists think that such a person sees the world only in shades of blue and yellow. If you have full color vision, it's actually quite hard to imagine. You have to really think about that. What would the world look like that I'm peering at right now if it was only shades of blue and yellow?

And then if you put yourself into the thought of, if I had that vision, and then one day I woke up and I opened my eyes and I could see what I actually see, all the colors of the rainbow, those would be legitimately new colours and it would transform my visual perception. Professor Ren Ong from the University of California in Berkeley. And that's all 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, you can 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 globalnewspod. This edition was mixed by Pat Sissons. The producer was Liam McShephry. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Rachel Wright and until next time, goodbye.