Global News Podcast - Zelensky says Trump 'living in disinformation space' created by Russia

Episode Date: February 19, 2025

President Zelensky says Donald Trump is trapped in a disinformation space created by Russia. He was responding to scathing comments from the US president. Also- the fate of Rihanna's partner A$AP Rocky after his trial.

This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritzen and at 14h GMT on Wednesday 19 February these are our main stories. Donald Trump's Ukraine envoy lands in Kiev amid divisive comments from the president about the war in Ukraine and President Zelensky saying his US counterpart is caught in a disinformation bubble. The first joint interview between Mr Trump and his adviser Elon Musk appears to confirm Washington's policy of imposing the terms of any peace. Hamas tells Israel to pull out of Gaza if it wants its hostages back. And Rihanna's partner, ASAP Rocky, is cleared of firing a semi-automatic weapon

at a rival musician. Also in this podcast... These animals are very social, so they've got nice family bonds. They're very social, you know, they'd be the first one at a whale disco. ..why a large group of false killer whales ended up stranded in Tasmania and the epic struggle to save them. ended up stranded in Tasmania and the epic struggle to save them.

You should never have started it. The somewhat startling words from President Trump seeming to imply that Ukraine is to blame for the current war against Russia, which of course fully evaded Ukraine three years ago. Speaking to journalists last night, Mr Trump even said Ukraine's President Zelensky had an approval rating of just 4% but on Wednesday Mr. Zelensky hit back insisting he enjoyed support from more than half the country and that the US leader had fallen victim to fake news We are seeing a lot of disinformation and it's coming from Russia. We understand this and we have proof that

these figures are being discussed between America and Russia. Unfortunately, President Trump, with all due respect for him as the leader of a nation that we respect greatly, the American people, is living in this disinformation space. Speaking in Kiev, Mr Zelensky said Washington's previous demands for $500 billion for his country's minerals were, as he put it, not a serious conversation. He insisted he could not sell his country. Well, on the ground, the diplomacy, or lack of it, continues. The American special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, has been visiting Kyiv. Arriving by train to the capital, he's insisting that

Ukraine's European allies would still be excluded from any peace talks. Our Eastern Europe correspondent, Sarah Rainsford, is following the story for us. Well, there was no press statement here in Poland, in fact, but it was certainly a reiteration of the kinds of lines that we've been hearing from Donald Trump and from his team negotiating in Saudi Arabia. And now Keith Kellogg has arrived in Kiev, stepping off the overnight train from here in Poland to say that he was looking forward to having wonderful talks in Ukraine. He did say that he was there to listen. He said that he understood Ukraine's need for security guarantees.

He understood the importance of Ukrainian sovereignty. But of course, those words pale rather into his insignificance somewhat for Kiev, given what Donald Trump has been saying overnight, essentially seeming to blame Ukraine for the invasion of its territory, which is quite extraordinary. You know, bear in mind, it's just a week ago that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin say they held a phone call. It does appear that Vladimir Putin has really explained something to Donald Trump or described something to Donald Trump that he is now repeating because listening to him speak it does sound very much like listening to Vladimir Putin

when he speaks about his war, his invasion of Ukraine and it is an extraordinary moment for everyone in Ukraine but also here in Europe in the wider region because of course Europe's been such a close ally of Ukraine throughout this full-scale invasion and now it's having to really reassess how it helps Ukraine going forward and how it protects its own security if the US is going to step back. Yes, so there is no doubt Europe is being sidelined. Quite clearly, yes. It wasn't at the talks, it wasn't informed of the phone call, it hasn't been fully briefed of the entire process. Yes, it's definitely being sidelined and the messages coming from from very senior members of Donald Trump's administration are extremely worrying for European leaders. I mean, look at Poland and the Baltic countries,

for example. Leaders here, politicians here have had to come out and reassure the populations that they don't believe that American troops will be withdrawn from these countries, for example. That's something that people here are worried about, that the US is stepping back so significantly that they don't believe that American troops will be withdrawn from these countries, for example. That's something that people here are worried about, that the US is stepping back so significantly from its role in European security that in fact even American troops might be withdrawn. For the moment, Polish and Estonian leaders are saying that's not going to happen, they're just rumours, but it is what people here are starting to worry about amongst everything else. Very briefly, is America going to give any support at all to Kyiv?

Well, Kyiv Kellogg is there. They're talking. He says he's going to listen. But certainly all of the optics from that meeting in Saudi Arabia were quite extraordinary. Seeing the Russian Foreign Minister, who is under US sanctions because of the war on Ukraine, sitting across the table with US officials, and those officials essentially already having conceded major things to Moscow. I think that is pretty difficult for Ukraine's allies in Europe and for Kiev, of course, itself to stomach,

frankly. Sarah Rainsford in Poland. One man who knows Mr. Trump and his approach to foreign policy is General H.R. McMaster, who was National Security Advisor from 2017 to 2018 and the author of At War With Ourselves, which is a book about what it was like to serve in the Trump first term. He has a top piece of advice for European leaders interacting with Mr Trump, but first told us more about how the comments were received.

Well, I think profound disappointment in that he would have that kind of interpretation of how the war started. And I think it's really important at this stage to engage him and to help correct this, what he's heard maybe from people who were useful idiots of Vladimir Putin. I'm thinking of people like Tucker Carlson, but maybe also from Putin himself, who I'm sure is doing everything he can to try to manipulate Donald Trump

and to offload responsibility for this war that he started. You could say back in 2003, when he poisoned a presidential candidate in Ukraine, and certainly since 2014 after the first direct invasion of Ukraine. I mentioned your book right at the beginning. You write something in that book that might be relevant now. You write about Donald Trump's obsession almost with Vladimir Putin. There's an incident I think after the

Skripal poisoning where there's a headline and he tells you to to give that to Putin. Tell us about that. Tell us about Trump and Putin. Well I think he's drawn to Putin for a number of reasons. One of which is he's reflexively contrarian. So if what he hears from the foreign policy, national security establishment in the United States is that Vladimir Putin is a threat. Vladimir Putin is engaged in a sustained campaign of subversion against the United States, Europe and the West overall. He needs to be isolated.

We need to impose costs on him. He has a tendency to do the opposite. What's really important with Trump is, is to frame whatever the challenge is. In this case, Putin's continuation of the war in Ukraine, but also the broad range of destabilizing activities in the shadow war that he's conducting against Europe. Burning down warehouses and cutting undersea cables

and incendiary bombs on DHL aircrafts. The incident you mentioned is, I walked into the Oval Office late one evening on another matter. President Trump had seen in a US newspaper laudatory comments about him by Vladimir Putin in an article where he also, Putin also, trashes the US political system. President Trump wanted me to mail this to Vladimir Putin. We had just received news about the Skripal poison. It was very clear that this had been orchestrated, directed from the Kremlin. And so I pocketed it, that article with the note on it from Trump to Putin and went back and told President Trump later, hey, I didn't send this article you

wanted me to send you because I'm sure Putin would have used it against you. And you know what's sad about this situation is whenever Trump says something, like he did remember in Helsinki, that is sympathetic to Putin's warped worldview, Putin uses that against Trump. Trump is actually weakening his own position. Do you think Keith Kellogg, who's just arrived in Kiev, do you think Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, are they telling him these things, do you think? I think they must be.

You know, Marco Rubio, Mike Waltz, who's in my old position now, I think even Kellogg, I think are much more reliable on understanding the cause, right, The cause of not just the horrors of the war in Ukraine and the hundreds of thousands of people who've been killed and wounded there, that's all attributable, obviously, to Vladimir Putin. But that really matters. Do you think they believe that and know it and will continue to act on it

and will have an influence on Trump, do you believe? I do believe so. And I tell numerous stories in the book about how Trump learns conversationally. The more people he talks to, the better. This is why I think it's really important for European leaders to engage Donald Trump, to go see him, to talk to him from their experience, tell him stories. I mean, what Donald Trump wants to know, hey, what's in it for us? Why do we care?

And he also wants to know, like, why do we have to do it? Why can't somebody else do it? And then he asks, how much does it cost? You know, how can we get other people to pay more? National Security Advisor in Donald Trump's first time, General H.R. McMaster. Meanwhile, Mr. Trump's senior adviser Elon Musk says he's determined to drive through his policies despite facing what he says is almost total opposition in Washington. The two men have given their first joint interview to Fox News'

Hannity programme, much of it focused on cutting government spending, with Elon Musk claiming his Department of Government Efficiency would save the US from bankruptcy. He vowed to take on anyone who stands in his way. They wouldn't be complaining so much if we weren't doing something useful I think. But what we're really trying to do here is restore the will of the people through the president and what we're finding is that there's an unelected bureaucracy, speaking of unelected, there's a vast federal bureaucracy that is implacably opposed to the president and the cabinet.

And you look at say at DC voting, it's 92% Kamala. Okay, so we're in 92% Kamala. That's a lot. They don't like me here either. I think about that number a lot. I'm like 92%. That's basically almost everyone. And so, but if you, but how can you, if the will of the president is not implemented,

and the president is representative of the people, that means the will of the president is not implemented and the president is representative of the people, that means the will of the people is not being implemented and that means we don't live in a democracy, we live in a bureaucracy. And so I think what we're seeing here is the sort of thrashing of the bureaucracy as we try to restore democracy and the will of the people. Emily Jischinsky is Washington correspondent for Unheard, a news and opinion website. She told my colleague Priya Rai both men were careful what they said despite interviewer Sean Hannity being a supporter of Donald Trump. I think they were both fairly guarded because Sean Hannity was repeatedly asking Elon Musk to tell viewers more

about his background and it seemed very intentional. In fact, Hannity said as much. He said that by the end of the interview, he said, quote, what I would like is I want people to know the relationship and know more about you to Elon Musk. And so you tried to get Musk to talk about his long career, a very consequential and interesting career, a very consequential and interesting career. And every time Hannity pushed, Musk pivoted the conversation back to Donald Trump. Donald Trump rejected all of the rumors that Hannity asked about involving potential feud, a feud potentially brewing between Trump and Musk, that Trump doesn't

like someone else having the attention. Trump said none of that was true, but you did get the sense that Elon Musk was conscious that these things do matter to Donald Trump, that Donald Trump wouldn't want him kind of hogging the spotlight. And he kept pivoting back to Trump. And we heard as well in just a minute ago in a clip from Elon Musk from the interview, some pretty strong words for the Washington establishment, you know, talking about what he says is kind of bureaucracy. Yes. He's been, he said basically you end up, if the executive branch is not responsive to the executive, that's Donald Trump obviously, then you're not ruled by a democracy, you're ruled by

a bureaucracy. And Musk comes from that perspective, he's expressing it in that way. A lot of conservative intellectuals think about it in the sense that these agencies have sprung up over the course of the past 100 years and presidents, it doesn't matter if they're a Democrat or a Republican, have a really hard time controlling them. A lot of people in the conservative movement say that's actually anti-constitutional and they see now, this moment, as their best opportunity to change that imbalance and Elon Musk is seen as sort of a vessel for realizing that very, very long-held goal.

And so Musk parroting that line in his own way is quite interesting Of course, it's it's sort of much deeper with people who have been around the conservative movement for a long time But I think that's where the White House and maybe even Hannity as a friend of Trump's said You know all of this media coverage is hysterical about Elon Musk coming into DC where he doesn't know anything and just on Musk coming into DC where he doesn't know anything and just forging the bureaucracy, let's give people some context on his background and his thinking. But Musk really resisted that. He didn't really want to get into his career, to be honest. Emily Jasinski speaking to my colleague Priya Rai. Other stories now. All Israeli hostages for a full withdrawal of forces from Gaza. That's the offer

Hamas spokesman Haseem Qassam has issued to Israel. The Palestinian faction is also demanding a permanent end to the war as part of the agreement but the Israelis well they're unlikely to accept. Sebastian Asher is in Jerusalem and following the story. This essentially was a Hamas statement which has come out we're still in phase one of the ceasefire deal, that's drawing to its end and it looks like that will probably work itself out reasonably well now. There have been moments when it looked like it might all fall apart but we've had essentially a deal that looks like it's going to go ahead

that four of the eight hostages who died in Gaza, their bodies will be returned on Thursday and then six, the remaining living hostages who are going to be released as part of phase one, are going to be released on Saturday and then the remaining four bodies will be given back to Israel next week. That means that phase one is coming to its end. It's coming to its end in about eight or nine days' time. Phase two, which will see the release or should see the release of all the remaining hostages in Gaza alive or dead, and I think the majority of those who are still in Gaza are presumed to be dead, are due to be

released and Israeli troops are meant to fully withdraw and hopefully there should be a permanent end to the hostilities. So what Hamas has done is essentially put out its vision of how it sees phase two should go and it wants to show good faith, at least make a show of it, even if in reality that may not be how it works out. So saying that all the remaining hostages could be released in one go rather than staggering it like we've seen in this phase, I think would be seen in that light. And Hamas is saying though it's conditional on those other elements of a full Israeli troop withdrawal and a permanent ceasefire need to be met in order for that to happen. Now talks on phase

two haven't started yet. They should have started more than two weeks ago. The Israeli government has said that they will start this week, but we don't know exactly when or how. But there is a negotiating team, an Israeli negotiating team that's in Cairo, which is still discussing phase one. They may be given instructions of what they should say for phase two. But I think the problem briefly that remains, I think, at the heart of this is what Hamas will represent after phase two. Will it still have a place of some kind in Gaza? And that's something that for Israel is unacceptable and as far as we can see Hamas still believes that it should play a role, if not the lead role in Gaza. So that is a major sticking point and also how full the Israeli troop withdrawal would be if every

last soldier leaves I think is somewhat open to question if we're talking from the whole of Gaza. Sebastian Asher in Jerusalem. The UN refugee agency says Pakistan is planning to order question if we're talking from the whole of Gaza. This warning adds pressure to families who have told the BBC they desperately fear a return to Afghanistan. Pakistan has taken in hundreds of thousands of refugees from its neighbour over decades of instability. But it says it is now expelling foreign nationals who are in the country illegally. It had previously announced that Afghans who have resettlement claims with other countries must leave Islamabad and Ralpindi by the 31st of March. The UN says that deadline still applies. According to the International Organisation for Migration, the pace of deportations from

the Twin Cities has increased in recent weeks. Asaday Mashiri. Still to come in recent weeks. Asaday Mashiri. Still to come in this podcast. Time traveling with the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop as its pioneering archive goes live to the world. the world. To Syria now and some two months on since the fall of the Assad regime, families of the disappeared are still searching for their missing loved ones. Over 100,000 Syrians are estimated by human rights organisations to have disappeared since the uprising against the rule of the Assad authorities began in 2011. It's thought that number includes more than 3,000 children.

The BBC has found evidence that some of them detained with their families were transferred to orphanages by order of the security apparatus. Our correspondent Lina Sinjab has this report from Damascus. At Marj square in central Damascus, men and women gathered from across Syria. Each hold a photograph of one of the thousands of Syrians whose fate is still unknown after the fall of Bashar al-Assad. He's my cousin actually. We lost him when he was 16 years old. They came and they arrested him from his shop, his father's shop. He was 16 years old. He was not doing anything.

Human rights organizations say hundreds of the missing are children. Atiyah al-Musa and his wife Ghazazia are searching for traces of their missing granddaughters, four-year-old Cham and five-year-old Islam. They along with their mother Hiba were taken in 2014 by the security forces who raided their house in a suburb of Damascus. They took 14 people in all, including seven children. We searched in security branches. We were told they are in state security, but not sure. Somebody told me that some girls were sent from detention centers to Lahn al-Hayat orphanage, but they denied having them.

After the fall of the regime, the search started. Reports came out that some children who went missing could be found at orphanages. Like many families, Atiya and his wife desperately hope they will find their loved ones. No one is helping us, neither the Ministry of Social Affairs nor the orphanages. We lost our daughter. Are we going to lose her daughters too? The Ministry of Social Affairs say they are investigating the cases of missing children. I met Mr. Ahmad Anizi, who is in charge of searching the dusty, messy and untouched files found in the basement of the ministry.

We are searching for these files, but we are not getting results yet because those in charge of these orphanages are complicit with the previous regime. Mask raves are regularly being discovered. In one week, four were discovered in this neighborhood in Damascus. The White Helmet Civil Defence say there were remains of children among the bodies. In many places like this one, the bodies are burned to cover the evidence. Parents who are hoping to find their missing children, for them the greatest fear is that they might be in the bones found here.

The basement's owner Ahmad Laham Sayed says for years he knew there were bodies below and couldn't talk. He told me he had nightmares hearing the cries of women and children. women and children. This is Lahni al-Hayat orphanage, where Mr. Moussa and his wife Ghazia came to find traces of their granddaughters. We've been told that this is a place that received many children by order of security forces of the Assad regime without any proper documentation. Mr. Mu'tasim Thalloumi is the new director. I asked him whether he knows anything about the case of Shaman Islam.

No, I don't. But I learned that many families used to come here looking for their children. We welcome any family here. We want to help. For Atiyah and Ghaziyeh, this might not be comforting. But for some of the children here, there is now a better chance of being found. Lena Sinjab in Damascus. Around 90 individuals of a species known as false killer whales stranded on a beach in Tasmania will be euthanised after authorities said there was no way to save them. More than 60 of the

animals, part of the dolphin family, have already died after the mass stranding near Arthur River in the island's north-west. Andrew Peach spoke to Dr Vanessa Pirotta, wildlife scientist and author from Macquarie University in Sydney. So we're talking about false killer whales, which some of your listeners have probably never even heard of before. If you can just picture a dolphin, probably the length of your family-sized car, if not longer, and they're super, they're all black, they've got a very rounded mouth, a very rounded face rather, and they're very social. So they breathe air like you and I, except they sound like this when they breathe. And these creatures, unfortunately, at least 157 of them have obviously been at some stage swimming around Tasmania and we don't exactly know why, but

they've become stranded and all efforts really went on to try and assist the remaining individuals that were still alive but unfortunately the challenge was trying to get these animals back out and where they were stranded was just too tricky and the environment was also terrible at the same time. And the reason it's so many, I mean forgive my naivety here, is that because they're all following each other? These animals are very social, so they've got nice family bonds, they're very social, you know, they'd be the first one at a whale disco because there's so many of them.

But why? Like usually it would be a pod of up to 100 or so. This is a really large pod. Maybe they were just enjoying the offshore waters. Tasmania is at the doorstep of the Southern Ocean, which is important to you and I, regardless of where we are in the world right now. It helps regulate the earth, the air that we breathe, our climate. And so perhaps these false killer whales are enjoying these really productive, fresh, cold, cooler waters. Yeah and the waters I suppose there will be quite protected. I mean, perhaps that's appealing in terms waters, I suppose, there would be quite protected. I mean, perhaps that's appealing in terms of, you know, a place to hang out.

Well, usually you would... False killer whales are usually an offshore species. These creatures, though, we really don't know much about them. And in Australian waters, there's only a few little spots where we've got research on them. But there's always that growing body of evidence. And so I'm documenting them on the east coast of Australia here trying to build up that knowledge because we actually know more about space than we do about our ocean and that might sound like a silly Billy question thing to say

but it's so true and how is us as marine scientists trying to do the best for these creatures when we just don't know and so studying them is quite challenging they go where they want when they don't know. And so studying them is quite challenging. They go where they want when, they don't recognise international boundaries. And so most of the time they're probably offshore. So this is just an opportunity for science to learn more about these animals. And just checking this, the reason that they can't be helped, can't be returned to the water, is that just a size thing? It is so many different things. So human safety is number one and the conditions there on my understanding is not favorable. So the tides, it's just

not the best. The animals have been in the area for quite a bit of time. That means that their body is literally crushing their organs. They've never felt their own body weight before because they've only ever had a water birth, right? The other thing is getting machinery to that area. If you had vessels, diggers, things with big strength that is able to essentially move a couple tonne animal off the sand and that's awesome but it's not the case there. And then for the animals that were able to be refloated, they're just coming back. Wildlife scientist Dr Vanessa Pirotta. Now to a case at the heart of the US music scene as ASAP Rocky has been cleared on two

charges of assault with a semi-automatic weapon. ASAP, whose real name is Raqeem Mayers, was accused of firing a weapon at another rapper, confusingly known as ASap Relly, whose real name is Terrell Ephron. Here was the moment the verdict was read out in the LA courtroom. The jury in the above entitled action, finder defendant, Raquem Mayors, not guilty. Our Los Angeles correspondent Emma Vardy has been following the trial. Paul Moss asked her about the incident that happened between the two men. They had this falling out, this dispute yards away from the Hollywood Walk of Fame and it

was partly caught on CCTV. You could see ASAP Rocky pulling out a gun, but he always claimed that this gun wasn't real. It was a prop gun that he said he just carried for security. But his friend or former friend ASAP, really said that he had shots fired at him and that they grazed his knuckles. So the jury had to decide who was telling the truth. Now, this was a celebrity trial. And like a lot of these types of celebrity court cases, the focus was very much on the characters involved

because of course ASAP Rocky's partner is a musical megastar. Rihanna, the singer, she came to court on many of the days to support her partner. And on one of those, she brought their two children and one and two year old. So that made headlines, of course, but there was a lot at stake for their family

because the rapper ASAP Rocky, well, if he'd'd been found guilty he could have been spending more than 20 years in jail, but the jury found him not guilty so he is a free man. How did these two, ASAP Rocky and ASAP Relly, end up falling out so badly that one of them accused the other of shooting him? Yeah, that's a good question. I mean look, the rap world is no stranger to feuds and fallouts. And there is kind of a culture of honor and respect. And if that goes wrong, it could go wrong really, really badly.

It was said to be that, you know, ASAP Rocky's career really took off. He was arguably the most famous out of the two of them and the more famous out of the hip hop collective that they were part of. Perhaps some jealousy, there were some arguments over money it was alleged as well. So just the old things that really lead to friendships breaking down especially when there's fame and money involved. So something that probably could have been a storm in a tea cup potentially was life changing for these two men and created this big courtroom drama that of course lots of people followed because the celebrities were in court. Our Los Angeles correspondent Emma Vardy. Now for this...

The sound of the TARDIS time machine from the BBC TV series Doctor Who, made by the pioneering BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Their archive is being made available for the first time for use by musical artists and producers. It's hoped the move will help to continue a legacy of helping invent and develop electronic music and sampling. Mark Ayres, who is a current member of the Radiophonic Workshop and its archivist, spoke to Priya Rai. and develop electronic music and sampling. Mark Ayres, who's a current member of the Radiophonic Workshop and its archivist, spoke to Priya Rai. Electronic music was a very new thing in the late 1950s.

It had been pioneered in Germany, a studio in Cologne by their broadcaster, and another one in Paris, making sounds from music concrete, which is found sounds, the sounds recorded from life or electronic sources. And Daphne Oram and Desmond Briscoe at the BBC, they were studio managers at Broadcasting House, they were very interested in this stuff

and felt the BBC should get involved. And the BBC wasn't really interested in electronic music, but what they were interested in was new ways of producing sound effects for radio drama on the third program. And so that's how the Radio Phonic Workshop came about, creating the sounds of, well, the thoughts of a man sitting in his bath rubbing his back with a loofah, for instance, and plays such as Private Dreamers and Public Nightmares, and eventually, of course, Quatermass and

Doctor Who and everything else. What's going to be available now on this online archive? Well, this is a lot of the building blocks from the original archive, the sounds that made up the stuff that we've been listening to all our lives. They've been influencing people like the Orb, Orbital and Pink Floyd,

and even Prince used a radio phonic workshop sample. It's been part of our lives for generations, and this is a way of paying back. We've produced this sample library of original work and indeed new work that we've created. Tape loops, new tape loops, new sounds and junk percussion, etc. And all those original tones and whoops and blops from the workshop. Hopefully, this new generation of composers now will find this inspiring and a creative tool to use in stuff going forward.

Mark Ayres, a current member and archivist of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. And that's all 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, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on x at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag at global news pod.

This edition was mixed by Paul Mason and the producer was Stephanie Prentiss. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Alex Ritzen. Until next time, goodbye.