Russians close in on gateway to Bakhmut: "the situation is stably f----d" | Ukraine: The Latest

I'm David Knowles and this is late-breaking Ukraine. Today we are here. Roland Oliphant, reporting in Donbass, spoke about the reluctance of Ukraine's allies to supply F-16 fighter jets and we spoke to Ukrainian journalist Svetlana Morines about her reporting and analysis of The Ghastly and Barbaric Ukrainian Politics The Adventure of Vladimir Putin must end in failure Putin's war in Ukraine has destabilized energy markets around the world no one is going to break us we are strong we are Ukrainians every weekday afternoon we sit down with leading journalists from the Telegraph newsroom in London and our teams report from the field to bring you the

latest

news and analysis on the war in Ukraine.

It's Tuesday, January 31, day 342. And with me to discuss the

latest

developments in Ukraine and around the world, I'm joined by our Associate Editor Dominic Nichols, our Assistant Comments Editor, Francis Sternley, lives in Don Bass, our Correspondent senior foreigner, Roland Oliphant, and our guest today is Ukrainian journalist Svetlana Morones, who currently works at The Spectator, a British news and politics magazine. We start listening to Roland, who is traveling. in Donbass right now in the back of the car using it as a studio. um I'm in Donbass to try to cover the big battle here, which is the battle environment that we've talked about.

Very much, it has become a kind of black hole in the center of the galaxy, it is actually attracting forces from both sides to an immense degree and you can feel it the

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r you get, the hospitals begin to fill with injured people who have come from a backward mood and you talk to soldiers, police, border guards or almost anyone and they either go to a backward mood or come back from backward mode or have companions serving in the back. Anyway, that's why I'm here, we were in a very small town yesterday, about seven miles back.

I think what I measured on the map essentially became a really key logistics center because the Russians have basically managed to flank back. They are moving from the south and now they are threatening to cut the main road into the city from a town called Constantino but not too far from here and since they took Solidaridad there is also another road that goes down from the north but that is also unsafe so Los Ukrainians now only have one route to the original mode and that is through the VR chassis and you don't have to be Napoleon looking at the map to realize its tactical importance.

In the last few days we heard a lot, a lot of very strong artillery fire. I wouldn't pretend to know exactly what which weapon means, but it sounded pretty loud. I definitely had some Brad Rockets this morning. I saw some helicopters. I'll have seen these videos of them, right, they fly very, very low, put their nose up and shoot some rocks, then light their flares and turn around, so I ran into a couple of them this morning, I'm pretty sure. They were Ukrainians, if not, then the Russians were much

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r than I would like to think, but you know, in general, I think the atmosphere is quite nervous and not so optimistic, I mean, no, I don't have like a view aerial of the battlefield and things like that, but talking to people and picking up things and kind of what people say, I think the point is that we come back, May, May, I'm not saying it will, but it may be Oh. the path of several Donetsks in due time and that the Ukrainians will eventually retreat to another line.

I'm not saying that's definitely what's going to happen, that's largely a reflection of the type of atmosphere and conversations being had there. rather than the kind of official pronouncement, but that seems to be the feeling Roland, you spoke to the mayor of Hasaviar when he was there, what did he tell you about the

situation

in his city? Well, the real quote was in my office today. paper I don't know what our rules are about foul language I think you can do it, okay I mean, you know people die all the time, so you know obscenity, um, I said, I said, listen, could you summarize the

situation

in two? words and he said stable stable is what he said and he said look we have fire coming in basically everyone we have had injured and she is dead the school has been exploding and they have shared two of our daycares he said they are empty at the moment there is no one in them known as wounded, but they've been wiped out, a lot of houses just driving through the city lost their windows, you know, shells have fallen in between the um, so if you travel in the In the former Soviet Union, you'll see these kind of ubiquitous blocks of five-story apartments they call Chris Chokers because Khrushchev is credited with devising them as a kind of temporary solution to the housing crisis in the 1950s and they were never replaced. typical working class neighborhood somewhere in these five-story apartment blocks and you can see where shells have just landed.

About 40 of the population are still in the city. He said he's trying to get more people out, but of course. This is a pattern that is seen in every city that is caught in this war, those who can get out or have the money to get out or want to get out, go and eventually the population slowly dwindles and you end up with people. who can't leave because they're too poor, they can't afford it, they have nowhere to go or maybe they're old or very sick and can't get around, so you always have the kind of very dedicated, heroic local officials who stay to preserve my city as long as they can and you also have doctors, nurses and things like that.

It may not be a very pleasant truth to talk about, but basically you. I have somewhat irresponsible people who I think would have difficulties at any level of society and who simply cannot recover or get out and lastly there is a certain proportion of the population, especially in Donbass, who are probably sort of silently or not so quietly, waiting for the Russians to get there because they harbor pro-Russian sympathies. Now you can't do a survey and determine who is who in the city, but that process is ongoing, there is definitely a lot of fear around, they have these little invincibility points as they call them, so when the Russians started their huge bombardment with missiles against energy infrastructure, in the fall, President Zielinski said that we were going to have invincibility points.

In each city the authorities were told to establish a place where you could go to warm up and charge your phone and have some electricity, some water, some heat in case your building goes out, but yesterday I visited one of them. I'm pretty crowded space, pretty simple, little room on the ground floor, trestle tables, a couple of homemade wood burning stoves and people sitting there getting a lot of electricity and they're all talking about the same thing, you know? I stay? Leave? Can I go if I go? My husband is going to be recruited or pressured at the checkpoint, it's a rumor that's circulating out there.

I have no evidence that's true, but it's definitely a room of people talking about if I go, I'll have a job, I'll get a salary and weighing that against the fact. that everyone knows that the battle is getting closer and closer and it is getting audibly closer and closer and it is quite possible that if the Ukrainians withdraw from the retreat movement, I am not saying that they will, but if they do, this it's going to be a front line city and it's going to get pretty bad so yeah that was the kind of atmosphere there thanks Roland just one more question for me before I ask if Don Francis or Svetlana have any questions for you.

You mentioned that you feel very afraid. and the nerves among the people, but what about the morale of the people? And if you have spoken to soldiers, bodyguards, officials, etc., what is your perception of their morale at this point in the war? No, I really don't detect low morale among the soldiers I've spoken to. I mean, it's complicated. I think people around here have, you know, they don't have any romantic illusions about what's happening back there. I think it's clear that the Russians are making a little more progress than they would like, but there's no sense of panic, no sense of oh no, it's the end or anything like that.

I think it's pretty serious. From what I could see, you know people are still doing their jobs. You see the soldiers moving up and down the roads as if it were not. I know without rushing. Has no sense. I think this is. You already know. It's a crisis or something, it's just a tough battle and I know it's a tough battle and I think you know, I mean, Ukraine has been through this a lot over the past year, these very long, bitterly contested fighting retreats and the idea is to make the Russians pay as much as possible in blood for every meter of land they take, that's my general sense of the situation when I was talking to a um, I dropped into a hospital the other week, the other day, not in this region in another region and almost all the guys there had come from behind and basically the message: you know that the slightly wounded are going to be healed, they will have like a few days or a couple of weeks to recover and they will probably return to their units probably to fight in the same place and it seems that the doctors are quite careful about letting you talk to people.

His point is, look, a lot of these guys have literally just seen the best they could. their teammates get killed in front of them and they have concussions, they're not in the best space, so you know they're not people to have a deep conversation with, but you know one or two of them. We're happy to chat. There was a guy who had been behind the Moot and was attacked by a Russian tank that had killed two of his men. He had saved him thanks to his helmet. In fact, he showed me that he stopped some shrapnel.

He had gone straight to his temple and he was like, you know, he was quite cheerful, actually, I mean, given what had happened, he was like, you know, I feel much more capable of making a dark joke about it and he certainly was. talking about probably returning once he recovered. Thank you very much for that, Roland. Of course, you're welcome to stay and contribute to the rest of the discussion, but we totally understand if you need to continue and thank you. So much for calling Dom Nichols, can I come to you? Yeah, hey David, hey everyone, hey Roland, great to hear from you mate, I'm just going to know what you're reflecting there is partly reflected in today's defense update from Mod which I'll talk about in a moment. , but also the ukrainian general staff said last night that Russia has been bombing a dozen settlements around the Center for the last 24 hours and last night president zielinski was talking about Russia's great revenge, his words said quote I think Russia really wants his great revenge.

I think they've already started it every day, either they bring in more regular troops or we see an increase in the number of Wagnerites, you know, from the Wagner mercenary company, a mercenary group, but Ronan, my question for you is about the Ukrainian troops you're seeing, can you offer an opinion on the general's level of training? Are they regular? They are irregulars before the war. Regulars who joined the recruitment or we have seen. Any of the troops that have arrived so far have been part of the training regime here in the UK. We have about a dozen or I think 13 countries now sent instructors here to the UK to train Ukrainian troops in their initial type of training.

Have any of them reached the sectors you are looking at and what is the general status? How would you rate them? You've seen enough soldiers and sailors in your life, but enough soldiers in your life to qualify. them, what do you think of their training? um, I haven't been in combat with them, so I can't speak to that in terms of people who have gone through the British training program. I personally haven't done it. I met someone. I was talking to a guy who said he knew someone who had been trained in Britain and left, you know, finished the basics and in Britain and went somewhere else to do some other specialized training before joining a regiment. , what these may mean.

The guys are really preparing to be a proper brigade, some of them may be present. I haven't met them. I have met people who were regular soldiers before the war, but they are becoming fewer and fewer, to be honest, there are a lot of people who went through volunteer battalions in 2014 and 2015, but I would say that the vast majority of people I am seeing now they weren't soldiers until recently, certainly, the hospital I was away at, the doctors I was talking to, who are real veteran soldiers who fought. in 2014 and 2015 they have been in the military since one of them was on the front line personnel of the Airborne and they said that they look like a lot of the guys that are coming in now, about three months ago they were programmers, so I don't are. there and what they wanted to say was these guys aren't like us, right, we're professional soldiers and we're not just professional soldiers, we're doctors, so we deal with death as much as we're used to.

I know what it's like and these guysThey have literally gone from being a computer programmer, to an auto mechanic, to working at a cheese factory, whatever that may be. The soldiers they have been throwing into combat and many of them have literally just been attacked and many of them have literally just seen their comrades blown to pieces. in front of them and it's very difficult and the first part of the things that those guys really focused on was about the kind of mental health implications and you kind of know when they come back from the front and they say Look more than us, fixing them physically, it's about understanding that and understanding what they've been through and helping them, I mean, in terms of their professionalism and training.

I don't have his background, so I don't have that. It's kind of an expert eye, but I mean, yeah, pretty obviously motivated. I think that the Armed Forces of Ukraine in general have shown a lot of motivation. The standards have something like discipline and cleanliness and things like that. I think that varies from unit to unit and some units have a reputation for yo. I mean, I've heard of a particular airborne unit that has a reputation for being, you know, big aggressive drops on the front lines, but in terms of the state of the, I mean, I haven't seen it myself, this is kind of a matter of reputation. but you know the state of their kind of dress discipline and things like that apparently and the cleanliness apparently leaves a lot to be desired.

Others, I mean, personally, at the beginning of the war, I was working once before all the Marines and they were remarkably. There was a kind of level of that kind of personal discipline and an organization and a kind of personal cleanliness that was different. I think it's generally good. I mean, there was a um. I've heard British soldiers who have seen these guys up close saying quite impressive, to be honest, given that a lot of these guys have been soldiers for say three or four months, the motivation shows through that, like you, You have to say, well, my God, not these guys.

They no longer look like raw recruits, they are showing little signs, little stories that you know show commitment and discipline. Thanks Roland Dom, we know you have to run in a second, so do you want to give us? your final updates, yeah right, and thanks for that Roland, so Roland is talking to us or he's talking about Joseph Yar and the area that's about 10 kilometers west of back, now it's debatable, that's to locate listeners that it is about 50 kilometers north of Dunya. City, now I want to get out of there and let's go about 50 K to the southwest.

I've still done it, about 100K from where Roland was describing, so that's kind of the southern part of the front of the lower Don. I want to talk about the area around two small towns called pavlika and vuladar fulada it's about a couple of just a couple of K outside of paprika, but that's the area that is effectively the front line in that kind of southern sector that you're facing . a kind of zapparesis, so now we are in the southern Donbass and the British defense intelligence report today says that Russia has been using or has used the 155, 155th Naval Infantry Brigade, um without success in that area since November 2022 and I have seen reports on social media suggesting that the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade was a pretty classy team at the beginning, but was badly mauled and has now been replenished with recruits and mobilized personnel, but the UK defense intelligence today says that for the last three days, Russia has been using that reconstituted Brigade to develop probing attacks around those towns, those small public towns and blown up like I say 50k, we are now 50k southwest of Donetsk, so three days of probing attacks and saying that they have reconstituted at least a brigade-sized force and have made very small incremental gains, but they are only talking about several hundred meters, that is the estimate of UK defense intelligence, several hundred meters, um beyond.

The front line, which has been pretty static for months and the UK is saying, quote, Russian commanders are likely to aim to develop a new axis of advance towards Ukrainian health in Donetsk or exploit and divert Ukrainian forces of the highly disputed debatable sector. realistic possibility that Russia will continue to make local progress in the sector; However, Russia is unlikely to have enough uncommitted troops in the area to make a quote-unquote operationally significant advance, so what they're saying is they're continuing these probing attacks. They're looking for, as I've described before, this kind of giant Jenga game, they're looking for where the line is that is weakest and they would try to advance there and once they get there, it's going to be a tough fight to overcome. cross any line.

So you'll need some sort of operational reserve, fresh troops, uncommitted troops not yet in contact to then move forward and exploit any gains you can make, and UK defense intelligence says Russia is unlikely to do that. We have enough uncommitted troops to make any operationally significant advance, so a very tough fight still in the South as well and it doesn't look like these small incremental advances of a few hundred meters are going to be a Russia that can do it. translate that into any bigger developments, but we've been concentrating on the post-mood area and where Roland has been reporting from recently and it's nice to just take another look at the rest of what's happening in the rest of the rest of the front line I'm going to have to run now I'll leave you with Lana but yeah, that's it for me, thank you very much Dom Nichols Francis Stanley before we go to Svetlana um Francis, there's been some big news, uh, coming out in the diplomatic sphere around to the F-16 fighter jets, can you tell us about that?

Thanks David, yes, obviously this has been an ongoing saga over the last few days around this question of whether the F-16s will be sent to Ukraine. Some important developments overnight are that Joe Biden, the president of the United States, of course, has ruled out sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, rejecting Zelensky's request in favor of them. Last night he was addressing reporters at the White House when he was asked if Washington would offer these planes and he responded very simply. No, this seems to have arisen from other high-level talks between European partners because, as expected, Olaf Schultz has also said that he will not send any advanced fighter jets.

Britain this morning has also said that it does not seem so practical to send UK fighter jets to Crane. An official spokesman for the Prime Minister has said that the UK's Typhoon and F-35 fighter jets are extremely sophisticated and take months to learn to fly, as we have given that we believe it is not practical to send. these aircraft to Ukraine we will continue to provide and accelerate our military support to Ukraine and will listen carefully to their requests. Poland too, it must be said, has also been very skeptical and has made it appear that they will not send more advanced aircraft. fighter planes it is France that leaves nothing on the table Macron has said that in principle nothing is excluded, but only if certain conditions are met and it does not lead to an escalation, very disappointing news, without a doubt, for the high command Ukrainian this morning in relation to I just spoke on the phone to Hamish and Bretton Gordon, a regular on this podcast, former member of the 1st Tank Regiment here in Britain, former commander of it and he will be writing for our newspaper tomorrow and I was speaking , he was speaking and he explained the importance of these fighter jets and he offered some pretty interesting context that I'll try to summarize briefly, which is essentially that right now we've been talking a lot about this Russian offensive in March and he thinks that the fighter jets that They would not have been prepared for this anyway if they were sent, they are not really needed to repel this, of course they would be useful, but they are not necessary, the Ukrainians already have Soviet planes that they will be able to use, but also Britain has sent them some very advanced defense systems to repel artillery and things like that and other weapons that attack tanks, so with that in mind for the limit to repel the Russian offensive, we don't need fighter jets, that's what he was saying or the Ukrainians will not need fighter jets, but you have to think long term in terms of large-scale offensives by the Ukrainians, either taking Crimea or seeking to expel the Russians completely from the Donbass and other territories.

He thinks that advanced fighter aircraft will be needed in the long term just because of the scale of the operations, the number of soldiers who will participate in those types of operations, the number of tanks, the other, the number of armored vehicles, etc., for This is a long-term problem, so to speak, rather than something that is largely short-term, but clearly I think Ukraine is very interested in emphasizing the importance of this because they are thinking about the long term. term, they are thinking about taking Crimea and they know the value of these planes and how many months it will take to train Ukrainian pilots to use them, so it's a bit of an interesting context on this and I think it's also worth keeping in mind that I don't think that These responses from In the West of Definitely feel the hesitation of France there and I think that is suggested for some of the conversations that are taking place, but they feel, as I have been saying, that the best way to do it is to drip, drip, drip to gradually. increase weapons and their advanced level in the long term because it prevents there from ever being a crisis point, that is, the feeling that it is right or wrong, if it is accurate or not, that this is the best strategy to adopt and, to a certain extent, that Of course, it has worked, there has not been a moment of crisis and yet we are much more advanced in terms of the weapons that are given to Ukraine now than what was possible earlier in the war , so that's the image of the F-16. as they are, but they are still a developing story and who knows, maybe France will have surprises in the coming days.

Thank you very much Francis for that and I know there are some other updates we want to address, but let's get back to them. It is a great pleasure to welcome our guest today, Svetlana Morinets. uh, Ukrainian journalist currently working at The Spectator magazine in London. Svetlana, thank you very much for joining us. Could you tell us a little about yourself and the impact of the large-scale invasion on your country? life and if you are comfortable with your family and friends hello David hello everyone um this war has lasted nine years so I wouldn't say that the situation has changed as much as before since before because uh the only things that are the change are the missiles flying or over the sky and also the other thing is that the world finally doesn't realize that Russia invaded Ukraine because when I was a kid I lived next to the ski stands at school and I helped collect food to send to to send to the soldiers, also a man from my village was repairing tanks in the garage, so yes, we have been in a war for a long time and finally we see that we get help and we can finally fight against the Russians, if we talk about my family.

My brother is eight years old and he is also a child of war because he was born the year Russia invaded Crimea in Boston and even at his young age he understands what is happening and knows that Russia attacked while the Ukrainians also fight in school during their warnings All the children have to go to the bomb shelter and since now they can only go to school twice a week and other days to study remotely because it is still very dangerous and the bomb they have in their school is not big enough for everyone the children, that's why they like that they can go only a few days a week to study and it's very hard and he almost didn't have to study because of kovid and not because of the war and I really feel very sorry for him and when he returned to Ukraine For the Christmas holidays I was in Krakow and he called me and asked me like a warrior if Krakow was also being bombed because he doesn't understand why Ukraine is being bombed. and other places know it and for us and why it is happening what we did to have all that good, thank you for giving us that context and that story of your family and your brother, turning to yourself, can you tell us a little? about where you come from and where you have been for the last year, what you have done and seen before the terrifying invasion.

I was working as a freelance journalist in a cave and also before reporting from Crimea after the occupation and when the war broke out on a large scale, I was abroad and that's why, to be honest, I didn't know what to do because what I saw on the news that morning when I woke up it was like Ukraine was being bombed. from the cities I called my parents they were all crying it was horrible I will never forget it so I came to the UK and luckily I was able to find a job because when I got here they told me that foreigners can't get a proper job here.

UK, but for now I write for The Spectator and covered the war in Ukraine and alsoI write the weekly Ukrainian newsletter InFocus. Can we talk a little bit about some of the politics in Ukraine? Last week there was an avalanche of resignations and layoffs. Tell us about them and why you have a positive opinion of President Zielinski's response and his actions. Yes, I'm sure last week Ukraine was rocked by a series of corruption scandals and I'm sure our allies were worried because the situation fired more than a dozen politicians even from their inner circle and I guess their biggest scandal was that the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine will buy food for the army two to three times more expensive than the price in cave stores. and surely ukrainians were outraged because while they give their last money to buy armor, bulletproof vests, helmets, food, medicine for other soldiers, some politicians try to get rich during the war, but i would like to emphasize that zelensky's decision to fire these politicians It was a result of a public demand and also of the work of investigative journalists in Ukraine, they have done a great job and I would say that what is different now from our previous presidents or from Ukraine before the 2014 invasion is that before these investigations did not lead to anything, I mean, everyone knew that someone is stealing from our high-ranking politicians, but in reality no one cared about the president or the prime minister and they did not fire these people, so I think that also It's important to understand that, as you, us, and all of our allies are giving us help, they want to see that all the money and all the weapons are used properly.

That's why I think this quick reaction from the landscape and the government was a very good sign that Ukraine is ready to change and change the situation. system and I know that the US and the commission in Ukraine are going to monitor and control all the AIDS sent to Ukraine and they have spent the money and they have used the weapons to make sure that nothing is stolen and I think that is correct and in This way Ukraine can fight against Russian propaganda that constantly talks about our weapons being sold on black markets, which is obviously not true, so I think that even if each country sent commissions to control the spending of money in Ukraine, I think it would be great. and Ukrainians, ordinary Ukrainians will be happy because we know that not all politicians behave in the interests of Ukraine.

Thanks for that response, Svetlana, may I ask? I mean, my question was about Zelensky's response and you and you pointed out his argument to me. that this was led by the people and actually Zelensky was responding to the people's outrage and what and what these officials had done. I just wanted to ask if you think that feeling of outrage over things like corruption does that. Go back, I mean it goes back to the dignity revolution of 2014, so this is not necessarily something new, but I was wondering if you could talk to us a little bit about the attitude towards this kind of thing in Ukraine, which is what believe.

Would you say 2014 is a turning point for that? Yes, 2014 when we made that Revolution it was not only against the Russian president who refused to sign the UK agreement on association with Ukraine, but it was also against the corrupt system, the corrupt politicians about uh, politicians who bought gasoline at Russia at inflated prices and stole money intended for the repair of roads, schools or hospitals. I know it sounds horrible and Ukraine really made Ukraine pay a lot to change that system and actually that. was the reason one of the reasons why Putin invaded because in 2014, when Ukraine overthrew its production and its corrupt government and started moving towards democracy and these are not allowed words, but in reality they were, they were dying for it and fighting for it and since then they were trying to control the politicians, what they have, they said they spent money on their public organizations, the journalists and since then the situation has really been changing and changing gradually and I hope it will continue to be that way and I know that some people are afraid of that.

Ukraine after Zelensky what will it be like will we return to that corrupt system that we had before and I say no, that Zielinski does what the public demands of him and I do believe that if he did not fire the politicians if he followed that elaborate part of our former presidents he would be overthrown very quickly, so I think all politicians understand it and the power right now is in the hands of the people, especially in the hands of the army, because the army is the largest and most respected institution right now in Ukraine and no one is further. respected as a soldier by Ukrainians, so yeah, that's really interesting, there are a lot of really interesting points.

I think a lot of thanks to Fitlana, just one more political question, kind of a speculative question, really, but after these layoffs last week. There was a suggestion, there was a whisper of a suggestion that perhaps after months, normal politics could begin to return to Ukraine this year and I wanted to ask from your perspective what that would look like and what foreigners should be on the lookout for. or should I understand about Ukrainian politics and I appreciate that it may be a difficult question to answer because we don't necessarily know that this is a completely new scenario potentially being fought over by politicians and officials, but I was wondering if you had any thoughts on that.

First I want to say that firing a dozen politicians in one day is not new for Ukraine because since the last leader came to power he was firing ministers one after another for a week and said he would do so until a perfect agreement was reached. government I don't think that is possible in Ukraine for now and I don't think it is possible at all to make a perfect government, but Ukraine is really moving in the right direction and talking about normal politics is in a bad way. in the Soviet heritage we had is Ukraine, the Ukrainian president banned all pro-Russian parties and parties related to the oligarchs and I would say that the interest of the oligarchs in Ukrainian politics was as if it were called normal politics because the oligarchs could bring a completely unknown person for one of the main candidates for the presidency, as in half a year he simply used the media because they control the media, most of the television channels in Ukraine were divided between oligarchs who competed with each other, but the last one implemented a law simply just before the full screen Invasion prohibited for oligars to control television channels and also fulfill statements to control enrichment and I am also sure that you have heard of Victor Medvichuk, one of the most influential oligarchs in Ukraine, and was exchanged for Recently, for the 100 Ukrainian soldiers, not so recently, but they exchanged him because he was a very close friend of the one who put Pro and burned the Russian matches.

Ukraine this means the influence of the Kremlin on our politics and we become truly independent and we can choose our own path without listening to anyone thank you Svetlana just stepping away from politics I wanted to ask you a few more questions about your experiences um I understand that in 2019 you hitchhiked around um then in the next Crimea um why did you do this and what did you do? At that time there was almost no news about Crimea and I really wanted to know how people live under occupation and especially abroad. I mean, the media wasn't talking about it or the situation on the bus, so I went to Crimea alone.

I was too young for that trip, I mean, I was like 19 and it was a little dangerous because I was hitchhiking and pretending to be Russian, uh, because to get information about what pro-Russians think and when I got there and I saw that even the people who voted in the referendum for Russia did not believe in the result, they did not believe in the results because 97 percent of the people voted to join Russia when 82 percent supposedly came to vote. It was ridiculous even for them and I also saw the constant intimidation of the pro-Ukrainian population and especially the Crimean Tatars.

I met some of them at the Undercover Cafe in Silverpool and they were talking about police walking around their houses about people being imprisoned and even deported to uh. to some regions of Russia like they were in 1944 by Stalin and it's really horrible and you know, nowadays people think that, like a Russian invasion, if they invited something like that everything would be over, people continue to live their lives in peace and the most important thing is that No, there is no fighting, no tanks, no weapons, but what they don't know is how many repressed people there are there and Putin has been gradually changing the population of Crimea, moving Russians there offering them much cheaper apartments , offering them great salaries, good jobs and at the same time.

At the same time, the pro-Ukrainian people and the DARS culture were fleas fleeing from Crimea and the Ukrainian language was banned in university schools. I met a woman who was struggling by hiding a Ukrainian flag under her bed and she kindly invited me to her house. and she showed me the flag and said you can't imagine how many people are waiting for Ukraine to come back and in fact in 2014 they were waiting for Keo to say he would send the army to liberate Crimea to protect them but no one. The time came when the Ukrainian government was decapitated and no one wanted to take responsibility for Crimea and the device did not support us, so I think that there are, it is true, that there are many Russians in Crimea, but not because they want to live with Russia, but because actually there are Russians and they came from Russia, but as soon as Ukraine started bombing the Russian bases in Crimea, the Russian military bases started fleeing the island, the peninsula and the people, some people they met in Crimea when I was traveling over there.

A few years ago they wrote to me, in fact they wrote to me and were very happy saying that they hoped Crimea would also be liberated soon and at the time I was there I thought there was no chance of Ukraine ever returning to Crimea. back, but right now we can do it backed by Western weapons and the only question is whether we are going to receive those weapons and whether we will be allowed to do so, unfortunately Ukraine does not have all that amount. of weapons and people to do this right now, but we hope that with the help we can do it.

You said we know you've been in London working for The Spectator magazine. What has been your experience in the UK? Do you have a What is your experience with British support or sometimes lack of support for Ukraine? What do you think of us? I guess that's the question. I can surely say that Britain is one of Ukraine's greatest friends at the moment and, to be honest, we didn't. I hope we get such great support and I think Britain was one of the first countries to send weapons to Ukraine and provide aid to Ukraine and we are very grateful and when I was here all the people were very kind and lovely.

He always offers me help and sometimes he makes me cry because you come here uh you run away from war and you come here and it's so strange to see people here just peacefully living their lives going to cafes going to parties visiting theaters and There's nothing wrong with That, I mean, it's not Britain's fault that Ukraine was invaded. But I am surprised that even despite that, the British still help Ukraine and still care about us and I really hope they continue to do so. That's because your government's policy depends on public opinion and as long as the public in Britain and the United Kingdom support Ukraine they will ask to send weapons to Ukraine, you cover, your government will do well.

Thank you very much Svelana for responding. all my questions, um, Francis sternley, have you been listening to this conversation and what would you like to talk to Svetlana about? Well, thank you, sit down live. It's really interesting to hear your perspective on so many topics that we've discussed at length on the podcast at Over the past few months, my first question clearly follows David's last. I'm always very interested in the disparities between Western coverage of the war and the Ukrainians. You have been a journalist now in both countries. Are there still big differences in coverage? or in the analysis, do you think there is between, say, a British and a Ukrainian perspective or are there actually more similarities now?

Do you think there are many more similarities now than before the large-scale invasion because the Western media previously reported on the situation? The Warrington bus was a Civil War about the civil conflict and many of them followed the Russian propaganda about that and or Ukraine was simply forgotten and it is very sad that they remember us because of this situation, but right now I would say that most of the Western media right now they report very well on the war in Ukraine and for me, but you know, for me it's a little funny when they ask about morale in Ukraine, they ask this question all the time in every interview with everyone and for Ukrainian journalists.

I mean we don't even write articles about it because it's something very obvious to us because in Ukraine people are fighting for their homes for their lives and they have nowhere to live. 44 million people can simply move out of Ukraine so Russia can invade and build a new country there, soyeah, I would say it's more similar right now and sometimes it's hard to read about all these concessions that other journalists offer you that Ukraine should make or that Ukraine should make about the results. of the war when they say that the Donbass is mostly pro-Russian, you know, when you don't know the context very well and you just write towards the progression of the bus, it gives the perspective to the readers here, okay, the Dunbas is pro-Russian, so.

Why do we fight then? Why should we send weapons to Ukraine? Why should they fight for it? Why should people die for it? And sometimes I would really like them to look a little deeper into these problems that Ukraine has and take into account Russian propaganda. about the bus and about Crimea and there are thousands of people waiting for Ukraine to return and Then foreign journalists come to the front ready to report and ask people who they support. Sometimes they are afraid to say that they do not support Russia because they may later be killed or imprisoned if their village is invaded or occupied, and I would really like journalists to take that into account.

Thank you. Well, I'm just copying what you were saying. I'm assistant comments editor here at the Telegraph. I commission articles all the time quite frequently on Foreign Affairs and particularly on Ukraine. Is there some topic on the Ukraine question that you think is really underexplored and that we in the West should commission more articles. I think about Crimea and the Crimean Tatars because I haven't seen anyone mention the Crimean struggle other than ours here generally. Crimea has been talked about simply as a lifeless piece of land that Ukraine and Russia cannot agree on, but in reality it is something much bigger and I would argue that Russia has been committing genocide against the Crimean Tatars in Crimea since 1944 and Putin continues to do so.

Now, after studying, I think we should consider the Crimean question not only from the Ukrainian or Russian point of view, but also from the point of view of the Crimean Tatars, because they were the original citizens of Crimea until Russia started their repressions, many, many. years ago and I think they have the right to be spoken to and they have the right to have a voice and to be heard and I really think that the Western media should talk about that a lot more. I'll definitely take note of that. My last question, if I may, is that I was talking to another young Ukrainian very recently and we were talking about long-term thinking for Ukraine.

At the end of the war, obviously there have been many people like you, many Ukrainians who have been forced to leave the country, how optimistic are you that when the war is over and Ukraine is trying to rebuild, those young people will return? I believe that as soon as hostility ceases, most of the people who fled the war will return to rebuild Ukraine. and I think they will have a lot of opportunities there, as I think a lot of investors will come to Ukraine to rebuild and that will mean more jobs and they also have families there, they have lives there, they have houses there, they were raising money all their lives to buy a house and then they had to flee because of the Russian invasion so I think many will come back and uh if the document about me or my friends or people I know, we all miss our country, it's our home, we all miss our families. and I and I really wish that they would live in peace and only this, all we want is peace, but peace not on Russian terms because that will mean that Ukrainians will live as slaves and their Russian doctrine and our language will be banned or persecuted, so yes, I hope that most of them will return and I hope that the war will end very soon, but we also have to understand that the longer the war lasts, the more and less chance there will be that the majority of Ukrainians will return because here they will start to build their lives and maybe I mean, maybe they like it and I think it's okay, I want to stay and then I don't see anything wrong with that, but I really hope that most people come back because thousands of Ukrainians have been killed and uh.

Young men and women are soldiers and Ukraine needs young people to return and help rebuild the country. Thank you very much Svetlana for your thoughts and analysis. Thank you very much Francis for your questions. Svetlana, is there anything you haven't talked about? or you haven't mentioned that you would like our listeners to know and understand first. I would like to thank again all the people in Britain for supporting Ukraine or trying to understand why they should support Ukraine and why the lives of others depend on their decisions here. There are other people there and they tell you that yes, you are spending money that you could spend in your country, but Ukraine is a pain.

Ukrainians are playing with their lives every day that they live in freedom and I would like you to remember that and just thank you very much. Thank you very much for helping us and you will always be welcome in Ukraine after our victory. Thank you very much Svetlana Morinets for your thoughts and analysis. We'll come back to you at the end of the episode just for your final thoughts, but first, Francis. sternley um, do you have a few more diplomatic updates for us before we wrap up, can you tell us about them? So we've talked about the F-16s before.

I just thought there are a few others we should touch on. Before finishing today we have talked a lot about Belarus and I know that we are going to have a Belarusian expert in the next few days for that interview. I think you interviewed him yesterday, right? David, so I was in the The next few weeks we talked for over an hour, so we think maybe we need to cut that out. There is certainly a lot to cover on this topic. Yeah, so, um, we're watching this space, we'll do more on Belarus, but I just wanted to touch on it. again because it's been something we've continually returned to in recent weeks and President Putin today endorsed a plan to establish a joint military training center in Belarus as fears obviously rise that mints could enter the Ukraine conflict to fight with Moscow.

This is really great, a real cause for concern, of course, Belarus was absolutely vital in terms of offering a launching pad to Russia for the first invasion in February. If there was another one, then they would be integral again, so I would say no. guarantee, but I think it speaks to a lot of growing anxiety about the fact that Belarus is moving closer to Russia and working more closely with them on military matters and, as I say, this decree that has been published speaks to the defense ministers and Foreign Affairs actually work more closely together. together to establish these facilities, it does not specify where exactly they would be based, but Moscow of course has already allowed the territory of Belarus to be used during this war and this would speak, I think, to it only escalating in the coming weeks potentially, which of course will be a concern given the planned Russian offensive, we understand, towards the end of March.

In other news, I just wanted to talk about Olaf Schultz again, he is currently on his first trip to South America and there has been a pretty interesting meeting. development there, we have obviously spoken at length in recent months about concerns around South America and how Russian narratives there are much more popular than Western ones about attitudes towards Ukraine, of course there have been many South American nations that abstained in the condemnation of Russia in the United Nations votes and there has been another continuation of this topic unfortunately with Olaf Schultz having a joint press conference with the new Brazilian president, Mr.

Lula and Mr. Lula has said that, although he was delighted from having Olaf Schultz there, when Schultz started talking about Ukraine, it was very, very clear that he was quite frustrated by this, he turned quite slowly stone-faced, of course, he's a fellow left-wing leader, so maybe he felt like he had been caught off guard, he thought that Schultz didn't mean what he said regarding Ukraine, which is that he hoped Brazil would do more to support Ukraine and then this was his response. I think Russia made the classic mistake of invading another country's territory, so Russia is wrong, but I still think that when one doesn't want, two aren't going to fight, you have to want peace, so it's clearly trying to hold on to this idea.

The only way there can be pieces is essentially if Ukraine also puts its bombs in arms, which of course Ukraine and many other Western countries have denounced very, very strongly, so I think it's a pretty uncomfortable meeting and quite embarrassing for Mr. Schultz, who I think was hoping for a slightly warmer answer to this question, given his own skepticism about what weapons should be provided to Ukraine, and just one more update. Yesterday I talked about Boris Johnson, former British Prime Minister, he is now in the United States and, interestingly, he has published an article in the Washington Post which, of course, has been widely covered. in the war, I have done very good investigative journalism and intelligence reporting, particularly with respect to The Invasion, both before the war and before the full-scale Invasion, I should say, and for and since, but in its op-ed has talked about how the war has vaporized the case against Ukraine's admission to NATO and he talks about how there were decades of his diplomatic doublespeak on the issue that he believes contributed to the war in the first place, so who says that the argument that allowing Ukraine to join NATO would be a provocation to Russia is no longer valid and he said that as prime minister he should never have accepted that argument which of course was the orthodoxy before the invasion and someone could argue that There is even an orthodoxy among certain parties that says that we should have insisted on the reality that the Kremlin had nothing to fear from NATO because it is a defensive Alliance Putin has destroyed countless lives, homes, hopes and dreams, he has also destroyed the slightest reason to sympathize with him or to humanize him in his paranoia, very interesting comments from a former Western leader is clearly a challenge to Western leaders who still think that somehow it is the West that is provoking in its actions towards Russia when it is Russia that is the one. which at least now, according to Boris Johnson, has been the aggressor all along and the arguments around this idea of ​​NATO expansionism just don't stop regular listeners of course you know my own point of view which is the only idea about NATO expansionism, there is often nothing said about the fact that it is a desire and The sovereign right of the Ukrainian people to wish to join and to seek to join any Alliance they wish, whether the European Union or NATO, now whether NATO or the European Union except them is a separate question, but they have the right to do it and this Russian narrative is still constantly being sold, as you hear. and it's that, well, it matters what Russia thinks on that question, well, frankly, it shouldn't matter, in these kinds of conversations, I would say, but anyway I deviate from one last thing about Boris Johnson before I finish and, interestingly enough, he should be meeting with Republican legislators this week um as part of this uh his meeting there his um his visit there now is interesting isn't he meeting with Republicans?

He is scheduled to have a conversation at a private Republican Club as According to a House representative, Joe Wilson, who is involved in the Foreign Affairs committee, will also be meeting with some Republican senators and I think we can clearly see why he is this happening. There are concerns, rightly or wrongly, about the Republican Party and its scale. of long-term commitment to Ukraine and clearly Boris Johnson is also a very popular British Prime Minister across the pond. I think he's actually technically an American citizen because he was born in the United States, but anyway that's a separate question, um, so this is I think an attempt on his part to emphasize the importance of keeping Ukraine long-term. , so it's revealing.

I think he'll meet with them, but I think that's where, with the lay of the land, David is. The diplomatic space today, well, thank you very much. Much thanks to Francis for all those updates. I think we've come to the end of our time together today, unfortunately, so I'll go to Francis and Svetlana for their final thoughts. Roland has joined us again. I don't know if Roland. If you don't want to come, don't worry, but Francis, if you want to go first, what will you look at and think about in the next few days? Well, thanks David.

Yesterday I spoke again about the issue of goods entering Russia behind sanctions. We have already seen, and I talked about it several weeks ago, how supermarkets, even not necessarily in cities, are still incredibly well stocked with Western products. Funnily enough, I was looking back and there was a pretty good research paper that I don't believe. I had the opportunity to mention a couple of weeks ago something that I should have done in the New York Times about how some of these products actually arrive logistically in Russia and, in short, througha long line of trucks traveling through the country of Obviously, Georgia, while the war abruptly cut off many of Russia's trade links with Europe, there are still rays of retreat, and Georgia, the former Soviet Republic, of course, which fought its own rather painful war with Moscow in 2008, is emerging as a convenient logistical conduit between Russia and the outside world now.

It's not necessarily something the government is allowing or encouraging, but it's happening naturally because of its geography and the New York article. Times speaks to some of the truck drivers who are involved in This activity talks about how neighboring countries such as Armenia and Azerbaijan have also helped Russia if the economic storm caused by its invasion in February last year is interesting simply the scale of this, so that the lines of these trucks apparently extend all the way. Back to the capital of Georgia, which is about a hundred miles from the border, but it's not a long truck trail, it's kind of staggered, but still, even with the Awe, if you measured it, it's where all the glasses.

I would say over 100 miles, and again, I think that speaks to the kind of details that are very, very difficult for us to understand until you meet an investigative journalist on the ground who actually goes there and sees what's going on. Otherwise, these things are still Mysteries, so it's a really interesting piece that I would recommend listeners listen to and it will be something that I will look at in more detail in the coming weeks because this question of what Russia's economy will be like in the short term and I emphasize this in the short term The mandate remains optimistic it is worrying when the sanctions are so extensive and I think it is something that we are all Western journalists and Western governments should perhaps be more attentive than until now, so thank you very much for accompany us.

Very last words, thank you. I would like to emphasize that any deal that is struck now with Russia will mean that the biggest war will simply be postponed because since 2014 in Ukraine we have seen that Putin's goal was simply to invite the entire country and long before February 24 , like a few days before Zelensky offered some concessions, is to give up on NATO's Ukrainian ambitions, as it was the main reason why Putin claimed he was going to invade and Russia invaded anyway, so I think the problem is not innate. The problem is simply that Ukrainians exist as an independent nation.

This is why the Ukrainians are so desperate to fight as long as they can and repel the Russian army from Ireland. Ukraine. The latest is an original podcast from The Telegraph to stay on top. from all our Ukraine news analysis and land dispatchers subscribe to the telegraph, you can get your first three months for just one pound at www dot telegraph.co.uk slash Ukraine the latest or subscribe to our Ukraine newsletter deliveries which brings stories from our award-winning foreign correspondents straight to your inbox. We also have a live Ukraine block on our website where you can follow updates as they come in throughout the day, including insights from regular contributors to this podcast.

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