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Today we're in the US where President Trump's sweeping cuts are hitting home for the country's research scientists. In the Gambia, a son reunites with his mother after dreams of a new life in Europe disintegrate. And in Uzbekistan, we hear how Muslim and Jewish communities have shared a blended culture shaped over centuries. But first to Ukraine. This Monday will mark three years since Russia began its full scale invasion, and while a potential end to the conflict is on the horizon, the terms on which that's agreed remain deeply uncertain. While Saudi Arabia hosted talks between American and Russian representatives this week, there was a notable absence after Ukraine was excluded from the meeting. The conflict has been devastating for many towns and cities across Ukraine, with millions of civilians forced to leave their homes. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed or injured too, but there are also many who have simply disappeared. Our correspondent Sarah Rainsford traveled to Ukraine where she met families left wondering what has happened to their loved ones.
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As Russia's full scale war on Ukraine stretched towards three years of fighting, a young woman called Lyudmila gave a DNA sample to investigators. It's meant to help identify her father if a body is ever found. His name is Oleg plackov and in September 2023 he and his wife Tatiana were detained by Russian security forces and disappeared. This was in Melitopol in southeastern Ukraine, an area occupied by Russia at the start of its Full scale invasion and fully under its control. Lyudmila now knows her mother died in custody, but there's still no trace of her father. The Plachkov story is one of pain and loss, something Ukrainians have come to know well, as their country has been forced to defend itself. But it is also a story of strength and determination, as Lyudmila battles to find out what happened to her mother and refuses to give up searching for her father. When the Russians rolled Into Melitopol in 2022, Lyudmila joined the crowds who came out in protest. I remember the videos filmed then on mobile phones. Ukrainians surrounding Russian tanks and troops, waving blue and yellow flags and singing their anthem. The Russian soldiers had been told these people needed liberating, but the crowd yelled at them to go home. Then the Russians began rounding people up. Lyudmila soon fled abroad with her husband for safety, but her mum and dad didn't want to leave. Their own elderly parents. And like many back then, they couldn't believe Russia's occupation would last. Tatiana would send daily messages from Melitopol to her daughter for reassurance. Morning, daughter. Just checking in, I see her announce in one of them. She then swings the camera round to Aliag, who waves and grins in his dressing gown. There are pictures from before the war too, of the couple laughing on a beach and dancing at a disco. They look full of energy and of life. Lyudmila kept on urging her mother to leave, but she says Tatiana was a fierce optimist, waiting for Ukrainian troops to liberate their town. Instead, it was the Russians who came for her. Late one night, armed men burst into the couple's home and they led Tatiana and Aleg away in handcuffs. Lyudmila's parents then disappeared. This is not an isolated story. Since the start of Russia's all out war on Ukraine, the authorities in Kyiv have listed more than 61,000 people as missing. That includes both soldiers and civilians. But when troops go missing in action, there is a chance they could be included in a prisoner of war exchange. The civilians are hardly ever returned. International law obliges all states to report every detainee during an armed conflict, but Russia simply ignores that. One activist I spoke to from Melitopol has recorded 350 cases of abduction in that city alone. They took anyone involved in the protests. People with pro Ukrainian views, Natalia says, and she's sure there are more cases that were never reported, because most Ukrainians still living under occupation are too scared to speak out. When Lyudmila's parents were taken, she wrote to every official Russian body she could find, even the FSB security service. Back in Melitopol, her grandmother began touring police stations and prisons. For four months, there was nothing at all. Then came a call out of the blue. Russian soldiers had dumped Tatyana at a city hospital in a coma, but with no medical papers and no explanation. Lyudmila's grandmother was eventually allowed to visit, but only after she'd been interrogated by the fsb. That's how the family discovered that Tatyana had been accused of espionage. The FSB claimed she'd been sharing information with Ukrainian intelligence. She never regained consciousness. Lube Miller is very clear to me. My mother is a warrior. She says she had to help Ukraine, but she knew the risk. Through sheer persistence, she has gathered a thick file of documents on her parents disappearance. It's the replies to all her questions to the Russian side. But the words on the pages with their big official stamps make no sense at all. The FSB claims it only opened a criminal case against Tatiana after she was brought to hospital already in a coma. And it professes to know nothing about where she'd been before that. The records say the couple were taken away that day by unknown persons in military uniform. But in Russia, it is only the FSB that deals with espionage. One of the hardest things for Lyudmila is imagining what her mother's captors might have done to her. I'd like to believe her health deteriorated because of the poor conditions and the lack of proper care, she says. But deep down I understand they probably tortured her. The Russian government always denies allegations of mistreatment, but in occupied areas it refuses access to detention facilities, to outside bodies like the Red Cross. And I have heard clear and credible testimony of torture from civilians in Melitopol, dragged from their cars at checkpoints or scooped off the streets into dank underground cells. The luckiest were held for just one night, beaten and terrified. Others disappeared for many months. I have heard of electric shock and mock executions, and I've seen photographs of a young man called Leonid, held incommunicado for months and then brought to hospital, emaciated and severely dehydrated. They were all Ukrainians like Tatiana, who never wanted to be ruled by Russia and who tried to resist. She was a radiant person, Lyudmila remembers. Then everything was cut short. She tells me, if something has happened to her father too, that will kill her. But it is stories like that of Leonid, however terrible, that give Lyudmilla some hope. When he was Brought to hospital, he told his parents he'd been in hell. He is now back there in Russian custody, awaiting trial. His family are distraught, but at least they've seen him alive. Lubbmuller doesn't even have that. She tells me she hasn't chosen a photo for her mother's grave yet, as if she's stalling her grieving until she can find her dad. But she's run out of places to turn, and now Donald Trump is pushing Ukraine to sign a peace deal. In just over a week, the US President has turned his country's Ukraine policy on its head. He has begun to echo Vladimir Putin's false claims on this war, and that scares, and it angers Ukrainians. Trump's vision for peace would likely leave all the occupied territories under Russian control. For the families of the disappeared, that would make it even harder to find answers. Lyudmila tries to look on the bright side. Maybe the Russians will release the civilians if they think they've won, she wonders. Or maybe we'll hit a dead end either way. Accepting that this land is no longer Ukraine would be very hard, she says, because it is the land her parents defended. It's where they met and fell in love. And it is also where even now, Lyudmila believes Alij could be held in a cold basement or a prison cell still waiting to be found. I couldn't save my mum, even though I tried so hard, lyudmila tells me. So now I need to save my dad.