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- [00:00]
Adam Fleming
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.
- [00:06]
Helena Merriman
If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:42]
Adam Fleming
Hello. It's another one of those examples where two of my personal passions have combined. Mark Carney, the Canadian Prime Minister, has posted a picture of him receiving some Lego from the Danish ambassador to Canada and the phrase solidarity with Denmark appears in the post. So he is clearly saying his support for Greenland remaining a part of the Kingdom of Denmark through the medium of Lego on social media. So, combining my passion for Danish building toys and my passion for geopolitics, I've done some checking and it IS Lego set City 60422 seaside harbour with cargo ship, which is actually a retired product, but is available on some websites for about 100 quid. Yeah, it's true what they say about the price of Lego these days. Anyway, we'll get an update on a bit of Greenland towards the end of this episode of Newscast, but we're going to focus on Iran. What's happening with the protests, the counter protest, and also trying to work out in Washington D.C. what Donald Trump's going to do about it on this episode.
- [01:40]
Katrina Manson
Of Newscast, Newscast, Newscast from the BBC.
- [01:44]
Sivash Ardalan
Fat Boy Slim and me in the.
- [01:45]
Adam Fleming
Classroom doing our violin lessons.
- [01:46]
Katrina Manson
I was the tattletale in the classroom.
- [01:48]
Sivash Ardalan
Can I have an apology, please? I trust almost nobody that Daddy has.
- [01:52]
Adam Fleming
To sometimes use strong language. Next time in mosque.
- [01:55]
Helena Merriman
I feel the lulu with no salulu.
- [01:57]
Sivash Ardalan
Take me down the Downing Street.
- [01:59]
Adam Fleming
Let's go have a tour. Blimey. Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio.
- [02:04]
Katrina Manson
Hi, it's Katrina in the Washington newscast studio.
- [02:08]
Adam Fleming
And here with me is Sivash Ardalan, who's a senior reporter for BBC World and BBC Persian. Hello.
- [02:12]
Sivash Ardalan
Hello. Glad to be here.
- [02:14]
Adam Fleming
Right, lots to discuss and we're going to focus this whole episode on what's happening in Iran. And then, Katrina, you can do a little taster of what's been happening in Greenland today as well. But, cvash, before we dig into the news, how do we at the BBC actually get the news from Iran? Bearing in mind it's a country we're not really allowed to report from. And the Internet's been turned on and off a few times.
- [02:36]
Sivash Ardalan
That's been an issue. For the past four days, we've had a complete Internet blackout. What we are getting are very few snippets of information coming out in the form of SMS messages from people who have Starlink receptors, even though now they're cracking on those receptors as well. And also just a few videos, maybe a handful of videos that a few people managed to get out of the country through either Starlink or other means, which just portrays the kind of climate that's prevailing over Iran today. So through those videos and through those messages, we're starting to build the picture of what has actually happened over the past week.
- [03:17]
Adam Fleming
And so you and your colleagues at BBC Persian are having to do quite a lot of detective work.
- [03:21]
Sivash Ardalan
Yes, our verification team is very busy.
- [03:24]
Adam Fleming
And in terms of speaking to people, can you. Can you talk to people in real time?
- [03:29]
Sivash Ardalan
No, we can't. Right.
- [03:30]
Adam Fleming
And Katrina, it's interesting that Cvash mentioned Starlink. So yet again, another global news story where there is an Elon Musk element, because it's his company.
- [03:39]
Katrina Manson
Indeed. Yeah, we can't get away from Elon Musk. It seems at this point he's so. I mean, that's what happens when you're the world's richest man and you own so many companies that we all use for. For communications and information sharing. But, yeah, in this instance, as Sivash is saying, we just have so little information coming out of Iran that Starlink is one of the only ways of learning anything at all.
- [04:03]
Adam Fleming
And we're recording this episode of newscast on Tuesday at 5pm UK time. So this is the situation as we know it now, Siyavash, I wonder if we should rewind a couple of days, because actually, the big thing that happened on Monday was protests against the protests and in favor of the regime. What was going on there?
- [04:22]
Sivash Ardalan
That was just a counter demonstration organized by the regime. Every time that you have a protest in Iran, once the security forces come in, they put down the protest and then they have a show of force through their own social base. So they organize people from, you know, different towns and different cities, bring them into Tehran, which is the capital, organize a huge rally, put it on tv, beam it out to everyone just to show that we're here, we're in control, and this is what happened on Monday.
- [04:51]
Adam Fleming
What's a way of putting that into perspective then and how kind of genuine that is, how big that is, how much support There is for the status quo.
- [04:59]
Sivash Ardalan
Well, it was a pretty big gathering. The government is used to mobilizing its support base very quickly, but you know, they have resources to do that. And obviously the people who want to take out to the street to protest don't have those resources. In fact, they're risking their lives. So it's a very unequal competition here. It's very difficult to tell. And there has never been a poll. But what we do know is that a lot of people, even those pro government supporters that you see coming out in the street, they're not happy with the status quo. They might have different solutions, but they are not happy with what's going on. They might even agree with some of the protesters on issues like inflation, corruption and so on.
- [05:37]
Adam Fleming
So it's not as simple as pro or anti the regime at the moment.
- [05:42]
Sivash Ardalan
Everything is so polarized that if you have, even if you show even signs of sympathy with a government narrative, you're an enemy as far as the protesters are concerned. Because they have really suffered, especially over the past two, three days. And the way the government is describing the protesters as armed terrorists trained by the CIA and Mossad to basically disrupt the country and, you know, put it on a path to civil war, there just seems to be no avenue for reconciliation, humiliation, or any kind of understanding for the short term future.
- [06:15]
Adam Fleming
And in terms of the anti government protests, where are we with them on.
- [06:20]
Sivash Ardalan
Tuesday, more or less? It seems that they have been put down. They were put down on Saturday. They reached their peak on Thursday and Friday when people turned out en masse. There were hundreds of thousands of people, which something which had never seen before in Iran, even during the previous rounds of protests. These were not just young people, you know, confronting the security forces in small numbers. This was people from all age categories coming out on the streets hoping that there wouldn't be any violence, kind of feeling that the government is weak because the government had shown restraint at that time. It was even recognizing some of the protesters. The government spokesman had come out and said, we recognize your demands, we recognize your grievances. We're ready to talk with you. So that emboldened a lot of people in thinking perhaps the regime is ready for a huge change or the regime is too weak to, to stand up to the protesters. But after Friday, it was when the regime made good on its promises that it will put down the protesters if they don't stop. And it carried out in what it seems to be now a massacre.
- [07:27]
Adam Fleming
I was going to say, you use that phrase, put down, we should probably be explicit about what that actually means. And this is where we have to have a conversation that involves, like, quite serious violence and a lot of deaths.
- [07:38]
Sivash Ardalan
Absolutely. I don't use the term massacre lightly. So far, human rights organizations, who are very conservative usually in these cases, in terms of their estimates now have put the number of dead at 2000, but we think it's even, maybe even more than that. Some other activists and human rights group are putting the number at 12,000, some at 20,000. So we know large numbers of people died. The videos that we did see from the mortuaries and the morgues and the cemeteries in Iran just showed piles of body bags over each other and families searching through all these corpses, looking for the loved ones. Scenes that were really reminiscent of the Syrian civil war or something that went on in Gaza. Now, this is something that the Iranians are having to endure. So we think really there was a huge massacre. And that probably explains, though, some of those posts and tweets by Donald Trump.
- [08:32]
Adam Fleming
And also the government itself has put out a figure for the number of people who've died of 2000. Why have they done that?
- [08:40]
Sivash Ardalan
The government narrative is turning what the protesters are saying on its head. They're saying, yes, a lot of people died, but there were our people. There were the security forces. They were innocent civilians who were killed by the protesters. And those terrorists among the protesters, Katrina.
- [08:57]
Adam Fleming
Turning to the U.S. now, Donald Trump put out a post on Truth Social, his social network, on Tuesday morning. Just kind of disentangle that for us.
- [09:06]
Katrina Manson
Well, I'll try my best. There's a lot of people pouring over just what the president said here. I'll read it out. First of all, Iranian patriots, keep protesting. Take over your institutions. Exclamation, exclamation, exclamation. Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price. I have canceled all meetings with Iranian officials until the senseless killing of protesters stops. And then in Capital's help is on its way. Miga make Iran great again. President Donald J. Trump now, few key points in that. Obviously, he's saying keep protesting, sending a message directly to the protesters, which is something we've heard from him in the last week or two. But I have canceled all meetings with Iranian officials. First of all, we don't know what meetings were due to take place, if any. Our colleagues here in the US cbs, our editorial colleagues here, they're reporting that the Iranian foreign minister had asked Steve Witkoff for a meeting a couple of days ago. We don't know whether that meeting took place. Maybe that's what he's talking about here in terms of canceling all those meetings. But we do know from within the White House there had been a push from within the administration to President Trump, appealing to him to go down a diplomatic route rather than a sort of military action route over the last few days, because he has hinted at this for over a week now. Really coming to a head in the wake of the strike on Venezuela, this. So when he's saying he's cancelled all meetings, does that mean that he's parked the diplomatic route for now, which leads us to that next point in Capital's help is on its way. And this is what everyone's trying to decipher. Just what does that mean? Is that some kind of military incursion? Is it airstrikes? Drone strikes? There had been discussion yesterday that some of the options available to President Trump were around communications were around psychological tactics. We're in the dark, just as many in Iran are, I suppose, in terms of what the US is considering at this point as we speak now. And obviously this may change throughout the day. There is a meeting taking place in the White House of the national security officials who are sort of in charge of this part of the world and coming up with those options, and they're presenting those to President Trump. Has he already made up his mind? When you hear him saying he's cancelled the meetings and help is on the way, sort of suggesting suggests that he is leaning in a particular direction. But as we know with this president, you don't know until, you know. I mean, we were talking about things might happen in Venezuela for a couple of months and then all of a sudden they did. So we don't know what lies ahead for Iran, but it would seem like there is momentum building there within the White House.
- [12:01]
Adam Fleming
I mean, they've done one thing for definite, which was on Monday night, announce new tariffs on Iran's trading partners.
- [12:08]
Katrina Manson
They have. And even that's a bit foggy because, again, announced By President Trump, 25% tariffs on anyone who does business with Iran and then does business with the U.S. but we haven't been able to get any further details from the White House on just what that means. When does it come into effect? For example, is it on absolute every product? Is it in addition to existing tariffs that may be on countries? I mean, a major trading partner with Iran and the U.S. is China. It already has a 20% tariff on its goods coming into the U.S. is that now 45%? That obviously would have a huge impact on trade here. But as of now, that tariff imposition, if you like, is just at the status of a truth social post. It hasn't actually taken effect yet.
- [12:59]
Adam Fleming
And Cvash, I'm not going to try and get you to peer into the mind of Donald Trump, but his post is an interesting thing to kind of take apart, so I thought we could do that now. So when he says Iranian patriots or patriots, who, who are, who are the patriots that we could be talking about here? Is that just every ordinary person who's got a grievance against the government, or is there other particular groups that you could sort of point at with, with leaders?
- [13:25]
Sivash Ardalan
I think you could look at it two ways. Either he's using the term very loosely, talking about just generally any protester, he's saying come out to the street and keep protesting. So he might just mean anyone who's come out and protest. Or he could be specifically referring to that part of the protests which were organized by the more nationalist right wing elements within the Iranian population who have now gathered around a figure of Reza Pahlavi, who is the son of the former Shah who was overthrown back in 1979. He's now some 64, 65 years old. Always talked about returning to Iran and restoring the monarchy. And many of the protesters went out and chanted in his favor. And his supporters are a very angry right wing, anti democratic. I mean that's the claim they make. Group of people. Maybe not all the protesters are aware of his positions, but maybe Donald Trump is referring to them. If he's using the term patriots.
- [14:28]
Adam Fleming
Interesting clue. And then he talks about take over your institutions. I mean if we were talking about institutions in the uk, that would be parliament, the courts, the executive, so the government itself, the national broadcaster. What sort of institutions are we talking about in Iran? How, how's the country organized in a way that protesters or opponents of the government could take things over?
- [14:49]
Sivash Ardalan
Well, it could be similar to those institutions that you mentioned, also military institutions, irgc, law enforcement.
- [14:56]
Adam Fleming
And that's explain who IRGC are.
- [14:58]
Sivash Ardalan
IRGC is a Revolutionary Guard corps. Even though their bases are not necessarily inside the capitol, they're all over the place. But he might mean those military institutions or law enforcement or some of those other headquarters which, which, which, which holds where the, the paramilitary basijis who are very, you know, active in putting down the protests. But really, I mean, just to put a perspective on it, he is saying this when the protests have already been put down. This is something, if he wanted to, for it to be effective, he should have said that on Thursday or Friday, not now. When everyone's in their home getting shot at, even if they step out in the street, they risk their lives. There's the absolute climate of terror and intimidation with paramilitary BCGs, anti riot police just roaming around the streets with their motorbikes and shooting at close range to anyone who may look like they're protesting. So it's very, he seems at least not to be very up to date with what's going on inside the country.
- [15:59]
Adam Fleming
And Katrina, we need to be realistic about Donald Trump here because his record on supporting democracy in other countries or standing up for individuals, human rights against the repressive regime is kind of patchy at best, isn't it? This is about Iran being a sworn foe of the United States, as it has been since 1979.
- [16:18]
Katrina Manson
Yeah. And this is the curious thing, and you know, these points were made in the wake of Venezuela as well. You have a president here who pledges himself to be America first, who campaigned on getting America out of so called forever wars and not getting involved in any new ones, made reference to that in his inaugural address on Capitol Hill almost a year ago that he wouldn't be fighting other countries wars and other borders wars and so on. And yet here we have him making these very bold remarks and statements, not just this post, but things that he said to reporters over the last week or so about going into Iran. Now, there is a school of thought that he himself is emboldened after that strike on Venezuela. You know, from a military perspective, very successful, quite short, no American lives were lost. That's not to make any judgment over the morality or the international law of it. But if you're looking at it purely from President Trump's perspective, that's what he sees. And they managed to remove a president by force from another country, kidnap him, as Nicholas Maduro describes it, and bring him and put him in jail here in the US So President Trump and some of his team will be looking at that as an operation and kind of, like I say, emboldened by it. What can they do here for Iran? It just, it's hard to square that circle with what we've heard from President Trump for many years now about how he views foreign policy versus how he views domestic policy. And he's really getting hammered on that here at home at the moment. We see him in Detroit, Michigan today trying to bring the messaging back to sort of domestic economic matters, but at the same time putting out posts like this. Help is on the way.
- [18:08]
Adam Fleming
Although Katrina, we have to remember that the US Military has struck Iran in the recent past with that very targeted strike on the nuclear facilities. They've been there and done that.
- [18:17]
Katrina Manson
They have and again claim that as a major success for themselves. Operation Midnight Hammer back in June, when Sebastian I run newscast so many times talking about very similar matters. But again, you know, that's one of those great sort of military successes that President Trump and his team like to post about and talk about. They went into Iran, they dropped those bombs. Now how successful or otherwise they were about destroying their targets. It's still under investigation, but from their perspective, they got out again. They used all of these big bombs that hadn't been used before. So when they look back at their sort of past performance as an indicator of future performance, these are the things they're looking at, which is what's pushing them towards this move of military intervention. And that's why you have people like J.D. vance kind of trying to say, well, hold on a second, this isn't one of our core principles, so maybe let's try the diplomatic route first and see where we get to on that one.
- [19:16]
Adam Fleming
And Sevash, you've covered a lot of these protests in Iran over the last, well, few decades. How does this compare to others? For example, the ones about women's rights and not having to wear headscarves or the protests after the elections in 2009.
- [19:33]
Sivash Ardalan
The trigger mechanism for each, the trigger points for each are different. Each one had a different reason. That's how you can distinguish them from One, one was over the price of chicken. The other one was about mandatory hijab. The other one was about price of petrol. The other one, as you mentioned, was about a rigged election. This one was about inflation, 40% inflation figure. So that's what sets them apart. But what brings them together is each time they morph into an anti regime protest. So it's not just about one particular single issue grievance. People go out because they blame the regime. And it's just the entirety of the, of the system and the policy and the direction which the country is being taken, it turns into an anti regime protest. And that's why it's always put down. If it was only limited to one particular issue, probably the repression wouldn't be the way it is.
- [20:29]
Adam Fleming
And in terms of Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme leader, he's quite, seems to me quite a mysterious figure. Tell me more about him.
- [20:37]
Sivash Ardalan
He has, he's one of the longest running dictators now in the world, but it's been somewhat 40 years now, 35, 40 years that has been the supreme leader. And he has absolute power. I mean, his word goes, his word is almost taken, like the word of God. There is no accountability, no supervision over what he says. So it's just a matter of trust, trusting this man to take us in the right direction. A lot of people trusted him, but as time went by, people, many people realized, okay, this is not the person that we want to be having as our leader. Especially when he's so uncompromising. The weak Iranians can count so many times, so many chances where he could have shown flexibility, compromise, taken the country on a different path and not, you know, be faced with what we are seeing today on the issue. I mean, it all boils down in terms of at least relations with the US and those devastating sanctions that has plagued Iran's economy for so many years. That goes back to the issue of enrichment, uranium enrichment. Iran wants to be recognized as having the right to enrich uranium. For what, what are the accomplishments of this? How has that advanced Iran's economy or bettered the lives of people? No one knows. People are asking that. So that is one of his decisions. The other decision is just to talk to the U.S. the other decision is to at least climb down from the official position of aiming to destroy Israel. You don't have to destroy it, just don't recognize it or just give a de facto recognition. All these decisions are decisions that people say. It's, it's, you know, it could have been done in a different way. And his inflexibility, his getting older, he's 86 years old now, so you don't change your mind when you're 86. It's very. So people don't have any hope. And each time that he delivers a speech or he makes a, gives a message at critical times like this, almost everyone can write his script for him. It's become very predictable.
- [22:36]
Adam Fleming
And does he have the backing of Russia and China?
- [22:41]
Sivash Ardalan
He has the backing of Russia and China to a certain extent, maybe in some diplomatic circles when it comes to UN Security Council resolutions and that sort of thing, but not when it comes to, you know, joint defense strategies or, you know, for Russia, like to stand up for Iran or somehow support Iran against a U. S attack, those sorts of things. Neither Russia nor, nor China have ever been a huge backer of Iran because it's just not a huge player for them and it's not worth, you know, confronting the US and disrupting world order over Iran. So that's something else. That's upset a lot of Iranians. You're having these allies that don't come to your help when you need them.
- [23:24]
Adam Fleming
And also, Iran's other allies were people like Hezbollah, who have been virtually destroyed by the Israelis.
- [23:30]
Sivash Ardalan
More like proxies than allies.
- [23:33]
Adam Fleming
Was what? How would you say that? What the difference is?
- [23:35]
Sivash Ardalan
They are, I mean, there are allies that Iran created. There are no state actors. These are people that Iran group said Iran's resources, the country's budget went into to pop prepping them up as an organization, as either paramilitary organization or a party, like in case of Hezbollah, which is both, or in the case of Hamas or the Houthis or some other odd, you know, fundamentalist or radical Shia groups around the world.
- [24:01]
Adam Fleming
And Katrina, just to end this bit of this episode, for people who've been reporting on events around the world for a long time, a different Iran would be a different world wouldn't.
- [24:13]
Katrina Manson
Absolutely would. I mean, any conversation that is held about the Middle east always has Iran looming there, particularly its nuclear capabilities. If there's a different leadership, as Sivas said, it's been the same for decades. That changes a calculation on a whole host of things. The future for that region, but also how the superpowers balance off each other, what that means for Russian, Chinese control in the region, what that means for the United States as well.
- [24:42]
Adam Fleming
Sivash, thank you very much for your amazing insight today.
- [24:45]
Sivash Ardalan
Glad to be here.
- [24:47]
Adam Fleming
And Katrina, before you go, can we have a little update on where the US Position is on Greenland?
- [24:53]
Katrina Manson
Well, that is the question that Greenlanders and the Danes are asking themselves as well. There will be a meeting here in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday. It's now going to be at the White House. It's the secretary of State, Marco Rubio and the foreign ministers from Denmark and Greenland. Now, Denmark and Greenland had requested that meeting, and Marco Rubio agreed to it. Now, we've learned just in the last couple of hours that the vice president, J.D. vance, will be at the meeting as well, which is why it's now taking place in the White House. But the Greenland and Denmark requested the meeting because they want to know just what is the United States plan when it comes to Greenland? Because we heard a lot about taking over Greenland, acquiring Greenland in President Trump's first term. We heard about it straight out of the blocks when he came back into office last January. Then it kind of went off the radar a little bit. The diplomats here were ferociously trying to work with the United States on that. And then all of a sudden, it's come back into sharp Focus again. In the wake of, of that attack on Venezuela, comments from President Trump about needing Greenland for national security, echoed by his deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, who said that it had always been the policy of the Trump administration to have or to take Greenland suggestions that the president was somehow thinking of buying Greenland. All of these remarks really, really offensive to those in Greenland. I've spoken to a few people from there over the last few weeks and they're actually quite upset about this, this, and they're vehement in their resolution that Greenland is not for sale, it's not for taking, it's not for having. We heard from the prime minister of Greenland today who held a press conference with the Danish prime minister in Copenhagen, saying, I'll read out what he said. If we have to choose between the United States and Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark, we choose NATO, we choose the Kingdom of Denmark, we choose the euro. And so this is a really important meeting tomorrow because the Denmark and Greenland, they just want to know what is the intent of the United States here. Don't forget the US Has a military base in Greenland, just one at the moment. But in the past it's had up to 17 military bases in Greenland, Denmark, one of the United States closest allies. So any conversations that need to be had about national security or investment and so on. The Greenlanders and the Danes say they're happy to have those conversations and they don't understand where this kind of aggressive rhetoric is coming from as they see it.
- [27:30]
Adam Fleming
And do we think this meeting will be one of those ones where it's on camera? So we could either have one of those moments where Rubio gets involved and sort of dials things down and it all becomes a bit more reasonable, or one of those moments where Vance gets involved and he dials things up and it gets really bad tempered?
- [27:45]
Katrina Manson
I don't think so because it's the foreign ministers from Denmark and Greenland. And at the moment we've been told anyway that it's only the prime ministers that are speaking for those countries. I mean, you can never say never in this administration. Right. And now that it's been moved to the White House, can you rule out that President Trump happens to do a little drop by at that meeting, that it's not necessarily on his schedule, but he just turns up there? Who knows? I mean, meetings take place all the time that don't involve the president and that don't involve the media either. And sometimes we don't even know about them. Right. So who knows? You can never say never but as of now, it is very much a closed door meeting and I know Denmark and Greenland would like it to stay that way.
- [28:30]
Adam Fleming
At this point, Katrina, I'm just thinking back to what I was saying before you joined this episode of Newscast, and it was about Mark Carney posting that picture of the Lego he'd got from, from the Danes. And it was LEGO diplomacy. And I'm now just remembering I've actually in a cupboard somewhere, got a Lego model of the White House. But I'm gonna have to update it with the new ballroom.
- [28:52]
Katrina Manson
And you'll have to take down the East Wing, find some toddler who can dismantle that part of it for you.
- [28:57]
Adam Fleming
But now that. Hang on. Or an adult fan of Lego such as myself. I'm also now just thinking, actually it's only the middle bit of the White House and it doesn't have the east wing or the west Wing. It's just the, the famous middle bit, which is kind of. I don't really know what that is even used for.
- [29:13]
Katrina Manson
You can buy some add on kits then and construct it yourself. That's rather exciting.
- [29:17]
Adam Fleming
Buy a lot of white bricks. Christmas 2026, Sword Hill.
- [29:22]
Katrina Manson
I'm interested to know when you're gonna have this kind of time on your hands to do that.
- [29:27]
Adam Fleming
I'm not quite as busy as you are, but anyway, Katrina, thank you very, very much.
- [29:31]
Katrina Manson
Pleasure as always. Talk soon.
- [29:34]
Adam Fleming
And that's all for this episode of Newscast. We'll be back with another one very soon. Bye bye. Newscast.
- [29:39]
Katrina Manson
Newscast from the BBC.
- [29:40]
Adam Fleming
Well, thank you for making it to the end of another newscast.
- [29:43]
Sivash Ardalan
You clearly ooze stamina.
- [29:45]
Adam Fleming
Can I gently encourage you to subscribe to us on BBC Sounds? And then, without having to do anything.
- [29:51]
Sivash Ardalan
Else, our meandering chat will miraculously make.
- [29:55]
Adam Fleming
Its way to your phone.
- [30:07]
Helena Merriman
If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau. Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.