Francis Darnley (3:00)

Russia does not want fees. If I'm president, I will have that war settled in one day.

Dom Nichols (3:14)

24 hours. We are with you not just today or tomorrow, but for 100 years. Nobody's going to break us. We're strong, we're Ukrainians. It's Thursday the 23rd of April, four years and and 58 days since the full scale invasion began. And today I'm joined by my co host Francis Darnley. I'll start with the military updates. Let's go to the north of the country. First of all, still very active in the area of Sumy between there and up and along the border. Geolocated footage from the Ozyn site. Ukraine daily update says that on Tuesday, Chechen fighters from the Akhmat group, they're fighting for Russia. They posted a video showing an attack on a Ukrainian shelter in Andriivka. That's a small settlement just to the north of of Sumy. Now that area was previously thought to be under Russian control. So the fact that they are putting posts out showing that they're attacking Ukrainian positions in this area suggests that Ukraine has liberated Andrivka. It's thought that although we know Ukraine does have positions north of Sumy, we thought Andriivka was in, was in Russian hands. Now as ever, it seems drones are mostly responsible for the halting of any Russian advances up and down the line. The spokesperson of a Ukrainian army unmanned systems battalion operating in the Sumy area said yesterday that Russian forces are crawling through pipelines for several days before attacking in an attempt to conceal themselves from Ukrainian drones and covertly advance. We've seen them use these tunnels before, these pipelines before, but the fact they're going to these lengths just shows the effect that drones are having on the battlefield. I think now still in the Sumy region, it's thought Russia is gradually replacing elements of the 119th VDV Regiment. Moving them south to the Kherson region is Russian airborne forces, which at the start of the full scale invasion one might have fairly put under the banner of elite troops. However, four years in, they are anything but. They're basically just normal mobilised men off the streets of Russia these days anyway. The VDV division from which the regiment is taken is known to have taken heavy losses in the Sumy area and is thought likely to need rest and reconstitution in a less active area of the front line, which says quite a lot about the vdv, quite a lot about the area around Sumy and also quite a lot about the area around Kherson, if that's seen as a. Well, not an R and R area but I mean R and R is rest and recuperation, which is kind of what they're doing, but a less active area of the front line. And just finally from the border area around Sumy, the Ukrainian General Staff said yesterday that their forces had hit Russian command posts just over the border in Belgorod and, and Kursk Oblast. So not directly opposite Sumy but kind of slightly further down the line. That was said to have happened overnight Tuesday, Wednesday. Now go a little bit to the, to the southeast from there, Kharkiv Oblast. The prosecutor's office there said yesterday that a Russian drone had hit a civilian vehicle, killing one civilian, injuring another, near Chakasy Chisky, that's just north of Kharkiv City. This seems to be a continuation of the drone safari, which we normally horrific word to use in this context, normally associated with Herzon, but obviously is being used elsewhere with scant interest for most of the world. That death was one of at least nine people killed over the last day. At least 28 others injured we are told. A 13 story apartment building in central Dnipro killed, 2 injured 10 Governor Alexander Hansa said Reuters has footage showing rescue workers battling fires in a residential apartment block in the city. We think it's the same one but we haven't been able to confirm yet. Elsewhere two 67 year old men were killed by Russian drones in sumy oblast. A 77 year old woman was killed by a Russian glide bomb in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. A 66 year old man was killed in Kharkiv oblast. And around 7 o' clock this morning a Russian drone struck a garbage truck in Kherson Oblast, seriously injuring the 49 year old driver. This is a war on civilians. What do I normally do when I get worked up like this? I go and have a look at the United nations website and the lead story on the UN website today after all this is happening is it's about yesterday's International Mother Earth Day saying let's mobilize for the planet and all the life it supports. I'm not against saving the planet, but I'd quite like to the UN to look at all the life it's supporting as well. Now to be fair, if you do a little Bit of digging. You find the news section, then go to News Europe. In the UN website, there's a story from last Thursday. So a week old headlined deadly Russian strikes on Ukrainians simply trying to live their lives Must stop, says senior UN official. So you can't accuse them of doing nothing. Across Ukraine yesterday, 139 of 155 drones brought down. Now, interesting couple of stories here. Drones from the sbu. So the Security Service of Ukraine, from the SBU Special Operations Center Alpha hit the Gorky oil pumping station in Russia's Nizhny Novgorod oblast. We're about 300k in east of Moscow at this point. That was part of a wave of 150 Ukrainian drones, Moscow figures, so pinch of salt required. However, they say 150 Ukrainian drones hit across the country yesterday. An SBU source speaking to the Kyiv Independent said that three oil storage tanks had been damaged at Nizhny Novgorod, sparking large fire that spread over 20,000 square meters. Now attacks are also reported on an oil depot in occupied Feodocia in Crimea, at a substation in occupied Melitopol and and cities of Samara, Novokuby, Chivesk that we spoke about earlier in the week. Those are both the last two in Samara Oblast, about 750km from Ukraine. That marks the second consecutive night of attacks in Samara region. I mean the fact that we're not even reporting it, but I have seen yet more footage today showing the continued, what are we calling it, oil, rainfall, volcanic eruption.

Francis Darnley (9:20)

Vesuvius 2.0.

Dom Nichols (9:21)

Yeah, exactly. The continued volcano like eruption of oil. The Tapsi oil refinery just to the east of Crimea still going on. I mean, there's images of oil on cars and on people on the. You know, it's just terrific.

Francis Darnley (9:34)

It's a lot to say. As I think I mentioned it the other day, this is some of the most dramatic footage I think we've seen of the entire war, you know, four years on.

Dom Nichols (9:41)

Well, yeah, because it's so relatable. I mean, you know, not all of us have seen oil raining from the sky, but I mean, we kind of know what it is and how that's

Francis Darnley (9:47)

a particularly bad Friday night.

Dom Nichols (9:49)

Anyway, now this is an interesting. Well, two more stories here. This is a particularly interesting one here. Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces Commander Robert Magyar Brovdi, we've mentioned him a lot. He says that 27 people have been killed, including 12 Russian officers in a Ukrainian drone strike yesterday on an FSB command post in Donetsk region. He says elements of the FSB's mobile operations directorate, which they describe as a special unit of the FSB within the Counterintelligence Service. They say it carries out specific operations and missions of dirty warfare in the temporarily occupied territories. Anyway, they've been, they've been destroyed. They say the umd, that's the Mobile Operations Directorate, carries out counterintelligence operations, conducts sabotage, carries out military special operations. Maybe not as good as the big one. Establishes networks of agents, searches for and detains disloyal citizens and physically eliminates opponents. Apparently eight high precision strikes were carried out using FP2 munitions. So that's Firepoint, the kind of flamingo family warheads, up to 100kg each hit at 8 o' clock local time yesterday morning, according to the latest intelligence reports. The strike, as I said, resulted in the enemy suffering losses of 27 Special Forces personnel, 12 killed in action and 15 wounded. Right, so that figure of 27 killed, including 12 Russian officers, was wrong in the earlier statement. So we think there's 27 people, 27 casualties, of which 12 were killed. Okay, I think that's probably a more accurate way of describing it. Now, we're told this operation was planned by specialists from the Centre for Deep Strike, that's part of Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces, in collaboration with specialists from the first Brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine, the Azov Brigade. The strike was carried out, we're told, using middle strike drones from the first squadron of Special forces coordinated by the newly established center. And then finally, a particularly chilling story here. The sbu, again Security Service of Ukraine says that it's foiled planned attacks on two schools involving minors allegedly recruited by Russia. So these schools are in Krivorad and Odessa Oblast. They were said to have been targeted by, well, one teenager and an 11 year old child through social media platforms and messaging apps including Telegram and TikTok. They'd been given step by step instructions, we're told, on preparing attacks. In a statement, the SBU said as a result of preemptive measures to local high school students were apprehended. They had been ordered by the Russian Federation to blow up their schools and shoot their classmates with firearms. Officers seized an improvised explosive device components, a firearm and electronic devices, plus other evidence at the home of the 15 year old student in Kivarad Oblast. While in Odessa Oblast, authorities uncovered a separate case involving an 11 year old boy who was being recruited. Investigators said Russian operatives planned to send him a package containing a firearm and a knife for use in an attack on the school. Now, the 15 year old suspect in Kad Oblast has been formally charged with preparing a terrorist act on offense that carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison. There was no word on what legal action is going to be taken against the the 11 year old. Particularly nasty story there to to end on I'm afraid Francis, but where have you been looking in the diplomatic realm?

Francis Darnley (13:08)

Well thanks Tom. It's been a significant 24 hours for the obvious reasons that we've been speaking about, which is the passing of the 90 billion euro loan. If you missed it yesterday, highly recommend. Watched the episode we had Joe Barnes dialing in from Brussels all very excited about this months long issue finally being resolved. As you mentioned at the top, Dom, the other development here which is really relevant is the passing of the 20th sanctions package. Now we'll need to go into a little bit more detail later on this week about what exactly is in that package. Nothing necessarily too dramatic but it still all makes a difference. But of course the real significance here is that Slovakia didn't block it. They threatened to block that as well as part of their trying to say well we won't block the 90 billion but we'll block this instead to show that we're still punching our chests and strong men. But actually they didn't do that either. I think you know, one of those weeks where the EU will be breathing a sigh of relief and will be pretty pleased with itself. Obviously we don't yet entirely know what, what was going to happen after the meeting in Cyprus in terms of the EU membership discussion which we had yesterday. President Zelensky flying over there trying to get some movement on that issue. But nonetheless some of that might be known in weeks time.

Dom Nichols (14:23)

Is it. They're having a meeting today and then a dinner or dinner then the meeting.

Francis Darnley (14:26)

Yeah.

Dom Nichols (14:27)

Anyway, so it's all, it's all going to be happening in Cyprus today. I saw that Andre Sibia, Ukraine's Foreign Minister, has said that there's no, no kind of halfway house, it's kind of all in EU or that's still the official line.

Francis Darnley (14:40)

Yeah. Although there are some in the EU as Joe was talking about yesterday, who are pushing for a kind of associate membership. But interestingly as you say, Kyiv don't want it. Some EU officials also don't want that. So it's a really complicated one. There will be some who will argue that pragmatism is necessary here, that it's better for Ukraine in a sense to be affiliate members but not fully in than it is for them to be completely on the outside. But One can understand from the Ukrainian perspective why they don't want to do that.

Dom Nichols (15:06)

Well, as an associate editor of the Telegraph, I can assure you the word associate means bugger all, as far as I can tell. I was told it was a massive promotion. I said, well, promotions normally come with more money. I said, no, this is. Associates got a capital A. Yeah. So, yeah. So associate membership for Ukraine is probably going to rank up there.

Francis Darnley (15:26)

Yeah. Well, I. It will be very interesting to see what they have ultimately decided to the Ukrainians, if it's put to them associate membership, affiliate membership versus no membership whatsoever in any form, whether they'll. They'll go for broke and say it's all or nothing, or we'll. We'll push for this. I mean, I think the other interesting thing here is, of course, as we spoke about yesterday, it's all about Hungary. It's all about the Peter Magyar election and how that's changed the dynamics here. Now, Viktor Orban claimed that the Ukrainians were essentially blackmailing them by not opening the Druzhba pipeline, which the Ukrainians said had been damaged, and that they were working to repair. Originally, the Ukrainians said, as part of trying to unlock lists, that it would be late May, that it would be open. Now it's meant to be today. So there are questions about whether Ukraine did deliberately hold back in repairing this in time or indeed, it was already repaired, but they were using this as leverage. I think that will be one for people behind the scenes to solve for the history books. But nonetheless, can you blame them, as we've talked about before, given that money is going straight into Russian coffers at a critical moment. So Ukraine has made concessions here in order to get the 90 billion across the line, as Joe was talking about yesterday, because if they hadn't done that, then it's possible that Hungary or Slovakia would have said, no, we're going to block it again. But it is worth bearing in mind that they've had to make quite a serious concession here. This is reopening a channel of major income for Russia from European capitals.

Dom Nichols (16:49)

Yeah. I wonder if they're calculating. They need to do it to unlock the issue, but clearly it's going to aid their enemy. So they're going to take a hit. So they don't want to take two hits. They don't want to give Orban an election boost. So, yes, it's going to happen, but, you know, conveniently, I mean, they're working as hard as they could, but it happened just. Just about a week after Orban was voted out.

Francis Darnley (17:12)

Yeah, indeed. So, no, a very interesting issue. And, and obviously now we're finally moving forward on this. Another piece of news I think is worth us briefly mentioning is Spain have said that they're going to be giving 100 VAMTAC armored vehicles. Correct me if that's the incorrect pronunciation, Dog.

Dom Nichols (17:28)

No, armored vehicle is correct.

Francis Darnley (17:30)

Very good. And a supply of 155 millimeter artillery ammunition to Ukraine's state border guards. Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Rubles announced this yesterday during a visit to Kyiv. She said this collaboration serves as a testament to our country's commitment to the defense of democratic values, to freedom and to adjust and lasting peace. So the same sort of platitudes I think we get from every EU lady. But I draw attention to this because Spain's role in this conflict, I think has been quite unique and interesting. If we look over the course of the war, of course they've been very supportive, but they take, let's say, a more nuanced approach to Article 5 and NATO in terms of defence spending. Particularly, they've been a thorn in the side of NATO Secretary Mark Rutter and of course he gave them special dispensation to not be paying the amount. Of course, they're on the farthest southwest of Europe, so they're not perceived as being as much in the firing line as other countries on the eastern flank, as it were from Russia. Although they'll say that shouldn't matter. Those who are advocates for.

Dom Nichols (18:26)

I mean, Canada might have a bit of a.

Francis Darnley (18:27)

Well, indeed, Exactly. I think they've got a. I think they've got a much stronger argument. But nonetheless, that's part of the Spanish argument. But also I think it's just relevant here that Spain have put their heads above the parapet over this issue that you've been talking a lot about, dom, which is NATO's responsibilities. Question mark for what's going on in Iran at the moment. They have been really critical of Donald Trump and his approach to this war. And so they have taken a different path than a lot of other European capitals who've either said warm things but not done very much or have been critical much later on. Spain from the get go has been very, very punchy. So quite a unique country, which is why I draw attention to it at this moment. Just one other thing. While we're talking about the ramifications of Iran, if I may, I'd be interested in your take on this. So the US military is an exclusive in Reuters. We'll link to that in the show Notes has introduced formally now Ukrainian counter drone technology as part of their attempts to re secure the Prince Sultan Air Base where there was that major strike a few weeks ago which destroyed, I think it was a 500 million pound aircraft which is used for scanning the skies of Nawax. Ye. There you go. According to five people with knowledge of the matter speaking to Reuters anonymously, they said that this is all part of the Ukrainian command and control platform Sky Map, which we've spoken about before. The military officials from Ukraine apparently moved there several weeks ago and have been working to put this in place. So a fascinating story when, you know, President Trump said famously in February 2025, you have no cards. Well, now it looks like Ukraine do have a few cards in their deck because the Ukrainians are actually reporting of needing them to help secure their own military base. It's quite a remarkable turnaround.

Dom Nichols (20:08)

Yeah. And I wonder where the impetus came from. I wonder if it's the United States that went to Ukraine and said, come on, we need to talk about this counter drone capability or whether that was Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf partners that we know are talking to Ukraine. President Zelensky, I think he said just yesterday, or maybe it was this morning, I can't remember, they all sort of blur. But he was talking about the, I think three major partnership deals, defense deals that Ukraine has struck with Gulf partners. So yeah, I mean you're unlikely, even if it was at the United States bidding, you're unlikely to get Trump to come out and go, oh, by the way, amongst all my Iran tweets, just want to say well done and thanks to Ukraine. So I would imagine it would have come from ksa, from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Correct answer. Where do you go right now in the world for counter drone capability? And of course it's not just the drone, although the interceptor drones themselves are very, very impressive. It's the whole system about how you operate it, how you target it, how you make sure that you're lobbying into the piece of sky, how that you, how to ensure that you've got the logistic chain and that you've trained all your radar operators and everything. So it's not just the drone itself, not just the air vehicle, it's the whole capability. So this idea that, oh, we don't need to go to Ukraine, we make the best interceptor drones in the world, I think that's open for debate anyway. But it's the wider system and it's the battlefield experience and the data. We keep going back to the battlefield data that's been generated over the last four years upon which any prospective country looking to develop this capability can train its own systems. So yes, it makes perfect sense that in my assessment KSA went to Ukraine and said, can you, can you help and do a deal? Yeah, it's good for both.

Francis Darnley (21:52)

Yeah. It reminds me of when we were covering this in the first, let's say year of the war, just how criticized the Ukrainians were for being seen as not developing their own weapons in country and this sort of idea that they weren't fighting as strongly as they could be if they had been building factories in country, developing technology, basically the, I think rather unfair, but the critique that was often made which was it was Western money, Western weapons flooding in Ukraine and Ukrainians were not doing it themselves and they should have been. Well, look where they are now. A quite remarkable story.

Dom Nichols (22:29)

I think that was always slightly unfair. I mean if you look at where Russia was targeting in the early months of the war, don't know the numbers, so I don't want to say most, but a huge proportion of the tanks that the Soviet Union fielded were built over there.

Francis Darnley (22:44)

Yeah, right.

Dom Nichols (22:44)

So you know, look at the places

Francis Darnley (22:45)

when you go there, don't you? The industrial visage, you know, so it

Dom Nichols (22:49)

had, you created a great pedigree in building heavy metal now maybe, maybe gone off the ball slightly in the last few years, but it's still there. And I wonder, to steal your phrase, it's for future historians to, to have a look at this, but I wonder if Donald Trump winning the second term in office that made Ukraine say, right, we can see what's going to come down the tracks. We need to be self sufficient here so really boost that. That area being of, of their own defense sovereignty. I just wonder if, you know, if Joe Biden, well, obviously wouldn't have been Biden but if Kamala Harris had, had won, whether or not they'd be in this situation they are today because they've really, really kind of taking the ball and run with it. I don't know, it's a counterfactual too far. I don't know if we'll ever be able to work that one out.

Francis Darnley (23:31)

But I think also relevant to that conversation, Dom, is what the European angle was and I remember all that talk for a long time about the preference in Europe for obviously reasons that will be known to listeners and viewers. Porcupine Ukraine was what they wanted. So this idea that the best way to defend Ukraine was for it to become an impenetrable defense fortress on Europe's eastern flank. That would speak to why self sufficiency was also something that Europe would have wanted. Wanted to.

Dom Nichols (23:59)

Yeah, and we haven't heard much of that actually recently, have we? And you might, you might say, well, Europe needs to be. Needs to be a porcupine. And if Europe is. If that's the way you want to go, then my God, you need Ukraine to be right in the middle of that defense conversation. Interesting times.

Francis Darnley (24:12)

Should we go to the big story of the day then, Don? Our exclusive. Yeah, yeah. This is something that, well, you're going to give all the backstory to. It's something that you've alluded to in earlier episodes from your recent trip to Ukraine. But this is a genuine world exclusive and just want to underscore how rare it is for those involved in the resistance in the occupied territories to speak at all, let alone on camera. So we're publishing this in a few hours time. By the time you're watching, listening to this, it will be out and we'll have a link to it in the show notes and you're going to hear a clip in a moment. But this is an interview that you did with a resistance leader, Dom. So just give us the backstory to this.

Dom Nichols (24:48)

So let's start. We have our regular sessions. In fact, tomorrow on Friday, we're going to have our Regular update from Dr. Jade McGlynn. So, you know, we've been trying to get an idea of what's happening, occupied territories, the resistance activity, what life is like for people that are there, people that are there and, and just trying to survive, people who are there and decide to go a step further and actively physically resist the invaders. It is very, very difficult to get any kind of information out, very difficult to verify any information. So through, through contacts, I was introduced to Petro, an individual who was an advisor to the mayor of Mariupol. And he had at a time, had to leave. He was specifically targeted, so managed to get out of Mariupol. And I met him in Dnipro, interviewed him there, talking about what life was like. Well, what life was like before full scale invasion, what Mariupol is like and quite why it seems to be Russia seems to want to exact revenge. I mean, he used the word revenge and I don't think that's an inappropriate phrase on the city. I mean, they really have gone out of their way to make life very difficult there. And the symbology of what they, of what they've done. You know, the theater where obviously numbers vary, but we think hundreds of people Mainly women and children were killed in a strike earlier on in the war. Even though it had the word kids written very, very large letters outside. Not only did that take place, but that theater they've now refurbed took great joy in showing the world that it had been. It had been opened again. I mean, all these symbolic acts. It's quite telling that they feel Mariupol is a. It's. Is a. It means something such. They need to erase its. Its former existence. I think, anyway, Petro was very interesting to talk to because it is so unusual to hear anyone involved in the resistance activities speaking out like this. And so we had to put a lot of effort into making sure that we were. That we were speaking to the right person who said, you know, good for what he was saying. I mean, he. He didn't go into names and places. In fact, he made it very clear that the way that the resistance has developed over the years, it is now quite a cellular structure so that each person knows very few others in the. In the resistance. So that if somebody is arrested, compromised, there's virtually no. No other names that they can give away. But no, he was a striking individual. Watch the video, listen to his words, see what you think.

Francis Darnley (27:15)

Well, let's play a clip from it now where he describes some of those activities that you referenced. There, there.

Dom Nichols (27:21)

How are you able to talk so openly about this? You're on camera. You are not. You've asked us not to shield your face, not to pixelate your face, not to change your voice. How are you able to speak so openly about this?

Petro (Resistance Leader) (27:33)

That side, Russian side, they know everything about me. It's doesn't matter. As you like. B.L. blew me. They. They know that me.

Dom Nichols (27:44)

So Petro escaped from Mariupol, a city which now sits in the Russian occupied area of Ukraine. He directs resistance operations from elsewhere in the country. What operations are you finding you're having more success with? In the.

Petro (Resistance Leader) (28:00)

The most successful action, it's exploiting the chief of police of Mariupol. It was in 2023, killing the chief of police for his luck. It wasn't enough to kill him, but he was very big.

Dom Nichols (28:14)

This was a car bomb?

Petro (Resistance Leader) (28:15)

Yeah, it was. Then we have some poisoned things about our people. Poisoned some officers. They celebrated some Russian days and it was like unsuccessful for them. More than 20 people. Because of poison, because of vodka. It's very, you know, very dangerous thing.

Dom Nichols (28:37)

You poisoned the vodka?

Petro (Resistance Leader) (28:39)

Yeah.

Dom Nichols (28:41)

Has an FSP officer ever got inside your organization? No.

Petro (Resistance Leader) (28:45)

We are not so stupid. They are not smart, they have tricks. But we are smarter and we are more creative. We are like, step before them, step

Dom Nichols (28:58)

ahead of them, step ahead.

Petro (Resistance Leader) (29:00)

We use modern technology, of course, and I am sure that the more technology we can use in the future.

Dom Nichols (29:09)

But it must still be very difficult to get. Get equipment in explosives. Well, no, no, it's not difficult to get explosives into the occupied territories.

Petro (Resistance Leader) (29:22)

Oh, with corruption you can send everything.

Dom Nichols (29:29)

So Russian corruption works. Works for you.

Petro (Resistance Leader) (29:32)

Yeah, it's not just Russian corruption and European stupid thing too. You know, we send something during the Germany post because the post service work with Russia posts. So our person from Dusseldorf sent something to Mariupol. Just sign Mariupol DNR address. It's okay.

Dom Nichols (29:57)

So you can use the German postal service in this situation.

Petro (Resistance Leader) (30:00)

It was. Yeah, it was once, but we use it. We try to use every step that we can find.

Francis Darnley (30:08)

That's just mad about the German postal service being a means of getting explosions in. I mean, those incidents that he describes as. Some of which we reported. I remember the assassination of the Marieupolmere. I mean, when you were hearing this, something else when I was reading the article which we'll be publishing about this shortly, is that he referenced it being fun. I mean, not a word you necessarily expect.

Dom Nichols (30:29)

Well, I mean, I've said this to you before. Yes, I asked him. I said it must be the stress and the strain and then choosing to resist either a soft resistance. I. Talking, speaking Ukrainian at home, teaching your children Ukrainian, which. All of which banned tying yellow ribbons around the trees, these kind of things. And then to go a stage further and take up arms against the Russians, I mean, the stress must be extraordinary. So I was asking him about that and he said. He said, yeah, yeah, that's all correct. It is an extremely difficult and stressful environment. But. And they said, you know what?

Progressive Insurance Ad Host (31:01)

What?

Dom Nichols (31:02)

It's also fun.

Francis Darnley (31:03)

It's like.

Dom Nichols (31:04)

Well, I mean, it takes a. Takes a certain mentality to be able to be comfortable in that role. Hiding in plain sight, having a double life. If you take fun from it, then maybe that speaks of the character who's able to withstand all these pressures. But I wasn't expecting to hear. I wasn't expecting to hear that.

Francis Darnley (31:22)

No. Well, he talks a lot about Mariupol, as you say, somewhere that we've covered in detail. And he's pretty graphic in terms of some of the things that he's witness there and talks about saying it's very hard. Russian soldiers are everywhere and Russian citizens come to Mariupol. Something we've talked about a lot. You can't hear The Ukrainian language, you can't see the Ukrainian colors. There's nothing yellow and blue. These colors are canceled. He says people are living in hope, he says, for Mariupol to be freed. And I think at one stage he actually says in the interview, be brave and wait. We will be back. Definitely. Did you get a sense from him of the general mood amongst those who are in the resistance?

Dom Nichols (32:05)

It is difficult to say because he now necessarily knows very few. It is extremely tough. I mean, he talks about there being absolutely no judicial process. I asked him what would be the punishment for being caught with some of these things. Just liking a social media post, for example, that's pro Ukrainian, talking Ukrainian in the street, et cetera, et cetera. And he said, you just disappear. He said there's no, there's no process, there's no, he said, like over here in the west you might be arrested and, or held on bail and you have a date to appear in court and all that. He said none of that. You just, you're just not there the next day. So I, I mean, I just, you can see why, why some people just survive. You know, they have to take a Russian passport in order to access services like medical services, et cetera, et cetera. So, you know, if you, if you've got a family or if you're just trying to survive, it is understandable how these things happen. So that, just, just the pressure, but at the same time to feel that your identity is being erased, it must be absolutely extraordinary. And then if, like I say, if you do choose to resist knowing that you are one accidental slip up or a compromise in your near network and you are gone. He said the FSB had made many, many attempts to try and get into the resistance network, all without success. As you might expect in this most sort of, of technical, of, of wars. It's an online recruitment process. So you, you apply, there's, there's, there's a website and you can, you know, you, you say you're, you're interested. It takes a little while before you actually get to speak to someone. You put in your details and people check it out mainly by word of mouth because people know who each other are and you can very easily. Which school did you go to? Where did you play football? You can, you can find out quite a lot quite quickly. And then if you get through that bit, then the prospective candidate is asked to go do something quite low key like tie a ribbon on a tree at a certain place just to show that they're willing to take the risk. Now of course, if you're an FSB plant, you'll go and do that. It'll be a huge operation. So there are more sophisticated hoops to jump through than that. But yeah, it takes a long time before you're actually included. And he said there have been no compromises so far.

Francis Darnley (34:21)

He says in the piece creativity, a powerful character and belief are essentials for individuals doing this work. You can't just have hope, you have to believe what you're doing is the right thing. It's in the mind. It's not a question of age.

Dom Nichols (34:34)

Yeah. I was asking what makes a good resistance operator coming up with those characteristics, as you say there. And he said it's not a question of being a roughy toughy soldier or anything like that. He said it's all in the mind. He said there were people that, that, that he knew knowing what they had done or their life before the full scale invasion. He said he wouldn't have necessarily have picked them out as, as really calm under this, in this atmosphere. The ability to pass messages, for example, to be a courier, these kind of things. He said they're very different qualities from being a paratrooper, something like this. So he said he's extraordinary. The kind of people who, who excel. Kind of people who are good at this work, who have the, who have the mentality and that deep, that core level, that, that feeling of identity and love for, for Mariupol and for Ukraine more broadly. A desire to keep going when it, when everything about it is just is screaming threat and danger and risk to you and, and the people around you. So he's a very different character. It was, it reminded me very much of the books I've read about the soe, Special Operations Executive in the Second World War. You know, very, very, very similar. That ability to be calm in amongst the enemy, hiding in plain sight, as I've said, living there whilst also operating. So just, just the effort it must take every day just to survive and yet to then have the, the ability and the, and the desire and the motivation to go a stage further. It's extraordinary.

Francis Darnley (35:58)

Yeah. He says fury is the best motivation. You want to be back home and we are fighting for that. It's very dangerous. But on the other hand, believe me me, it's very fun.

Dom Nichols (36:08)

Yeah. It was kind of describing this, this ball of fury in the pit of your stomach that keeps you, keeps you going and using the word revenge. He didn't shy away from that. You might, in, in other circumstances you might think it's not a Very appealing concept in, in military life. But he said when it comes to resistance work, revenge is one of the things that, that keeps him going.

Francis Darnley (36:30)

One other thing before we let people watch it for themselves in full, which I say we'll link to in the show notes, is I thought was very interesting. He was of NATO's approach to organizing resistance activities and saying that basically we do it better. He says, I read a piece of paper by NATO, it's a piece of nothing. It might work in Afghanistan but in a European war it's a different thing. Just wonder if you wanted to comment on that, Dom.

Dom Nichols (36:56)

Yeah, I asked him does he have people talking to him from outside, from other countries? And he said yeah, occasionally. I mean it's not. Doesn't fill his day, but they do come and, and ask him and he said he'd seen some of the, some of the doctrine written down by NATO for, for this kind of these activities. And as you say, he just looked at, he said this is, this is theoretical, this is, you know, it's fine as good as it is. It's absolutely doesn't in any way relate to what's happening in Ukraine. So this is only in Ukraine. It might, as he said it might be, it might work elsewhere. Having had a walk on part in both of those wars. It didn't massively work in Afghanistan and Iraq. Let's not go there just now. But yeah, so he said he's, he, he spends a lot of time speaking when he does get the opportunity to speak to any from outside Ukraine to say, look, you know, you need to be paying attention to this. And he said this is coming your way. Europe needs to, needs to look at this, needs to learn this because this is, you know, if Russia are not stopped here, then you're going to be doing this yourselves.

Francis Darnley (37:52)

Yeah, extraordinary. It's not just drone technology in which Ukrainians are pioneers, it's in, in every theater, as you say. Well, thanks very much Dom for giving us the background on that and some of your reactions to it. As I say, we'll link to that in the show notes, you won't want to miss it. Thanks of course to Jack Lever, documentary maker, who was with you whilst recording that. There are more documentaries to, from your time out there, but this one is a genuine world exclusive. No one else has got access like this. So you won't, as I say, want to miss that.

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Francis Darnley (40:34)

let's go to our final thoughts then, shall we? Dom?

Dom Nichols (40:35)

Yeah, let me kick off. So the Dutch military intelligence service says that Russia could be ready to start a regional conflict with NATO within a year after the end of hostilities in Ukraine. Now we occasionally hear these sort of reports that they're going to be able to do stuff in five years, 10 years. So you know you've got to got to take them all and read into them. But this is the, this is the mivid, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service. They issued their annual report on Tuesday and they said that Russia's goal would not be to defeat the alliance militarily, but to divide it through limited territorial gains if necessary under the threat of nuclear weapons use. You know, this is breach or reach as we've, as we've discussed favorite game before. Now I read this in Defense News, put a link in the, in the episode notes, but I also saw it from Mike Eckel, our pal at Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty. He was commenting on it yesterday as well. So they say as long as Russia's fighting in Ukraine, a conventional war against NATO is virtually out of the question. But the NYVD director, Vice Admiral Peter Ishnik, said Russia poses the greatest and most direct threat to peace and stability in Europe and thus to our national security and our interests. They say they make the point that conflict mitigating measures in place during the Cold War war, such as clear world order, arms control and structured dialogue, they say now appear largely absent. Pretty gloomy there from the report. And they go on. It finishes at the same time the world is on the eve of a technological revolution around artificial intelligence, quantum computing and bioscience whose consequences are not yet fully foreseeable. So another rare sunshine there from the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service. But yeah, so we'll put a link to the article in Defense News and to the report itself. You can when you look up the report, you get the, the sort of press releasing you that that will translate automatically. The report does not. So I spent bloody hours copying and pasting in a, in a translation service and then saw that it all been written up in Defense News. So yeah, yeah, thought you're gonna say

Francis Darnley (42:33)

you'd learn Dutch just to be able to read it. Which one are you still, are you still on your Duolingo streak?

Dom Nichols (42:37)

Yeah.

Francis Darnley (42:38)

How many days?

Dom Nichols (42:39)

900 and something or other days.

Francis Darnley (42:40)

That is impressive especially when you're off gallivanting to breweries doing important research. Important research. Important. Anyway, more on that very soon, folks. The one thing I was just going to comment on on that story, one year away, the Dutch are saying seem to recall it was perhaps a year and a half ago, maybe two years that the Germans were saying five years. So that is still showing an accelerated timeline. If this, if war ends in Ukraine or there's a ceasefire of some kind, that probably speaks to the factory development, development and just the general preparedness of Russia by this war being allowed to be prolonged.

Dom Nichols (43:19)

Yeah, I mean you could ask them to show working but they say ready to Start a regional conflict with NATO. I mean, if you have a conflict with NATO, it's probably not. It's going to go broader than the small region fairly, fairly quickly. So, you know, you could say, well, what do you actually mean by that? I think they're talking more, more broadly about the, the intent. I mean, if, if the, if hostilities ended in Ukraine, Ukraine tomorrow, Russia is, is basically mobilized. It's on a war economy. The last thing Putin wants is a million traumatized, angry, armed men back on the streets of Russia. So he's got to keep them occupied somehow, you know, who knows? But these warnings are. I mean, these are professional people. So when they, when they say that we shouldn't just say, oh, yeah, what do they know? I mean, this is, this is serious stuff that they're saying. And they're yet, yet again, a flashing red light on the dashboard saying, you know, we've got to do something about Russia.

Francis Darnley (44:09)

Yeah. Well, speaking of r. My final thought, a fascinating interview by our very own Iona Cleave here at the Telegraph with the adoptive granddaughter of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, somebody you were talking about the other day, Dom. So she has just been added to the Kremlin's list of foreign agents, something we've spoken about before. She's a professor who works on international affairs in New York and has been based in the US since 1991, but frequently visited Russia and has been seen as a very vocal critic there of the invasion of Ukraine. This has, for understandable reasons, reasons, caused quite a stir among the Moscow elite. The irony is not lost of them, of the man, of course, who's best known for the Great Thor, after Stalinism, who repudiated Stalin's methods and tried to open up Russia in certain ways, not in many others, but nonetheless, somebody who tried to destroy some of the malignant influence of the secret police and denounced Stalin very publicly in his famous speech that his granddaughter, adoptive granddaughter, would be silenced and treated as a foreign agent. And she told the Telegraph, I was surprised it didn't come sooner because anyone who says anything that the Kremlin does not approve of should expect it. Under Putin, Stalinism is on the rise. We are witnessing the Gulagization of the state. Now, we've talked only this week about the restored reputation of the founder of the Cheka. And of course, Stalin himself has had something of a renaissance in his image. There have been statues of Stalin built in occupied Ukraine extraordinarily, which. Which, again, is just indicative of the direction of travel. As Iona writes, the repercussions are swift. People who are put on this foreign agent list are blocked from public sector work and banned from organizing events or fundraising. Everything they publish, including online content, is immediately labelled foreign agent material. Now, the professor herself says once the punishing state starts moving, it lacks a mechanism to stop. And so the absurdity of the repression becomes normal. Normal. And when Iona asked her for her reflections on what Khrushchev himself would have made of the full scale invasion of Ukraine, she said he would have been impalled. He would have thought, why on earth are we bombing a brotherly nation? It would have been heartbreaking for him. I think he would have said, I left you such a legacy, a de Stalinized Soviet Union. I freed you from the deadly embrace of the KGB and look what you have done. I think I'm right in saying that Khrushchev had a particularly close relationship with Ukraine. He worked there for long time. He was involved in its post war reconstruction. So I don't think these are sort of flippant remarks just because of the horror of the war. I think it's actually because of this idea of him being somebody who, at least by Russian standards, was very sympathetic to, to the people of, of Ukraine. The interview ends with her recalling a popular Soviet poet who visited Khrushchev with concerns that people were forgetting the times of repression and fear. His response was, was it's great. They are forgetting, let them live. But we're not forgetting anymore. She says Russians are living it. We'll add a link in the show notes to that piece.

Dom Nichols (47:28)

Thank you, Iona. Right, that's it for us today, folks. We'll be back in tomorrow and as I said earlier on, we'll have our regular Fortnightly update from Dr. Jay McLinn of King's College about activity in the occupied area. So do join us tomorrow if you can. Francis, thanks for your contribution. Back tomorrow.

Francis Darnley (47:45)

Back tomorrow.

Dom Nichols (47:46)

Right. So will I see you tomorrow?

Francis Darnley (47:53)

Ukraine the Latest is an original podcast from the Telegraph created by David Knowles. Every episode featuring us in the studio maps and battlefield footage is now available to watch on our YouTube channel. Subscribe at www.YouTube.com subscribe Crainethelatest. There's a link in the description. If you appreciate our work, please consider following Ukraine the latest on your preferred podcast app and leave us a review as it helps others find the show. Please also share it with those who may not be aware we exist. You can also get in touch directly to ask questions or give comments by emailing ukrainepodelegraph.co.uk we continue to read every message message. You can also contact us directly on X. You'll find our handles in the description. As ever, we're especially interested to hear where you're listening from around the world. And finally, to support our work and stay on top of all of our Ukraine news, analysis and dispatches from the ground, please subscribe to the Telegraph. You can get one month for free, then two months for just one pound at www.telegraph.co.uk/ukraine the latest Ukraine the Latest was Today produced by Phil Atkins. Executive producers are Francis Dernley, Louisa Wells and David Knowles.

Dom Nichols (49:13)

My name is David Knowles. Thank you all for listening. Goodbye.

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