← Ukraine: The Latest
Ukraine: The Latest
Ukraine 'could get instant NATO membership' if Russia breaks peace deal & Moscow set to declare 'victory'
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I'm Francis Dernley and this is Ukraine. The latest. Today we hear how Washington is said to be considering a deal which, if Russia broke, would see Ukraine automatically acquire membership to NATO, hear about possible European specific alternatives to that alliance, and return again to a subject being forgotten in many discussions at the moment.
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War crimes bravery takes you through the.
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Most unimaginable hardships to finally reward you with victory. It's the worst carnage that this world has seen since World War II.
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Absolutely fascinating. We are with you not just today or tomorrow, but for 100 years.
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Nobody's going to break us.
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We are strong. We are Ukrainians.
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It's Friday 21st February, two years and 361 days since the full scale invasion began. And today I'm joined by former soldier, defence expert and British member of parliament Dr. Mike Martin and Telegraph foreign reporter Verity Bowman. Later to end the week, you'll hear a special report from Adali Pojman Ponte into Ukrainian art history and culture. But first, a summary of the major military and political updates. Russia is instructing its propagandist to declare victory in the war against Ukraine and NATO on 24 February, the third anniversary of its full scale invasion. That is the sobering conclusion of Ukrainian military intelligence who believe that Russia aims to sow despair among Ukrainians, destabilize the situation in the country and discredit Kyiv among its allies. Russian intelligence services plan to spread the narrative that Ukraine has been betrayed by the west and by the United States. That puts into perspective just how confident Moscow is at the present moment due to the machinations in the political realm, despite its forces relative staticity on the battle, which I'll turn to in a moment. While many world leaders are expected in Kyiv on Monday to show a united front, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron are expected to visit Washington separately next week following the emergency meetings held in Paris. In the past 24 hours, both leaders have underscored their intentions to increase their defence spending further to what he said publicly. Macron is understood to have raised the idea in discussions of increasing France's military spending from 2.1% to 5% of GDP. Britain likewise is also actively considering increasing its military spending by an undisclosed amount, although I've heard privately of over 3%. Now, Donald Tusk, the prime minister of Poland, has stated this morning what he wants to see Europe agree upon. Enough talking. It's time to act, he writes. One, let's finance our aid from Ukraine from the Russian frozen assets. Two, let's strengthen air policing, the Baltic century and the EU borders with Russia. Three, let's swiftly adopt new fiscal rules to finance the EU security and defence now. Now, despite the ongoing conversations, we are still no closer to clarity of what a coalition of European military powers is preparing to do proactively before a deal is presented by the US and Russia, by which time some of the options, such as seizing frozen Russian assets, might be taken away from them. Now, according to the New York Times, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been reassuring his European colleagues by phone after Trump's condemnations. Apparently he tried arguing that there would be no sharp reset of relations with the Kremlin. Some would say it's a bit late for that. Assured the Europeans that the Trump administration does not plan to impose the terms of any bilateral agreement with Russia on Ukraine and Europe. Argue that the US will not lift sanctions on Russia in the absence of changes in Moscow's behavior, although there is a possibility of limited easing of some of them if the Russians begin to take the measures sought by the Trump team. And lastly, that talks in Saudi Arabia were intended as a test of whether Russia is serious about an agreement, something he allegedly said he was unable to tell at this moment. Now, that is interesting, if true, but how much stock can we really put in these remarks? How much power does Rubio really have? How much power does anyone have in this White House, aside from Trump himself? That is a highly relevant question in the case of US Special envoy to Ukraine Keith Kellogg, who has now met Zelenskyy in Kyiv. Zelenskyy was keen, understandably, to talk up that meeting, saying, I had a productive meeting with Special Envoy Kellogg. Good discussion, many important details. I am grateful to the US for the assistance and bipartisan support for Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. It's important for us and for the entire free world that American strength is felt. We had a detailed conversation about the battlefield situation, how to return our prisoners of war and effective security guarantees. From the very first second of this war, Ukraine has sought peace. We must and can ensure that peace is strong and lasting so that Russia can never return with war. Now, on that subject, and in the context of the U.S. position in our paper, Joe Barnes reports that there are conversations taking place over the idea that Ukraine could be growing granted instant NATO membership if Russia violates the terms of the peace deal being negotiated by Trump. The White House is apparently considering the mechanism to address concerns that Putin would use a ceasefire to regroup and later launch another invasion. Now, under the strategy, Kyiv would be allowed to bypass a series of hurdles to prove it is fit to join the Western military alliance. That is fascinating, but it bears repeating that a clause is one thing, but the belief internationally that it would be enforced also has to be present, and many will ask how likely it is that this White House would actually enforce such a measure. That remains true, too, in the context of Article 5, which I'll be discussing with Mike Martin in a moment. It would arguably also have to be worded carefully to make it clear that hybrid efforts would also qualify if it were to have any real meaning. Now, relevant to the point I just raised is the fact that still every day Trump and his top team continue to criticise Ukraine and its advocates in the most unflinching terms. Elon Musk asked yesterday what the Ukrainians were even fighting for, whereas J.D. vance, in response to critiques of the new U.S. position by the historian Niall Ferguson, posted the following on for three years, President Trump and I have made two simple arguments. First, the war wouldn't have started if Trump was in office. Second, that neither Europe, nor the Biden administration, nor the Ukrainians had any pathway to victory. This was true three years ago, it was true two years ago, it was true last year and it is true today. And for three years the concerns of people who were obviously right were ignored. What is Nile's actual plan for Ukraine? Another aid package? Is he aware of the reality on the ground of the numerical advantage of the Russians, of the depleted stock of the Europeans, or even their depleted industrial base? President Trump is dealing with reality, which means dealing with facts. And here are some facts. Number one, while our Western European allies security has benefited greatly from the generosity of the us they pursued domestic policies on migration and censorship that offend the sensibilities of most Americans and defence policies that assume continued over alliance. Number two, Russians have a massive numerical advantage in manpower and weapons in Ukraine and the advantage will persist regardless of further Western aid packages. Three, the US remains and retains substantial leverage over both parties to the conflict. Number four, ending the conflict requires talking to the US involved in starting it and maintaining it. Number five, the conflict has placed and continues to place stress on tools of American statecraft, from military stockpiles to sanctions and so much else. We believe the continued conflict is bad for Russia, bad for Ukraine and bad for Europe. But most importantly, it is bad for the United States. It is lazy, ahistorical nonsense to attack as appeasement every acknowledgement that America's interest must account for the realities of the conflict. That interest, not moralisms or historical illiteracy, will guide President Trump's policy in the weeks to come. So there's remarks of J.D. vance there. I think that criticism that European allies, quote, pursue domestic policies on migration and censorship that offend the sensibilities of most Americans is very telling as to why so many on the political right harbour a stated or secret admiration for Russia. It should be said that many would challenge the ideas Vance puts forward, particularly about numerical advantages as being the key determinant factor in war and many other points. But Europe needs to be honest with itself. It has left itself exposed to these critiques through its over dependence over many decades on the United States. And it has little leverage because of its inability to be proactive rather than reactive throughout the conflict. This is basic strategy and it has shown again and again it has not been up to the task. Axios also report today that the Trump administration has presented Ukraine with an improved draft of a minerals agreement. That's the one which would see Ukraine essentially an economic vassal of the United States, the one President Zelenskyy rejected some time ago. The US said this is a negotiation and in a negotiation, you negotiate. Ukraine wants to negotiate minerals. So we are talking about it. That came from a White House official. But lastly, let's just turn to the military picture, which is hardly as rosy for Russia as Vance makes out. A senior Russian general staff officer said in an interview with the Russian Defense Ministry newspaper yesterday that Russian forces have regained control of about 64% of the territory in Kursk Oblast captured by Ukraine. According to him, Ukrainian soldiers are in control of about 500 square kilometers out of 1,268 square kilometers initially seized by Kyiv. That is despite Russia throwing wave after wave at that territory held by Ukraine. As such, many are asking, can that really qualify as a military success? Likewise, across the front lines in Ukraine, Russia seems to have stalled on most fronts. It was interesting to hear Francis Farrell of the Kyiv Independent on the podcast yesterday, who was just bedded in with troops for two weeks, say that he would be not surprised if Burkrovsk holds for many more months. Quite extraordinary given the assumptions for a long time that it was about to fall. Now, there were a series of drone and missile strikes across Ukraine yesterday, albeit still at a much lesser rate than several weeks ago. Nevertheless, though, it is worth underscoring that glide bombs struck a 10 story high rise building in Kherson Oblast, and in the Zaporizhzhia region, a 53 year old civilian was killed after a Russian strike hit several buildings. In a separate incident yesterday, at least four people were killed in the frontline town of kozynivka, including a 72 year old woman. Ukrainian police report that Russian forces dropped four bombs and used artillery in that attack. Meanwhile, in Donetsk, Russian aircraft targeted residential areas, killing one man, according to Ukraine's State Emergency Service. But just to underscore the point that Russia is not as strong as it appears from the perspective of many experts, I would point listeners to a very interesting special report by Christina Harwood at the Institute for the Study of War. It's called Russia's weakness offers leverage, she writes. The US can use the enormous challenges Russia will face in 2025 as leverage to secure critical concessions in negotiations. Russia will likely face a number of material, manpower and economic issues in 12 to 18 months if Ukrainian forces continue to inflict damage on Russian forces on the battlefield. Russia's defense industrial base cannot sustain Russia's current armored vehicle artillery system and Ammun munition burn rates. In the medium term, Russia's recruitment efforts appear to be slowing, such as they cannot indefinitely replace Russia's current casualty rate without an involuntary reserve mobilization, which Putin has shown great reluctance to order. Putin has mismanaged Russia's economy, which is suffering from increased and unsustainable war spending, growing inflation, significant labor shortages, and reductions in Russia's sovereign wealth fund. These issues will present difficult decision points to Putin in 2026 or 27, provided current trend. Putin thus is likely to prioritize breaking western and particularly US support in 2025 and securing his desired end state in Negotiations letting him avoid facing the nexus of difficult problems he now confronts. U.S. military aid has let Ukraine drive Russia towards a critical moment when Putin will have to make hard choices. The US can accelerate the moment when Putin must grapple with these interlocking problems and can likely coerce Russia into making the concessions on its demands necessary secure a peace acceptable to the U.S. ukraine and Europe. The U.S. can achieve a strong negotiating position and negotiate a deal that maximizes American interests by continuing military aid to Ukraine and increasing battlefield pressure on Russia. So the words from that report there goes into a lot of detail on all of those ports, but many will be asking again whether anyone in Washington is actually listening to those arguments. But that's where we are in terms of the most pressing military and political updates. I'm delighted now to turn to British Member of Parliament, Dr. Mike Martin. Mike, it's a pleasure to have you back on. I want to start, if I may, with your fascinating analysis you published over the past 24 hours of your view on NATO and Article 5 and the need for a Euro Atlantic Treaty Organization. So a different entity that attacks for European defense and offers a nuclear deterrent as well as a military deterrent. Mike, can you just summarize for us what you're putting forward as a suggestion in Parliament?
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I've spent the last couple of weeks traveling around Europe, including spending last weekend at the Munich Security Conference. It's pretty clear when you speak to senior European generals and, you know, officials and policymakers, politicians, that there is quite a lot of doubt about whether the Americans would honor Article 5, which is obviously the clause of the NATO treaty. That means that an attack on one is an attack on all of us. So the collective defense clause, obviously the, you know, NATO, that collective defense is a bit of a psychological thing. Right? So as soon as there's doubt about it, then it means that actually you need to plan for it not being there. And whilst there was quite a lot of shock, bit like a divorce, really, there was quite a lot of shock at Munich, at the conference. The logical progression from, well, if NATO 5 doesn't work anymore is, well, what does collective European security look like? And what I think that looks like, what I'm proposing is that we form a Euro Atlantic Treaty Organization. It has all the frontline states, so the Nordics, the Baltics, Poland, Ukraine, it has the three big powers, so Britain, France, Germany. Obviously two of those have got nuclear deterrence. Then I'd also include Canada because that helps with the Arctic. Obviously there's a lot of Russian interest into The Arctic, and ideally sort of Turkey and Romania as well, because that means you control the Black Sea, so the southern flank. And it looks like NATO has an Article 5 type collective defense guarantee. The Britain and France's nuclear umbrellas are extended to all the participants. And then I would actually take it a bit further than NATO because NATO does collective training, obviously, and operations together. And it's, you know, it's a military alliance in that sense. But I would actually bring together European procurement because there's. There's another lesson, I think, out of the last 10 days, and I think you made the point in your introduction. What are the Americans actually saying? You know, that there's so much of what they're saying is contradictory and it's backwards and forwards. And whatever their true policy is, if indeed they do have a true policy, it's created such doubt and such a lack of trust. It means that probably we can't buy kit off them anymore. Military kits, because when you buy military kits, it's not just that you don't just buy the tank or the aircraft. You buy a sort of service package for maybe 15 years or 20 years that has all the spare parts and all the software upgrades and all the rest of it. And if we don't trust them to defend us collectively, then we also probably don't trust them to sense miniature kit because they could decide, oh, we're not going to give you the software updates to your aircraft, or we're not going to provide you with spare parts for your tank. And so I think this ATO organization should have collective procurement in it as well, where we each, unless absolutely avoidable, we buy off each other. And actually, with all of those countries I've listed, you've got the makings of almost every capability. The Ukrainians are literally world leaders in drones at the moment. There's lots of cyber powers there. Germany has a huge industrial base for vehicles, munitions. France is very good in aerospace. Britain's very good at nuclear submarines, so on and so forth. Like you can build relatively quickly all of the different bits of ip, the capacity is not necessarily there and the spending's not there. And perhaps we can talk about that in a minute, but certainly there's enough countries there that know how to build enough different types of military kit that they could do it. And what I would also do is I would increase standardization because whilst NATO standardized things like ammunition sizes, so, you know, the rifle is 5.56 and the heavy machine gun is 762 millimeter, and all the rest of it Actually, we all still have different rifles. The mind boggles that every European country has a different rifle. While some bits of kit are going to remain sovereign. Right. You know, the Brits aren't going to give away their secrets to their nuclear submarines. Lots of stuff is not secret. You know, armored vehicles, artillery pieces, rifles, all the rest of it. All of that can just be standardized. And we just make one type of equipment that everyone in Europe uses. And that obviously increases interoperability. It gives us economies of scale, all the rest of it. I think the final good point about buying off each other is that coupled with increased defense expenditure, which we'll talk about in a minute, it gives us an opportunity to boost European economies as well. So it's a bit of a win win, really.
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B
Thanks for that overview, Mike. Now, we're very lucky on Ukraine, the latest. We have a global audience. I'm very aware we've spoken a lot about Britain and its position this week, but of course that is deliberate because it is Britain that is being more proactive in leading these conversations. We understand. And in your thread on X where you put this suggestion forward, you say that the only two countries in your view that could lead it would be Britain and France. And so my next question, Mike, is do you think there is the political will for this? Do you sense in the conversations, I'd be interested in your perspective on Munich. Do you get the sense that there is a momentum behind proposals like this or indeed using Jeff as a platform, as it were, for advancing these kinds of conversations? Or are we just not there yet? Are those of us having these kind of conversations in the public forum, as it were, just sort of operating in our own separate space?
- [21:40]
C
So I think that, yeah, France and Britain probably only two countries that could take the lead. They're the only two countries with nuclear deterrent, got a sort of historical strategic culture. And they or they do have the most capable armed forces, although I think Poland is rapidly catching up. The sense I got from Munich, again talking to sort of a wide spectrum of military leaders, was that it would be the Brits that they would prefer to do that. I'm not sure the French politician I spoke to agreed with that, but there's a sense that Sakur, the supreme Allied Commander in Europe at the moment, is American. The deputy has been British for 80 years. I think that, you know, we lead the Allied rapid reaction Corps. I think there's a sense of capability and viewpoint and countries are happy to work with us. But I do think, you know, coming back to the UK government I think there's two things at the moment. You can't lead unless you're increasing your defense expenditure. That's a kind of prerequisite because, well, to bring it back to the uk. The state of the UK military is kind of threadbare at the moment. Part of that is because we, we've kept defence budgets low, but the other part of that is because we've gifted loads of kit to Ukraine, which is the right thing to do, but we haven't necessarily replaced it. I think we have 14, 155 artillery systems at the moment, the British army, so we had, I think someone said we had more Cannon in the 1400s and we have artillery pieces now. So there is a big problem and I think it's very difficult for the UK to step up a lead if it doesn't say, actually we're going to spend this on defense. And the government at the moment, I was interested to hear in your introduction, you're saying the government's talking about three. I haven't heard that at all. I've seen the opposite from Rachel Reeves as Chancellor saying, well, at the moment we're 2.3. We're committed to 2.5, but we don't know when that'll be. We'll make an announcement in the spring. My party, the Lib Dems, has come out saying 2.5. Now we've got a costed plan for that and we're saying we should convene cross party talks to get to 3%. That's really what you need to spend credibly to do Euro Atlantic defense with allies. So I think that's one thing that we're missing. And I think the other thing is my sense is that the UK government is still operating on the old scheme and it's because it's saying things like, well, you know, Britain's role here is to bridge between America and Europe, which is, you know, traditionally the role we've played for decades, very successfully. And it's, it's been to our great benefit that we've been able to do that. But I think that those days are gone. Like this American government, particularly the trio at the center of it, Trump, Vance and Musk, are revolutionary. They're revisionists. They seek to. And we saw that from Vance's speech. We saw that with Musk interfering in UK politics, they are revisionists. They seek to change the order in Europe and to have other political powers here. They, they do not like liberal democracy. Their idea, the ideological split that they have is sort of liberal Democracy on one side and a kind of libertarian, tiny government, techno utopia type of pure freedom of speech, no limits on what you can say, type society, which is obviously very different to how Europe and Britain, I have to say, governs themselves and how they see themselves in terms of values. And so I think because of that ideological split, quite notable that we were all expecting Vance to come to Munich and talk to us about, about what the Europeans need to do with defense expenditure. We all agree it needs to go up perhaps to talk about what the Ukraine deal might look like. Instead he just came and singled out in succession a series of European countries and attacked their approach. You know, compared European countries to the Soviet Union in terms of freedom of speech. I mean, it was absolutely ludicrous. And I think the degree to which you have American leaders repeating Russian talking points tells us that this particular American administration, and I don't obviously mean the deep links that the Brits have with the Americans across institutions and military to military and organization to organization, that's obviously not changed. But certainly the current leadership is revolutionary and I don't think is our friend, which it terrifies me to say it. You know, I fought with. I mean, I've been under fire with Americans in Afghanistan, right. So this is not, I say this as an extremely pro American, pro alliance person person. But my reading is that that particular leadership and that administration is not our friends. And I think we can see that as evidenced by, you know, what's going on with the deal over Ukraine. They are not on Europe's side. So for that reason I think that the British government's position is not going to hold that they can bridge between Europe and America. Obviously Keir Starmer is going next week with Macron to America and that will be fascinating. You know, I wish him well and I hope he does manage to salvage the situation. But my sense is that that is, you know. Well, we' won't we. But my sense is that those days are gone of us acting as a bridge. Hence why I'm proposing that we look into what European collective defence looks like. And I think, you know, based on my conversations with the Europeans, it's only the UK can lead it. But that requires us to increase our defense expenditure probably into the region of about 3%. And the Lib Dems will look very seriously on a cross party basis at proposals that the government wants to put forward. Like politicking is pro Putin at this time. So we're really interested in the national interest to treat that very seriously. And I think we need to Also as well as increasing our spending start to lead in Europe and bring together other European countries into that new collective defence organization.
- [27:26]
B
Well, thanks, Mike. One final question, if I may, because I know you have to dash off. You spoke there about serving under fire with American soldiers. Of course, one of the conversation points of the past week or so has been the idea of British troops on the ground and that being a vote that would go to Parliament if put forward by Sir Keir Starmer. We don't yet know the context in which that would be the case. He mentioned it would be part of some kind of peacekeeping force. So presumably under the orders of some kind of deal. But if that vote were brought towards Parliament, would you vote for it?
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C
Sorry, I hate to give you a classic politician's answer. I would obviously have to look at all of the detail of what it is, is in principle I'm, I'm in favor of British troops playing a role in Ukraine on the ground in the post deal phase. But without knowing what that deal looks like, who we're going there with, it's very difficult for me to kind of give you a sort of definite yes, no, sorry. I hope you don't feel I'm being too slippery there. But I think, I think it's fair to say that there's quite a lot of ambiguity in that. So it's quite hard for me to pin myself down. But in principle, of course I'm in favor of British troops being involved. I mean, I'm arguing for you defeat British leadership in Europe at the moment. I think the one thing I would say on that though is that there is a danger that we obviously the Ukrainian problem is the crocodile closest the canoe at the moment. And there is a danger though that we solve that Ukrainian problem but fail to solve the collective European defense problem. For example, I was speaking to a very senior German general on Sunday and he was saying, look, if we stick 150,000 troops in Ukraine, that fixes them there, bogs them down and then opens up the northern flank, Estonia, Finland, all the rest of it, it stops us being able to do collective defense properly. So whilst I think it's important that we do lean into the Ukraine problem, obviously we need Europeans at the table, Ukraine needs to be at the table. I think it's actually important to think about collective because we can get collective European defense right in a way that solves the post deal Ukraine security problem. But it is possible to rush into solving the Ukraine security problem in a way that leaves us vulnerable on collective European defense. So I would just advocate that we just rise up, you know, rise our eyes up to the horizon a little bit and think in the biggest, grand strategic terms about what European security architecture looks like. And if we get that right, that will solve the Ukrainian problem for us.
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B
Dr. Mike Martin, thank you very much for your time, as ever, and I'm sure we'll speak to you again very soon. Now, I'm delighted to be sharing the studio today with Verity Bowman from here at the Telegraph. Foreign reporter, of course, will be well known to listeners from over the years. It's actually been about eight months, I think, since you've last been on, but of course, the subscribers to the Telegraph will have been reading your reporting on Ukraine and many other matters over the past few months. Now, of course, an aspect of all of this that's being forgotten is the very next nature of the fact that America and Russia are speaking at the moment is, in some people's eyes, in a sense, a kind of mandating of the strategy that Russia has adopted in Ukraine because it's brought them to the negotiating table as, in a sense, a kind of equal partner or even above that. And yet we have seen throughout this war, Verity, so many egregious war crimes. And it's some cases of that that you've been looking into. So what's the latest investigation that you've been working on?
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D
So, for a few months now, actually, I've been looking into the issue of female prisoners of war in Ukraine. It all started when I met a woman named Larissa, who I was actually interviewing as the mother of a Ukrainian soldier being held captive by Russia. You know, we had quite a long conversation. It went on for a few hours. We spoke a lot about her son, but it was only as the conversation really began unfolding that I discovered she, too, had been a prisoner of war. And she, as well, had endured so some really unimaginable suffering. So Larissa's decision speak out was incredibly brave. That she did so set me on the path to tracking down other women who also suffered as prisoners of war. The process took months, as I said, and it was complicated. You know, it's challenging to find women who are able to put the horrors they experienced into words because, you know, this has been going on for three years now. But for all of these women, these memories are still very fresh in their mind. So what they told me painted a picture of a Russian system designed to terrorize and degrade Ukrainian prisoners. And it was a system in which torture, humiliation, and rape were commonplace. So I'm Just going to give you a bit of detail about what happened to Larissa and a bit of a warning. It is quite upsetting. So Larissa recounted being stripped naked and humiliated in front of her captors. At one point, her and her fellow prisoners had bags over their heads. They were forced to strip naked, kid, bend over and walk through a cold shower in front of numerous Russian guards. When this happened, they were also coerced into singing the Russian national anthem. And she said it was humane. To them, we were nothing. So Larissa had spent seven months in several prisons after being captured in Mariupol in 2022. She was also beaten on numerous occasions. All of the prisoners were forced to to stand for over 12 hours a day. It was basically completely banned to sit at all during the day. And they were all mentally tortured. She recalled the guards calling her and other prisoners fascists and threatening to kill them. The constant threat of death loomed over her throughout her captivity. So as my investigation continued, it became clear that Larissa's story was just one of many. One of the other people I spoke to was Valentina Zubka, who was a 32 year old military medic. She was captured at the Iliac steel plant during the siege of Mariupol and spent five and a half months in captivity. She was crammed into a cell meant for two people, but forced to live with 15 others. Her cell lacked basic sanitation and they were barely given enough to food to survive. She described herself as a skeleton by the time she was released. She recounted how guards subject them to sadistic forms of torture known as the tiny trait, where prisoners were forced to walk stooped over in a line, being beaten by guards standing in lines at both sides of them. If Valentina and the other prisoners weren't able to keep up with impossible exercise routines that the guards forced them to do every single day. They were punished and sometimes forced to march for hours in the freezing cold singing the Russian national anthem. And the abuse just didn't stop there. The more I spoke to more women, the more the detail of just how horrific things were came to light. I spoke to shnetsana Ostapenko, a 23 year old junior sergeant who was captured in May 2022. She endured electric shock torture during interrogations as well as sleep deprivation. Loudspeakers in her cell blared the Russian national anthem for over 24 hours a day and the lights were not turned off. Sleep for her was impossible. And then the guards even told her, we're feeding you just enough so you don't die. One of the most horrifying aspects of these testimony is the sexual abuse endured by women. So 61 year old Lyudmila Husnova spent 3 years and 13 days in captivity, which was the longest time out of the women I spoke to. She was captured in 2019, so before the full scale invasion, for taking a photograph of a resistance flag. And during her time in captivity, she was subject to sexual assault by gun guards. Lyudmila had a bag over her head when a group of guards forced her to strip naked before touching her all over her body, commenting and laughing as they did so. For younger girls, the abuse was even more devastating. Women were promised food or the chance of seeing their children again in exchange for sexual favours. And Lyudmila said that young girls would be taken to the dormitory housing Russian soldiers and that they would return crime. The experience of each of these women are deeply distressing, but as Frances said earlier, I think they're also crucial. They're evidence of what can only be described as war crimes. The UN and human rights organisations have accused Russian forces of committing atrocities. And now these women's stories provide a human face to those accusations. I think their testimonies are a reminder of why perhaps now more than ever, it is important to listen to those who have lived and suffered through this war.
- [36:14]
B
Thank you very much, Verity, for your work and for summarizing it there. It is an extraordinary investigation which of course we'll link to in the show notes, and a very rare one because, as you say, it is rarer to see testimony of women who have been prisoners of war and suffered in this way. There have been many, many reports of men, male soldiers, but women, it is less common. Did you find that it was more difficult to gain this testimony than other testimony that you've acquired from men over the years?
- [36:45]
D
Yes, it was definitely a lot more difficult. Women were very scared to speak out. I remember Valentina being particularly worried that women she knew who were still in captivity could suffer for her speaking out and saying this. I've spoken to quite a lot of men in the past who are a lot more able to put into words what happened to them. And I think for women, something that makes it a lot more difficult is the gender based aspect of all of it and the fact that a lot of sexual violence is kind of used as a weapon of war in these situations.
- [37:15]
B
And may I ask, when you're approaching subjects like this, I imagine that it takes a long time to gain the trust of the individuals concerned. I think, you know, we're in Daily News. And obviously it's sometimes perhaps underappreciated how much time it can take to produce work like this because of those issues. I mean, how long have you been working on this story for?
- [37:37]
D
I mean, it's been a very long time. I first spoke to Larissa back in August, I think, of last year, and it took a long time from them tracking down different women, putting out feelers, seeing where I will be able to track people down in Ukraine. And I've been working full time on this since January now, now interviewing these women. So it has been a really lengthy process, but definitely worth the work that it took.
- [38:01]
B
And one final question, if I may. Are these women optimistic that they will ever see justice or is there a sense of that this is something that has happened to them and that the international community is just not in a position to be able to help them at the moment?
- [38:16]
D
I would say that among them there was a real sense of defeat and a real sense that they didn't even know if speaking out would really make much of a difference and kind of a feeling among them that they are kind of, you know, expected by the world to pick up and keep going and kind of forget that this ever happened.
- [38:37]
B
Do you have any final thoughts to offer for us today, Verity? Anything that came about when you were working on this story that perhaps is an underappreciated aspect?
- [38:45]
D
I think overall we just need to really be reporting on the experiences of people. You know, we can get very wrapped up in talking about political developments. We can get wrapped up in talking about movements on the front line. But really what's happening is that these are real people with real lives that are caught up in this, you know, complete web that seems impossible to get out of at the moment.
- [39:07]
B
Well, Verity Bim, thank you very much for your time today. And as I said earlier on, there will be a link in the show notes to your fascinating and important piece.
- [39:21]
A
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- [39:57]
B
To end the week, something a little bit different this Sunday, 23rd February marks the 146th anniversary of modernist painter Kazimir Millovich's birth. He was the artist behind abstract paintings such as Black Square or White on White, and the father of the so called supremacist movement, which sought to develop a form of expression in the early 20th century that moved as far as possible from the world of natural forms in order to access the supremacy of pure feeling and spirituality. He is also one of many Ukrainian artists who have continuously been labelled Russian in museums around the world. You'll hear now Adli's interview with Tatiana Philosophy, an art historian who specializes in the Ukrainian avant garde, and Yulia Solovey, one of the co founders of Ukrainian Wow Wow, an NGO that aims to promote Ukrainian culture.
- [40:56]
E
So, Tatiana, can you give me a little bit of background on his life and the fact that he's actually Ukrainian, born in Ukraine, educated in Ukraine, including for his artistic education and how much Ukraine has influenced his work?
- [41:14]
A
Yeah, well, first of all, I think identity is something more complicated than, you know, something singular. I think each of us can relate to various identities and it's absolutely true for everyone who lived on the edge of 19 20th century, like Malevich. So he was born to Polish family in Kyiv at the time when our part of the world was partially occupied by the Russian Empire, but also other empires like Osto, Hungarian and Osman Empire empire. Malevich spent his early years in Kyiv, but then he traveled to other places, mostly villages all around central and eastern and northern Ukraine. And he has wonderful memories about that. In his memoirs, in his autobiography written in late years, he remembered how he came to Kyiv and that was the first time he saw art in a window of a shop and how he first visited the art school, a real art school in Kyiv, and he met a real artist, Mykolo Pomonenko, who was a famous artist back then, located in Kyiv. And then the introduction to this real artist and his studio was such an impression to Malevich that he himself wanted to become an artist later on. Malevich lived in a small town of Konotop. It's now almost on the front line and it's daily actually shelled by the Russian missiles, unfortunately. So lots of the heritage relating to Kazimir Malevich in Ukraine is getting lost as we speak, unfortunately. Then for many years the family moved to Kursk, which was back then a territory inhabited by mostly Ukrainians as well. It was not something, you know, we can say was purely Russian, because back then the borders were different. When he wanted to get higher education, he had to move to Moscow, because back then in. In Ukraine, in Kiev, it was not allowed to have our own art academy. So he was forced to go to Moscow to get educated in art. So he spent lots of time in Moscow and St. Petersburg, later Petrograd and then Leningrad. But he always has had this connection to Ukraine. And he called himself Ukrainian whenever he met other Ukrainians. And we can also trace this in his autobiography. Then, in late 20s, when avant garde art was no longer in favor in Russia. And it was really hard for artists to practice their creativity in a free way, he came to Kyiv, invited to teach at the Kiev Art Institute. And he was a professor at the Kyiv Art Institute. So he had students, but he was also able to publish his theoretical works. And he had a series of his articles published in the Ukrainian magazine Nova, in which was the most important magazine of the time for avant garde art. The editor was Mikhail Semenko, a super important poet, a figure for Ukrainian avant garde. And the magazine was in Ukrainian. Malevich's articles were also published in Ukrainian language. And it's his last kind of big piece of theoretical work. Also, it's important to say that his last personal exhibition, the last in his lifetime, was also held in Kiev, in the Kiev Art Gallery. And it was so popular that the gallery had to postpone the date, you know, to kind of keep the exhibition going for more than a month. Because people just wanted to come and see it. So there were so many important things for Malevich relating to Kiev and Ukraine. And especially when he was a young person living in villages, he was very closely in communication with Ukrainian peasants. And that was an inspiration for. For lifetime for him. He said that he liked everything about Ukrainian peasants. He liked the way they lived, the way they ate food, the way they were dressed and the way they made art. And he said that he didn't even know this word art. And he didn't know what it meant. But he just followed everything they were doing. And that was his way of kind of shaping his creative view, how he saw things, his perception of color and shape. And that impression was life lasting. So, you know, the connection to Ukraine and Ukrainian culture had an essential meaning for him.
- [45:32]
E
Do tell me about how watching these Ukrainian peasants cultivating beetroot, working in the fields, and the traditional Ukrainian out outfits, but also the traditional Ukrainian crafts practiced by Ukrainian women, influenced his work.
- [45:50]
A
He kept these memories throughout his life. And he remembered how he liked to observe the life of peasants. And for him it was like a paradise, a living paradise, a harmony in real life. So he was observing how they would go singing in the morning to work on the, be truth feast fields. And then they would come back together singing also. So he had this feeling that they are enjoying their life and there is something, a secret that they kept, you know, the secret of their life that he wanted also to. To join, because he himself belonged to a different part of community because his father worked at the sugar beet factory. So it was, you know, a big industry, was a big factory machine, like. And he felt like this machine was something not natural, something that was actually devastating, this harmony of natural life. So Malevich was very attached, actually, to the natural way of peasants living and all these rituals and all the imagery that was surrounding this life. And he also was imitating everything that they were doing. So he was talking, bought all these traditional crafts from peasant women, because mostly women were practicing art in Ukrainian villages. So he called that Ukrainian peasant women were basically his first art teachers. That's how he kind of practiced his first arts when he was a young boy, just doing this together with Ukrainian peasants and repeating after them.
- [47:26]
E
Am I right in thinking that Malevich's work was also used in traditional embroidery and in workshops? And so there was kind of like a coming together of this very modern way of representing the world and this kind of work on traditional patterns with very ancient crafts?
- [47:46]
A
Yes, indeed, there was such a case. We can say that it was an experimental workshop created in a Ukrainian village called Verbivka in central Ukraine, in the Cherkasy region. The initiative belonged to two artists, Natalia Davydova and Alexandra Akster. Natalia Davidova, she was an artist herself, so she wanted to do something with peasants, something that would involve creativity, was a trend back then. So rich people would start various types of workshops in their mansions. And for Natalia Davydova, it was embroidery, because it also had relation to her family, because she belongs to the ancient Ukrainian family of the Cossacks time, Gudim Levkovich. And they had a tradition of very expensive and very sophisticated embroidery that was producing clothes and fabrics for Cossacks nobility and also for church, for Orthodox church priests. So these were very complicated and sophisticated ways to produce fabrics with beads, beads, gold and silver strings. So it was super, super important and sophisticated thing. So Natalia Davidova decided to continue this tradition of her family, and she started this workshop in Verbivka. Alexander Exter was invited as an art director. And then Alexandra Exter reached out to other artists. She knew, avant garde artists and asked them to produce sketches, drawings for embroidery. And these sketches and drawings, drawings including those that Malevich produced, were brought to verbivka. And in 1915, it was the year when actually Malevich came up with his idea of suprematism. And that was the year he produced the first black square. These suprematic embroidery designs were produced in Verbivka. So Ukrainian peasants produced these things like pillows and little bags and scarves and all sorts of. Of things that you can, you know, use in your everyday life with these suprematic elements. And then they were exhibited throughout the whole of Russian Empire in different cities, but also in Europe. They were very successful. They were sold. And that is one of the reasons that we don't have the many examples survive until nowadays, because people did use them as pillows and scarves. And of course, they could not survive. And for the time, first. First time, the suprematic works of art, the canvases were presented only in December 1915. So the first viewers of suprematic art, they were not sophisticated audience in Petrograd. They were Ukrainian peasants again. So for Malevich, this is a kind of a circle, because his first teachers were Ukrainian peasants. And then the first audience of his suprematist work, non objective art, were also Ukrainian peasants presence. And it seems, you know, that they were completely fine with this new part of work. It was not something shocking for them, maybe, because, you know, they are just used to seeing the geometric forms in primary colors in Ukrainian traditional art. So there was not something that would be outrageous for them, like for the audience in Petrograd that was used to objective art, memetic art. So something that describes and shows our reality instead of kind of presenting an imaginary abstract collection of shapes and forms.
- [51:13]
E
Throughout the 19th century, when, you know, different European countries were exploring this idea of nationhood and what it meant to be a people and were meant to come together as a nation and what national identity was, you have this idea of like, re exploring a nation's or countries past traditional crafts, going back to medieval time, in order to look for, search for, sometimes even revising history a little bit, the sort of like soul of the people, the soul of the nation, something that has endured throughout the centuries. Would you say that is a similar thing with Malevich's work, but also with Ukraine around that time? And that has been important in terms of building a sense of Ukrainian identity and Ukrainian peoplehood and nationhood?
- [52:02]
A
Yes, absolutely. Like with other European nations, Ukrainian people were looking for their ways to build their statehood in 19th century. And this tendency to find this romantic, let's say, idea of a nation that comes with deep roots in history and with traditional culture. And kind of going back to history, that was also the case. So lots of our important cultural figures and that also, you know, political figures were going to research trips, study trips, collecting anthropological information, publishing, I don't know, songs and collecting fairy tales, etc. Etc. Like from Taraschevchenko to Lese, Ukraine, they were all involved in this kind of collection and analysis of traditional culture, of the heritage, let's say. Yes, and trying to come up with the idea of the nation based on that approach. But, you know, we know that it had its limits. But, I mean, it's interesting that Malevich and his figure is not that far from that circle, even considering that his family was of a Polish descent. But he definitely, from his family, from his community, he knew what building a nation and state was. He knew and he was involved with people who were very important and active drivers of this process, to name just one case. So during his work at the Kyiv Art Institute in the late 20s, his very close peer, a friend, was Svitozar Drahomanov. Svitozar Drahomanov was not just a son of Mikhailo Drahomanov, a super important figure in Ukrainian statehood and the Ukrainian National Republic in 1960, but he was also a favorite cousin of Lysokrinko, who is considered one of the most important figure in kind of thinking about modern Ukraine and building the foundation, the cultural foundation of Ukraine. He knew these people, he was in touch with them. They were even neighbors. These people were going to each other places and seeing each other. So I think Malevich was very well aware of this idea and he followed the line and he was, was, you know, next to those people who were responsible for developing the view of Ukrainian independence and statehood back then.
- [54:22]
E
At some point in the 1920s, Malevich falls out of favor with the Russian government and he becomes banned in Russia. Is that linked to what you've just described and him being in these circles and obviously the 20s and 30s and are also very dark time for Ukrainian intelligentsia and Ukrainian artists. That's when the executive renaissance happens. But that's also when all of the cop czars are being murdered by the tsarist empire. Is he involved in those circles? Is he targeted as a Ukrainian artist? And is that why he becomes banned from Russia? Well, I know he wasn't executed as part of the executive renaissance, but is he close to that?
- [55:06]
A
It's a set of very challenging questions, I would say, and I would like to kind of separate them a little bit because there are lots of myth and manipulations around it. So in the mid-20s, it was enough to be just an avant garde artist in Russia to be persecuted and to be banned. So he was a very important and visible figure. He was the head of the Institute for Artistic Culture in Leningrad back then. So he was the leader of this movement. And when in the Soviet Union, which started to become an empire very quickly after the revolution was over, the avant garde art was no longer in favor because it was a revolutionary type of art. And empires, they don't need a revolutionary art anymore. They need a very conservative type of art. And that's where the Soviet Union flipped very quickly. So Social Realism was the only acceptable type of art in the Soviet Union Union. So Malevich could not accept that. So he was trying to fight for his ideas, for his principles. And that's when he got in trouble. There was a series of articles against him, kind of accusing him of being the evil of the time. Then he was fired from his position. Then his means to work were very limited. And he basically was put on the position of an outsider. He could not work and he could not develop his ideas anymore. That's the moment when he comes to Ukraine. In Ukraine, situation was a bit different until late twenties, because the early years of the Soviet Union, Ukraine had much more autonomy than other republics. And that was because Ukraine did not want to join the Soviet Union. And there was a lot of resilience against it. And so the only way to kind of keep Ukraine as part of the union was allowing its autonomy, including cultural autonomy. And that's where the. This policy of Ukrainianization ukrainizatia, happens. And this wave, ukrainisatia means that everything Ukrainian, including Ukrainian arts and culture, has the support of the state of Ukrainian Soviet state. It was not coming from Moscow. It was the local decision of local authorities to invest in culture. And so there were certain figures, for example, Mykola Skripnik and Ivan Vrona, who was actually the head of the Kyiv Art Institute, who could allow the development of development of Ukrainian culture. And they also invited Kazimir Malevich, partially because of his tight connection with Ukrainian scene, because he knew the artists who were working there. He comes here and he is given, you know, all the freedom to work. And that was a huge opportunity for him. He wanted to move to Kyiv and live here and move all of his students here. So that was the idea behind his cooperation with the Kyiv Art Institute. But unfortunately, unfortunately, political context changed. And in 1930, the policy of Ukrainianization was over. It was blocked. And all the avant garde artists at the Kyiv Art Institute, they were basically fired immediately, including Malevich. And it was also the time when he got arrested in Leningrad. Let's put it this way, 1930 is the end of this experiment. But the difference between Russia and Ukraine back then was in several years, when in Ukraine, avant garde artists still could experiment, they could still have the freedom to work. Malevich was very close with them, including Mikhail Semenko, whom I mentioned earlier, who was one of the most important figures. He was the founder of Ukrainian futurism. He was kind of the essence and the center of all of this movement. And they were in touch. Semenko was inspired by Malevich, and he created suprematic poetry. Malevich was inspired by Semenko, and he kind of wrote to his magazine. So it was a very fruitful cooperation back then. So when all of this executed Renaissance happened, Malevich was already sick and far away. But he knew that these things were happening because he was in touch with his colleagues in Kharkiv, for example. And I think it was also one of the kind of very hard moments for him to understand that people that he was very close to, his friends, his allies, they were basically getting killed every day.
- [59:24]
E
Is it fair to say that Malevich could have been part of the executive Renaissance had he been in Kharkiv around that time, for example, with his friends or in Kyiv?
- [59:34]
A
Or in Kyiv, yeah, of course. I mean, that was in one of his letters. He was saying that. That thanks God that I didn't move to Kyiv in 1930s, because I would have had a very bad end as an artist. So, yes, he was aware, and he knew that it would be his destiny for sure. And he wrote that in one of the letters.
- [59:54]
E
That's fascinating, talking about this moment in time now, just a big jump across a century. Obviously, culture and identifying and reidentifying Ukrainian artists as Ukrainian is immensely political.
- [60:10]
A
Can you tell me a little bit.
- [60:11]
E
About what that process has been like, working with museums across the world and trying to get the world to understand your points?
- [60:21]
A
Well, it's extremely hard because museums are very conservative, and museums are, of course, institutions that produce knowledge. And it's really difficult for them to acknowledge that they were wrong about something, that they were mistaken about something. They don't know about something. And it's really hard for them to hear it from someone or somewhere they didn't even know existed a couple of years ago. So the question that Ukraine and Ukrainian history and Ukrainian culture was falling between the cracks. It was wiped out of the world history, including art history, is a very big question in itself. And I would highly recommend to listen and lectures of Timothy Snyder to kind of understand why this happened. How it's impossible to understand the world without actually knowing Ukraine's history, including art history. But it is very difficult to even change a caption of one artist in one particular museum. And we are talking about dozens of artists with hundreds of paintings in thousands of museums, you know. So this works work takes years. This work takes lots of effort and time. And I have just one example. In 2017 there was a big exhibition in Moma dedicated to Russian avant garde. One of the works was by a constructivist from Kharkiv, Vasily Hirmuilov. But he was captioned as Russian and his work was hanging upside down. And the reason I know that it was upside down because the work was a letter B, the Cyrillic letter B. For Boris, it was the first letter of his friend Boris Kosarev. And I knew because I saw a photograph from 1925, I think, when Vasily Yermilov is standing in front of that work in Kharkiv. So I knew perfectly the way it was supposed to hang. So I came as an art historian to the museum and told them, I deeply apologize, but there might be a mistake in your exhibition. You have to name Yermilov as Ukrainian first of all, but please also hang the work properly. So it was 2017, remember the date. They said that they will definitely pass this on to their management. Several months later, I asked a friend who lives in New York to come and see what happened. Guess what? Nothing happened. Of course nothing happened. Nothing changed. So I sent a letter to the museum. Nothing. So there was no reply whatsoever. Then 2022 happened and of course by daytime I knew half of MOMA stuff and I was, you know, exchanging different emails and ideas with them. And they sent me a letter saying, we are in solidarity with Ukrainian people. And this is the project that we did. We put together all the artworks of artists and works that are in our collection in one room. It's called In Solidarity and it's dedicated to Ukraine. Ukraine. And he sent me a photograph and guess what? There was this word by Vasily Yermilov hanging upside down. I think it was the 2nd or 3rd of March, and I think it was the first time that I laughed like crazy after the full scale invasion started, because it was so funny. Still, even into the full scale invasion, I got this reaction. So I sent him a reply saying, well, I'm very grateful and it's really important for us. Thank you, but maybe you could, you know, change the artwork and hang it properly. And guess what? In a couple of hours I received the photograph, they changed the artworks. It was not just Vasili Yermilov as Ukrainian, but the artwork is actually hanging properly now. So I'm joking that it took me six years of my work, professional work and communication and one full scale invasion to change the hanging of one artwork in one museum. So I mean, the amount of work that we have to put into this change of approach and to make Ukraine visible in the global art history is just immense. Ten people cannot do it. It takes the collective effort and the collective responsibility of all the museum, of all the artistic community to change this.
- [64:35]
E
The anecdote is as funny as it is tragic and as it is telling about the world of art. I think that leads us into a perfect segue for Julia. Where do organizations like yours? Ukraine. Wow. Where do you fall into that landscape?
- [64:52]
F
Our background is creative communications. Me and my partner, Yaroslava Grace. Before the full scale war, we used to work with a lot of, I would say educational or edutainers, payment projects. And also we've created one of the most visited exhibition in Ukraine, Ukraine, wow. Which somehow gathered together these incredible stories of great Ukrainians and our cultural, historical, even geographical vows as we call them. When the full scale war started, we helped to launch the official fundraising platform of Ukraine, where we worked for two and a half years doing our best and finding the ideas that can communicate about Ukraine and build this feeling of unity that, you know, gives you the motivation and desire to support Ukrainians and like feel the connection despite the distance and obviously despite the fact that people know very little about Ukraine worldwide. Yes, you might now like know the name of the country, but know really a little about our history, culture, what we understood that these like quick emotional reactions to support our country, like they have been exhausted because you feel united and you want to support those you know well and those you allow somehow. And it's time to build stronger time ties and it's time to reclaim our big names, to make new names known. And what's important that our background was more focused on these creative ideas that helped us despite the fact that we have a lack of resources right now. It's obvious all our resources are focused on our defenders and we have to find this resourcefulness, you know, and this creativity to bring and to bring the light, to highlight our cultural ties with the world, existing ones and also to build new ones. But thanks to your support and like interviews like this, these stories can find their voice and they can be Heard bring the light and build this unity, I think, with the world.
- [67:21]
E
What sort of projects do you then put together and what sorts of projects do you have around Malevich's birthday, which is coming up on Sunday?
- [67:30]
F
I think that we will dedicate the whole year and a lot of projects will be around the name of the Malevich. We are working right now with Ukrainian famous, famous modern artist Oleksay, now well known thanks to the great installation he did during the Burning man last year, to somehow rethink the heritage of the Malevich. Because it's important not only to tell the stories of the past, but somehow reinforce the heritage and find a new voice and continue the story. Not just like returning back to the story, but to give it a new voice.
- [68:06]
E
That's great. Well, we'll look forward to seeing all of that. Thank you both so much for your time. It's been a lovely and very instructive conversation. Is there any question I haven't asked or anything you would like to add?
- [68:17]
F
I think that maybe I can add the last message from our side that if you erase the culture of the country, yeah, you can take it without an army because you erase its identity. And right now, even with, with the massive army of Russia, they can't defeat Ukraine because we have this strong identity and we have this incredible story of this resilience and understanding better the history of Ukraine can really bring the better understanding of the present and the hope for the future.
- [68:53]
A
I would also like to add that of course, figures like Kazimir Malevich has a tremendous role for international art and architecture and creativity in general. But it's absolutely impossible to understand Malevich without his Ukrainian biography, without his Ukrainian work and without his Ukrainian connections and influences. So it's not that, you know, we're trying to take away Malevich from other cultures. We want to add Ukrainian part to Malevich, that it's, you know, it's full, it's solid and it's. Tell us the cold story.
- [69:25]
E
Tatiana Filewska and Julia Solovey, thank you both so much for your time.
- [69:30]
F
Thank you.
- [69:35]
B
Ukraine the Latest is an original podcast from the Telegraph created by David Knowles to support our work and to stay on top of all of our Ukraine news, analysis and dispatches from the ground. Please subscribe to the Telegraph. You can get your first three months for just £1 at www.telegraph.co.uk Ukraine the latest or sign up to Dispatches, our foreign affairs newsletter, bringing stories from our award winning foreign correspondents straight to your inbox. We also have a Ukraine Live blog on our website where you can follow updates as they come in throughout the day, including insights from regular contributors to this podcast. We also do the same for other breaking international stories. You can listen to this conversation live at 1pm London time each week day on Twitter Spaces. Follow the Telegraph on Twitter so that you don't miss it. To our listeners on YouTube, please note that due to issues beyond our control, there is sometimes a delay between broadcast and upload. So if you want to hear Ukraine the Latest as soon as it is released, do please refer to Podcast Apps. If you appreciated this podcast, 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 Aware we exist as the disinformation war continues, we're relying on your support more than ever. You can get in touch directly to ask questions or give comments by emailing ukrainepodelegraph.co.uk we do continue to read every message. You can also contact us directly on Twitter nowx. You can find our handles in the description for this episode. As ever, we're especially interested to hear where you're listening to from around the world. Ukraine the Latest was today produced by Phil Atkins. Executive producers are Louisa Wells and David Knowles.
- [71:31]
A
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E
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A
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