← Ukraine: The Latest
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- [00:04]
Adelaide Poshmon Ponte
The telegraph.
- [00:10]
David Knowles
I'm Dom Nichols and this is Ukraine. The latest today as Putin finally agrees to a brief ceasefire this weekend to mark Orthodox Easter, trying to pass the initiative off as his own generosity. We examine what a ceasefire is and importantly, what it is not. We report how the next round of so called peace talks have run into the sand.
- [00:29]
Sarah Sinkarova
And.
- [00:29]
David Knowles
And we have our regular update about resistance operations in the occupied territories. And later a special report from Adelaide which contains explicit material and for which discretion is advised about how Russian troops are using sexual violence as a tactic in their war. Bravery takes you through the most unimaginable hardships to finally reward you with victory.
- [00:56]
Dr. Jade McGlynn
The Russia does not want peace.
- [01:06]
David Knowles
If I'm President, I will have that war settled in one day. 24 hours. We are with you. Not just today or tomorrow, but for a hundred years. Nobody's going to break us. We are strong. We are Ukrainians. It's Friday 10 April, four years and 45 days since the full scale invasion began. And today I'm joined by my colleague Adelaide Poshmon Ponte and Dr. Jay McGlynn of King's College London. And finally, look out for the third episode of Francis Hungary documentary which will be released on telegraph channels later today.
- [01:45]
Dom Nichols
What is your assessment of Viktor Orban?
- [01:47]
Sarah Sinkarova
Assessment?
- [01:48]
Dr. Jade McGlynn
Yeah.
- [01:49]
Sarah Sinkarova
It's just mere admiration. It's not an assessment.
- [01:52]
Dom Nichols
Orban faces re election after 15 years in government.
- [01:57]
David Knowles
I love Hungary and I love that Victor. I'll tell you, he's a fantastic man. We've had a tremendous relationship. What I think Viktor Orban, I think he's a. He's a traitor to the Hungarian people.
- [02:06]
Dr. Jade McGlynn
Viktor Orban is going to win the next election in Hungary. Viktor, is that right?
- [02:09]
David Knowles
That's the plan. He's the one who can save Europe. There are two ways. The patriotic and the Brussels way.
- [02:15]
Dom Nichols
A defining vote not just for Hungary, but potentially the continent. Viktor Orban.
- [02:20]
Dr. Jade McGlynn
Viktor Orban.
- [02:21]
David Knowles
Viktor Orban. The government is doing a really bad job. Keeps saying that it will be better, it will be better. It's not really getting better.
- [02:27]
Sarah Sinkarova
The Prime Minister is very intelligent.
- [02:30]
Adelaide Poshmon Ponte
I really like him, Viktor Orban.
- [02:32]
David Knowles
He has my complete and total endorsement.
- [02:35]
Dom Nichols
A small country, but one with big ramifications.
- [02:46]
David Knowles
So after repeated proposals from President Zelensky, the Kremlin said last night that its forces would observe a temporary ceasefire to mark Orthodox Easter this weekend. The holiday is celebrated on April 12 in both Russia and Ukraine. The truce is set to last for 32 hours from 4pm local Ukrainian time on Saturday to midnight Sunday Monday. A Kremlin statement says Moscow's military has been given orders to cease military operations in all directions for this period, adding, we assume that the Ukrainian side will follow the example of the Russian Federation. Now, you may remember that last year Putin unilaterally declared a 30 hour truce, but both sides accused each other of breaking it within hours. President Zelenskyy responded, saying, ukraine has repeatedly stated that we are ready for reciprocal steps. We proposed a ceasefire during the Easter holiday this year and will act accordingly. People need an Easter without threats and a real move towards peace. And Russia has a chance not to return to attacks even after Easter. Interesting last comment there. Now, Russia's Foreign Ministry official Rodion Mureshnik said, this is a period that does not allow the Ukrainian side to use it in any way to gain a military advantage to, to regroup or to take any actions that could change their military situation. However, ceasefires, even ceasefires, which on the face of it sound like a terrific idea, need to be discussed, planned and agreed well in advance. So let's look at that Kremlin statement announcing the truce in a little bit more detail. That line at the end, troops are to be prepared to counter any possible provocations by the enemy as well as any aggressive actions. Now that's giving them a whole lot of wiggle room. Look at aggressive actions. So imagine you're in a trench or a hole in the ground, urban landscape. Whatever you see over there, enemy soldiers moving forwards, not firing at you, but taking up positions that are closer to you. Do you open fire? Or over there you've got enemy soldiers moving forwards to retrieve their dead or wounded, but at the same time bringing forward ammunition boxes for other soldiers in the position. Are those aggressive actions? They certainly offer military advantage. And if they're not carrying ammunition boxes, what about food, water, medical supplies? Do you open fire? Or up there above you, there's an enemy drone hovering over you. It doesn't drop a grenade, but it's using its camera to have a good look at your position. Again, clearly taking military advantage of the ceasefire. Do you open fire? It's only a drone. It's a machine, it's not a human. Is it conducting an aggressive act? Are you conducting an aggressive act by shooting at that drone? So there's a whole load of wiggle room here that should have been sorted out well in advance before any ceasefire goes into operation. Now, to finish, the Kremlin attempted to suggest that this Easter truce idea came from them with their statement ending. We assume that the Ukrainian side will follow the example of the Russian Federation, just for those around the world who are not paying attention, hoping that they'll get the applause for this. Even though President Zelensky has been pushing this idea for days, the Russians are also no doubt hoping to consolidate that message by following up on Sunday and probably Monday with reports of how Ukraine broke the ceasefire. We will see elsewhere. Across the country, 113 of 128 drones were brought down yesterday across Ukraine. Four people were killed and 38 injured. No great move on the ground, partly, as we reported yesterday, due to this almost drone parity in terms of numbers, if not slight advantage to Ukraine. But on that, Ukrainian Commander in Chief General Oleksandr Syrsky said yesterday that Ukrainian unmanned systems forces now conduct over 11,000 combat operations a day. He says they'd hit over 150,000 verified targets in March 2026 alone, which he said was up 50% from the month before. Now a couple of other quick updates. President Zelensky has cast doubt on a potential visit by US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Kyiv. Another round of so called peace talks were being considered, but President Zelenskyy now says it is difficult to say if the negotiating teams will meet again. And Ukraine has imposed sanctions on five representatives of the Russian pavilion ahead of the Venice Art Biennale. Culture Minister Tatiana Barezhna announced this yesterday. She said Russia must not return to the international cultural space while the war continues. Ukraine will continue to defend this position on all international platforms. I'm sure Francis next week will have a view on that. So that's it for the updates. Now to turn to Dr. Jade McGlynn of King's College London for our regular update on resistance activity in the temporarily occupied territories. Jade, delighted to have you back with us. Your section is always very warmly received by our listeners and viewers. So very much looking forward to a chat. But I understand before we go into the kind of updates per se, you have some new data on property seizures.
- [07:48]
Dr. Jade McGlynn
Yes, and I should be clear that of course sometimes we get the data with a lag. So this is not necessarily new data that goes up to 2026, some of it does on the commercial property. But one of the reasons why I wanted to speak about it today was recently I gave a keynote speech at the Indiana Taraschevchenko Conference for Ukrainian Studies. And of the fellow academics in the audience were themselves from Ukraine, and of course many were from the occupied territories. And one of them rose a really important point, which was that I hadn't spent much of my speech, which was about the occupied territories, talking about property seizure. And of course, it's such a massive part of what's happening, because I think we can all understand what it would feel like if your house was just stolen, deemed to be ownerless, all of your belongings still in there, coupled with the huge trauma, particularly of the siege. And whilst this is happening across the occupied territories, there's something particularly intense about the ways in which it's happening in Mariupol. So I wanted to speak a little bit about that today. So there's two data sets that come out of Marupol, and I think they tell us quite a lot about how the occupation works, both not just in that military phenomenon sense, but also in the administrative sense. So the bureaucracy of occupation, essentially. So the first data set is a Russian municipal registry from 2025, and it lists around 9,000, so 8,526 residential properties across districts of Marupal. And then the second data set is a series of 20 monthly snapshots of a parallel commercial property registry. So it goes from October 2024 through to June 2025. And then for both cases, we have a few that are more recent, but that are part of the data set. So it's a messy data set, as always, with the occupied territories. So these aren't Ukrainian estimates, they're Russia's own kind of administrative records. And what it shows is basically a systematic, legally structured program of property seizure dressed up in very Soviet lang of municipal administration. So the mechanism they use is something that's called. So it translates as ownerlessness. What it means is if a property has no identifiable owner, the state can take it. And what the Russian occupation authorities have done is transpose that legal mechanism, which existed anyway in Russian law. They've applied it onto occupied Ukrainian territory and of course, to a city where most residents fled a siege. In practice, this means that there's no court, there's no notification. We also have in our possession a number of pictures of the notifications that are pinned onto people's doors. To say, this is ownerless property. They have no requirement to contact you. And so people, you know, try to find out if their house is on the list. For informal means, there's that sort of panic. Oh, yes, your house on the list? Oh, no, actually, it was next door. There was a decree that authorizes this to happen. It's called Decree 336. It was signed in August 2024, although the process beginning well before August 2024, as reflected by the data sets, and it quite explicitly requires no judicial determination. So you don't need to have the courts involved. The municipality self certifies and then your flat becomes part of the Russian municipal property stock. So sometimes people are even living in the flats and the flats are deemed ownerless, often because somebody wants that flat, somebody wants your house so they can take it. There is, interestingly, of the properties that were documented in the first list of the residential properties, over 90% of them are classified as just fully ownerless. And so then they're put into the Russian federal land registry, it's called Vrovskadastra. And then they just belong to the state. Why not all of them? Because essentially there is a reclamation pathway. There is a way for you to fight back to get your property, but it means going back to the occupation Housing Authority and you have to have done it before November 2024. And it's interesting, there is that formal pathway, but essentially the barriers are so, so high, including having to return into occupied territories, that it's insurmountable. And for many people who did go back into the occupied territories, there are quite a few scandals about it in the Ukrainian media in 2024. So they went into occupied territories, registered their property and then left again. The Russians then produced additional barriers that meant that people who they would need to then come back in, etc. So that you have the residential property. There's also a commercial seizure program which is in some ways it provides some explanations of other things that go on in terms of business in Marupol. So most of the average size of the seized commercial Property is about 70 square meters. So we're talking quite small areas. There are huge things like port city, which is massive sort of shopping center that was looted. I guess it's how petty and how thorough the occupational authorities are. I mean, they're taking hairdressers, pharmacies, cafes, small kind of Tesco expresses sort of equivalents to cinemas, Protestant churches, just the sheer number of Protestant churches that have been destroyed, essentially we're talking about all of them in the occupied territories. A children's charity center, a cultural center, bank. I mean, it's just a huge permanent displacement mechanism really, but also a way of, let's be honest, a kind of corruption extraction, redesignating wealth, using it to buy loyalty. And it's just legalized looting in future for accountability processes. Some of these data sets are going to be really useful in terms of looking through, if we think about, you know, after previous wars where property has been confiscated from people unfairly and trying to restore that. I think that's one of the important elements of working through these data sets is at least to have a hope in. In a future where there's some justice, even if that future right now feels quite far away.
- [13:32]
David Knowles
Yeah. Now, I saw a tweet earlier on today, actually, from Sean Pinner, the Brit who fought for Ukraine and was taken captive, and we've had him on the pod a couple of times. He was responding to a post from a Russian who has been given someone's house in one of the occupied areas. And this chap was filming himself walking around his new garden and so on and so forth. And Sean is able to dial in with Google Earth and have a look at his house that he's had to leave with his wife. And he can see over time that it has now been occupied by someone, they're now living in his house. He says it's absolutely heartbreaking. He knows there's very slim chance of it, of him coming back to him. And he was putting it in context of those. Those ridiculous comments by JD Vance in Budapest talking about, oh, it's just a few square kilometers we're talking about, I. E. Giving up the Donbas. It's just. Firstly, it's not just a few square kilometers, JD, it's. It's about nearly 10,000. And secondly, it's people's lives and it's their houses and it's, it's their futures and it's their grandparents graves and it's all, yeah, it's all of this. It's just so, it's so crass the way some people talk about, oh, just a bit of land or why don't you just, you know, move somewhere else and etc. Etc. So this really, Sean's tweet really sort of brought it home to me. And that was. And that was before we knew. I knew that you were going to be talking about it today, Jade. So it's, yeah, it's really shone a light on an area that we've not looked at before. But it's, it's, it's fundamental, isn't it? Your home. It's horrific.
- [14:54]
Dr. Jade McGlynn
It is. It's home. Yeah, exactly. That's it. And that's why what jdvunt's saying, as if you're talking about handing over a couple of fields. You're a landowner who owns a million fields. It's not what this about, it's about home. It's about, you know, an area that is just yours. You own it. Not in that sense of even just financial ownership, but just it belongs to you. It's about taking away core parts of who people are and their lives, where their children were brought up. It's a deeply emotional and personal thing.
- [15:22]
Sarah Sinkarova
You know, your home. I don't know.
- [15:24]
Dr. Jade McGlynn
I'm not sure how else to say it. So somebody like J.D. vance might understand.
- [15:30]
David Knowles
Well, yeah, good luck with that. No, but. So thank you. Do please keep us in touch with these numbers as they're. As the data are updated. But what else can you tell us from the temporarily occupied territories?
- [15:40]
Dr. Jade McGlynn
Sure. So many of the trends that we've been discussing, and it's, it's interesting, as time goes on and this data set in particular on violent resistance activities gets longer, you do start to see much clearer trends. I mean, inevitably, it's not a shock, but that it would emerge that way. But I mean, one of which is we're starting, especially over the last few months, to see that the resistance groups are just so increasingly active in Russia itself. So it's not Russian resistance. I mean, that is a separate topic that I know we've touched upon and that we can return to, I think, if listeners are interested in it. But these are Ukrainian networks that are active, often in the border regions, of course, but not only. And it speaks in some ways to. A reflection of the fact that so many people did end up displaced from the occupied territories. And, you know, the enforced passportization means it's not as easy because the FSB have a mark against you. They know that you were from the occupied territory, so you're not just moving around like a Russian citizen, even though you have a Russian passport. But of course, there is a certain freedom of movement, provided you can easily pass the filtration point. So Russia has always, I think, created a rod for its own back some. In much of this, bluntly, there weren't Mariupol partisan movements blowing stuff up inside Russia before 2022, were there?
- [16:58]
David Knowles
Yeah, yeah. Something changed.
- [17:00]
Dr. Jade McGlynn
Yeah, some stuff happened, but yeah. So let's start in Mariupol, very much the focus of my contribution today. So there's the Mariupol resistance that reported an arson attack on. On a boiler house. So one that was connected to occupation forces, and that was on 25th March. On 26th March, Atesh in Luhansk region carried out sabotage on the railway. So it's very much. There's quite an Ates focus and a railway relief shelf. So if I see a railway relief cabinet, I tend to assume that's Attesh's work. And in this case, I would be mistaken. Interestingly, there was something in enerhadar. So on 28 March, where a car was blown up. This comes from Enerhadar's own kind of news sourcing. We were able to find a few other sources to confirm this. And, and this is fascinating because Anahadar always piques my interest, of course, peaks your interest? Because there's a nuclear power plant there, so it should pique all of our interests to a certain extent.
- [17:59]
David Knowles
Yeah, that's where the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is.
- [18:02]
Dr. Jade McGlynn
Yeah, yes, exactly. But secondly, it's also. It's administered differently to the rest of occupied Zaporizhzhia region. Rosatom essentially, is almost the governance structure for it. And so there are entirely different processes. And third, quite often you will see OSINT videos or videos that are released from the occupied territories of Kadiravsi traveling to Enerkadar. And I have not been able to confirm that the car is connected to Kadirovsi, but there was a video not so very long ago of Kadirav Si traveling to an Erkhardar around this time period. And so I'm going to try and.
- [18:41]
David Knowles
As in the Chechen. Sorry, yes, the Chechen Chechen warlord crime family. Kadir Ramzan thought to be very seriously ill. His son seems to be trying to shape himself to take over the franchise. So they've. They're interesting themselves with the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
- [18:57]
Dr. Jade McGlynn
Yes, they're often in Nanerhadar, so maybe that's something I can look into a little bit more. Because of course, there's certain things that I hear, but that's not necessarily something that I know that I can share on a podcast because I need to go and check and verify certain parts of information, but maybe that's something we could look into a little bit later. So it's not Khadir of himself, but his kind of personal guard, as it were, his fighters. And so one of the areas that been trying to look into but were not able to verify is whether or not the Kaal was linked to the same kind of Chechen fighters who were also going in that direction around this period.
- [19:31]
David Knowles
I mean, you don't just end up there, do you?
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Dr. Jade McGlynn
No, no. And I mean, they do have a number of business interests in this area, quite considerable ones, as always, is corruption, certainly with the Kadira fighters, they're not known for fighting, but they are. They are known for a number of larger business deals. They're also incredibly helpful and God bless them all, because they love Filming themselves so much, they provide so much information, but sadly, because they're very rarely near the front is very rarely useful information to the Ukrainian military.
- [19:58]
David Knowles
Yeah, but those cybertrucks do stick out a bit though, don't they? So you have to spot them.
- [20:02]
Dr. Jade McGlynn
Yeah. And then so the rest of the cases. So Overall between this two week period there were 14 cases, but 11 of them took part inside Russia but were carried out by Ukrainian resistance movements. So we've seen a shift towards them doing more and more. But where you're having you have free events in the occupied territory that we've been able to verify. Of course there are a number of other events and as always there have to be a lot of caveats with this. But considering that our methodology hasn't changed, to see such a large discrepancy between the two is very interesting.
- [20:36]
David Knowles
Why would that be so? Ukrainian groups in the occupied territories taking the fight inside Russia. I mean, I would have thought, firstly it must be very difficult to do that and secondly, is there not enough work in the upcoming territories? I mean, why export the franchise?
- [20:52]
Dr. Jade McGlynn
So I think there are a couple of reasons, but to a certain extent, like what I'm going to say is fully my interpretation. It's not something I can sort of say this is exactly why. So my interpretation is there is a few factors and again, this has been something that's been going on. In general, I just cover the what happens in the occupied territories though. We always keep a note of what the resistance groups are doing in Russia as well and include them in the numbers. We just focus on the actual actions in the occupied territories. But this time, because it was just such a stark advantage, I suppose to the Russian side, I thought we could maybe talk about it in a little bit more detail. Basically there are a few factors. One is that if you're inside Russia, it's a much easier place to avoid with a few exceptions. Obviously around Red Square or certain sites is a much easier place to act than inside the occupied territories. If you just think about the sheer number of the proportion of civilians to security service officials.
- [21:43]
David Knowles
Yeah, I guess so, yeah.
- [21:45]
Dr. Jade McGlynn
Second, I mean people in the occupied territories are under much closer surveillance than your average Russian citizen. Again, of course there are lots of exceptions that prove that rule. But third, because the Ukrainian armed forces are able to do a lot of this work with drones and we don't include the drones examples, even though they're reliant on resistant movements, human and kind of post explosion checking in, we don't include those in this list. Because it would just be impossible. Well, it wouldn't be. It would just be a slightly different exercise.
- [22:18]
David Knowles
Too many or just too difficult to know if it was a drone?
- [22:21]
Dr. Jade McGlynn
Too many. Too difficult to know when human has been provided. I mean, we have good relationships, but in order to know fully, I mean, we would need to have. That would be quite extensive. And then at that point you're getting into military operational detail that I'm not quite sure we should be sharing as well.
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David Knowles
Fair enough.
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Dr. Jade McGlynn
Because in some cases the Russians might not know that there was human information that led to that. And that's not something that, like, I could, I should share, if you see what I mean. So it just becomes a bit messy ethically, morally and methodologically. So we've just stayed away from that. And that's why we're very focused on the public sources, because this is information people have chosen to share. If we can verify that, then ethically that's a kind of, okay, operationally secure thing to be doing. So there's that aspect. There's also the fact that of course, now the Ukrainian deep strikes, they've started to focus much less on the oil refineries, for example, and to focus much more on some of these key kind of sites, many of which are inside the occupied territories or closer. So it may just be that it releases certain activity or the strategy have changed in terms of where they're being asked to focus the energies. Because while some of these organizations do not directly work for Ukrainian intelligence services, they will of course have some form of contact and attempt to cohere some form of strategy. So it may very well be a deliberate effort. But of course, those strategies are not shared with me and nor should they be.
- [23:42]
David Knowles
Thank you so much for joining us today. Speaking in a couple of weeks, and I've actually got a report. Well, last time we were in Ukraine, I did. I went to Dnipro and met a senior member of, of Ukraine's resistance and had a very nice chat with him. And that report is going to come out well, I'm hoping next week. A written report and a video. It was fascinating to talk to Petro. Very interesting what he had to say about the motivation for people who want to take that step into resisting and then being active in the deep end of the of resistance. And a word that I didn't expect to enter our conversation. When I was speaking to him about what it's like living under occupation and working under occupation and resisting under occupation. He said it was fun. I was not expecting the word fun. To enter the conversation, but you'll be able to find out quite what he meant by that next week.
- [24:33]
Dr. Jade McGlynn
I look forward to listening to that. Thank you.
- [24:37]
David Knowles
Thanks, Jade. And now for a special report for Natalie. Sarah Sinkarova is a freelance journalist from Slovakia based in Ukraine. She covers human rights abuses with a focus on sexual violence. She's reported across Ukraine on how Russian forces have used sexual abuse against civilians and soldiers alike and how Ukraine is dealing with the long term consequences of the trauma. Here's her conversation with Adelaide and a warning. The content is explicit and I would advise you to be aware of your surroundings if listening to this interview out loud.
- [25:10]
Adelaide Poshmon Ponte
Sara, thank you for joining me today. It's lovely to have you on the show. You've written quite an extensive piece for the New York Times about rape used as a weapon of war by the Russian army against Ukrainian civilians and especially Ukrainian women and girls. Can you take us into your reporting? What are some of the cases that you've met and have you noticed any patterns emerging from all of the stories that you heard?
- [25:36]
Sarah Sinkarova
I've been covering this topic for quite a while and the piece in the New York Times wasn't my first piece on covering rape as a weapon of war in Ukraine. Throughout my research, I've heard horrendous stories about how wartime rape is being used as a weapon of war against women, but also against children, against men, particularly in Russian captivity. And I've also seen how rape and torture and other crimes are perpetrated against vulnerable civilians. So I have really seen an awful lot of horrendous stories showing just how widespread rape is in Ukraine perpetrated by the Russian troops. And by now I've probably interviewed around 50 women victims of wartime rape and about 30 men. I'd say that all the reporting I've done points to a clear pattern, which is that rape is being used as a method of torture, as a method of hurting, of breaking people, both psychologically and physically. And when it comes to torture and rape in Russian captivity, it seems like there is a very complex system, a pattern that's put in place where sexual violence, particularly electric shocks to the genitals are being used as a systematic weapon.
- [27:06]
Adelaide Poshmon Ponte
Yes, these horrible stor. I have heard some of them as well on the ground in Ukraine, especially when it comes to Russian captivity. What are some of the numbers? We know it's widespread, we know it is systematic, but rape and sexual violence is also much under reported crime. So what sort of numbers and what sort of scale are we talking about here and how much bigger could this phenomenon be?
- [27:30]
Sarah Sinkarova
Right. So the current statistics from the general, probably prosecutor's office in Ukraine as of today, March 27, say that there are 394 cases of sexual violence that has been documented as a weapon of war in Ukraine committed against 248 women, 146 men and 23 children, 22 girls and one boy. But of course, these numbers are a very minimal, conservative estimate of the real scale of the problem. And I personally think we will never know the true scale of how widespread rape is. Because parts of Ukraine are currently occupied by Russian troops. It is very likely that there is widespread sexual violence and torture there. Many of the current prisoners or civilians that have been detained are in illegal places of captivity in Russia. And of course, there is a large number of civilians who are unable to report these crimes out of fear, out of stigma, out of judgment, and also simply because the war is still raging in Ukraine and many of the people might not have the possibility to spend time or to travel to put in criminal complaints, or they are simply too terrified.
- [29:00]
Adelaide Poshmon Ponte
So let's talk about the very brave men and women that you've met over the course of this reporting. What are some of the stories that you've heard and what has stayed with you?
- [29:09]
Sarah Sinkarova
Right. Among the stories, I cannot forget the testimonies of women who were in Russian captivity where they were not only exposed to torture and sexual violence, but also to constant humiliation that is part of the torture perpetrated against a Ukrainian that are detained by Russians. These included reports like women having to pose or being stripped naked and were forced to, for example, use the toilet or the bathroom naked in front of Russian soldiers. I've heard horrible reports of women really being humiliated by very young soldiers. And, you know, we have spoken to women who were in their 70s or even 80s, and they recounted being really raped and humiliated in very cruel ways by soldiers who were probably around 18 or 19 years old, which has been very, very difficult to process for these women. I've heard from a woman who was her 60s, and she was living alone in her house in a village that was occupied by Russian troops, and she was assaulted and humiliated by two young Russian soldiers who forced her to strip naked and to walk naked in the garden while it was snowing outside. And she was subsequently raped inside of her own home in ways that were very brutal, very insulting. And she was also raped with objects such as rifle butts, which is something that I've heard over and over again. And I have also heard from a woman who has had a baby following rape by a Russian soldier. And when she found out, she said it was too late to have an abortion and she is now raising a baby or toddler who, according to her words, resembles the perpetrator. So really, the stories I've been hearing are horrendous. And as I've mentioned before, there are a lot of cases of wartime rape against the most vulnerable women and the most vulnerable people. So in my previous reporting, I have also reported on a bed bound, heavily disabled young girl who is non verbal and who was raped by the Russian troops while her parents were detained. And when the parents came home, they found this disabled girl naked and terrified. And she was also missing teeth and there was candy next to her bed on her pillow. And the woman is non verbal, but she's become frightened of men and she lost an enormous amount of weight, which to me is, of course it is horrendous. But I also think it's very, very important to report on these crimes because they are really perpetrated even against protected groups and people who are vulnerable.
- [32:26]
Adelaide Poshmon Ponte
Yeah, these are absolutely horrendous stories. And I think victims of sexual violence should never have to describe the horrors that they go through in order to be believed. That is very important to say, but I also think it's very important to be able to talk about these stories with some element of detail and the reality, because I think sometimes remaining that generic does a disservice to conveying the horror on the ground. So thank you for sharing these stories. What sort of support do the women that you've met, what sort of support do they have access to and how are they doing?
- [33:08]
Sarah Sinkarova
This, of course, depends on the women's circumstances and the place they live. I have documented the work of an NGO that is called SEMA in Ukraine and that gathers survivors of sexual violence where the women can help one another and even spend some time together in retreats or maybe going abroad. One of the survivors from this group of women also recently released a documentary film called Traces that also shows how these women can help one another, because I believe that's a very important part of healing, not feeling alone. Of course, the women and other victims I have met do apply to receive reparations to different funds. And of course they might receive some. Some money or some kind of quote unquote, maybe compensation, although I'm not sure that's the right word, and I'm not sure that can really cover or heal such horrible experiences. However, I believe that the fact that there's now different survivor groups and that the victims are not silent. That they talk about their experiences publicly is something that is very important and probably very healing, Healing for the victims.
- [34:32]
Adelaide Poshmon Ponte
Systemic rape and rape used as a weapon of war is, as you've said, very well used to break down individuals. But we also know that it breaks down families and communities on the more systemic levels. And I'm interested in how you've seen that play out in your reporting and also in how the conversations around sexual violence are maybe changing in Ukraine as a result of the war.
- [35:02]
Sarah Sinkarova
There is many things to say about this. And of course, when we look at the level of families and how this breaks families psychologically, I think it's very important to mention, and this is also what the General Prosecutor's office in Ukraine is very clear about, is that when we talk about rape as a weapon of war, it's not just rape as such. A lot of the psychological torture that is perpetrated by the Russian troops in Ukraine is, for example, when a member of a family is forced to look at their child being raped in front of their eyes. I've heard an account of a woman who was in captivity with her son, and she was forced to listen to how he was tortured while she was standing outside of the room right next to the door, and she could hear everything, and she couldn't help him in any way. So these forms of torture and sexualized torture are definitely being used as a systemic weapon to break the individuals, but also to break families and even to break communities, particularly in occupied area where people will find out what. What quote, unquote awaits them if they oppose the Russian forces, for example. And it is also clear, based on what kinds of violence are being perpetrated against prisoners of war and civilians who are being held captive, which is, as I mentioned, torture with electric currents. And that oftentimes involves sending electric shocks to the genitals of the people, particularly men. It's supposed to break not only the individual people, but also the society as a whole that learns about this and finds out about this. So it is very important to talk about it. In fact, many of the survivors that I've met who have been through the most horrendous forms of torture that you can imagine, were actually very willing to speak. It actually happened to me that I was. Was in Ukraine, and a survivor of Russian torture and imprisonment that I had met previously called me and he said, please come to our town. We are a group of men who have experienced sexual violence, and we really want to talk about it. We just want the world to know about what we have been through. So, paradoxically, people sometimes think that it's very, very hard to find individual testimony. But my experience is that there is a lot of people who want the world to know. And that's why I think it's very important for us journalists to be documenting this and to be documenting this on the ground and right now, because sadly, we can also expect that some of the victims or some of the people who shared their testimonies might die or might leave the country and never want to speak about their trauma again. So this is why I believe this work is important.
- [38:16]
Adelaide Poshmon Ponte
On the rehabilitation point, how the world can support and help Ukraine, what are the things that they need on the ground to support these communities and these people?
- [38:31]
Sarah Sinkarova
I will reply as a journalist, because this is what I do. From my perspective, the first thing that's very important is for the world to acknowledge the scale of the sexual violence and the torture, because the two are very linked and connected. So it's very important for the world, for policymakers, for NGOs, for international bodies, but also for listeners or readers who care about Ukraine to understand the scale of what is happening there. And I feel like oftentimes these things are very hard to read. I also feel that sometimes editors or media outlets might be careful about recounting these stories and also about verifying and fact checking these stories, because, of course, a lot of these cases might happen in captivity or in the victim's house with no other witnesses. But I believe that it's very important to talk about what is happening in Ukraine for the world to really understand the scale of the war crimes perpetrated. I'm not working for the humanitarian sector, so I'm not sure what the best humanitarian response would be for these women. Certainly financial aid is very important, but for me, I think there is an aspect of the war in Ukraine that I feel people abroad, I myself am a foreigner and I'm from Slovakia. And I know that even people in a neighboring country, countries such as Slovakia, don't realize the full horror of what's going on or what might be going on. Occupied territories, right. Because we do not hear many stories, obviously, because there's no way to fact check them. And also I believe it's very important to talk about the fact that these Russian war crimes are really, in many cases, affecting people without defense. And to look at this in the context of Russia kidnapping children from Ukraine to Russia, Russia bombing children's hospitals, maternity wards, and at the same time, there are reports of children being raped and almost all of the women that I have spoken to actually said, you know, I was raped in my home, in my village. But the thing I was worried about the most is that I've heard that children have been raped in my village and I was fearing for my children. So, so I believe this is what's the most important part, certainly for me as a journalist, to show the scale and to show how the most vulnerable people are being affected by horrendous, unspeakable war crimes.
- [41:12]
Adelaide Poshmon Ponte
We've talked a little bit about the official numbers from the prosecutor's office and obviously we know the phenomenon is much, much bigger than that. To what extent do you know that these testimonies are being collected, elected for international courts as well to be qualified as war crimes, crimes against humanity? Is that also happening?
- [41:32]
Sarah Sinkarova
I'm in touch with several Ukrainian NGOs who are documenting these stories, who are collecting the testimonies and really doing a very good job in terms of conducting interviews with victims and documenting the scale of, of what is happening in Ukraine. However, I am not sure and I don't know whether these testimonies are going further than just within Ukraine.
- [42:01]
Adelaide Poshmon Ponte
Within journalism, we talk a lot about how to interview people who have gone through severe trauma. So it's called trauma informed interviewing. How do you approach interviews with people who have gone through these horrendous traumas and stories? And can you just share a little bit about your interviewing process for the listeners who don't know as much about these things?
- [42:25]
Sarah Sinkarova
Right. This is a, it's a complicated question and it also depends a lot on the survivor and the situation. But I think as journalists, the most important principle is do no harm. And also humanity is one the core principles of ethical journalism. So I believe in displaying empathy, a non judgmental approach, not putting pressure on the victims and not asking any retraumatizing questions such as why did you do that? Or why didn't you do so? Why didn't you report? That's something that must stay completely out of the interviews. And sometimes I have to build trust and relationships with these women or the organizations that are helping them. And I'm trying to really do that in an approach that is long form or that I'm trying to do over the course of several years, meaning that some of the women that I've interviewed and whose stories were published, some of these women, I have met them two years ago, for example. So I really try to stay very sensitive, to stay in contact with the victims and really, really be very empathetic and respect anything they say anything they might ask for.
- [43:44]
Adelaide Poshmon Ponte
Yeah. I think being able to build trust and relationship with sources when it comes to these subjects is so important. And to build empathy, you need time. And I'm not surprised you've had to build relationships over two years before you could publish some of these stories.
- [44:00]
Sarah Sinkarova
Right. And what I find is also that when you build a relationship with. With a person who was a victim of a crime or an ngo, that really helps you then get access to other stories because sadly, oftentimes, particularly with women who were raped in their homes or in their villages under occupation, they will know of many other victims. Right. And that's also one of the whales. One of the ways to learn about the scale of this war is that people in one village are able to say, I'm not the only victim here. You know, this has happened to so and so. And working sensitively with these women and with these families as a method of slow journalism can be very helpful in uncovering more and more stories.
- [44:50]
Adelaide Poshmon Ponte
Sara, thank you very much for speaking to me today. I really appreciate it. And we'll link to your articles in the show notes to this episode. Is there any final thought you'd like to leave us with today?
- [45:00]
Sarah Sinkarova
Yes. We have spoken about victims of crimes and victims of rape. I'd like to say that, of course, it's also important to talk about these people as survivors and, you know, as people who are displaying incredible resilience in the midst of the war. So one thing that I would like to say is that of course Ukrainian women are victims of. Of sexual violence, are not just victims. They are survivors. They are building resilience, and they do so with a lot of courage and also a sense to protect their country and to talk about people's rights, making their stories known. So I would also like to say that this is really important so that we don't finish on that note where we just talk about victims, because these are real people and they shouldn't be reduced to their status as of being a victim of rape.
- [45:55]
Adelaide Poshmon Ponte
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for adding that. That's really central. Sarah, thank you so much.
- [46:00]
Sarah Sinkarova
Thank you.
- [46:02]
David Knowles
Thanks, Adley. And thanks, Sarah. No final thoughts today, folks, after that very sobering report. So I'll just say thank you for joining us and we will see you again on Monday.
- [46:16]
Dom Nichols
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@www.YouTube.com crane the latest 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. 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, 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 UkraineTest Ukraine the latest was Today produced by Rachel Porter. Executive producers are Francis Durnley, Louisa Wells and David Knowles.
- [47:37]
David Knowles
My name is David Knowles. Thank you all for listening. Goodbye.