Ukrainians reflect on four years of war

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. So, we can now listen to your podcast. of all of Ukraine. At the time, most outside observers thought that was actually rather likely, given the might and the size of the Russian military. But Ukraine fought back. And despite enormous battlefield losses and the misery inflicted by Russia's daily bombardments across the country, Ukraine continues to resist. One of the striking things that has happened today has been a united statement of encouragement for Ukraine from leaders of the G7 group of countries. Striking because that means that Donald Trump has signed on to a statement saying, we, the G7 leaders, reaffirm our unwavering support for Ukraine in defending its territorial integrity and its freedom, sovereignty and independence. Among those Western leaders showing support by actually being in Kyiv today was the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen. This morning we honored your fallen at the People's Memorial in Maidan Square. And today I'm also thinking of their comrades bravely holding the line in the trenches. They fight for peace. They fight for a better future for their children. they fight for a simple dream of a free and sovereign Ukraine at the heart of a free Europe. So let me conclude by saying to them, Europe will stand by you and stand with you until you have made that dream come true. Lots of people who go to Ukraine and talk to Ukrainians are struck by their sense of defiance in the teeth of huge hardship. It was a tone which President Vladimir Zelensky tried to summon in a video address to the nation, saying Vladimir Putin had neither achieved his goals nor succeeded in breaking the Ukrainian people. Dear Ukrainians, today marks exactly four years since Putin started his three-day push to take and that, in fact, says a great deal about our resistance, about how Ukraine has fought all this time. Behind those words stand millions of our people. Behind those words stand immense courage, incredibly hard work, endurance, and the long path Ukraine has been pursuing since February the 24th. In a moment, we'll hear from one of the most powerful people inside Ukraine to get his perspective on four years of war. But before that, we're going to hear from a mother and a son whose lives, like millions of their compatriots, have been upended and, in their case, split from each other. They're 22-year-old Max, who lives in Dnipro, in eastern Ukraine, and first his mother, who now lives in Kiev. My name is Anna. I'm a mother of two. I'm from Dnipro originally, but two years ago I moved to Kiev Because of the job, because I work humanitarian and I'm a volunteer. And Max, what about you? You've stayed behind in Dnipro. Yes, keeping the Dnipro side of my family and trying to continue living. I'm a student, finished my master's degree, and now I'm working as a performance coach in a football academy and trying to do my best and planning some future, but it's so hard. Yeah, I imagine it is very hard to plan a future. Just before we get on to what that future may involve, tell me a little bit about your life day to day, because Dnipro, to place it on a map for our audience, it's very roughly midway between Kiev and the far east of Ukraine, so the Donetsk region. But presumably it's close enough to the front line that you feel the war. Tell me how you are impacted day to day. Actually, the most horrible thing in this stuff that unfortunately all of NIMPRO citizens are adept. We just keep moving, keep living and trying to do our best just to not, I don't know, I can't even concentrate because it's so hard to share this feeling to you because every day I understand that my city is suffering all of the electricity's lack, all of the heat's lack and all of these bombs, shellings, every day's death. but we're just trying to live, trying to be happy. This is the hardest winter in my life. The first time in my life I start to boil the water to wash my hair and to support my daughter. We haven't heated in our apartments and it is minus 20 degrees during this winter and at home, in room, we have plus five. And how old is your daughter, Anna? 13. She's a teenager. teenager girl you know she should live her best life but she she was one year girl when the war started because for us for ukrainians this conflict started not in 2022 today is really special date for us to be honest i review my pictures a lot of cry today we start to be older in this period we start to be maybe more independent but in the same time we start to be together more and more because every morning when we wake up, we try to understand all my loved ones' lives today. Max, you said that it's really difficult to think about the future, to plan for the future, and you're 22. I mean, you should have it all in front of you now. Obviously, you and I guess every other Ukrainian want the war to stop and to stop as quickly as possible. But beyond that, what are you planning to do have you got any thoughts about what comes next unfortunately i can't even plan my life for the next few hours because if ale alert is on i understand that the bombardments could be everywhere i'm on the side of people but i unfortunately understand that with great power comes a great responsibility and we don't have that power we have the responsibility only for ourselves, only for our relatives. The whole world is a chessboard and we are just the figures on this chessboard. But the choice, what step will be next, not on our side. So we can just observe this and trying to keep in touch with everybody just to enjoy every moment with your family, enjoy every second, just call your mom, call your dad, call your grandpa, just because you understand that you can lose everything just in the moment. Anna, how often do you get to see Max? Oh no, why you ask this question? This is a really difficult question for me. To be honest, we have a New Year celebration party, but unfortunately all of us were sick. But maybe this is a specific chance for us to stay at home because we have huge plans. You know, this is a magic time because we try to even join every small, small coffee shop where it is a little bit light and just drink cacao to be together. But I don't know when I can see human beings. I'm sorry to ask that question. And I can hear the hurt in both of your voices, actually. Max, it must be enormously difficult for the family to be separated. Yes, unfortunately. But we're trying. We're trying to keep in touch and call every day. And I know that one day peace will come. And we will reunite in the peaceful land of Ukraine. Obviously, we all hope that that is the case. But I am also going to ask you, though, I mean, this full scale war, I know your mum pointed out, look, this war has been going on for years and years before full scale invasion. But I mean, it's already four years in. The conscription age for Ukrainian men is 25. You're 22. Do you think there may come a time when you need to take up arms for your country? That's a question of the time. We'll see. We don't know what will be tomorrow. So we'll see. Max and Anna speaking to me respectively from Nipro and Kiev with one sundered family's vision of Ukraine. Let's get the view now from the very heart of the Ukrainian political establishment. Mikhail Podolyak is an advisor to President Zelensky and a former negotiator. He's been speaking to New South's James Kmarasamy, who began by asking him if Ukraine is any closer to peace than it has been in the last four years. Russia cannot exist without this war, and for them now the point is to drag it for as long as possible. It is understood now what needs to be done in order for this war to stop. It's another level of pressure on Russia, sanctions on Russia. There is only one thing lacking, is a will to act in this historical moment. And that's not about Ukraine. It's about other countries in the world where there is a need to talk, not to kill. What of the current peace negotiations? First of all, can you shed any light on why the last round of talks in Geneva last Wednesday ended so quickly? The point of the talks is to see what decides in these talks what countries want. We know that Ukraine wants peace. Russia still wants war. The United States, they want to gain some dividends from this process. They want to get some preferences for themselves. Where does Ukraine fit in on that? Ukraine can answer with emotions, but now Ukraine is bringing facts before the United States. Different people, different countries look at the situation with their own eyes and not as the way that you want. And either you understand what's going on and you give your own facts or you ignore this understanding. And I think the right strategy is that when United States, when they come with their own facts and with their own interests, instead of debating them, you present your own facts. And the United States hear that, the representatives hear that, and that's the right strategy. strategy. I mean, you're making it sound like it is the Ukrainian side is having to lay out facts, facts which the Americans see or have seen in a different way. This is not about a negotiation over an agreed set of facts, but a negotiation about what the facts are. Ukraine always has to present facts and Russia is always trying to twist those facts That the technology of Russia To sell fakes to manipulate to sell something that does not exist So we have to show that position of Ukraine is constructive and position of Russia is propagandist and nonsensical. President Trump is giving his State of the Union address tonight. What would you like to hear from him about the war in Ukraine? That Ukraine undoubtedly is the partner of the United States and Europe, and that Russia now is completely different from Russia before 2022, and Russia today is not a global leader. Have you ever heard Donald Trump talk about Russia in those terms? You asked what I would like to hear. Trump has his own interest and everybody's hearing his words, but nobody is taking into account what he is doing. He is pushing Russia from the international markets. And that was the Ukrainian presidential former advisor, Mikhail Podolyak, speaking to NewsHour's James Kamarasamy. coming up on the program a golden ram's head stolen by the british from west africa in the 19th century it's perhaps the single most striking object which the british looted from the palace of the ashanti king in kumasi today in the center of ghana on a military expedition in 1874 and it was taken by a group of officers. We'll hear why there's almost no chance for the public to see it, let alone for it to be returned. That's in about 30 minutes. Our main headline this hour, the UN General Assembly has passed a resolution in support of Ukrainian sovereignty on the fourth anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion. Despite an And earlier, signing on to an earlier G7 declaration, the US was among the countries to abstain. You're with NewsHour, live from the BBC in London. I'm Tim Franks. It's been a rare day, perhaps even an unprecedented day in the House of Commons. the elected and more powerful change of the British Parliament because MPs across the House stood up, one after the other, to tear into the behaviour of the King's brother, the former Prince Andrew. And criticising the royal family is not normally seen as acceptable behaviour, even within the rombustuous commons. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, as he's now known, was arrested last week on suspicion of misconduct in public office over accusations that as UK trade envoy he shared confidential material with Jeffrey Epstein. He's previously denied any wrongdoing in relation to the sex offender. Today's debate was called by an opposition party to get the government to release documents relating to the former prince's appointment in 2001 to be a trade envoy, a role he then held for 10 years. The government has said it's committed to doing so to release these documents and just listen to the tone struck by the current Minister of Trade, Chris Bryant. I doubt there is anyone in this House who is not shocked and appalled by the recent allegations. Colleagues and many civil servants have told me their own stories of their interactions with Mr Mountbatten-Windsor, and they all betray the same pattern. A man on a constant self-aggrandising and self-enriching hustle. A rude, arrogant and entitled man who could not distinguish between the public interest which he said he served and his own private interest. Lucy Fisher is Whitehall editor of the Financial Times. What does she make of a British government minister using that kind of language about a member of the royal family? It's a very big moment in the history of Britain's parliamentary democracy, and I don't say that likely. Here to fall, there has been a convention that due to the role of the royal family, constitutional monarchy in the UK, there has been this convention that MPs, let alone criticising the royals, do not even sort of debate the royals in the House of Commons. So today, the Speaker of the Commons gave clear permission for there to be free reign to discuss the issue surrounding Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor in all forms. And indeed, Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader who launched the debate, made the really important point that deference to the royal family and these, what he described as archaic negative privilege rules in the Commons, had probably contributed to a lack of scrutiny that failed to bring to the fore some of the bad behaviour by Mountbatten-Windsor until now. Presumably the government will have to tread carefully because if we're talking then about a move to release documents relating to his conduct in office as a trade envoy, that could potentially cut across the continuing police investigations into what he got up to as trade envoy. Well, that is right. And I think that's one reason why the government minister at the dispatch box today, Chris Bryant, warned that some of the documents will only enter the public realm when the government is able to put them there, precisely because they have to hold some things back to avoid prejudicing the police investigation or any potential subsequent trial if charges are brought. I should, of course, say that Mountbatten-Windsor denies all wrongdoing at this point in time, but the government has to be cautious about what it puts into the public domain at the moment. Lucy, I mean, just you think that this could well be a moment where the way in which elected politicians in Britain think about the royal family, talk about the royal family, you think that we could maybe look back on this and say, actually, this was the moment when things really did change, the conventions really did change? I think so. I think it's difficult to put the genie back in the bottle once you've removed those barriers. And the House of Commons is rightly a sort of irreverent chamber towards every other individual organisation, institution. And I think that there will be MPs for many years, decades into the future, who will have a long memory about the scandal engulfing Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who will make sure that there is due scrutiny of the Royal's activities. So I think there will be more questions asked of the Royal family, its use of taxpayer funding, and sort of due scrutiny of its behaviour in public life going forward. Lucy Fisher, Whitehall editor for the Financial Times. The president of Mexico, Claudia Scheinbaum, had a message today for football fans who in June will arrive in her country from around the world for the Men's World Cup finals. You will be safe, she said, which was notable because she was speaking just two days after a wave of violence from Mexico's most powerful drug cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, reacting to the killing of their leader, known as El Menchel, in an army raid. From Guadalajara, the state capital of Jalisco, which will host some of those football games in four months, here's Will Grant. The images of cartel violence in their streets shook Mexicans in every part of the country. But for residents in the worst affected cities, watching it all unfold before their eyes was terrifying. Mast gunmen attacked shops, set cars on fire and sowed chaos and intimidation across entire communities. Incidents of violence were registered in a staggering 20 of the country's 32 states, from northern border states to the Pacific to the capital Mexico City, a nationwide show of strength by the Jalisco New Generation cartel in the wake of the killing of their feared boss, El Menchul. I'm looking at the burnt-out shell of a car on one of the main thoroughfares into the city of Guadalajara after the Jalisco New Generation cartel unleashed its fury on the streets of Mexico, with column after column of military vehicles and police cars streaming past at regular intervals. While Guadalajara isn't a city under lockdown, it's still a city on edge. 30 cartel members were killed in the fighting and some 25 members of the National Guard. Announcing the troop losses, the defence minister, General Ricardo Treville-Trejo, became visibly emotional as he offered his condolences to their families. For her part, the president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has been sober in her assessments, insisting that normality and calm are returning. However, some drug war experts fear there is more violence to come. In Guadalajara, many streets remained eerily empty, with most businesses shuttered for the day. Some, however, like the coffee shop Severo, decided to reopen amid the unease and official warnings to shelter in place. The owner, Anwar Montoya, said he had little choice. I have to pay a lot of things here in the business. It's a new business, so I don't have to feel afraid. I don't know, I feel like I'm in the safe area of the city. I think that everything was happening yesterday and that's it. Guadalajara is one of three Mexican host cities for the FIFA World Cup in June. While the scenes may have put off some football fans from visiting the city, parliamentary deputy Mariana Casillas says hosting the World Cup couldn't be further from local people's minds. I think for the people of Jalisco the last thing they want is to host this sporting event in the city. We have suffered very painful crises in Jalisco. The crisis of violence, the crisis of the disappeared with some 18,000 disappeared people in the state. The people here don't want the World Cup. They want security. They want clean water and they want their disappeared relatives back. The message of business as usual may be the one the government hopes to project, but the Jalisco cartel's message, delivered in the debris and fear left behind from their day-long rampage, is a powerful one too. BBC Central America correspondent Will Grant was reporting from Guadalajara in the state of Jalisco in Mexico. This is NewsHour. Much more to come in the next 30 minutes. Stay with us if you can. I know you want to listen to your podcast, so I'll keep it short. Because if you think it's important to make a lot of choices, can ASR help? Now I hear you think, how then? Well, for example, when you're selling the expensive things you love to be hurt. Want to know more about the insurance where expensive expensive expensive is possible? Go to asr.nl slash duurzamekeuzes. This is ASR for you and a more expensive community. ASR does it. So, now you can listen to your podcast. from all over the world. Music icon Stevie Wonder. From global leaders, the Brazilian president, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva. The president of Poland, Carol Nowrowski. US president Donald Trump. To cultural icons. Two-time Oscar-winning actor, Sir Anthony Hopkins. The interview from the BBC World Service Listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts I spent the last three decades trying to better understand money across the boardroom the newsroom and the trading floor. That's longer than most podcast hosts have been alive. But even though I've got questions, join me, Maren's upset web every week for my show Maren Talks Money from Bloomberg Podcasts, where I have in-depth conversations with fund managers, strategists and experts about how markets really work. And join me for a separate episode where I answer listener questions and how to make those markets work for you. Follow Merrin Talks Money on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen. Welcome back to News Air. As you probably worked out, that's the distinctive sound of a horse's call or whinny when it makes a low and a high-pitched sound at the same time in a way that no other animal can and in a way that previously had not been understood. But now scientists from the University of Vienna think that they've found the mechanism. Tecumseh Fitch is one of the biologists behind the research, and he's been speaking to Newshouse's Leila Nathu. I think understanding how animals communicate, particularly our closest friends like dogs, cats and horses, is very important to get insight into what's going on in their heads. And the reason the mechanism is important, it allows us to understand what musical instrument they're using to communicate. Okay, so up until now, we have known that they make this very unique sound when they whinny. It is a combination of a high pitch and a low pitch. Should we have a bit of a listen to it now and just describe the sound? the first thing you hear is this very high frequency part which is incredibly high frequency for a large animal like a horse it's even hard for me to produce but it's followed by a low frequency part and that it turns out are both of those components are made via the larynx but the first part is the larynx whistling, the same way we whistle with our lips, they're doing with their larynx. And that is quite unique, to use the same organ to simultaneously produce a high frequency and a low frequency. What is the thinking behind why they need to make both of these high and low sounds at the same time? Two hypotheses are that it allows them to communicate how large they are. The other is that it basically allows the sounds to travel more. So that basically is an adaptation to be further carrying in those high frequency components. How did you investigate what up until now has been a mystery about how they're producing this very unique sound? So we thought it's so high, it's unlikely to be caused by normal vocal fold vibration like singing. So we had hypothesized that it was a whistle. It sounds like a whistle. So the way we prove that is by blowing helium through it. Now, if you blow helium through a flute, the frequency goes up. Whereas if you blow it through a trumpet, it doesn't change the frequency. So we can separate whistles from normal phonation by putting the instrument or the organ in a helium atmosphere. So, yeah, horses have whinnies and neighs, which are related. They have knickers. They have sort of grunts that they can make. They can scream. The horse has a rather complex communication system. A complex communication system now unlocked thanks to Tecumseh Fitch and his colleagues' research into the high and low whinnying of the horse. He's from the University of Vienna, a biologist there, and he was speaking to Leila Nathieh. you're with new tower live from the bbc i'm tim franks we're going to return to the conflict in ukraine four years to the day since president putin ordered his full-scale invasion his special military operation as he insists still on calling it has turned into a grinding and in the east intense war. We're going to bring you two perspectives from the battlefields. First, our international editor Jeremy Bone has this report from Donetsk, currently the most fiercely contested region in eastern Ukraine. You can tell you're getting closer to the Russians when the scene in front of me is unfolding. There's a squad of about a dozen men who are unfurling green plastic netting and attaching it to poles on either side of the road. So the poles are probably about 25 feet high. The netting is encasing both sides and the top of the road and they're doing this because warfare has been transformed by drones. Both sides use them. They are devastating and deadly and the ranges are getting longer. So while we're about 40 kilometers from the Russians, they're taking precautions here. And also there's an issue that the Russians may move forward. and this place will become more in the firing line than it has been. We're walking in across sheets of ice to the military headquarters, which is in a half-destroyed building in this, I've got to say, pretty miserable town. Driving into this place, burnt out buildings, feral dogs. You know, it's a front-line town. down into the basement here we go, turn left we're now into a very different place well lit, warm, big screens and a dozen soldiers waiting to greet us it is a command centre of sorts centre of operation of company and even battalions sometimes And so we're seeing here there are big screens which are relaying pictures from drones. We are currently making some assault moves here and there, trying to close up some pockets of the Russians. One of the men has got separated from the main group. They're directing him, saying someone's on the way to come and get you. If you see him, he's Ukrainian, so be aware of that. The controller has told the guys on the ground that there's a Russian drone approaching them, so be careful, take cover. They are directing him foot by foot, yard by yard, to get to where he needs to be. He's pointing at the screen and you see two of the soldiers just running along the edge of a kind of muddy culvert. Via the drone, they can see everything that's happening. Turn left, turn left. So they've gotten together, they've reunited the team. They're all looking quite relieved. He said, you can have a smoke now. The commander's call sign is Fisruk. His men are 40 kilometers away. We can't get any closer. The enemy would reach us with their weapons. Who's winning the war? Because I think after so many years, some people have got a bit confused about that. What a question. I think at the moment it's somewhere in the middle, a balance. They try to assault us and we try to assault them. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes we do. There is no 100% advantage on either side. Well, we're driving through a day of pretty heavy snow towards Slavyansk, which is one of the so-called fortress cities, heavily defended that the Russians want the Ukrainians to give to them as part of a possible ceasefire. The road into Slovyansk is lined with destroyed buildings from different times in the last four years of war. It's considered to be strategically vital, but Russia wants it, preferably without a fight. Now we've come to the edge of Slovyansk, walking through the snow in a really badly damaged industrial estate on the edge of the town. Most of it is ruins. There's one place which is functioning. I can see sacks of flour. This is a bakery. and Oleg Kachenko, who is a pastor, uses this place to bake bread that he takes to outlying villages. He's like a lifeline to people who are right on the front line. He's giving me a loaf of bread. The situation has changed radically. There are only very dangerous places and relatively dangerous places in the Donetsk region. What more does Putin want? This is my Donetsk region. I was born here. My children were born here. I created my family here, and I should leave all that for want. In wars, not everyone gets killed by high explosives. Some died because they can't get medical treatment. Vita, a woman in her 60s, crumpled with grief as she told me how her husband died of a blood clot. He couldn't stand the explosions, Vita said. I buried him in the garden three days ago. We could have stuck it out, but the drones were too much. No one's left in the village now. Bitterly cold day outside, and they are loading up now with their luggage and bags. These are people who work up in their own homes this morning, and they've tried to hang on, but they just can't any longer, and their lives are changing now for good, because will they be able to make their way home eventually? Their lives are being torn apart. like so many others. Jeremy Byrne reporting from Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. It is relatively easy, albeit often very dangerous, to report on the war from Ukraine. The battlefield view from inside Russia is much more difficult to get at. There's always the official view, as personified by the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov earlier today. Yes, it is true. All the goals of the special military operation have not yet been achieved. Many goals have already been reached, but the main one, to ensure security for people who lived and continue to live in eastern and southern Ukraine, and who were in fatal danger, has not been achieved. So yes, not all the goals have been reached yet, which is why the special military operation continues. Dmitry Peskov, we can, though, now bring you a rare insight from within the Russian army. Four Russian soldiers have broken ranks to reveal the brutality and fear within their own units. They've spoken out for a new BBC documentary called The Zero Line, Inside Russia's War. The BBC's Anna Foster has been talking to one of the soldiers, Dima, who says he was forced into the army against his will. They catch me in the metro station and they tell me, if I don't go to the army, I will go to the jail. It's very simple in Russia. It's very simple. When you joined the fighting, what about the other soldiers? Did they feel the same way as you? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But too many people, too many people like me, nobody really understands we are fighting for what, with who, for who. Just for Putin, not for, you know, not for motherland. not for people, just for Putin. So there wasn't a strong feeling among you and among the other soldiers that the war was right, was the right thing to be doing? Of course, no. It's ****. Every year we are going to Ukraine, you know, to class, to rest, to friends. They are going to us in Russia And just one day we are enemies How is possible You didn want to be involved in what known as a meat storm It's a word that some people might not have heard before. What did it mean to you? It's assault without support from commanders. It's one way assault. because 95% are dying every time, every time. But 5% people can stay on enemy territory and it's beginning again, again, again. This is how Russian army takes territory. And you didn't want to do that and you wouldn't tell your men to do that either. I have medals for medicine. I have a medicine experience and I was an officer that's why I can say to them I don't do this I can do something different but it's about me because just a regular soldier can't because if he's declined the order he will die in the next few minutes he will be shot But he will be dead. The commander just killed him. You'd saw, in some cases, when people said no, they were shot, or they had their cash cards taken away from them. And you thought that was just happening where you were, but it was happening more widely to other soldiers in the Russian army. How does that make you feel about the country that you were fighting for? What I feel about my country now, I think we are lost our country. Russia is not Russia anymore. When you said no to the meat storm, they sent you to prison and they tortured you while you were there. They sent me to prison because I was the officer and I declined to take the order. How did you stay strong in prison? I don't have a choice I don't think I'm staying I'm staying strong I just don't have a choice what can I do? Nothing it's just luck I don't know maybe it's God but it's not about my power it's just luck it's all main thing is What are your hopes for your own future? Not for Russia, but for you? When did you last see them? for one day maybe 17 months ago I don't know it's a long time my daughter is 12 now it's crazy when they put me on the war she'd be a 9 or 8 she was a big child now she's a genius, really. You must think about a day when you're all together again, living a normal life again. I think we'll do it. I think we'll do it. Someday. That Russian soldier Dima talking to the BBC's Anna Foster. You can read more about this at BBC Online at our website, bbc.com forward slash news, where there's also a video taken from the documentary it's a pretty long read but it is utterly gripping the testimony from these soldiers who have deserted this is NewsHour This is the BBC World Service and you're listening to NewsHour from London I'm Tim Franks As you may be aware there's a bit of a movement towards returning some of the treasures held by museums in the West to those countries from where they were taken often taken by force or just stolen. A couple of weeks ago, we spoke to one of the big experts in all this, the author Barnaby Phillips, about the University of Cambridge transferring to Nigeria the legal ownership of more than 100 Benin bronzes looted in the 19th century. Now, though, it's emerged that there is one glaring exception to this direction of travel, as Barnaby has been telling me. This is an extraordinary golden ram's head, some 20 centimetres across, and it weighs, I think, 1.2 kilos. It's perhaps the single most striking object which the British looted from the palace of the Ashanti King in Kumasi, today in the centre of Ghana, on a military expedition in 1874. And it was taken by a group of officers. They were caught by their superiors, red-handed, as it were, and they were able to buy it directly. They paid £135 in 1874. That's about £16,000, over $20,000 today. And they were able to take it back to the Royal Artillery Officer's Mess here in London. Essentially, the Royal Artillery has guarded jealously this object ever since. When you say the Officer's Mess, so this is their dining room, essentially. Tell me about how this ram's head is displayed. So in 1875, once the Rams Head was back in London, the Royal Artillery decided it needed to be better protected. They put it in a glass dome and then they put a stand underneath it. And that stand is comprised of the figures of three West African boys, so described, naked except for loincloths. From the point of view of the 21st century, it is in shockingly bad taste. And you haven't actually seen this object, despite the fact that you're intensely interested in it. Tell me why you've struggled to see it. I got nowhere with the Royal Artillery, or to be specific, the Royal Artillery Institution, which is a charity, and the regimental silver belongs as private property to this charity. I wrote to them repeatedly. I sent them a copy of my earlier book. I tried to convince them of my good intentions. But I was told that I would not be allowed to see it for security reasons. I said, am I really a security risk? I was able to receive a reply telling me that the Royal Artillery felt that I would potentially draw attention to the value and whereabouts of treasures in the officer's mess. And this could encourage an attempt to steal them. And this is the position of the Royal Artillery after consultation with their insurers. And I should say, I'm not alone in my frustrations, Tim. I know even museum curators who struggle to see these objects. They are very, very closely kept by the Royal Artillery and only they and their invited guests can go into the mess and see them. In fact, I spoke to one curator, director of a national museum here in Britain, and I should say he's a fairly temperamentally conservative man. He did manage to go and see these objects. He said when you see these things and you realise no one else can see them and they will never leave this place, it's like a punch in the stomach. Barnaby Phillips, whose new book The African Kingdom of Gold, Britain and the Ashanti Treasure is published next week We did ask the British Army for a comment A spokesperson told us While we don't comment on individual cases access to military locations is controlled for security, operational and safety reasons Now in just over four hours, one of the big set piece moments of US political theatre The president will address Congress with his State of the Union speech, and there is much you might think to address. Diana Nerozi is Politico's White House correspondent. What will she be looking out for? I think we can expect already a few things which the president has mentioned. And of course, he will lay out that the State of the Union is strong and lay out his successes as presidents have done before him. But he's also said that this will be a long speech. And I think for President Trump, that means it's going to be really, really long. And I think that kind of gives us a hint as to the kind of style he will go for today, which will be his usual campaigning, aggressive self. Except he's going to be reading the speech, surely. I mean, he won't be doing a complete freewheeler. Yes, of course. Of course, he has his speech, he's likely practicing it. But I think he will go beyond the speech, like he usually does. And, you know, perhaps crack a few jokes. Right. Well, crack a few jokes. But do you think you'll have a crack in another sense at the justices of the Supreme Court with whom he was utterly furious when they struck down one of his signature policies? And that was tariffs. I think that that will be something that everyone is looking forward to, to see if he's going to directly go at them because they will be in attendance. They're in one of the front rows in Congress sitting there and we'll see if he goes directly for them or if he's already had enough with his comments this week and last. He's a very, obviously, he is a very confident performer. He is very, very confident in his speechmaking abilities. He does come into this, though, a little bit bruised. I mean, not only by that Supreme Court ruling, but also, I mean, he is sensitive to approval ratings, all presidents are, and his do seem to be declining. How far do you think, you know, that may possibly affect the tone he chooses to adopt? I think that that will be very interesting to watch, because as you said, you are correct, everyone is looking at, will he try to tone it down a little bit and talk to the American voter themselves as midterms are coming up? Is there concerns about the economy, about Iran, about these tariffs that were struck down? And will he really try to connect with the American voter and, you know, successfully speak to them? Or will he be his usual self and just kind of go over his successes without, you know, really highlighting the reality of what's going on. It is a big moment of theatre in Congress, isn't it? And I presume, I mean, just one thing that's occurred to me, if he is promising really to go long, I mean, it could be an exhausting night for Republican members of Congress, because they, every time, you know, there's an applause line, they have to stand up. Yes, I think it will be. And again, if Trump says it's going to be long, It probably will be. And there are reports already saying that it will likely go over two hours, perhaps three hours. Three hours long. That would be almost Castro-like in its length. Anyway, Deanna Nerozi, Politico's White House correspondent. And of course, there'll be updates, live text about this and analysis on the BBC News website. And there'll be coverage here on the BBC World Service as well. But from this edition of NewsHour, from me, Tim Prax, and the team here in London, thanks very much for your company. I'm Lucy Ash. Join me to find out more.