Russia-Ukraine war enters fifth year

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. anniversary being marked in ceremonies in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and across the country. In his address, President Vladimir Zelenskyy struck a defiant tone, saying President Putin had not achieved his goals and hadn't succeeded in breaking the Ukrainian people, and he vowed that his country would never yield to Russian aggression. Dear Ukrainians, today marks exactly four years since Putin started his three-day push to take Kiev. 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. Well, some European politicians have traveled to Kiev for the occasion. President Macron has been co-hosting a virtual meeting of the so-called Coalition of the Willing, countries who've pledged to support Ukraine and deploy troops once a peace deal is secured with Russia. Well, President Zelensky insisted today that his negotiators would not betray the sacrifices made by Ukraine's people over the past four years. But how has life changed for Ukrainians during the course of the conflict? I spoke to Olga and her niece, Hannah, who were both originally from Kherson in the south of the country. Olga has stayed there, while Hannah has left with her young daughter for another city three hours north. Oh, you know, before the conflict. It had been a completely different life. And it was a normal, easy, beautiful, happy life in a family. And during these four years, I have acquired so many uncommon for human being skills. How do you cope, Olga, day to day? Well, you know, the thing is that I have already used to being alone. It's awful. I'm living my life. I think that life hasn't stopped. I'm going on living here, under shelling. I'm used to hide. I'm used to look in the sky when the drones are flying under my feet because there could be mines everywhere scattered in Herson. I have learned prayers, more prayers, and I pray a lot. Before going out, just go shopping. It's the real deal and I do it from time to time. Though it's very dangerous, of course, here, but in my life, I was put in this situation by Russia. Hannah, can I come to you? You decided to leave Kherson. You're now living about three hours away. Why did you make that decision? What made me leave Kherson was my daughter. She was almost three and I just had to leave the city to save her. Do you talk to her now about the conflict? Yes, of course. She knows pretty well why we had to leave our native town. She knows quite well that she lives in somebody else's apartment, not in her own, and that this place is not her home. She knows about this and she knows who is to blame for that. In the eyes of some people, Olga, there is a way for this situation that both you and Hannah find yourself in. There is a way for this situation to end. And that is for President Zelensky to agree to Russia's demands to give up more Ukrainian territory that could pave the way for a ceasefire. Is it time for that? I don't think that he agrees to give up and to leave territories for Russia forever. As far as I have heard and know and feel, he wants really to cease fire. The stop war is, everybody wants to stop this war. Hannah, are you hopeful that the war can come to an end soon? How do you feel watching on as the peace talks continue? Of course, we are all hopeful that there will be peace at our land one day. But to make it clear, I should say that Ukrainians are the kind of people who love their land. We cherish it, we work at it, we are masters of our land and we are not ready to give up what belongs to us. Of course, there is always hope. But negotiations, really, they took us some parts of our lands in 2014. Then they took a break and they came again in 2022. I don't think that negotiations and any agreements will stop them. That was Hannah and her aunt Olga speaking to me from Ukraine. Well, that issue of territory which they refer to has been the one that has stalled the many rounds of talks between Moscow and Kyiv. Russia wants Ukraine to give up more land in Donetsk, a region in the east of the country where the war still grinds on. Our international editor Jeremy Bowen has travelled there to assess the state of the battlefield and the human cost of a conflict increasingly dominated by drones. 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 kilometres 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, like a centre of operation of company and even battalions sometimes. 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 their 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 can 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 kilometres 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 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. This 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 That was Oleg Kichenko a pastor on the front line in eastern Ukraine ending that report by our international editor, Jeremy Bowen. Well, we have heard from President Vladimir Putin today on this four-year anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. He was speaking at a board meeting of the FSB, Russia's security service earlier. He didn't make a substantial reference to the war, but he did accuse Ukraine of trying to sabotage the peace process between the two countries with the help of Western intelligence agencies, including by threatening Russian energy pipelines. And you can catch a BBC special programme looking at what happens next in the war in Ukraine. That's being presented from Kiev later today. It starts at 16.30 GMT. That is just in about over an hour's time here on the BBC World Service. You can also find it on the BBC News website, on our TV news channel and our social media accounts. You're listening to the BBC World Service. This is NewsHour. Coming up, a new study reveals the secret of the horse's whinny. 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. Just a few headlines for you this hour. President Zelensky has praised the endurance of the Ukrainian people on the fourth anniversary of Russia's invasion. Analysis by BBC Russian shows that more than 200,000 Russian soldiers have died in the war. And Congolese media are reporting that the military spokesperson for the M23 rebel group has been killed in an army drone strike in the east of the country. You're listening to NewsHour from the BBC World Service. I'm Leila Nathu. This is NewsHour. Here in Britain, Parliament is turning its attention to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's time as the UK's trade envoy between 2001 and 2011. The former prince, who was arrested last week on suspicion of misconduct in public office, is facing accusations that he shared sensitive material with the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein while in that role. Today, an opposition party is trying to force the government to release documents relating to his appointment in the first place. Reports have suggested that the former US ambassador, Lord Mandelson, who was also arrested yesterday on suspicion of passing confidential information to Epstein during his time in government, pushed for the then prince to be given the job when concerns had been raised about his suitability at the time. Let's talk this through with our UK political correspondent, Rob Watson, who joins us now. And Rob, there is a debate underway in Parliament. What is the latest? The latest is that the government will release any files relating to how Andrew Mountbatten Winsor-Laylor got the job as trade envoy at the end of 2001. And that's another extraordinary development. I mean, if it was extraordinary to see Andrew arrested, if it was extraordinary to see Peter Mandelson arrested on Monday, this is also extraordinary in the sense that, by and large, the convention is that the government does not release such files. But I mean, such as the change of mood in the country, such was the political pressure that that is now going to happen. And the convention also has been for Parliament to really stay away from matters concerning the royal family. What's been the sense of the tone that MPs have adopted while they've been discussing this? So the tone has been that nobody should be above the law and that that convention feels rather outdated. And so essentially you've had sort of two, if you could call it, thrusts of opinion from MPs. One is that all this deference hasn't done anybody any good. It certainly hasn't done Andrew any good. And maybe that it contributed to the scandal that people knew and had doubts about Andrew over the years. But deference meant that nobody did anything about it. And then I guess the second point that MPs have been making from across the political spectrum is that maybe the best thing for the royal family, if you think that you want the royal family to continue is more transparency. And as one senior minister put it, that if you think that Andrew has cast a stain on the royal family, the best way of removing the stain is to be a bit more open. But that, again, would be pretty extraordinary in British political and constitutional terms. So, Rob, this is what is going on in Parliament. But there are two separate police investigations, aren't they, concerning Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Peter Mandelson. Just bring us up to date with the latest on them. So yes, both men were released after being questioned. The investigations are carried out by separate police forces, but essentially into the same allegations, that is misconduct in public office, with the suspicion being that both men had passed confidential government documents to Jeffrey Epstein. And so what happens now is the investigation continues with two possible outcomes, Leila. I mean, it is perfectly possible that eventually they are charged and that they face court cases with a jury. And of course, it is also possible that the police decide that they just cannot have the evidence. They can't make the evidence stick and that no charges are eventually brought. But astonishing times and could take some time for this to work out. Rob, thank you. That's our political correspondent, Rob Watson there. And it is worth adding that both Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Peter Mandelson have consistently denied wrongdoing. Now, miracle baby is a term often used to describe a child born against the odds. It certainly applies to little Hugo. Ten weeks ago, he became the first baby to be born in the UK from a transplanted womb from a deceased donor. His mother, Grace Bell, didn't herself have a viable womb. But after the transplant operation, Grace went on to have a successful pregnancy. 16 years ago, I was told that I could never carry my own baby. And that was final. There was nothing in the world that could have solved that. I was diagnosed with something called MRKH syndrome, which meant my uterus was in two halves. So all this time, it was always surrogacy or adoption. Me and Steve actually decided to go down, initially down the route of then surrogacy. We created our own embryos. And then I got the phone call from Wim Transfunk UK. And then one June day, I received that phone call. Then, of course, embryo transfer and that's the little boy. Well, I've been speaking to Isabel Kiroga, who was part of the team of surgeons which carried out Grace's womb transplant in 2024. This is a totally different type of transplant. It's not a life-saving transplant. It's a life-creating transplant. But the technical aspects are very, very small vessels that need to be joined so it gets good blood supply to the organ. And compared to all the other transplants, these are really, really minute vessels. So technically, it's challenging. The logistics of a deceased donor are also very difficult. And probably some other biological reasons why the deceased donor is more complex than a living donor. But of course, by having a deceased donor, you don't have to, so many people don't have a living donor, but also you don't have to pass the risk to a living donor of having a big operation and the potential for complications from this. So having the deceased option, it would be great for some women, especially those that do not have a living donor that could give them a uterus. How did you find it carrying out the operation? oh as usual that's quite quite quite um mind-blowing you never know full of trepidation hoping that this is a success but you know i've got a wonderful team around me and we were absolutely delighted with the outcome it was very very very straightforward operation but that's only the operation it's only the beginning of a long journey for these women yeah because the whole subsequent process, assuming that the transplant itself goes well, I imagine that there's huge amounts of monitoring that would then go on in terms of conception, pregnancy and delivery. Absolutely. So first of all, like with any transplant, this women need to have full immunosuppression, which is like a medication to reduce their immune system and therefore prevent rejection. So we have to make sure that the transplant is stable before we can start thinking about embryo transfer. So that's why there is a gap between the transplant and then until she was pregnant and then obviously the months of pregnancy. What do you expect to happen after a woman who's had a successful transplant and goes on to have a successful pregnancy and delivers a baby? What then happens to the womb is it something that she keeps a transplanted womb for the rest of her life even beyond childbearing years or is it something that you would consider removing no it's absolutely a great question um this is as as we were saying a non-lifestaving transplant and being on these drugs as i was saying the immunosuppressant drugs that anti-rejection medicine brings with it long risks. So what we want is to have the uterus just for conception and for carrying a baby. And once that we had one or two babies, the function of the uterus has completed and therefore it's important that we remove it so we can stop all these drugs that have quite serious side effects. And are you still in touch with Grace and Steve and baby Hugo? Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And she still has the transplant, has to be continuing monitoring to make sure that she's not rejecting the organ, that she's well. So she continues to have her close monitoring. And how was it for you to see, Hugo, the result of all your work? Oh, amazing. Absolutely amazing. What a joy to see a little baby being born. So a huge pride. That was Isabel Quiroga, one of the surgeons who carried out the womb transplant on Grace Bell, who went on to have her baby 10 weeks ago, the first to be born here in the UK from a transplanted womb off a deceased donor. www.shopify.com That's Shopify.nl. It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. This is ASR for you and a valuable community. ASR does it. So, we can listen to your podcast now. Two-time Oscar-winning actor Sir Anthony Hopkins. The interview from the BBC World Service Listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts Bingo. BBCNL, the place for the best British misdaad series. Just on your Netherlands TV. Welcome back to NewsHour. Full marks if you correctly identified that as the sound of a horse's whinny when it makes a low and high pitch sound at the same time in the way that no other animal can. They are noisy creatures, but it's not been known how such a large animal can produce a high frequency sound simultaneously as that lower one. But now scientists from the University of Vienna think that they have found the mechanism. Tecumseh Fitch is one of the biologists behind the research. 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. OK, 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. 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, 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. That was Tecumseh Fitch, who's a biologist at the university. of Vienna, talking me through his research, which has demystified the whinny of the horse. You're listening to NewsHour with me, Leila Nathu. In Mexico, almost 10,000 troops have been deployed across the country after an eruption of violence triggered by the army's killing of a notorious drug lord known as El Mencho on Sunday. Foot soldiers from the Jalisco New Generation cartel have blocked roads and set cars on fire. President Claudia Sheinbaum insisted the situation was now being brought under control. More than 60 people were killed in the military raid targeting the cartel leader and in the ensuing unrest. Our correspondent Will Grant reports now from the state capital of Jalisco. The images of cartel violence in the 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. Masked 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 Menchum. 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 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. Will Grant reporting there and he mentioned Mexico hosting, co-hosting this summer's FIFA World Cup, several games being held there in Jalisco State where he is. That's the stronghold of the cartel which El Mencho headed and which has seen some of the worst violence. So where does this leave the competition? Dr Javier Escuriata is co-director of the Criminal Justice Research Centre at the University of Nottingham. One particular scenario might be that the six or seven individuals who might want to replace Mencho end up fighting amongst themselves. If that happens, then it is likely that Jalisco will be the most troublesome place, given that that's the seat of power of the Jalisco cartel. And obviously the games that are taking place in Guadalajara, that might be something that's worrying. But we don't really know what the post-Mancho world looks like for the cartel. That's the first thing. It could be a very simple handover of power or an agreement to keep things peaceful for a while. We don't know. That bit is just prediction. The second thing is all cartels and all organized crime will want to ensure that the tournament is peaceful. given that they will have an economic interest in ensuring that the restaurants and hotels and all the rest of it operates freely and in a normal fashion. Violence won't help them. They have an economic interest in that. So the two things are sort of disconnected, but I do see why the question arises. And they have an economic interest in a peaceful World Cup because the tentacles of the cartels reach far and wide across the economy. Well, this is the big question. One thing is using the military to remove the leader of a cartel, but how far is the president going to go? Are we now going to see investigations, prosecutions for financial crimes for everyone who facilitated the growth of the Jalisco cartel? They went from essentially a regional organization in 2010 around then to the biggest, the most powerful, most violent organization in Mexico in 2026. How did that happen? It doesn't happen without the support of the legitimate sectors of the economy and the political class. To what extent will the government now go after everyone who facilitated Mencho's rise? Not clear. So that's two uncertainties that may or may not affect what happens in the summer. How much pressure is President Claudia Sheinbaum under from the US to go further and take action like that in addition to these kinds of military operations? So I think that the pressure from the US will be more on the side of military operations against most wanted men. So the US has a list of most wanted. And it might be that we see more operations now against these five or six individuals that I've named, including Mencho's stepson, in an effort to remove that second line of the cartel and to really take it apart. But if we do see that, that's likely to be more violence. But I'm not certain to what extent the Trump administration is pushing Claudia Scheinbaum to investigate the financial side of things and the facilitators. I think that that is a huge call, the sort of anti-corruption side of all of this, from the Mexican public. I think the Mexican public is tired of these, as you mentioned, tangled up webs of corruption and narco politics. So I think there's a pressure from within, but I'm not sure whether the Trump administration has pushed her particularly on that. You mentioned the possibility of a power struggle essentially within El Mencho's organisation. What about the risk of other cartels trying to exploit this moment of weakness and therefore that being another fuel for further violence? Yeah, quite right. So that's the other side of this. You might get more operations to dismantle the CJNG or you get its rivals trying to move into territory that it controls. That could be down in Guerrero or it could be up in the northwest, which is more Sinaloa control. So again we don know I would not be a betting man in relation to this I have absolutely no idea what going to happen But it either the different factions from within the CJNG who start to assert more autonomy on their own now that Nemesio has gone or rivals start to move in and there violence that way Or the government itself under pressure from the US starts to try and take away that second layer That was Dr Javier Escudiazza there from the University of Nottingham here in the UK. And just a line to bring you on the World Cup games going ahead in Mexico. President Claudia Sheinbaum has said that there are all the guarantees in place for the games to be held in the country. And she said that there were no risk to visitors in the context of that violence that we've been seeing across Mexico. Now, in the United States, a major winter blizzard has brought large parts of the East Coast to a standstill. More than 90 centimetres of snow has fallen in parts of Rhode Island and Massachusetts, including in Boston. Tens of thousands of homes and businesses are without power. And the storm has been so bad that the Boston Globe newspaper didn't go to print for the first time in its 153-year history. Earlier, I spoke to Brian McGrory, the editor of the Boston Globe. I asked him what stopped the paper from printing. Was it a lack of power or that people physically couldn't access the printing press? So the press facility we have is in a community outside of Boston and it was in the absolute teeth of the storm. It got over two feet of snow in the community around the presses, a city called Taunton, and many of our pressmen live far away from when we used to print in Boston, so to get there was literally impossible. We had people try to get there in really large pickup trucks, and they were getting stuck, and it was just too dangerous to go ahead and do it. And then we had doubts that we could actually deliver the paper even if we printed it. In terms of the condition overall in the area, is this as bad as you've seen? It is. Look, this was already a tough winter here. We had really, really cold weather through December and January. And when I say really cold, I mean as cold as anyone here can remember for days and days, weeks at a time. Then the snow started coming in early February. We had a foot and a half storm a few weeks ago. About a week ago, we had just sort of a pointless eight or ten inches of snow. And then, you know, this dumped over a foot and a half in parts of Boston, all parts of Boston, three feet and more in parts of Rhode Island, close to three feet in other parts of greater Boston. Literally, if you drive around here, there are mountains of snow everywhere. And it's been quite something. I've lived here all my life, born here, raised here. And the only time that it was worse was 2015, which was a record-setting year. But I worry that we might be vying for that record soon. And Brian, do you know if better weather is now on the horizon? You and I wish, or at least I wish. it is look it's coming coming upon March and I've heard meteorologists say that there's nothing in nature more powerful than the onset of spring so we're hoping that the warmer weather will be coming but the next couple of weeks look like they're in their 30s and 40s and we might even get a few more inches of snow tomorrow Are you back on track for tomorrow's? We are back on track we take printing very seriously here I mean our pressmen are have been all about it for decades They didn't like missing this night printing at all. So we are printing today's paper today. We will deliver it with tomorrow's paper. So our tens of thousands of print readers will get two papers tomorrow. That was Brian McGrory, the editor of the Boston Globe, talking about the impact of that major winter blizzard on his newspaper. You're listening to NewsHour with me, Leila Nathu. Let's return to our top story today before we go. It is exactly four years since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Here's how President Putin presented his case for war to Russians on that morning. The purpose of this operation is to protect people who, for eight years now, have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kiev regime. To this end, we will seek to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine, as well as bring to trial those who perpetrated numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including against citizens of the Russian Federation. It is not our plan to occupy the Ukrainian territory. We do not intend to impose anything on anyone by force. We heard earlier on the programme about the toll the war has taken on ordinary Ukrainians. And Ukraine's military has sustained tens of thousands of casualties. Russia hasn't published its recent casualty figures. But new analysis of obituaries and other publicly available data by BBC Russian shows more than 200,000 Russian soldiers have died during the conflict. Earlier, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov admitted that Russia had not made the progress it had wanted to in what he still referred to as a special military operation. 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. Well, an insight into that operation is rare, but now four Russian soldiers have broken ranks in a new BBC documentary revealing the brutality and fear within their own units. My colleague Anna Foster spoke to one of them, 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. It's 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. Every year we are going to Ukraine, you know, to clap, to rest, to friends. They are going to us in Russia. And just one day we are enemies. How is possible? You didn't want to be involved in what's 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 a assault. Without artillery, without support from commanders. It's a one-way assault. Because 95% are dying every time. Every time. But 5% of people can stay on enemy territory and it begins 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 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. He will be dead. The commander just killed them. You 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 am 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 not about my power I think 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 nine or eight. she was being a child now she's now she's a genius really you must think about a day when you're all together again living a normal life again yeah I think we do I think we do someday is there anything else you wanted to say Dima that I haven't I haven't asked you any questions that I haven't asked but things that you wanted to to say the main thing is to stop this It's a f***ing war. It's all. It's all. Because thousands of people die every day for what? For the ground? For Putin? For what? It's not normal. It's not OK. That was my colleague Anna Foster speaking to a Russian soldier, Dima, who is one of those who's told his story to a new BBC documentary, The Zero Line, Inside Russia's War. This to mark four years since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. And that is it from us here at NewsHour. Thanks for listening. Available now on the documentary from the BBC World Service. In the US, increasing numbers of Americans are embracing Russian orthodoxy. Many new converts say the churches they were raised in are too woke and they're looking for a faith which promotes traditional values. I'm Lucy Ash. Join me to find out more. Listen now by searching for The Documentary wherever you get your BBC podcasts.