Russians 'fear being killed by drones in Red Square' | Russia-Ukraine latest war news today

I'm Dom Nicholls and this is Ukraine the Latest.Today, as yet more Russian wildberries distribution sites reach for the stars, Ukrainian missile producer Firepoint wins the month's top trolling award by offering merch to anyone who correctly predicts their next target.We report how ballistic missile defence is the hot topic of military and diplomatic discussion at the moment, with offers from Poland, favours asked of SpaceX and, perhaps least surprising of all, a growing coolness from Donald Trump over the plan -slash -idea -slash -wishful thinking that Ukraine would be given the Patriot blueprints.And speaking of wishful thinking, we hear that Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff may be in Ukraine in the next few weeks.It's Friday, the 31st of July, four years and 157 days since the full scale invasion began.And today I'm joined by Telegraph reporter Alex Nickel.

Overnight strikes inside Russia have targeted more Wildberries distribution warehouses.Smoke this morning is covering half of Volgograd, the city which until 1961 was known as Stalingrad, after early morning blasts there.and a second location in Zelendulsk, that's 500 kilometers east of Moscow in the Tatarstan region.That was also attacked, although the outcome of that strike is unclear.Now, I was a bit confused when I saw the images from Volgograd this morning, as I'd heard the oil refinery had also been hit overnight.I wasn't sure if reporting had got mixed up and the Wildberries warehouse reporting was the oil refinery.

It turns out they both got hit last night.And I've seen videos subsequently neatly panning from one huge column of smoke to the other.Into Ukraine now, and the Air Force there has said that the large aerial attack on Ukraine overnight Wednesday to Thursday included North Korean -supplied KN -23 missiles.If so, it marks the first time North Korean munitions have been used since summer last year, following the reported recent North Korean missile deliveries to Russia.President Zelensky said the blast that killed six family members just south of his hometown in Krivyi Rih was a North Korean -supplied KN -23.Now, it's likely Russia will use more missiles in its strike packages against civilians in the coming weeks to take advantage of Ukraine's apparent paucity of ballistic missile interceptors and, as a result, continued support from North Korea.

Strikes last night across Ukraine killed and injured a similar number to the previous night's attacks, leaving nine dead and nearly 50 injured across the country in an arc from Chernihiv Oblast in the north, east through Kharkiv and the Donbass to Hezon and Zaporizhia Oblast in the south.255 drones were launched by Russia, with 22 getting through air defence.Obviously, there were other casualties from glide bombs, artillery and other munitions.Now, one of the sites hit was a drone factory in Kiev owned by US registered company Terminal Autonomy.in what is possibly the first known Russian strike on a US -owned military -related company in Ukraine.The Guardian says a Russian ballistic missile destroyed the factory that is said to produce AI -guided AQ -400 Scythe and AQ -100 Bayonet drones, designed to resist Russian electronic jamming.

Now, Russian state media confirmed the strike, but did not disclose the facility's American ownership.No casualties were reported.But on the subject of ballistic missile defence, an article out last night in The Atlantic says that during their meeting on Tuesday, arranged on the margins of Lindsey Graham's funeral, President Zelensky had asked Donald Trump for a favour in the context of fewer Patriot missiles being available, given the continuing action by the US against Iran and Ukraine's need for ballistic missile defences, especially with one eye coming on the winter when Russia will no doubt try to free Ukrainian society to death again.The Atlantic, citing three officials in the know, says Zelensky asked Trump to secure Elon Musk's permission for the use of Starlink to guide drone strikes inside Russia.Up to now, Elon Musk has allowed the Ukrainians to use Starlink only on their own territory, which includes the occupied territories.SpaceX has restricted the use of Starlink inside Russia.

Donald Trump is said to be considering the request.You'll remember it was Elon Musk's decision to deny Russian forces the use of Starlink earlier this year that, in part, blunted Moscow's much vaunted spring -summer offensive and allowed Ukraine to regain a measure of control at the front.Now, connected to all that, and in possibly the least surprising news since we decided to find out exactly what bears get up to in the woods, Donald Trump has said he's not yet decided whether to allow Ukraine to produce Patriot interceptor missiles, despite President Zelensky saying the two discussed licensing during that White House meeting.In an interview with the Financial Times, Donald Trump said Washington was still considering the request, citing the sensitivity of licensing advanced weapons technology.He said his priority remained ending Russia's war against Ukraine and announced envoys Kushner and Steve Wyckoff would soon visit Ukraine, but define soon.I'll leave Alex to pick up on that in a little while.

Now on the Patriot licenses, Donald Trump said, we're looking at it.It's a very extraordinary weapon, and we have to be a little bit careful of who we license it to.It comes as Ukraine's ambassador to the United States, Olya Stepanishnaya, said Kyiv urgently needs American ballistic missile support this winter.Speaking at a Christian Science Monitor briefing, she said local Patriot production would take one to five years and would not meet immediate needs.Speaking of the recent strikes inside Russia, particularly on Moscow, Ms. Stephanie Schneier said, every Russian in Moscow or around the area felt this, this fear of being killed on Red Square.It caused massive, massive unhappiness for the Russian people.

They understand that the war is something that now really relates to them.Still on ballistic missile defence, and after yesterday's blast in southeastern Poland by a suspected Russian Kh -101 cruise missile, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Poland will consider supplying additional Patriot interceptor missiles to Ukraine.Speaking near the impact site, Mr Tusk said the incident reinforced the need to review further military assistance for Kiev.After this incident, we will consider as soon as possible the issue of further assistance to Ukraine, he said, including the transfer of additional missiles for Patriot systems should such a need arise.I think it has arisen, Mr Tusk.Now looking wider, and a Panama flagged general cargo vessel was hit yesterday evening by a drone while underway just off the coast of Salina in Romania.

The vessel was en route from Chonomorsk in Ukraine to Istanbul at the time of the attack.A fire on board the vessel was successfully brought under control by the crew members as video footage of the aftermath showed that the forward bridge windows had been blown out.The vessel reportedly sustained substantial structural damage to its accommodation block.Ombre Intelligence, the global maritime risk management firm, says the vessel has continued underway since the incident, with no casualties confirmed among its 13 crew members who are Turkish and Azerbaijani nationals.Now, one last thing for me.This autumn, I will be hosting an exciting interactive Telegraph event in London, which we intend to film and feature on the podcast.

You will be the first to know when tickets go on sale.But for now, if you might be interested in sponsoring the event or know someone who would, please email us at events at Telegraph .co .uk.we will put that link in the episode notes.And thank you to everybody yesterday who answered the call to subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Please do.It all helps with my bonus.Now, Alex, on the diplomatic front, there's a few things going on there.The envoys to Ukraine caught my eye.But where do you want to start?

Well, there's not much more.You know, the key point is that a report from Radio Free Europe saying that Kushner and Witkoff are set to visit Kiev, I believe, towards the end of August.Speculation will be around sort of Ukrainian Independence Day events.And the sort of central aspect of that, at least as people are speculating at the moment, is the sort of revival of the trilateral talks between Ukraine, the US and Russia, which clearlyhave ultimately failed this year.Now, as you've talked about the sort of to -ing and fro -ing about Patriot, I imagine that will also be a key topic for Zelensky.

But it seems that the main aspect will be the revival of these talks with Moscow, if they choose to sort of come to the table.However, one of the important facts I only remember today, which I'm sure most of our listeners will recall, was the fact that neither Witkoff nor Kushner have actually ever visited Kiev in official capacity, which is I only remember that today and I think that's extraordinary.

I don't think they've been there in any capacity, have they?

Not that I'm aware of, certainly not as Special Envoys.Yet, Witkoff has been to Moscow at least eight times, and I believe Kushner's accompanied him at least once, which shows where the balance lies.Now this might be the start of sort of a new approach by the U .S.negotiating team.But Zelensky's repeatedly called out for them to come, well, primarily to see what's going on in Ukraine firsthand, not just through a television screen, but also sort of to, I think, progress the talks in a more advanced way.

Now, I got in trouble yesterday for apparently having predicted the Kirchbridge was going to be brought down last month, which I'm not entirely sure I did predict.But anyway, it clearly is still standing, although something obviously hit it.There's some imagery.But anyway, I will make a prediction.And that is that if Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner visit Ukraine by the end of August, I will eat a hat.Here, I will do that.

A red MAGA hat, I hope.

OK, as long as that can be some kind of whipped cream.

OK, we'll hold that.You'll become the Nostradamus of the podcast world.

Nostradamus.What else is happening on the diplomatic front?

So from the EU, the 90 billion EU loan that we've talked about throughout the year, mainly because it was finally unlocked once Orban was removed from power or voted out.tranche of that money has actually finally been delivered to Ukraine and I raise that today because I feel often on the podcast, we talk about money that's going to come in the future.It's promised, etc.And this is nearly three and a half billion euros, which actually has now been received by Ukraine.I think 11 billion has already come from that fund this year.It should get to 45 billion this year with the second half of 45 billion next year.

And that's this particular tranche has been earmarked for the purchase of Gripen jets, long range missiles and drones.And so that's sort of good news for Ukraine to actually have that money in the bank.

is split between military stuff and wider economic need, isn't it?So this is from the pot, the military side of that pot, isn't it?

And I did sort of have to revise in my notes, why don't they just receive all this money in one go?

Why don't they just receive all this money in one go, Alex?

Well, for the less financially savvy or economically savvy, it's because of the way that the money is borrowed by the EU.Essentially, it's to do with the way what the EU has available to spend against what the limit, the upper limit, that they're allowed to take from countries.And if they take 90 billion one go, it causes disruption to markets in the simplest terms.So they can't simply just take 90 billion, give it to Ukraine one go, it has to come in tranches.Now, it's an interest free loan that Ukraine doesn't have to pay back itself.It's sort of what supposedly the money will go back to the EU through Russian reparations once the war comes to an end and frozen assets that the EU holds, which I think are in about 210 billion.

So hopefully I've not butchered the economics of that.

Interest -free loan that they don't have to pay back?

Yeah.

It's like lending Francis a tenner when he's going to the bar.

It's dangerous, dangerous.So yeah, but good news for Ukraine receiving that money and clearly that tranche for military purposes.Third one for me, final one, is wildfires clearly filling all of our screens in Europe.I hope you didn't encounter them on your holidays.

I did actually, on a couple of days I could smell the smoke in the air, but no, it was near us, it wasn't... didn't impact us.Although a mate of mine, a Telegraph colleague in fact, that I was going to meet up with for lunch on one day, he had to evacuate.His village was cleared out by the authorities.He had to come home early.

Well, he'll be pleased to know, amongst others, that Ukraine has sent 70 firefighters and around 15 sort of specialised emergency vehicles to help fight the fires.Now, the cynics out there will probably say, well, this is just a sort of diplomatic grandstanding.But we have to remember, listening to the updates, every day Ukraine requires these individuals to fight fires within their own cities, not necessarily caused by climate change, but by Russian or North Korean ballistic missiles.And so to give any of these individuals, I think is a pretty selfless act and one which Ukraine, under the orders of President Zelensky, is doing currently.So well done to them.

OK, thanks, Alex.Stay there, please, for final thoughts.Now, every war has created a body of literature and poetry.The war in Ukraine is no different.Poets, civilian and military, try to make sense of the horrors of war, sometimes writing in the trenches on the front line.And some of Ukraine's war poetry has been translated into English, thanks to a small publishing house, Yantar Publishing, and the efforts of Hugh Roberts, a professor of French Renaissance literature at the University of Exeter.

Today, Adélie speaks to him about his journey from Montaigne to Maxim Krivstov.

Hugh, welcome to Ukraine The Latest, a pleasure to have you in the studio.

Thank you very much for having me.

So you are a professor of French Renaissance literature, but you have ended up publishing Ukrainian poets who are currently serving in the war, but also civilians, into English.So can you tell me a little bit about that journey?

Yes, it was nothing I was expecting, clearly, but as part of myjob I organised an event in the summer of 2023.It was between my university, the University of Exeter, my department, and Exeter -UNESCO City of Literature.There's a network of cities of literature presided over by UNESCO.And there was an opportunity for us to invite other cities of literature to Exeter, and one of the cities of literature that responded was Lviv.So at that stage I knew next to nothing about Ukraine, but the encounter with the poetry that they brought with them, they being Yury Mazurkovsky, who's a poet and translator and a close friend and colleague now, Elena Hassenova, who's another poet and a radio presenter, and Hannah Hryakova, who works for Lviv City of Literature.

They came as a group and they brought with them this astonishing work.And so as we started to translate it, it was especially the work from poets who are also serving members of the defense forces.especially one poem by a poet called Maxim Kristof.The poem is called Meri Togogotha.It's a long poem that tells basically a story about a group in Donbass who are an anti -tank group.and they get blown up in a Russian attack.

And it tells the interrelated stories of the lives of that group.And so as we were working on the translation, obviously I don't know Ukrainian, I was working with a colleague on it, it was like watching a statue emerge from a piece of marble and saw this astonishing piece of workcome through and then I remember my feeling, it was a feeling, that this is the real deal, this is a very was a very modern form of a very ancient form of poetry.In that case, it's a lament.It's a very, very beautiful, beautiful poem.And I have a very distinct memory of the experience of reading that out in Exeter as part of our public engagement, a public engagement event with with Yulia and Elena.

And as I read it, the room, which was already quiet, got absolutely dead still.And I think the whole room just felt they just heard something very, very, that was, as I say, an instant masterpiece.I was never actually in touch with Maxim Krivtsov, but he was actually killed at the age of 33 in January 2024.He did see a recording of that, fortunately.But the poem itself talks about one of the main people in the poem is a soldier with cool sign Jesus who dies at the age of 33.

I'm curious, not being a Ukrainian speaker, you talk about this sort of epiphany, this almost mystical experience of seeing this poem emerge as if a sculpture from a block of marble, there's a wonderful image there.I'm curious as a non -Ukrainian speaker, although I know you're learning it now, what is the experience of translating, with the help of other people obviously, a language you don't know and what is the conversations that you're having with the poets that you were in touch with to translate this particular work in order to find the right nuances into English.because obviously translating is a thing of itself.Translating poetry is even more difficult.

I should say immediately, because I have a languages background with French, but translating Ukrainian, my Ukrainian is a work in progress, shall we say.So I'm not doing that actually very detailed translation work, although I'm very grateful to my teachers at Ukrainian Institute London, because they've really helped as I've advanced in getting more of a sense of nuance.But it's really about working with the translators, so if I could pick up the two translations we've published to date.The first one was a poet -soldier, a young man called Artur Dron.We were here, it was translated by Yulia Mazurkowska, and Yulia worked with initially with my colleague, Helen Versallo, who's a translation specialist, also professor of French, and me.And then we worked later with the poets Fiona Benson, who's a British poet, and the Anglo -Ukrainian poet, Charlotte Shevchenko -Knight.

So it was a big team of people.Yulia's English is absolutely superb, so her first draft is great, but then the whole There's a whole kind of process to go through in terms of where I could come in as somebody who doesn't know Ukrainian, who doesn't know the background.That ignorance was helpful.

Because you ask questions that people who are deep in the weeds may not think about and also how it's going to be received by people like yourself who don't necessarily have a knowledge of Ukrainian or of the context of the war.

Absolutely.So there's a thing in Ukraine which we didn't know that Arthur mentions in the book about There's a kind of festival that happens when kids go back to school.Oh, OK. I haven't heard of that.The parents dress up.I've seen Irina do it with her daughter.They dress up in their costumes, they go back, and it's a celebration.

It's called the Day of Knowledge.Oh, lovely.I believe.So it's a real celebration, but there's no equivalent.So how do you render that?And Helen's solution was back -to -school festivities, for example.

That's obviously an isolated example, but a lot of It becomes a lot of very detailed discussion, and with translation, even if you don't know the language, there's a certain pleasure in finding... forgive me for using the French, le mot juste, the right word.

Yes, the exact word.

And it's a feeling when you get it.

Do you want to introduce maybe some of the work that you've been publishing and the wonderful poets?So maybe shall we start with Arthur?

Arthur's a young man signed up actually long before the age of conscription.And he wrote We Were Here, not exclusively, but mostly on the front line.where he was serving, and he's now being invalided out.So he's now a veteran.Just one example, a short poem.Boots, armor, and Kevlar helmets.

Who are we?We're kids.May this land enter our breast, and may it hurt.May this land bleed like a wound, unknown, familiar.May our machine guns never jam.Where are we?

We're home.I think that's why he died.That helps sort of explain why Artur is so loved in Ukraine and actually increasingly so beyond.He has that ability to express in an individual way a collective experience.

Absolutely.

And it's extremely powerful.testimony.I'm biased of course but I think it's an absolute masterpiece.

And he's also published another book, a more recent book that is coming out in September I believe.

Yes, so this is his book of, you actually came up with I think the best term for what this is, you could call it a book of essays, but you said they're prose poems.And having recently done the audio book version of this book called Hemingway Knows Nothing, I can testify to that almost actually some of the chapters, prose poems are also rather like sermons.Artur has a Ukrainian Catholic background.faith and it comes through very strongly in all of his work, it informs all of it.So Hemingway Knows Nothing tops the best charts in Ukraine, again it's his ability to express his own experience but also put it in terms that really speak to, he's a very generous writer in that he brings in other people's experience and voices too, that's a key feature of both books.He has sections of Hemingway Knows Nothing that are written, actually other, just in all in someone else's voice.

Yeah some are more stories almost, some are more essays, some are more short stories, some are more poetic and some are as you say like sermons and the religious element in his writing comes across really strongly.There's a beautiful poem at the end of it which of the first book I believe which is the letter to the Corinthians, first letters of the Corinthians, which is, you know, kind of riffs is a variation from the biblical text and it's really, really, really gorgeous.I'm curious to hear aboutyour other poet, Yerina Chornohus.

I should say that both Arthur Duran and Yerina Chornohus, because I know them both now personally.I didn't know them when we first started on the work.Indeed, Arthur was still on the front lines when we started, when Julius started to translate him.And if I may, just as an aside, but an important one, there was a Julia's thought, which we immediately understood, was that it was particularly urgent to translate this work when somebody's still serving and Yaryna is still serving.

She's a drone operator in the Kherson area.

That's correct.So she's in the Ukrainian Marine Corps.I've introduced her to the Royal Marines, who absolutely fell in love with her.I think that's fair to say.A hundred officers of the Royal Marines.It was very moving, actually, to hear her speak to them and witness their reaction.

But I'm sort of, I'm getting ahead of it.So, Irina is an absolutely extraordinary person, so is Otto.But there is their experience that comes through in the poetry that makes it so visceral and extraordinary.She initially signed up as a volunteer paramedic in the hospital's core.She's got a very academic background.She studied at the top, well, one of the most prestigious universities in Ukraine, the Kyiv Mikhailov Academy.

So she's got a philosophical background.She's already a poet.then she's volunteering her then -partner who's serving, this is before the full -scale invasion, is killed.And she actually has a one -woman protest against Zelensky in the pandemic.

But before the invasion.

Before the invasion, before the full -scale invasion, that's right.Protesting against Zelensky's then policy of rapprochement with the Russian -led authorities in Luhansk and Donetsk.She then decides to join the Marine Corps, so she gets her beret, and so she's already serving as Marine at the time of the full -scale invasion.So many of her poems in this collection, which won the top prize for literature in Ukraine, that sign, Defensive Presence, translated by Amelia Glazer, who's working with Fiona Benson and me.So many of the poems are sort of written, I believe, It's extraordinary that she does it, but they're in moments when she has a moment to write her experience.I could share one.

It's a poem called Wind from the Step.Wind from the Step.You're like wind from the step.I don't care if it sounds old -fashioned.I'll say it again.You're like wind from the step.

Even after you left the world of the living, no matter how far I run into the woods, no matter how deep the running cuts my breath, you keep lifting me on your back.so I can rest a little and not get left behind, like wind from the steppe.And when you pray to your gods, you're like wind from the steppe, and when your grasses greet me with their touch, I know there's no escape except to heal through the pain, remembering how blue those eyes were in the wind from the steppe.

These poems are as gorgeous as they are heartbreaking, and people like Irina Artur and Maxim Kristov,who died in January 2024, they represent this new generation of this new voice of Ukraine that Russia is trying to extinguish.What is your understanding of sort of the the Ukrainian identity and you've talked about the collective experience, the collective trauma.What is this renewal of Ukrainian identity that they carry with them?

I'm in delicate territory here because obviously I'm not Ukrainian and so it's really just my impression of this.One way of thinking about this is a renewal, a renaissance and an extraordinary one at that.But in a way, what they represent is something that never went away.And you're absolutely right that this is something that Russia is, in genocidal fashion, seeking to destroy.They seek to destroy Ukraine as an independent state, or even as an idea.They deny the very idea of Ukraine.

So when Artur and Irina and Maxim Khrushchev and others, when they are very spontaneously, naturally drawing on a tradition that Russia denies.So they draw on ancient traditions.Artur will draw on prayer, lullaby, lament.That's true really in different ways of all of them.They're very specific references to past writers.after the run we'll have a poem about that.

Stus, the great Ukrainian distant poet who was himself killed in the gulag in the 1980s and he talks about being in the trench and the stench in the trench but he He has Fazil Stus' book and he smells the book.So, again, it's a very embodied experience.He has another poem where Stus is fighting alongside them.He's by their side.He writes about that in Hemingway.

There's an acknowledged legacy.

It's part of a lineage.There's a very specific reference to Taras Shevchenko, the Ukrainian national poet.

Taras Shevchenko is obviously almost the founder of the modern Ukrainian identity, but his poetry is very... patriotic but it's also quite bucolic, isn't it?It's about the fields of wheat and the blue of the sky and you know the beautiful Ukrainian landscapes.It's not particularly war -y and I'm curious to hear from your point of view in this poem, you know, their experience and what they're bringing into poetry is obviously very, very different and a lot more brutal and violent.So I'm curious what the conversation is with Taras Shevchenko.

Well, the perfect example from from Jorina, Jorina Junahus, and it is not the bucolic or pastoral side to Shevchenko, because Shevchenko is a is a revolutionary poet.So anyway, you will hear how when she quotes these lines, she says that there are things in Shevchenko that have only become apparent since 2022.So that's, I don't know if renaissance is the right term for that, but it's that they see their roots and the nature of roots is that even if they go on, they are by definition underground, but then the growth will just keep on coming.Until winter of 22, we didn't understand the lines.Eagles pecked out his hazel eyes in a foreign field.His white body was devoured by wolves, and thus his fate was sealed.

Until the end of this February that will last for years, we will bear witness to what they see, those eyes left on the battlefield.Until the end of this February that will last for years, we won't learn the exact answer.to how you're supposed to live with the touches of the dead on your body.That's from a series of poems, I should have said, that's from a series of poems called Left Under Occupation.It's the third one of that series.And it's Irina, who's obviously served on the front line, thinking about what's been left where they had to retreat because she saw extremely active service and witnessed what they had to leave behind.

I'm not going to labour the point about how they see in their lineage that they are a an uprising from the same roots, the same roots that Taras Shevchenko came from.

The idea of a renaissance is also very interesting because at the beginning of the full -scale invasion, the writer Viktoria Emelina, who's now tragically passed away in Kramatorsk, used the term executed renaissance about this generation of writers, but more generally artists, this generation of Ukrainians, of all trades and all brilliance that are being killed with this war.And she was referencing the 1930s and the Stalinist purges, specifically against this renaissance of Ukrainian literature and poetry.And I think what'sheartwarming but also so fragile with these books is it is a renaissance but is a very fragile one.Maxim obviously is no longer alive, neither is Victoria Melina.Artur and Yaryna thankfully still are.

What is your sense of of that doom that's over them, and how do they navigate and converse with that in their poetry?

Victoria Melina was killed, as you say, in Kramatorsk.It was a targeted missile strike on a pizza restaurant where she was with other human rights investigators.The name of the street where the pizza restaurant was was Vasil Stus Street, who was himself killed by the Russians.Victoria Melina went to the home of the children's writer, Volodymyr Vakalenko.He was abducted and killed, executed.

He was a children's writer who made the point of writing in Ukrainian, including under occupation.

Exactly.And they executed him for that.She went to dig up his diary.In his garden and she as she was doing that she she wrote about how she thought this happening again They're executing us again.If I don't find this, it's another it's another future that's been lost with Maxim Khrushchev He was a machine gunner.He was at extraordinary risk At that time.

I think it's still from the case.I believe again It's not my not my place to say but it's hard to such people to go on rotation to get breaks and it was already, it became clear to me, even when he was still alive, given what he wrote inMary to Golgotha and other things I read from him, the references to dying at the age of 33 when he actually died, well, people can form their own conclusions about that, but he clearly was thinking about what might well happen to him.But any creative act also is defiance.Volodymyr Vekulenko never, he never yielded.He did not yield to the occupiers.

He kept on writing in Ukrainian, he kept on I think having his Ukrainian ringtone on his phone and it did lead to his death.

He was disappeared and as far as we know tortured and killed.

There are other examples of writers who seem to have this sense of what's going to happen.There's another one which I'd like to share by somebody called Mykola Leonovich, who's a book illustrator as well as a poet, and he signed up.He's currently missing in action, and this is a poem called Your Unnoticeable Ones, translated by Yulia Mazurkovskaya, working with Fiona Benson and me.Your Unnoticeable Ones.Sometimes you simply don't notice when you stop being afraid.Your life simply doesn't measure up to the number of spoken words.

and those people who, as you thought, forgot you, call to you like birds from the trees.And the echoes of these voices drip from the branches, roll down like green moss.They drown in it.Grass and weeds have grown over the paths you walked.They drive no bread here.No cows lead you here.

Only the sky stretches tightly over the woods, rinsed and rinsed.until all blue washes out of it.Where, I wonder, does it all flow?And it seems the one you follow is very close, on the hill, among the trees, laughing gently, so quietly, which in this silence means being heard.And I'm laughing, and maybe someone is following behind me in the same way, without any bags, having left the things you don't need in a place where you could be afraid back then.in a place called home, not looking for footprints.

Every one of us is in this world for the first time.So Mikola Leonovic.

I think it's probably a good place to end this interview because it's such a gorgeous poem.But I also think what everything you've been saying and as a final thought, I wondered if you wanted to expand on that, maybe how important talking about culture and literature is in the context of this war, because As you say, it's an act of resistance.It's a genocidal war.Writing in Ukrainian and making that decision and making those voices available internationally and Ukrainian culture seen as separate and as existing is absolutely central.And that's why we talk about it so much on this podcast.That's why we talk about art so much.

I wondered if you had some final thoughts on that.

I've thought about this a lot.And obviously, poets think about it, too.They're poets who write about how they regret that a poem can't actually save anyone's life or even kill an invader.What's the point of poetry?

And a lot of them stopped writing at the beginning of the invasion.

Indeed, that was the case with Otto Dürren's writing.about that in his afterword to We Were Here, and it was certain things that happened that meant that he started writing again.Ukraine's defence is obviously based on a huge amount of, actually, extraordinary innovation and defiance, and not all of that...The poetry has... in some sense, no strict role in that.And so it'd be inappropriate to say that it's thanks to poetry or anything like that, that would be kind of an absurd thing to say.However, it would also seem to me that the spirit of defiance, defence, that means that Ukraine is still standing strong.

and fighting back so effectively when Western experts gave them three days, that they do actually spring from the same spiritual place.And I'm afraid I haven't been able to mention them, but there are a whole series of the poets I mentioned are just a few among many different voices coming through.Anatoly Donistrevy, who's a man about my age and academic, he's in the security services, an officer in the Ukrainian Defence Forces.So he's got a different voice, he's got a hilarious poem called The Three Colonels.

Oh yes, that's a very good one.

I like it.So there's humour, which is also part of the spirit of Defiance, a very key theme of Ukrainian defense, from which we could all learn a great deal, I think.Another one.Another poet soldier called Fedirudi, who writes very, very beautiful and moving poems, one called The Position, which is an extraordinary poem.We got a video of him, or he took a video of him reading it at The Position.It's a stunning, stunning poem.

Someone called Ivatur,who's been fighting, I believe, since 2014, and whose husband, I believe, was also serving and was killed.So she has very, very moving and powerful poetry.She's still serving.Yeah, there's really a great set of them, and they are, all, it's quite remarkable that they are all, the quality is as high as it is.And there are, of course, key themes, shared themes that emerge, but all the voices are unique and remarkable.

You have a YouTube page, I believe, where you could see the the poets reading their own poetry, often in position in the trenches on the front line.So we'll link to that in the show notes.I also want to mention that the story about Victoria Melina looking for Volodymyr Vakulenko's war diaries or occupation diaries in his garden was beautifully written about in an article of the New Yorker a few years ago.So I'll link to that in the show notes.And obviously, we will link to Yantar Publishing, which is publishing all these wonderful books and making them accessible to English speakers.Thank you, Hugh, for joining me today.

It was a pleasure.

Thank you, Adélie.

Now, later this year, you'll hear exclusive interviews from Adelaide with some of the poets mentioned in the interview published by Yantar.In the meantime, you can hear their poetry in their own words on YouTube and order their books.All the links will be in the episode notes.OK, let's go to final thoughts.Alex, do you want to kick us off?

Yeah, right.Bear with me. I'm going to get us from Suffolk to the Arctic very quickly.And I'm sort of looking at the producers who sort of death stare me every time I drone on.So yesterday, watching wildfires in the UK this time, getting closer and closer to our nuclear reactor in Suffolk.I had a quick Google, were any other nuclear facilities in the world or Europe under threat from climate change?Slightly different, but there's a nuclear reactor in Hungary, which can no longer essentially suction up water to cool its systems from the Danube because it's got the lowest water levels in 30 years.

I then thought that was quite interesting, Russian sort of backed nuclear reactor in Hungary or any more of these in existence around the world.And it turns out, and again, I feel maybe rather naive saying this, but Russia's nuclear diplomacy, a new term for me, is extensive.And I read a really interesting report, and if you're sad like me, you'll also read this from the Center for Strategic and International Studies.titled the geopolitics of Russia's civil nuclear exports four years into the war.Without going into great detail, Russia, Rosatom in particular, has essentially is building nuclear facilities or has been doing for the last few years in countries including Bangladesh, China, Egypt, Hungary, as mentioned, India, Iran, and Turkey, which I thought was extraordinary.I had no idea that they delivered these projects in so many countries.

And the report goes on to talk about expanding into the Arctic with Rosatom sort of leading the way, not building nuclear facilities there, but building nuclear powered icebreakers.I'll read a quote from that says nuclear powered icebreakers under construction and these appear to include three under project 22220 and one under project 10510.cryptic, but I thought fascinating.And for any of those out there interested in sort of nuclear politics, Russia's sort of strategy is sort of far reaching and much more than I had ever imagined.

Isn't the US buying 14 icebreakers from Norway or something?

Yes, I think we covered that.

Are they nuclear -powered?

I don't think they're nuclear -powered.In fact, I didn't even realise there were nuclear -powered icebreakers.And I believe these haven't actually been built yet.And understandably, they're having difficulties with not receiving them.the tech and bits they need due to sanctions.Suppose you don't want to be cutting any corners with No, certainly don't want to be a sort of sort of Shackleton type episode if you get caught on one of those that have been built badly.

But yeah, really interesting.I just didn't realise they had such a grip on the nuclear market.

Now, final thought via me on war widows.I don't know if you've ever looked at the website of the presidential office of Ukraine, but there's a section where people can petition the president.Nowadays, it's 20 heartbreaking pages of people, mostly wives, mothers and sisters, asking for medals and honours for their loved ones who died in the war.Well one of them recently caught Adélie's attention and she's asked me to pass it on.It was started by a woman called Veronika Yanovich who's the widow of a young Belarusian soldier who enlisted in the armed forces of Ukraine.In 2022 the couple volunteered to join the Kalinowski regiment and later Alexei served in the 225th Separate Assault Regiment.

Both Veronika and Alexei are from Belarus.In 2019 he became one of the youngest candidates for parliament in the country, took part in the 2020 protests and helped observers in Minsk.They've been in exile in Ukraine Ukraine since 2021.Veronika petitions the President's office for a change in legislation.Currently, under Ukrainian law, only Ukrainian citizens can receive the status of Hero of Ukraine.She argues that considering the number of foreign volunteers fighting for Ukraine's independence, and although no one joins the fight for a medal, they too should be eligible to be considered Hero of Ukraine.

We will link to the petition and Veronika's story in the episode notes.That's us for this week, folks.Thank you so much for your company.It's good to be back.Good to have you with us.We'll be back in Monday, same time, same place.

But Alex, thank you very much.Thank you very much.From the Telegraph newspaper here in London, I wish you all a very good afternoon.