Gearing up for a spring offensive?
Ukrainecast
BBC
4.7 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 31 January 2023
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As the seasons change, attention turns to what could happen next on the battlefield. Samantha De Bendern, an associate fellow at Chatham House, is on hand to explain what a spring offensive might actually mean for both sides.
The BBC's Andrew Harding has spent the last two and a half weeks reporting on the war. He’s joined by his producer Ed Habershon to give their reflections on being on the frontline before they head back to South Africa.
And Tim Stirzaker, the director of the new BBC documentary Putin VS The West, is in the studio.
Today's episode is presented by Victoria Derbyshire and Vitaly Shevchenko.
The producers were Arsenii Sokolov, Josh Jenkins and Clare Williamson. The technical producer Mike Regaard. The series producer is Tim Walklate. The assistant editor is Alison Gee and the editor is Sam Bonham.
Email Ukrainecast@bbc.co.uk with your questions and comments. You can also send us a message or voice note via WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram to +44 330 1239480.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts |
| 0:04.8 | Hello, it's 342 days since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine. |
| 0:10.0 | And over the weekend, this clip of the Ukrainian army choir performing a song for Holocaust |
| 0:14.5 | Memorial Day went viral. |
| 0:23.6 | In a somber video, the choir sing Ellie, Ellie, a Hebrew song based on a poem and the |
| 0:30.7 | poem means my god, my god. |
| 0:49.4 | And they are singing on the site of Babinyar where nearly 34,000 Jewish people were killed |
| 0:56.9 | by the Nazis in two days in 1941. |
| 1:05.4 | The death toll in Babinyar rose above 100,000 over the next two years as Hitler's Nazi |
| 1:12.2 | SS murdered more Jews there, along with Roma and Soviet prisoners. |
| 1:27.6 | And the video shows the soldier's motionless around the Holocaust Memorial, which is in Ukraine's |
| 1:34.2 | capital cave. |
| 1:44.2 | Ukraine is an epicenter of unbearable heart-haired and pain. |
| 1:57.5 | I do not know how we managed to survive. |
| 2:05.7 | Hello, this is Victoria in the Ukraine cast studio. |
| 2:08.5 | And this is Vitaly also in the Ukraine cast studio. |
| 2:11.4 | I feel like we have not been in the studio alongside each other for a while, so it's |
| 2:14.6 | very nice to see Vitaly. |
| 2:15.8 | Same here, finally with me again. |
| 2:18.5 | Now listen, last week, as we know, there was a big increase in Western military support |
| 2:22.4 | to Ukraine with the approval of those battle tanks from Germany, finally and the United |
| 2:27.3 | States. |
... |
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