Inside Donetsk as residents flee attacks
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 25 August 2025
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ukrainian soldiers on the eastern frontline have told the BBC they're suffering high casualty rates, as they continue to repel Russian attacks.
We'll hear from those on the frontline in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, a region Russia's president Vladimir Putin wants to control.
Also in the programme: As Israeli strikes hit Gaza's last functioning hospital in the south, we hear from an eye witness; and we have an appreciation of Jerry Adler - the man who played the fixer for one of TV's most memorable crime families.
(Photo shows a mother hugging her son before he is evacuated from Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. Credit: BBC News)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to NewsHour. It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service Studios in central London. I'm Tim Franks. |
| 0:10.8 | In 30 minutes, we're going to bring you the latest from Gaza because a double strike on the main hospital in the south of the enclave has reported to have killed at least 20 people, including several journalists, |
| 0:21.5 | who will bring you the testimony of one of those who witnessed the attack. Before that, |
| 0:26.4 | we're heading to the front line of another war, because Donbass in eastern Ukraine is a prize |
| 0:32.9 | that Russia has long wanted. Only about a third of it is still under Ukrainian control, and Vladimir Putin |
| 0:39.1 | wants the rest. As President Trump has made his latest push for peace, there's been a suggestion |
| 0:44.0 | out of that that the Donbass could be swapped by the Ukrainians for land that the Russian military |
| 0:49.8 | has seized elsewhere, along with a freezing of the conflict along current front lines. |
| 0:55.5 | Western intelligence acknowledges that the Russians are making slow progress in their efforts |
| 0:59.6 | to take Dombas by force, but it's painfully slow. |
| 1:04.0 | The latest estimates say that at the current rate, a complete conquest of the region, |
| 1:08.0 | would take the Russian military about four years at the cost of |
| 1:11.0 | more than two million casualties. But Ukraine is also under pressure, with the fighting in the |
| 1:17.0 | Dombas is especially fierce and exacting a toll on civilians as well as soldiers. |
| 1:22.7 | Our correspondent... |
| 1:23.6 | ...and 107. So for all that, when you're shut up from the bus, so we can pick them off... Quinton. |
| 1:37.9 | Universal aid, Ukraine, are running evacuation convoys in and out of the town of Dopropilia, |
| 1:40.3 | which is under Russian attack. |
| 1:43.4 | And these people, they must be out. |
| 1:46.3 | Because the children, because there's people who need to stay alive. And secondly, for the soldiers, because they need to defend the city. |
| 1:51.6 | I'm going to accompany them today. So this evacuation convoy is going as fast as it can. |
| 2:01.6 | Dopropailia is increasingly under Russian attack and they've been attacking aid convoys as well. |
... |
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