Ukraine peace talks end with prisoner swap
Global News Podcast
BBC
4.3 β’ 8.2K Ratings
ποΈ 5 February 2026
β±οΈ 28 minutes
ποΈ Recording | iTunes | RSS
π§ΎοΈ Download transcript
Summary
Two days of talks between Ukraine, Russia and the United States aimed at ending Moscow's war on its neighbour have ended with the exchange of more prisoners - but there's been no word on a peace agreement. The US envoy, Steve Witkoff, said the negotiations had been productive, but that "significant work" remained. Also: the UN human rights chief has appealed for hundreds of millions of dollars in funding, with the agency warning that it's currently operating in survival mode. China's leader, Xi Jinping, holds calls with his American and Russian counterparts in the space of a few hours, as he exerts his influence on the world stage. Savannah Guthrie, one of the best-known television news anchors in the US, makes a tearful appeal on behalf of her mother, whose disappearance is being treated by police as a kidnap. And the town in Japan that's cancelled a cherry blossom festival to try to stop thousands of tourists disturbing the peace.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.7 | This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:11.3 | I'm Alex Ritson and at 16 hours GMT on Thursday the 5th of February. |
| 0:17.0 | These are our main stories. |
| 0:18.7 | Peace talks between Ukraine, Russia and the US come to an end in Abu Dhabi, |
| 0:24.1 | but with no sign of an agreement on territory. |
| 0:27.0 | Funding cuts in danger, the UN Human Rights Office, |
| 0:30.3 | and we have a special report on the struggle for healthcare for mothers |
| 0:33.8 | and their newborns in Gaza. |
| 0:37.9 | Also in this podcast, Britain's embattled Prime Minister defends himself for appointing |
| 0:43.5 | and now disgraced party grandee. |
| 0:45.5 | The answers he gave were lies. |
| 0:49.3 | He portrayed Epstein as someone he barely knew. |
| 0:53.8 | Such deceit is incompatible with public service. |
| 1:01.5 | We start in Ukraine. |
| 1:16.3 | Where President Zelensky and his Polish counterpart Donald Tusk laid reeds to commemorate Ukrainian soldiers who died in 2014 in an earlier conflict with Russia. |
| 1:22.0 | Meanwhile, the current fighting continues, |
| 1:24.5 | even though Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in peace talks back by the United |
| 1:28.6 | States in Abu Dhabi. The discussions have just finished with hopes of a breakthrough slim. |
| 1:34.1 | President Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, said discussions would continue. He added that |
| 1:39.8 | both sides had agreed to a prisoner of war swap, as I heard, from our Eastern Europe correspondent, Sarah Rainsford, in Kiev. |
| 1:47.4 | This is a prisoner swap that we understood was coming and has now been confirmed. |
... |
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