D-Day: Biden compares Russian invasion to Nazi occupation of France, Ukraine: The Latest, Podcast

D-Day: Biden compares Russian invasion to Nazi occupation of France, Ukraine: The Latest, Podcast

I’m David noes and this is Ukraine the latest today we bring you updates from across Ukraine report live from the D-Day anniversary in Normandy and we discuss the stories of foreign volunteer Fighters bravery takes you through the most unimaginable hardships to finally reward you with Victory if we give president zinski the tools the ukrainians will finish the job Slava ukraini nobody’s going to break us we’re strong we’re ukrainians it’s Thursday the 6th of June 2 years and 104 days since the fullscale invasion began and today I’m joined by our assistant comment editor Francis sternley and foreign correspondent Colin Freeman I started by summarizing the latest news from Ukraine we reported yesterday on the increasing number of blackouts across the country the key of independent have a compreh ensive report that I’ll quote from quickly just to give a sense of what it’s like in the city at the moment and of course will include a link to this piece by Chris York and Katarina denisova in the show notes they write rolling blackouts across the city mean that for large portions of the day residents must negotiate tower blocks without lifts Road Crossings without traffic lights and the constant noise and fumes of countless diesel generators used to sustain shops and cafes Russia intensified its attacks against Ukraine’s critical infrastructure in the spring as part of a renewed assault against the country’s energy grid the timing of Russia’s campaign appeared to match the moment Ukraine began to face insufficient supplies of military aid from the West leaving some energy infrastructure without air defenses Ukraine began implementing rolling shutdowns on May the 15th but they have dramatically increased in recent days and the Lac Russian Mass missile attack on May the 31st caused further damage across the country the blackouts last from 4 to 8 hours on average up to three times per day but some people living in certain areas of Kei report being without electricity almost constantly quote we are catastrophically short of electricity for our needs that’s from Siri kovalenko chief executive officer at the private Energy company yasu who said this in a post on Facebook on June the 5th I wanted to start with that because I think that’s going to be one of the really big challenges and issues going forward through the summer and potentially through the winter elsewhere Ukraine’s gu Military Intelligence Agency said that they destroyed a Russian Tugboat on Thursday as part of continued efforts to deny Russia use of the Black Sea the agency said on telegram that one of its units had struck and destroyed the satin Tugboat off the coast of Russian occupied Crimea after successfully breaking through defensive barriers Ukraine has launched multiple longrange attacks on Targets on and near the Crimean Peninsula during Russia’s 27mon long full-scale Invasion and to remind ourselves they seek to destroy Russia’s uh military capabilities and force its Fleet to pull back from the Black Sea according to the Ukrainian military the Ukrainian Air Force shot down 17 out out of 18 Shahed type drones over four regions during Russia’s overnight attack on on Wednesday the attack caused a fire at an infrastructure facility in h mitsky region where one drone was shot down that this is from the regional governor and Emergency Services worked to put out the fire on Thursday morning with no casualties reported by local authorities the military shot down eight drones across the southern region of MV with no damage reported by the regional governor and drones were also shot down over zafaria and her son Russian forces also used two ESC M ballistic missiles to attack Deno Petrov region but no details on the damage from the missile attack were immediately available in Russia a fire has been extinguished at an oil refinery in the rostov region which had been attacked by Ukrainian drone that’s coming from the regional Governor vasili golubev let’s stay in Russia and go to St Petersburg where Vladimir Putin took questions from International media outlets on Wednesday at an economic Forum in the city this is the first time he’s done so since Russia invaded Ukraine at the start of the fulls scale Invasion so just going through some of his remarks we’ve pulled them out uh and written up a separate article which again will include in the show notes um and uh where to start right Putin said that Russia did not expect the outcome of the US presidential election in November to result in a policy change towards Moscow but did not rule out such a shift quote for the most part we do not care he said that’s not caring who wins the election uh to say I’m speaking quite sincerely that we believe that after the elections something will change towards Russia in American policy I would not say so we don’t think so we think that nothing really serious will happen we will work with any president the American people will elect he also said that Joe Biden is a quote Old School leader during the three-hour long press briefing Putin also spoke about Donald Trump touching upon the upcoming election and his recent guilty verdict he said that by finding Trump guilty in the hush money trial officials had ensured that the former US president would see an increase in his popularity he said it is obvious all over the world that the prosecution of trump is simply the utilization of the judicial system during an internal political struggle and he added that accusations of Espionage against Trump and which people have claimed he’s a Russian spy is quote nonsense um moving on I mean as as I said this is a three hourong press conference there are a number of interesting remarks that we should certainly take note of Putin also warned uh Germany that the use of its weapons by Ukraine to strike Targets in Russia would Mark a quote dangerous step he said that if German missiles hit Russia relations between Berlin and Moscow would be destroyed and that it is strange that none of its leaders defend the interests of the country finally uh Putin denied that he had Imperial Ambitions to expand Russia’s borders uh quote they’ve come up with this idea that Russia wants to attack NATO he said banging his fist on the table have you lost your mind are you as thick as two short planks who made that who made this up it’s nonsense it’s bollocks he said this is according to a translation from AFP there is no need to look for some Imperial ambition of ours there are and I think listeners can make up their own minds and use their own judgment as to what they think of that um a couple more updates then before we go to Colin um well sorry finally in our updates there’s been an interesting and important development in the EU where Finance ministers appear to back us plans to issue a $50 billion loan underwritten by seized Russian assets to Ukraine the Block’s Finance ministers sources said appeared to be in favor of Washington’s scheme when they heard held virtual talks on Wednesday ahead of a of G7 leaders in Italy the plan would involve money being distributed to K that would be backed by the frozen assets held in the west and paid for using profits from cash before this is important before the plan can be operationalized Joe Biden wants the support of his fellow G7 leaders and the EU to extend its sanctions against Moscow indefinitely and just to remind ourselves around $300 billion worth belonging to the Russian Central Bank has been frozen in the west with about 70% of that held in Belgium’s Euro clear security depository so I think that’s again a story we’ll be coming back to in the future well that’s all the latest news from Ukraine let’s go to our assistant comment editor Francis sternley who is in Normandy Francis can you tell us a little bit about where you are and what you’ve seen Francis sternley well hi David I’m just at the American cemetery just above Omaha Beach and you’ll probably be able to hear the band an uh behind me we’ve just heard from President Biden who spoke after president macron forgive me if you’ll uh hear the announcements being made just over my voice it was one of the most extraordinary speeches that I’ve heard an American president incredibly strong words with regard to the echo of dday to the present day and the present war in Ukraine particularly I’ll just read you a few quotes from him he said isolation was not the answer 80 years ago and it is not the answer today then he went on he said the autocrats of the world are watching closely to see what happens in Ukraine the men who fought here became Heroes not because they were the strongest toughest or fiercest although they were but because they were given an audacious Mission they knew that things are worth fighting and dying for Here We prove the forces of Liberty are stronger than the forces of Conquest he did not mince his words and I think many people here expected him to perhaps be just focusing on the history but he was very very keen he really livened up in the speech when he was speaking about the present day parallels and that will be controversial for some some people will feel that you should separate the events of the present day with the uh W with the past but no he made a very very strong and potent connection between the two it’s an incredible atmosphere David I have to say I’ve been here since about six o’clock in the morning beautiful spotless um marble Graves over 9,000 from uh um American servicemen who were killed in the weeks of the Normandy campaign it’s incredibly moving place the smell of cup grass fills your nostrils when you arrive there are numerous soldiers from all sorts of uh different units of of of the American armed forces and international Representatives it’s just uh been an incredible day with numerous flypast as well president macron thanked the veterans behind him and gave several Legion the on Earth the highest honor that he can bow on any Frenchman of course that has a very long lineage going back all the way to Napoleon bonapart he too thanked the veterans there and there are several films played as well so a very very moving and memorable scene here one that will live very very long in the memory no doubt so I’ve got to go David I’ve got to jump because things are moving quite quickly here but I just wanted to give you a sense of the scene quite an extraordinary day and a lot to unpick thank you Francis just very quickly for us where where are you heading to Next uh I’ll be going down to Omaha Beach so if you imagine the cemetery is directly above the beach head and then you can look down and you can see the beach I was there yesterday and uh there were lots of reenactors there people in jeeps and uh just generally talking about the history a lot of tour guides and you can see the pill boxes out that of course used to uh in the 1940s defend these beaches as part of the Atlantic Wall under the Germans and then uh those were what had to be taken out from Omaha Beach in June 6th 1944 the That Was 80 years ago today just a couple of things on that everybody has or almost everybody has seen Saving Private Ryan and uh one a couple of things that are just slightly inaccurate actually that you get that sense when you’re here which is that um the pill boxes in the film are directly in front of them but actually it was worse than that there slight angle which means that they can be shot at from the whole Beach is is in their Target in their firing line which means it’s even more terrifying and the other thing is just the scale and the length of the beaches here it is extraordinary how huge they are you cannot see uh in the distance the end of the beach heads gold Juno sword Omaha and Utah it is an massive massive site and I highly recommend to anyone who has not been here to come it is incredibly poignant place and point de Hawk which is at the end of Omaha Beach on the western flank is preserved as it was when the war ended so there are still huge bomb craters shell holes and destroyed pill boxes there and it’s one of the few places that I’ve been to for the second world war where you can still get that sense of what it was like after immediately after the battle there are a few like that in um France and Belgium in the first world war um like New Foundland Park but this is one of the few places I’ve ever been where you get that sense so I highly recommend poting to Hawk as well but I’m about to try and meet Dom Nichols on the beach of Omaha so we may have more to report tomorrow but I’ve got a dash David thank you very much Francis for calling in hugely appreciated by all of us Colin Freeman um great to have you back on the podcast let’s we today we’re going to talk about something quite specific the story of foreign volunteers foreign military volunteers fighting for Ukraine over the past two and a bit years a story and a subject very close to your heart Colin Freeman can you tell us why you’re looking at this yes the these are the foreign volunteers who answered president zelinsky’s call uh to The Wider world to come and help defend Ukraine right at the beginning of the war on about day three uh when the Russians were knocking at very much at kiev’s door front door they Loosely speaking are members of what you might call the international Legion which is the umbrella organization under which foreign volun fight and they come from well with estimate about 50 56 57 different countries have answered the call off or citizens from those countries sometimes against the the wishes of their own governments I would say the majority of them are British Americans Canadians and European but you you also have people from uh from further a field you got people from Latin America you have um people from the former Soviet satellite States like the baltics and um Georgia and then you have a smattering also of people from places like Korea Japan Mexico as I said you know is it is pretty much uh a pretty good definition really of a global Coalition they have been fighting there now on and off for two and a half years some of them just doing short stints some of them doing much longer stints performing in all kinds of roles really uh sometimes as combat Medics sometimes as mine clearance experts sometimes as Frontline assault troops and often I think primarily as Frontline reconnaissance troops which means uh people who are used to uh crawl in towards enemy territory and observe the enemy movements around no man’s land report back not always with Express orders to fight but um very get to very dodgy situations and fierce battles when things don’t go go quite according to plan um or take part in sniping operations and other things that through D of being very much up right and close on on the front lines um can lead to all kinds of trouble they’re deployed primarily in those roles as opposed to say artillery um operation roles for example or anything towards the you know towards the rear um other other than training which they also do play a large role infantry in combat training when they’re not not doing that some of them if they’ve uh had nothing back to do um or they’ve not not thought of a good excuse have uh been being interviewed by me for a book I am writing about the war as seen by the foreign volunteers from their perspective which is a going to aim to try and you know be a narration present a picture of the war through their eyes um the reason I decided to do this was um partly because I thought it might bring the war home a little more to readers who might not otherwi wies read a book seen purely from the Ukrainian perspective um perhaps be a bit more engaged if it’s the Ukraine war as seen by um Dave from Manchester or or Pete from New York or wherever people that they might identify with and also it means because because I don’t personally speak any of the local languages it means you have a you can tap into a large pool of people who can uh tell you things in your own language you don’t need translators which you would if you were interviewing a lot of the UK ianian soldiers and believe me when you start interviewing people about battlefields and Battlefield situations which can involve immense amount an immense amount of moving pieces they can be extremely complicated to narrate clearly it’s best that you uh you have as few barriers to your understanding um as possible thinking about motivation then I mean I think this is fascinating Colin because I think any journalist working in and around Ukraine will come into contact with foreign volunteers either you know in a military sense or you the many many hundreds of people thousands of people doing things like cooking food or sending medical supplies or driving trucks that kind of thing um what kind of motivations did you find amongst the fighters and were there any patterns that you saw well this was the other aspect of the book that I that draw drew me to it in the first place was this is not just a story about Ukraine and the war there but it’s also to some extent says certain things about our own society and why people people would choose to go off you know more or less at zero moment’s notice having LED normal lives over here in in the UK or in Europe or the West to suddenly go and fight in a war against a hostile superpower where they might stand a very very high chance of getting killed what kind of people go off and do that and and and what are their motivations for doing so and you you’ve really got a range you’ve got I suppose what you would call your sort of classic veteran Soldier someone who has maybe fought in Iraq or Afghanistan who wants to go and test their skills that they’ve already honed in Iraq or Afghanistan or somewhere and they want to see what it’s like to fight a peer Army which obviously is a potentially a much tougher test and certainly in Ukraine they don’t have the advantages of things like air power the Russian military is no matter what you might want to say about how professional it is uh it is a much much tougher and better armed foe than the Taliban or Isis were for example they represent one cohort you also have quite a lot of younger soldiers who um who missed out on Iraq and Afghanistan but who do want to put the skills that they’ve leared to the test then you have a third C of people who have never fought before or who have maybe served as as policemen or in kind of Quasi paramilitary roles you know there are some who are who have literally never picked up a gun until they’ve arrived in Ukraine they a minority but they are represented among all these people though there is very much a sense that this is a just war to fight um they they are not going there just for the hell of it um these are not generally people who would be willing to have gone to Ukraine if this had been a religious or an ethnic conflict they see this as being a a just War um a war as clear as taking on the Nazis and you know in that sense relatively rare since uh the the end of World War II it’s not often that you get really black and white conflicts where it really does seem like you’ve got a a relatively cartoon baddy like Vladimir Putin suddenly helping himself to somebody else’s territory so they feel relatively clear in their consciences that they are doing the right thing but then they are also often that that in itself is not also quite often enough to make people just simply up stakes from whatever civilian job they’re doing especially given the risks so for a lot of them also you know and I I would wouldn’t want to generalize too much uh on this because everybody every every single individual case is different but many of them will freely admit to the to saying that their their own personal lives at home may not be that great some of them have broken marriages some of them have under stimulating jobs or just a lack of purpose you know is this it is there anything else to life than this um and quite often when you get a a moment on in history like this Wednesday says please you know if you’ve got the skills come and fight they feel like you know hang on maybe this is you know the hand of History tapping on my shoulder maybe this is where I should be going one H thing on to that is that for many EX soldiers especially if they’re now in civilian life some of them do feel that you know the the modern HR World um is not a place where they’re entire you know they and their skill set are entirely appreciated they miss the camaraderie of army life they miss the values they miss the banter um they sometimes miss the rather dark sense salty sense of humor Ukraine for them is a place where all these old school Warrior values are are still very much required this is the place where they’re needed in a way that sometimes they feel in the west they’re not needed you mentioned Colin that quite a lot of these people signed up at the beginning of the invasion could you tell us a little bit more about that experience um I mean it’s incredibly chaotic I me I’ve heard stories of um you know there’s not enough kits there’s not enough training there’s confusion about where people should be going there’s obviously the the language problem that lots of people turn up and don’t necessarily speak any Russian or any Ukrainian um so I’d be interested to hear about that but also how that’s changed now has there been a big drop off and people um offering themselves coming to Ukraine and saying I want to fight what does the situation look now and how did it look at the beginning well certainly at the beginning it was all a bit chaotic U most people were simply given ordered to report to their local Ukrainian Embassy in whatever country they were where the stories but they weren’t always taken in to be recruited and assessed by some military attache it would often be a case of being given an email and said and and getting told send your CV in and then they’d get a response back and uh it would be make your way to the to Poland’s border with Ukraine and you’ll get picked up by an intermediary or a minibus from there and then taken over to a training base that’s broadly speaking what a lot of them did um then uh one of the training bases was missil quite early on in the war in uh in about the second or third week was hit by a series of Russian missile strikes which put the wind up a lot of people of course also everything was a bit chaotic on the training basis some of them were given the the the kit they needed and dispatch straight off up to places like K they were mainly the more experienced soldiers but then others were just left to languish in the bases that were given a bit of training and were constantly being told oh yeah we’ll get you deployed in a week or two or whatever and then that would never happen the exact reasons for that are hard to make out to some extent I think was just often that the Ukrainian organizational system was a bit overloaded they had thousands of volunteers turning up they had really no idea how many were going to arrive so what happened then after that was that you got quite a lot of volunteers were thinking well I’m fed up with this I’ve been sitting around for a month I know these bases are getting missil um they’d had time to make friends with other volunteers or meet other people They Knew by then and they started slowly reaching out to different Ukrainian units through contacts and Friends often and other military players um to see if you know any individual Ukrainian units would would take them ad Haw and so you got little groups of 10 15 people here 10 15 people there forming little almost many militias have you like and going and presenting themselves to different Ukrainian units and trying to make themselves useful um they often still had all kinds of paperwork issues um and weapons permit issues that were often a bit of a pain um I think for some of them it worked well they were embedded in units that um could appreciate them and their services and and the skills they had to offer for others it it was it was not a good fit um often there were language difficulties that they got in the way sometimes the commanders of the Ukrainian units were not terribly keen on having them because either again of the language difficulties or they worried that there would be con issues if a bunch of foreigners under their care got hit or k hurt or killed and then sometimes also unfortunate the the there was not much proper vetting of the volunteers as they came in they initially tried to make it clear that they only wanted people with combat experience IE trained soldiers who’d fought in places like Iraq and Afghanistan in in the end pretty much anybody who wanted to go in went in there were people who had no military back grounds whatsoever or who had fak their military backgrounds turning up some people who were unstable or even had criminal records or drug or alcohol problems turning up it was a you know it was all insundry some of those people were bad apples who wound up the ukrainians the wrong way and you know the stories of bad behavior or misbehavior went round very quickly and so unfortunately for other volunteers they found that they ended up getting tired by the same brush and certainly if you talk to quite a lot of the the the foreign volunteers who are out there and you asking what the main problems is they’ll often say first thing they often say the main thing I worry about is the other the other volunteers here coming along and messing things up for us so that that was certainly true of the first I think broadly speaking the first year or so but apparently there are still people coming in um not just from America and and the West now but you also have people soldiers coming in from places like Latin America and Sri Lanka sometimes in quite large numbers 10 20s um where we understand that some of them are perhaps a bit more more motivated by the money because the the the countries that they’re coming from the the wages for a soldier are not quite as much most of these guys do have combat experience though and from what I understand they are still pretty they are signed up motivated ideologically for the fight as well it’s not just all about the money but um if the money plays a bigger role for them than for a lot of the western Fighters Colin can you tell us I mean maybe not but can you tell us about any individual characters or any individual stories that you think maybe um are important for our listeners to hear about and maybe exemplify the volunteer the International Volunteer experience yeah I um I’m I’m going to avoid going into any sort of names of anybody personally at the moment because I haven’t sort of cleared it with them at this stage but um the the typical certainly a lot of the volunteers one thing that’s interesting is is this periods of of of intense self-examination that they go through at the beginning of the war um when when they’re still at home often doing you know routine jobs working in factories routine civilian life where where they’re not Terribly Happy and they’re thinking shall I go and fight in this war I’ve got this light that’s switched on in my head that tells me it’s something I want to do but um there are all sorts of reasons why I shouldn’t if you compare it to the Spanish Civil War in the 193 30s when people went to fight against um Franco’s fascist movement in Spain it’s it’s a very different situation um back then about 80% of the volunteers who fought in the Spanish International brigades on the on the side of the Republicans the leftwing side the the side of democracy essentially rather than fascism they went there having been organized by the local communist parties in in Europe poor Britain or America who were Keen to get people to go and fight for the cause of global socialism it wasn’t like they were you know they were frog marched into doing it but there was a degree of peer pressure of like you know all the young you know all the other guys in in um in our communist chapter here in Glasgow are going off to fight or quite a few of them are um maybe I’ll go too you know whereas for your average ex Army guy who’s perhaps working in a factory or in a um in a job in this country you know it’s it’s a decision that has to be made entirely personally certainly at the beginning of the war the Russians were seen as being a very formidable enemy that was likely to be a very high risk of getting killed nobody knew how seriously the war was going to escalate and you know they would often have friends and family rather than saying oh you’re a hero mate you know for good on you for going off and doing this they would be saying look are you crazy this is madness to do this you’re absolutely nuts you don’t speak the language you don’t know the country you’re going to be going off on your own what on Earth do you think you’re doing um and you know quite often they would have their their mental health questioned and there would be an initial argument about the Rights and Wrongs of it and then they’d get a call from some friend that knew them well who’ perhaps sometimes been tapped up by somebody else close to them who sort of saying look you know um is everything all right you know what’s all this talk of going to fight in Ukraine you know that is clearly something else going on so you know they had to contend against that level of questioning and and sometimes dismissiveness of of their motives um which which again makes the whole thing much tougher has anything so far surprised you when you’ve been looking into this story thinking about your book and talking to all of these people it’s surprising how people adapt to being able to fight when you you know what the the amongst the people who I’ve met who’ve never fought before you think you know God you’re crazy and and how will you coope with the fear once bullets start flying and shells start landing and when people start getting injured um or killed you know how on Earth can you cope with that because that’s something that the British army trains soldiers for months and years to be able to deal with there’s an entire sort of psychological training process for it and so on and yet they go and they manage it when you ask how did you cook why didn’t you just run after the second day they often say that once you’re out there this it’s not easy to turn back anyway and also you’ve got your friends your comrades who you quickly Bond within that situation that if if it’s not you you’re afraid for you’re afraid of letting your buddies down and you you you look after them and and that ment that Soldier mentality that comradely mentality um is what keeps them going a lot of the time it’s not just about me anymore it’s about my mates it’s also one of the reasons a lot of them have kept have kept coming back initially after the first few months I thought a lot of them would just say right I’ve done a bit of figh and I’ve seen a bit of bit of action um back home now I’m going to put me feet up in the UK but of all of those I’ve interviewed and I probably interviewed quite a few at length I expected a lot of them would come home and put their feet up after a bit and most of them I’d say have actually gone back if not more if not once more than once to to fight again which which did really surprise me and certainly if you if there were just people who were coming for you know to to get their combat Spurs and to be able to um boast about it in the pub back home um I don’t think that would be what would be going on well let’s go then to our final thoughts Colin thank you so much for joining us um what would you like to leave our listeners with actually quite like to just leave them uh with with a with an appeal this book I’m doing is is still a work in progress we do have a publishing deal for it so it will hopefully be coming out um next year but while I’ve already interviewed a number of foreign military volunteers I would still be interested to hear from any more if anybody’s out there who’s listening who is a foreign military volunteer serving in Ukraine I’d be interested to hear from you no particular criteria really certainly interested in anyone who’s had any more unusual experiences or any and who’s got any specific views or thoughts on on how their time in uh in Ukraine has been but um I will quite happily speak to anybody so yeah just leave my email address actually if I may it’s Colin C l i n. Freeman f m telegraph.co.uk and yeah I mean I think also you know we’ve got this time of mobilization or this this big debate about mobilization in um Ukraine at the moment and it’s also being discussed further a field as well we’ve had Generals in this country saying we need to start training our young people in the event that war was ever to come here and that that does just make make me think sometimes about the the the the foreign military volunteers I’ve met out in Ukraine as I say not not everybody is a totally high-minded George Orwell type idealist who’s there purely for the fight fighting this noble cause of democracy everybody has their own personal motivations for being there as well um but uh you know War doesn’t really care what your motivations are if it comes to mobilization it just needs people to be there and that’s what these people are doing um whether their motivations are purely to stop Vladimir Putin’s Invasion or whether it’s because they they don’t feel terribly stimulated back in their own countries and they want a sense of adventure it doesn’t really matter when people require all hands on board to to get involved in the fight and I suspect that as time goes on it may be that the foreign volunteers are are required a bit more um if Ukraine really starts to run out of soldiers again and and just finally you know irrespective of the of the actual quality of the mil military contribution they make the moral contribution they make is is considerable ukrainians as far as I can see get a great sense of the the world beinging behind them when they see when they hear foreign mil foreign volunteers voices and accents they feel like look there are some people out here who are not just sending money who are not just putting out tweets but who are actually coming out here um and putting their boots on the ground Ukraine the latest is an original podcast from the telegraph to stay on top of all of our Ukraine news analysis and dispatches from the ground subscribe to the telegraph you can get your first three months for just1 at www.telegraph.co.uk Ukraine thelatest or sign up to dispatches our Ukraine newsletter which brings stories from our award-winning foreign correspondents straight to your inbox we also have a Ukraine live block on our website where you can follow updates as they come in throughout the day including insights from regular contributors to this podcast you can listen to this conversation live at 1: p.m. each weekday on Twitter spaces follow the telegraph on Twitter so you don’t miss it to our listeners on YouTube please note that due to issues beyond our control there is sometimes a delay between broadcast and upload so if you want to hear Ukraine the latest as soon as it is released do refer to podcast apps if you enjoyed this podcast please consider following Ukraine the latest your preferred podcast app and if you have a moment leave a review as it helps others find the show you can also get in touch directly to ask questions or give comments by emailing Ukraine pod telegraph.co.uk we do read every message and you can contact us directly on Twitter you can find our Twitter Handles in the description for this episode Ukraine the latest is produced by Louisa Wells and Giles gear [Music]

Day 827.

Today, we bring you the latest news from Ukraine, report live from the D-Day anniversary in Normandy and discuss the stories of foreign volunteer fighters in Ukraine.

Contributors:

David Knowles (Head of Audio Development). @djknowles22 on X.

Francis Dearnley (Assistant Comment Editor). @FrancisDearnley on X.

Colin Freeman (Foreign Correspondent). @colinfreeman99 on X.

Articles referenced:

https://kyivindependent.com/kyiv-struggles-with-rolling-blackouts-officials-warn-of-bleak-months-ahead/

Contact Colin Freeman: colin.freeman@telegraph.co.uk

Subscribe to The Telegraph: telegraph.co.uk/ukrainethelatest

Email: ukrainepod@telegraph.co.uk

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