Use BBC.com or the new BBC App to listen to BBC podcasts, Radio 4 and the World Service outside the UK.

Find out how to listen to other BBC stations

Episode details

World Service,02 Apr 2022,23 mins

Ukrainians face the unthinkable

From Our Own Correspondent

Available for over a year

Russia's war in Ukraine and its echoes in Asia; stories from Sudan and the South Atlantic. Pascale Harter introduces dispatches from BBC correspondents around the world. Despite peace talks in Turkey and a supposed 'refocus' to concentrate on military operations in the Donbas, Russian forces have mounted attacks all over Ukraine in recent days. Orla Guerin considers how the landscape has changed in Ukrainian cities - and how the mental landscape is changing to match, as civilians adapt to military roles, and old family and cultural ties with Russia come under increasing strain. The war in Ukraine has obvious - and intimidating - reverberations across Asia. Rupert Wingfield Hayes considers how it's making many analysts and politicians in Japan, China and Taiwan rearrange their tactical plans. Sudan's military and security forces have a dismal track record of abusing the rights of refugees, detainees and demonstrators, and allegations of sexual assault by their officers have been reported for decade after decade. Since the military coup of October there have been further accusations that men in uniform have sexually assaulted women and girls involved with the Sudanese democracy movement. But it's a difficult problem to discuss in public. Catherine Byaruhanga has investigated some of these cases and heard how hard it can be even to break the silence, much less bring perpetrators to justice. And Katy Watson travels to Ushuaia - which Argentina considers its gateway to the Islas Malvinas - to talk to a veteran of the Falklands War about conflict, politics and culture. Forty years after its failed invasion of the islands, Argentina still considers its claim to them a central foreign-policy issue. Producer: Polly Hope Production Co-Ordinator: Gemma Ashman

Programme Website
More episodes