President Putin gives his response to the US plan for a ceasefire in Ukraine. Also; the rise in measles cases, and the first bear to get brain surgery wakes up after hibernation.
Chapter 1: What is Putin's response to Trump's ceasefire plan?
You're listening to the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. This edition is published in the early hours of Friday the 14th of March. President Putin says he supports the American plan for a ceasefire in Ukraine in theory, but raises lots of questions about how it would work. President Trump said it was a promising statement, but not complete.
Ukraine says the Russian leader is paving the way to reject the proposal. Also in this podcast, we report on the measles outbreak in Texas amid a warning about rising cases in Europe and Central Asia.
And... Everything of me as a preteen and teenager, first loves, first crushes, songs I wrote were going on there. They sent an email round saying that when he was about to close, I lost several years of photos and writings and friendships.
What happens when bits of the internet go missing? Two days after the American ceasefire proposals were accepted by Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has given his response. And it was neither a yes nor a no. The Russian leader said he liked the idea in theory, but he had lots of questions.
Chapter 2: What are the key issues with the ceasefire proposal in Ukraine?
How will the 30 days be used? Would that allow Ukraine to continue the forced mobilization for weapons to be supplied so those mobilized can be trained? Or will that not be done? And how are control and verification issues to be resolved? How will it be guaranteed to us that nothing of the kind will happen? I hope this is common sense. These are serious issues.
Who will issue the order to cease fire and what is the price of such orders?
Vitaly Shevchenko is Russia editor at BBC Monitoring. What did he make of it?
I think it's a no disguised as a yes. The conditions that he put forward would be absolutely devastating for Ukraine to accept. No more weapon supplies, no more mobilisation of new fighters for the Ukrainian army. Surrender rather than withdrawal of whatever Ukrainian forces are still in Russia's Kursk region. And also, I think most importantly, what he said about the root causes of this crisis.
If recent history is anything to go by for Vladimir Putin, the root cause of what he calls this crisis is the very existence of Ukraine as a sovereign state, which is free to pursue its own policy at home and abroad. What I think we saw Vladimir Putin do today is, push out this ball that America and Ukraine said was in Russia's court. I think he's pushed it out back into their court.
Yeah, I mean, so what do the Russians think will happen next? President Putin's supposed to be meeting Donald Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff. There's also talk of a phone call. How do they see it playing out from here?
Well, we have to remember that Vladimir Putin can be really inflexible in negotiations. He's made Steve Witkoff wait the whole day for a meeting with Vladimir Putin. That, I think, is a way of putting extra pressure.
I think it's fair to say that Russia is playing for time and its rhetoric and its actions, they do suggest that Russia's appetites are absolutely undiminished when it comes to Ukraine and And when Vladimir Putin says he likes the idea of a ceasefire, but it's the but that is the stumbling block.
And that's because his forces appear to have the upper hand at the moment and he wants to take as much territory as he can.
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Chapter 3: How does Ukraine view the ceasefire proposal?
Donald Trump speaking in the Oval Office where he was meeting the NATO chief Mark Rutter. Our North America editor Sarah Smith was at the White House and told us more about the US President's hopes for a deal.
Yeah, he seemed remarkably optimistic about that. He said he thinks that they're very close to getting agreement with Russia and that he's getting very good signals from Moscow, where, of course, his presidential envoy, Steve Witkoff, is there having discussions with the Russians, very serious discussions.
Donald Trump called them and he even said that he himself would actually love to meet with or talk with Vladimir Putin about this. But there was a there was a kind of hint of a threat there as well, saying that it would be very disappointing for the world if Russia doesn't agree to this ceasefire.
Because, of course, this process cannot move forward unless Russia, along with Ukraine, both agree to this 30-day ceasefire to allow them to move into the next phase of negotiations. But, yeah, Donald Trump seemed to think that there wouldn't be too much problem getting Vladimir Putin to agree to this, despite some of the things that Putin has been saying today that would suggest that he's not
entirely sold on this idea. And then really interestingly, President Trump also started talking about what might come next, what a peace deal would look like if they were to start negotiating that. He said there's no point in trying to agree the ceasefire if it doesn't look as though there's a peace deal within reach afterwards.
And he was even talking about how they've already been discussing what piece of land will belong to whom. There was a power station, he said, we don't know which one, that they were negotiating over who would end up with that in their territory.
So these conversations are obviously considerably more advanced than we realised about what a final settlement might look like and presumably feed into the optimism that we were seeing from him in the Oval Office today.
Our North America editor, Sarah Smith. Well, President Trump may be optimistic about Vladimir Putin's intentions, but there's a very different view in Ukraine itself. President Zelensky accused the Russian leader of manipulating the situation and called for more sanctions.
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Chapter 4: What is the situation in eastern Ukraine amidst ceasefire talks?
Now, what we've all heard from Russia is Putin's very predictable, very manipulative words in response to the idea of a ceasefire. In practice, he is preparing a rejection. Putin, of course, is afraid to tell President Trump directly that he wants to continue this war, that he wants to kill Ukrainians.
President Zelensky's view is shared by many of his frontline soldiers and medics, as Jonathan Beale reports from eastern Ukraine.
There may be talk of a ceasefire, but here in eastern Ukraine, it's in a parallel universe. It's still wave after wave of wounded soldiers, these being transported in a special medical bus to a hospital, dozens at a time. And few of the soldiers on board believe there'll be a pause in the fighting any time soon. The Russians storm our positions pretty much every day, says Vova.
I doubt there'll be a truce. Maxim, another injured soldier, says he's already lost a lot of his friends. I'd like to believe that all will be good, he says, but you can't trust Russia. Never. Sometimes they have to do this evacuation several times a day. 22-year-old Sofia, a medic with Ukraine's volunteer army, is preparing for the next one. She doesn't believe President Putin will stop.
I mean, if they wanted peace, they would have stopped this war. The person cannot change overnight. Oh, I want peace now. You know, wake up and I want peace. I'm a peaceful person today. It doesn't change like that.
Ukraine may be hoping for peace, but it's still preparing for war. In arrest from the fighting, these troops are still honing their battle skills. They'll be back on the front line within days. Their hope is that America's back on their side, resuming military support and putting forward a proposal for a ceasefire.
And any prevarication by President Putin on ending the war could bolster support for Ukraine.
Jonathan Beale in eastern Ukraine. Some other news now. And two years ago, troops from southern Africa were sent to the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo to try to help in the long-running fight against the Rwandan-backed rebel group M23. Now the South African bloc SADC says it will pull out its forces.
At least 19 soldiers from South Africa, Malawi and Tanzania were killed when the M23 rebels captured the city of Goma in January. I heard more about the withdrawal from Shingai Nyoka in Zimbabwe where Sadek has been meeting.
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Chapter 5: What are the latest developments in the Democratic Republic of Congo?
And as we speak, hundreds of troops are essentially trapped in rebel-controlled areas. And so in this emergency summit hosted by Zimbabwe today and the third emergency summit, there was a decision announced to terminate the mission, but also to begin a phased withdrawal of the troops.
Yeah, how much of a blow is this for the government in Kinshasa after all the rebels have threatened to go all the way to the capital some more, more than a thousand kilometres away from where they are now?
It's a significant blow. And I think the major issue is that for all of these 18 months or so, or however many months that was, Kinshasa had SADC on its side. It had a very strong mandate to support the DRC forces, but now they've essentially been defeated.
And some analysts I spoke to earlier said that now SADC will probably be forced to adopt a more neutral position, working with other regional groupings. The military support has been withdrawn. It's a blow, but the The SADC had also pledged to deploy more forces, thousands more troops and more equipment to help in the fight. But now they've been forced into a rather embarrassing retreat.
And so that definitely puts President Felix Tshisekedi on the back foot.
And briefly, could anyone else fill the gap?
Well, there have been talks about the U.S. possibly filling the gap. It's all talks at the moment. A Congolese government official told the BBC that they wanted to bring the U.S. on board to supply them with critical minerals. But also they said that they might talk about security. But there's nothing concrete right now.
And so the burden has fallen back on the U.N., which has had a mission there for years. And South Africa also contributes about a thousand or so troops there. But I think really the focus now was on trying to negotiate a peace deal.
And the fact that SADC has withdrawn might actually help a president or might force and pressure a president, Felix Tshisekedi, to make more concessions when it comes to peace.
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Chapter 6: Why are measles cases rising in Europe and Central Asia?
The measles, mumps, and rubella, or MMR vaccines, were developed in the 1960s, and by 2000, the World Health Organization declared measles eliminated from the United States. Cases related to the ongoing measles outbreak in Texas started being reported in late January. Dr. Ron Cook is the health authority for the city of Lubbock.
There's a high number of individuals that are not vaccinated. Where it started, I don't know that answer yet, but somebody came down with measles because it's so infectious, that individual spread it to lots of different people.
Despite early cases being in mostly remote counties, the outbreak has sparked health concerns across the state and the country. especially as cases continue to rise and with at least two deaths among unvaccinated, measles-positive people in the region.
We're strictly doing the measles testing. They can drive up or walk up and we'll take a swab sample from their nose or their mouth and then that sample gets packed up and it gets sent down to Austin where they test it at their lab.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. For years before he was nominated, Kennedy was critical of the MMR vaccine, two doses of which is 97 percent effective at preventing measles. Kennedy's initial response to the Texas outbreak during President Donald Trump's first cabinet meeting drew criticism of its own.
There have been four measles outbreaks this year in this country. Last year, there were 16. So it's not unusual. We have measles outbreaks every year.
Three months into the new year, case numbers are approaching the total for 2024. The Texas outbreak also saw the country's first confirmed measles death since 2015. Kennedy says that vaccination is a personal choice and, in an interview with Fox Nation, referred to other methods of staying healthy to prevent contracting measles.
You know, measles at one point was killing about 10,000 people a year in our country. Those deaths were eliminated through nutrition and... and sanitation.
Public health officials and medical professionals continue to stress vaccination as the best way to avoid contracting the measles. Catherine Wells is the director of the public health department in the city of Lubbock. She says that coordinating care and outreach in such a widespread area can be difficult.
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