Dozens dead after Russian strike on ammunition depot near Kyiv

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1:10Hello and welcome to News Hour from the BBC World Service. Coming to you live from London, I'm James Kamarasamy. And later on in the programme, we'll be getting the latest from Nepal on the operation to find survivors following those floods that struck Nepal and Tibet across the border on Wednesday. We'll be speaking to somebody who has flown in a helicopter to try and reach people who are stuck in a tunnel in the worst affected region. And we'll also be hearing about the increasing humanitarian needs of those who've been left homeless. Honestly, we're running on estimations because of the lack of access.

1:48But our estimation, which is shared by some of our partners, is that there are almost 100 ,000 people that are likely to need urgent assistance. More on the situation in Nepal later on in the programme. We begin, though, in Ukraine, in the village of Mila, just to the west of the capital, Kiev, where a Russian drone attack on a warehouse late on Friday had unexpectedly deadly consequences.

2:19You can just about make out at the end there a series of explosions because what local residents didn't know was that the building was being used to store ammunition. The initial blast set off a chain reaction of detonations, which resulted in the deaths of at least 37 people and the evacuation of several hundred more. Jana Donnelly lives in the nearby village of Dimitrivka. There was a long series of explosions. We really thought we were being bombed. As we were evacuating, I realised it was getting worse and worse. At that moment, I was in the car with my family and the car began to shake. We really thought there was no way out.

3:05Well, the storing explosions, storing explosives, I should say, and ammunition next to residential buildings in Ukraine is illegal. But this is the second time in recent weeks that an ammunition depot in a residential area has been hit. Last month, a Russian strike on a warehouse in Vyshneva killed nine people and led to the launch of a criminal investigation into senior figures in Ukraine's state-run defence industry. Well, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that there will now be another investigation into what he called the terrible negligence on the part of those who stored explosives right next to people.

3:42A criminal investigation is underway. All the facts must be fully investigated. Another such crime, after what happened in Vishnere, is absolutely unacceptable. I expect the details to be presented to the public promptly. The first strike was on an ammunition storage site that definitely shouldn't have been there.

4:06The BBC's Dan Johnson has spent the day in Miele, where last night's strike took place. This is an enormous area of devastation, an entire neighbourhood that has been damaged by this explosion last night. The authorities say a Russian drone hit this warehouse in the neighbourhood. It's called Mila. There are homes and a hotel and some other buildings around there. We got into the exclusion zone today with a family who wanted to show us exactly what had happened to their house. There wasn't a lot left, to be honest. The outhouses had been completely destroyed, had burned down. The house itself had had all its windows smashed.

4:43All the woodwork was splintered, the place was covered with debris, and it's got cracks through the walls, so it's not clear if they'll ever be able to move back there. 400 people have been evacuated from that area, told that they won't be able to go back because of the damage to the buildings, but also because there is unexploded munitions right across the patch, and the emergency services have had to bring in this heavy demining equipment, these huge trucks with cranes on the back that are going through that entire area, trying to pick up all the unexploded cartridges and munitions that were thrown from this series of explosions.

5:19If you look at the videos from last night, it's clear that this sort of set off a chain reaction of explosions, a bit like a firework factory going up in flames. But this was really destructive to the entire surrounding area. 130 homes have been destroyed or damaged. we know that the death toll has kept rising through the day as the emergency services have gone through those destroyed buildings trying to assess exactly how much has been lost. And this is now the subject of an inquiry. I wonder whether any of the people you spoke to there today were aware of what was being kept in this building.

5:59No, they told us they had no idea whatsoever. We spoke to one man who was particularly angry who said that his understanding was this was a food warehouse, or at least that's what it used to be. He'd had no idea that this is what it was being used for or that its use changed. He questioned how that could be allowed, especially given what happened a month ago, not far from here. Just on the other edge of Kiev, there was a similar incident where a munitions depot was hit. That exploded, damaged the surrounding building. Seven people were killed then. We're looking at even greater loss of life today, and there's been even stronger condemnation from President Zelensky who said this shouldn't be allowed to happen, that there are rules in place to stop this, that there should never have been such a dangerous facility located so close to people's homes.

6:45The investigation that's opened is investigating allegations of criminal negligence and the President said that those responsible would be held to account. I suppose two big questions. One, how this happened and the authorities didn't know and two, how it was able to be targeted so accurately. Yeah, it looks clear that the Russians knew what was there or at least had a suspicion. They were able to accurately target that building with a Russian drone unless they just got lucky, but they seemed to have known what they were going for. They managed to hit their target and set off this chain of explosions which has done so much devastation.

7:25In terms of why that facility was still there, especially after the assurances a month ago that rules would be tightened. Whether that is negligence, that no one had just taken the action to either move the people or move the munitions, or whether there's some form of corrupt practice here that maybe officials didn't know where stuff was being stored or were told that stuff was being stored safely when clearly it wasn't. That's all for the investigation, but certainly there's a huge amount of anger in that community, and more widely, about the risk that ordinary Ukrainians have been put at here.

7:56Although when I put to Lyubov, the homeowner who took me to see her devastated ruin, I asked who she thought was responsible. She was very quick and clear in her response to say, this is on Russia. This is the Russian government that did this. And that was BBC's Dan Johnson. He was speaking to me from the village of Mila, where that airstrike took place on Friday night, as well as the 37 people known to have been killed. It's being reported 42 were also injured, including four children. We heard President Zelensky earlier there. He said appropriate conclusions will certainly be drawn. Well, what conclusions can one draw from this?

8:35I've been speaking to Orissia Lutsevich, who is head of the Ukraine Forum at Chatham House. That's a London-based international policy institute. She gave me her analysis of the significance of this strike. It's significant that this is quite a frequent occurrence now. We've seen another attack on munition depot on the outskirts of Kiev in Vashneva that killed a lot of people and destroyed a lot of civilian housing. It seems like Russia is going after these targets, knowing that Ukraine has decentralized its storage and production of munitions in order to make them more difficult targets. But it seems like they're having enough intelligence from people on the ground and satellite images to identify these locations and hit them.

9:21And all you need is a drone in order to create a massive detonation if it's a storage of explosives. Yeah, as you say, there was this previous attack on an arms depot. There was also that strike, wasn't there, on a defence industry event that killed 10 people in the middle of towards the end of July. It sounds as though there is a pattern then here. There is obvious effort by Russia to attack Ukrainian military infrastructure, production, training centres. This has happened before. So it's trying to identify location for these high prime targets. And in terms of how Ukraine is responding to these attacks, there have been investigations launched with all of them now, haven't there?

10:07What have they found out? some people were arrested and fired from their jobs so ukraine's law enforcement is working and president zelensky personally communicates about importance of these investigations what's interesting in this case it's the audit of all storage facilities that was commissioned by the ministry of defense to make sure that this practice does not repeat and if the if indeed there are some places that they are moved to a different location. So government is taking action. Prime minister was there, prosecutor was there, and they informed the public as much as possible under the martial law.

10:49Is this a step change then in what Russia has been able to gather from human intelligence on the ground? Well, it possibly is because they're trying to re-establish and replenish their network. Ukrainians are, you know, actively going after, of course, eliminating it. But it's quite an intensive July and August for Ukraine. If you look at for just one month in July, Russia launched over 200 missiles against the country. So obviously some of these would hit these high value targets. And this is what Russians are after. They want to make sure that they hit not just civilian infrastructure, but also destroy Ukraine's capability for these long range strikes against Moscow and other Russian cities.

11:36Well, with this, they have achieved both, haven't they? Because there are pretty significant civilian deaths. Yes, absolutely. And I think this is where, you know, Ukraine immediately has ordered an investigation. And obviously, people are concerned because they don't know how many of these decentralized storages are. And why are they so close to civilian settlements? This all compounds to stress and civilian deaths that has been the deadliest year so far for Ukraine since the war started in terms of civilian deaths. And there's been quite a lot of upheaval within the defence ministry in recent months, hasn't there?

12:19The whole defence operation. In terms of the kind of pressure that President Zelensky was under a few weeks ago, has the worst of it passed, do you think? No, I think Zelensky, you know, his reputation was dented by removing quite a popular Minister of Defense, Mihailo Fedorov. But there are no continued protests. We will see, you know, support or decline or increase of his numbers. But, I mean, right now, all efforts are to prepare for winter. And this is the main discussion inside the country, how to get enough interceptors, how to defend critical infrastructure and how to survive this winter.

13:03And there's not much discussion either about elections or about the future of former minister of defence Fedorov. I'm Rysia Lutsevich, head of the Ukraine Forum at Chatham House, referring at the end there to that call from the former Defence Minister for Fresh Elections, a call that's been widely knocked down in Ukraine. If you want to keep up to date with all developments in the war between Russia and Ukraine, we have plenty on our website, including news that there were other overnight strikes in Odessa, Dnipropetrovsk, Sumy and Zaporizhia in Ukraine. Now, that's according to President Zelensky.

13:38Russia, meanwhile, has said two people were killed, 25 injured in Ukrainian strikes in the Belgorod and Rostov regions. You are listening to the BBC World Service. And this is NewsHour, coming to you live from London with James Kamarasamy.

14:07Coming up later on in the programme, a week after US-Canadian trade talks broke down, we'll hear how Canadians view the decision of their Prime Minister Mark Carney to stand up to the Trump administration. What Carney is doing, I think any Canadian should do just basically that. I mean, you don't want to allow a bully to just walk all over you. I mean, that just shows ridiculous weakness that we don't need from any leader of a country. Headlines at this hour, Nepal's government is demanding stronger international action against climate change as recovery efforts continue from Wednesday's devastating flash floods.

14:42Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made rare criticism of extremist settlers in the occupied West Bank. More on that in just a moment. And Ukraine's president, as we've been hearing, has described the placing of an ammunition store near a residential area as terrible negligence after a Russian strike on the facility killed nearly 40 people.

15:07You're listening to the BBC World Service. This is NewsHour, coming to you live from London with James Kamarasamy. In recent weeks on the programme, we have reported on the rise in violence by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. Today, more incidents in two villages, including a brief occupation of a Palestinian home by a group of settlers, elicited a rare statement of condemnation by the Israeli Prime Minister. In it, Benjamin Netanyahu said, I strongly condemn the criminal acts of violence committed in the villages of Kusra and Jalud by a handful of rioters who are violating the law, causing a grave injustice to the law-abiding Jewish community, interfering with the IDF in carrying out its missions and harming Israel's standing in the world.

15:49Well, Loay Abu Uridi is a dual Palestinian-American citizen. He normally lives in Ohio, but he recently returned to his family home in the village of Kusra after watching it being attacked by Israeli settlers. He told me he's currently trapped in his home. Today is the 21st day that my house and my neighbours have been under siege. And today another house, it's only 400 yards away from us, was under attack by settlers. The owner of the house was working on fixing his house. Then another 50 to 60 settlers start throwing rocks at the owner of the house and the workers. He was hit by a rock and tear gas shot by IDF.

16:35It was a whole kiosk study. There was a house, I think, nearby where settlers did manage to enter. Correct. That was a nearby village called Jalud. They're two brothers. They got besieged by the settler for two weeks. They did not get no support and they were forced out of their houses. And the settlers took over their houses right away. and they've been in those houses since then. Today, some media were trying to film the houses from distance with the owners and they were attacked by the same settlers. Can we turn to your situation? Because we understand that those settlers have now been driven out of the house, but you say you are still under siege.

17:20What does that mean? What exactly does that look like for you? IDF declared a closed military zone on our area. me and my neighbours and my family under restriction we're not allowed to leave the properties no one allowed to come visit us provide us food from our family members the village anyone they have to call and make coordination with the idf which is it takes two three days in the other hand the settlers are still able to walk freely around our properties what impact is this having on your family at the moment? It's really a terrific impact. I mean, I left my family in Ohio. I left my work in Ohio.

18:02My brother, he had a business in the village. He's unable to go to his work. My sister is a school teacher. She's supposed to go to school the next four or five days. She would not be able to go to school. None of our family members able to see us. We are prisoners in our own houses. My mother, she's 83 years old. Her blood pressure medication, it's going down. We called the mayor of the village because he's the only one who can do coordination. We said we need medicine and we're still waiting. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put out a statement today. He said, I strongly condemn the criminal acts of violence committed in the villages of Khusra and Jalud.

18:44I think it's the first time he has said anything as direct as that. What's your response to that? Well, before he condemned it, other officials have been condemned. Our ambassador Mike Huckabee did, even IDF did, but nothing happening on the ground. So what I'm asking, we need enforcement, enforce the law on those settlers and remove them from our areas, arrest them and prosecute them. I know you mentioned the US ambassador. I think you sort of appealed directly to the US government for help, haven't you? Are you continuing to keep in touch? Are you getting any help from the US government? I'm still in contact with the US government, with the US embassy, with Congress offices in Ohio.

19:29They are working with the Israelis to solve my problem right here because I'm under siege. I kept saying, I still say, I feel for my own safety because settlers are still able to walk around. You saw today, they're 300 yards away from my house, 60, 70 settlers attack another residence. How am I supposed to feel safe? I still call upon the U.S. officials, international community to put an end to the settlers, to move them and end the siege. I have not seen anything done on the ground yet. It's been 21 days. That was Lue Aburridi speaking to me from his family home in Khusra in the occupied West Bank, where he says that he and his family are currently trapped.

20:16Queen Carvania stood haloed by the morning sun. An army hung on her every word. My champions, I have sold my chariot on Carvana. It was a lovely SUV, an inexplicably queenly offer. They're even coming to the castle to collect it. Tonight, we feast. An offer you can feast on. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pick up these mail. Bye. Is the hit Netflix show Emily in Paris just harmless escapist TV? Or is Emily ruining Paris? I'm Asma Khalid and I host the Global Story podcast from the BBC. The president of France has described the show as super positive for his country, soft power through cinema.

21:05But is TV tourism good for a city? For more, listen to the Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

21:18Welcome back to NewsHour. President Trump has described an agreement which gives the US control over 65 billion barrels of Venezuela's proven oil reserves as the biggest oil deal in history. The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said it would bring in nearly$100 billion of private investment and drive the reconstruction of Venezuela's economy. The interim Venezuelan leader, Delce Rodriguez, Gres said the agreement would develop new oil fields and boost tax revenue. So is this a genuine win-win? Ellen Fraser is a London-based oil analyst and partner at the consulting firm Beringa. My sense is that this is good news, but I think we should temper it for two reasons.

21:55A, we really haven't understood much of the detail yet. It's still early in the announcements and the devil is absolutely in the detail. I think the other thing is that oil markets are clearly quite stretched at the moment. And we've seen crude stocks being enormously depleted and the stocks of refined products being significantly impacted to both by flows that now can't get through the Strait of Hormuz and refinery capacity that's been impacted by the Strait and by issues between Russia and Ukraine. And the idea that this can suddenly just reduce oil prices generally and specifically oil and gas prices and diesel prices at the pumps in the US, I think is somewhat optimistic.

22:36optimistic. Because you don't flick a switch, do you? Indeed. And we've seen the Venezuelan infrastructure, all of the news that we've heard is that it's really not in great shape. And we're talking about quite a number of years of investment really to make sure that A, the product can be extracted, and then B, it can be refined properly to hit the markets where it's really needed. So yes, there's a sentiment response and market will respond positively in terms of availability of that stock. But really, to actually bring prices down longer term, it is going to take investment. And that obviously comes with patience and with time.

23:09So what particular details will you be looking at once they come out? I think there's quite a number of details in terms of how is the financial arrangement going to work between the US and Venezuela, but also actually who are the operators and how mature are they already in Venezuela? So if they're building from a platform where they're well established there, they've got supply chains going, etc., then you could see a much faster start. But if we're really almost rebuilding an industry from somebody who doesn't have a presence in Venezuela, then it's going to take an awful lot longer to get into that.

23:42So how those arrangements are going to happen with the private sector, who's going to get involved, what kind of presence do they already have in the region and how mature are those discussions behind closed doors? I think will all be signals of how quickly this will start to move. And what about the fact there is an interim president in place? There's an opposition, a Venezuelan opposition who are looking at this and saying this looks a bit like a kind of raw materials grab in a way. You know, there's no definitive sense of the Venezuelan state and what it's going to look like going forward. Is that a big issue?

24:16Yeah, I'm not a political commentator, so I need to be slightly careful. But when you look at the length of the deal, you know, it's almost a 50 year deal. And that's certainly going to endure beyond the existing administration in Venezuela. The only way that's really going to last is if it really genuinely is within the interests of the Venezuelan population. Otherwise, the next government that gets in there will look to unwind it. And that was the oil analyst Ellen Fraser.

24:48You're listening to the BBC World Service. This is NewsHour, coming to you live from London with James Kamarasamy. We're going to turn now to the latest on the rescue efforts following Wednesday's flash floods along the border between Nepal and Tibet, which have so far killed at least 675 people. In a region that remains on high alert for further flooding, emotions are also running high. Anger, sorrow and frustration, all of them are swirling in what is usually a tranquil Himalayan region, a place of pilgrimage. And many pilgrims are among the nearly 2 ,500 people who are still missing after part of a glacier collapsed, unleashing a cascade of mud and water and rock.