Russia reels from Ukrainian drone strikes

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. When you hear the phrase made in China, what do you think? I'm Tristan Redman. And I'm Asma Khalid. And together we host the Global Story podcast from the BBC. And today on our show, we look at the origins and evolution of made in China, because it actually wasn't inevitable. What we're talking about is the world's largest communist nation is at the beating heart of the capitalist system. For more, listen to The Global Story on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

0:41Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the World Service of the BBC. Coming live from London, this is Owen Bennett-Jones. You may have heard in recent weeks that Ukraine has been increasingly successful in its use of drones to attack Russian energy infrastructure. Just last night, there was an attack on a facility in St. Petersburg. But Kiev is also moving on another front. Russia's first annexation of Ukrainian land came in 2014 when it took over Crimea. And since then, no one's really talked seriously about the Russian grip on Crimea being loosened. But Ukrainian drones have been making a mark there in recent weeks, hitting air defence, bridges and, again, energy-related targets.

1:24and that has increasingly disrupted daily life in Crimea, as James Beardsworth reports. On the single bridge that connects Crimea to the Russian mainland, traffic stretches for kilometres as cars try to leave the peninsula. This is an absolute record, says the motorist filming the queue. Over the past two months, Ukraine has made the illegally occupied peninsula a new theatre of the war, making life there increasingly intolerable.

2:03Drone and missile strikes on energy infrastructure and supply routes to the region have choked Crimea, leaving shortages of fuel, water and even groceries. 24-year-old Alexei, not his real name, is an IT worker from the western Crimean city of Yevpatoria. Rockets are flying like every week and the logistics have been damaged to the point where we have no petroleum right here. The most serious of these shortages is fuel. In efforts to combat the situation, the regional authorities have declared a state of emergency and stopped the sale of fuel at the pump, Nastia. Again, not her real name. It's a resident of Sevastopol, the largest city in Crimea.

2:49I've almost completely stopped using my car. I only drive when it's really necessary. We recently introduced a QR code system. You are supposed to get a QR code through the messaging app and then use it to buy fuel. Getting one of these QR codes has turned into something like the Hunger Games. I still never got one. In a rare recognition of the crisis, President Vladimir Putin addressed the shortages last Sunday, calling them not critical, but pledging to boost fuel supplies.

3:28The attacks have left many Crimeans, who have been largely sheltered from Russia's 2022 invasion, increasingly frustrated. Irina, again, not her real name, is an archaeologist and also a Sevastopol resident. I think on the both sides, people are mostly angry. Whilst many blame Ukraine for their current situation, Irina says that in Crimea, it is a far more complicated picture. Most of us, we lived in Crimea our whole lives, therefore we lived in Ukraine. It just isn't that sort of to blame the nations. Instead, many are beginning to point the finger at Moscow and what they say is its failure to protect Crimeans.

4:12Nastya told me more. It's hard not to blame the authorities. It feels like they should have prepared better. People here have always been optimistic, but now it feels like they are being worn down over and over again. Though many I spoke to pledged to stick it out, hoping that the situation will improve. Some, like Alexei and his wife, believe a life in Crimea is no longer possible. We've already bought the tickets, so we're leaving in the first days of July. Where are you going? To Moscow. I can tolerate drones and rockets, but I can tolerate electricity problems. If there is no electricity, there is no work for me.

4:58I mean, you were born in Crimea, you've lived in Crimea all your life. How does it feel to leave your home? I feel angry, even furious. I want to live here. We have a flat, we have life, friends, and now we must leave because there is no more normal life in this town. James Beardsworth reporting. So Alexei is off to Moscow, but what will he find there? He is certain to experience fuel shortages. And we can find out more now about the state of Russia's oil and gas industry from Sergei Vakilenko. He's with the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Germany. And until 2022, he was head of strategy and innovations at Gazprom Neft.

5:42He did that for 11 years, so he knows Gazprom very well. And I asked him, how is the Russian energy sector coping with these increased Ukrainian attacks? It's a numbers game. Ukraine managed to substantially increase number of drones in its disposal. In the past, you would see one or two drones hitting a refinery once in a few months, and then the repairs would take something like three weeks. It would be back in operations. But now this balance of damaging your refinery, getting it fixed, shifted heavily towards Ukraine. Yeah, but there's something interesting I saw in the numbers just reading in preparation for talking to you, that the Russians seem to be able to bounce back quite quickly in terms of exports anyway.

6:30You know, they get these big attacks and then it all goes down. But, you know, a few weeks later, they're back up again. There are two different things. What's been back up again is crude oil experts. Yes, there were extremely heavy attacks on Russian oil terminals, Ustluga, Primorsk, Novorossiysk. And say for 10 days, Ukraine managed to stop shipping from Ustluga altogether. But once the attacks stopped, Ustluga was back in operations and crude oil exports were back. And one of the reasons why crude oil exports are back is that because refineries are being attacked now. So refineries can't take in the oil.

7:13It has to go somewhere. It's being exported. And just a last thought. When you see Ukraine obviously innovating significantly to work out new tactics to take on Russia and Russia adapting to those attacks and finding ways of thwarting the Ukrainians, who is in the lead in terms of adaptability? Ukraine, it's a sort of a startup mentality. So many teams run in competition with each other. In Russia, it's more centralized. So Russia might be slower to stumble upon a working formula, but very quick in deploying it. Ukraine is somewhat the other way around. But there were times when Russia was ahead.

8:03It was last winter. This time looks like Ukraine is ahead. And it's an incredible race. One of the things that's happened in the course of all this is that Russia, as you say, is now exporting its crude oil. It seems to be refining it elsewhere, example, India, and then bringing back the refined oil to Russia. That sounds expensive and militarily vulnerable. Yes, that's one of the measures that Russia is planning to use to supply the domestic market with petrol. And one of the largest Indian refineries, in fact, one of the largest in the world refineries, Niyara, is owned and controlled by Rosneft.

8:42It takes about six weeks to get oil to that refinery, six weeks to get petrol back to Russian ports. So it's not easy either. And that was Sergei Vakilenko there. If you've got a Pentagon, we'll have an Octagon. That seems to be the message from Egypt, where President Sisi today delivered a speech at the new Octagon building. It's massive. It's the new headquarters of Egypt's Armed Forces Strategic Command. It's located in this new administrative capital that's being built around 75 miles east of Cairo, bigger than a Pentagon. And from what General Sisi said, the Egyptian government wants it to protect against threats from abroad and from at home.

9:25the kind that occurred during the Arab Spring. Here's part of what he said.

9:32Why is the octagon here? Because there was a day when the constitutional court was surrounded. People blockaded the government buildings. On another day, they threatened the Ministry of Defence. To manage the crisis, the state had to vacate the capital. These acts will not happen again. I'm speaking honestly. The state had to leave the capital. The evil ones and the terrorists will try again. Well, Dr. Nooran El-Sheikh is an academic at Cairo University, studies international relations there. I put it to her that when you hear the president talking like that, it sounds like he's afraid of his own people.

10:11The national security now has a broader meaning, and part of it is cyber security, technological security. The octagon is a breakthrough, a landmark in that direction because it's based on AI, cyber advanced technology. So it actually gave Egypt a lot in what we can call technological sovereignty. We can also improve our governance. Of course, managing crises, it enables us to withstand explosions, countering potential threats, all kinds of threats. And it is providing Egypt a greater ability to confront and manage crises. It is the command of the state because the whole data of Egypt, it is in the center of the gun.

11:04Plus, it is connected to the satellites. So it gives us the ability to real-time flow of information and data. And this is very important. So it is more than that. OK, OK. But just on the threats you talk about, I mean, he's talking about an internal threat. I mean, it's not talking about attack from abroad. He seems to be saying we need a building outside of the capital so that our own people don't besiege us. What Egypt passed through the last decade indicates that there is a connection between threats, regional and international threats, and both interior threats. In a global like that, you cannot have perils from outside, regional and international, what happened in Libya, in Sudan, in Syria, in Gaza, of course, affecting Egypt.

11:55We cannot consider all that as only a foreign or a threat coming from abroad because it is highly connected. We have illegal migration from here and there. We have some illegal business in arms, whatever, terrorists are trying to across Egypt. So there is a connection between what you consider as a threat from inside and what is considered as a threat from outside. And all need to be countered. Let me just ask you this. President Erdogan in Turkey dealt with an overbearing, all-powerful military in Turkey. He got the better of them. And as a result, Turkey is thriving economically. Egypt's still with the army.

12:37The economy is a disaster. The army never knows how to run an economy. And for as long as the generals are in charge, you're not going to thrive. There are very different ways and different approaches to development, etc. Maybe Turkey has its own path toward the economic and the development. It is not necessary to be fed to Egypt, as well as any other approaches. I think what happened is you can call it a jump toward the future. You are jumping over your problems so we can catch on that advanced technology. Otherwise, we will keep stuck in our problems in poverty, etc, etc. And we will not be able to modernise and digitalise our army and our economic capabilities.

13:26And that was Dr. Nooran Alsheikh from Cairo University.

13:38Coming up later in the programme, we will be hearing from a married couple, both marathon runners, about whether recent research showing that men hit the wall, as the phrase has it, more often than women tallies with them. I know from our own personal experiences, Rob will say, oh, I'm going to do this, and it'll be a really quite ambitious, I think, goal, whereas I would never say that. I might try and, you know, part of me might want to train for it, but I think he thinks that he can sometimes, not always, but sometimes he thinks he can do more than he's maybe capable of, and I think then you tend to hit the wall a lot quicker.

14:15It's a tortoise and hare thing. We'll hear more about it later. Just now some headlines. Firefighters are battling wildfires in countries across southern Europe. Thousands of people have been evacuated and spectators have been banned from one stage of the Tour de France.

14:38You're listening to NewsHour. Today it's Norway versus Brazil and Mexico, England. And to preview that, I was joined earlier by Hiram Silva, a Mexican fan in Mexico, and Darren Coyles, an England fan who lives in Mexico City, because actually he's the British Council director there. And I spoke to Hiram first. What's he expecting? Oh, well, it's going to be the most important match for the Mexico men's team, definitely, in the last 20, 30 years. I think it will be full of emotion. It will be a very exciting match. and hopefully we can get a positive result by the end of the evening. OK, and Darren, you're in Mexico City, a Brit, and I think you've got tickets?

15:23Managed to get tickets, yeah, somehow. So we're very excited to be going down to the stadium in a few hours, soak up the atmosphere and get in there. It's going to be a tough game for England. The atmosphere and the momentum behind the Mexico team, not mentioning the altitude, is, you know, this is going to be a challenging one for England. so it's not going to be an easy match by any stretch of the imagination. Well let's mention the altitude because that obviously is an interesting point about this match being played at quite a height 2 ,200 meters so well Darren let me ask you because you must have had English visitors because you live in Mexico City coming through what's it like on yeah I think the Brits have been there what two or three days what's it like on those first few days when you when you breathe that high air?

16:07Oh it's hard it's hard so I come back and forth from the UK all the time. And when I come back and I play football here in Mexico City, we played in a fans tournament last weekend. It's tough going. It's tough going. I'm not an elite athlete in any stretch of the imagination. But even last night, we went to the wrestling. Wrestling's a big part of Mexican culture. And we went there with about 100 England fans and got some singing going. And getting up the stairs to go into the main arena, there were a lot of fans with their hands on their knees, gasping for breath. I'm not going to lie. Really?

16:39Well, mind you, they probably drank a lot of beer. Hiram, how big a deal is the altitude, do you think, from a Mexican standpoint? Well, I think it definitely plays to our advantages. I heard the England manager yesterday in the press conference that they felt it from the first moment they started training. So it's there. It's real. The players can feel it. The manager felt it too. I think it is important for Mexico to go very intense into the 15 first minutes of the match, maybe to get a quick goal. And that way we would be on the edge in terms of advantages. Past that, past the 20 or 30 minutes mark, I think that the players will ultimately get acclimated to it and get used to it.

17:27So it's very important for us to get that advantage at the first minutes of the match. Darren, when you go as an English fan, you say you had some other English fans with you the other night, but I guess you'll be in a small minority, right? Because normally England's used to having quite a lot of English support. That's right, yeah. So the games up in the USA have been dominated by England fans, and so this, again, is going to be something very different for the England team during this World Cup. There are 3 ,000, officially 3 ,000 tickets, you know, released to England fans, but I imagine there'll be a few more in the ground.

18:00But nonetheless, we are going to be completely outnumbered by the Mexicans. And if the last Mexico game against Ecuador is anything to go by, Mexico are going to come fast out of the traps. The crowd is going to be right behind them. There'll be rousing renditions of the national anthem and Cielito Lindo. It's going to be an absolute cauldron for the England players. But look, you know, these are elite athletes. They've played in these environments before, you know, certainly at club level, most of them. And yeah, they should rise to the occasion, even if they've not had much sleep. okay your score prediction please i'm gonna go for 2-1 england it's gonna be really tight here i'm well uh likewise but on mexico's favor 2-1 mexico seems to me there's a little little bit of special pleading it's hope more than prediction anyway look i hope you enjoy the game uh darren you're going here i'm you're watching it on telly and uh i hope you enjoy it and uh we'll see what happens see which one of you is right tomorrow morning.

18:56Good luck, my friend. All right, good talking to you. Good luck, my friends. You too. You too. Enjoy the stadium. Friendly, but they can't both be right. That was Hiram Silver there and Darren Coyles.

19:11The Israeli cabinet has voted to ignore a Supreme Court decision regarding the country's broadcast regulator. Now, it's all quite technical, but some in Israel are crying foul because it is the first time the government has defied the Supreme Court in this way. President Herzog, no less, has said this is a red line. And the Israeli opposition leader, Yair Lapid, has said the government has turned criminal. I'm joined now by former Middle East editor for Associated Press, Dan Perry in Tel Aviv. Can you just help us through this? What was the Supreme Court ruling actually about, precisely? Hello, Owen.

19:46The Supreme Court ruled that a key broadcast regulatory body could continue operating despite lacking its normal quorum because the judges believed a series of recent resignations were orchestrated by the government precisely in order to prevent it from functioning, which is rather believable because the regulator needs to approve the sale of Israel's Channel 13 TV station to a group of liberal business people. And Netanyahu is very widely believed to be scheming to prevent that. And this was alleged in the petition the court ruled on. And look, Netanyahu has certainly been maneuvering to move the media to the right for some time, same as other elected authoritarians have done.

20:27And what is unprecedented is that for the first time in Israel's history, the cabinet has actually declared that it won't recognize a binding Supreme Court ruling, never mind how technical the issue is. That's a principle. That's a crossing of a Rubicon. And obviously, it's seen by many people, not just some, as utterly scandalous. And, you know, it's pretty close to unprecedented in any established democracy, as far as I know. Well, I think there might have been some similar cases in Poland under law and justice. Okay, so it is this defiance of the Supreme Court. And, you know, are you expecting the, under this public complaint about this, and even presidential complaint about this, that the cabinet will back down?

21:08No, no, that is not how they roll. Backing down is not a function that they have. And also, it really is declarative because this can proceed as the court wants without active government procedure. So essentially, they can try to get in the way a little bit. But my guess is that this will float away with the precedent having been established that the Supreme Court is not the last word. I have to say all of this is so much bigger than anything we're talking about. It has to be understood in the context of this ongoing confrontation between Netanyahu and Israel's legal system and civil service. Ever since he returned to power in late 22, he's been machinating like mad against the judiciary, which, of course, has him on trial for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust.

22:00He and his coalition argue that there's too much power in the hands of unelected judges, civil service gatekeepers, prosecutors, and so on. The goal is to turn Israel into a country where the government has no real checks on its power. And it was very unpopular. It triggered the largest protest movement in Israel's history. And so great were the divisions in Israel that many people believe that it played a role in tempting Hamas to spell weakness and invade on October 7th, carrying out a massacre of over a thousand people. Just in a very few seconds, are you confident Israeli democracy will prevail?

22:38I am not confident at all if Netanyahu gets elected again in October. And this is what I really want to say. There's a massive issue with the upcoming election, which is going to be held by October. And there are widespread fears in Israel that Netanyahu, who's trailing badly in the polls, could try to manipulate the process. And then the court is the only institution that could possibly expect any effort at cheating. And that's it. Thank you very much. Dan Perry there in Tel Aviv.

23:10How has America shaped the world? I'm Asma Khalid, host of the Global Story podcast from the BBC. As the United States marks its 250-year anniversary, we've been exploring the surprising and often hidden ways the U.S. has shaped the modern world. And today on the show, we answer your questions about this moment and what to expect in the years to come. From the BBC, it's the United States at 2.50. Listen to the global story on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

23:44Large crowds of mourners have gathered in Tehran for the second official day of funeral ceremonies for the country's former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of the US-Israeli war on Iran back in February, along with four of his family members. His surviving son, Mostaba, who took over as supreme leader, has not been seen at any of the events. The BBC's chief international correspondent, Lise Doucette, is in Tehran for this, joins us live now. What did you see today? Well, there's quite a spectacle and a very choreographed spectacle at the vast open-air Grand Masala Mosque compound.

24:27And it's actually a mosque compound that has, of course, been operations put in place for this massive surge of people. Many, many thousands have filed in and out and spent time inside this complex over the past two days when the body of the late Ayatollah was lying in state. You have the constant stream of water splashing over, being sprayed over the crowds, cool down temperatures in the summer's baking heat. But you also see the unfinished minarets, the cranes hanging over the complex, almost symbolizing how one political era is ending and another one is still being built. But what really struck me today, Owen, was in the midst of what is really always in Iran, this mingling, intermingling of religious chanting and quiet prayer, the loud sobbing mixed in with the old signature slogans of Iran's revolution, death to America, death to Israel.

25:30There was a new refrain rising from the mourners. And these mourners, of course, are among the most loyal defenders of this regime. And that is for revenge, waving red flags, symbolizing vengeance. And with every day, there's more and more posters appearing, some with President Trump's face on it, saying death is near. This is something that's being expressed not just by these crowds, but anger over this assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei in the first hours of the war on February the 28th is also fueling fits within the ruling ranks with hardliners saying, why are you negotiating with President Trump's team when they ordered the assassination of our leader?

26:18Well, that's so interesting. I mean, is it your impression that there are real splits inside the system? You know, I mean, we all know about the opposition, which is, you know, big and active on the streets. And we all know about that. But what about inside the system? Everyone is just beginning to understand this new leadership, which survived the weeks of war and the waves of assassination, what kind of leaders they are. And in general, they've been said to be standing as one, pragmatic when it came to waging the war, moving towards negotiations, trying to find solutions to a war which could ease the financial sanctions in the country.