Russian hybrid attacks against Europe intensifying, says Macron

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

0:06Can politicians improve our economic fortunes? Dave Ramsey says no. I'm Tristan Redmond from The Global Story and I've been speaking to the massively popular US money guru who says if there's a financial crisis, it's on us. When you borrow on credit cards and take out a$1 ,200 car payment on a freaking Range Rover, you've destroyed your life, not the president. For the full interview, listen to The Global Story on bbc.com or wherever you listen.

0:40Hello and welcome to News Hour from the BBC World Service. We're coming to you live from London. I'm James Menendez. And coming up a little later, the billionaire businessman and philanthropist Warren Buffett has stepped down as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway after more than half a century in charge. The first books I read on investment were actually in my dad's office. Pretty soon I read all the books in the office and read some of them more than once. My dad had various nicknames for me. He'd call me fireball sometimes because I'd start little businesses. He didn't care about money at all. He believed very much in having an inner scorecard and never worry about what other people are thinking about you.

1:19You know, just if you know why you're doing what you're doing, that's good enough. We'll hear what made him one of the world's best known investors and look at what's next for the company. That's in about 35 minutes. But we are going to begin in France, where President Macron has become the latest European leader to sound the alarm about the threat of Russian hybrid attacks on the continent. Just yesterday, the Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk suggested that Russia was planning drone and missile strikes against Poland and other countries on Europe's eastern flank in order to test their commitment to supporting Ukraine.

1:53Mr Macron underscored that today, saying the threat to critical infrastructure had intensified in recent weeks. He was speaking after meeting other French political leaders to brief them on the situation.

2:07I want to emphasize that the nature of Russian aggression and its threats in Europe are changing. The drone attack on a passenger train from Kiev a few days ago, the attempted attack at Leipzig airport, which failed, but it's precisely because it failed that there were so few consequences attributed by the German services to the Russian military intelligence agency. The firing of a flare near a Danish frigate incursions into the airspace of several European countries and the increase in hostile acts in most of our countries. So is all this a coordinated effort by European leaders to call out the threat from Russia?

2:42I've been speaking to Gregoire Hulse. He's from the foreign affairs think tank Chatham House. He's director there for Europe and Russia. Thank you for having me. Yes, I think they're taking it very seriously, although this should obviously not be read as a warning that Russia is about to invade NATO. But so many countries over the past few months have suffered from hybrid attacks from Russia, and of course, France and Poland, and obviously Germany on top of them all. So yes, There's a kind of front, a united front that we are seeing and that is growing very strong. I think what Macron and Donald Tusk are describing here is rather a change in Russia's tolerance for risk.

3:22And this is, by the way, something that Mark Ruto, the Secretary General of NATO, has stressed time and again for the past few months. And NATO is seeing the same thing. Basically, more airspace violations, sabotage attempts. They have been sabotaged, although no evidence that this came from Russia, but in France and the Netherlands, especially of railways earlier this week, arson, cyber operations and even actually assassination plots. So the list is almost endless. And why? Why is it intensifying now, do you think? I think it's a way of showing that they're testing, they're actually testing Europe's limits.

4:02And they realize that if they can move from some kind of hybrid attack to some sort of sabotage, and then from sabotage to interference in elections, and they realize that the reaction from Europe is relatively tepid, well, they realize that the threshold is going up. The great talent of the Kremlin is to do all of that while remaining very carefully under the threshold of military confrontation. And depending on the reaction of Europe, well, the Kremlin might assess that that threshold is actually going up so he can do more. And that is what has happened over the past few months. And that's why this front between France, Poland, and most certainly Germany in the days or weeks to come will matter.

4:49So how should Europe's European countries respond? I mean, what is their level of tolerance? I mean, is there a point at which the number of these sorts of attacks or perhaps a particularly serious cyber attack, for example, happens and a more aggressive response is required? I mean, is that likely? Well, I mean, yes, it is likely. The question is response to what? So for now, what we have seen is, as I've just stressed, a kind of a myriad of attacks and hybrid attacks that have remained under the threshold until it's no longer against the threshold. So you have a wide variety of tools at the disposal of Europeans, namely tightening sanctions for a start.

5:35That would be a first thing. obviously moving forward with Emmanuel Macron's nuclear umbrella for Europe. It obviously not is as such a nuclear umbrella for Europe, but it is what Macron calls forward deterrence, which the Russians have really not welcome at all. They said it's really a sign of escalation or spirit of escalation from the Europeans. And that's the sort of way that the Kremlin communicates. Like you want really to work on Circle Four deterrence will show you that you're still very vulnerable. So it's also part of the Kremlin's psychological warfare. And let's not forget that there have been some elections, important ones going on in Germany.

6:22Obviously, again, one again this Sunday. There were elections in Sweden. You'll have the presidential election in France next year. So that's very much part of a kind of signaling to the European population that, you know, Russia is not stronger than what Europeans like to say. Yeah, it's really part of the rhetoric. Just a very quick word. You mentioned the elections next year in France. The fact that President Macron talked about all this after meeting other political leaders. I mean, is that an effort to try and hold the line in France? Yeah, absolutely. But I think it's important to say that except Marine Le Pen in particular, there is a really strong consensus that Ukraine is at the forefront of European security, of European defense, and in a way of the European territorial integrity.

7:11There is little doubt in a country like France. And even within the national rally, someone, for instance, like Jordan Bardella, so the much the younger president of the of the party, has shown much more, shall I say, caution when it comes to positioning himself vis-a-vis Russia and has tended to lean towards Meloni's own position regarding Ukraine, that Italy is a supporter of Ukraine. And in this war, there is only one aggressor and one victim. Yeah, that was Gregoire Hoss of the Foreign Affairs think tank Chatham House. Well, in Russia itself, people are voting in a highly choreographed parliamentary election that continues until Sunday.

7:56The result is not in any doubt. President Putin's United Russia Party will win a big majority of seats as usual, and any remaining seats will be taken by parties that either support the Kremlin and its invasion of Ukraine or refrain from openly challenging it. The only anti-war party was struck off the ballot last month. Our Russia editor Steve Rosenberg sent us this from a polling station in Moscow. This is the first of three days of voting in Russia's parliamentary election. The first here since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. No surprises are expected. The political system in Russia is tightly controlled by the Kremlin.

8:36And so the party of power, United Russia, the party backed by Vladimir Putin, is expected to be the largest in parliament as it is now. And experience shows that the other parties that get into the Duma end up supporting the Kremlin. What we might see this time are a few more MPs from the military, because among the candidates there are some veterans from the so-called special military operation, Russia's war on Ukraine. I think what we will see is the Kremlin trying to use this election to show that, or to claim that, the whole country is behind the president and behind the war. Originally, one anti-war party had been registered to take part in the election.

9:17It's called Yabloka. But this party was removed from the ballot, from the party list by the Supreme Court, although some Yabloka candidates are still taking part in individual constituency races. Steve Rosenberg. Well, with such untrammeled power, why does President Putin feel the need to hold an election at all, if that's what it is? And when Russians aren't able to express their views openly, what purpose does that serve? I've been talking to Arkady Ostrovsky, who's Russia editor at The Economist. So what does the Kremlin get out of staging this whole exercise? Well, it's an important exercise for any dictatorship because it needs to demonstrate the loyalty of the population and it needs to test the system, the ability to impose its will.

10:06So in a way, it's a test of how authoritarian regime works. It sends and transmits signals through the system. So it needs to demonstrate its ability to control the situation on the one hand, and on the other, it needs to demonstrate to the elites the loyalty of the population. The only thing I wouldn't call it is election. It's not an election in any sense of the word, because there is really no choice. But I do think, and this has been going on for quite a long time, but I do think this time there is a difference. Which is? Which is? Even fewer people in Russia believe in it? Yes, there are two important differences this time.

10:54One is that this is election which is conducted in the fifth year of the war, where the consent of the population is starting to crumble. Everybody thinks about only one question is when will this end? And that's obviously the question not under discussion, because as Steve said, you know, this election or this kind of sham, this farce is there to impose and pretend that the whole country supports him. But actually, the support for the war is crumbling. And the second thing is that the elites, business elites and the regional elites, which understand that Putin's war has driven the country into catastrophe, are becoming more alienated and hostile, at least in private.

11:37And as a result of all that, is the first election where the main political actor in the country is not the managers, the technocrats, it's the security services. It's basically the security services are running this election, vetoing candidates, removing them and using their blunt instruments like arrests and barring candidates. It's not just the yabloka, as Steve said, has been barred from the election. It's also, you know, several of its leaders are in jail, one of which is for 11 years. Does that mean then that the Kremlin now, despite that display of force, is actually weaker? Well, it is and it isn't because it still has enormous repressive machine at its disposal, which it's using.

12:25And the Russians see this not as an election. I mean, what Russians see it as a date in the calendar after which they fear something worse is to come, like mobilisation. but yes it's it's a new environment in which it's taking place it's it's basically the population which previously kind of went along with it because it saw this is a kind of part of the stability and the status quo is now feeling incredibly frustrated with nowhere to show it and where this you know how this frustration manifests itself in the years you know months down line, we just don't know. And that was Arkady Ostrovsky, who is Russia editor at The Economist, talking about the election, or as Arkady was saying, well, it's an exercise taking place in Russia from today all the way through till Sunday.

13:17You're listening to NewsHour from the BBC World Service.

13:37Still to come on the programme, we'll be speaking to a photographer behind a new exhibition at New York's Guggenheim Museum, which is linked to the life of an unnamed retired FBI agent and the investigations in which he took part. It's really about those ripple effects. You set something into action or you participate in something accidentally or very willfully and suddenly it has these effects that you can't account for. More on that coming up in half an hour. Our main headlines from the newsroom at the moment as we've been hearing President Macron's order measures to protect French critical infrastructure and defence sites from Russian hybrid attacks.

14:18And the governor of California is creating a panel to devise safety measures for AI, including a possible kill switch, saying the Trump administration was asleep at the wheel.

14:38you're listening to news hour live from the bbc i'm james menendez to south africa now and the city of johannesburg where women say they're living in fear after another body of a woman was found this week the ninth in just two months the police aren't confirming whether the murders are the work of a serial killer, despite similarities between some of the deaths. President Ramaphosa says he's assembled a special team to take on the investigation. But there's been widespread criticism about the slow pace of the investigation, especially given the context. South Africa has one of the highest rates of gender-based violence in the world, and prosecutions are rare.

15:14Cindy Siwe Chikunga is South Africa's Minister for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities. She's been Talking to my colleague, Tim Franks, how does she respond to the criticism that the authorities aren't doing enough to protect women? We have a problem of gender-based violence and femicide in South Africa that we know Human Research Council study confirmed that. And it provided us with the baseline in terms of statistics that are more reliable than others because they were conducted by a credible research institution. So we do have a problem. And of course, out of that, and as you indicated, Advocate Madumisa was part of the team that put together the National Strategic Plan on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide with six pillars and the implementation plan, which indeed we are implementing as government.

16:11And we have reviewed it to the extent of looking at whether we've been able to implement it. And the criticism has been that in the main, we are responding, then preventing. And that is why going forward, our approach in the main is that of preventing. I'm sorry to interrupt, Minister, but just in terms of you saying that you are implementing this programme, just last month you said, and I think it was in a meeting with members of parliament, The mandate for this National Strategic Plan on Gender-Based Violence, the mandate remains largely unfunded. It doesn't sound as if you are implementing it.

16:55Indeed, we are implementing it because some of the funding for gender-based violence and femicide is with different departments. Sometimes the department that is supposed to coordinate is not a resource as it is supposed to be. But there's a lot of work. If you look at what we have done in terms of strengthening legislations in South Africa, we've done that. There might be gaps somewhere, but we have done it. In the past, it was possible for the police officer to grant a pay to any person, depending on the list that is given to police by the magistrate. That has been taken away from the police.

17:38Any gender-based violence and femicide, there is no police, no prosecutor who can grant a bill either than a magistrate in a court of law with a full presentation, etc. That has now changed. Okay, but I mean, and conviction rates are undoubtedly appallingly low in South Africa. They are very low in lots of countries. They're particularly low in South Africa. But just in terms of actually putting the government's muscle behind these strategies, I mean, just to be clear, the Treasury has allocated, from what I understand, 45 million rand. That's less than three million US dollars to this National Council on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide.

18:21I mean, that's pathetic, isn't it? In fact, the 45 million rand is for the National Council to start doing its work. and one of its responsibilities in terms of the founding legislation is then to cost the National Strategic Plan on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide and to cost its institution and then on the basis of that submit to the National Treasurer and then the National Treasurer will have to see as to how it funds that. So it has got that responsibility. The 45 million rand you're talking about is the money that is given to National Council to say start convene meetings, appoint, etc.

19:03But after that, you gain responsibility. It's slow and it's bureaucratic, isn't it? I mean, you know, it was 2019 that Cyril Ramaphosa, the president, called gender-based violence a national crisis. He upgraded that to national disaster last year. And meanwhile, you know, and I hesitate to tell you as a South African woman, but South African women are saying, you know, look at the evidence that a third of us experience gender-based violence, that shelters are underfunded, you know, we're advised by the police, be careful when you go out. I mean, it's a rolling disaster and it's a rolling source of shame, isn't it, for this government?

19:43The issue of gender-based violence is not a South African problem, it's a global problem. But it's six times worse in South Africa than the global average. As a matter of fact, it may be, but it is a global problem And that is why you have international conventions that are signed by many countries. That's one. But two, maybe South Africa, we have systems that are working for keeping our records and data. And that is why we have statistics that we can actually provide to everybody. That probably can work for or against us because we have systems for keeping our data. And when we talk about, for instance, DNA data, we have systems to actually record that.

20:24and our data is therefore more reliable than any other country. But let me say this. It's not like we're not dealing with gender-based violence and femicide in South Africa. We are. But we are dealing with a country that has a history of patriarchy, of dominance, of families that were dismantled by the past, of child-headed families that we now have have because sometimes of other illnesses and therefore dying. So we do have quite a number of issues. And if you look at the driving factors, the issue of drugs is one other driving factor, the issue of alcohol is one other driving factor, which is not from South Africa.

21:07Cindy Siwe, Chikunga, South Africa's Minister for Women. Can politicians improve our economic fortunes? Dave Ramsey says no. I'm Tristan Redmond from the global story and i've been speaking to the massively popular u.s money guru who says if there's a financial crisis it's on us when you borrow on credit cards and take out a 1200 car payment on a freaking range rover you've destroyed your life not the president for the full interview listen to the global story on bbc.com or wherever you listen

21:45you're listening to news hour on tuesday a group of young men were arrested for suspected illegal mining in north-central Nigeria. Two days later, the 37 teenagers were found dead inside a detention centre in Niger State. The authorities who run the facility, the NSCDC, are blaming their deaths on an outbreak of disease. But an intelligence report suggests the group died from suffocation due to overcrowding and poor ventilation. An investigation is underway. The deaths have sparked unrest in Niger State, including attacks on public buildings and a 24-hour curfew has been put in place in the state capital Mina as a result.

22:22Mohamed Umarabagou is the state's governor. We are calling on everybody to remain calm, to allow law and order to take control. We are calling on all the youth to please stay away from violence. It's not going to bring back those that have died. It will rather cost us a lot at the end of the day. Our reporter Medina Maishanu is in Mina. The town is calm for now, but I can say that that is not the situation that we met on ground when we arrived. We are still waiting for the information that we'll get pending the investigation that the government is doing on the bodies of these minors that died.

23:01They transferred their bodies, the cops, to the national hospital to conduct investigations. Even though some of the parents of these victims that died, that I spoke to, they told me that they have started releasing the corpse to them. A few have received the dead bodies and some have even been buried. So what on the cause of the deaths? I've been getting the latest from Mako Ochi Okafua, who's the BBC's West Africa reporter in Lagos. I have spoken to some of the people actually who survived and they did say that there were a case of overcrowdedness. You know, it was the rooms where they were kept, detention cells where they were kept, it was quite overcrowded.

23:44Some even talked about watching people near them die and calling out for help. Now, the state authorities haven't confirmed this. They have only said regionally they had thought it was a disease outbreak, but now they are saying they can't say specifically what might have caused the death, regardless of what the relatives of those who died and some of the survivors are saying. And they say until proper post-mortem investigations take place, then they can say exactly what could be the cause of the deaths. Yeah. What can you tell us about this group, the NSCDC, which was running this detention facility?

24:24I mean, who are they? OK, so the Nigeria Security Civil Defence Corps, or NSCDC, it's a government security agency responsible for protecting critical infrastructure and enforcing laws. Now, it kind of assists security duties, especially on the police areas or where police is outstretched. Now, this unit also has a special task force called the Mining Marshals. It was launched in 2024 and it was created to tackle illegal mining, which is quite a huge problem in Nigeria. and over the years the mining marshals which is a unit within nscc have actually carried out operations and arrests around illegal mining sites in nigeria that was maku archi okafor the bbc's west africa reporter there this is the bbc in london you're listening to news hour and i'm james menendez now it's been another deeply uncomfortable day for buckingham palace following a number of startling claims contained in a new book by Princess Diana's brother Earl Spencer.

25:29In extracts published on Thursday, the Earl claims that King Charles, then the Prince of Wales, sounded giddily elated when he called him following Diana's death in a car crash in Paris in 1997, adding he also sounded like a lottery winner. The palace put out an extremely rare statement in response, saying that fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgment, and colour memory in ways others do not recognise, even many years after such a loss. Well, Earl Spencer, Charles Spencer, has given an exclusive interview to the BBC's Laura Koonsberg and he begins by talking about a second phone call with King Charles in which they argued about whether Diana's sons, Princess William and Harry, should walk in the funeral procession.

26:11Earl Spencer says he insisted Diana would not have wanted them to do so. He went ballistic, would be the right term, and started really going for my family as a whole about their sense of duty not being adequate enough and ranted for a while. I have no idea how long, but it was a significant period. And I just listened. And then he stopped and I thought, oh, now he's going to pull himself together and say something more appropriate. And then he said, we'll forget her soon enough.