Russian train attack has led to calls for Nato to step in and intercept drones

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1:09Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service. Coming to you live from London, I'm Rajini Vaidyanathan. In the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, we've seen new fronts open up. Moscow's been attacking infrastructure well away from the front lines. On the weekend, another such strike.

1:33The sound of screams there as a train struck by a Russian drone near Ukraine's border with Poland. It was on its way from Warsaw to Kiev. A video of the aftermath shows a huge grey plume of smoke in the distance. Two blue and yellow passenger trains are parked at the platform as dozens of people run towards the camera in panic. No one on the train which was hit was injured. But prominent political figures, including former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and former CIA chief David Petraeus, were travelling on trains nearby on that route. Well, Ukraine's state railway company believes the target of this drone could have been a diplomatic train.

2:14The EU's foreign policy chief, Kaya Callas, had this to say. It is clearly meant to scare Western countries from supporting Ukraine, from going to Ukraine to show support. That was meant, it was clearly a message to the Western world. I think the question for us is what do we take from that message? I think we should act the opposite. We should know that we are there for Ukraine and we are not scared of, because otherwise, you know, Russia will just achieve what they want, which is the submission of Ukraine. And like I've said several times, this is not their end goal. Their end goal is much more.

2:52So we have to stand firm on this. Kaya Callas there. Well, the BBC's James Landale joins us live from Kyiv. Good to have your news hour, James. First of all, tell us more about the train and the route it was taking. Well, we'd had a big conference here in Kyiv at the weekend and a lot of very senior officials, former prime ministers and current ministers, had been here for discussions about how to support Ukraine in the months and years ahead. The conference had laid on a special train to get everybody home, and they were basically just about to leave Ukraine and get into Poland. When early in the morning there was a warning that there was a risk of a drone attack, A decision was taken to press on.

3:43The train carried on. They got through to Poland. Everybody got off safely. But about an hour or so later, Russia made this attack on a train in the station on the other side of the border. now the ukrainian authorities say the reason that they're saying that it was likely that this was targeted by the russians is because the train was pushed through about an hour or so earlier faster than it otherwise would have been in other words it was there was a very high chance that it could have been sat uh in the station during the attack and how is this sort of opening up another front in the conflict because of course this is very far from the front lines well what this shows is that um russia is is escalating conflict and this is just another example of it essentially uh the the thinking here is that because russia is not making any substantial progress on the front line in the east it is escalating elsewhere so we in recent weeks we have seen a substantial increase in the number of attacks by four fast jet-powered drones not just at night but during the day, targeting businesses, energy installations, transport hubs.

4:55But also attached to that now is an increased attack on trains and border positions, not just with Poland but also the Ukrainian border with Moldova and Romania. In other words, it's all part of a peace. And essentially, the view is that this is an attempt by Russia to separate or divide Ukraine from its European allies simply by making it harder to travel and to trade across borders, hoping that they will, you know, people will be deterred from coming here because of the increased risk. James Landau in Kiev, thank you very much. Well, the train was struck, as James said there, on Ukraine's border with Poland, around two kilometres from there.

5:39Poland, a member of NATO, of course. The Kremlin says the Russian army operated across Ukrainian territory and would continue to do so. But the proximity of the attack has led one think tank, the US-based research group, the Institute for the Study of War, to call on NATO to consider intercepting Russian drones in Ukrainian airspace. I've been speaking more about the attack with Polish Foreign Minister and the country's Deputy Prime Minister, Radek Sikorsky. Well, this is an annual conference, and I have to say fewer foreign participants were on the train than in previous years, I assume because of the bombing of Kiev.

6:19and the Russians do liquidate people that criticise them. So I wouldn't put it past them that they tried to hit the train with foreign officials, including British ones. Were you shocked, though, when you heard about it? Because, of course, we hear about Russian attacks on a regular basis, but the fact that there were senior officials on there, senior European officials, and as you say, General Petraeus, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. I mean, these are high-level people on the train. I was outraged, but not shocked. That's the kinds of things that the GIU and the KGB have been doing for decades.

6:55I think Putin is pretty desperate. He thought he would win walking to Kiev in three days. He's in his fifth year of full-scale war and 14th year of assault on Donbass. His economy is hurting. A large proportion of his refineries have been knocked out. so he's trying to escalate and scare us and hope to win at the negotiating table what he cannot conquer on the ground. And how are people feeling in Poland following what happened? Well we can hear the explosions on our side of the border. I mean you can see these explosions from the Polish side. You know I was at this train station. I mean they're contiguous between Poland and Ukraine and remember 95 % of assistance to Ukraine goes through Poland.

7:44So, yeah, Polish people are alarmed. You know, we have regular air raids in southeastern Poland. We've heard from Kaja Kalas from the EU. She believes that the attack was intended to scare off Western nations from supporting Kiev. So it was a targeted attack. Is that your belief too? Well, of course, we don't know the Russian intentions, but it's part of a spectrum of provocations, arsons and state terrorism that seems to be escalating. And what is the solution then? Well, the solution is for Russia to start abiding by international law, ending its imperialist war against Ukraine and behaving like a normal nation.

8:29But in the interim, for example, we've heard from a think tank recommending that NATO steps in to intercept Russian drones in Ukrainian airspace. Do you think that is a good idea? There's a lively debate on this, both in NATO and here in Poland. My personal view is that we could intercept in self-defense unmanned systems before they reach our airspace. Because remember, Remember, if you shoot something down, it doesn't disappear. It still falls on the ground and it can damage property and injure people. So that would be a NATO action then? This is for NATO authorities to decide. But, you know, it's Polish airspace and our army has the first duty to defend Poland.

9:19And Ukrainians are asking us to do this. And in terms of those countermeasures, is that something that you think, You say you're having this vigorous debate at the moment, but when will that debate conclude? When could that actually be something that becomes a policy where you are? Well, Putin is escalating further and further. I mean, you know, he sent death squads to Britain. He sent drones to Germany. He has committed arson in several countries. He tried to blow up airliners. You know, the more drastic stuff he does, the more countermeasures we need to take. Radek Sikorsky there, the Polish Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister.

10:01Let's stay in the region as Russia has stepped up attacks on Ukraine's last remaining strongholds in the eastern Donbass region. The area has been a major stumbling block in talks on ending the war spearheaded by the US. BBC's Vitaly Shevchenko has more. Kramatorsk and Slovensk are the biggest two cities still under Ukrainian control in Donbass. and they are pounded relentlessly daily by Russia.

10:33Data studied by the BBC shows that the number of glide bombs launched at them by Russia has more than doubled over the summer, while the number of wounded civilians has tripled. Pavlov Yechenko, a spokesman for local police, says the devastation is immense.

10:57It's the same tactic. Whenever Russians approach a settlement, wherever they can hit it with such weapons, they raise it to the ground. Their tactic is to destroy everything they see. Destruction is significant. Glide bombs are a powerful weapon. We're calling on families with children, everyone, to evacuate. This is the best way to protect yourself, to save your life. Currently, Russia occupies almost 80 % of Donbass and wants Ukraine to withdraw from the rest, including Kramatorsk and Slavyansk. American negotiators who visited Moscow and Kyiv recently seem to favour the idea, but President Zelensky is refusing to abandon the territory which Russia has been unable to take by force, and it has been using a lot of force.

11:48John Auckland Abbey is a British volunteer who's just delivered medical aid to Slovyansk. The level of attacks have definitely increased from the last time I was there. And I've been all over Ukraine and I've never experienced the constant fear that one has at night time in Slovyansk. Daytime you can kind of survive it and it's manageable, but at night when it's pitch black and it is pitch black because no lights are on anywhere, that's when the Russians begin their bombardment of the city. And that is normally with live bombs, drones and other rockets and missiles as well. You are woken up every night about three o 'clock or 3.30 in the morning to the whole building shaking.

12:40And that's my experience. And 100 metres away from where I was staying, an apartment block was hit and half of it was demolished. Lala Tarapakina is a Ukrainian volunteer who evacuates animals from frontline areas. She says staying in Kramatorsk means dicing with death. It hurts when you visit somewhere like a shopping centre where you knew every saleswoman, where you used to shop for food or say shampoo and then you find out that it's been attacked with glide bombs and that the people you knew are buried under the rubble. People you've seen and hugged. They were killed or wounded. It's a pile of bricks now.

13:25You may be alive and well today, but you can be dead tomorrow.

13:33Kramatorsk and Slavyansk are a key part of Ukraine's so-called fortress belt, a system of heavily reinforced defence lines in the east. Losing them would make it much easier for Russia to advance westward. As one general told Ukrainian TV, this isn't just a battle for Donbass. It's probably the main battle for Ukraine this year and next. That's the BBC's Vitaly Shevchenko there. Coming up on NewsHour. Outrage over an advert featuring the Hollywood actress Sydney Sweeney. In it, she appears naked, covered only by sporting equipment. Some athletes say it sexualises women's sport. No, that was incredible to be part of a socially incredible race.

14:18Sydney Sweeney, this is what women in sport look like. 21-4, muscles, hard work, sweat, blood, tears. This is a beautiful, beautiful evening. Some of the headlines we're watching this hour. and in Nigeria, Africa's biggest oil refineries offering the continent's largest ever share flotation worth an expected$1.6 billion. And China's criticised the boss of the American artificial intelligence company Anthropic for saying that China's proficiency in AI would create national security risks for the United States.

14:56Oil and gas prices have risen sharply. It's after details emerged about damage to a key pipeline in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is the world's largest oil exporter. Its Yambu pipeline's been shut since a drone attack last week. Well, the Yambu is vital to the country, as it allows oil exports to leave through the Red Sea without tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Christoph Ruhl is a global advisor for Crystal Energy, and he joins me live now. Welcome to NewsHour. So first of all, I wonder if you could just take us through the latest trajectory when it comes to oil prices following this news?

15:34Well, thanks for having me on the latest trajectory. Clearly, this is another uptick in this by now seven-month saga of oil prices being driven by political cycles and military disruptions. What we have here is one of the escape routes from the Straits of Hormuz, which is the so-called east-west pipeline through Saudi Arabia into the Red Sea, being attacked. And that is, It's A, an immediate disruption, which makes oil prices go higher, of course. But B, it's also an important message because many analysts have started to apply the logic that maybe the strategy for Moose can be simply circumvented and made redundant in a year or so.

16:14Even the Treasury from the U.S. got been as best as I made this point by having pipelines around it. And it turns out, unsurprisingly, that pipelines are even more vulnerable to military attacks. They are like sitting ducks, whereas ships can be at least partial for some time being transferred away. So pipelines are not going to solve this problem without a political solution. It looks unlikely to stop. And so, I mean, as I mentioned in the introduction, Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, this is going to be a huge challenge for the country, isn't it? Yes, it certainly is. And it increasingly becomes a challenge also for the global economy, because the longer that dispute continues, the more inventories run down.

16:58And despite the fact that oil has become less important and therefore the oil price needs to go a little higher to really create damage than we're used to, there is now a special diversion emerging, which is diesel prices are rising much faster than other oil prices, partially because diesel has been refined in the Middle East and is now stopped, partially because diesel is being refined mostly often in Russia and has been stopped by Ukrainian attacks. partially because China, in reaction to Hormuz, is importing much less oil, therefore can't feed its refineries, which exported diesel in the past, to the extent it was possible earlier.

17:35And diesel, of course, is that part of the oil barrel of the refined products which are made out of oil, which is most relevant to the global economy. It's the transport fuel. So if diesel demand has to be curtailed, it will affect shipping, it will affect trucking, and therefore will have an immediate impact on the economy, different from just taking away purchasing power from consumers because they can drive a much more direct impact. You mentioned the Strait of Hormuz, but of course also we've seen Perim Island as well being seized by Houthis. And of course that's also potentially closing off another route.

18:12Yes, we are seeing the Houthis being active from one side. We have seen the drones attacking the East-West Pipeline pump stations coming from Iraq. We are seeing the Revolutionary Guards in Iran still capable not only in responding, but in responding with targeted attacks against U.S. military bases elsewhere. So all of this may go some way to explain why Saudi Arabia has been very quiet in its reaction to these attacks, because they really must fear that they are an easy target and their refineries and their large oil installations have been attacked in the past. And that is something which explains why they are reacting less aggressively, shall we say, to these attacks than, for example, their neighbour, the UAE.

18:59OK, thank you very much for taking us through all of those angles on that story. Christoph Ruhl, a global advisor for Crystal Energy.

19:12The Emmy Awards are taking place later on Monday, and film geeks among us will know that this year, in a break from tradition, And they're actually happening on a Monday, not the usual Sunday. That's because of a clash with American football. Now, when stars sashay down the red carpet in Los Angeles hours from now, much of the buzz will be around the medical drama The Pit, which leads the way with 25 nominations. The programme's been well received by doctors, so much so that the lead actor and executive producer Noah Weil has even been invited to a medical conference in the United States. Well, the BBC's been speaking to medics here in the UK, who are also big fans of the show, as the BBC's health editor Hugh Pym now reports.

19:59Hey, now, the South 19 got their head CT before it went down. No results yet. All right, let's send the reminder. Hey, Dana. Hang on. A crowded waiting room, trolleys in corridors, highly stressed staff. But this isn't a typical NHS A &E unit. It's a Hollywood set with actors recreating the pressure cooker atmosphere of an emergency department. Hey Dana, Chem 7's not back on trauma to you yet. Let me see the chart. And what's more, doctors love watching it. The most important things I've ever done in my life have been in this hospital. The lead part in The Pit, Dr Michael Rabinovich, known as Dr Robbie, is an experienced emergency medicine consultant.

20:38He's played by Noah Wiley, previously in the cast of the earlier medical drama ER. He's also an executive producer and part of the writing team, which includes several doctors. So impressed are the US medical profession that they invited him to take part in a platform discussion at a prestigious conference with more than 6 ,000 emergency medicine experts in the audience. Dr. Tony Cirillo is president of the American College of Emergency Physicians. People came up and just said thank you to him. And that was not lost on him, that people, what he does and what they've created with the pit is more than just about a good TV show.

21:20It's about the term I use is validation. And we finally feel validated for everything that we do and everything that we go through every day. And the series has become more popular in the UK, with doctors ready to watch even in weeks when they've had punishing shifts in A &E. Dr Fiona Hunter is Vice President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine in Scotland. I wouldn't do it straight after a shift, I think. We all need to decompress and almost debrief what we've experienced on that shift, but in between shifts, when I've got downtime, it's watchable, relatable, and I feel like it makes me feel like other people might get it.

22:03I don't care. Get someone out of here now. No. You expect us to treat your officers as soon as they come in? You get a detective to pick these kits up, ASAP. I've got to go. Complex procedures and life-saving interventions are shown in graphic detail and social and ethical issues are aired, such as lack of social care and end-of-life decisions. Professor Damien Rowland of the University of Leicester says it puts the problems of the NHS in perspective. Virtually every emergency department in the world at the moment has not enough space to see patients and flow through the hospital. It's a very common theme in the pit about the central character arguing with the hospital management about saying, I need more flow.

22:47You can't just leave these patients here. That's a very common problem around the world. So we can all relate to that. And we do the best we can, but people die. You ever get used to that? No. That's the BBC's Hugh Pym reporting there on The Pit, which is in the running for a number of awards, 25 at the Emmys later. Well, the ceremony begins at 5 o 'clock Pacific Time, 8 o 'clock Eastern on Monday, and it will be coming live from the Peacock Theatre in Los Angeles. We'll have regular updates on who's won what on the BBC News website and, of course, who's wearing what from the red carpet as well.

23:36So do check out the BBC News website later.

23:52John Deere is putting in work and putting up highlights. Oh, man, look at those passes. Tillage, planting, harvesting. Three years in, and these pre-owned machines are still at the top of their game. We're talking reliability, performance, and long-term potential. And get this, these veteran machines can pick up the latest precision tech with ease. You know it, and fans ready to add John Deere certified pre-owned equipment and more options to their lineup can shop at machinefinder.com. Booyah! Can the U.S. and China work together to prevent a global AI catastrophe? I'm Asma Khaled and I host the Global Story podcast from the BBC.

24:30Next week, President Xi Jinping and President Trump will meet. And one big issue that's expected to be on the agenda, AI. As warnings grow that this technology could have catastrophic consequences for humanity, is there any chance the world's two AI superpowers will cooperate? For the full story, listen to the Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

24:53Welcome back to NewsHour. A new study revealed the breadth of investors involved in the slave trade across Britain. The trade saw some 3 million enslaved African men, women and children trafficked to colonial plantations in the Americas and Caribbean. Researchers spent three years combing through the transactions of 10 ,000 people on the register of British slave traders. So just how embedded was that trade across British society? William Pettigrew is a professor of global British history at King's College London and the author of Britain's Slave Traders, A Forgotten History. We're not just talking about political elites.

25:30We're not just talking about the most powerful people in the country, although they were involved too. We're talking about craftsmen. We're talking about refugees. We're talking about slave trade actually as a notorious route to social mobility. Slightly over 10 % of the total population we've analysed were female. But we're also talking about state policy. We're also talking about the monarchy, the leaders of the City of London prioritizing the slave trade to support state policy as well as make money for themselves. And there's a disproportionate number of creative people, people whose income was sporadic, people who perhaps had more of an imagination about the possibility of commercial gain, who were investing in this trade because they were networked via their patrons into it.