Joining the podcast live is the Telegraph’s Middle East Correspondent, Natalia Vasileyva, who offers her first person account of the recent developments:
I’ve been on the road in the south since yesterday, just seeing the unimaginable scenes of this country essentially put on war footing. From seeing tanks being transported on trailers across highways as far as Jerusalem.
You can see abandoned cars on the sides of the road on the side of highway near military bases as thousands of reservists have been called up for duty. And again, these are ordinary people who just show up in their cars. So they ditch those cars on the road. And those scenes are quite evocative of the scale of what’s going on right now.
It’s definitely not a flashback. It’s not an escalation. It does feel like a real war.
Natalia continues, expanding on reports of Hamas taking hostages:
The magnitude of the hostage crisis is unprecedented. No-one, neither the government nor non-governmental organisations, can give a direct figure. Wha we see on the ground is that wherever you go, to any community affected by that, everyone knows someone who has been killed, who has been injured. They either personally know or they have heard of people being kidnapped.
It’s a small country, but still, we’re talking about dozens and dozens, if not hundreds of hostages. A lot of them are vulnerable people. We just recently met someone who told us about an 84 year old woman kidnapped from his kibbutz.
This hostage crisis is definitely something we haven’t seen in a long time. It’s going to take a while before we know the actual scale of it.
Assistant Comment Editor and podcast regular, Francis Dearnley, offers his thoughts on and the potential Russian intervention in this situation:
Make no mistake, these events will send shockwaves through geopolitics, it will have significant consequences both in the Ukrainian theatre of war and beyond. The degree of Russian involvement or perceived involvement will also be extremely relevant to all of this.
A Hamas spokesman over the weekend said that they had backing from Iran for its surprise attacks, and this was confirmed by a senior advisor to the Ayatollah Khomeini. The Wall Street Journal is even reporting that Iranian security officials helped plan the attacks directly since August, giving them the green light for the assault at a meeting in Beirut on Monday.
We don’t know if that’s true, but there is no doubt a very long relationship between the two countries. And as for Russia backing Iran, it’s important to remember the close ties that have been beforged between the two countries as a result of the Ukraine war. Purchasing drones used to attack Kiev and other cities in exchange for intelligence and finances.
Then there’s the fact that Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, met with the leadership of Hamas earlier this year. And Putin is really lauded among that group.
Now to stress, this isn’t to say that Russia has been involved in the planning of these attacks, only that there were advantages for them in de-stabilising regions around the world which we know they have been proactively involved in. Yet the scale of Hamas’ success could trigger considerable blowback.
Listen to Ukraine: the Latest, The Telegraph’s daily podcast, using the audio player at the top of this article or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app.
War in Ukraine is reshaping our world. Every weekday The Telegraph’s top journalists analyse the invasion from all angles – military, humanitarian, political, economic, historical – and tell you what you need to know to stay updated.
With over 40 million downloads, our Ukraine: The Latest podcast is your go-to source for all the latest analysis, live reaction and correspondents reporting on the ground. We have been broadcasting ever since the full-scale invasion began.
Ukraine: The Latest’s regular contributors are:
David Knowles
David is Head of Audio Development at The Telegraph, where he has worked for nearly three years. He has reported from across Ukraine during the full-scale invasion.
Dominic Nicholls
Dom is Associate Editor (Defence) at The Telegraph, having joined in 2018. He previously served for 23 years in the British Army, in tank and helicopter units. He had operational deployments in Iraq, Afghanistan and Northern Ireland.
Francis Dearnley
Francis is assistant comment editor at The Telegraph. Prior to working as a journalist, he was chief of staff to the Chair of the Prime Minister’s Policy Board at the Houses of Parliament in London. He studied History at Cambridge University and on the podcast explores how the past shines a light on the latest diplomatic, political, and strategic developments.
They are also regularly joined by The Telegraph’s foreign correspondents around the world, including Joe Barnes (Brussels), Sophia Yan (China), Nataliya Vasilyeva (Russia), Roland Oliphant (Senior Reporter) and Colin Freeman (Reporter). In London, Venetia Rainey (Weekend Foreign Editor), Katie O’Neill (Assistant Foreign Editor), and Verity Bowman (News Reporter) also frequently appear to offer updates.
