This is the global news podcastfrom the BBC World Service an entry patient in the early hours of Mondaythe 26th of June these are our main Stories the U.S Secretary of State Anthony blinkenhas said that Saturday's Uprising by Wagner mercenaries in Russia has shown how PresidentPutin's decision to invade Ukraine has spread chaos in his own country neither PresidentPutin or the Wagner leader Evgeni pragoshin have been seen since the uprising wascalled off the right-wing new Democracy party in Greece has won a second term ofoffice with a clear majority in Parliament in this podcast I love the man I think he'sincredible live family basically grew up in Elton so my parents love him I love him the singerand composer Elton John gives his final UK concert.
At the Glastonbury Festival in front of thousandsof fans the U.S Secretary of State Anthony blinken says the Wagner mercenary groups Mutinyagainst the Kremlin underscored how President Putin's decision to invade Ukraine had sown chaosin his own country Mr blinken said the Rebellion on Saturday by such a close allies yevgenipragosian exposed fresh cracks in President Putin's leadership Mr blinken told the U.S NetworkABC that the challenge to the Russian leader may not yet be over this has been a devastatingstrategic failure for Putin across virtually every front economic military geopolitical standing wesee cracks emerging where they go if if anywhere when they get there very hard to say I don't wantto speculate on it but I don't think we've seen the Final Act a correspondent in the U.S DavidWillis says Mr blinken chose his words carefully.
These were the first comments by an official ofthe Biden Administration since the crisis broke out in Russia and Anthony blinken chose thosewords as I say very carefully indeed what stood out for me is that he clearly believes that theRevolt that we've seen in Russia over the last day or so presents an opportunity for the Westin the same way that it presents a challenge for Vladimir Putin neither President Putin nor Yakany pragosian have appeared in public since the uprising was called off on Saturday but the leaderof Belarus Alexander lukashenker said he's spoken to Mr Putin on Sunday there's been speculationthat the Russian leader fled Moscow during the crisis after his presidential Jets were trackedleaving the city as part of the deal to end the Mutiny Mr pragosian agreed to move to Belarus hewas last seen waving its supporters from the back.
Of a car as he left the city of rostov on Don onSaturday our world affairs editor John Simpson now considers how much Mr Putin's credibility hasbeen undermined by the Wagner Rebellion Vladimir Putin's PR machine has always made a point ofhis is toughness he's the man who rides horses bareback or wrestles with bears and whose enemiestend to fall out of Windows or die of poison but with yevgeny pregosian's Wagner group headingup the motorway towards Moscow Vladimir Putin didn't look quite so tough when he went ontelevision to tell them to stop and that's the moment a lot of people will remember even thoughpragosian did stop either because Putin promised him something he couldn't resist or because Putinthreatened him with something he dared not ignore but at a time when Ukraine is advancing even ifslowly on the battlefield and Ukrainian weapons.
Are hitting Russian territory this is a majorblow to the Putin image public opinion tends to be pretty passive in Russia but Putin will worry thatsomeone in or close to the Kremlin will decide that he's not as tough as he's always presentedhimself and he won't easily forget the way the crowds cheered pragosian's troops when theybriefly occupied the city of rostov on Don let's get a view now from someone who's negotiated theKremlin corridors of power for years Sergey Markov is a former advisor to Vladimir Putin a formerMP for Mr Putin's United Russia party and now a political analyst James Menendez asked him to whatextent the Rebellion had weakened the president it's partly we can Vladimir Putin because itshowed everybody that the country is going to the wrong direction not only Russia appear tobe in the two Wars same time it's war against.
Ukrainian Army and the war with global West andlistening to this military push and Columns of the Mountaineers almost come to the Moscow it'sclear for everybody this country is on the wrong direction can I ask you this can you explain whathappened on Saturday when President Putin came out in the morning and said that he was goingto crush the traitors but by the evening he'd done a a deal with Mr pregosian and the Wagnermercenaries offering them an amnesty and then safe passage to Mr pregosian the happen is a peacefulresolution but we expected that if a real fighting happened in the Moscow region we don't know whowill be the winner but we understand that people come to the compromise and this compromise hasbeen fully supported by majority of the people and of course and we saw many people for examplein in rostov cheering on the Wagner mercenaries.
I mean they are popular among many people aren'tthey yeah yeah exactly it's full of paradox their political ideas uh to go with march on Moscownot supported but same time the criticism against state bureaucracy as a criticism againstdefense minister segregation is supported and they supported personally as hero uh in the battleagainst neonation do you think President Putin then is going to sack Mr shoigu do you thinkthat's going to happen in the next few days but he will do it in few weeks of probably incouple of months in order to show that he is doing himself but not under the pressure of themutinios the trouble is I mean I hear what you're saying but everything ultimately does come backto President Putin I mean he appointed Mr shoigu in the first place he effectively allowed Mrpregosian to create the Wagner group and he.
Made the decision to go into Ukraine so doesn'tit all this show that Mr Putin himself has made a lot of wrong decisions terrible decisions ofcourse everybody understands that this Putin's responsibility that he didn't send Russiantroops to the Ukraine nine years ago uh the fact that Russian special military person havenot been well prepared it also responsibility of Vladimir Putin and the fact that one of the mostlyeffective part of the Russian militaries sent the troops to Moscow of course its responsibility ofVladimir Putin but on another hand paradoxically people after these mistakes of Vladimir Putinthey support madimere Putin even even more are you sure though are you sure I just wonder whetherthe perception is that actually you know this guy is not particularly good at his job and he's madetoo many mistakes now yeah yeah you're right he's.
Making a lot of physics is clear for everybodybut again I should repeat his popularity even increased because people uh see uh Putin not asthe hero but also the symbol of stability and they believe will be replaced by somebody else thechaos will come Sergey Markov with James Menendez on the surface the last few days have witnesseda huge falling out then between the Wagner group leader and the Russian president but can we becertain that falling out is real and permanent a question I put to Vitali shevchenko aBBC monitoring this is a question that's being asked by a lot of Russia Watchers they arewondering is this apparent coup attempt for real and I have to say that claiming that this issome sort of incomprehensibly complicated plot this is probably a conspiracy theory too farbut questions remain such as if there was a.
Massively long threatening Convoy of Wagnerhardware and Men on the move to Moscow which had apparently covered 500 miles in just one daywhere are the pictures of it videos all we've seen are pictures and videos of Tang here truckthere but not complete Convoy also after Wagner was able to take rostov and Donand Russia's main command center for military operations in Ukraine arguablyone of the most protected places in Russia and things seem to be going so well for evgenyprecaution suddenly he does a U-turn he says we're going back what happened there we don't knowso at this moment in time I'm afraid there are more questions than answers in this story which ishardly surprising when you're dealing with Russia looking at it from the perspective of Ukraineand the conflict in Ukraine on the surface any.
Display of Russian weakness might bring some joyto president zelensky and Ukrainian forces on the other hand if this leads to a change of militaryleadership in Russia things in Ukraine might be about to get a lot tougher well absolutely apeople in Ukrainian officials in Ukraine have been watching the latest goings-on in Russia with Gleeand a certain degree of expectation however if the point is to streamline military command inRussia and Wagner mercenaries are required or encouraged to sign official contracts with theministry of Defense of Russia by the 1st of July if that happens if military command and Russiabecomes more effective that's bad news for Ukraine however whatever happens next wherever event headsone thing that is absolutely certain is that both are wounded weakened they're standingin the eyes of their supporters has.
Been severely compromised they'vepromised to do things they never did so the system of governance created by VladimirPutin over the course of more than 20 years in charge of Russia is become more unstable andthis is not over yet for the Russian president vietnamesevchenko BBC monitoring a US think tankthat recalls military activity says Russian forces launched their largest series of missile strikeson Ukraine in many weeks on Saturday despite what was happening in Russia The Institute forthe study of War said Ukraine's military had reported nearly 50 cruise missiles launchedfrom Over the Caspian and black Seas they say most were shot down but residential areas were hitmeanwhile Saturday's turmoil in Russia has raised the hopes of some ukrainians that it could signalthe beginning of the end of the 16-month conflict.
Our correspondent in key of Miami Jones has beenassessing how the mood has changed ukrainians like millions of people around the world follow thisweekend's development in Russia closely people were glued to their TVs and there was socialmedia commentary on the unfolding situation late into the night but as kiev's residents wokeup on Sunday morning the mood was subdued as they pondered what to make of this frankly bizarreweekend we've been disappointed when it they finished so early we expected that they would movefor their forces back to Russia from our lands precaution and putting our war criminals theybombed peaceful sieges while people are sleeping for example yesterday everyone was talking aboutpreggers when Ukraine was hit by missiles I'm not interested in him he's a criminal over theweekend Kiev kept pushing the message that its.
Counter-offensive was still making slow and steadyprogress despite the unfolding events in Russia this war continues to claim Ukrainian lives ona daily basis and with President Putin vowing to plow on with his special military operation thisweekend's events won't achieve what ukrainians ultimately want lasting peace stay in Ukraine acurious Legacy of World War II next the remains of eight British hurricane fighter planes which havebeen found buried in a forest in the country the aircraft was sent to the Soviet Union by Britainafter Nazi Germany invaded in 1941. they were part of a package of military support for the USSRpaid for by the US and similar legislations being used by the American government now to sendmilitary aid to Ukraine as it seeks to expel Russian forces from its soil from Kiev this reportfrom our diplomatic correspondent James landale.
Foreign we've come to a forest in the middle ofwell nowhere it's about two hours drive south of Keith and we're walking through the undergrowthdown a little ravine it's completely overgrown used to be a stream a longtime ago but it's pretty dry and there there's a hole in the ground and in thehole a rusty structure lots of Spas fixed together some of them still intact some of them lookingpretty weak as if they're about to fall off so what is this here you see the trail plane ofhurricane Mark II Yes you heard that right this is what's left what was once a hurricane fighterplane one of three thousand Britain gave the Soviet Union in 1941 after Nazi Germany invadedsincere friendship and mutual respect marked the collaboration between British and Russian Flyersoperating over Soviet soil the hurricane was the.
Workhorse of the Battle of Britain shootingdown more enemy aircraft than a Spitfire and according to Alex Stern an aviation investigatorhelping with the Dig they were exactly what the Soviets needed hurricane was a strong easy to flymachine stable as a gun platform suitable for not experienced Pilots and the reliable aircraftso this is a small piece of History this is a this is physical evidence of a moment 80 yearsago when Western Powers were giving warplanes to people in Ukraine as they are now todefend this country against an invading Army they reckon there are now eight hurricanesburied here because what happened was that these aircraft were often chopped up shovedover the edge sometimes by tractors sometimes by bulldozers all the spare parts were taken outfirst all the metal that could potentially be used.
For other things and then they wereunceremoniously dumped in this ditch and then covered over and left to rot until nowbut why why did the Soviets destroy perfectly good planes that's because these hurricanes mighthave been made in Britain but they were paid for by the United States and after the war the Sovietsdid not want to pay the U.S back for any aircraft left intact as was required by the lend leaseagreement all of this has to be taken out by hand and we're going to help the team see ifwe can take this particular tail fin out we're just carrying this tailpipe outof the Ravine here and you know what it's a heavy piece of Kit okay find that we've come to Ukraine's National Aviation Museumand it's an extraordinary place a graveyard of.
Ancient Soviet aircraft that just littered acrossthe ground and we're just outside a hangar where we've just taken the frame of the hurricanethat we've discovered out of the ground and is now been cleaned with a high pressure hose themods of eight decades coming off it pretty easily the Larry romanenko head of research at Ukraine'sNational Aviation Museum told us these hurricanes are symbols of past British assistance thanEcho today in 1941 the Britain was the first who supplied fighting aircraft for the SovietUnion in Mass scale numerous aircraft now the Great Britain is a fast country which givesStorm Shadow cruise missiles to our Armed Forces is history repeating itself yes of courselisted across the concrete are other rusting bits of metal some of them are unidentifiable othersclearly recognizable as part of an old aircraft.
And the aim they say is to putall of these parts together and try and recreate at least one aircraftfor the museum so that people can see what a hurricane looked like all those years agoflying above the Skies of Kiev and elsewhere James Landau reporting and still to comeit's quite a incredible experience here Makkah is really filling out now we'reexpecting anywhere between actually 2.5 million to 3 million pilgrims it could bea record-breaking number huge numbers of pilgrims gather at Islam's holiest site forthe beginning of the annual Harge time best defender in African football seeif your pick made the list on Match of the day Africa top 10. one of the best for what aplayer coming soon Greece has held its second.
General election in just five weeks kiriakos mitsattack his claimed Victory after exid polls showed his right-wing new Democracy party had secured aclear majority with over 40 percent of the vote Mr mitsatakis said he now had a strong mandateto quickly introduce major reforms in Greece I'm thankful and grateful to Greeks fortheir trust this generous support increases our responsibility to act on their hopes today wewill enjoy our Victory but for tomorrow morning we will once again roll up our sleeves and begintogether to build a strong grease a nation with more prosperity and justice for everyone tomorrowDawns an even better day for all Daphne Thomas is a freelance journalist speaking from a busystreet in Athens she told me that the strategy of holding out for an outright majority seemed tohave paid off the previous election which was held.
In May it was conducted under a different systemproportional represent Temptation that didn't secure the majority to the new Democracy partyso this time under the new electoral system the winning party will receive between 25 and 50 seatsas a bonus this seems that it has secured the new Democracy party the majority needed to form agovernment so they convinced the electorate they worked the system what do they want to do well thePrime Minister he came and he said that the whole electoral map is blue again blue meaning that hisparty this color is represented in the country's electoral map as blue because he has pledgedstability and it seems that people voted for stability he had pledged for Investments he hadsaid that he would boost Lisa's tourism industry which is vital for its economy so it seems thatthis stability was what the most Greeks went for.
They voted for the stability they've seen over thepast four years compared to all the other years before that when we had the financial crisis andapart from Financial stability were there other things on the ballot paper can we expect to seeanything else change well we have quite a surprise here with two new parties which are far rightentering the parliament this time we already had one small party in the previous elections butnow all three of these far-right parties will probably gain many seats in Parliament actuallyif one of them is the successors of the Neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn which is called Spartans sothis party together with another Greek solution it's an Ultron National party and the new NikkiPart your Nike party these are far-right parties and all three of them will have secured around30 percent of the popular vote which is I guess.
Is significant in one way although if the newDemocrats have a clear majority those smaller parties won't be able to do much but they willhave C Parliament and as we have seen all across all across power more and more which sayssomething about our times Daphne told us with me from Greece they've been heavy clashesin the South the Sudanese Capital Khartoum as the Army and paramilitary Rapid support Forcesfight for control there's more International concern too about ethnically motivated attacks inDarfur here's will Ross the rapid support forces have posted videos of Fighters celebrating incyborg appears to be the headquarters of a heavily armed police unit they say it's been capturedafter hours of fighting with the Sudanese Army in the video you can see many four-wheel drivevehicles which are now in the hands of the rsf.
For 10 weeks the two sides have fought for controlof Khartoum destroying the city in the process and causing misery for millions of civiliansthe same rsf paramilitary Force has teamed up with Arab militias in the Darfur region therethey've targeted non-arab communities in waves of ethnically motivated attacks that have forcedtens of thousands of people to flee into Chad in Sweden one person has died and nine others havebeen injured after a roller coaster reportedly derailed at a theme park in Stockholm police saychildren are among those being treated in hospital more from our Europe Regional editor Orlandoteal the 140 year old theme park was teaming with families on a sunny Sunday morning shortly beforemidday when the accident happened eyewitnesses say a carriage from the Jetline roller coasterwhich is 30 meters high and travels up to 90.
Kilometers an hour broke away from the tracksthis man described what he saw at first I heard only a bang then I turned around I saw the rollercoaster and bang it backs up at first I thought it was meant to be that way but then I saw two guysflying out of the carriage one guy kind of grabbed a pole and just hung there his face was bleedingthe other guy flew down he just flew down that's what I saw ambulances fire trucks and a rescuehelicopter were seen arriving at the park which was evacuated and has been closed for at leasta week police say nine people are being treated in hospital including several children and aninvestigation is underway a spokeswoman for gruna Lunt said 14 people were on the roller coasterwhen the front partially derailed she promised everything would be done to get to the bottom ofwhat had happened and said their thoughts went.
Out to all those affected the Duchess of York hasrevealed she's been diagnosed with breast cancer The Duchess who was formally married to princeAndrew has undergone surgery in London here's Greg McKenzie The Duchess who is 63 discovered shehad an early form of the disease during a routine mammogram she reportedly left the King Edward VIIHospital in marylebone in central London which has treated the royal family for decades earliertoday and is said to be recovering with her family at Windsor a spokesman for The Duchess said shewas advised she needed to undergo surgery which has been described as a success she has been toldthat her prognosis is good the spokesman said she was hugely thankful to the staff involved in themammogram which identified her illness which was otherwise symptom-free and said her experienceunderlined the importance of regular screening.
A notorious plane used during Argentina'sdictatorship to dump political activists in the ocean has made a long-awaited landing in BuenosAires the aircraft is expected to go on display in a museum here's Rory Gallimore the arrival ofan empty aging cargo plane might not seem like cause for celebration but to many in Argentinait's an important symbol a grisly memory they cannot afford to forget in the 1970s and 80s thecountry's military rulers carried out a gruesome practice known as death flights politicalopponents were abducted flown out to sea and hurled into the water campaigners have spent yearstrying to track down the planes this one was found in the United States where it was being used totransport skydivers unaware of its dark past the aircraft is expected to go on show at Argentina'sMuseum of memory to serve as a reminder of the.
Horrors of the dictatorship Mabel correga's motherwas one of those thrown from the plane for us it's a matter of History the plane has tobe here in a museum after having found it and identified it this country cannot allow the planefrom which our loved ones were thrown alive into the sea to continue flying next to Saudi Arabiawhere huge numbers of pilgrims have gathered at Mecca Islam's holiest site for the beginning ofthe annual Hajj it's the first time since covid there are no restrictions on numbers it's thoughtthis year could actually see a record attendance one of those taking part is yasrab Shah fromthe charity Muslim hands it's quite a incredible experience here Makkah is really filling outnow we're expecting anywhere between actually 2.5 million to 3 million pilgrims it could bea record-breaking number especially following.
The covered restrictions that have been liftedthere were about 900 000 last year so there's real excitement and real anticipation pilgrimswill start to move out of the holy city of Mecca into the valley of Minna it's extremely hotbetween about 42 and 45 degrees the authorities are trying their best to try to cool the pilgrimsproviding lots of fresh water to drink but we're definitely fearful for some of the older pilgrimsthat I've come from around the world everybody's kind of watching each other and making sureeverybody is safe and sound the first time I came for the pilgrimage was back in 2009 youdo see a definite Improvement in the facilities the transport the routes that people are takingthere's a lot of crowd control measures they've consulted with many governments around the worldon how to control large crowds as you can imagine.
It's a huge logistical effort a cities basicallySprings up of 2.5 million to 3 million people for five days and then goes away again and the Saudishave big plans for the heart going forward as I heard from our Arab Affairs editor Sebastian UsherSaudi Arabia is aiming for Far Far higher figures for Hajj over the next decade or so I mean theyare talking up having millions of people going up to I think the figure is around 20 millionwas a figure that they had spoken of as part of this hugely ambitious drive under the CrownPrince Mohammed bin Salman Vision 2030 of which a large part of that is to do with bringing peopleto Saudi Arabia now obviously Hajj aside from work has always been the main reason that people havegone to Saudi Arabia what the Saudis are doing is making it easier to go for Hajj making farfewer Hoops that you have to go through you.
Don't have to go through all sorts of companiesand things and you can get special visas which allow you also to go and visit other partsof Saudi Arabia while you're there so I think they're hoping the authorities I'd agree there'llbe a knock-on effect from Hajj this year and the years that are coming in people going to theother attractions that Saudi Arabia has so this is partly people pilgrims who are unableto go it's one of the five pillars of Islam if people have a means they're supposed to go oncein their life so there's that but even more so I think it's for Saudis who've been gearing upmore and more to try and receive more people and encourage more people to come and also givethem a sense but when they do come whatever the heat whatever the numbers it will be safeSebastian Usher reporting on Sunday it was the.
