The Context

The broadcast reported that President Trump said Ukraine and President Zelensky had to want a deal to end the war, while US officials prepared a new round of talks with President Putin. US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff had held discussions with Zelensky in Oslo and was due in Moscow on Wednesday. Zelensky said the US was again providing intelligence warnings about incoming Russian missile attacks, after Marco Rubio called the earlier failure to provide such warnings scandalous, and said Ukraine had passed peace ideas to the US, including a possible trilateral leaders’ meeting. Trump repeated that Ukraine had received large amounts of US money and had given nothing back, and said Zelensky should make a deal. A correspondent and a Ukrainian research fellow discussed the pressure on Ukraine and the prospects for talks.

It also reported that the UK would deploy RAF Typhoon fighter jets to Saudi Arabia for what it called defensive operations against Houthi attacks, protecting Saudi cities and critical infrastructure but not carrying out offensive strikes in Yemen. The UK was also providing an A400M transport aircraft and military advisers, alongside existing Voyager refuelling support; the report noted Houthi attacks including one on Riyadh airport that killed at least 14 people and injured more than 300. A former UK national security adviser discussed the deployment. Separately, two men were re-arrested after five men were found with petrol in three vans near RAF Fairford last month; police held the two, both from London, on suspicion of assisting a foreign intelligence service, and the head of Counterterrorism Policing said it was highly likely Iran was behind the incident.

The Covid-19 inquiry found that care homes were not given the protection they needed and that the claim of a protective ring around them was unfounded, with the report saying the focus was on protecting hospitals and that rapid discharge of NHS patients without advice to isolate was a significant omission. It recorded that 43,000 care home residents died with Covid during the pandemic, and the government said it recognised the fragility of the care system and would respond to the recommendations. The broadcast also reported that Nigeria had confirmed an Ebola case in Abuja in a woman who had travelled from Uganda, the first West African country linked to the current outbreak declared in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda in May, with 44 contacts being traced, and that authorities were reassuring the public while screening at airports and ports.