Now on bbc news, unspun world withjohn simpson. Hello and welcome to unspun world. Its exactly two years since our programme launched, and the anniversary comes at a critical moment in the ukrainian war, which is also exactly two years old. Russias gaining ground, and President Putins only serious political opponent, alexei navalny, is dead. Sudden death syndrome, the Prison Authorities informed his family. Well, theres been a lot of that about where mr putins enemies are concerned. So, is putin untouchable now . We dont see that much of active support for the regime, that much of active support for the war. So this gives us an understanding that putin maybe is not that confident. Do ukrainians feel theyre on the road to defeat . I dont think that we can speak now about the defeat. Im sitting in kyiv, which is a free capital of ukraine. And is World Warjust around the cornerfor all of us . The military commanders are saying that there is an unprecedented threat from russia because of the war in ukraine, and they do not believe that that is the limit of President Putins ambition. His most dangerous political rival, alexei navalny, has died in circumstances which still arent clear. His forces have captured the strategically important city of avdiivka in the Donetsk Region of ukraine. But does all this mean that Vladimir Putin is now safe and sound and free to do whatever he wants now . I asked olga ivshina of the bbc russian service. In Military Terms, it seems at the moment, at least from what we know, Russian Forces are having an upper hand in a number of directions. But is that really a win, though . Russia has lost the best of the best of its troops. According to recent counts, russia has lost at least 16,000 men, probably up to 90,000 men, on the front line, killed only. Hes lost his strongest critic, his most powerful critic. And he seems to be doing well in the war. Does that mean hes free to do anything he likes now . Yes and no, i guess, at the same time. He is a hostage of his own actions now, i guess. And as navalny said, if hes not long alive, it means the price for his existence was too high for russian authorities to pay. I mean, he already was injail. What was the trouble of keeping him alive . Many people now ask. Two independent candidates critical of war, which almost no one knew, tried to apply to get registered for the elections. Both of them were turned down, despite bringing enough signatures. So its obvious that the kremlin is not allowing even the hint of opposition, which means theyre not that comfortable, probably. We must say that protests continue and more than 3,000 people are currently in prison for openly showing their disagreement with the regime. And now, we dont see that much of active support for the regime, that much of active support for the war, which russia still calls special military operation. So this gives us understanding that putin maybe is not that confident. I dont think theres a western government that doesnt believe that navalny was murdered. Do you think it would be possible for him to have been killed without putins foreknowledge and full agreement . Regardless of what exactly happened on that particular day, before that, navalny was physically and morally exhausted for years. He was put on a very scarce diet. I mean, russian prison food is horrible by most standards, and he was getting even a reduced portion of that because he was always. 27 times in a row he was put into solitary confinement, which is a very confined space. Very low temperatures, especially in the arctic circle. It seems quite possible that the highest officials, at least in the Prison Service, were aware of the situation. So just four days after navalny� s death, the head of the russias Prison Service received a promotion. He received another star for his shoulders. And that promotion was signed personally by putin. Do you think that putin would actually like to do a peace deal now with ukraine . We definitely see that Russian Diplomats on a different level are sending obvious signals that theyre ready for the peace deal. Theyre signalling that theyre ready to discuss the exact conditions on the peace deal. And those messages are being. We see them being delivered on a number of Different Levels. Whether putin wants it as a short Term Solution or a long Term Solution is a question to discuss. Its hard to imagine, after everything he has said and done, he would be satisfied with what hes got at the moment. But he has got donbas, hes got the eastern part of ukraine and hes got crimea. But its way less than his ambition was at the beginning of 2022. He wanted the whole thing. Its definitely less than he was aspiring to. And now, two years later, with all those lives lost and with how the whole machine has changed, he may seem to be prepared for more. But he needs that time to regroup, to replan. But this is just an assumption. From what we see, definitely, russian officials on Different Levels are pushing for peace negotiations, and i doubt those messages can be sent without approval from the very top. And the idea that he might attack the Baltic States . Simultaneously, at least now for the russian economy and for russian machine, war machine, it definitely would be an overload. But who knows . In a few years, you know, russian war machine is recovering, russian specialists are getting more and more training, more and more experience, it seems. So with all that in mind, and especially bearing in mind that putin honestly believes that he is at war with the west already, so will that be much of a change . Doesnt feel like it for him. Is russias capture of avdiivka being seen by people in ukraine itself as a sign of approaching defeat . Speaking ukrainian interestingly, when i spoke to zhanna bezpiatchuk, correspondent for the bbc ukrainian service, whos in kyiv, ifound that they regarded it as further evidence of the way theyd evolved since breaking away from russia back in 1991. But there was no doubt about the seriousness of the position now. Ukraine has to retreat. One of the main reasons for now is that the Ukrainian Forces, they really have the shortage ofammunition, including, first of all, Artillery Shells, as well as many other types of weapons. The russian army outnumbers the Ukrainian Forces by many, many times. And in this particular case, the Ukrainian Military said that the disparity between the ukraine and the Russian Forces was i to 15. Both sides need to decide what steps they have to take next. And its time for ukraine to reconsider, probably, its strategy, its tactics and its general approach to this war. As for avdiivka, this town, i know it very much as a journalist. I travelled there, i did reports from avdiivka. Now i feel very sorry for civilians, as i know some families from that area that have to leave behind all their life, their homes, all their belongings. They understand that maybe theyre saying goodbye forever to their home. Thats always something that is not reported in the breaking news from the front line. Is the war lost now . I dont think that we can speak now about the defeat. Im sitting in kyiv, which is a free capital of ukraine, which has not been occupied by Russian Forces, as it was planned, within three days. Instead of three days, we have the third year, almost the third year of the resistance. This is now a really critical moment. And i myself as a reporter, for example, travelling to the north east of ukraine and being very close to the front line, i felt this, i saw this. Its a really critical moment in this war. President biden says that avdiivka fell because the Republican Party in congress wouldnt give the ukrainians the money and the weapons. Is that the view there . This is about the military aid to ukraine, which is urgently needed to provide the Ukrainian Army with Artillery Shells and other types of weapons. Many, many different sources from the military that i can rely on, they all unanimously said that in general, they had to fire one shell to five, four, or sometimes even bigger number of shells from the russian side. Will this defeat increase the divisions political divisions and in in Military Terms at the top of government in ukraine . Its the critical moment in the ukrainian politics, too. And an open question whether the solidarity, the unity, one Voice Actions and one voice positions that weve seen at the beginning of the war, they still will be possible for ukrainian politicians coming from different factions and different parties. I think we can see, first of all, right now, that the rift between the ukrainian opposition and the ruling ukrainian party, the rift is increasing. Tell me about the way that ordinary people, yourfriends, the people around you in kyiv and elsewhere, have responded to the news of avdiivka. In the soviet times, the lives of soviet soldiers, they didnt mean a lot to soviet generals, because the win, the result on the battlefield, was above everything else. And avdiivka, it was a test for ukrainian generals. And what i observed my friends, military whom i know, journalists, my relatives, they all felt so proud that the new generation of ukrainian commanders, they put the lives of soldiers and officers over the importance of holding the piece of land up to the very, very end. Newsreel in the pentagon in washington, the north i atlantic defence committee, composed of the 12 atlantic pact nations, meets for the first time. Weve spent the last eight decades thinking of ourselves as living in a post war world. But will future generations regard us as living in a pre war world . The British Defence secretary, grant shapps, certainly think so. So we find ourselves at the dawn of this new era. The berlin wall, a distant memory, and weve come full circle, moving from a post war to pre war world. An age of idealism has been replaced by a period of hard headed realism. And there do seem to be a lot of disturbing parallels with the 1930s at the moment. I asked the bbc defence Correspondentjohnny Beale for his thoughts. People in defence and military commanders are saying that there is a threat, an unprecedented threat from russia, because of the war in ukraine, and they do not believe that that is the limit of President Putins ambitions. That said, you know, clearly it is not imminent in the sense they are not expecting a war, you know, tomorrow, and it may not be, in terms of russia actually going into a nato country, but i think the feeling is that President Putin does feel he is at war with nato, in a sense, and he is against the Nato Alliance. He wants to break it up and he is testing it. And of course, weve got a man who could well be the american president in just a matter of months, clearly doesnt like nato and seems to be saying that hed encourage russia to attack countries in nato which dont pay their way. It is a real worry, i think, what donald trump is saying, within the Nato Alliance and there is a realisation that they have all, european countries, got to step up. You know, donald trump had a point when he criticised major countries not spending enough because at the time, in 2014, there were only three countries spending 2 of gdp, even though that will be soon 18. And lets be honest, donald trump isnt the First American president to criticise nato. Barack 0bama did exactly the same thing. You know, americas been telling europe to step up for a long time. It is appearing to step up. Parts of europe are, at the moment, but i do not think thats because of the threats from america. I think its because of the threats they feel from russia. There is a real sense that, you know, without the guarantee of the article 5, which is an attack on one is an attack on all, that you could call natos bluff. That natos resolve is being tested by what President Putin. So he may not need to attack a country. He mayjust want to prove that this view that an attack on one is an attack on all is actually empty rhetoric. That could be enough for him, couldnt it . Well, it could, couldnt it . I mean, Say Donald Trump does become president of the us and is much less committed to article 5 and to nato and to europe and so on. Europe isnt going to be in any state to stand up to putins russia, is it . There is a problem for europe if america does not give it security guarantees. And you can see that in the Nuclear Umbrella that america provides, it has Nuclear Weapons stationed across europe in case of a threat from russia, has historically. European countries, yes, they have their own capabilities, yes, theyre spending more, but they could never match what the us can offer. So i think part of the rhetoric were seeing at the moment, were Hearing Politicians talking about moving from a post war to a pre war era, youre hearing senior military figures, defence figures, warning that there could be an attack by russia on a nato country. Part of that is a sort of wake up call that the only message that President Putin will understand is deterrence. But it does look as though theyre, well, certainly on the path to doing that, if not actually in sight of doing it. We look at whats happening in ukraine and the weapons provided by europe versus the weapons provided by the us, which have now dried up, and the reason ukraine is running out of Artillery Ammunition is because Europe Cannot fill the gap that america has left. Its industry has been run down to, post cold war era, everything was run down, stockpiles run down, factories run down. And its taken them two years of war to actually step in, european governments, and ramp up production. Everything youve said to journalists like us, talking in the early � 30s, 1933, 193k, would have said exactly the same kind of thing. Thats what worries me a bit, that we seem to be kind of acting as retreads for our predecessors. In the sense of 1939, there were years that were that were bought before war broke out, britain did eventually start preparing for a war before the war broke out and there may be a bit of time now, but i do feel that military chiefs think that that gap, that window is closing. The Democratic Republic Of Congo is a huge, ravishingly Beautiful Country with an extraordinary range of habitats, peoples, cultures, visual arts and music, and a post colonial history of habitual instability. Ive been there a number of times, and each time i felt myself lucky to get out unharmed. Now, the eastern city of goma, which has seen plenty of trouble over the years, is being threatened by a Paramilitary Group called the m23, which to british ears sounds like a motorway, but is in fact a small army encouraged, according to the un, by the congos small, tough, assertive neighbour, rwanda, though rwanda denies this at all. Mayenijones, the bbc west africa correspondent, told me more. The m23 is a rebel group, predominantly active in eastern drc, and theyre named after march 23, which is a date in 2009 when a Peace Agreement was signed between the congolese government and this group, which is predominantly made of congolese but ethnically tutsi fighters. And some viewers might remember the 1994 Genocide In Rwanda where tutsis were targeted. Following that horrific episode in the countrys history, a lot of hutus moved into eastern drc, and thats kind of whats behind the conflict that were seeing now. So m23 argue that theyre trying to protect ethnic tutsis, who are in the minority in eastern drc, from violence, from Hutu Militias that have moved in in the aftermath of the genocide. They say that tutsis are marginalised. And so this peace accord in 2009 was meant to be a way for the two sides, the congolese government and m23, to come together. The agreement was that members of the group would be absorbed into the army. There would be Tutsi Representation in the congolese government. A decade later, that hadnt happened and so we saw a resurgence of attacks from m23 in 2022 and that has gradually escalated to the heights that were seeing now. Ive seen suggestions from the Us State Department that the Rwandan Government might be behind the m23. Is is that correct, do you think . So, both the us and the un say they have credible evidence that the Rwandan Government, which is majority ethnic tutsi, is supporting this m23 group. Rwanda says this is just blatant racism, thatjust because both the government and members of m23 are tutsis doesnt mean that they are lying, they deny having any affiliation with m23. But the uns group of kind of experts has published reports where it shows that it has pictures and evidence of rwandan fighters, members of the rwandan fighters, of the rwandan Army Fighting alongside m23, and also many analysts and observers of this conflict have said that the reason m23 has been able to gain so much ground is because of how well armed they are, how well financed they are, and they believe that rwanda is the only country in the region that has the resources needed for a group like m23 to prosper. Goma seems to kind of be a target for militias in that area, doesnt it . Absolutely. Its a very strategic city in a very strategic region. The reason why eastern drc is so contested is because it has a lot of minerals, you know, cobalt, coltan, all of which are needed in the tech that we use every day on our laptops and on our mobile phones. So whichever Military Group or governments control the region stand to make a lot of money. And rwandas critics have said that in order to kind of further its agenda to become this real geopolitical superpower in east africa, it needs natural resources. And they say that thats why its supporting m23. Rwanda denies that. Some analysts have suggested that perhaps m23 isnt fully trying to capture goma because it wouldnt be able to hold on to it, and it would draw a huge amount of international condemnation. But perhaps what they want to do is try and apply pressure on the congolese government to negotiate directly with them. The Situation Inside Goma must be pretty worrying. Absolutely. I mean, the problem right now is that m23 is controlling some of the main roads into goma. Its home to half a million internally displaced people. Theres already, you know, tens of thousand more coming into the city, fleeing the violence elsewhere in the region. The un has today announced that its going to earmark some money to go to what its described as underserved, undercovered conflict. So that includes the drc and sudan, but its the lowest amount of funding that its had since 2018 because there are so many other conflicts elsewhere in the world. For humanitarian agencies, its a time when they cant really afford to take care of many more people. And so it risks pushing the humanitarian crisis in that region to extremes that we havent seen before. Mayenijones speaking from lagos. In public, President Putin has never once mentioned alexei navalny� s name, even though, well, perhaps because navalny was the one serious threat to him. The accusations of corruption on an imperial scale which navalny made against him, with the help of some amazing television coverage, were the one thing that might have raised serious public anger against mr putin, among ordinary russians. When navalny stood for mayor of moscow in 2013, he came second, with 27 of the vote, even though the system did everything it could to block him. He was constantly being arrested. I once did a quick interview with him at that time, just before the police dragged him away, and in 2018, he was barred from standing for the presidency. Can mr putin get away with it, now that navalny is dead . Well, and this must be a precedent hes thought about, Joseph Stalin forced leon trotsky out of russia in 1929 and had him murdered, famously, with an ice axe, in 1940, and stalin died in his bed 12 long years later. Now, there are just a few big name putin opponents left in russianjails. Among them, Vladimir Kara murza, who has british as well as russian citizenship. Like navalny, he could have stayed abroad but chose to go back to russia. Well, we know now how that ended for alexei navalny. Thats it from this second Anniversary Edition of unspun world. The team and i hope youll continue to follow us, and until we meet again, goodbye. Hello there. Friday was a day of sunshine and showers, some of the showers heavy with some hail mixed in, and with colder air moving in across the country, we saw a bit of snow return to the top of the cumbrian fells. This is the top of helvellyn, snow covered there, in cumbria. Now, so far this february, it has been a bit of a wash out across england and wales. Cardiff and coventry have had well over double the average rainfall so far this month. Parts of east anglia, Houghton Hall in norfolk had three times the average rainfall, and theres more to come as well. Now, on the satellite picture, all of this white speckled cloud you can see to the north and west of the uk is shower cloud, and there are loads of those, so we are looking at more showers working in. And over the next few hours, by and large, the showers are most likely to be across northern and western scotland, a few for the north and west of Northern Ireland, one or two for wales and the southwest of england but otherwise, particularly across inland areas, well have clear spells to take us into saturday morning and a cold start to the day with some frost or maybe one or two icy stretches. Should be a fine if somewhat chilly start to the day, then, on saturday, but it is another day where well see showers pop up. Some of those across Northern Scotland, some of the heaviest ones probably across southern areas of england and southern and western wales with a real threat of seeing some hail and a bit of thunder mixed in. Still, where the sunshine comes out, temperatures of around 8 10 degrees to be expected thats about average at this time of the year. For sunday, therell be further showers across Northern Scotland but an area of low pressure looks set to run in across northern france. Now, this could bring a spell of rain and windier weather to southern counties of england and southern wales, or it could be that the rain just holds a bit further south out in the english channel. So, thats the big zone of uncertainty, really, as we head through sunday but still, the bulk of the uk having a fairamount of sunshine and temperatures, still about 8 10. Now, if we do see that rain in the south, could still be affecting east anglia and South East England into monday with quite breezy Weather Conditions but further north, for Northern Ireland and scotland, a good part of Northern England and wales will be underneath the influence of this ridge of High Pressure and so, the weather should be drier with more in the way of sunshine. After a cold and locally frosty start to the day, our temperatures not really changing that much day to day highs of again around 8 10 degrees or so. And then, deeper into the new working week, it stays unsettled, temperatures often near double figures, but there will be rain at times. Good morning. Welcome to breakfast, with Charlie Stayt and naga munchetty. 0ur Headlines Today the uk government reaffirms support and pledges £245 Million Pounds of artillery to ukraine as the country marks the second anniversary of russias invasion. Junior doctors in england will start their tenth strike this morning in a dispute with the government about pay. A german bomb from the Second World War that brought the city of plymouth to a standstill has been safely detonated in the sea. In sport, rugbys oldest rivalry returns, with scotland looking to beat england in the six nations and lift the calcutta cup for the fourth year running something theyve havent done since the 1800s. Good morning. It is a cold start to saturday, with some patchy frost and fog around