Ukraine carries out audacious attack deep in Russia

Australia Broadcast Center

2 days ago

Woman's voice: ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music and more.
Isabella Higgins: Good morning, welcome to AM. It's Monday the 2nd of June. I'm Isabella Higgins coming to you from Gadigal Land in Sydney. Dubbed Operation Spider Web, a strike deep into the heart of Russia that could shift the strategic balance of the war in Ukraine. Ukrainian drones struck a number of airbases, destroying dozens of aircraft worth billions of dollars. And it comes on the eve of peace talks. Let's get more on this from Europe Bureau Chief, Mazoe Ford. Mazoe, what do we know about this Ukrainian operation?
Mazoe Ford: Good morning, Isabella. This operation was codenamed Spider's Web. It took a year and a half to plan and it was one of Kyiv's most audacious attacks on Russia so far. It was personally overseen by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President, and it was all done without the knowledge of the United States. These Ukrainian drones attacked four airfields from the west of Russia to Moscow and even reaching the Far East, thousands of kilometres from Ukraine. And Ukraine claims to have damaged or destroyed 40 Russian warplanes. This is interesting because the drones were smuggled into Russia. They were loaded onto trucks and driven to locations near the airbases before being launched remotely. And drones have, of course, struck inside Russia and attacked aircraft before, but never on this scale. Russia says it's repelled most of the attacks and has detained some of the people involved. But Isabella, the Kremlin will be fuming about this because it's highly embarrassing. They always claim to be the stronger country militarily and yet Ukraine has managed to sneak in and do this.
Isabella Higgins: And Mazoe, this comes ahead of more peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul later today. What chance do they have?
Mazoe Ford: Well, after a weekend of fighting on both sides, the Russians continued to attack Ukraine with its drones and 472 went across on Saturday night local time, the largest number in a single night. So with that and with these Ukrainian strikes into Russia, you've got to imagine that going into these talks, the sides are going to be very prickly with one another. The Russians have touched down in Istanbul and they've not yet said what their terms are for this second round of talks in the past month. Ukraine is on the way. It says it's repeated its call for a complete and unconditional ceasefire, the release of prisoners and a return of the abducted children. But both sides are going to be back in this room on Monday afternoon local time, but they still enter it very, very far apart.
Isabella Higgins: Europe Bureau Chief Mazoe Ford reporting there. Now, more on this from Cedric Leighton, a military analyst and retired US Air Force colonel. Thanks for joining us. Just how significant are these attacks on airbases inside Russia?
Cedric Leighton: Oh, they are quite significant, Isabella. One of the key aspects of this is the distance involved between the Ukrainian border and some of these airbases, including one of them, which is near Irkutsk, the Belaya Air Base. It's about 4,000 kilometers away from the Ukrainian border. That shows that the Ukrainians have basically been able to penetrate the Russian logistics system. They've been able to move these drones into Russia using various surreptitious means. It kind of evokes memories of World War II, where Churchill directed the special operations executive in the UK to turn Europe ablaze, basically. And the Ukrainians are trying to do that with the Russian bomber force. And they seem to at least have partially succeeded at this point.
Isabella Higgins: Is it shocking just how deep inside Russian territory they were able to carry out these attacks?
Cedric Leighton: It is, because one of the key aspects of this is that the Russians at least give the impression that they are able to control their borders, that they're able to control their airspace. They were able to really do none of that effectively in this particular case. And when it comes to Operation Spider's Web, as they're calling this, it's pretty clear that the Ukrainians were able to penetrate the Russian defences on several levels. And that is very significant.
Isabella Higgins: And how does this look for Russia, having those weaknesses exposed?
Cedric Leighton: It's very much an embarrassment for the Russian leadership. And, you know, it's also very much an embarrassment for the Russian military. They often concentrate their aircraft in certain specific areas, especially far away from the front. These aircraft that were reportedly hit include aircraft that would be used to deliver cruise missiles, such as Kinzhal missiles and other missiles that the Russians have in their inventory to Ukrainian targets. And hitting these aircraft and putting them out of commission, at least for a certain period of time, is a very, very significant aspect to this. And it really does show that the Russians did not defend their assets adequately.
Isabella Higgins: And Cedric, we just heard there's another round of peace talks due to take place in Istanbul later today. Does this put Ukraine in a stronger position?
Cedric Leighton: I think it definitely does, assuming that the Russians are going to continue with the talks. And that will also be a signal if the Russians decide to continue with the talks. They obviously see a need to reach some kind of an accommodation with the Ukrainians. If they do not decide to continue with the talks, that could show that they are, you know, believe that they have a stronger position than many outside observers think they have. And it's also, I think, a very key indicator for whether or not there'll be some kind of an agreement, at least for a ceasefire in the near term. That is, of course, a questionable endeavor, given the conflict, how long it's gone and the attitudes on both sides.
Isabella Higgins: Just a final question. Is a ceasefire really on the table at these talks?
Cedric Leighton: I'm very sceptical. I would love to see a cessation to the hostilities, but a cessation with Ukraine being in a position where it can maintain its sovereignty. And it does seem as if the Russians, Russian leadership is trying very hard to keep these, the conflict going and to keep these talks kind of percolating at a low level. But they're trying to do this in a way that allows Russia to not only maintain its strengths, but perhaps gain more territory. And if the Russians don't do that, they will find themselves in a position of some weakness at this point.
Isabella Higgins: Cedric Leighton, thank you very much for your insights and joining us on AM.
Cedric Leighton: You bet, Isabella, anytime.
Isabella Higgins: That's Cedric Leighton, a military analyst and retired US Air Force Colonel. Four days. That's how long a mental health patient at one of the country's busiest emergency departments waited for treatment, according to figures seen by Four Corners. Doctors have revealed they felt pressured to discharge people in severe mental health crisis before they're ready. The program has uncovered a serious deterioration of mental health services in New South Wales. Avani Dias reports.
Avani Dias: At Sydney's Westmead Hospital, a corridor has become a makeshift waiting room, where people dealing with some of the most severe mental illnesses wait on chairs and sleep on the floor. Mental health nurse Teaghanne Sarina says conditions are getting worse.
Teaghanne Sarina: We've seen an influx of patient presentations and an inability to provide bed spaces for them, leading to longer wait times in emergency departments and in the hospital.
Avani Dias: Four Corners has seen internal figures showing mental health patients facing consistently long wait times at Westmead ED. In April, a 45-year-old woman with suicidal thoughts waited more than two days to be treated. Later that month, on one day, two men had been waiting more than 80 hours, and a man with schizoaffective disorder was waiting 93 hours. That's almost four days.
Dr Anu Kataria: So when I walk into the ward and there's somebody who's come to me who's been like that waiting four days, they're probably worse off than when they first came through the door of the hospital, because they are not only unwell, they are now angry and confused.
Avani Dias: That's psychiatrist Dr Anu Kataria, who resigned from the country's largest mental health hospital, Cumberland, in January. Did you feel there was a pressure to discharge people before they were ready to leave?
Dr Anu Kataria: Yes. We often would reach work and at half past eight in the morning get a text message saying that the ED is backed up, Westmead ED is backed up, please discharge. It was real, it was constant.
Avani Dias: Scores of psychiatrists resigned this year protesting these conditions, like Dr Suzy Goodison from Sydney's largest hospital, the Royal Prince Alfred. She saw many mental health patients leave before they could be helped, like a man with schizophrenia.
Isabella Higgins: He was walking around with a loaded nail gun in public. It becomes a moral injury when I can't deliver that care to keep either individuals safe or the community safe. And it's another Bondi Junction waiting to happen.
Avani Dias: Leading psychiatrists like Professor Gordon Parker, who started the Black Dog Institute, are meeting with the state government, urging it to act.
Prof Gordon Parker: The New South Wales mental health system is in deep, deep trouble.
Avani Dias: If nothing changes, what's the risk for people dealing with a mental health crisis?
Prof Gordon Parker: There will be insufficient beds and if not insufficient beds, insufficient psychiatrists to handle those acute situations.
Avani Dias: The state's mental health minister, Rose Jackson, declined an interview. New South Wales Health said patients are not discharged if it's not clinically appropriate, adding we will never turn people away.
Isabella Higgins: Avani Dias reporting and you can watch Four Corners tonight at 8.30pm on ABC TV or on iView. If this story has raised concerns for you or anyone you know, you can call Lifeline on 13 11 14. New research has uncovered shocking accounts of vulnerable workers employed on temporary visas hiding pregnancies and even attempting home abortions. The incidents involved workers employed through the Federal Government's Pacific Labor Mobility Scheme which is designed to address the skills shortage. Here's National Regional Affairs reporter Lucy Barbour and a warning her report contains disturbing content.
Lucy Barbour: Some migrant workers are going to desperate measures to end their pregnancies.
Tukini Tavui: We've come across such scenarios where they've attempted abortion. In one case it was actually in the field where they were working. There've also been cases that's done at home of ways and I couldn't even talk about.
Lucy Barbour: Takini Tavui is the President of the Pacific Island Council of South Australia. He's not surprised by the scenarios highlighted in a new report from the Australian National University's Lindy Kanan.
Lindy Kanan: I was told that people were using, drinking certain substances to try to terminate the pregnancy or using physical means.
Lucy Barbour: Lindy Kanan has spoken with dozens of migrant workers, employers and health and support workers about the Pacific Australia Labor Mobility Scheme known as PAM. Under the program, approved Australian employers engage workers from the Pacific and Timor-Leste to work on farms and in meat processors and aged care facilities.
Lindy Kanan: You know a number of employers that I spoke to saying, you know, we didn't know she was pregnant until she went into labour on the packing room floor.
Lucy Barbour: Sex and pregnancy outside of marriage remain taboo in many Pacific Island cultures. Lindy Kanan says women felt ashamed if they'd fallen pregnant out of wedlock or through an extramarital affair.
Lindy Kanan: I found at least seven cases on one field trip that I went to, to one regional town where women had basically run away after finding out that they were pregnant and were basically in a more precarious situation because of that.
Lucy Barbour: Workers often live in close quarters. Lindy Kanan says that can have consequences.
Lindy Kanan: It was very common to hear about male Palm participants using alcohol, knocking on the doors of women's accommodation at night and sexual assaults happening as a result of that situation.
Lucy Barbour: Trudi Beck is a GP obstetrician. She publicly advertises abortions at her clinic in Wagga Wagga in south-east New South Wales. She estimates a quarter of her patients seeking terminations are migrant workers.
Trudi Beck: I think it's probably a combination of many things that Australians don't really want to talk about. Things like abortion, racism and probably exploitation of Pacific neighbours.
Lucy Barbour: Dr Beck says migrant workers are choosing abortion because they don't want to risk their jobs or being sent home. And patients can end up paying thousands of dollars for reproductive care because they don't have Medicare or health insurance that covers pregnancy and birth.
Trudi Beck: This particular cohort is a group of patients that are so disadvantaged that delivering compassionate evidence-based care within the confines of the current system is virtually impossible.
Lucy Barbour: The research found some employers did provide support for pregnant workers but many were unsure of their obligations.
Isabella Higgins: Lucy Barbour and Cath McAloon with that report. Hospitals in Gaza have been flooded with the dead and injured after Hamas accused Israeli forces of opening fire at aid distribution sites in the territory. Palestinian health authorities say at least 31 people were killed and dozens more injured. But the organisation running the aid sites and the Israeli Defence Force are denying civilians were fired upon, instead blaming Hamas for creating chaos. From Jerusalem, here's Middle East correspondent Matthew Doran.
Matthew Doran: On Saturday night, Palestinians started making the trek south, desperate to get their hands on aid after three months of an Israeli blockade. Among them was Ikram Nasser and her family.
Ikram Nasser: We stayed hidden all night because if a plane or tank spotted you, they would open fire.
Matthew Doran: An Israeli drone broadcast a message on loudspeaker that the Rafa aid site would open at 6am Sunday morning and that there were plenty of supplies to go around, but Palestinians needed to be disciplined and wait. After a sleepless night, Ikram says they were prepared for Sunday morning.
Ikram Nasser: When the drone told us to enter, we entered. We had not even walked 200 metres. As soon as we were 200 metres away, soldiers surrounded us and they started firing at us. From this side, the other, all around. People were like sheep.
Matthew Doran: Ikram says ambulances were stopped from entering the area to retrieve the dead and injured. So people gathered bodies on trolleys, usually used to cart garbage. Many were taken to field hospitals, including the International Red Cross facility in Rafa, which says it was the highest number of patients wounded by weapons staff had seen there since opening over a year ago. Dr Marwan Al-Hams is Gaza's director of field hospitals.
Dr Marwan Al-Hams: The shots were aimed at the upper body, head, neck and chest. It seems IDF is sending a clear message to the hungry. We will kill you from the sky with planes and missiles, or on the ground through starvation and attacks in the aid distribution centres.
Matthew Doran: But the Israel Defence Forces says it wasn't involved, labelling the claims as Hamas lies and releasing video from an Israeli drone it says shows armed gunmen opening fire on civilians. The ABC hasn't been able to independently verify the vision. IDF spokesman Effie Defrin is accusing Hamas of trying to undermine Israel's efforts to distribute aid to the population.
Effie Defrin: Hamas is doing its best, is almost to stop us from doing so. He is spreading rumours, fake news. He is trying bluntly and violently to stop the people of Gaza from reaching those distribution centres. I urge you not to believe every rumour spread by Hamas.
Matthew Doran: The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the US and Israeli backed organisation running the aid distribution points, has released security camera vision it says backs up that assessment. And while the mute video does not appear to show any gunfire causing deaths and injuries, what it does depict is incredible desperation. Ikram Nasser says the entire incident has scarred her emotionally.
Ikram Nasser: I feel I am born again today. I will never ever go to these distributions again. I'd rather starve to death. I have no flour, no sugar, I have no food, nothing, no formula for my son, yet I will not go anymore.
Matthew Doran: And she's still searching for two brothers, missing amidst the chaos. This is Matthew Doran in Jerusalem, reporting for AM. Australia's most successful football coach, Ange Postecoglou, has declared his coaching career is far from over, despite rumours he could soon be sacked. In an exclusive interview with Australian Story, the first ever Aussie to manage an English Premier League team has vowed to win more trophies. Europe correspondent Elias Clure filed this report from Athens.
Elias Clure: The picturesque beaches of southern Greece are where Ange Postecoglou and his family escape the all-consuming vacuum of the English Premier League.
Ange Postecoglou: Our go-to destination is Greece. Obviously my background, my wife's background, and it's probably the one place in the world I feel I can relax.
Elias Clure: Postecoglou is speaking to the ABC exclusively after the Australian led Tottenham Hotspur to its first European title in 41 years.
Ange Postecoglou: Right now I'm content to sit in the glow of what we've achieved.
Elias Clure: The achievement is unprecedented. Ange Postecoglou is the first Australian to ever coach in the English Premier League, and now he's the first Aussie to lead a side to a major European trophy.
Ange Postecoglou: Against the backdrop of any sort of doubt, it's when I'm at my best because I love pushing through that stuff. So, like I said, an opportunity to convince more that I haven't got here by accident.
Elias Clure: But as he soaks in the European sun and basks in the glory of his recent triumph, the unrelenting football tabloids in England continue to speculate over whether Aussie Ange will lose his job. Spurs won the Europa League trophy but finished 17th in the Premier League, one of their worst-ever results. Does it sometimes bemuse you, the sort of English football milieu, how intense they are? I mean, you won a trophy and there's still a sort of, you know, baying for blood kind of thing.
Ange Postecoglou: It's just part of, you know, the environment you're in and if anything I think there should be more of it.
Elias Clure: After his victory, Ange Postecoglou made it clear he's got more to give. Here he is making a rousing speech to Tottenham faithful during the European Cup celebrations.
Ange Postecoglou: I'll tell you something, I'll leave you with this. All the best for television series. Season three is better than season two.
Elias Clure: We asked him what he meant by those comments.
Ange Postecoglou: When I spoke about season three, like I said, it's just about being aspirational. It's about, you know, this feeling we had in season two. Can we top it? And I see no reason why you can't and that's what you should be seeking to do.
Elias Clure: The 59-year-old says regardless of what happens, his football journey is far from over.
Ange Postecoglou: I've got no doubt in my mind that there'll be more stories to tell, more trophies that have been won and that's how I think about life, that's how I think about what I do and that's what I'm focused on.
Elias Clure: This is Elias Clure in Athens reporting for AM.
Isabella Higgins: And you can see Ange Postecoglou's full exclusive interview with the ABC tonight on Australian Story at 8pm. And that's AM for today. Thanks for your company. I'm Isabella Higgins.
Sam Hawley: Hi, I'm Sam Hawley, host of the ABC News Daily Podcast. In New South Wales, psychiatrists are quitting in droves, leaving a system they say is broken. And they're now speaking out amid fears it could lead to another Bondi Junction-style attack where innocent people are killed or injured. Today, Avani Dias on her investigation into a mental health system in desperate need of repair. Look for the ABC News Daily Podcast on the ABC Listen app.