[000:00:00;00] ah, her son, baby, back under ukrainian control, but the nightmare for residence continues from the other side of the de ne, pro river. russian forces have been pounding residential areas, an infrastructure in the southern city, violently destroying any attempt of a return to normalcy. at least 15 people have been killed in the heaviest shelling to days in her son and across the entire country. efforts continue to restore power and water supplies. over half of keith continues in the dark. but president volota re zalinski vows that no matter how hard russia tries, it won't be able to break the will of the ukrainian people. i'm nichol ferla, him, berlin,

and this is the day ah, to cosign with the way they fight and target civil infrastructure. it controls nothing but fewer lou of actually won't be ups you over now. several months or, or if you could, parks against civilians, residential areas, critical civilian infrastructure in the it's the 2nd day without power and food. more than 60 children, a waiting for food, intentional targeting for food and civilians is a war cronan who should remove if they expect us to full on our knees and cruel to them. it won't happen. that was surprising. support to ensure that the 1st improved condition in the grade. it's enough of good natal windows go dark,

but we will not be in russia. this hatred is for jenna asians to come with. also on the show, as the united nations marks the international day for the elimination of violence against women, we look at gender based violence in times of peace and war. and beside rates remain at alarming levels. with more than 5 women or girls killed every hour by someone in their own family, it's actually a real woman or girl whose life has been very brutally and often very abruptly and did just because she is a woman. ah, when russian troops announced they would retreat from her son, many feared it might be a trap. it wasn't. but in the 2 weeks since the kremlin hasn't taken its eye off the southern city for the past 24 hours, russian missiles have been raining down on cur son, killing at least 15 people. the attacks are,

by far the worse the region has seen since it was re taken 2 weeks ago by ukrainian troops. the targets include homes, commercial buildings and infrastructure. her sons governor says hospital patients including children, are being evacuated due to the constant attacks. a warning this next report contains extremely disturbing images. the damage remains of another russian attack on ukrainian homes. like so much of here saw there is no power here, and the latest deadly shelling came during the night. the emergency lights help reveal the devastation to residence while paramedics rushed to help the injured leila. but also still, these was shells completed. the key, libra howling cookies, curry, and there were a lot of spar like firewood,

rush and missiles, rain down right across his son, homes caught fire ascending ash into the air and littering the streets with shattered glass. his son is on the front lines of this war, just 2 weeks ago. ukrainian soldiers forced russian occupies out of the city and across the denise pro river dollies russian soldiers. now escalating this shelling on his son's homes and infrastructure. any celebration of the city's liberation was short lived. it's tears and good byes for these families as they leave some having withstood 9 months of russian occupation with a broker from a full bombs filled right next to a house. it's too dangerous for my daughter or so i'm taking her to safety in poland, through school or thorazine, urging residence to leave the city if they can, to help ease pressure on badly damaged infrastructure review. they are taking revenge. they wanted to encourage thought into a new model,

poor. we didn't do anything wrong. here are you. currently half of ukraine's energy needs are being made after the latest russian strikes with no heating, wind has become a weapon. as supplies and infrastructure continue to be pummeled by rushes, shelling, ukrainians of bracing for more dark days and heat. let's keep talking and brand joe, a chair and she, oh no, he's the national security expert, an author. he's also a member of the council on foreign relations and a former advisor to the state department for secretaries of state hillary clinton and john kerry. thank you mr. therion fione for joining us tonight. a power outages across the country are having an effect on civilians and troops, especially with the temperatures now dropping below 0. how effective is this russian strategy of targeting the energy grid? it is very effective and it's, it's objective to terrorize and to punish the ukrainian people. it doesn't

appear to be effective in the overall russian goal of breaking the will of ukrainian people to resist and with it breaking the will of the west to support the ukrainians. it's clear that the russian army is over extended and exhausted, but it still has a mass of manpower, a mass of artillery that prevent the ukrainians from advancing much further at this point. and it prevents them from consolidating their gains near the front line. as you can see from the terror artillery rounds that are being pummeled into, into hershawn, these can do a quick stream damage. and the russians have hit upon a strategy that is both terrifying and effective. they have taken down at least half of ukrainian electric grid and much of the water and other power supply eyes of ukraine. this is causing tremendous misery for millions of ukrainians. so far, however,

it hasn't actually affected the ukranian war effort. at the fact that these russian recruits are often ill prepared, inadequately, wept for the front lines, and also poorly motivated. what effect could this have over the coming months? i would not rule out a new ukranian counter offensive that could have a similar impact to that, that we just saw in the liberation of hair shawn, or that we saw 2 months ago in the breakthrough in the hard key region. that is, the russian army is fragile, it is over extended. it is poorly equipped, as you say. so even though they're watching tens of thousands of recruits, that they just picked up literally off the streets of russian cities in the last few weeks. these, these are, these are not motivated troops, these are not well equipped, well trained troops. so it's possible that the ukrainian strategy of not attacking

frontally, but of hitting the lines of communication hitting the supply networks, could lead to some breakthroughs. i'd be looking at their little hands province up in the upper don boss region and possibly near her shot itself as they try to get at the artillery rounds that are punishing that city. it might be possible to cut off those artillery brigades that are on the eastern side of the disney pro river in order to stop that kind of terror bombing. i don't expect a winter to result in a decrease in ukrainian counter offensive operations. this kind of terror, but i tactics of the russians are due to brutal for the ukrainians to ignore. ah, the most pervasive human rights violation around the world as violence against women. more than one and 3 women will experience gender based violence in their lifetime. according to the united nations, every,

our 5 women are killed by members of their own family. with the treatment of women in countries like afghanistan and iran in the spotlight. the when is marking today's international day for the elimination of violence against women by launching 16 days of activism, the aim is to raise awareness of increasing rates of gender motivated abuse and fantasize. that's the killing of women or girls simply because they are women or girls protest to highlight the problem have taken place in several countries as well. allen, germany around one and every 7 women experience rape or sexual assault in their lifetimes. but few instances are reported because victims fear they will not get adequate help from the police. and if cases do come to court only a fraction end and a conviction. now, an initiative has been launched to help reinforce cases against perpetrators of sexual violence. it happens every day, sexual assault, rape,

or severe injuries caused by gender based violence. almost 10000 cases were recorded by german police last year, but many cases likely go unreported because the perpetrator is often a partner or ex partner. and the scene of the crime is often their home. ah, wenzel wasn't, wasn't, wasn't when, for example, something of this nature occurs in a family, an instance of domestic or sexual violence. then people are afraid of destroying social structure. so i'm disturbing the family piece room is reported and that can cause huge problems within a family or within existing social circles. so people say, i'll just leave it to unless it's the book on spawn evidence of a sexual assault such as spam, dna, and clothing or photos of injuries must be secured as soon as possible. that happens automatically when there is a police report. but survive is of rape. often just want to forget what happened.

and that can mean destroying all traces of the perpetrator in the east and german state of brandenburg as well as in other german states. more and more hospitals have been taking a different approach for several years now without involving the police. those affected can have themselves examined confidentially and anonymously. by gynecologist or a urologist. hospitals have forensic medical tools to secure evidence, including clothing, dna, or photographs. that evidence is kept on file for 10 years. at the same time, the women offered immediate medical assistance and put in touch with victim counseling centers and was on the left. an o. this is the most useful in cases of re trauma to zation loss. so when the whole thing happens again,

the 1st time and even the 2nd time it happens that i may not have wanted to report it is this may be the 3rd time i do want to a month, and then it is possible to access old cases. so to speak in the current context, and since i'm not going over one few cases of rape in germany, a reported than in other european countries, perpetrators often get off scot free. the project once, not to change, even if survivors only have the courage to go to the police much later. and impunity for the perpetrators of gender motivated violence is especially high in the context of war and armed conflict. the united nation says between 10 and 20 cases go unreported. for every case that is documented, the latest available figures from 2021 show more than 3000 documented cases of sexual violence during conflict. but the un says the true figure is more likely $30.00 to $60000.00 or even higher. a friend, christina lamb,

she is an award winning british journalist and the chief foreign correspondent for the british newspaper the sunday times. she's also published 10 books, including our bodies, their battle field. what war does to women? an account of how violence against women is used as a weapon of war around the world. ms. lam, welcome to the day. we talk a lot about a missiles and bombs when we talk about weapons of war, but sexual violence is older than all of them combined. what role does rape play in war and conflict? well, there's always been raping war. i mean, if you go back to ancient greeks and romans, there was always rate. but what we've seen in recent years is much more they use rate as a weapon for that. so j is malicious, are instructed to deliberately go right. the women it's not only right though, right?

it's also sexual slavery forced marriage. 4th pregnancy. what does all of that do to women and girls? well, unfortunately, the reason that we're, we're seeing it happen so much. and i mean, if you just look back the last a, it says so many cases because it happens. the c d 's in iraq and slay a is, i'm a state the regular people in bummer, ma'am. on the the base militia military came in. the village is gun rates, the women, and also women and nigeria like to book girls who are taken from their school in the night. abducted by vocal harm fights is just the tip of the iceberg that was happening to tens of thousands of women in the region. so there are hundreds of thousands of cases. there's really an epidemic is unfortunately, it's

a very effective weapon. if you want to terrorize a population, humiliate them, make them leave an area is a very effective way of doing it, and it's also very cheap. one militia sets me, it's cheaper than a kalashnikov bullet. you have extensively reported from ukraine since russia's invasion. how widespread is rape in this war when i 1st started getting reports early on in the war from fema in ukraine. i really found out how to believe i didn't think the russians would be doing that. but then soon, you know, that was so many reports. it was clear that it was happening on the wide scale and when the russians left a teen around, ki, i went and talked to people in those areas, villages around and had many really shocking reports from women of

the russian sit down and, and a lot of people are reluctant to report it, but it certainly happened. it continues to happen. i believe they're on a large scale and it's very reminiscent of what the red army did in germany actually at the end of the 2nd world war during the liberation of. but then when they came in and rate really large number of women, the i, c, c has prosecuted only 2 cases of rape in it's 22 years. that added to the fact that russia is not a signatory to the rome statute. how big are the chances that the people ordering and carrying out these atrocities will be brought to justice at some point? well, this is the real problem. i mean, no raping war is the international war crimes, but it is the most neglected war crime and accountability. as you just mentioned

with the i c c moment is the exception, not ro. oh my snow, perpetrates is approved to book for what they have done. but the one sort of positive, if you can say that about ukraine is that there for the 1st time has been really wide spread reporting on the issue. and there's a lot of outrage and the international community is very active. the criminal who got people working that residency lensky has spoken about the rate as in the same breath, the torture and killing. whereas too often in conflicts we've seen rate kind of regarded as a site issue, is somehow not so important to be prosecuted is c as other things that are happening. so i think, you know, maybe just, maybe this might be a sort of turning point where people ready take it seriously in a way that has to be there or what to me. and i think after reading your book to

you as well is very disturbing. is how quickly these atrocities are committed, when there are no social and disciplinary restrains, guiding our co existence, that the darkness seems to live very closely under the surface. how do you explain this? the flipping of the switch in a way? yeah, i mean it's hard to find a conflict where it hasn't happened, so it does make you one day, you know, if the people are in this situation, man, because it's almost always been carrying out this is this some something later that leads them to, to do this, but i think the real problem and all of the women i spoke to survive is the one thing that they all really well. it's justice, that doesn't necessarily mean saying have tracer it in coal. it might mean just acknowledgement of what has happened to them because the,

perhaps the most heartbreaking thing about all of this is, this is a crime where the victim is off to me, to feel that they've done something wrong. and they, it then ostracized, that community. not able to talk about what happened to them, just as in germany at the end of the 2nd world war, many of the women committed suicide rather than actually talk about it to this day . that situation continues. and even in ukraine, not that many people actually have really efficiently reported to the prosecutor. people have spoken to hotline, but they haven't made official reports. journalist and author, christina lam, pleasure speaking to you tonight. thank you. ah, long time german chancellor angela macros says she tried and failed to unite european leaders to negotiate with vladimir putin before the russian invasion of

ukraine. mac old told germany's dish fiegel magazine. she lacked authority because she had already announced she was leaving office the war in ukraine. she says, didn't come as a surprise. she continues, i no longer had the strength to get what i wanted because everybody knew she'll be gone by the fall. the feeling was very clear in terms of power politics you're finished, for putin power is the only thing that counts. let's break this down with d, w political corresponding thomas sparrow. so michael, who had a fairly good relationship with lottery, prudent argues she wanted to explore further diplomatic routes, but found no allies to do so. what does that tell us about european unity in the lead up to a war many now say they saw coming? well 1st i wouldn't necessarily say that anglo merkel had a very, a fairly good relationship with putting they knew each other well. they shared enough space in the international arena. they also had

a common history in certain aspects. language, for example, was one of them. but i would also say that they disagreed on a range of issues. so i would describe that relationship as being a good one. i would say that they knew exactly how the other person would react in certain situations. then you have to interpret each other, and that certainly goes to explain why anglo merkel specifically saddle this to their speaker magazine. now when we talk about what is means for european unity, i think it says a lot about i'm going to marco's last few months in office. the fact that he was basically lay my dock with no real power, but it also says a lot about authority at the european union level. i'm going to merkel for good of a bad really had authority at the level. i remember one anecdote by a fellow politician anglo merkel, a colleague of economical who said that when i go to merkel spoke at the european union. although the politicians left their i phones put their pens down and listened to was a fo, good of a bad anger. merkel had that authority and when she left, there was a void and that was

a void that was difficult to feel. and that also explained wangler merkel said, and that's what we read in that, in that part there, that she said that she couldn't find people to actually follow through with her proposal. so it says a lot about anglo merck also authority, but it also does a lot about the voice that she left for good of a bad when she left the german chancery left talking about that voice because maggie says she doesn't regret leaving office when she did but is there a perception that her staying and power could have prevented the war? angola merkel had said, basically, since she began that she wanted to decide when she would leave off is that she wanted to do it on her own terms. and assuming that she certainly accomplished and there are views, there are politicians, in fact, high ranking politicians said that precisely because of that authority that under the merkel enjoyed over 16 years, she may have been able to prevent the war from happening. or she would have been able to have some sort of influence over vladimir putin had she remained. but

that's only one side of the story. there are others who said that anglo merkel actually helped create some of the problems that we're seeing now by, for example, making germany dependent on russian gas. so there is no easy on. so when we talk about angular merkel and her legacy, there are different ways to approach it. there are different ways to interpret it, but yes, there are certain views. there are certain politicians to say that may be angular merkel because of the authority that she had. could have prevented this war from happening. there has been a lot of finger pointing you already hinted, added towards merkel for significantly increasing germany's dependence on russian energy during her 16 years in office. why were these warning so vehemently ignored and not only by her but also current chancellor left shells. and that's also important because all of shows was anglo michael's vice chancellor and the social democrats, the fight to he belongs to. we're also very clear about that relationship with russia, so was not only anglo merkel, although now obviously people are pointing the finger at angler merkel. but i would say that there are different reasons for that. there are historic reasons for that,

but there are also one of the elements is that for a long time, it was understood most as an economic relation. on the one hand, the idea to have those economic relations with russia. also linked to the idea that germany could have bridges with russia that could then help to deal with international crisis that could then help to have channels of communication with russia. but it is clear the case now after these months of the war in ukraine after this dependence that germany has showed towards russian energy that they was miss judge, that there was a miscalculation. but that miscalculation is not only a matter for angler merkel. it is also something that other german officials really have to discuss and may be, reflect on as well. yeah, we only have about a minute left, but i do want to ask you this. the war started a couple months after merkel left office. and how has this impacted her legacy? it is certainly impacted her legacy. in fact, that report und dash began mention it clearly with one sentence is that anglo merkel is now seen by many not as the crisis manager that she was,

that she was during her 16 years in office. but someone who actually helped to create those crises as a stress, it's not every one's view. there are different views and anglo merkel. but it is one of you that angler merkel is, legacies being tarnished precisely by what we're seeing now in ukraine, and by the fact that germany above all, had that energy dependence on russian come a sparrow and berlin many thanks and that is our time for today but as always, the conversation continues online. you will find our team on twitter at c, w news and myself at nicole underscore 40. you can also always stay up to date on our website. that is d w dot com for now though for me and the entire team on the day. thank you so much for spending parts of your day

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