captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for sunday, january 19: the trump ministration responds to trial is set to begin. and a newshour weekend special on ukraine: caught ithe crosshairs both at home and in the u.s. next on "pbs newshour weekend." >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. iisue and edgar wachenheim the cheryl and philip milstein family. rosalind p. walter. barbara hope zuckerberg. charles rosenblum. we try to live in the moment, to not miss what's right in front of us. at mutual of america, we believe taking care of tomorrow can help you make the most of today.

mutual of america financial group, retirement services and investments. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, a private corporatn funded by the american people. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. from the tisch wnet studios at lioln center in new york, hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: good e fning and than joining us. despite being in a territorial war with russia for nearly six years w, the country of ukraine rarely made front page news. but all that has changed now, under the leadership of political novice president volodymir zelenskiy and amid a political scandal that has resulted in the impeachment of president trump, ukraine is front and center and facing an uncertain future. for the past year, we've beenai reporting on u and today, we're going to take a look back on some of those stories with some updates and new analysis from special correspondent simon ostrovsky.t we'll have tha a moment. but first, here are today's

headlines. ngdemocratic members of coress met behind closed doors today to continue plaing their trialra gy in the impeachment of president trump. yesterday the democrats filed lawyers for the president brief. responded with a preview of today the two sidered off on television. on abc, house intelligence committee chair, democrat adam schiff said he wth surprised the president's team offered no new arguments. >> the facts aren't seriously contested. thspresident withheld hundr of millions of dollars of military aid to an ally at war with russia, withheld a white house meeting that the presidena of ukraine desly sought to establish with his country and with his adversary the support of the united states, in order to coerce ukraine into helping him cheat in the next election. >> sreenivasan: in yesterday's filing, democrats argued that mr. trump pressured ukraine to publicly announce investigations of democratic rival joe biden and biden's son, withheld military aid as lerage and then tried to conceal those actions from congress. they said "present trump's

conduct is the framers' worst nightmare." the president's lawyers did not deny those core facts. the lawyers argued that therday, articles of impeachment are a" dangerous attack" on americans' right to choose their president and called the impeachment a" brazen and unlawful attempt toes overturn thets of the 2016 election and interfere with the 2020 election, now just months away." today, lawyer alan dershowitz -- defense team-- argued that the two articles of impeachment do not contain any impeachae offenses. >> many presidents in the past ve made foreign policy decisions to enhance their electoral prospects. and if peoe think that this president did that, that's a factor that should enter into their decision who to vote for, among many, many otheractors. >> sreenivasan: the president'se nse team is due to file it's full legal brief tomorrow. the trial begins tuesday in the senate and newshour will have live coverage on air and onlinea in berlin rival leaders

in libya's ongoing civil war and heads of state and diplomatsie from 12 countrand the u.n. agreed to enforce an armst embargo and liapons sales. german chancellor angela merkel host the conference which focused on curbing foreign military interference in libya and solidifying a cease fire in e long running conflict. among those attending: u.s. secretary of state mike pompeo, british primnister boris johnson, turkish predent recep erdogan and russian president vladimir putin. there was new violence in hong kong today as anti-government otesters and riot police clashed again. police fired tear gas at demonstrators during a rallyca ing for electoral reforms and a boycott of the communist party. hong kong police authorized the rally, but not the march that followed. hong kong has been the site of mass pro-democracy protests against the chinese governmentht for over eig months. anti-government protesrs clashed with security forces in beirut in a second night of violence. lebanon is facing a financial

crisis and has not been able to form a new government since the cabinet and former prime minister saad hariri resigned in te october. more than 370 people were reportedly wounded yesterday. died when a passenger plane was shot down in iran earlier this month were returned home today. a military honor guard carris the coffto the airport terminal where mourners paid their respects.ci iran admitted ntally shooting down the ukrainian airlines flighkyfrom tehran to shortly after takeoff on january killing all 176 ople on board. in puerto rico the discovery of a warehousfilled with unused emergency supplies for victims of hurricane marian 2017 set off an uproar in a region now struggling to recover from recent earthquakes. governor wanda vázquez fired the director of the island's emergency management agency, and ordered an investigation. yesterday, people broke into the

wareuse and distributed water, baby food, and other items to a large crowd. more than 7,000 people remain in shelters since a 6.4 magnitudert uake and aftershocks struck earlier this month. when a spacex rocket exploded after take off in florida today, just as it was designed to, the crew capsule successfully separated bringing the one step closer to carrying astronauts into space. dathere was no one aboard s flight designed to mimic a launch faire. the credragon capsule landed 19 miles off the coast of cape canaveral. nasa officials say spacex might be ready to carry american astronauts to the ternational ace station later this year.ie toall of our coverage of ukraine visit pbs.org/newshour. >> sreenivasan: last spring, ukrainians found theelves voting in a historic election that brought a political wcomer and former actor ukraine's presidency, ronald reagan-style. popular televisionletar vladimir kiy became president

vladimir zelenskiy, and now less than a year later finds himself maneuvering between the needs of his country, a political fight in the us anprospects of a peace plan with russia to ende going war. newshour weekend special correspondent simon ostrovsky, wi support from the pulitz center, first introduced us to the celebrity candidate who was in a tight race as ukrainians headed to the polls. >> rehearsal. >> reporter: could this man be ukraine's next president? meet volodymyr zelensky. actor, comedian, and hding into tomorrow's election, the most popular candidate in the islls. here hilming his hit tvt show "serv the people" in which he plays-- you guessed it-- the president of ukraine. zelensky's character starts outh as an ordinaryistory teacher >> reporter: but he accidentally

wins the presidential election after hiangry rant about government corruption getsad ed by a pupil and goes viral. >> reporter: now, rut only is he ing to be threal thing, he's named his political party" servant of the people" as well. it's as if martin sheen ran for president and regist party called "the west wing." kylike his character, zeles mostly waging his campai online, and avoiding dates with his opponents. it's a departure from the methods of the party bosses and oligarchs that have ruthis country since independence from the soviet union. a candidacy like zelensky's would have been unimaginable st five years ago. then, an anti-corruption protest

turned into a revolution thathe led to t election of a former government minister and powerful oligarch, petro poroshenko. poroshenko now faces corruption allegations of his own. to many, the prospect of a litical novice in the presidency is no laughing matter. you're an actor with no polical experience, your country is at war with russia. vladimir putin, 20 years at the helm. how are you going to deal withvl adimir putin? >> ( translated ): first of all, we will do everything to make sure that vladimir pever ends up at the helm of our country. the main problem in ourh relationship wssia is the war. no one has a real answer, how to stop putin. all we can do is continue talks to achieve a cse fire. >> reporter: achieve a cease fire a rely on assistance from ukraine's allies in the west. zelensky's character in "servant

of the people" fes a choice just as he's about to take t oath of office. his choices are to rule either through trickery and deceit or take theath of honesty and decency. the campaign is banking on ukraine's people believing the real zelensky will choosoption two.: >> sreenivasining me now is special correspondent simon ostrovsky, who has brought us several stories from ukraine in the last year. so, that story introduced us. obviously we know he won. how is he doing? >> reporter: better than a lot of people expected, toe honest. i think the main criticism, of course, when he was running for president was that he's an actor whose only job until then had been playing the president on tv and not actually being a politician of any level whatsoever. and so, coming into the job, there was an expectation that, you know, he might just fumble the relationship wh the western world th is with, you know, with the european union

d the united states. but also, more importantly, the conflict with russia, which is run by a man who's been in charge forver two decades at this point. and, you know, you're setting him upgainst somebody who's got no experience whatsoever. ani think what we've found actually is that he's actually handd the situation as well could be eected. people expected that h first challenge uld come from vladimir putin, but actually it came from an ostensible ally, from the united states of america in the form ofressure to try to get zelenskiy to announce an investigation into donald trump's polital rival, e biden. zelenskiy, to his credit, never did announce that investigation, despite massive pressure from what we now know is a huge ct of characters who are trying to get him to do that.d the same time, he managed to retain the aid from the united states that he needs in order for his country to continue to be able to defend itself against moscow's

aggression. badly.hink he's not doing too >> sreenivasan: that's walking a pretty fine line there between a couple of different superpower what is the sentiment on the street? what how do people there feel about him? do they recognize these accompliments? i mean, recently we had, it might be internal politics, but the prime minister saying,sa ng something on an audio cassette, the shaking, you know, not having confidence in zelenskiy. what's all that about? >> reporter: so, you know, i think the country is divided in a certain way. much in the same way as the cited states is politically. whereas here, itser to 50/50, in ukraine, it's more like 25, 75. >> sreenivasan: 25favor of him? >> reporter: 25 opposed to him and 75 in favor. he won the election with 73% of the vo in the cond round. and so any me that he makes, of course, those who are in opposition to him, mostl supporters of the previous president, poroshenko, they'll criticize every move that he has. but the wider public, they really do support hibecause

ukraine sort of was subject to this anti-elitist, anti- establishment wave that we're seeing sweep across the united ates or sorry, in the entire world as well. and zelenskiy is very much a phenomenon, part of that phenomenon. so people are giving him a loty. of lee but having said that, he's job as we've seen in recentad days. we've been following the plane accident in iran where a ukrainian airliner was shot down, iran has now admitted, by its anti-aircraft systems. and th was another showing of his, i suppose, tant for united states, canritain the were pointing thfinger at iran, playing the bad cop, i gus, in that situation, zelenskiy was playing the good ancop and thanking the ira authorities for cooperating with them on the investigation, evene

though at the he iranians were denying that they had had anything to do with the plane crash and saying that it was an engine failure. >> sreenivasan: now, did ukrainian citizens whim to be livid at iran about this? >> reporter: and so, that was a very difficu position for him to be in, because, of course, you've got the united states, you've got canada, ukrainian allies saying blame iran, it's their fault.ve and you he president of ukraine saying thank you to iran's leader for allowing the investigation team tland there. a lot of people were very angry, espeally online, especially social media, which is very important for public opinion making in ukraine, saying that he should have taken a harder line. but what did he get as a result? he eventually got the irania to take responsibility, toe prom investigate and to eventually pay compensation. and i think that's a huge achievement. if you compare what happened during the previous presidency under petro poroshenko when that malaysian airliner wasdown over eastern ukraine, dutch

investigators say by a russian anti-aircraft system. and russia has yet to admit any culpability, any responsibility in that incident. d the families, primaril dutch citizens, are still waiting to get any kin mof peace d, let alone compensation in that tragedy.as >> sreen: all right. speaking of russia, there was kind of a big diplomatic test there.ur and you filed econd report for us right before that. >> reporter: this is how the battle lines in the war in ukraine are being redrawn ahead of peace talks between moscow and kyiv, tomorrow. these trenches a freshly dug and there is a reason for that. they're part ot of confidence building measures that both sides have been enacting ahead of the peace talks. it might sound stran that making new trenches is a confidence building measure, but the idea is, is that both sides are abandoning old trenches that werevery close to each other and now they're moving further

apt to de-escalate hostilities. these new fortifications are part of an effort championed by ukraine's president volodymyrns ze to tamp down hostilities in a conflict that has not only taken more thanbu 13,000 livest has become the focuof a domestic, amerin the background is in 2014 russia invaded ukraine's crimea resistance and declared it a part of russia. then together with local separatist fces it began to battle ukrainian troops for control over a large chunk of eastern ukrain that fight continues in thisth area to is day. since the start of the war, america has assisted ukraine in its batt with its much more powerful neighbor. but this summer, as an array of american diplomats and trump associates pressured ukraine to open an investigation into the son of trump's political rival

joe biden, the white house considered withholding its mitary aid. the commanr at this new position told newshour weekend how he felt when he heard that his country's main military ally could withdraw its support >> ( translated ): our men were saddened by this, it's bad news. especially since we participated in joint exercises with canadian and american instructors last spng and there was this spirit of brotherhood with them. >> reporter: so do you think that it influences zelensky's position in the negotiationse with putin, ct that now the russians know that american assistance isn't guaranteed 100%? >> ( translated ): i'm no diplomat so i can't say but it certainly doesn't strengthen our hand. >> reporter: besides an end to hostilities, ukrainian officials have said they want a prisoner exchange and crucially, their territories returned. but ukraine's faltering

relationship with the united states is making thord goals er to achieve, as several career u.s. diplomats pointed out during the impeachment hearings currently roiling. washingt >> if we withdraw, or suspend,it or threaten toraw our security assistance,s a message to the ukrainians, but as's at least as important your question indicates mr. chairman, to the russians who are looking for any sign of weakness or any sign that we are rwithdrawing our suppor ukraine. >> reporter: on the other side of this bridge are areas occupied by russia and its s separatist proxies knowne" luhansk people's republic." like many western journalists, i'm not allowed to go on the other side. but i've come to this crossing point today to speak with people living under the occupation to find out what their hopes are for the talks beeen volodymyr zelensky and vladimir putin.an

>> ( trated ): we want to be back in ukraine, what is there to say everyone wants peace and quiet. >> sreenivasan: soow did that meeting turn out? >> reporter: what we saw was the ukrainians and the russians agreeing to continue disengagement in small steps along thfront line. so, so far, they've created two or three disengagement zones that are only two by two kilometers. and we're talkg about a 250 mile long frontline that stretches across easternra e. so that's a very small step. but the major achievement thatee we didome out of that meeting in paris was a prisoner exchange. so dozens upon dozens of pple were exchanged by boes. those were happy moments for a ot of ukrainian families got to see their family members, some of whom who have been held incommunicado for over two, three years, to spend the new year's holiday with them. so, you know, despite the fact that peace did not break out

across eastern ukraine a the conflict is definitely unresolved between russia and ukraine, there wersome positive things that came out of that situation. but also, some painful concessions, because part of sthat deal was turning ove of the riot police that ukraine had been holding, who were members of the former ukrainian gime's police, who had been implicated in some of the killings that happened on the main square in kiev in 2014 when protesters rose up against the form pro-russian government of viktor yanukovych. ond it was atrange situa because this was a exchange about the war, and thee held by ukraine. officers being so why would russia want them in the first place? ti think it goes a long w showing how opposed russia has beeno the pro-western governments that have come into power since the fall of yanukovych and how thesee those people as their guys, even though they were just ukrainian

police officers potentially exceeding their authority. >> sreenivasan: but what is vladimir putin's position on ukraine right now? why is there still an active conflict along that border? >> reporter: i think that to understand what russia wants from ukrne, you need to look at not just the conflict in the east, and the annexation of crimea, and gea picture for the kremlin's desire to ve influence all acrosskraine. and the one thing that, you know, i learned fromip there for newshour weekend was how attitudes have changed in eastern ukraine from the early days when i was covering the war five years ago. and you spoke with people on the ground, there we actually quite a lot of pro-russian attitudes among the local population. people hoped that that part ofco thtry would join into russia. now, fivesix years later, we see that russia still hasn't integrated that area into its territory in the same way that

they did w hh crimea. th left the people living there on the side that the russians control in limbo without status, unrecognized, unable to continue their lives.l anso they eft behind by moscow. many of them just want things to go back to the way they were when ukraine controlled all of that territory. so at least that they would have some, me stability in their lives. russia doesn't want at. why? because having the conflict on a low simmer in the east is a way of being able to continue to put pressure on the ukrainian central aut orities. withe conflict, how can russia convince the ukrainns to do anything? you know, they can't take prisoner they can't take hostages. they can't trade them. they can't, you know, direct policy in one way or theivther. >> srean: is there such a sovereign ukrainian kind of independent notionhat says, you know what, i am not russian. this is a separate country. there's a reason that we are distinct? >> reporter: well, if you asked m that question five years ago,

i would have hadh more difficult time answering it. wat the war has gone a lon towards strengthening that ukrainian identity and making people, even russian-speakingle pen ukraine, feel more ukrainian because they do feel that this was an aggression from the outside, they do feel that russian forces are occupying parts of their territory and they do see themselves now opposed to russian shood. >> sreenivasan: zelenskiy, for being a comedian and an actor, really got thrown into the deep end of the pool, i mean, really, his plan was that he was going toave to deal with vladimi putin. didn't see this coming. at this point, he isiterally in the middle-- he is the reason, a phone call with the president, is one of the reasons that we have the impeachment of donald tru. he's on the world stage. >> reporter: you know, i think a in a way, li ukrainians, country are in thenationals

spotlight in a way. because, you know, it's kind of inconceivable that this relatively small country, when you compare to russia or the united states, suddenly at the center of everything. and what about volodymyr zelenskiy himself? you know, last christmas, he was just an actor thinking abo maybe running for president. and now, he's this politicalho figure at the center of everything. and his profile has skyrocketeds i mean, een the cover of time magazine. he's been on the pages of every major newspaper in every cotry. and so, you know, his profile has just gone up and up. and i think that he's handling the pressure that comes with that pretty well.to it's harudge from the outside what's going on behind closed doors. but as i said before, ukrae has got it, done a good job of, i think, balancing the whims of e'is white house with ukra interests.an

>> sreenivall right. simon ostrovsky, thanks so much for joining us and for your reporting. >> reporter: appreciate it. >> sreenivasan: that's all for this edition of "pbs wshour weekend." i'm hari sreenivasan. thanks for watching. have a good night. captioning sponsored by wnet captiod by access.wgbh.orroup at wgbh >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. sue and edgar wachheim iii. the cheryl and philip milstein family. rosalind p. walter. barbara hope zuckerberg. charles rosenblum. to not miss what's right int, front of us. at mutual of america, we

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(upbeat m) i was really fortunate in that i grew up here at penumbra, literally, i think i was on a stage with my father when i was six months old and he was sword fighting or jousting or something during this scen and my mother slightly threatened my father and said, f you drop her, we're done with this theater thing. this is our dressing room. you can imagine being a small child and encountering