Oct 25, 2025
Hundreds attend Telegraph’s sold-out Ukraine: The Latest podcast event in London
The team is joined by special guests, following their win of Podcast of the Year at the London Press Club.
Rachel Duffy 25 October 2025
The team behind the Telegraph’s award-winning podcast Ukraine: The Latest appeared on stage in front of 400 attendees at the Honourable Artillery Company in London for a live recording, marking over 1,300 days of their continued coverage of the war.
Telegraph journalists and co-hosts of the podcast, Dominic Nicholls, Francis Dearnley and Adélie Pojzman-Pontay were joined by General Sir Richard Barrons, former head of UK Joint Forces Command and one of the authors of Britain’s strategic defence review and Orysia Lutsevych, head of the Ukraine Forum at Chatham House.
Nicholls and Dearnley have reported on Russia’s illegal invasion every weekday since Feb 24, 2022 on the podcast created by the late David Knowles, who passed away suddenly last year.
Dearnley opened the event by arguing: “This war is what failed deterrence looks like.”
Despite Donald Trump’s recent sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, after talks for a proposed meeting with Vladimir Putin collapsed, the panel underlined the damage that a lack of a clear US strategy has had.
Dearnley said: “Since Trump’s election, we have seen a desperate scramble from European leaders to maintain America’s support. Yet, I would argue that the drip, drip, drip support from the US would never have been enough. This is Europe’s war.”
Lutsevych agreed, highlighting Ukraine and Europe’s shared world view and their joint belief in “right and wrong.”
General Barrons concurred, urging Europe to do more.
He highlighted the combined strength of the continent, stating: “Europe is twelve times the size of Russia, yet we feel hostage to them. This is the wrong attitude.”
Echoing Dearnley’s earlier point, he stated that capitulation is: “Further proof of the failure of deterrence.”
With over 120 million downloads, Ukraine: The Latest has become the Telegraph’s most popular podcast, and one of the most popular foreign affairs podcasts in the world. It has earned major accolades, including Podcast of the Year at the London Press Club awards, on the same day as the event.
Earlier in the year, it won News Podcast of the Year at the 2025 Press Awards, where the judges called it “a gripping testament to courageous and vitally important public interest journalism.” Previously, it was awarded Best News Podcast at the Publisher Podcast Awards 2024 and Podcast of the Year at the Society of Editors’ Media Freedom Awards 2024.
Using cutting-edge technology, the podcast is also translated into Ukrainian and Russian, cloning the voices of the hosts. A weekly newsletter is also available.
Later in the evening, General Barrons warned: “We need to remember that the missiles that fall on Kyiv every night could just as easily fall on London, it is just 90 minutes further for them. Keep that in mind”
Dearnley agreed, adding: “Once Article 5 is in question, you could say that nobody is safe.”
The panel agreed that the biggest developments in modern warfare are the expansion of artificial intelligence capabilities and fiber optic drones.
Nicholls reminded the audience that: “The technological advancements that we have today would have been unimaginable three and a half years ago.”
Following a lively audience Q&A, the hosts and panellists joined listeners and subscribers over a drink as they continued to share stories and analysis long into the evening.
Listen to Ukraine: the Latest, The Telegraph’s daily podcast, using the video player at the top of this article or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app. You can subscribe to their weekly newsletter here.
………….
In this special live episode recorded at the Honourable Artillery Company in London, we take stock of the war as it grinds into its fourth calendar year.
Joined by General Sir Richard Barrons – former head of UK Joint Forces Command and co-author of Britain’s Strategic Defence Review – and Orysia Lutsevych OBE – head of the Ukraine Forum at Chatham House – hosts Dom Nicholls, Francis Dearnley, and Adélie Pojzman-Pontay debate the state of the conflict, Donald Trump’s renewed deadlines and ultimatums, and why Vladimir Putin shows no sign of negotiating peace in good faith.
As bombs continue to devastate Ukrainian cities and Europe’s “Coalition of the Willing” struggles for credibility, we ask: where next for the war and for European security?
With the post-1945 security order collapsing, this timely discussion helps make sense of a shifting geopolitical era – and considers the challenges facing Western societies and reserve forces such as the Honourable Artillery Company in the years ahead.
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Each week, Dom Nicholls and Francis Dearnley answer your questions, provide recommended reading, and give exclusive analysis and behind-the-scenes insights – plus maps of the frontlines and diagrams of weapons to complement our daily reporting. It’s free for everyone, including non-subscribers.
► Subscribe: telegraph.co.uk/ukrainethelatest
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Note from Scradge :
“This war is what failed deterrence looks like.”
Francis Dearnley, of the DT.
Even if you can’t spare the full 48 minutes it takes to watch this gripping discussion, I would recommend watching Mr Dearnley’s opening statement, which takes up only 6 minutes or so.
It is entirely without political content. It is a forensic analysis of the appalling missed opportunities that we all have had to bring it to a close.
He expresses the views of most supporters of Ukrainian freedom, but with a level of clarity that few of us are capable of.
“This war could have been stopped probably within the first six months if Ukraine had been armed with the weapons it requested.”
“I don’t believe that Russia wants to stop this war. I think Putin is still seeking to achieve what he set out to do in the first three days : the destruction of Ukrainian sovereignty and the erasure of Ukraine as a state.
If we don’t want that to happen, it’s on us ………”
Francis Dearnley.
London could hit moscow in 15 minutes or less.
No doubt there is a nuclear sub in the Baltics. It would hit moscow well before any missile hit the UK.