Twenty-five buses line up in a small town on the left bank of the Dnipro. For more than four years, Oleshky has lived under Russian occupation. Now, on the fourth day of a local truce, people are finally getting out. Their route goes south through Crimea, by plane to Belarus, and only then by bus into Ukrainian-held territory.
That is how the audio edition of The Conflict Brief opens this week.
The newsletter you read every Sunday is also something you can listen to. The audio edition doesn't rush. In about 40 minutes, our hosts Nora and Elias work through the week's biggest stories. They ask the questions you might ask yourself, and they bring in our correspondents where they know the ground best.
This week, in Waiting for November Fourth, Leaving Oleshky:
- Iran and the Gulf. Several Gulf states have reportedly been told to prepare for a US campaign against Iran after the midterms. Layla Hassan separates what is confirmed from what is not, and explains why Gulf capitals are pushing back.
- Ebola in Congo. The outbreak is now the second deadliest on record, and it has reached Kenya and Nigeria.
- Ukraine. Elena Kowalski on a truce for one town, a Nordic phone call to Putin, the strike on Dnipro station, and a Patriot deal that may take years to deliver.
- Person of the week. Poland's president, Karol Nawrocki, at the centre of a fight over the Constitutional Tribunal.
- The short news, from the Urda train crash in Spain to the end of the UN mission in Western Sahara.
Listen every Sunday
A new episode comes out every Sunday afternoon, together with the newsletter, on Spotify. Not subscribed to The Conflict Brief yet? Sign up and get it in your inbox every week. Tell us what works, what doesn't, and what you want to hear more of.
How we make it
The audio edition is made with AI: the voices, the hosts and our correspondents. The script is written from our fact-checked newsletter and the week's Crisis.Zone articles. It is fact-checked again before we record, under human editorial oversight and guided by our Constitution for Crisis Zone AI.
