More children are being killed by explosive weapons than at any other time in history, according to a major new report by Save the Children and Imperial College London. It’s clear there has been a shift in the way wars are being fought, and children are being caught in the crosshairs. In this exclusive interview, Arthur and Paul ask George Graham, Executive Director for Global Impact at Save the Children, and Shehan Hettiaratchy, from the Centre for Paediatric Blast Injury Studies at Imperial Co...
Nov 19, 2025•27 min
America is flexing its muscles in the Caribbean and the world is holding its breath. Washington has trained its sights on Socialist-run Venezuela, and the arrival of the colossal USS Gerald Ford has sparked the biggest military buildup since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Operation Southern Spear is now under way: a dozen warships, thousands of troops, and a barrage of so-called “anti-narco” strikes that have already left scores dead. The White House insists it’s about drug traffickers, but few belie...
Nov 17, 2025•33 min
The Syrian civil war raged for years, wrecked a nation, and then quietly vanished from the headlines. Last December, a jihadist faction once aligned with Al-Qaeda toppled Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship. Their leader, al-Sharaa is now President of Syria and he met Donald Trump this week in the Oval Office, yes, really. Al-Sharaa is calling it a “new era” for Syria, no enemies, just friends. He’s courting everyone: Russia, Israel, Iran, the Gulf, even Turkey. But can a man with blood on his hands ...
Nov 14, 2025•41 min
For more than two years a vicious civil war has been raging in Sudan. It’s been defined by massacres, rapes, displacement, and starvation. As the UN has long said, it is one of the worst humanitarian crises of the 21st century. Most media didn’t pay attention until Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab published satellite images of bodies and bloody sand. Suddenly, there was hard visual evidence of the scale of the slaughter. This week, we speak to Nathaniel Raymond, Executive Director of Yale's Huma...
Nov 12, 2025•41 min
Sanctions, nationwide protests, even Israeli airstrikes haven’t broken the Iranian regime. Could a drought finally bring the Islamic Republic to its knees? Iran is running out of water and now the president has warned that if the rains don’t come, all of Tehran may have to be evacuated. This isn’t a war fought with bombs or bullets, it’s far more devastating. Roland Oliphant is joined by The Telegraph’s Iran correspondent, Akhtar Makoii and former Iranian politician Kaveh Madani to unpack how th...
Nov 10, 2025•36 min
Germany is rearming, and fast. A sentence that once sent shivers down Europe’s spine is now a shocking reality. This isn’t the Germany of old; it’s a nation powering up for a new era of danger. With Putin’s war machine grinding on, Berlin’s gone from pacifist to powerhouse, pledging a staggering 3.5% of GDP to defence by 2029, outpacing the UK. So what’s behind this dramatic transformation? And is it enough to protect Europe from another Russian rampage? Venetia is joined by The Telegraph’s Berl...
Nov 07, 2025•42 min
In Ukraine, tens of thousands of soldiers have returned from the frontlines without limbs. Most of them will require support in some form for the rest of their lives. But not all of those amputations are purely the result of direct hits on the battlefield. Ukraine’s Chief Military Surgeon has said the improper use of tourniquets could be responsible for as many as one in four lost limbs. Have medics become too reliant on the tourniquet? And what does this enormous burden of injury mean for Ukrai...
Nov 05, 2025•24 min
Donald Trump’s been on a triumphant tour of Asia, shaking hands, signing peace deals, and lapping up royal treatment fit for, well, himself. From Tokyo Tower lit in red, white and blue to 250 cherry trees gifted in his honour, it was a spectacle of ego and diplomacy rolled into one. In South Korea, they even played YMCA as he strutted past a military band. Trump’s “12 out of 10” meeting with Xi Jinping was big on smiles but is it enough to combat Beijing's increasingly confident posture in the P...
Nov 03, 2025•46 min
There’s a rhythm to wartime atrocity. First come the warnings, ignored, dismissed. Then the whispers, the shaky videos, the satellite images that no one can quite believe. And finally, the horrific truth. That’s where we are today in el-Fasher, Sudan, where the militia calling itself the Rapid Support Forces is perpetrating a massacre that can literally be seen from space. The crime has refocused attention both on Sudan's war, and the RSF's regional backers. Who are they, and why are they bankro...
Oct 31, 2025•45 min
It's been over two weeks since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into effect in Gaza. While the full-blown war has stopped, the World Health Organisation is warning that Gaza is experiencing a health "catastrophe" that will last for "generations to come". How do we make Gaza healthy again? How do you heal a city that’s been under siege and rebuild a health system destroyed by war? To find out, Arthur and Venetia are joined by Professor Paul Spiegel, director of the Johns Hopkins Center...
Oct 29, 2025•28 min
As the Arctic ice melts, a new Cold War is heating up. Russia and China are rewriting the rules of global power, testing missiles, flexing muscles, and pushing into the world’s last frontiers. A 294-metre container ship has just blazed through the Arctic route from China to Europe in record time. If trade can flow through, what’s to stop warships? Are we watching the start of a polar power grab? Should NATO be bracing for a Chinese fleet in the North Atlantic, or even Antarctica next? Military h...
Oct 27, 2025•43 min
The Caribbean is heating up and Trump’s fingerprints are all over it. U.S. warships, stealth fighters, elite troops… and whispers of regime change . Is Donald Trump about to launch a full-scale invasion of Venezuela? Behind the “war on drugs” rhetoric, Washington has been quietly building up military power near Maduro’s shores, reopening bases and even authorising covert CIA operations. Venezuela’s leader says America is trying to overthrow him. Trump insists it’s about stopping criminals and ca...
Oct 24, 2025•33 min
Last month, Donald Trump raised the spectre of biological weapons at the UN, calling on the world to help him end their development. He said AI could help enforce the ban on these weapons. But scientists are increasingly concerned that technologies like AI and gene editing tools could also make them more accessible – and even more dangerous. So we’re asking: has the threat of biological weapons returned? We are joined by Dr Brett Edwards, Senior Lecturer in Security and Public Policy at the Univ...
Oct 22, 2025•22 min
Here’s a sobering reality: China could bring America’s military to its knees — without firing a single shot. The weapon? Rare earth minerals. These hidden elements power everything from fighter jets and submarines to missiles and drones. If Beijing pulled the plug tomorrow, Western stockpiles would run dry within weeks — and rebuilding them wouldn’t be easy. Now, with China tightening export controls and Trump hitting back with 100% tariffs, the global standoff is escalating fast. This week on B...
Oct 20, 2025•35 min
We surface a story that’s been making waves. A Russian diesel-electric submarine, The Novorossiysk , is being trailed through the North Sea by NATO ships, sparking headlines about a “crippled” vessel and “embarrassment for Moscow.” But is it really in trouble? Or are we, once again, jumping to Cold War-style conclusions? Yes, it leaked fuel last month. Boats do that. It’s now heading home. They do that too. It’s been politely shadowed by eleven ships from six nations—Britain, France, the Dutch—a...
Oct 17, 2025•37 min
War is the perfect petri dish for disease. In the conflicts of the 18th and 19th centuries, many more troops died of illnesses than in battle. And, at the start of the 20th century, the Spanish Flu pandemic emerged out of the chaos of the First World War. With anti-microbial resistance on the rise and HIV cases soaring among Russian soldiers, might ‘Disease X’ – the mystery pathogen that could cause the next pandemic – be lurking in Ukraine, or Gaza, or Sudan? In the first episode of a brand new...
Oct 15, 2025•28 min
China isn’t just spying — many Western security officials believe it’s waging a full-blown, whole-of-government campaign against the West. From hacking our systems to manipulating elections and social media, Beijing’s playing the long game to undermine Britain, America, and their allies. We speak to former FBI agent Michael Feinberg who quit under very controversial circumstances — he lifts the lid on how China’s outsmarting the FBI, America, and the entire Western intelligence machine. Rooted i...
Oct 13, 2025•55 min
In this explosive episode of Battle Lines , Venetia Rainey is asking the question everyone else is too afraid to: is Britain ready for a Russian-style drone onslaught? Drones have been spotted across Europe — Poland, Germany, Denmark, Belgium — sparking fears of a new kind of hybrid war. Could the UK defend itself if those drones turned up on our shores? To find out, Venetia is joined by ex-RAF pilot and CEO of FlyBy Technology, Jon Parker, and The Telegraph's senior foreign correspondent, Memph...
Oct 10, 2025•39 min
Two years on from October 7th, Donald Trump is on the cusp of brokering a fragile peace deal between Israel and Hamas. But with Hamas showing signs of reconstituting itself and Israeli forces still in control of much of the Strip, few believe the war is truly over. In this episode, we hear from The Telegraph’s Jerusalem correspondent Henry Bodkin, fresh from an Israeli army embed inside Gaza City, about what he saw on the ground and why Hamas’s resilience could shape what comes next. Venetia als...
Oct 06, 2025•45 min
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and President Trump delivered extraordinary speeches to top military generals this week, declaring a war on the "enemy within" and signaling a radical transformation of the US armed forces. To decode what it all means, Roland Oliphant speaks with Mark Cancian, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former Marine Corps colonel. Are American soldiers lazier than before? Is there any chance the US Navy will start building battleship...
Oct 03, 2025•24 min
Today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House to discuss bringing an end to the conflict in Gaza. Last week, he was giving a fiery speech at the UN General Assembly denying the accusation of genocide levelled at Israel following a UN report. In response to an earlier Battle Lines interview with one of the report's authors, Venetia gets the other side of the argument with Dr. Eran Shamir-Borer, a former head of the International Law Dep...
Sep 29, 2025•54 min
One of the darling's of the global populist movement, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, has recently been sentenced to over 27 years in prison in his native country. So what does that tell us about the possible fortunes for other political leaders of the same ilk across the globe, and where does the South American country go from here? Roland hears from the Telegraph's senior foreign correspondent Adrian Blomfield, who has just returned from Brazil, about his meeting with Bolsonaro's wi...
Sep 26, 2025•40 min
Is the UN still relevant? The organisation faces numerous unresolved conflicts, a cash crisis, deep polarisation among its members, a bloated bureaucracy and the waning interest of its biggest backer, the US. Venetia Rainey speaks to Richard Gowan, veteran UN watcher and UN director for the US think tank International Crisis Group. He says the body is “rotting from the top” and questions if parts of it will survive another 10 years. Plus, a wave of Western countries including the UK, Canada, Fra...
Sep 22, 2025•40 min
What links Elon Musk, Steve Bannon and Tommy Robinson? They all believe England is on the cusp of civil war. As US President Donald Trump wraps up his second state visit to the UK, hosts Venetia Rainey and Roland Oliphant examine the darker side of the transatlantic “special relationship” — from American support for the British far-right to the spread of populist extremism across borders. They’re joined by Rob Crilly, The Telegraph’s chief US correspondent, who explains MAGA-world’s obsession wi...
Sep 19, 2025•52 min
In a bombshell report, the UN has accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza for the first time. Chris Sidoti, one of the report's authors and a human rights law expert, explains why on this bonus episode of Battle Lines. Speaking to host Venetia Rainey and Telegraph reporter Lilia Sebouai, he delves into the report's findings, how his team reached their conclusions, and concrete examples of Israeli genocidal acts and genocidal intent in Gaza. They also discuss criticisms of the report, its a...
Sep 17, 2025•37 min
The assassination of Charlie Kirk marks more than a shocking act of political violence - it is a symptom of America’s accelerating era of violent populism, and it will continue to escalate without intervention. That's according to Robert Pape, one of the world’s foremost experts on political violence, terrorism, and national security and director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats.Roland speaks to Pape about what next after Kirk's murder, the deeper forces driving America’s unrest an...
Sep 15, 2025•37 min
It's been a week of big developments, with Nato planes scrambled after Russia sent more than a dozen drones into Polish airspace, and Qatar on high alert after Israel bombed a Hamas negotiating team in the centre of Doha. Roland and Venetia unpack the significance of the events and what might happen next. Plus, the team spends a day at DSEI, one of the world's largest arms fairs, to look at how the UK is getting its armed forces ready for the next war. They catch up with a veteran British tank c...
Sep 12, 2025•49 min
For three generations the Kim dynasty has ruled North Korea with ruthless precision. Now Kim Jong Un appears to be grooming his 12-year-old daughter, Kim Ju Ae, as his heir—a bold move in a country where women have never held power. At the same time, reports surface of a disastrous US Navy SEALs mission to bug Kim’s communications, ending in civilian deaths. So what does all this tell us about the Hermit Kingdom’s future, its ties to China and Russia, and the grip of one family dynasty? We are j...
Sep 08, 2025•44 min
Andrew and Jihi Bustamante aren’t your average married couple — they met inside the CIA and their romance played out under the shadow of espionage. In this gripping conversation, they reveal how they fell in love during training, the reality of life inside America’s most secretive agency, and how a mole within the CIA blew their cover. Love, lies, and life on the frontline of the new spy war. https://linktr.ee/BattleLines Contact us with feedback or ideas: battlelines@telegraph.co.uk @venetiarai...
Sep 05, 2025•55 min
China's biggest ever military parade boasted sophisticated new weapons, thousands of goose-stepping troops, and a guest list designed to put the West on notice. The footage of Chinese President Xi Jinping walking in between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un in particular was a clear message to the US, Europe and its democratic allies: Beijing now officially heads up a new world order of authoritarian states. Venetia is joined by former Russia correspondent Rola...
Sep 03, 2025•38 min
