--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Good morning. It's Wednesday, March 9th. I'm Duarte Giraldino. And I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today. Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news and how the world's best journalists are covering them.
--:-- Shamita Basu: As Russia's attacks on Ukraine continue, Ukrainian doctors are working overtime to treat the injured on both sides of this conflict. Christopher Miller is a reporter for BuzzFeed News who is on the ground in Kiev. He spoke with one doctor named Vitaly.
--:-- Christopher Miller: Vitaly told me that in the first week of the war, he never even left the hospital. And he said he had only slept for maybe 15 minutes to an hour, and he was exhausted. And the surgeons that he works with are also exhausted. And he said that it was taking a real psychological and mental and physical toll on them.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's not just the long hours. It's also that Vitaly and other Ukrainian doctors like him are sometimes treating injured Russian soldiers. Miller told us about three soldiers who were brought into the emergency ward around a week ago. They said they were from Kiev, but they didn't speak Ukrainian. They spoke Russian. They couldn't name any neighborhoods in the capital city, and they refused to answer many questions. They had gunshot wounds. One of them had a broken leg.
--:-- Christopher Miller: Eventually, Ukrainian officials confirmed that they were Russian soldiers and that they stole Ukrainian uniforms during an assault on Kiev. For Vitaly, treating those men was tough. He was honest in saying that, for him, it was a very difficult thing. He used some pretty powerful language to describe how he felt about treating people who had essentially been a part of this force that had killed so many Ukrainians.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Vitaly asked BuzzFeed not to reveal his last name or hospital for security reasons. One of the Russian soldiers he treated died. The others were moved to a jail inside the hospital where they recovered. For Vitaly, the idea of saving enemy lives brought up conflicting feelings that maybe his time would be better spent helping Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. But ultimately, he said, as a doctor, he took the Hippocratic oath to treat people in need, and that's what he would continue to do.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Thousands of anti-war protesters have been arrested in cities across Russia. That's according to a human rights group. Ordinary people are taking a big risk in demonstrating against the war on Ukraine. And this illustrates that there is a growing domestic divide over this invasion. No to war. That's what they're shouting as they march through Moscow. Videos like these are filling social media feeds.
--:-- Shamita Basu: NPR reports on how Russia recently criminalized war protests and independent reporting. The penalties? They include up to 15 years in prison. Russia has long gone after activists and opposition figures. Putin's biggest political rival, Alexei Navalny, has been in jail for more than a year now. Over the weekend, he tweeted from prison, calling on people all over the world to protest Russia's invasion every day.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Navalny said each arrested person must be replaced by two newcomers. The human rights group OVD Info says some protesters in Russia were tortured at police stations. Some were denied access to lawyers. One Russian protester who was detained in the early days of Russia's invasion of Ukraine spoke to NPR. She said these protests, they feel different than anti-Putin protests of the past decade. She says people are angrier and protesting is more dangerous because of the stronger police response and the new laws.
--:-- Shamita Basu: She said she doubts these demonstrations will really do anything to change Putin's mind but she's doing it for future generations of Russians so she can someday say she stood up against what happened in Ukraine.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The first person to stand trial for the January 6th attack on the Capitol was found guilty on all counts. Guy Refitt was convicted of bringing a handgun to a restricted area, interfering with police, obstructing justice, and other charges. BuzzFeed News senior reporter Zoe Tillman said the jury's verdict came very quickly. The jury had no questions. They sent out no notes. They seemed to have all the information that they felt they needed to make a decision in relatively short order.
--:-- Zoe Tillman: Refitt never testified in the trial. And when he learned his fate, he didn't show much emotion. Guy Reffitt did not react much to the verdict. He sat pretty still. He was looking down at his hands. His mother was in the courtroom and she did cry.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We wanted to talk to Tillman because she's been really sticking to this beat, reporting on this case and the prosecutions of hundreds of other people charged in connection with the Capitol insurrection. Many of those cases are very different from Reffitt's, but those other defendants and their lawyers, they were watching.
--:-- Zoe Tillman: We saw how the government presented the overarching narrative of the breach and what happened that day and why. And the jury found it compelling. And I think for a lot of defendants, that's going to be something they pay attention to. The fact that they could convince the jury that even a person who didn't go inside the building was guilty of that, I imagine is going to give some pause to defendants who might be weighing a plea deal and facing a similar charge in terms of seeing how that played out.
--:-- Shamita Basu: President Biden announced yesterday that the United States will ban Russian oil imports. And he said Americans are going to feel it. The decision today is not without cost here at home. Putin's war is already hurting American families at the gas pump. A Wall Street Journal poll shows a large majority of Americans are in favor of the ban, even if it drives up energy prices.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But that support may not last if gas prices keep breaking records. CNN looks at what the Biden administration is trying to do to ease the sticker shock. Some of it involves working with other governments that the White House has tried to isolate or avoid. You can see this in the news out of Venezuela, which just released two Americans from prison. This comes after U.S. officials made a rare visit to Caracas.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Detained Americans was just one topic, along with potentially lifting sanctions on Venezuela. That could lead to more of the country's oil going to the U.S. As CNN explains, Biden's willingness to engage with controversial regimes shows he may be willing to do a lot in order to make Moscow hurt.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There are also signs of a new approach to Saudi Arabia. Biden once talked of a recalibrated relationship and effectively refused to speak with the crown prince. But lately, key administration officials have met with Saudi counterparts. They talked about collaborating with the oil-rich nation to manage energy market pressure.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The U.S. produces a lot of its own oil and relies less on Russian energy than some of its European allies. So it has a bit more leeway to say no to Russian oil. Still, the country is hungry for energy. The new diplomacy is a reminder of one of the cold, hard facts of the energy market. If you stop buying oil from one autocrat, you might have to make a deal with an autocrat somewhere else.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all those stories and more in the Apple News app. And when you're in the app, keep listening to hear narrated articles from our News Plus partners. We'll talk with you again tomorrow.
