Welcome to the Dispatch Podcast. I'm your host Sarah Isger, joined by Steve Hayes, David French,

and Jonah Goldberg. We have plenty to discuss this morning. We're going to do an update on Russia,

mobilization, and the nuclear threat. We'll talk a little bit more about the politics of immigration.

And finally, did that blue surge that everyone saw a couple of weeks ago?

Already peak? Plus, of course, a not worth your time.

Let's dive right in. Steve, do you want to update us on the latest and what's going on on the

ground in Ukraine? And of course, Vladimir Putin's latest statements on nuclear blackmail.

The short version is Russia is in trouble. Russia is in trouble on the ground in Ukraine. They're

taking serious losses, losses of personnel. There are some estimates that have their overall

losses that upwards of 80,000 soldiers, which would truly be extraordinary. They're losing

territory. Morale is low. And they're being humiliated in quite a public way on the ground

militarily in Ukraine. And I think it's important to point out that these losses and the

challenges that they're facing are not geographically isolated. They are in pockets around the

country. That, of course, has led to this very, I think, consequential speech from Vladimir Putin

this week in which Putin declared that he was going to be mobilizing 300,000 Russians to serve

in the word Ukraine. And there are reports in Russian media that the classified version of

that call-up notice actually calls for a million, mobilization of a million Russians to serve

in Ukraine. You're seeing images of Russians trying to flee the country. There are some

extraordinary photos of Russians at the border with Georgia, massive, massive traffic,

snarlops trying to get out of the country. There are pictures in, I think I saw it on the BBC,

account of Russians at airports. Mostly young males trying to get out of the country to avoid being

called up. There are also reports that there are Google search spikes on searches for how to

...