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From Our Own Correspondent

Putin's Soviet Ambitions

From Our Own Correspondent

BBC

News, News Commentary

4.41.3K Ratings

🗓️ 26 February 2022

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ever since the fall of the Soviet Union three decades ago, Russia has been grappling with how to keep its old empire close to it, using a variety of tactics. This week, Russia stunned Nato member states when it embarked on a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Andrew Harding spent the 1990s reporting on the aftermath of the Soviet collapse and reflects on current events. Russia's attack on Georgia in 2008 also came in response to the NATO alliance promising membership to both states. And ever since that war, Russia has occupied two separate regions of Georgia. Experts call it a frozen conflict, which Russia can stir up at any time -- as Andrew North found when he visited a village on the boundary between areas under Georgian and Russian control. Iceland has a strong track record for championing women’s rights and gender equality policies. Yet, despite this, the country still sees persistently high cases of domestic violence. Maddy Savage followed a police project in Reykjavik that’s trying to tackle the problem. Zimbabwe’s healthcare system was once viewed as one of the best in sub-Saharan Africa. After independence, the majority of Zimbabweans gained access to education and health care. Now, the health system is collapsing and the nurses and doctors are leaving the country in ever higher numbers. Shingai Nyoka visited two clinics in Harare. The Philippines is holding elections in May and the son of the late military dictator, Ferdinand Marcos Jr has taken a strong lead in the polls. Sarah Duterte, the daughter of the country’s incumbent authoritarian leader, is his running mate, and the two of them have embarked on a fervent campaign to rebrand their respective family’s legacies. Howard Johnson reports from a rally.

Transcript

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0:00.0

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts

0:05.3

Today we visit a village in central Georgia near South Asetia, where the locals feel the

0:11.1

long-hand of Moscow on an almost daily basis.

0:15.2

In Iceland, our correspondent scrapes beneath the surface of the country's earnest reputation

0:20.6

as a flag bearer for gender equality.

0:23.8

We hear how Zimbabwe's nurses are fleeing the country in large numbers after their

0:29.0

once-celebrated health care system has been left to disintegrate.

0:34.1

And we attend Raleigh in the Philippines as it prepares to go to the Poles, where the

0:38.8

Morkos and Duterte legacy is undergoing a rebrand.

0:43.3

First, it's three decades since the end of the Soviet Union, ever since Russia's been

0:49.4

grappling with how to keep its old empire close to it, how to retain influence through

0:55.1

a mixture of charm and bullying.

0:58.4

Now NATO Allies have been shaken as Russia embarked on a fully fledged offensive into

1:04.0

Ukraine in the early hours of Thursday.

1:07.7

Andrew Harding spent all of the 1990s living in and reporting on the aftermath of the Soviet

1:13.4

collapse, and he reflects on how the past shed light on current events.

1:19.5

The vodka was the same, so with the toasts and the bread, the gerkens, the songs.

1:26.2

This was three years ago, in a small apartment in northern Moscow, maybe 15 of us, a reunion

1:32.6

with friends from way back.

1:35.0

The men still slipping out of the room and onto the freezing cold balcony for a cigarette.

1:40.2

But something had changed, a heaviness hanging over the evening.

1:45.2

I first come to live in Moscow in the late autumn of 1991, weeks after the attempted coup

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