The Fifth Floor: Russia's runaway soldiers
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 30 November 2024
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
There has been a record number of cases this year of Russian soldiers deserting their units. Amaliya Zatari from BBC Russian has spoken to one young man who managed to get to France along with five others. Nina Nazarova, also from BBC Russian, offers a unique insight into the price many ordinary Russian families are paying when they try to hide or protect their relatives.
Produced by Hannah Dean and Alice Gioia.
(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:07.8 | This is the fifth floor. |
| 0:11.5 | The fifth floor, you knowssonous. |
| 0:15.9 | To me, Ikeye, the fifth floor, Farnak, Amidi, Sobert. |
| 0:20.8 | This is the fifth floor at Farnak Amidi Sobath. This is the fifth floor at the heart of global storytelling with BBC journalists from all around the world. |
| 0:29.0 | I'm your host, Faranak Amidi. |
| 0:37.3 | Disserting the army has always been a thorny issue. |
| 0:41.5 | Soldiers who flee the frontline face harsh punishments, a court-martial in the best-case scenario. |
| 0:48.9 | Other actions, whether they are motivated by political or personal reasons, |
| 0:54.0 | polarize public opinion. |
| 0:56.7 | Are these soldiers, heroes, or traitors? |
| 1:00.2 | And does it matter who they are fighting for? |
| 1:03.6 | On this episode of the Fifth Floor, I'm joined by Emalia Zatari and Nina Nazarova, |
| 1:09.0 | two BBC Russian journalists who've been following the stories of the |
| 1:13.0 | soldiers who've decided to leave Putin's army. Amalia and Nina, welcome to the fifth floor. |
| 1:19.5 | Hello. Thanks for Invite. Thank you. So, Amalia, do we know roughly how many men have deserted |
| 1:25.4 | their units since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine? |
| 1:30.3 | Well, there is no any official states on the matter. The Russian courts have registered |
| 1:37.1 | more than 13,000 of criminal cases of abandonment of military duties since the beginning of mobilization. |
| 1:49.4 | And also there is one human rights organization go by the forest who helps Russian soldiers |
| 1:57.0 | to leave army and frontline and to leave the country if they want to do that because some of |
| 2:03.7 | them prefer to stay in Russia and hide there. So they told me that nowadays they receive up to |
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