What happens to Russian soldiers who refuse to fight?
Ukrainecast
BBC
4.7 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 12 December 2022
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A Russian soldier tells us the danger is "from our side" not from Ukraine. BBC Russia editor Steve Rosenberg and his team have been talking to families whose loved ones refused to keep fighting.
We hear why Georgian soldiers have travelled to Ukraine - their commander explains the historic ties between the two countries and a shared fear of President Putin’s ambitions.
And Ukraine says many thousands of its children have been taken to Russia. A legal expert at the Regional Centre for Human Rights in Kyiv, Kateryna Rashevska, has been looking into what’s happening.
Today’s episode is presented by Victoria Derbyshire and Vitaly Shevchenko. The producers were Arsenii Sokolov, Clare Williamson and Luke Radcliff. The technical producer was Hannah Montgomery. The assistant editor is Alison Gee and the senior news editor is Jonathan Aspinwall. Email Ukrainecast@bbc.co.uk with your questions and comments. You can also send us a message or voice note via WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram to +443301239480.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:05.2 | Hello, it's 292 days since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine. |
| 0:10.7 | And Ukraine has been hitting various targets within Ukraine that they say are being used |
| 0:17.1 | by either Russian troops or the Russian mercenary group Vagna. |
| 0:21.7 | What's the significance of that, Vitaly? |
| 0:29.0 | The reason why these attacks are important is that Ukraine feels emboldened enough, |
| 0:37.2 | capable enough of targeting what it says are bases used by Russian troops in occupied territories |
| 0:47.0 | in the Parisian region, Lohansk region, and even in Crimea, over the weekend, there |
| 0:52.7 | have been reports of a Russian base that caught fire and then claims by people calling |
| 1:00.6 | themselves Ukrainian partisans that they started the fire. |
| 1:05.0 | So the message coming from Ukraine seems to be afraid of us. |
| 1:09.9 | We can hit you even if you are in occupied territories. |
| 1:16.1 | Also today on Ukrainecast, we're going to be talking about what life is like for some |
| 1:19.9 | of those Russian soldiers as they fight in Ukraine, and what happens when they don't |
| 1:25.1 | want to fight anymore. |
| 1:27.1 | This is Ukrainecast. |
| 1:29.1 | Ukrainecast, from these things. |
| 1:32.9 | The question for us now is to be or not to be. |
| 1:36.5 | I'm ordering the Ministry of Defence to put the strategic nuclear forces on special alert. |
| 1:42.1 | I could not imagine that I would find out that actually my home is bombed. |
| 1:48.0 | Is the aggression? |
| 1:49.0 | He will never be able to cleanse the blood from his hands. |
... |
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