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Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots,

the spectators' daily politics podcast.

I'm Katie Balls and I'm joined by James Sysife in Ispa Hardman.

Putin has announced a mobilisation of troops and has also threatened nuclear action.

James, can you for this in?

So, Vladimir Putin is doing two things here.

First is partial mobilisation, that's designed to get more manpower to the front

and prevent a kind of full-on collapse of Russian forces.

The second part of the strategy is a series of

of referendums, which I think is fair to say, would not meet the electoral reform societies

criteria for a free and fair vote,

which will then allow him to say that these currently occupied parts of Ukraine,

wish to join Russia, and then, as he's menacing video tape to dress,

make clear, if they were to then be attacked, then all options up to the nuclear

one would be on the table in terms of defending that territory.

And I think this speech tells you two things.

One, that the war is clearly not going according to plan,

hence the need for this partial mobilisation, something that Putin has been wary of,

because I think they are aware of the fact that, you know, once you start drafting people,

...