Why Russians have had enough with this war
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 23 September 2022
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Russian President Vladimir Putin is doubling down in Ukraine – holding staged referendums in occupied territories and drafting men to the war. Today on “Post Reports,” we’ll talk about how Russians are reacting to the dramatic escalation.
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This week in Ukraine, Moscow began staging referendums in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories and drafted hundreds of thousands of Russian men to join the war effort. The escalation sparked protests, arrests and sold-out flights as some Russians – who had tried for months to ignore the war – suddenly found their lives thrown into chaos as they were summoned to duty.
With the announcement of a military mobilization in Russia came a veiled threat: that Russia would use nuclear weapons, if necessary. The Biden administration has been sending messages to Moscow about the grave consequences that would follow, according to U.S. officials.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Russian President |
| 0:03.0 | I would like to support the support of the Ministry of Defense and General Staff |
| 0:09.0 | in the administration of the Russian Federation of the Czech Mobilization. |
| 0:15.0 | This week in Russia, the stakes of their war in Ukraine just got higher. |
| 0:20.0 | Russian President Vladimir Putin announced he is drafting hundreds of thousands of civilian men to fight in the war. |
| 0:27.0 | And that is obviously a huge change domestically for Russians because day for a very long time |
| 0:33.0 | we're told that this is a very limited, targeted and successful operation that is fought by professional soldiers. |
| 0:40.0 | Reporter Mary Luciana has been speaking with Russians dealing with this draft, like a man in Moscow who just got his summons on Wednesday. |
| 0:48.0 | Already on Thursday, he is going on a training course and he's potentially going to be in the front lines in the span of two through weeks. |
| 0:56.0 | It's incredibly rapid. |
| 0:59.0 | Many Russians are panicking. |
| 1:01.0 | People are trying to flee the country, people are looking for ways to avoid being summoned, avoid being called up. |
| 1:10.0 | There are videos of people lining up at airports, stuck in traffic at borders. |
| 1:16.0 | Tickets to other countries where Russians don't need visas are all sold out for this week. |
| 1:21.0 | And I'm monitoring all these chat groups, like they're giving live updates of which man crossed the border where and like how was it, what kind of questions the border guards asked him. |
| 1:32.0 | There's a huge mobilization to avoid mobilization. |
| 1:36.0 | And then there are the protests. |
| 1:39.0 | According to an independent Russian human rights group, there were more than 1,300 protest-related arrests on Wednesday in over 30 Russian cities. |
| 1:54.0 | From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports. |
| 2:06.0 | I'm Martine Powers. It's Friday, September 23rd. |
| 2:10.0 | Today, Putin is escalating the war in Ukraine after major military defeats. His strategy, more bodies, and staged votes in Russian occupied territories. |
| 2:27.0 | I find this so interesting because it feels like, up until this point during this war in Ukraine, we've gotten the sense that Russians, partially because they have not gotten the full story about the war that they have been in support of it, or at least Vladimir Putin has enough of the support of Russian people to keep going. |
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