hello and welcome. friday, september 23rd. 9 a.m. here in london. 11 a.m. in ukraine. voting begins today in the four occupied regions on whether to become a part of the russian federation. the areas make up about 50% of ukraine s territory. if they join russia many believe that will provide vladimir putin the pretexts to claim russian territory is under attack and escalate the war. it s prompting people to flee the country in all directions. a long line of cars backed up at russia s border with finland. the government in helsinki is thinking of new restrictions to keep russians from entering. they re crossing into armenia and turkey. according to one witness, traffic at one checkpoint stretched 5 to 6 kilometers. it was a similar scene along the border with kazakhstan. trucks lined up as far as the eye could see. ticket prices are soaring for flights out of moscow. most of which is sold out for the next few days. the kremlin calls reports exaggeration and fake news. the mobi
i m brianna keilar with john berman. the russian leader continues to face major turmoil at home. his order sparking angry protests across the country and leading to more than 1,300 arrests. the move is now causing some russians just to leave. there you see emotional f farewells as the mobilization gets under way. russian men leaving their families. in this video traffic is seen building up at border crossings as men try to escape the war. the demand for flights out of moscow is up dramatically. as of now tickets are said to be sold out, google trends leaving russia saw a sharp spike in searches in the last 24 hours. and one way tickets out of moscow to istanbul are started at $2,000. before the announcement from putin, the tickets were about $350. huge increase there. happening now. look at this map. these are the areas where at this point these regions are holding what the u.s. considers sham referendum, you can see the rough lines of them. parts of them voting to leave
world, many countries, slam the move as sham elections. this comes as vladimir putin faces an uprising from his own people over his planned mobilization. and the ukrainian president, volodymyr zelenskyy, is saying that he wants russians to revolt against their government. that s right. putin s draft order sparking huge angry protests across the country, leading to more than 1,300 arrests. and now some russians are leaving the country entirely, one way or another. as men try to escape this war. we are seeing long lines of traffic buildup at border crossings and several neighboring countries. as for those who are deciding to try to fight, they are saying good-bye to loved ones, as they leave behind their families to board buses for military service. so let s begin in ukraine. our international security editor, nick paton walsh joins us from kramatorsk. nick, what can you tell us from the ground? reporter: yeah, certainly, these i can t even call them votes, to be honest
just in the nomination process, essentially they re to get all 50 senate democrats here. we re looking for them to start this whole process in a matter of hours. the big question mark is when exactly will they do that. we don t quite know. they re waiting on a couple of things. you mentioned the senate parliamentarian. they re using a specialized budget process to move forward. they only need democratic senate support to get it through the senate but in order to use that process they have to make sure, they have to go through the parlia parliamentarian to finish. so they re waiting on a few more rulings from her and also waiting from the congressional budget office on how much some of these provisions will cost and how they will affect the deficit. once they have all that have in place, senate democrats can feel comfortable with a motion to proceed, which is essentially the first vote to kick off what is a very long and tedious process to get this across the finish line. once
has voted to stop transgender athletes from competing in women s elite races if they have gone through any part of the process of male puberty. as the conflict in ukraine continues the new head of the british army tells his troops they should be prepared to fight in europe once again . it s two hours until voting closes in the final round of parliamentary elections in france, with president emmanuel macron facing an alliance of left wing parties. good afternoon. the transport secretary says it s not for the government to intervene to try to prevent three days of strikes on the railways this week. grant shapps dismissed calls from the rmt union to get involved in the dispute as a stunt, saying it s for the employers and unions to reach an agreement. mr shapps says the strikes would be an act of self harm . the labour leader, sir keir starmer, says the government wants the strikes to go ahead to sow division in society. here s our political correspondent, damian grammatic