in huge numbers on this very square to demand their independence, the right to decide their own future and direction without moscow dictating. they paid a really heavy price for that, but the feeling is stronger than ever now. so they are preparing to resist here any way they can. this was self defence for women for a wartime scenario. pretty extreme, but so are the predictions of western governments in this crisis. sarah rainsford, bbc news, kyiv. simon miles is a professor of slavic and eurasian studies at duke university. he spoke to us from bucharest. in some conversations people were expressing concern, but i think the sense here as indeed is the case in kyiv right now is more tranquil than some of the headlines might
you, the sanctions are coming. the west is going to sanction us anyway, why you still having your yachts in monte carlo, so that would be probably his argument. but the worrying thing about the sanctions and i understand the necessity of them, but now the russians, actually those who are terrified of the war in ukraine, of course in russia you re not supposed to talk about the war. it s just the slavic brothers, against some phantom nazis is that the russians are saying, why are we punished, what did we do, and that is actually now the latest poll shows that putin s approval rating went to 71%. it was in the 60s before, not because the war is popular, but because the west is getting incredibly unpopular and the united states is blamed 60% by the russians by stirring up that issue, and that could be something that would actually
regime and make a difference here. i even think that zelenskyy s plea last night and rushed into the russian people because he couldn t reach vladimir putin by phone was somewhat for that as well to instill in the hearts of russians that biden is not listening so it s up to you, you know that you do not want to kill your slavic brothers. it s up to you guys to start telling your leadership enough is enough. we don t want this, trace. trace: you wonder because you brought up a great point earlier in that you watch moscow and at such a bustling city and you pointed out, listen, these people are thriving here. all this energy coming into russia, you know, the economy, it s not the greatest economy on the planet but the economy is stabilized at least to a certain extent and people were kind of getting through to them, living the fruits of that, and all of a sudden you talk about getting your legs cut off. these sanctions at the very
three them are still there. at the same time, he knows that if the russian people as a whole had access to free information, this is something they would want to see. these are their smiling . they, the ukraine has as a part of the family. and to see their own children, their own sons, shooting at their slavic brothers is something that would devastate a lot of russians if they saw what was going on right now. don, before we move on. we were talking about different support to offer ukraine. when natal offers weapons and support, get technical with us, how does it get there? who organizes it? especially since so much of what s happening in ukraine is run by civilians. we keep hearing it s a race against time to get supplies. but who is running this race? before i talk about that and even if i knew the exact way the weapons were getting there, not saying that something i want to talk about. but there is something really
the gasset don bass region. it s not the military and political aspects. it s important to understand the place ukraine has in russia s hearts or in its psychology. russian culture began in kyiv and it s where what eventually became russia was founded. i mean, it moved eastwards to moscow but they know in their collective imagination that the root of their culture is in the heart of ukraine. and putin wrote an essay pretty much about this in which he doesn t recognize these lines on the map, these borders because as far as he is concerned ukraine is part of mother russia. and that is a psychology that goes quite deep into the russian collective memory. large parts of the country are russian paeg. there is the slavic connection. and there is also the fact that