Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted mistakes in the mobilization of 300,000 Russians to fight in Ukraine. His announcement last week sparked an exodus of Russians fleeing across the border to avoid being conscripted. Despite a troubled history, Russia’s neighbor Georgia has accepted the largest number of Russians. Nick Schifrin reports.
for russian armed forces as they have conscript soldiers and contract soldiers. do they bring in more conscript soldiers, veterans, start press ganging people, who knows? if they really want to follow through they really want to follow through the ambition of taking much more of ukraine, which they don t appear to be able to do right now. qm. ukraine, which they don t appear to be able to do right now. be able to do right now. 0k, dr samir puri. be able to do right now. 0k, dr samir puri, senior be able to do right now. 0k, dr samir puri, senior fellow i be able to do right now. 0k, dr samir puri, senior fellow in i be able to do right now. 0k, dr l samir puri, senior fellow in urban samir puri, seniorfellow in urban security and urban warfare with the international institute for strategic studies, thank you. the oil giant bp has made an underlying profit in the first quarter of the year of nearly £5 billion, the highest in over a decade, following soaring oil and gas prices. but
and they re being encompass sed in a fog of war, and it s as much a notion of morale, fighting and willingness as it is the strength of your opponent. so i don t discount the ukrainians, but it is david fighting goliath, and they don t have the mobility or air power it would seem to me to confront 110 or more russian combat battalions. and by the way those battalions are well equipped and well-trained, reasonably. someone was saying they were all conscript soldiers. they are not. 80% of them are contract soldiers, and their officers have been very experienced people who fought in syria and crimea and georgia. so this is a very competent military force. i think, again, i don t think the outlook is possible for the ukrainian armed forces to change the calculus. i do think to a larger extent
concept here, isn t it? because on march 8th, president putin told all of russia s citizens that conscript soldiers are not participating in hostilities and will not participate. there will be no additional call up of reservists, he went on to say. he was not telling the truth, was he? because we now know that conscripts have been serving in this war on russia s side. listen, again, if such cases. i ve heard about such cases happening, they re individual cases, one or two, not more. i can t tell you the numbers, i don t know, but what i can tell you for sure, that we re very careful in my region, kirov 0blast, it s always about that no one soldier, except of professional military guys, are in the army. i don t know about your district. my point is a wider one, that vladimir putin right now is not telling the truth to his own people. well, president putin is telling the truth to the people, and if the mistake is happening there, a person who is responsible immediately is punished. so, y