Putin has succeeded in mobilising a Russian army on the borders… not to fight, but flee

Published

3 years ago

September 28, 2022

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They come on foot, bicycles, cars and even electric scooters.

They bring what they can which isn’t much, dragging their suitcases behind them. Some have dogs and others cat boxes. They are exhausted after a journey that has taken days, but all seem hugely relieved to have left Putin’s Russia.

One couple laughed with relief. “Very tired, but happy,” said Katy. The relief seemed almost to overwhelm her.

We are on Georgia’s border crossing with Russia. It straddles a pass high in the Caucasus. A steady stream of Russians are coming through. They tell stories of chaos on the other side.

Putin may have scored ‘strategic own goal’ – latest updates

Vitaly and Maria have four children. They left home four days ago. The last two they had spent walking and queuing with thousands of others crammed into the narrow gorge on the Russian side. They also had to bribe guards to have any chance of getting through.

Those waiting to cross face an anxious ordeal. The temperature at this altitude is either very cold, in the shade or roasting hot in the sun. One couple told us of moments of panic as rumours swept through the crowds that authorities would soon close the border – or were sending the military to find men of mobilisation age and pack them off to the front.

Some are too scared to talk even outside of Russia, fearful of retribution against their families left behind. Others seize the opportunity to speak their mind, almost shaking with anger as they do.

“Putin is a murderer,” Vitaly told me with a smouldering fury.

They had told the children they were going to the seaside he said. They couldn’t risk telling them the truth in case they passed it on to strangers. They won’t be going back until there is a change of government and a new president.

“My boy is 17 next year,” he said, pointing to his eldest. “He will be taken to the army. The war is not going to end tomorrow. If he goes, what, did I raise him for Putin?”

They had left everything behind apart from what is in their suitcases. They even abandoned their car on the border. They had no plans beyond catching a taxi to Tbilisi, but even a future that uncertain, they said, was preferable to life under Putin.

Putin’s mobilisation decree has prompted a massive increase in the numbers of people leaving.

We met only one man who had actually received call-up papers. ‘Nick’ is now on the run from authorities who want to send him to Ukraine to fight.

His government “wants to make meat from me” he told us. He was a scientist and an engineer and has so much more than that he said to give to his country.

We have met IT specialists, managers and even a nuclear physicist. They have all given up their jobs and walked out of Russia.

Russia is haemorrhaging its brightest and best. It is a huge tragedy for the country that it will take years to recover from.

But it may also be exactly what the regime wants as it plots its future. The young and the savvy who have the best chance to see beyond the state’s lies and propaganda and what is really going on in their country.

One official has said as much – Ella Pamfilova, the head of Russia’s election commission.

“Let the rats who are running run,” she is quoted as saying. “The ship will be ours. It’s gaining strength and clearly moving towards its target.”

As an observer on Twitter noted, she seems gloriously unaware of the reason rats flee ships.

A mass exodus is under way. In less than a week, the number of Russians fleeing has doubled. Before Putin’s mobilisation announcement 300,000 had left – but in the week since at least that number have left.

They are fleeing into Mongolia, Finland, Kazakhstan and Georgia. Many are the younger ones, better educated and best qualified because they are of fighting age and do not want to be called up to fight.

Vladimir Putin has succeeded in mobilising an army of Russians, mustering on the borders, not to fight but to flee.

The reservists that authorities do successfully corral into the army will likely be reluctant and demoralised. There have been multiple protests against the draft by young Russian men who do not want to fight.

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On Russian state TV, pundits openly urged the government to round up artists, street musicians, the mentally disabled and ethnic minorities and send them to war. Even by their own bigoted standards it was a startling exchange between state-funded propagandists.

Putin is looking increasingly unlikely to win this war, and the addition of hastily trained, poorly motivated men, even in their hundreds of thousands is not likely to change that.

But he is prepared it seems to send many more to the front. Between 40,000 and 80,000 have been killed or injured in this war already. Many more will follow.

World

Israel to continue with Gaza City offensive despite talks to free Hamas hostages

Published

7 hours ago

August 22, 2025

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Israel to continue with Gaza City offensive despite talks to free Hamas hostages

Israel will resume negotiations with Hamas for the release of all hostages captured during the October 7 attack, Benjamin Netanyahu has said – but its military will continue its Gaza City offensive despite international outcry.

The remarks from Israel’s prime minister are the first since Hamas agreed to a temporary ceasefire proposal.

Talks will also be with a view to ending the war, but Mr Netanyahu said it must be on “terms acceptable to Israel”.

In the meantime, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have begun calling medics and international organisations in northern Gaza to encourage them to evacuate to the south ahead of the expanded operation in Gaza City.

Many of Israel’s closest allies have urged the government to reconsider. Some Israelis fear it could doom the remaining 20 or so living hostages taken by Hamas-led militants in the 7 October 2023 attack which ignited the war.

Israel plans to call up 60,000 reservists and extend the service of 20,000 more.

Speaking to soldiers near Israel’s border with Gaza, Mr Netanyahu said he was still set on approving plans for defeating Hamas and capturing Gaza City.

“At the same time I have issued instructions to begin immediate negotiations for the release of all our hostages and an end to the war on terms acceptable to Israel,” he said.

“These two things – defeating Hamas and releasing all our hostages – go hand in hand,” he added.

The latest ceasefire proposal drawn up by Egypt and Qatar is almost identical to an earlier one that Israel accepted before the talks stalled last month.

The proposal would include the release of some hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, a pullback of Israeli forces and negotiations over a lasting ceasefire.

‘Don’t tell us where to build’

Israeli strikes killed at least 36 Palestinians across Gaza on Thursday, according to local hospitals, including at a tent camp in Deir al-Balah.

Meanwhile, Israel’s ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, was summoned to the Foreign Office in response to a controversial West Bank settlement plan which has been given final approval.

The project, known as the E1 settlement, would effectively cut off the occupied West Bank from East Jerusalem and divide the territory in two.

The UK and 21 international partners have released a statement to condemn the decision “in the strongest terms” calling it “a flagrant breach of international law” and “critically undermining a two-state solution”.

Ms Hotovely gave Sky News her response to the meeting: “I said we wouldn’t tell the British where to build in London. Don’t tell us where to build in Jerusalem, our capital. We see E1 as part of Greater Jerusalem.”

UK warns of ‘horrifying starvation’

The UK has also responded to comments from the head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA that famine in Gaza is “deliberate” and being used as an “instrument of war”.

Minister for the Middle East, Hamish Falconer, has called for a “comprehensive [peace] plan to end this misery and get to a long-term settlement”.

“Israel must immediately and permanently lift all barriers preventing aid reaching the people of Gaza to prevent the horrifying starvation in the Strip continuing,” he added.

Demand for Gaza media access

The Media Freedom Coalition, which includes the UK and 50 other countries, has called on Israel to allow foreign media access into Gaza.

In a joint statement, the coalition, which is a partnership of countries working to defend media freedom, urged Israel to “allow immediate independent foreign media access” and “afford protection for journalists operating in Gaza”.

They said this was in light of the “unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza”.

World

Israel maintains pressure on Gaza City as ‘first stages of attack begin’

Published

10 hours ago

August 21, 2025

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Gaza City residents say Israel carried out intense overnight bombardments as it prepares a controversial offensive to take control of the area.

Sixty-thousand reservists are being called up after Benjamin Netanyahu‘s security cabinet approved the plan earlier this month.

UN chief Antonio Guterres has warned of more “death and destruction” if Israel tries to seize the city, while France’s Emmanuel Macron said it would be a “disaster” that would lead to “permanent war”.

Live – UN warns of ‘forcible transfer’ as forces advance on Gaza City

Hundreds of thousands of people could end up being forcibly displaced – a potential war crime, according to the UN’s human rights office.

Gaza’s health ministry said at least 70 people had been killed in Israeli attacks in the past 24 hours, including eight people in a house in the Sabra suburb of Gaza City.

Israel currently controls about 75% of the Gaza Strip, but Prime Minister Netanyahu has said Israel must take Gaza City to “finish the job” and defeat Hamas.

Mr Netanyahu and his ministers are due to meet on Thursday to discuss the plans, according to Israeli media.

Military spokesperson Effie Defrin said earlier that “preliminary operations and the first stages of the attack” had begun – with troops operating on the outskirts of Gaza City.

Israel has said it will order evacuation notices before troops move in but satellite images show thousands of people have already left.

Residents said shelling has intensified in the Sabra and Tuffah neighbourhoods and that those fleeing have gone to coastal shelters or to central and southern parts of the Strip.

The decision to stay or leave is an agonising choice for many.

“We are facing a bitter-bitter situation, to die at home or leave and die somewhere else, as long as this war continues, survival is uncertain,” said father of seven Rabah Abu Elias.

“In the news, they speak about a possible truce, on the ground, we only hear explosions and see deaths. To leave Gaza City or not isn’t an easy decision to make,”

Most of the Israeli reservists being summoned are not expected to be in a frontline combat role and the call-up is set to take a while.

The window could give mediators more time to convince Israel to accept a temporary ceasefire.

Hamas has already agreed to the proposal – envisaging 10 living hostages and 18 bodies being released in return for a 60-day truce and the freedom of about 200 Palestinian prisoners.

Israel hasn’t officially responded, but insists it wants all 50 remaining hostages released at once. Only 20 of them are still believed to be alive.

The war started nearly two years ago when a Hamas terror attack killed about 1,200 people and kidnapped around 250.

More than 62,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

The figure doesn’t break down how many were Hamas members, but it says women and children make up more than half.

Two more people also died of starvation and malnutrition in the past 24 hours, the ministry said on Thursday, taking the total to 271, including 112 children.

COGAT, the body controlling aid into Gaza, said 250 aid trucks entered on Wednesday, with 154 pallets air-dropped.

World

Police in Kenya begin exhuming shallow graves of suspected cult victims

Published

13 hours ago

August 21, 2025

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Police in Kenya begin exhuming shallow graves of suspected cult victims

Police, pathologists and grave diggers have started the exhumation of 27 shallow graves in Kenya’s Kilifi County.

The remains are believed to be of followers of a deadly cult in Chakama Ranch, a part of the Shakahola Forest.

In 2023, more than 400 mass graves were discovered in the same forest, all members of controversial preacher Paul Mackenzie’s church. They were encouraged to starve themselves to death to get into heaven.

It remains one of the world’s worst cult-related tragedies. Mackenzie is still in jail and faces numerous charges of terrorism, child torture and murder.

The remote forest has again been turned into a crime scene.

Morticians were seen carrying out body bag after body bag, some containing the remains of children believed to have been starved to death.

State pathologist Dr Richard Njoroge said this is just the beginning, as investigators expect to find many more bodies: “Today we managed to exhume six.

“Of the six graves, we found five bodies and then also around that area we found ten different scattered body parts, scattered in different places on the surface.”

Eleven suspects have already been arrested in connection with these deaths and will appear in court on Friday.

Police are investigating links to Mackenzie and members of his Good News International Church.

At the exhumation today, pathologists said they were still working to identify the bodies of those exhumed from Mackenzie’s cult.

“We had 453 at the closure of that exercise, I think, we released around 33 or 34 last time. So, from there are 419 remaining,” Dr Njoroge explained.

Police have encouraged families in the area with missing loved ones to come forward and provide their DNA samples, as efforts to identify the dead continue.

Kenya is grappling with a rise in religious extremism and many churches operating informally.

Parliament passed several preliminary bills aimed at regulating religious organisations last year, but implementation has stalled after resistance from church leaders.