Putin has succeeded in mobilising a Russian army on the borders… not to fight, but flee
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.
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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?”
Vitaly and his family say they won’t return to Russia until there is a new government
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.
This satellite image shows the large traffic jam of trucks and cars waiting to cross the Georgian border
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.
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What’s happening on Russia’s borders as people flee Putin’s order
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.
The Syrian presidency has announced it’s assembling a special taskforce to try to stop nearly a week of sectarian clashes in the southern Druze city of Sweida.
The presidency called for restraint on all sides and said it is making strenuous efforts to “stop the fighting and curb the violations that threaten the security of the citizens and the safety of society”.
By early Saturday morning, a ceasefire had been confirmed by the US special envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, who posted on X that Syrian President Ahmed al Sharaa and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to a ceasefire supported by US secretary of state Marco Rubio.
The post went on to state that this agreement had the support of “Turkey, Jordan and its neighbours” and called upon the Druze, Bedouins, and Sunni factions to put down their arms.
Sky News special correspondent Alex Crawford reports from the road leading to Sweida, the city that has become the epicentre of Syria’s sectarian violence.
For the past 24 hours, we’ve watched as Syria‘s multiple Arab tribes began mobilising in the Sweida province to help defend their Bedouin brethren.
Thousands travelled from multiple different Syrian areas and had reached the edge of Sweida city by Friday nightfall after a day of almost non-stop violent clashes and killings.
“We have come to protect the [Arab] Bedouin women and children who are being terrorised by the Druze,” they told us.
Arab fighters said they had come to protect the Bedouin women and children
Fighters at a petrol station
Every shop and every home in the streets leading up to Sweida city has been burned or ransacked, the contents destroyed or looted.
We saw tribal fighters loading the back of pickup trucks and driving away from the city with vehicles packed with looted goods from Druze homes.
Shops and homes leading up to Sweida city have been burned or ransacked
Several videos posted online showed violence against the Druze, including one where tribal fighters force three men to throw themselves off a high-rise balcony and are seen being shot as they do so.
Doctors at the nearby community hospital in Buser al Harir said there had been a constant stream of casualties being brought in. As we watched, another dead fighter was carried out of an ambulance.
The medics estimated there had been more than 600 dead in their area alone. “The youngest child who was killed was a one-and-a-half-year-old baby,” one doctor told us.
Doctors said there had been a constant stream of casualties due to violence
The violence is the most dangerous outbreak of sectarian clashes since the fall of the Bashar al Assad regime last December – and the most serious challenge for the new leader to navigate.
The newly brokered deal is aimed at ending the sectarian killings and restoring some sort of stability in a country which is emerging from more than a decade of civil war.
Israel and Syria have agreed to a ceasefire, the US ambassador to Turkey has said.
Several hundred people have reportedly been killed this week in the south of Syria in violence involving local fighters, government authorities and Bedouin tribes.
As the violence escalated in the southern province of Sweida, Israel launched airstrikes, including attacks on Wednesday on the defence ministry in Damascus and a target near the presidential palace.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government said it aimed to protect Syrian Druze – part of a small but influential minority that also has followers in Lebanon and Israel.
In a post on X, the US ambassador to Turkey, Tom Barrack, said Israel and Syria had agreed to a ceasefire supported by Turkey, Jordan and others.
“We call upon Druze, Bedouins, and Sunnis to put down their weapons and together with other minorities build a new and united Syrian identity,” Mr Barrack said in a post on X.
The Israeli embassy in Washington and Syrian Consulate in Canada did not immediately comment or respond to requests for comment from the Reuters news agency.
The ceasefire announcement came after the US worked to put an end to the conflict, with secretary of state Marco Rubio saying on Wednesday that steps had been agreed to end a “troubling and horrifying situation”.
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Why is Israel bombing Syria?
After Israel warned it would destroy forces attacking Syrian Druze, Syrian President Ahmed al Sharaa told the minority group in a televised statement on Thursday that “we reject any attempt to drag you into hands of an external party”.
He then claimed Israel has “consistently targeted our stability and created discord among us since the fall of the former regime”.
It comes after the United Nations’ migration agency said earlier on Friday that nearly 80,000 people had been displaced in the region since violence broke out on Sunday.
It also said that essential services, including water and electricity, had collapsed in Sweida, telecommunications systems were widely disrupted, and health facilities in Sweida and Daraa were under severe strain.
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At least three people have been killed after a “horrific incident” at a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department training facility, officials have said.
A spokesperson for the department said there was an explosion at the Biscailuz Center Academy Training in east LA.
The incident was reported at around 7.30am local time (3.30pm UK time).
Aerial footage from local channel KABC-TV suggests the blast happened in a parking lot filled with sheriff patrol cars and box trucks.
The training centre in east LA. Pic: NBC Los Angeles
Attorney general Pam Bondi wrote on X: “I just spoke to @USAttyEssayli about what appears to be a horrific incident that killed at least three at a law enforcement training facility in Los Angeles.
“Our federal agents are at the scene and we are working to learn more.”
California congressman Jimmy Sanchez said the explosion had “claimed the lives of at least three deputies”.
“My condolences to the families and everyone impacted by this loss,” he said.
Media and law enforcement officials near the explosion site. Pic: AP
The attorney general said in a follow-up post that agents from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are “on the ground to support”.
The mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, said the LAPD bomb squad has also responded to the scene.
“The thoughts of all Angelenos are with all of those impacted by this blast,” she said.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has been briefed on the incident, his press office said in a post on X.
“The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services is in contact with the Sheriff’s Department and closely monitoring the situation, and has offered full state assistance,” it added.
The cause of the explosion is being investigated.
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