Ukraine war: The Russian region with high casualties where an army contract is big money
Buryatia feels like it is a world away from war in Europe.
It is a different Russia. Vast snowy plains and Buddhist temples, closer at first glance to Mongolia next door than it is to Moscow, five time zones away.
But the motifs of Russia’s war in Ukraine are everywhere.
A huge Z and V stuck to the side of an apartment building we pass. Another giant V sign on the side of the world’s largest Lenin’s head in the centre of the regional capital, Ulan-Ude.
Along the sides of the roads, billboards commemorating some of the men Buryatia has lost this past year with the dates they were killed and the words: “We love, we remember, we mourn.”
We meet a young man just back from Kazakhstan where he’d gone to escape the draft.
He’d been there for two months but wasn’t sure how to keep financing himself.
“This is a poor, subsidised region,” he says.
“People here live on loans in order to survive and the propaganda tells them all the time that they will make money if they go and fight.”
Buryatia is on Mongolia’s doorstep
An army contract is big money in Buryatia which is perhaps why, alongside enthusiastic recruitment policies, it has suffered a disproportionately high casualty rate in this war.
The numbers are hard to verify but there does appear to be some correlation between poor, ethnic minority regions like Buryatia or Dagestan, and high casualty counts.
We spoke to a woman called Polina, not her real name, whose two nephews had signed up for the army and were on what they thought were just training exercises in Belarus when Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine.
After a few weeks, both men asked to terminate their contracts but they were turned down.
Polina says one was placed in custody and the other was threatened with execution.
She says: “The commander actually put a gun to his head. And my nephew said ‘Okay, do it! I’d rather die now than go back, where they’ll either make me an invalid or I’ll have to kill someone’.”
He was eventually allowed to go home.
‘Not all of us are bloodthirsty’
In the early months of the war, ethnic Buryats were widely accused across Ukrainian social media of alleged atrocities, especially in relation to Bucha.
The NGO Free Buryatia Foundation, currently based outside of Russia, describes the “Buryats in Bucha” as the “biggest myth of the war” and has endeavoured to prove via open source investigations that ethnic Buryats were unfairly singled out as culpable for war crimes, in part because of their distinctive ethnicity.
Polina can’t accept the allegations. “I want the world to know that not all Buryats support the war,” she says.
“Not all of us are bloodthirsty, we’re not bloodthirsty at all. We were made to look like that.”
It is difficult to find people who’ll speak to Western media here. It is much safer to stay quiet. We were on our way to interview a man who had lost 20 friends in the war when his wife sent us a message.
Consequences for posting on social media
“State repressions are already under way,” she wrote.
“Even for a repost on a social network, young people are imprisoned/tried/fined. I can’t take that risk. My great-grandfather was repressed only because of the suspicions of the government and it led to nothing good for the family.”
She refused to let him do the interview.
Which is why Elena Pavlova is so remarkably brave. She lives in Ulan-Ude. We came across her because she had written a post on social media declaring herself categorically opposed to the war.
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“It seems to me that people in Russia do not believe in themselves,” Ms Pavlova says.
“There are many who support Putin and believe that without him, the country will fall apart. And everyone just gives up.”
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The airport in Ulan-Ude
She has considered leaving the country, like the hundreds of thousands of others who feel its values no longer reflect their own. But she doesn’t know how she would fund herself or her young daughter.
She says when the war started she had more faith in the Russian people but that she has lost that completely.
“Let’s say we keep staying silent. How do we keep living in this country then? How do we live in these circumstances? Among these people? I don’t know.”
World
Ukrainian frontline commander warns: ‘The world is scared of Russia and losing is not only our problem’
In the courtyard of a farmhouse now home to soldiers of the Ukrainian army’s 47th mechanised brigade, I’m introduced to a weary-looking unit by their commander Captain Oleksandr “Sasha” Shyrshyn.
We are about 10km from the border with Russia, and beyond it lies the Kursk region Ukraine invaded in the summer – and where this battalion is now fighting.
The 47th is a crack fighting assault unit.
They’ve been brought to this area from the fierce battles in the country’s eastern Donbas region to bolster Ukrainian forces already here.
War latest: Russia ready to carry out ‘massive attack’
The captain known by his men as ‘Genius’
In the summer, Ukraine launched an incursion into Russian territory, in Kursk
Captain Shyrshyn explains that among the many shortages the military has to deal with, the lack of infantry is becoming a critical problem.
Sasha is just 30 years old, but he is worldly-wise. He used to run an organisation helping children in the country’s east before donning his uniform and going to war.
He is famous in Ukraine and is regarded as one of the country’s top field commanders, who isn’t afraid to express his views on the war and how it’s being waged.
His nom de guerre is ‘Genius’, a nickname given to him by his men.
Captain Sasha Shyrshyn and Sky News chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay
‘Don’t worry, it’s not a minefield’
Sasha invited me to see one of the American Bradley fighting vehicles his unit uses.
We walk down a muddy lane before he says it’s best to go cross-country.
“We can go that way, don’t worry it’s not a minefield,” he jokes.
He leads us across a muddy field and into a forest where the vehicle is hidden from Russian surveillance drones that try to hunt both American vehicles and commanders.
Sasha shows me a picture of the house they had been staying in only days before – it was now completely destroyed after a missile strike.
Fortunately, neither he, nor any of his men, were there at the time.
“They target commanders,” he says with a smirk.
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‘The world is scared of Russia’
It takes me a moment or two to realise we are only a few steps away from the Bradley, dug in and well hidden beneath the trees.
The disguised American Bradley vehicle hidden in the forest
Sasha tells me the Bradley is the finest vehicle he has ever used.
A vehicle so good, he says, it’s keeping the Ukrainian army going in the face of Russia’s overwhelming numbers of soldiers.
He explains: “Almost all our work on the battlefield is cooperation infantry with the Bradley. So we use it for evacuations, for moving people from one place to another, as well as for fire-covering.
“This vehicle is very safe and has very good characteristics.”
The American Bradley fighting vehicle that Ukrainian soldiers have found vital in their efforts
Billions of dollars in military aid has been given to Ukraine by the United States, and this vehicle is one of the most valuable assets the US has provided.
Ukraine is running low on men to fight, and the weaponry it has is not enough, especially if it can’t fire long-range missiles into Russia itself – which it is currently not allowed to do.
If President-elect Donald Trump cuts the supply of military aid, the Ukrainians will lose – it’s that simple.
US President-elect Donald Trump has been clear he intends to change his nation’s policy on the war in Ukraine. Pic: Reuters
Sasha says: “We have a lack of weapons, we have a lack of artillery, we have a lack of infantry, and as the world doesn’t care about justice, and they don’t want to finish the war by our win, they are afraid of Russia.
“I’m sorry but they’re scared, they’re scared, and it’s not the right way.”
Like pretty much everyone in Ukraine, Sasha is waiting to see what the US election result will mean for his country.
He is sceptical about a deal with Russia.
“Our enemy only understands the language of power. And you cannot finish the war in 24 hours, or during the year without hard decisions, without a fight, so it’s impossible. It’s just talking without results,” he tells me.
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‘Losing will be not only our problem’
These men expect the fierce battles inside Kursk to intensify in the coming days.
Indeed, alongside the main supply route into Kursk, workers are already building new defensive positions – unfurling miles of razor wire and digging bunkers for the Ukrainian army if it finds itself in retreat.
Barbed wire rolled out in the Sumy region ahead of expected fighting
Tank traps in the Sumy region
Sasha and his men are realistic about support fatigue from the outside world but will keep fighting to the last if they have to.
“I understand this is only our problem, it’s only our issue, and we have to fight this battle, like we have to defend ourselves, it’s our responsibility,” Sasha said.
But he points out everyone should realise just how critical this moment in time is.
“If we look at it widely, we have to understand that us losing will be not only our problem, but it will be for all the world.”
Stuart Ramsay reports from northeastern Ukraine with camera operator Toby Nash, and producers Dominique Van Heerden, Azad Safarov, and Nick Davenport.
A weather warning has been issued for parts of Spain, as the country counts the cost of recent flooding.
The orange warnings are in place for parts of southwestern Spain – the area around Seville down towards Gibraltar.
Up to 8cm (3ins) of rain could fall within 12 hours, but the weekend looks much more settled in the country.
The latest warnings come just two weeks after flash flooding in Valencia and other parts of the country killed more than 200 people.
Malaga saw 14.2cm (5.6ins) of rainfall on Wednesday – Spain’s highest of the day – most of which fell in six hours.
All train services were halted in Malaga. Some flights have now resumed after the initial disruption.
Pic: Jamie Marchant
Emergency services in the province have moved 3,000 people from homes at risk of flooding close to the Guadalhorce River in the west of the city.
Jamie Marchant, 29, from Caerphilly in South Wales travelled to Malaga last Wednesday.
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He told Sky News that “debris” had been left behind by the recent rainfall in the region.
“Everyone is pitching in to clean up and some shops are opening as usual,” he added.
Orange warnings for the Valencia region in eastern Spain expired earlier on Thursday.
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The adverse weather could lead to total insured losses of more than €4bn (£3.33bn), according to credit rating agency Morningstar DBRS.
Much of the claims are expected to be covered by the Spanish government’s insurance pool, the agency said, but insurance premiums are likely to increase.
A necklace believed to contain jewels from the infamous Marie Antoinette “Affair of the Diamond Necklace” has been sold for £3.7m.
Set with nearly 500 diamonds and weighing about 300 carats, it smashed price expectations at a Sotheby’s auction in Geneva.
The Marchioness of Anglesey wore it at Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953, and it was also worn 16 years earlier at King George VI’s crowning.
However, the link to Marie Antoinette, the last queen of France, may have been the most intriguing selling point for the mystery buyer.
Some of the jewels are believed to have been at the centre of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace – a scandal which is said to have paved the way for Antoinette’s eventual downfall.
The scandal erupted when a hard-up noblewoman, Jeanne de la Motte, pretended to be the queen and acquired a hugely expensive necklace in her name without paying.
An undated portrait of Marie Antoinette. (AP Photo)
Antoinette, who was accused of having a hand in the scam, was acquitted in a trial. But the affair discredited her further in the eyes of the French people – among whom she was already deeply unpopular.
Her reputation never recovered, her public appearances all but ceased, and the number of pamphlets containing malicious gossip about her increased.
It also added to her reputation for extravagance that helped fuel the French Revolution – with the queen beheaded in 1793.
Pic: Reuters
Jewels from the original necklace – which contained nearly 650 diamonds and weighed almost 2,800 carats – were
later sold on the black market, making them hard to trace.
However, a Bond Street jeweller testified at the time that he bought about 350 of them for just over £10,000, according to Sotheby’s.
Experts say the quality and age of the diamonds in the necklace sold on Wednesday point to a match.
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“It’s likely or possible that some of these diamonds may have come from the famous diamond necklace that led to the downfall of Marie Antoinette,” said Jessica Wyndham, Sotheby’s head of magnificent jewels.
The Georgian-era piece measures 67cm and hadn’t been seen in public for 50 years before it came up for sale.
Its final sale price of over 4.2 million Swiss francs was double its pre-auction valuation.
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