Desperate Vlad is fighting fires on too many fronts – as millions flee Russia to avoid unwinnable Ukraine war
THERE are an estimated four million men on the move in Russia – fleeing to the country’s borders or going into hiding at home to avoid being drafted to fight mad Vlad’s unwinnable war in Ukraine.
The sheer scale of the rush to the exit doors is testament to the deep unease felt across Russia at the first mass mobilisation of civilians since World War Two.
Already, more than 300,000 (the number Russia has said it wants to recruit to steel its forces on the front lines) have left since September 21, the date the call-up was announced.
More than 55,000 have crossed into Georgia since then, with queues at the border with Russia stretching for more than 13 miles yesterday. Almost 100,000 had entered Kazakhstan in the same period.
Tens of thousand more have fled to Turkey. The European Union’s border agency, Frontex, said more than 66,000 Russians had crossed into the EU up to last Sunday. Finland, the only EU country still accepting Russians (who must have a Schengen visa) has taken in the vast majority.
Some Russians are even trying to escape into Norway, which borders Russia inside the Arctic circle. No one knows how many have crossed into China, Mongolia or the Stans that all border Russia.
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What’s clear is that Putin’s hastily announced draft — up to 25 million Russian men are on the military’s rolls — has backfired spectacularly. It will come back to bite him in the ass.
Defeat after defeat has forced Putin to call up ordinary Russian men to do his dirty work. The brutal reality of the last seven months is now dawning on a population that has been shielded from the truth.
Fierce protests against the draft have erupted across Russia, most especially in regions with large ethnic minorities. In Dagestan, a largely muslim province that borders Chechnya, video showed huge clashes between locals protesting the call up and Russian officials.
In the Siberian wilderness, nearly all men of fighting age had been served draft papers.
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Of those unlucky enough to have been rounded up for service, reports from “training” bases suggest utter chaos, with newly mobilised recruits being handed 50-year-old rusty Kalashnikovs and told they would be sent to fight without any training in weapons use.
One newly mobilised soldier from Moscow posted a video to Twitter in which he says his new regiment’s commanders told the recruits they would be sent to the frontline at Kherson within days of being mobilised, such was the need for troops there, adding: “There was no shooting training, no theoretical training, nothing.”
Others were told to bring their own medicines, and to pack plenty of tampons to suture wounds on the battlefield as the army didn’t have enough.
Putin’s grip on power at home is not as iron-clad as it was just a few weeks ago.
SIMMERING REVOLT
The lightning Ukrainian advance on the Kharkiv region forced Russian troops into a chaotic retreat, mirroring the fall back from Kyiv in March.
The Ukrainians didn’t stop their advance and managed to push the Russians back deep into their fortified heartlands in Donetsk. Towns once considered Russian fortresses are under siege or have fallen.
In the south, the Russian army is in serious trouble in the Kherson region too, where it is fighting an increasingly losing defensive battle. If they relinquish Kherson, the Russians will be forced to hightail it back to Crimea and give up a swathe of coastline on the Black Sea.
The sham referendums in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson on whether those Ukrainian regions would be annexed by Russia were hastily arranged exactly because Russia is LOSING the war.
It may well be over a lot sooner than many expect, simply because Putin is fighting many fires on many fronts: Protests at home, an army in disarray and a war he can no longer control.
If he thinks sending hundreds of thousands of unwilling young men into battle will change the course of his insane adventure, he is even more deluded.
Russia is collapsing in on itself. It will play out on the battlefield. Ukraine won’t stop its advances, and if they can overwhelm Russia before the winter, Putin may have no option but to sue for peace.
His people are uneasy at best. A simmering revolt against his tyranny is underway. Of that there is no doubt.
So entrenched is his regime, it will take many years to disentangle. Putin will be the first to go, though, and he won’t die of natural causes.
BIG BILLS OUTSTRIP BUDGET
THE €11billion Cost Of Living Budget may have put a few extra bob in most people’s pockets, but it will hardly put a dent in the bills that will land on the mat over the coming months.
Many people are facing winter with trepidation, unsure how they are going to come out the other side without being hit hard financially.
Yes, the three €200 electricity credits every household will receive over the next six months are welcome. However, in reality, they will not cover soaring our energy costs.
Businesses too will struggle this winter, despite the Budget pledge to pay up to €10,000 of their energy bills.
The Government could not have done more, that’s true – but it won’t be enough for most. A winter like no other is fast approaching.
I HAVEN’T watched TV in ages. It’s dying a death as a medium.
Packed with repeats and reality shows, it’s not the draw of old. If I’m honest, I’ll only switch on the box if there’s a live match on, or some world event that is playing out live.
Which brings me to I’m A Celeb. Now it’s gone back to the Australian jungle, I’ll definitely be tuning in. Seeing a host of household names chow down on kangaroo penis and goat balls has a unique attraction.
Ant and Dec are standout narrators, their quick Geordie repartee unmatchable and unmissable TV.
Celeb never tires as a treat as the cold winter blinks on the horizon.
TRUSS IS SO CLOSE TO BUST
LIZ Truss may turn out to be the shortest-lived British Prime Minister in history.
Her ill-conceived mini Budget last week, which cut the taxes of the richest while capping energy prices, was greeted with dismay in the markets, who decided her plans to raise huge borrowings at a time of record inflation was, well, simply bonkers.
A run on the Pound ensued. It dropped so quickly that at one stage it looked like being at parity with the dollar.
There was also a rush to sell off British long-term invest-ments by the market, so worrisome that the Bank Of England was forced to intervene to buy up long-term British bonds. The IMF urged the British government to revise its tax-cutting plans.
Britain is wobbling under Truss. Can they afford to keep her?
BAD CALL ON DOCS
THE government will spend €23.4BILLION on the health service next year. That’s some amount of money when you consider that accessing health services in this country is next to nigh impossible.
I had the need to talk to a GP this week, but try as I might I couldn’t even get the doctor’s practice to pick up the phone over two fruitless days.
Now, the realm of private GP practice may not be in the purview of Health Minister Stephen Donnelly, but something is terribly wrong if someone can’t even get through to a doctor, let alone get an appointment.
Our public and private hospitals are swamped with the sick. And they can barely cope. Spending so much money on a dysfunctional system is not the answer.
Reforming the HSE, so it works, is what’s needed. That takes balls, not dough.
THE Italians are a fickle lot. They like their extremes, always ges-ticulating.
Last Sunday, they elected Giorgia Meloni, the leader of the far-right Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers Of Italy).
Far-right is too kind a term for a party steeped in fascism.
Her agenda of sending immigrants home and putting (white) Italians first is hugely popular in the north of Italy and was enough to see her emerge as Italy’s first female Prime Minister.
She will serve alongside snake-like political charlatan Silvio Berlusconi, he of the permatan and Bunga Bunga parties with 17-year-old girls called Ruby Heartbreaker. A government truly of the mad, and the mud, has taken over.
KENNY KICK IT?
IRELAND’s stumbling performance against Armenia on Tuesday night, when our opponents were gifted two goals out of nothing as Ireland cruised to victory at 2-0, gave me a dose of the jitters.
I have backed Stephen Kenny from the start. He has rebuilt the team and has them playing football on the floor.
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But I couldn’t help feeling Kenny may be out of his depth.
Our win rate isn’t great and continually saying it would come good, given time, can only last for so long before the bullet is bitten.