Putin’s Recruits

<p>Crankstart Intern Suzi Darrington from Oxford University, who&#39;s with us for 6 weeks, is in the Listeners Chair. This is the first of 8 episodes where she will reside in that seat.</p> <p>This podcast&#39;s overall themes are nature, philosophy, climate, the human condition, sustainability, and social justice. We don’t talk about the countryside as much as we used to as listener questions take us off into all sorts of different areas that are all worth considering.</p> <p>Today&#39;s listener&#39;s question, from Peter in Ostergotland, Sweden, led to a conversation around what is it to be Russian as it is a very vast country, with a lot of different ethnicities? Behind it all though isn’t it true that ultimately we’re all the same?</p> <p>Peter’s question runs as follows:</p> <p>“Putin, the President of Russia drafted loads of male reservists to help in the Ukrainian war, yet it seems large amounts were targeted through this process amongst the minority groups in some far flung parts of Russia. Is this a hidden technique and a hidden form of ethnic cleansing within his own country, with the aim to assimilate everyone to look, sound and behave like he wants, who won’t rebel. Or is this a valid recruitment process?”</p> <p>William feels that Putin was recruiting people from further away as they are more remote from the Ukrainians. This idea came from what he’d read about how the fighting during the 1st World War became less intense after the Christmas truce, with both sides meeting each other and realising they were similar. If you know who your enemy is, you’re less likely to want to fight them.</p> <p>William feels we should all investigate the whole idea of what far flung means, as the phrase has been brought up a few times in this episode. He also raises that the conflict in Ukraine is still seen as a special military operation in Putin’s eyes, it is not seen as a war.</p> <p>Suzi thinks that any kind of conflict does pick out minority groups. People with more power can find ways to avoid being drafted, w