Report from inside Ukraine under attack
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Summary
For this episode, we re joined by a reporter on the ground in Ukraine to break down what life is like in a country under brutal invasion. What are the people saying, what do they hope will happen next, and is Putin going to get what he wants? Or is the people of Ukraine going to prevail?
Transcript
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Last episode, General Tom Lawson, the former head of the Canadian Armed Forces,
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joined us to give us a big-picture look at the war in Ukraine from a military perspective.
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For this episode, we're joined by a reporter on the ground in Ukraine
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to break down what life is like right now living in a country under brutal invasion.
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Or is the inspiring pushback we've seen from the people of Ukraine going to ultimately prevail?
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Freelance journalist and Eastern European affairs expert Neil Howard joins us now.
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He's been writing for Post Media and also his bylines with CNN,
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The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, and many other publications.
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You've got such a fascinating and important and obviously alarming story to tell
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And I want to hear what you're hearing from others.
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But I also want to hear just about your situation right now.
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Tell us where are you right now and where were you a week ago?
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And what has been your travels in Ukraine the past couple of weeks?
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So right now I'm in the city of Lviv, which is the capital of Western Ukraine,
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and about 70 kilometers from the border with Poland.
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So this is sort of the terminus for everyone fleeing the rest of the country,
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trying to get to Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, et cetera.
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And, you know, I'm in a cafe right now as the city is pretty overrun
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with displaced people that are on their way to becoming refugees.
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And, you know, I've been here in Lviv for the last four days now.
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I arrived in Ukraine a little over a month ago,
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and I was in Kiev when the war started a week ago today, last Thursday,
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with cruise missile strikes on the Ukrainian capital about 5 a.m. local time,
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and spent the next two days in Kiev, you know, hearing, you know, missile strikes,
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And then on the second day, even small arms gunfire from our apartment in downtown Kiev
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as Russian special forces had entered the city.
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And then on Saturday, managed to get on one of the trains still leaving,
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Wow. I mean, I can't imagine what that was like.
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Those of us over here in Canada, I mean, we remember that evening
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when the military operation, as Putin calls it, had started.
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And we were, I guess it was like 10 p.m., 11 p.m. our time.
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And I remember just watching on Twitter and, you know, they call it doom scrolling
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and seeing in real time, okay, this missile has hit and there's this explosion
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and you're watching, you're going, wow, can't believe I'm watching the live streaming
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of the commencement of this war, but you were watching it literally from an apartment window.
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I know there was a number of weeks, I guess, months of will Putin, won't he,
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What was it like in that actual moment that waking up at 5 a.m.
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and it actually happening right in front of you?
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Yeah. I mean, it was all sort of this slow buildup here over a period of months.
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I lived on super far away in Armenia, about a three-hour flight away from Kiev.
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And so I came here as that buildup was happening and then watching it.
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And then, you know, there was still a sense that here that thing that, you know,
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people downplayed the possibility that who could imagine a full-scale invasion from Russia,
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the largest country in Europe, just launching a full invasion of the second largest country in Europe.
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But the mood definitely changed here starting Monday last week after Putin gave that speech
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where he ended up recognizing the two separatist republics.
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And then people began to understand, OK, this is something different.
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Kiev time on that Wednesday, it was, you know, the first explosions over the course of the next two hours,
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probably 15 or so, as the cruise missiles hit the capital.
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What was the immediate reaction from individuals?
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Was it, I mean, we've seen those videos of obviously children hunkered in subway systems, in shelters,
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some of those happening, you know, days after things began, you know, pictures of some people screaming.
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But we've also seen pictures of normalcy in terms of someone with a briefcase,
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seemingly wherever that person was going, walking to work or what have you,
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with in the background of a CNN report or some sort of live stream.
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So there's, there's, yeah, what were people doing with their regular day?
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I mean, pretty much as soon as it happened in Kiev, life changed very dramatically immediately.
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I mean, that first day, Thursday, it was already, you know, the streets largely empty,
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still a few people out and about, but most shops closed.
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And the ones that did severely limited the amount of money you could withdraw.
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And, you know, even then, just walking down the street in central Kiev,
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about 3 p.m., suddenly the air raid siren goes off and everyone has to run to the nearest, the nearest shelter.
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And so the daily life, you know, people still going about it a little bit,
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but it changed very rapidly into, you know, just sort of a desolate environment, really, in Kiev.
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Now, being in the most Western city, further removed from the most acute points of military action,
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Are people just in the cafe to do as you're doing, sort of to talk to other people about the situation
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Or are there people just chilling out, hanging out?
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Is there a daily life going on in Lviv right now?
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Yeah, there is certainly some semblance of daily life happening here.
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I mean, there is curfew at 10 p.m., so you have to be off the streets by then,
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and that means most things close around 8 or 9.
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But, you know, a lot of places aren't open, but there is still, you know,
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but in the daylight hours here, some semblance of daily life going on as well.
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I mean, there's very few places to stay in the city.
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You know, most residences are clogged up with people fleeing the rest of the country,
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but at the same time, you know, it's a massively different scene here than it was in Asia-Tia.
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There's, of course, been a lot of concerns about civilian injuries, civilian fatalities,
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war crimes basically going on based on how Putin is conducting this, quote-unquote, operation.
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Like, it opened, I think, with a lot less of just the shock and awe that most people were,
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most military experts had expected, where they met, you know, just a massive barrage all across Ukraine.
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And it was more restrained in those early hours.
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But then, especially in the last few days after the Russians seemingly,
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Putin really thought that this would be over in two or three days,
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that they would just walk into the cities and seize control of key infrastructure and take over.
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But that didn't play out, which, you know, so the lighter columns,
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the columns of lighter armored vehicles of Russian special forces and paratroopers
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And now the Russians, especially in Kiev and in Kharkiv,
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in the city in the northeast, that's Ukraine's second largest city,
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they're resorting to more of this indiscriminate bombardment strategy
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of trying to break down the will of the defenders and the will of the population.
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And definitely people have remarked that there is quite a will for the defenders,
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quite a fighting spirit among so many individuals,
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whether it's, of course, Ukrainian forces who are employed to do that, Zelensky himself.
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We've seen those images of regular citizens arming themselves,
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I would have never envisioned myself picking up arms.
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What are people saying about their feelings of defending their own country?
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I mean, the response of this has been so tremendous.
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I think in the first few days, the first day or two,
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the government announced that if you want to defend the city in Kiev,
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we come to the armories, we will give you a Kalashnikov.
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And already within the first few days, tens of thousands of people took that up.
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And the scale of it has been such that I'm talking to people in Kiev who went to try and enlist in those militias,
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enlist in the territorial defense force and were turned away because they cannot handle the amount of volunteers that they have.
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I've even seen it with other people, you know, a friend of a friend who we took the train from Kiev to Lviv with.
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She was initially planning, you know, she's 29 years old, a fitness instructor,
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and she was initially planning on leaving to Poland and then decided after arriving in Lviv,
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no, I'm going to stay and make Molotov cocktails.
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And, you know, these are sorts of stories that are just all over the place here.
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People are getting in a fighting position, they're getting prepared.
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But what is the volume of regular citizens actually engaged in firefights,
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in combat, in throwing those Molotov cocktails at Russian forces right now?
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I mean, I think it's quite a bit, you know, especially in Kiev and Kharkiv,
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the two cities that are seeing the most fighting in Kiev.
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As I can tell, it's become a pretty fortified place in the last few days.
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You know, what initially started as makeshift barricades in the streets have been reinforced with
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cranes, excavators bringing in, you know, reinforced concrete and setting up barricades
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And, you know, we've seen videos as well of Ukrainian civilians driving past Russian armored vehicles
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in their cars and then leaning out the window and throwing Molotov cocktails at the Russian tanks.
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And, you know, just some of these incredible scenes.
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Neil, we've seen various postings on social media of Russian soldiers
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being taken captive or waving the white flag, basically saying, OK, I surrender.
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And then some very compassionate videos of Ukrainians giving a cup of tea and saying,
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But they're putting them out there to say, hey, look, we're at least scoring these minor occasional victories.
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And to what degree is this a sense of, yeah, like, you know, we're really doing well here as defenders, Ukrainians?
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I mean, I think this is becoming one of the key trends that we're seeing here in the last few days
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is that, you know, a lot of these Russian soldiers really don't want to be there.
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And that the sense really is that, as we see in here again and again from these captured Russian soldiers,
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is that they were just told, you're on exercises.
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They did not know there was going to be an invasion.
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And a lot of them, you know, they're officially all contract soldiers,
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but a lot of them were press ganged into it, essentially.
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They were conscripts doing their mandatory military service,
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who were then forced to sign a contract or threatened with consequences.
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And then after that point, you know, forced into this invasion of Ukraine,
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which they didn't know was happening and which they don't want to be involved in,
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especially a war that is not just some easy walkover,
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And so in the last few days, we've seen, you know, so many videos of even whole Russian units
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basically dropping their arms or walking over to the Ukrainian side.
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Wow. So who really wants this conflict? Is it just Vladimir Putin?
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Absolutely. I mean, it absolutely seems like that.
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You know, we've seen the videos from the very first day across Russia.
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In the first day alone in Russia, there was protests against the war in 53 different cities.
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And this is despite the fact that the laws in Russia are so draconian,
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that if you immediately make a post on social media, on Facebook,
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about some sort of anti-war stance, you can and often are arrested for that and charged.
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And you can be in prison for 10 years just for that.
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And despite this fact, you know, there have been thousands of people
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coming out into the streets in Russia, protesting, saying no to war,
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And so, you know, as I saw put well by another another analyst here a little while ago,
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Putin is fighting two wars now, both in Ukraine and at home.
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It was remarkable to see some of that footage of protests happening in major Russian cities.
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And police go up, law enforcement go and take away an anti-war banner that a few protesters have.
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They drag the three of them away from the edges of the protest.
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And you're like, OK, you're going to arrest three people.
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You do realize there are 300 or 1,000 other people right there as well.
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I mean, can they clamp down on all of this sentiment?
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I mean, the silver lining for the authorities in Russia is that it's so difficult to organize mass-scale protests
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that, you know, there's really all these things are completely uncoordinated in terms of
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they're all just people showing up randomly to Central Square and hoping other people will be there
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But already a couple of days ago, there was reports that the detention centers in Moscow and St. Petersburg,
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You know, they've arrested, he's confirmed at least 5,000 or 6,000 people,
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and there's no more space in those detention centers.
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Is it your sense that Russian opposition to the war will, I guess, be muted because of these arrests?
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Or are people just saying, no, I mean, we're feeling the economic consequences.
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I mean, this situation in Russia, especially now the last two days, is crazy in terms of the economy
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started to absolutely tank as a result of these massive sanctions, the currency's tanking,
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tons of services are not available, things like Apple and Google are not available there anymore.
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And, you know, so people have started fleeing Russia en masse.
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Like, I talked to one Russian friend yesterday, and she said, literally all my friends are shoving clothes in a suitcase
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and getting the first flight out because the sense is that there's a strong possibility that tomorrow
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they will introduce martial law in Russia and ban all flights from the country.
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And so people are trying to get out before that happens as basically the Iron Curtain is coming down again.
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I want to ask you the million-dollar question that everybody's talking about right now,
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I mean, Putin seems to want, essentially, to destroy Ukraine as an independent and viable state.
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You know, it would have been nice for him if he could have just walked in and taken over the government
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and the country and put in some pliable administration in the space of 48 or 72 hours.
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But if that's not the possibility, then at the very least, you know, destroy Ukraine as a place that can sit,
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as a country that can exist and make its own choices and be able to have, you know, an anti-Russian orientation
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and make it so that Ukraine cannot possibly exist as a place with, as a functional independent state
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So we had some individuals saying, and this was what it, I think, seemed like to a lot of people early on,
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that it was really just about carving out further eastern territory, those two regions, Donetsk and Luhansk.
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We've clearly seen that's not the case because of what's going on in the capital.
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Then we've got others with a more sort of maximal perspective saying,
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well, if he's going to do Ukraine, what stops him from crossing over into another border?
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But you've got the smaller view and then you've got the enlarged view.
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You seem to be suggesting that this is a conflict that is primarily focused on the identity of Ukraine.
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And I think, you know, Putin himself made that very clear when he gave this speech last Monday,
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the one in which he recognized the two separatist republics in the eastern Ukraine.
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But the first 30, 40 minutes of that speech was just this insane rant about how Ukraine is not a real country,
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how it was created by Lenin and the Bolsheviks and by the Russians themselves,
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and how now it's not even being run by Ukraine, but it's being by Ukrainians,
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but it's being run by this fascist U.S. puppet regime,
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which exists only to hold Ukrainians themselves hostage.
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And they're the brother people of Russians who must be freed from this foreign domination.
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And he made it very clear that he doesn't think Ukraine has a right to exist or is a real country at all.
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Where does the truth lie in terms of the sentiments going on among Ukrainians,
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I've seen the public opinion surveys that are actually from Russian news agencies,
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talking about a very high percentage of people in eastern Ukraine who aren't happy being in Ukraine.
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And obviously, Putin is significantly ramping up those numbers.
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But at the same time, I know the percentage is not zero in terms of the people in the east
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So what's really going on with that question of identity in eastern Ukraine?
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I mean, Ukraine, you know, as a country always was, pre-2014, was always quite split.
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And, you know, plenty of people with fond memories of the Soviet Union
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You know, everyone has relatives in Russia somewhere.
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And Ukraine would always be between these two sides,
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between balancing between having strong links to Russia,
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but also having increasing links with the west as well.
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And then after the invasion in 2014 and the annexation of Crimea,
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This is sort of, you know, the ultimate irony of Putin's moves here is that
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in order in trying to deter Ukraine from joining NATO
00:19:00.980
and or joining the EU or having Western orientation,
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he's guaranteed that everyone in the country hates Russia.
00:19:08.860
And now, you know, now that the Russians have launched this full-scale invasion,
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you know, there is no sentiment here except for just hatred of Russia and of Putin
00:19:17.740
because they're actively, every day, indiscriminately bombarding cities.
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So you could not have made a policy choice that would have more guaranteed
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that Ukraine will be an anti-Russian state forever.
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There are so many images that Canadians are seeing that are shocking, upsetting to them.
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Images of the Children's Cancer Hospital being under siege.
00:19:41.640
And there is an appetite, not just among online sort of Twitter voices,
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but even a number of prominent official individuals
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basically talking about getting more involved in a military sense.
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But we've got Jen Steltenberg, head of NATO, saying that ain't going to happen.
00:19:55.700
And they were on the record months ago saying they're not going to do that.
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President Biden, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau saying similar things.
00:20:01.560
What is your perspective on the role in which Western forces, NATO forces,
00:20:10.100
Yeah, I mean, the degree to which it's going to happen is essentially what we're already seeing.
00:20:14.700
You know, tons of arms deliveries, especially anti-aircraft and anti-tank shoulder-fired missiles,
00:20:22.880
which have already come into many of thousands of which have already arrived in Ukraine.
00:20:27.460
And we've seen people like places like Germany, Germany, which was always, you know,
00:20:31.400
against this sort of any sort of military aid to Ukraine or anything.
00:20:35.800
Over the weekend, Chancellor Schultz basically undid 30 years of German policy in one speech
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and said this is an existential threat for European security and we are standing with Ukraine.
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But the one thing there's not going to be is a no-fly zone or direct NATO involvement
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because there's a lot of people clamoring for a no-fly zone, a NATO no-fly zone over Ukraine.
00:20:56.860
But then what happens, you shoot down a Russian, if a Russian plane's there and you shoot it down,
00:21:00.860
now you are actively risking an escalation that could very conceivably lead to war between Russia
00:21:07.320
and the West and war between nuclear war as well.
00:21:10.760
So there will never be some sort of no-fly zone here.
00:21:12.940
There are a lot of concerns about Vladimir Putin raising the prospect of upping the nuclear awareness level,
00:21:19.940
whatever the technical term is, but I understand there's four levels in Russia
00:21:23.200
and he only upped them to level two as opposed to going full scale at level four.
00:21:30.200
Is this a serious look into the minds of Russian military strategy?
00:21:36.960
That's good that you mentioned that because that is,
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it was the second of the four readiness levels that he moved it to there.
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And, you know, of course, with nuclear matters,
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you never want to downplay anything or take anything lightly.
00:21:50.040
But at the same time, the fact that Putin does that is a sign of weakness, not of strength.
00:21:54.960
It's a sign that he has a few cards left to play.
00:21:57.500
And, you know, this sort of nuclear bluff, this sort of nuclear brinksmanship is one of them
00:22:09.880
And so at that point, you know, he's trying to dissuade any arms deliveries
00:22:14.360
by raising the readiness of the nuclear forces.
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But, you know, clearly, as he did that, it hasn't worked.
00:22:21.460
We'll be back with more full comment in just a moment after these messages.
00:22:27.160
Neil Hauer, I know you mentioned that originally Vladimir Putin was thinking or hoping
00:22:31.040
and even many military strategists were thinking this would be concluded in just a couple of days.
00:22:36.600
Instead, Russian forces are getting perhaps more entrenched, although there's some supply
00:22:42.180
Ukrainian opposition definitely getting more entrenched and getting support from various
00:22:47.740
What is the time horizon here in terms of what we're facing?
00:22:50.760
Are we facing something that could unfortunately be a months long invasion and certain insurgency
00:22:59.460
What does the future look like right now on the ground?
00:23:03.180
And, you know, if we're if let's say that, you know, military operations just allowed to
00:23:08.180
proceed at their current pace, then that could easily be, you know, months, weeks, months,
00:23:12.920
because, you know, Russian forces are making some significant advances, especially in the
00:23:18.040
Yesterday, they seems like they captured their first major city in Ukraine, the southern port
00:23:23.380
city of Kherson, which is about 300,000 people.
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And they've besieged now the southeastern port city of Mariupol, which is about 400,000, about 500,000
00:23:35.540
But at the same time, you know, near Kharkiv and Kiev, they have made no real headway in
00:23:40.500
But the thing to watch, especially for me, I think, is how is this going to unfold in
00:23:47.540
I mean, are they even going to be in a position?
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Are they even going to be able to to continue persecuting this war with the way the economy
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And even just critical materials, I mean, even just things like ammunition manufacture
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and weapons manufacture, will they even be able to continue doing that as the full effect
00:24:05.740
of these absolutely basically being cut off from the world market continue to unfold over
00:24:12.220
We've already seen initial reports of various Russian tanks and different groups of forces
00:24:17.560
stopping shorter in their advance than they would like to because of fuel issues or other
00:24:22.800
And I got to say, that sounds this early on kind of amateur hour when it comes to military
00:24:28.320
Yeah, I mean, I keep saying I think the way the Russians lose this war, if in fact it plays
00:24:33.960
out that way, is going to be morale and logistics, you know, with the main and the biggest example
00:24:40.840
of this being this convoy that's 40 kilometers long north of Kiev.
00:24:48.300
And so and these these vehicles have been sitting there, you know, as the UK M.O.D.
00:24:54.960
said yesterday, we have seen no discernible progress in over three days.
00:24:59.040
And those vehicles are sitting there and it's zero degrees.
00:25:01.200
So you have to have to be running them about half the time burning fuel.
00:25:06.620
And once those vehicles are out of fuel, which will be soon, there's no good way to refuel them
00:25:11.620
And the Ukrainians are the Ukrainian jets are already hitting this column.
00:25:14.260
And, you know, this is just like a logistics catastrophe.
00:25:18.100
And that is really how a lot of these wars play out.
00:25:22.220
You know, strategies and tactics win battles, but logistics win wars.
00:25:27.560
Speaking about catastrophe, a refugee catastrophe that a lot of warnings that there's a lot of
00:25:35.360
You're at the most western major city, Lviv, right now.
00:25:38.540
What are you seeing in terms of the refugee situation?
00:25:42.400
And so we were at the border ourselves two days ago and the main crossing with Poland.
00:25:47.920
And as you get down there, there is a line of cars about 10 to 12 kilometers long all
00:25:54.700
And that, as people told us, that takes about three or four days to get through that if you
00:26:01.080
If you want to leave on foot, if you're Ukrainian and you get to the border, you can go across
00:26:06.540
But if you are, if you're not Ukrainian, you know, there's quite a large number of students
00:26:13.100
and workers from the Middle East, from India, from sub-Saharan Africa in Ukraine.
00:26:19.160
And these people are held at the border for, you know, as we saw there, they have been there
00:26:24.060
for days already and sleeping there outside, lack of food and water as both the Ukrainian
00:26:30.500
and Polish authorities are hesitant to process them.
00:26:34.420
They don't have the correct documents or some combination of that.
00:26:38.960
So here we're hearing accusations of racism at the border when it comes to refugees crossing
00:26:43.980
from Ukraine into Poland, a few African nations discussing this and it's making its way into
00:26:51.480
Is this a question of people just not having the right documentation or do you believe there
00:26:55.480
is either overt or at least sort of implicit racism going on in these border policies?
00:27:04.660
I'm sure it's a combination of the two, you know, where people from with countries that
00:27:08.800
are not visa free to Schengen cannot get across so easily and the procedures have not been
00:27:15.200
But at the same time, too, you know, the border guards, both on the Polish and Ukrainian side
00:27:19.140
can certainly be much rougher with people of darker complexions than they would be with
00:27:26.340
So and the treatment for people of the European complexion will certainly be better.
00:27:36.080
Speaking of racism issues, Vladimir Putin, when he was announcing the military operation,
00:27:41.440
his original pretext, or at least one of the pretext is, was he's going to de-Nazify Ukraine.
00:27:46.840
And a lot of people did a double take and go, what on earth are you talking about?
00:27:50.220
I mean, the head of Ukraine, Zelensky himself, is a Jewish man.
00:27:55.580
Then again, I see a few years ago in the National Post a headline, our former conservative
00:28:00.000
government, are we arming neo-Nazi battalions in the Ukraine army?
00:28:04.220
And you go, what on earth is behind the headlines there?
00:28:06.180
And they've got this group, the Azov Brigade, which is believed to have some contingent of
00:28:14.620
Because there's a lot of a lot of propaganda all across the board.
00:28:21.560
There are groups that are either adjacent to or directly far right here, of course.
00:28:27.940
I mean, and the Azov Brigade itself has quite a bit of this symbolism and is also quite
00:28:34.060
popular, especially in the southeast, where they're engaged in fighting.
00:28:37.200
And it's one of the more popular paramilitary militia groups for volunteers to join.
00:28:43.720
But at the same time, you know, in elections in Ukraine, these groups have never surpassed
00:28:53.460
And they're not going to be, you know, of course, Ukraine is a city with, Ukraine is
00:28:58.440
a country with one of the largest Jewish populations on earth, including, as you said, the president.
00:29:03.380
And there are Jewish militias fighting in the city of Dnepro against the Russian invading
00:29:11.140
So the whole narrative, the Nazification is just this bizarre claim from and just this
00:29:18.200
this this the latest a long attempt, string of attempts to find some flimsy pretext for
00:29:26.880
Neil, there's a lot of calls for action here in the West, a lot of perspectives on what should
00:29:35.780
You've also got the academic expertise in terms of Eastern European affairs.
00:29:39.340
What is the what would be your pragmatic best case scenario?
00:29:44.860
What do you think is going to happen in the next few weeks?
00:29:48.060
Pragmatic best case scenario, I think, is that, you know, the Russian war effort just continues
00:29:54.460
And in terms of the issues with morale and logistics only getting worse.
00:29:59.020
And, you know, the fact that it's easy to block real information in Russia from getting
00:30:03.160
to people and people are only fed state propaganda.
00:30:06.040
But at the same time, if when people wake up and they go to withdraw their paycheck and
00:30:10.960
it's suddenly worth half as much as it was a week ago, then they'll then they realize
00:30:15.160
And the hope is that that will translate to some sort of, you know, mass crisis and mass
00:30:19.900
dissatisfaction that Putin will not be able to survive.
00:30:23.040
And the military balance of play is such that, you know, the Ukrainian forces have received
00:30:27.360
such a so many of these really impactful weapons.
00:30:30.880
You know, the anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles sold in the last few days that that will enable
00:30:37.100
them to exact even more damage than they already are on the Russian forces and blunt the attack.
00:30:43.960
So I think that the ideal scenario is that Russia's Putin's war machine here itself just
00:30:50.000
collapses on the home front the next few weeks.
00:30:54.860
Because while it would be good for them to fail, of course, I don't think failure, at least
00:30:58.860
on a grand scale is something Putin is used to.
00:31:01.220
And it's better for global stability that none of this be happening in Ukraine.
00:31:05.300
But it's also not good for global stability that you have a dictator of a superpower with
00:31:09.940
nuclear weapons who suddenly feels like he's a rat in a corner, whether it's with, you know,
00:31:14.960
Western nations, Ukraine or even his own oligarchs.
00:31:22.280
And this is something that we're truly beyond beyond the pale with and that we don't know.
00:31:27.980
There's no real precedent in modern Russian history for what would occur in this.
00:31:32.960
I think a lot of people think that the best thing would be some sort of palace coup where
00:31:37.700
enough of the other security elites in Moscow end up reaching this conclusion that we are
00:31:44.680
not, that Putin has lost it and under his leadership things are bad and only getting worse
00:31:52.560
But the way that that would actually play out is we don't really know.
00:31:58.140
And that's the sheer fact of the matter is that, you know, mass public protests have never
00:32:04.180
really brought down a government in Russian history, even in the Bolshevik or revolution
00:32:13.740
And so it's we're sort of in uncharted waters with all this.
00:32:19.000
Before we go, I want to ask your thoughts on how we engage and interact with the Russian
00:32:24.500
people moving forward here, because as many people have said, the grievance is with Putin.
00:32:31.420
Hockey agent Dan Milstein posted quite prominently on social media.
00:32:36.020
The Canadian Junior Hockey League will announce that Russian and Belarus and 16 and 17 year old
00:32:40.200
children would be banned from the upcoming draft.
00:32:42.740
Mr. Milstein writes, I am Ukrainian born and want peace.
00:32:45.660
I do not believe banning teenagers for something they do not control is the answer.
00:32:50.000
Here in Canada, there are already minor stories of of disagreements, skirmishes, even some violence
00:32:56.640
between people of Ukrainian descent, Russian descent, Russian descent.
00:33:01.200
What are your hopes for sort of moving forward peaceably in a way that avoids all of this?
00:33:07.800
And that's just so disappointing because, you know, I get the idea of punishing Russia
00:33:12.620
and sanctions as a whole, but against, you know, state linked companies and branches of
00:33:19.340
the state, not against 16 year old hockey players who now are going to be forbidden from coming,
00:33:25.000
being drafted by Canadian teams and coming over to their own.
00:33:27.540
You know, there's a there's there's a line that you have to draw between the Russian state
00:33:30.920
and then between just ethnic Russians as people, you know, there's 150, 200 million of them.
00:33:36.340
And you can't treat them as responsible for the actions of the state because that's the same logic
00:33:41.120
terrorists use. You know, the the people are responsible for the crimes of the regime.
00:33:45.240
So I think, you know, the the this talk of banning Russians from getting EU visas and everything
00:33:51.460
as is really, really awful and would be the the worst that you could do is to lock Russians there
00:33:59.660
That is the Putin's Russia as the economy continues to deteriorate.
00:34:05.520
You have to allow them to to to to get out of that situation if you want them to.
00:34:11.620
And especially if, as you're hoping, you know, they'll be out there risking their lives and
00:34:18.960
This has been a really informative, no spin conversation.
00:34:22.120
Neil Hauer, I appreciate you joining us, offering us this on the ground perspective and with your
00:34:34.260
This episode was produced by Andre Proulx, with theme music by Bryce Hall.
00:34:41.140
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