Human Rights in Russia week-ending 4 March 2022 - with Mikhail Savva

THIS PODCAST IS NOT CURRENTLY AVAILABLEFOR THE PRESENT TIME WE HAVE REPLACED THE PODCAST WITH MIKHAIL SAVVA WITH A PODCAST WE RECORDED IN NOVEMBER 2020.Our guest on the podcast this week is Mikhail Valentinovich Savva. Mikhail Savva is a human rights activist, political scientist, and former professor at Kuban State University. In 1993 Mikhail Savva began working in the administration of the Krasnodar region and then later in the Federal Ministry of Nationalities Affairs and Regional Policy - a position from which he resigned in connection with the first Chechen war. From January 2001, Mikhail Savva served as director of grant programmes at the Southern Regional Resource Centre, an NGO, and he was also a member of the Krasnodar Region Public Oversight Commission to monitor human rights in places of detention. In April 2013 a politically motivated criminal case was initiated against Savva under Article 159(3) of the Criminal Code ("Fraud on an especially large scale"). In April 2014, a Krasnodar district court gave him a three-year suspended sentence. Since 2015 Mikhail Savva has lived in Kiev where he is chair of the board of the Sova Expert Group, an NGO registered in Ukraine.The recording is from 4 March 2022The topics we discuss in the podcast include: the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the current situation in the conflict, what the West is doing, why things have come to this, Putin as a leader, public opinion in Ukraine and Russia, and what will happen in the short and long term.The questions we asked Mikhail are:·         What is the current situation in the conflict? Where is the front line - if there is one?·         The Ukrainian troops have put up very strong resistance. How is Ukrainian public opinion reacting?·         How do people in Ukraine assess the quality of Russian military forces - human and technical?·         Where do people get their information about the course of the war in Ukraine? Are there reliable sources?·         What do we know about Russia's plans in the coming days - and months?·         What is the West doing? And should it be doing more?·         There are many reports of Russian troops bombing civilian areas. Some talk about the need for a no-fly zone by NATO to protect civilians. Is this realistic?·         How do you feel about Putin's reference to nuclear weapons?·         In retrospect, why has Putin invested so much – great economic and human resources and even his political future - in this destructive military adventure?·         Watching videos of Putin talking to his ministers in Moscow in an empty hall or at the end of a long table, one gets the impression that he is a very isolated leader. Especially when compared to Volodymyr Zelensky. What do you think?·         What do you think will happen in the short and long term? This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website, SoundCloud, Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Anchor and YouTube.