Ukraine and Russia’s recruitment war

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1:22You're listening to the documentary from the BBC World Service.

1:30Welcome to The Fifth Floor from the BBC World Service with me, Farhanak Amidi. The BBC World Service broadcasts in 45 languages around the world. Here on The Fifth Floor, our job is to bring you the best of the week's stories in English and to get you closer to the work our language service journalists do. Coming up, how Indian farmers are turning a plant traditionally used for fencing to make a sought-after spirit. Some had a smoky flavor, some had a whiskey flavor. You can basically enjoy with one simple ice or mix it with something, but it's really to enjoy it. But first, more than four years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the war continues to shape almost every aspect of life in both countries, including the challenge of finding enough people to serve on the front line.

2:26In Ukraine, videos showing violent confrontations between recruitment officers and members of the public have sparked angry debate about how Ukraine's draft system is working. In Russia, meanwhile, the authorities have tightened conscription rules and introduced new digital tools aimed at successfully recruiting more young Russians. With me in the fifth floor studio is BBC Monitoring's Vitaly Shevchenko and on the line from Riga, BBC Russians Yaroslava Kirchina. Vitaly and Yaroslava, welcome to the fifth floor. It's great to have you both. So Vitaly, I'm going to start with you. You've said that scenes of recruitment officers stopping men on the streets in Ukraine is nothing new.

3:11But what is different about these recent incidents that has grabbed the attention of people and sparked such debate? I think it's about particularly striking incidents that capture media attention or public attention that brings this subject back into the spotlight rather than a massive change in how things are done in Ukraine or in how things are perceived in Ukraine. One of the most recent examples is a confrontation between military recruiters in Western Lviv region and a crowd of about 200 people who eventually succeeded in turning over the jeep used by military recruiters. And they jeered and shouted.

4:09And that kind of brought the whole subject back into news headlines. Yeah, I actually watched that video online and I think we have a clip of it. Let's have a listen.

4:25Vitaly, what are they shouting? They're shouting shame. So clearly they don't like military recruiters. recruiters and for a lot of people the fact that it's happening in Lviv which is normally seen as the more patriotically minded part of Ukraine or probably the most it's kind of surprising but it goes to show that no matter how pro-Ukrainian Ukrainian speaking patriotic you are it doesn't necessarily mean that you're willing to go and die for your country whoever wanted to go and fight voluntarily they probably have done it already so what those recruiters have got to work with are people in two minds about it or are very actively unwilling to go and fight or be recruited and sent to fight.

5:25If you are a man of age of fighting, and you basically want to avoid conscription in Ukraine, what happens to you? You stay home. I know so many people, and most of them are very pro-Ukrainian, and they cannot be suspected of liking Vladimir Putin and what he stands for and they've spent years staying at home in fact i was just chatting to a friend of mine from from zaparesia and we have a a friend in common and she said she'd not seen him for two and a half years because he tends to stay indoors and if you really really have to go somewhere if you have the money you take a taxi because it's less likely to be stopped than you just, you know, using public transport.

6:16So that's what it's like, because what happens, you're walking down the street, and you get stopped by a recruitment patrol known as TETECA in Ukrainian. They ask you to show your papers, and by papers, I mean an app in your phone, which proves your military status. If there's a problem with it, or if it says you're eligible to be recruited, if you don't have any exemptions, they'll be having you. In you go. And there's no way you can say no? It's not an option. It's not an option. In Ukraine, as I imagine in most, if not all countries across the globe, the state has a right to mobilize people to defend itself at a time of war.

6:58So that's what's going on. When the invasion first started back in 2022, we saw a huge number of volunteers going to fight against the Russian invasion. What has changed since? Back then, the immense shock of what was going on, of course, it was hugely mobilising, pun intended, and motivating. That's why it was so blithingly obvious to so many Ukrainians, Ukrainian men, that without their involvement, their country will just be squashed by the Russian war machine. And that would have had a lethal impact on their own personal lives and families. So that's why they did what they did. so many of them are still there fighting all these years later so many of them have been killed killed or injured that's why there's a huge need for new blood for more people to join the ranks and authorities are looking for new ways to attract as you mentioned new blood they promise positions for drone operations specialized military roles i guess the question is do people actually trust these promises?

8:23The first question they need to answer is, am I willing to accept the risk of being killed? Even if you're a drone operator sitting somewhere in a back office, you know, hundreds of kilometres away from the front line, the Russians might find out where you are and they might target you. So that's always a possibility. Secondly, the deal is, If you volunteer, you will potentially be able to select your unit. I want to be a drone operator. I want to be a truck driver away from the front line. I happen to like this unit, but not that one. So in theory, this is what will sweeten the pill, if you like, make it more attractive for you.

9:13Because the alternative is you stopped by Tatsaka, you are recruited, and then you don't have any choice. You get sent wherever. Yaroslav, tell me, in Russia, how has the drafting system changed ever since the war started? It has changed significantly, mainly with the introduction of a digital registry of summonses. Formerly, it was a paper-based system, meaning that you can probably bribe your way out of the draft. And I personally know quite a few young men who actually got fake medical certificates to avoid it. But now it is becoming increasingly hard to do that. And people face travel bans if you fail to go to the military office, to the enlistment office.

10:04Yeah. What is this digital system? How does it operate and how does it make it more difficult to evade conscription? Yeah, the thing is that this system, it combines information from various registries, including the Interior Ministry and so on. And they have information about all your property, possibly your recent transactions, because there were known cases when people who have not declared their new address, they actually got tracked, which would be impossible, obviously, with the old paper system. And if you fail to go to the enlistment office when summoned, you may face much graver consequences than just a travel ban.

10:49For instance, you may no longer drive your car because your driving license will be suspended and sell your property and so on. And the thing is that this particular system, it applies actually to all men and women that are in the reserve. And if we're talking about women, those are primarily medics because they're needed in the army. And the thing is that there have been a recent campaign of summonses sent to mainly young women, again, to verify and check their data. This doesn't mean that they get summoned. Sometimes some of them are encouraged. They cannot talk about such a fierce pressure as these men, but they are encouraged to consider this opportunity or to work as medics in the occupied territories of Ukraine.

11:43Is there any way to know if more people are trying to avoid serving the military? The thing is, it's hard to say. We did speak with quite a few Russian military lawyers and they say that there have been a certain uptick after the first known case of a man facing a travel ban, which was in September 2085. There is definitely more anxiety online because I keep seeing reports and people complaining that they got travel bans or they got military notices. And they may summon you to check your data, so to say. And sometimes people get increasingly pressured to join the army during those visits of military enlistment offices.

12:27And in Russia, military service in general, would you say it's more driven by patriotic values or financial incentives? I would honestly say financial more than patriotic. There are some people who genuinely believe in that cause and want to join army for whatever reason. But actually, based on the data set that my colleague Olga Yishina compiles, it's clearly visible that up until now, the regions that became the largest sources of manpower for the war are really poor regions of Russia. The thing is that officially Russians claim that they trust the army. The level of trust, according to state-run pollsters, has been increasing.

13:17But the thing is that it's really hard to verify how genuine the support is. We know that there has been some expansion of the pool of people eligible for military service by the authorities in Russia. But how has this changed? How bigger has it become? According to the estimates of a very famous Russian demographer, it was expanded by almost a million in the course of three years since it was produced. And this year, actually, the draft system changed a bit again. And it's now not done twice a year, but it's now throughout the year. Would you say that Russian authorities have become more aggressive in recruiting?

13:58Yeah, the thing is that there is clandestine and open recruitment, so to say. By open recruitment, I mean that they try to increasingly lure young students. And my colleagues at BBC Russian have uncovered at least three cases when such young men died really early. And the thing is that sometimes it's done via military departments at the universities, meaning that they organize talks with army veterans or themselves try to pressure or persuade people that they will get better grades or whatever. but the thing is that also there is a different trend that is less noticeable is that now few students manage to get into higher educational institutions meaning that it's harder for them to evade draft you can evade it if you kind of get a proper degree than a phd yeah you know when you stay in the educational system for a long time but when you're pushed into a college say and you spend three years there and then you have no exemption from draft.

15:03Yeah, we have lots of parents complaining to us that it's almost impossible to get into university now. What I'm getting is that in general, it's become more difficult for Russia and Ukraine to find willing recruits. What does this say about the attitudes of the public towards this war? Let's just Vitaly with you. I would say that most Ukrainians are still of the same opinion. This is an existential war for their country and their nation and their way of life, which means that they still think it needs to be fought. And this is still shown in various public opinion surveys. it's mostly about the number of people at this moment in time willing to go and fight voluntarily and when we speak about this recruitment drive i think we need to avoid creating an impression that it's ubiquitous or omnipresent and if you set foot outside you are going to be snatched and sent to the trenches.

16:20No, this is not what I've seen in Kyiv. There's only one instance where I saw a car on the motorway, a Tesla car, recruitment car, stopping drivers and checking their paperwork. Okay, Kyiv may be different, but speaking to people outside of it, they also say, well, look, it's a bit of a lottery, but you're not guaranteed to be recruited the moment you turn out. And looking at the number of men between 25 and 60, which is the age bracket when they can be forcefully mobilized, there's still a lot of them in the street. It's not like in Ukraine there's only teenagers or women. No. But given that Ukraine, and this is another hugely important factor, Ukraine is a big country.

17:14But it's much smaller than Russia. Russia has many, many more men, which it can throw into what is awfully called the mead grinder. Ukraine just can't afford it. Yaroslava, what about you? Yeah, the thing is that based on analysis of people actually joining the contract service, the rate of people joining the contract army has been gradually decreasing, including in Moscow, which again shows that even high bonuses are no longer really attractive to people. because, again, when the war has been dragging on for so long, you kind of probably not have full face in the army, despite kind of the official bolsters.

18:04Now let's make a comparison. Imagine the experiences of a 25-year-old man facing mobilization in Ukraine and a 25-year-old man facing conscription in Russia. How are their experiences similar but also different? Let's tell you. If you're being recruited forcefully, the similarity is that, well, you're going to be anxious. Yeah. You're going to be terrified maybe. but looking at Ukraine as compared to Russia, I would argue that there's a much clearer sense of purpose and objective. Furthermore, in the army, this clearer sense of objective translates into better agility and flexibility and a sense that we need to recruit people to do a job.

19:08By and large, I would argue that there's a much better understanding and a much clearly defined objective of using new recruits for a purpose. And contrasting that with the Russian army, where, as the CIA says, the life expectancy of new recruits deployed to the front lines is between 20 and 30 minutes. That doesn't really indicate that there's much care exercised about preserving human lives. Yaroslava, do you want to add anything to that? Yeah, there is definitely a major difference. Obviously, Kremlin propaganda is working and some people willingly go to fight. I personally know some students who did so despite being from really well-loved families.

20:02It was just their choice. But again, most 25-year-olds rather prefer to study and continue work, again, based on the complaints we see rather than go fight. Thanks to Yaroslava Kiryachina from BBC Russian and Vitaly Shevchenko from BBC Monitoring. You're listening to the documentary from the BBC World Service.

20:58Francis Galton and the racist discredited pseudoscience of eugenics with Desiree Birch. We'll meet many medieval saints in their bone boxes with Rachel Parrott. So if that sounds like your sort of thing, listen to You're Dead to Me wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. Bye.

21:19This is The Fifth Floor and I'm Farinak Amidi. What is your go-to party drink? for many people around the world is the Mexican spirit, tequila. In fact, there is an estimated $15 billion market for tequila in Mezcal globally. That's a lot of shots. But a new kind of spirit, very similar to tequila, is gaining popularity across India. And it's all thanks to an unassuming looking plant called agave. Unlike in Mexico, no one in India grows agave on a commercial scale. In India, it grows wild. And until recently, its only use was for farmers to make fences from its thorny trunk. But it is slowly transforming the lives of farmers across the country, as my colleague Priti Gupta, reporting for BBC Gujarati, has been finding out.

22:11And she joins me now from Mumbai. Priti, welcome to The Fifth Floor. It's great to have you with us. How are you doing? Very well, thank you. So Priti, tell me, India traditionally didn't cultivate agave. When did its potential start to become noticed in India? So when we look at agave plant in India, it has been growing since British era, actually, when British were ruling India. But from last 10 to 11 years, things have been picking up where it was identified as something where it could be converted into spirits. So there's a person called Desmond who basically is called father of agave spirits actually.

22:52And he is the one who identified this plant and has converted it into spirits at present. The first incident when Mr. Desmond told me was that the first time he went to look for this plant, he found it on a farmer's land. The farmer was willing to give it free of charge for him without charging a penny. That's when you realize that it is very important to educate the farmers that this is a very important thing. And this can be turned into a gold mine. So for those who don't know what agave looks like, can you just describe the plant and the fruit? So agave basically just looks like a cactus wildly growing across a number of areas of India.

23:34it just looks like a thorny plant with a huge stem on the top which usually converts into fruits they have to make sure when they are cutting this plant at the same time when they are peeling the cactus it has to be cut in a way where the heart the pina is not destroyed and the sugar content is maintained the fruit exactly looks like a pineapple and how you peel a pineapple in a similar way, this agave cactus has to be peeled. And where do you find it usually? So it specifically grows in the red sand area. Indian Deccan Plateau has a completely red sand area where it is grown. But now it has also started growing in Rajasthan and different parts of Maharashtra.

24:22These are different states of India. But on a very large scale, it grows in Deccan Plateau. And before, People didn't really think of it as having any commercial value. It was used to make fences around farms to protect crops. But now it's changing farmers' lives. How is it doing that? So as I mentioned, that once it was identified as an important plant, till today people use it as fencing and nothing more. It's just thanks to the alcohol industry, the beverage industry, where they have been convincing farmers that this is a very important crop and it can be used as a commercial plant. So what is happening is that once the area is identified, these spirit people who run distillery go to these farmers, explain it to them, the importance.

25:12So now there are a number of farmers who work with these distilleries and give them these agave plants. And it's now called the blue gold in India. Yes, because it's giving them the opportunity to grow big as a farmer. So the farmer does not have to stop growing what he is growing. He can grow any other crop. On the side of the fencing, these agave plants grow by themselves. You don't have to put an effort to grow them. And that's one of the reasons this is becoming so popular, like a waste converted into gold. So can you briefly talk us through the process of how it's harvested? because it seems to be quite complicated.

25:53So you have to basically harvest this plant before it turns into a flower. So once the plant has reached a certain age, it starts sprouting into a flower. The main content of the sugar for which it's used in alcohol is in the fruit, which is called piña, which is called the heart of the agave plant. Before it ripens, and that's the time he has to cut it and make sure it reaches the distillery before the sugar content is over. So the period between harvesting the plant and the plant reaching it to distillery, it cannot be more than 24 hours. Otherwise, the sugar content is over and the plant is no longer useful for the distillery.

26:36Does this whole process create a lot of jobs? So it has basically, when I spoke to this farmer who still today grows other crops, But he's become an aggregator who collects agave from all across his area. He loads it onto a truck and then gives it to the distillery. So there are a number of aggregators who have found a job, a new identity, I could say. They are a farmer and they are an aggregator and they are making good money. And the spirit that is distilled from this plant, has it become popular as a local and indigenous drink in India? So when we look at India at present, it is becoming popular.

27:17It is in the process where people who are producing these agave spirits are creating awareness among people. Initially, everybody thought when we look at tequila drinks, it's simple is like taking shots. But these agave spirits in India, which are made, you can sip it slowly. Classes are being conducted. This is a niche drink, I could say. It's not a party drink. You have a shot and you get a headache. but this can be sipped, enjoyed the drink just like whiskey. So awareness is being created. You find these drinks in a very niche place, not in a club or something where a lot of these youngsters go.

27:54And you've tried it yourself. Tell me about it. Does it taste like tequila? No, it does not taste like tequila. Absolutely, no. So every brand has come up with different versions of the same product with a different flavor in it. And what I tasted was like six different flavors. Some had a smoky flavor, some had a whiskey flavor. You can basically enjoy with one simple ice or mix it with something, but it's really to enjoy it. That was Priti Gupta joining us from Mumbai. That's all we've got time for today. If you want to let us know what you think about the show or you have questions for us, send an email to the5thfloor at bbc.co.uk.

28:35We love hearing from you. You can write to us at the fifth floor, all one word, at bbc.co.uk. This is the documentary from the BBC World Service.

28:52Hello, Greg Jenner here. I'm the host of You're Dead to Me, the BBC comedy show that takes history seriously. Every episode, I pair up a top historian with a fantastic comedian, and we have a lovely, funny, fascinating chat about a different subject from world history. And in this new series, we're beginning with an epic voyage through the story of Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey. And that's with Kyle Smith-Bino joining us. And then we'll be learning about Francis Galton and the racist, discredited pseudoscience of eugenics with Desiree Birch. We'll meet many medieval saints in their bone boxes with Rachel Parrott.

29:25So if that sounds like your sort of thing, listen to You're Dead to Me wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. Bye.