277. Georgia's future and second chances for Ukrainian deserters.
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Hello and welcome to Battleground Ukraine with me, Saul David and Roger Morehouse. In a moment, we'll hear from Belgian war reporter Arnaud Dedeco, who has recently returned from Georgia, where he was covering anti-Russian demonstrations. Arnaud, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you.

So you're in Beirut at the moment and you've got a quite a fascinating trip into Syria coming up. But of course, more recently, you've been in Georgia covering the anti-Russian demonstrations there. Tell us a little bit about your experience when you got to Georgia. Yes. In January this year, I was for a couple of weeks in Georgia's capital, Tbilisi. And there, what is happening there is that the Georgians are protesting against the growing influence

of Russia inside Georgian politics.

It was very interesting for me because, of course, I worked for nearly three years in Ukraine. So going to Georgia was also a way for me to be able to meet a lot of Russians who flee the country, who flee Russia and settle in the Georgian capital. It's a huge amount of Russians in Tbilisi, up to 200,000 people who came inside the capital, Georgia's capital, since the start of the full-scale invasion.

And yes, this creates a lot of tensions with the local Georgian population, obviously, who tries to fight for their sovereignty and for their independence. So it was a very different or interesting mix of the Georgians and the Russians somehow trying to live together, interact together, which is not very easy at all. Because you see that the Russians going to Tbilisi, they

They flee, not especially the war, but they flee the mobilization. I met a lot of Russians in Tbilisi and they told me, we're very grateful for Georgia welcoming us because we didn't want to get mobilized in Russia. But this is something very different, avoiding mobilization or being against the war in Russia. Of course, Georgians see this and they understand that most of the, or a lot of Russians that come to Tbilisi,

They're there for personal, quite selfish reasons, which is avoiding mobilization. But they rarely speak out against the war that Putin is waging in Ukraine. So very interesting dynamics. So I spent there three weeks. And then from there, I went to the neighboring country, Armenia. The capital of Armenia is Yerevan. And I spent there a few days where I was able to directly speak with people

Russians who were mobilized inside Russia and basically sent without mercy

to the front lines in Ukraine. And these people that I was able to speak in Yerevan, in Armenia, they managed to desert the army, to desert the Russian army. And it was quite fascinating how they managed through some shady telegram channels to escape from Ukraine, occupied Russian occupied territory in Ukraine, through Russia, through Belarus,

all the way to Armenia. So it was a very, very interesting trip, yes. And I'm happy to talk about it a bit more in detail. Arnaud, can I just take you back to Georgia for a minute? You mentioned there this sort of tension that seems to be growing with that. We all remember from after the beginning of the war when you had the initial call-up and you had a sort of outflow of Russians, particularly young Russians, professionals,

And as you said, many went to Georgia, many, I think, also went down to Turkey as well. So you said that there's a difference in attitude, put it that way. They're not necessarily anti-war, they're just anti-being called up for the war. Does that, you know, given the sort of current tensions in Georgia...

with the stolen election at the end of last year and so on. Is there a sense in your mind that the attitude of ordinary Georgians is shifting from maybe just anti-Kremlin to actually anti-Russian? Well, yes, to come back to the beginning of your question. So the Russians coming to Georgia and these tensions with the locals, the Georgians, you can see them on many levels in the streets.

Georgian is a rich country. In Tbilisi, a lot of money is there. A lot of the economy is going well. So the people from Russia who basically came to Tbilisi are the people with the money. Because obviously you need money to flee, to be a refugee in another country, to rent an apartment, to start a business. So the people that I met and that I saw in the streets of Tbilisi were Russians with money.

which means that all these people, all these Russians in three years, it's tens of thousands coming to a city like Tbilisi. They rent all the apartments in the city center. They start businesses in the city center with Russian language where they speak exclusively Russian. They don't even try to integrate with the Georgians. It forms some neighborhoods inside the city center that are mainly dominated by Russians.

Because of that, the Georgians are pushed back and pushed away from the very city center streets. And yes, you could argue, well, this is actually what I saw with my own eyes. You could argue that it's a form of colonization of the Russians that don't want to fight Putin's war.

So they use the money they have to settle in Georgia without interacting with Georgians. It's very noticeable because still for over 100 days, every evening, Georgians are protesting on Rustaveli Avenue in the heart of the city against the influence of the Kremlin in Georgian dream. Stolen elections, a crackdown on the protests, crackdown on the free press. So it's very dramatic what's happening there for Georgians.

And amidst this chaos and this authoritarian direction of Georgian Dream, the political party, you have the Russians just living their life openly in Russian, speaking Russian, advertising for their businesses in Russian. So these tensions are very cynical, actually. And so the feeling I had is that the Georgians feel without power. They don't know what to do to resist.

It feels a bit also like USA and Europe.

is seeing this authoritarian drift towards Russia without being able to actually do something, because the grip of the Kremlin is getting bigger and bigger on the Georgia's politics, on the Georgian dream political party. Yeah, it's fascinating, Arno, because this kind of links in with the second of your trips, and that is to Armenia, which, of course, is very close to Georgia. And we have had a question on the podcast not long ago, actually, about people asking about Armenia and the threat of

that Armenia might be under at some point in the future. Of course, it's tended to move away from Russia in geopolitical terms, made no bones about its interest in becoming more closely aligned to the EU. But geographically, this is, you know, it's going to be very difficult for them to be able to do this. We'll come on to the Russian troops hiding there in a minute. But did you get a sense that, you know, the Armenians are concerned about what's going to happen when Russia turns its gaze away from Ukraine?

Absolutely. I think the whole region is very important for different parties here, for the Russians, obviously, for Iran. We see as well that they tried to be closer to Armenia recently and for the European Union. So it's a very, very strategically in geopolitical terms.

The Russians are in Armenia with the military bases still. So the influence of the different blocks, you can feel it. It's very tangible. You can, yes, on the streets, you have the people speaking Armenian, speaking Russian, speaking English. And I was, of course, I was there only a few days with the very clear mission, which is speaking to the deserters, Russian deserters.

But from the very brief stay that I had in Armenia, in Yerevan, I could notice that even there, the history they had with the Soviet Union is still playing a big role today. You see that the younger generation is very vocal and wants to have a more democratic future with the European Union. But then is the question, will Russia let it be? Will Russia...

leave Armenians decide for their own and perhaps go more to the European Union. Which role is Iran going to play in this? Because obviously there is also the pipelines, the corridor that is very important for different regions as well.

So, yeah, the future of these countries and the future of the region there, the Balkans, is being played right now and will be like the coming years will be very interesting and maybe decisive for the turns that we see now or the shifts in the geopolitical influence in the region.

So definitely, I'll go back maybe to analyze this further because it needs our attention, especially in Georgia. The people in Georgia need this cry every evening. They cry for the attention of the world. So I think it's important to go back and I will be happy to visit the region very soon to be able to focus on that part as well. If I can just ask you to have a look into your crystal ball, Arno, can you give us a sense of how you see it?

And Georgia's future in where is it in five years? Is it is it essentially like you said, you've got this sort of we could call it soft colonization almost. And then you've on top of that, you've got this active interference. You've got in Georgian dream. You've got a political domestic political party, which is closely aligned with Russia, you know, in a sense is Russia's cat's paw.

It doesn't look good for Georgia at the moment. Where is it in five years? Is Georgia lost? It doesn't look good for Georgia. And I would go even further, maybe in November, December, when the clashes in the city center of Tbilisi went to the like hitting points, turning point. It was violent clashes with a lot of repression, violence.

arrestations by the police. When this culminated in December, a lot of people drew or made the comparison with Maidan in 2014. It didn't happen. And it didn't happen because the protests in Tbilisi are different or non-violent, basically, with the protesters very caring about each other. I recall one of the protests in January 2014,

that escalated quite quickly and then people started to throw stones, eggs and all kind of stuff to the police forces. And within the protesters,

people started to calm the protesters down saying, no, let's not escalate this. If we escalate, it's going to be bad for the reputation of the protest. We want to do it peaceful and try to do it our way. So it's not like Maidan 10 years ago or in 2014. But also, the more time passes, the more the grip of the Georgian dream becomes important on every level of the society.

on the press where there is a massive crackdown, on the protesters where people can now be fined for blocking a street or for being on the street. So the more we wait and the more we leave the protesters on their own, I'm speaking from the European Union and the external influence, the more we wait and watch, the more Georgian Dream is gaining influence. I think it's a very interesting quote, is Georgia lost?

I think, again, the more we wait, the more it's clear that the European Union, even the USA, will have no influence whatsoever. And it's going to be too late. That's the thing. I think now there is still a small chance to intervene. The more we wait, the better it looks for Georgians. OK, it's now time to have a quick break and we'll be back in a moment. Thank you.

Hello, it's Steph McGovern and Robert Peston from The Rest Is Money here. Now, it's absolute carnage at the minute on the stock market across the world, all thanks to Donald Trump and his tariffs. So this week, we've gone daily. We're going to bring you shorter episodes every lunchtime. Just trying to make sense of it all because, Robert, I mean, we've been in crises before, haven't we? Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I've been at the front line of reporting financial crises for decades, from Black Monday in 1987, through the global financial crisis, through the COVID crisis. I mean, you know, the list goes on. This is a unique crisis because it is driven by one man, Donald Trump. But it does share lots in common with those sagas we have lived through before and before.

as we know, although what people see is falling share prices, it is to an extent what goes on in debt markets, financial markets, which is more important to our prosperity. And we are seeing absolute turmoil in bond markets, for example. So this is going to affect everyone.

every part of our lives. Yes. And so we'll be looking at things like what do we think is going to happen next? How much pain is Trump willing to take? And what similarities are there with things like the credit crunch that you and I covered together? So to try and make sense of all of us, join us on The Rest Is Money wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome back. Arno, returning briefly to Armenia and your experience talking to some of these Russian troops who had deserted the front lines, did they talk a little bit about what conditions were like for them when they were actually fighting?

Absolutely. So that was very interesting. First of all, for the context, for the setting of these interviews I did, I went to, I traveled, took place in a small cafe in a restaurant in the streets of Yerevan. The three guys accepted to talk to me because they wanted, eventually, they want to be able to leave Armenia.

but they don't have a lot of possibilities. It's either they stay in Armenia, where the situation is very bad, where they're not able to work, to open bank accounts, they have no documents, no papers. So it's either they stay in Yerevan with an increasing risk of the Russian police

patrolling the streets, finding these deserters and sending them back to Russia. And if they're being caught in Yerevan, sent back to Russia, there is two options. Either they go back to the front lines or they go to prison.

So that's why they wanted to talk to the Western media, to me, to a Belgium audience, to say, look, we are also victims. Yes, we took part of the Russians war. Yes, we fought for a few months to a year in Ukraine, but it was against our will. We escaped. And now we try to integrate somehow. We want to go to the Western countries. We want to go to Germany, to France, etc.

and to try to integrate there. And so that's why they actually agreed to speak to me. Three guys for an hour, more or less. It was very interesting because there was a lot of similarities to be made. For instance, they all got taken on the streets and forcibly mobilized. So there was no choice. And it was one guy I spoke. They were around 25 to 30 years old. So one guy I spoke to was taken in the metro.

in Moscow. Another one was in a supermarket in St. Petersburg, where the police basically just took them, sent them to the police station and started arguing. And eventually, one week later, they were already on the way to the front lines of Ukraine. And once they arrived in Ukraine, they explained the similar situations, which is

Bad equipment, bad training. No one cares about our lives. One of the guys I spoke to described it. He survived for weeks in Kupyansk, which is Kharkiv Oblast, where he had to survive at the very front line. He was trained as a medic, so he had to go to the front line, to the zero line, to take the corpses and under fire, under gunfire.

drones, attacks. And at some point, this guy, he said, we were 250 people in the trenches. Two weeks later, we were 30 left. The rest was killed. And then I asked one question about making friends in the trenches.

And I remember the guy telling me, yes, at the beginning, of course, we had interactions. I had some friends in the trenches because, of course, you need to interact. You need to speak to the people. And then you create a bond with the people. And he told me that he had this connection with one guy that also got mobilized, one guy with five children at home back in Russia. And for days they were together. They tried to stick together to help each other.

And then eventually this guy, this friend was sent by the officers, was sent on an assault in Kupyansk. And two days later, the other guy was sent to take the bodies of the wounded. And he saw his friend still alive, but eventually he died in his arms after two days of being wounded. And then the quote of the guy, he said, I used to have friends, people I know on the front line, in the trenches,

But now, why should I still care? Because everyone dies. Eventually, we all die. And then he started crying and it was very dramatic. I asked, so how did you escape? How did you manage to leave this routine of death, of war, of trenches? How did you manage to escape? And he described that he was able to run away and he was shelled by the Ukrainians. And at this point, he showed me still the shrapnel in his body.

So he was losing a lot of blood. He was taken back to Moscow or to Russia. And in Russia, he was being treated, but very poorly, which means that he still had basically the bombshells in his body. When he was describing this, he showed the body and I could see the scars, very fresh, from the hospital in Russia.

He contacted again this chatbot on Telegram because most of them are able to. That's very interesting. There is these chatbots from Russian opposition run by a guy first in Georgia, now moves to Spain. But this guy has a whole network of volunteers reacting through a chatbot on Telegram and

And whenever you're mobilized in Russia and you want to leave Russia as a deserter, you can chat on this Telegram bot and they help you.

And so eventually the three guys used this chatbot to escape and a very popular destination is Armenia. Why Armenia? Because the Russian passports makes it very easy for the Russian man to go to Armenia, which is not necessarily the case for Turkey or even for Georgia. Well, Georgia is a case apart.

changing more and more when we see the influence of Russia in Georgia growing. But for countries like Armenia, Russians don't need an extra international passport. They can just go with their Russian documents basically to Armenia. That's why a lot of these men, thousands of men are now in Yerevan trying to hide and live in very poor conditions. Honestly, it was difficult for me to make this report also on a personal level because

the three people I spoke to at the end, they actively took part of Russia's war in Ukraine, but they're victims of Putin's war.

So it's a very double and tricky subject. And I had to be very careful also to how I bring it to the Belgium and Western audience, because I obviously don't want to be the guy who speaks Russia's narrative. So I had to be very careful. And these guys also acknowledged, they said, yes, for weeks, for months, I took part actively in the fighting.

I tried to go to the medical battalions not to have to take the guns and to actively kill people. So I tried to be like in medical staff, evacuation teams. So that was their way to resist.

But eventually they all left and they all said to me, like, we never wanted to go there. We were taken from the streets and we had, we are victims. So yeah, I think that was very interesting being the victim of the system of Putin system and being also actively taking part for months in Ukraine doing well, taking part of this invasion, illegally invasion of Ukraine. So it was very interesting also for me on a personal level, after working almost three years in Ukraine to be able to see the

The other part, let's say. I know, we know, you know, historically speaking, Russian armies or Soviet armies have always been extremely brutal in their treatment of deserters. Do you know what their punishment would be if they were caught now? Absolutely. And it goes even further than that. And I didn't, this is something maybe I wasn't fully aware or prepared to hear, but

One of the guys told me, he said, I lost everything. I can never go back to Russia because if I go back, I will be either arrested or stand back to the front lines in Ukraine. So I cannot go back to Russia. But even worse, my own family, I was about, it's all young guys I spoke to. My girlfriend, he was about to get married, doesn't want to speak to me anymore. My own dad, my own family, they don't want to speak to me anymore because I deserted them.

And so not only they lost everything they had in Russia, all the roots, everything their life was based on is gone, but also their own family sees them as treaters, as deserters. There we can see that the Russian propaganda or that the Russian mentality is still very, or the support for the war is still very big, even inside deserters that flee the war, the own families treat them as deserters and as a piece of garbage.

which puts these young men in a terrible, terrible situation where they have no network in Yerevan. They cannot go back to Russia. And even their own friends and family, they turn back on these Russian deserters. So it's a very, very...

difficult situation for them. And again, that's why they wanted to speak to me because they want to say, hear us out, let us come to Western countries, to Europe, to rebuild the life, at least to get a chance to build something and to get out of this chaos in Armenia. So actually very sad story and very dramatic for these men.

It's a heartbreaking story, Arno. We've heard some pretty grim tales on the podcast, talking to you and others who've been to the front line in Ukraine. But that is about as moving a story as I've heard for a long time. I hope it'll have the effect it should do on an interrelated matter. You've also had a chance, have you not?

Arno, recently to speak to some former Ukrainian deserters who've been given, is it word given or forced to have a second chance and are undergoing training. Tell us a little bit about that and what their mindset was. So about two weeks ago, I was in Donbass in the region of Donetsk, very close to Pokrovsk, a town called Dobropilya.

where there is a polygon. Polygon is a term they use in Ukraine for open air training grounds where mobilized troops, infantry, train for the front lines. And they train with the guns, but they also train with the bigger machines, bigger weaponry, and also with drones. And so I visited this polygon two weeks ago, very close to the front lines. And I was very surprised to see that the men that were training there

The average age of these men was 45 years old and they were given 45 days to train, to complete their full infantry training. And the next week, actually, so now already they're on the front lines in the trenches, specifically in Chassiviar, so very hot area. And these men, 45 years old, it was also very moving to see because

Of course, 45 years old was the average, but you had also people from 50, 52, 55 years

And these men are not fit. And so they were doing the assault of the trench, trying to work together to assault the trench, to shoot at the targets. But you could see when you're 52, you're not as fresh as when you're 25, obviously. And then when I spoke to them, they all had the different story. And it turns out a few of them came on a voluntary base and

Because first they were marked as deserters. They tried to escape the mobilization by running away from these recruitment police, by hiding inside their houses, which made themselves... Actually, there was a criminal case opened against them. They lost a lot of rights. They could not move anymore. They could not freely drive the car. So they were seen as criminals.

And the Ukrainian government gave these men the opportunity to, on a voluntary basis, go back to certain units, to certain army structures,

where the Ukrainian government said, okay, well, look, guys, we have the criminal court against you, but if you come back and you accept to do some tasks and go to enroll still inside the army, we drop the criminal case against you. And this was very good for the Ukrainian army in terms of numbers of soldiers.

because a lot of men, obviously, tired of hiding, tired. And also in terms of the future, once the martial law is over, once the war is over, you don't want to be a deserter. You don't want to have criminal court case against you. So a lot of these men on a voluntary basis, well, is it voluntary?

Yes and no. But they accepted to undergo this training and then to take certain combat tasks, whether it be drones, infantry. And this is the man that I met on this polygon. So you can see it's a very...

And deserters turned into fighters again. And this is a very different dynamics with the Russians that I spoke to, because the Russians I spoke to, they were taken on the streets and sent to the front lines and try to escape. And the men I spoke to in Ukraine, they were trying to hide in the first place, but then thinking on the future and the broader consequences, they

decided to give it a try, to trust the Ukrainian army, the Ukrainian army that also has changed a lot, modernized a lot with now some professional structures that give some confidence to freshly mobilized people that they will not end up like meat or stand to the front line with no equipment.

This is also very interesting to see how the Ukrainian army changes, evolves and is trying to be more attractive also to a broader scope of ages from 18 to six years old. If you go on a voluntary basis now, you can choose

whether you go to the drones, whether you go to another unit with your friends, with people that you know. So there is more flexibility. And I think this is a good thing for the Ukrainian army and for the people that still need to enroll or people that decide still actively stop their criminal deserter case and enroll actively to the army.

So yeah, a lot of movements also there. But at the end, it's still very sad to see people 50 years old with children at home

Having to enroll, having this 45 days crash course to fight, assaulting trenches, knowing that just a week later they're sending to Chassiviar, it's very sad. So what's the attitude of those soldiers, those former deserters who have now been given, as you say, a second chance in that phrase? What was their attitude? Was it one of sort of grim resignation and I've got to do this because? Or was there any motivation there?

Well, no, this is the thing. It's a very practical decision. It comes out of a practical deduction. After three years of war, they see, okay, the end is not even inside. It might take another year, two years, three years, who knows?

So now maybe it's time for me to take the chance that the government is giving me and to enroll under my conditions to the unit I can choose under my conditions.

But the mood was very grim because you could see there was no emotions. There was also, I went back to the house, the base where these men live. It's a very typical Donbass, Donetsk house, like a dacha. Basically four walls, one kitchen, one room, totally empty of personal stuff from the previous inhabitants. So totally empty with only the beds.

And a place where they can store the equipment. So equipment being the guns, being the plates. And that's it. Nothing else. For 45 days, you have five or six men living in a small house with nothing else than the beds and your military equipment.

Yes, there is absolutely no reason to be joyful in any case, because the day starts with the training, assaults, drone, digital maps that they also need to learn to orientate themselves in the zero line or the front line. And then after the day of training, they go back to this house and this for 45 days after being... And after that, they're going to the front lines. So...

No, it's very grim and those people know it, but at least they have salaries that they can send to the families and they learn to know each other. So they try to have some joyful conversations together, but no, it's very, very grim, yes. They try to make the best out of a very sad situation. Arnaud, thanks so much for filling us in on all this. It's absolutely fascinating. Let's just end our discussion on a happier note, shall we? And that's the news that you're

publishing your first book about the war in Ukraine. I think it's coming out in Holland, possibly also Belgium, but we have listeners in both those locations. So tell us about the book. Absolutely. But you said to end on a positive note. Well, the positive note is maybe, yes, that the book came out five weeks ago in Belgium and Holland, the Netherlands.

But the book itself is very grim. The book itself is about how the whole country, because I was in Ukraine since day one, even before the start of the full-scale invasion, I was in the country. And I saw in three years, I saw the transformation of the whole society. I saw the transformation of the soldiers, the civilians, deserters. I spoke to people that lost loved ones. I saw the transformation of the whole layers within this society.

And for me, on a personal note, I had also as a young guy, when everything started three years ago, I was 26 years old. I had no combat experience. I had no war experience. So for me as well, I lost some friends. I was involved in missile strikes. So for me as a young guy, it feels like I had to find my way in this new reality, just like the Ukrainians were forced to find their way in a new reality today.

And so this book is about, yes, the transformation of the country and the transformation or the transformation from the country seen through the eyes of a young reporter also changing through the events. So at the end, it's very grim and it's very sad and very intense. I have very, very good reviews on it because it's very, very raw, very grim. And you can you can feel the war.

through the eyes of a reporter. The good news is it's in Dutch and it will be translated later this year into French, perhaps maybe in English if there is some interest from editors. Let's see. But yes, this is the good news. Well, fingers crossed on that. Yeah, Arno, we need to have a chance to read that book in English. It sounds absolutely fascinating. It'll be an important historical document, actually, if we put our different hats on

Roger and I as historians looking back on this war, it'll be an absolutely vital firsthand account for people to use. So I'm certainly going to be having a word with my editor and saying, listen, you need to publish this book. Arno, thank you again. Keep safe in Syria. We'd love to talk to you again in the not too distant future. Thank you very much for the chance. Thanks, Arno.

Okay, that's all we have time for. Do listen out on Wednesday when Patrick will be returning to the podcast for an episode of Battleground 45. Goodbye.