In the city of Yekaterinburg police used force in their attempt to close the pandora's box of war some 5 000 arrests were reported across Russia yesterday not just here in the Ural mountains but across 49 cities which suggests that domestic opposition to a conflict still in its infancy will be harder than usual to contain hug me if you are against the war reads this tick tock post from Moscow on the first day of the invasion though tick tock which is chines'-owned has now blocked any new Russians content after the kremlin outlawed what it calls fake news for his own safety we've also blurred the identity of this influencer who has since deleted his tick-tock post I want to deliver one thing to you none of people i personally talked to literally none of my friends and none of people I personally talked to supported today's events every single person I know is against the violence and against the crime which is happening right now many Russians postings aimed against the Ukrainian government appeared to come from a shared script Russians school teachers have been issued with this new guidance on what to tell their teenage pupils about the so-called nightmare of genocide in Ukraine which is that the war is not a war but a special peacekeeping operation to quotes degasify the country we want to see it demilitarized Ukraine.
We want to see Ukraine free from Nazi ideology and Nazi elements are Russians being persuaded by state propaganda now that the authoritarian government has flipped a switch and become totalitarian overnight it makes polling even more difficult so it's hard to tell but i would guess that it would be fairly effective I have a friend whose mother is from a Siberians village small Siberians village and the first coffin came home last week but the young man's parents said they're not going to talk about it because they're afraid of getting a 15-year sentence for spreading fake new you know what is considered fake news about this every war has its propaganda symbols and for the Russians it's the letter zed which first appeared on military vehicles and was then adopted by politicians including maria botana here urging the Russians army to keep going the Russians gymnast Ivan kulak even wore it on his leotard while standing on a podium next to his victorious Ukrainian rival Russia's defense ministry says the zed stands for victory celebrated here in Siberia with patriotic pop from where the true horror of war seems quite deliberately a very long way off Jonathan Rugman with that report about the situation inside Russia well earlier I spoke to the former prime minister Gordon brown he's called for a special international tribunal to be set up to try Vladimir Putin over Russia's aggression.
I asked him to explain why the Ukraine government has now asked us to do it they're supporting it support is building up in the Baltic states and across Europe the foreign secretary has announced today she's looking at this proposal and what it does is it fills a gap in international law at the moment we could not try president Putin and his cutlery for crimes of aggression that's the act of invading Ukraine and continuing to fight a war within Ukraine the international criminal court can look at war crimes and crimes against humanity and genocide but the first crime the crime of aggression does need to be focused upon and that's what a special tribunal would do until a few weeks ago the idea of a nuclear strike a nuclear war between the superpowers seemed completely off the reservation a mad cap stuff no one talked about it he has now raised that issue and however unlikely it still is without alarming the British public or anyone else of that matter do you think we should be having a more open and frank discussion about this possibility I know it's not uh right to believe president Putin but the statement of the government is that they would only use nuclear weapons in the event of being under attack as a country or in the event of the existence of the very country being put in jeopardy now none of these conditions apply to any justification for using nuclear weapons in this situation and i do believe that there are more sensible people than president Putin at the center of the Russians government and it would be difficult for him to pull the trigger as if on his own he would be prevented from doing so so you obviously met uh Vladimir Putin.
When you were prime minister perhaps also as chancellor of the exchequer as did Tony Blair what was he like well president Putin only understands one thing strength uh the first time I met him we were talking about oil and the same issue arose he said we will sell to the east we don't need to sell to the west and unless you meet our terms we're not going to sell oil and gas to you and of course he did continue to sell oil and gas to it but he was threatening us and of course i had to deal with uh Putin after the Vingo assassination and we knew that Putin was planning other assassinations in Britain we knew that he was directing them personally and we knew unless he understood that we would fight back on these things expelling diplomats expelling the people who were the spies tracking those people who were coming into the country to undertake these crimes and giving security to the people who were at risk and that happened for years afterwards and I suppose that our guard had dropped by the time the Salisbury uh poisonings happened.
So he only understands one thing and that is strength but if if he only understands strength and if that was obvious to you at the time why did you and tony Blair go out of your way to court both him and the rich oligarchs around him i didn't caught any oligarchs I've got no interest in them and no influence you expanded the visa scheme that allows them to come to the us I'm sorry matt the tier one visa scheme was not to bring oligarchs to the united kingdom uh to use laundered money yeah I just wondered if the scrutiny was there to look into the origins of their money well look if it had ever been brought to my attention when i was prime minister I would have taken action and I do believe that kayo stamina is absolutely right to say that the government has been far too slow to deal with this issue in the last few years and particularly even in the last few weeks do you think we now live in a new Europe a new world of almost permanent insecurity as a result of Russia the hopes of 1990 that the war between east and west is over that that is gone uh we're now dealing with a president who wants to use force rather than diplomacy who wants to if you like bypass any international institution that would promote the rule of law and of course who is prepared to go to any lengths including threatening uh with nuclear uh power stations and and potentially radiation from them uh people that he wants to to rule over but we must try we must try to avoid the continuing bloodshed that is taking place Gordon brown thank you very much.
Thank you for reading
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