Ukraine and Russia’s recruitment war

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. In Ukraine, videos showing violent confrontations between recruitment officers and members of the public have sparked angry debate about how the country's draught 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 BBC Monitoring's Vitaly Shevchenko and BBC Russian's Yaroslava Kiryukhina.

A new kind of spirit, very similar to tequila, is gaining popularity across India, thanks to the unassuming-looking agave plant. Unlike in Mexico, where agave is grown on a commercial scale for tequila production, 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 Priti Gupta, reporting for BBC Gujarati, has been finding out.

This episode of The Documentary comes to you from The Fifth Floor, the show at the heart of global storytelling, with BBC journalists from all around the world.

Presented by Faranak Amidi.

Produced by Laura Thomas, Caroline Ferguson and Hannah Dean.

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Jaksot(2000)

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