Will Putin Really Go This Far? The Kremlin’s Crazy Plan for a New Mobilization Revealed — Interview with Anna Danylchuk

06.09.2026, 13:50 uatv.ua

The Russian economy and aviation sector are feeling the mounting pressure of war and sanctions, but what could be the Kremlin’s next move? Journalist Anna Danylchuk suggests that Putin might resort to a deliberate escalation against NATO to justify a new wave of mobilization and internal repression. In this interview, we also discuss the impact of Ukrainian drones, the crisis in Russian civil aviation, the possibility of a Kremlin coup, and the stances of China and India. Is Russia capable of changing after Putin, and what could actually force Moscow to end the war? Watch in this issue.

— Hello, Henry Keen here, UATV, with you as always, and joining me today, live, in this very studio, is Anna Danylchuk — the author of the channel Anna from Ukraine, who, since the start of the full-scale war, has been breaking down, every single day, literally what is happening on the front line and inside Russia. Anna, welcome back to our studio.

— Thank you so much, and really happy to be with you and our viewers, in the bravest capital in the world, Kyiv.

— So many things, just in the past weeks — I’ll be reading: Turkish Airlines saying goodbye and turning planes around, a minute out from Moscow; a rocket engine plant near Perm, Russia’s second-largest refinery, has been hit for the sixth time in a row — it’s music to my ears; the government’s forecast has pushed oil output down to a 70-year low; and Germany, for the first time in the fifth year of this war, as a G7 country — it took five years — has finally named names. Yeah, I can feel the pressure.

You’ve got a lot to say, I’m sure — I’ll give you the option. Let’s free-fall, let’s name it — did I miss anything? Start where you want to start, whatever you want to discuss first.

— Well, perhaps my favorite update was when President Zelensky just warned insurance companies, aviation companies, about serious problems for Russian skies, right? And even without operations starting, we see lots of aviation companies canceling flights — it’s about Moscow, St. Petersburg, about Turkish Pegasus, and it’s huge, because we haven’t even started.

I love reminding people that back in 2022 this seemed totally impossible, and right now just the word of the Ukrainian army means so much to Russians — I have the feeling that, for quite a long period now, Russians trust Zelensky even more than they trust Putin, because what we say, we do. And another aspect that makes this beginning of the operation — some call it “M&M’s” (ph) — is when lots of cheap Ukrainian drones simply fly in the skies of Russia, don’t attack anyone, but create the biggest suspense.

This will, first of all, be a great innovation in the course of warfare — no one did anything similar before. And second, we forget that Russia is already the largest country in the world, that definitely does not need any new territories, but relies greatly on aviation.

They need it for transportation, travel, logistics — lots of Russian regions, it’s an extremely centralized country, lots of republics and regions need to visit the Kremlin, to bring money, to ask for advice. And when they lose this connection, when they know the Kremlin can’t send special forces, let’s say, to a region in case of protests, they may feel more and more free. So if we manage to paralyze Russian skies for quite a long period of time, we could see more protests rising in Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, Siberia, or elsewhere, because traditionally Putin was sending his Moscow forces to try and control the protests, right? Locals can take the side of their own people. So I’m just watching, waiting, and enjoying.

— I mean, don’t get me wrong, same here. That’s just interesting — it’s like delivering freedom, forcing freedom into Russia — deep into Russia. But what happens if a drone actually hits a civilian airplane, and people—

— Nobody wants this to happen.

— I know, I know, nobody wants it. But what if it happens?

— I know — everybody would be talking, the enemies of Ukraine would definitely be using and abusing that fact. Well, first of all, I think all the necessary steps have been taken by the Ukrainian authorities. It wasn’t just President Zelenskyy — it was also Minister Sybiha, who first spoke about that at press conferences, and then officially warned — I may be mistaken on the name, but there’s an international organization that controls the flights, and they received a direct warning from Ukraine that we do not intend to target any civilian planes, but Russia’s irrationality, their obsession, may lead to the fact that they will not close their own skies — and then the responsibility is fully on Russia. I think it’s important — I do watch some Russian vloggers, and I—

— How do you do this? How do you manage that relationship? Should I say — do you drink wine before?

— Well, you should be using substances — otherwise… [laughter] I detox myself, fitness is very useful. But I see that even those who support Putin’s invasion, who don’t like Ukraine, do not openly blame Ukraine for successful operations on Russian soil. They understand it’s war, and it’s real — unfortunately, because they have a really bad commander-in-chief, Vladimir Putin. It’s now back on their soil, and they get angrier at him. Plus, I stick to the point that all the victims of this war — both on the Ukrainian side, and now on the Russian side, when war comes to their territory, when their air defense sometimes works really badly — this is all the responsibility of Vladimir Putin, and the millions who supported him. We did not choose this war, we did not start this war. It was his idea, supported by millions, and now they get the consequences.

— Okay. But aren’t we overstating the consequences again? Because Aeroflot is selling tickets — I checked this morning, if I were Russian, I’d be able to fly. Pegasus is huge, indeed, and the trend is starting, but planes still fly. Are we overstating it, or am I underestimating the power of Ukrainian drones to actually influence the price of Russian tickets?

— I think they will. First of all, from what I understand, those drones that might be traveling toward Moscow will not carry explosives — they’ll be very cheap, they’ll simply disrupt the connection. And it’s up to Russians to decide if they want to risk people’s lives. Plus, they already do, because they cannibalize airplanes for parts. I often joke on the channel that not flying in Russia is actually the best way to save your life, given the quality of civilian aviation there. Sanctions did work, and now they can’t get the parts they need to repair or maintain the aircraft, and they keep losing planes — people are flying jets older than Stalin.

— Right. I’d love to make a short pause — there’s an air raid alert blaring right now. Is it okay to continue, or shall we stop?

— If you choose to continue, I will choose to continue. Let’s go, let’s do it.

— Okay, I’m just sending a message to my team that we’re continuing. Thank you. So — insurers, and the money — what would it take, because this is a big machine, right? Anyway, Pegasus — yes, but some companies are still underestimating this — as, well, was I playing here — calculating, “Okay, maybe we’re going to earn more, we’re going to do more business now, with Pegasus off the market, we’ll take that niche.” So what would it take to actually make these companies believe that business is business, but this is war?

— I think many of these companies also play that wrong. In reality, they may cut down the number of flights, or consider different airports, or other locations, because right now the European part of the Russian Federation is extremely vulnerable to visits from Ukrainian drones. And I think what’s beautiful about economic problems is they have this cumulative effect — together with sanctions, we see them now developing extremely quickly, and it’s an avalanche of problems. There are whole industries in the Russian Federation that literally die out, and aviation is just one of them — but this will definitely speed up the collapse of the profits they were receiving. We see serious problems in real estate, in construction — the Kuzbass region, once a super-rich coal-mining region, is losing money and can’t get support from the Kremlin. Real estate, food, lots of industries collapsing — small businesses, retail, Wildberries, Ozon — and aviation is just another drop into this avalanche of problems. So it keeps accumulating, and just as with the USSR, we remember that half a year before its collapse there were lots of American and European leaders who could not predict it was coming — and then it happened, all of a sudden.

— So I think the best proof that we’re right, without overplaying it, is that Russian citizens keep withdrawing their money from the banking system. Russian citizens try to flee the country, and they show record-breaking numbers of Russian men trying to cross into Georgia — like 20,000 a day, 100,000 a week. They know something. Let’s trust Russians on this.

— And I like when you say “Russian males” [laughter] — Russian men, right? Okay, the males of the species. All right, let’s get down a bit from the sky, to the ground. That Proton-PM plant near Perm — the facility that builds liquid-fuel engines for Russia’s Angara space program — this is important, this is significant. Some experts and analysts say this is huge, but I also hear voices saying, “This is a big country, it’s just another fire — every day something burns down and explodes, with war or without war.” So what would your answer be — is it good that it happened?

— Yes, it is — you can see me smiling. [laughter] Every little cut hurts, and we have a lot of areas in Russia that we’re seriously destroying. Of course, Russia is the largest country in the world, that does not need any new territories — an important reminder, they have a lot of uninhabited, very depressed regions. So they don’t need new territories, but they chose to destroy Ukraine, while triggering t