Ukraine

I also found the whole thing more than a bit distasteful tbh and I'm a huge supporter of Ukraine.

Any lady that old is going to say whatever the hell she needs to to get soldiers (of any kind, I'd wager) away from her. Like there's no question she considers Kursk to be Russian so any Ukrainian soldier trying to get her to say "oh yeah, the Ukrainian army is great" and she does it is down to the power imbalance.

Like what was she supposed to say? "No lads, you fuck off home now" and hope for the best that she doesn't get shot?

Eh, there didn't seem to be any sort of implied threat or imbalance of power in the little snippet presented here. The old ladies approached the soldiers and asked for a lift, and the soldiers seemed honestly apologetic that they had no room to provide one.

It's quite interesting seeing the "depoliticization" of the general Russian population having this effect, when the Ukrainians moved in a surprising number seem to be just shrugging and going "new management, I guess." Will be interesting to see how the occupation goes if it's long-term.