markets 2 trains colliding with each other a garment factory blaze and a residential building collapse all came after the announcement of the pharaoh's gold parade. but the ancient curse hasn't stopped the pharaohs once again appearing on the streets of egypt. the wrong car 0. 0 with me still wrong a reminder of our top stories heavy rains have triggered flash floods and landslides on indonesia's florus island at least $44.00 have been killed and thousands more are now displaced dozens of homes buried by martha de brézé in an l.a. village and several homes have been swept away by the floodwaters jessica washington is following developments for us from jakarta. this is a developing situation and due to the extent of this disaster and the scale we've seen communication lines card and power outages that means that it is difficult to

get up to date information about what's happening but it's also difficult to access these villages that are in need we've heard from indonesian authorities who are responsible for these search and rescue operations and they say that in the case of some villages they may not be able to reach them until tomorrow or perhaps even after that we know that at least 44 people are dead but there are some reports in local media that the number could be closer to 70 already just within the island of flores hundreds of demonstrators are holding antigovernment protests in thailand's capital they have demanded the resignation of the government on the immediate release of pro-democracy protesters one of jordan's top political figures as lawmakers are standing by the king rejecting allegations of corruption those accusations came from the former crum prince some czar who said that he's been forced into house arrest in a by the man prisms as mother the former king's widow has defended her son saying truth and justice must prevail the re more protests in miramar despite weeks of

increased use of violence by the military in mandalay one group gathered at dawn on motorbikes calling for a return to democracy. the head of the roman catholic church has been leading easter mass of the vatican in a scaled back service due to coronavirus restrictions earlier pope francis urged his followers not to lose hope during the pandemic. 22 indian security personnel have died during a raid on a maoist rebel hideout in the eastern justice go to state one by was find who was killed him hours of the government for more than 4 decades demanding land jobs for farmers you've all of those stories of course on our website at al-jazeera dot com more news in half an hour with the rain but next it's inside story do stay with us .

a sharp escalation in fighting in eastern ukraine and reports of a russian troop build up at the border they could signal into another cease fire in the region so what next for a conflict now in its 8 years is there any chance of a lasting peace this is inside story. hello and welcome to the program. efforts to resolve the 7 year war in eastern ukraine have all so far failed there have been cease fires and then almost inevitably violations of cease fires but a major flare up in fighting between russian backed separatists and ukrainian troops is now threatening to escalate the conflict beyond anything we've seen so

far russia is reportedly massing its troops at the border and warning nato not to send military support to ukraine but the alliance and the united states have made it clear kiev will not be left alone if russia launches an offensive in the region we'll discuss this with our guests shortly but 1st now the in baba reports. it's pictures like this that have got the government in kiev so concerned a week ago 4 ukrainian soldiers were killed in fighting in the east now here is accusing russia of preparing to expand its military presence in the separatist controlled regions of done yes going to hanscom as well as the border with crimea to the south must quiet openly davey's call in the head banging on thursday ukraine's foreign minister called on moscow to quote immediately and unconditionally reaffirm its commitment to a political and diplomatic settlement and a cease fire regime and. now president joe biden has spoken directly with the ukrainian leader flooding is alinsky the white house says he affirmed the united

states is unwavering support for ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of russia's ongoing aggression my bedtime now we discussed the situation in the bus in detail president biden assured us that ukraine will never be left alone against russia's aggression. or see. russia's foreign minister sergey lavrov says any new conflict in the east would quote destroy ukraine. he's warned against incitement by western powers with the nato defense alliance saying it's concerned about a russian build up moscow says the real threat is nato sending troops to ukraine. undoubtedly such a scenario would lead to a further increase of tension near the russian border of course this will require additional security measures from the russian side in february 2040 the so-called my down revolution saw ukraine's russia friendly president viktor yushchenko bitch

deposed and the opposition take power the next month russian forces are next primary from ukraine prompting western sanctions in april 24th seen pro russian separatists seize part of the eastern donbass region starting the internal military conflict in ukraine. in 2019 television act of law to ms alinsky was elected ukraine's president he and president putin agreed to exchange prisoners and commit to a cease fire last july a cease fire with and yet 6 separate ists was agreed but it's close to breaking and now the ukrainian leaders provoked a russian anger he went after the draw russian media empire belonging to one of russia a lot of it was caught in a house in ukraine closing down 3 russian t.v. channels and severely weakening the influence of pro russian never created keeping my russian. overarching goal is always the 2 are keep the will

these regimes in the donetsk and lugansk back and you agree. despite the latest warnings it's not clear whether there's been a real change the organization for security and cooperation in europe says there are far fewer ceasefire violations the last summer before the agreement came into force. al-jazeera. alright let's bring in our panel joining us from moscow pavel felgenhauer a defense analyst and columnist for now via gazeta in kipp alexy houghton a professor of comparative politics at cair academy and in washington d.c. richard white says security analyst at the strategic consultancy strap welcome to you all pava let me start with you today from your vantage point does it look like this situation is going to escalate and how likely or unlikely is it that this is going to boil into actual conflict. both already

a month or so there has been a lot of talk in the russian press about the situation and the don bias yet thing worse about the skull ation that there will maybe have big war and everybody understands that it's right now of course impossible so that there are some sure things happening there maybe not so big she actually crashed as some skirmishes and that done by us they're a bit overplayed by the press but in the future somewhere everyone is talking right now about the beginning of may. there can be a big confrontation or a major escalation of the still at ease in the entire region because right now of course the snow is just melting still in russia and in ukraine the fields are her sea of dirt go that us put inside that means a man over

a bowl warfare is basically impossible but by made should dry up and then everyone apparently is going to be ready and there's lots of talk that green is going to attack that russia is going to get and bump that the west is going to get involved and a lot of scarce chorus stories around here in moscow oh let's see how worried are people in ukraine right now and how worried is the government we are all of a very divided in general i agree and with this well analysis home ideality spec and my question to buy a bottle do it believes if you crazy is going to attack frankly speaking no. i believe not because that's what we hear from kremlin it's not a but it's not in our 'd interest to have a mess confrontation of what to be seen now in terms of don't bust well

we'll call the skirmishes but let me remind you has it officially what we have right now is a fool door though cease fire and nevertheless there is an aggravation and since the beginning of this year certainly ukrainian soldiers we're killed soul deaths the problems of problems that we don't have ceasefire actually is a ceasefire was promised in september 2014 but since since there was no way he'll ceasefire so. what portugal is doing good i not mean he's definitely trying to test has a vest to step in you will if they're good president of the united states and also he's going to test ukraine ukrainian government as well and i believe that we

will have disabilities to talk about this in a bid richard if you could expand on something that alexey was saying just there he said that he believes that this is essentially a test by russia's president vladimir putin to see how far he can go when it comes to joe biden and see what kind of reaction he can elicit from the biden administration and what are your thoughts on that and also just how concerned is the u.s. about all this right now. sure the the thinking here is this is a concern but there's not an expectation then imminent russian military attack on ukraine the factors that appear to be driving the recent war scare are several at home and we know president putin's popularity is under a strain there's been a lot of focus on the protest and so having a war scare can be useful for distracting people's attention as in

a new crane we've seen the government there take some firm steps recently against russian influence reigning in 7 the russian media. president selenski is proving tougher than i think the russians in to support it and as was mentioned possibly this is an effort to test the new biden ministration we know that other countries are doing this north korea with this missile test and so on and you know biden has a record with ukraine a strongly supporting the government but the u.s. of course is strapped it by a bunch of challenges at home and abroad so maybe the russians are probing the depth of the u.s. commitment and i would also add in the european and trans-atlantic dimensions i think the you know there were some talks between the presidents of russia has and germany and france and maybe they russians think they see an opening to try nixon white differences between the allies so i think all these factors may work but

again there's not expect taste of. imminent military action particularly since the u.s. took a very firm stand it had president biden for the 1st time called the president of ukraine we've also had changes the phone calls between other senior u.s. and ukrainian leaders probably heard richard there talk about the fact that president putin has been bristling from these anti-government demonstrations that happened in january over the treatment of alexey. vali you know there are some who say that the timing of this may be more than just coincidental you have also putin coming under criticism for his response to the coronavirus you also have russian parliamentary elections that are scheduled to happen in september could all this be chalked up to president putin trying to reenter gys his base. to some extent yes but it's a bit more complicated. the kremlin buton believes that the west is

now began a war began who are against russia hybrid wars being waged against russia and person against him to deal egypt advise his regime. that they were specifically landed in january to raise havoc here in russia they cannot comment situation is not very nice the household incomes have been decreasing for almost 10 years slowly but steadily and are up now a cells in 10 years they decreased about 15 percent that's the real income of households in russia and that's bad for any political regime in any country that's a big danger. and sell the goods and believes that the west the russian elite believes that the west is for you actually fighting them and russia should push back relations with the united states not simply bad they're very bad but i've been

called boots in the killer that means he wants him out that means the west once said regime change relations with european union are said to be 0 so in a situation when the political level of relations is almost 0 the russian ambassador was recalled from washington that never happened during the cold war and he still and must assume that most apriori situation or something close to it so instead you're in such a position michael maybe you believe the kremlin believe it's not to push the front line in the done by us away from crimea say well axiom let me let me ask you this. week we pause there for a 2nd let me go ahead and jump to alexey and ask him a quick follow up question you know there are ukrainian officials who have urged deescalation what are the steps need to be taken in order to deescalate the

situation right now. well 1st of all i've seen that's easier to keep to keep the cease fire you know what we haven't said don't buy us and don't buy us we have more scores proxies they're not independent they're controlled by more school so and all the hysteria was a concert in the bus shows that event would like to he's going to discrete this escalation he can easily do that but again several reasons now and we have discussed and took that decided to decided to escalate so that order from the kremlin would be is the 1st and the most important steps forward. for a ceasefire and serve there are other things which will be and actually is that the ground you know with the role of troops. some of us are seeing again these forces

fire which was called. in some a last year event include an lot of measures a lot of measures in order to to inforce a ceasefire but unfortunately there is not ceasefire and it got him 40 years over mr putin that we have the joke that mr in a violent poisoned himself in order to overthrow putin's putin's regime to create a background for accusing mr putin's and airy guarding. regarding whereas as a large scale war may happen i believe they get here with military and political analysis by by particle but to be sure the member indoor sauza and full team net a few people who could predict center russia russian irregular forces

would it be a instant on us that the russians would. ukrainian's a very few people actually. predicted center out of wood and next craney a so at zip time if you ask me i'm ukrainian speaking russian so if you ask me do i believe that the russian soldiers would be p.-a in ukraine killing ukrainians i would say no maybe i'm a better analyst but many people would say no it's impossible and unfortunately. so dealing with russia yes there is some you know actual seeing which seeing which says that's no it's not going to be a large scale military operation but you never sure richard there by demonstrations been working hard to rebuild alliances with nato countries in the wake of all the chaos of the trump years are those allies now feeling confident

that the u.s. will stand with them when it comes to any potential confrontations with russia. i think so i mean is a question that broader than that in that there was there's been some concern that the allies and cells are divided over russia you've got some nato partners that want to make a take a very firm stance and others that want to more cooperative approach and you're seeing this particularly in the case of the north stream pipeline debate within the alliance so yes part of the u.s. effort has been to reaffirm u.s. ties to the alliance which i would argue were strong and even in the trumpet ministration but they've been they've taken steps to reinforce that and but also you're still seeing disputes over the question of the pipeline perhaps nato spending you know they had 2 recent meetings lately but on the question of ukraine the alliances and the europeans and the americans stood very firm i would not have

expected the e.u. for example to keep on rolling over its extensive sanctions since it would just take one e.u. state block them against russia for its actions in ukraine but we've got a fairly extensive law network of us european both nato and non nato member sanctions on russia so i think on the ukraine question there's been pretty strong solidarity that russia needs to roll back its ambitions in ukraine we store territory on top 30 that the country stop interference internal affairs and so on possible from your vantage point is there any hope that peace talks could get back on track anytime soon. woking of the operational peace talks in the 3 side. talks on in their means so-called means crame where they're right now calculate deadlocked everyone agrees on that that nothing's happening there that people are

just sort of staking positions that are not complying to each other their i mean they need to have some talks but no it's not nothing's at thought of that. there are attempts by european countries france and germany to try to find that move something forward find kind of some kind of way to defuse a situation which is getting a lot of people in europe really scared i have had contacts with top european diplomats who wanted to know my opinion on what's happening because they're scared in brussels right now they have bassett there's the nato ambassadors european union sitting down there trying to figure out what to do how to respond are the russians really ready to go or it's just a lot of hot air. i would believe basically that puts

in his 20 years i mean record shows that he's not basically a conqueror much i don't believe that he mostly would want to horse trade but the horse trade from position of strength and maybe improve the situation on the ground a bit no one at worse right now on another side east or west wants this to develop into. a big regional war or no you know european continent know the potential that it's not 0 it doesn't exist. and troops are being moved forward russia's not denying that it moved for troops to the ukrainian border the kremlin announced that we have the right to move our troops in inside russia where we wish. 3 russian. major assault vessels from the baltic sea on the 21st of

march steam through the channel nine's of british reports that going south padre maybe to the black sea maybe there is a major landing assault operation being planned or of the potential to do such a thing so the threats are growing and the diplomacy is lagging and that's a very bad situation alexi it's been over 6 years since the men's 2 agreement was signed were the terms of that agreement ever implemented properly this short answer is no. again where some of them stood implemented at least. part of your means agreements basically the cease fire and from time to time we have disturbed the ceasefire but. if it goes to escalation

again let me remind you that after the president's eleventh's he was elected he used very very peaceful wrestling selenski was a very inexperienced in poor dick's an idiot i would say naive in portland and he said it's just necessary to sit down this is his famous phrase i need to see it down to sports him to see in each other i. will discuss what do you want what can be do and we will do sums up the set up there's a lens election human he mate very important and symbolic concessions to porton which eyes of ukrainian opposition where very very bare so selenski did it so here you make concessions that will but the end of the day you know he didn't receive what he

wanted for ceasefire and basically this is one of the reasons why zelinsky decided to close down city pro russian channels in the ukraine and it is this channels have nothing to do with freedom of speech they just you know. example on my body and wall which bible mentions and we call it hybrid war because russia is doing it not only in owns a front line but also within ukraine was in other countries trying to best of allies a city. richard let me ask you actually it is a 2 part question the 1st is what is the level of commitment by the ministration toward ukraine in the 2nd thing is do you think we could see immense 3 agreement anytime soon i would say 1st the level of u.s. commitment to crane under biden is very strong and they're going to continue the

decision of the trumpet ministration to build up and supply the ukrainian military with defensive weapons and training and there's extensive diplomatic support there there was some questioning in the past over the past month why president biden called presents a landscape but i think you know in the last series of phone calls last few days assault that that question. and in terms of what was the 2nd question is do you think that we can see a minsk 3 agreement anytime soon. well i mean the problem with them and structure is you don't have all the important players prickly united states so i mean the british the french and the russians and ukrainians can go so far but it could be useful to have a tip to widen the format to allow for

a wider range of possible trade offs discussions right now the u.s. can't join mint because that would require the consent of all the parties and the russians what object but a new format there are other structures and worms as well they all with the is working through a trilateral format with the the russians and ukrainians i think it's less. of a mechanism and format and more of a problem that there's just not an agreement on the ends whatever they say in paper i think that the current russian government likes the present situation where it can dial up and dial down tensions regarding ukraine for tactical advantage and i don't see that anything fundamentally changing in russian policy is moderate of the current government in power there all right we've run out of time so we're going to have to leave the conversation there thank you so much to all of our guests power felgenhauer all lexy her on and richard whites and thank you too for watching you

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this is al jazeera i'm dating obligato with a check on your world headlines heavy rains have triggered flash floods and landslides on ended easy as florists island at least 44 have been killed and thousands more are now displaced dozens of homes are breed by mud and debris in the n.l. a village just to washington is following developments from jakarta so this is a developing situation and due to the extent if this does.