ate more of the. thing than i you just lie since the very beginning what we're talking about you have a slice of 3 and 50. just for subscribing to this part. this is all just over these of the top stories india's capital region of delhi will all go under a week long curfew from monday night as the country battles a record sojourn infections almost 274000 new cases were recorded in the last 24 hours and more than 1600 deaths hundreds of passengers from australia have arrived in new zealand after their governments reopened borders families and friends or be uniting to the 2 countries launched a so-called troubled bubble on monday it allows quarantine free travel for the 1st time in more than a year is in and honest really

a shut their borders to almost everyone except residents and citizens in march 2020 a new foreign ministers are said to me to virtually on monday nando they're expected to discuss the health of kremlin critic alexy novell need the us is one of consequences if move on the dies and present is in the 3rd week of a hunger strike close allies of iran they have called for massive protests in moscow and st petersburg on wednesday. have you ever seen with your own eyes how someone is killed you're seeing it right now whatever the people have to look the other way and not think about it change the subject that doesn't change the fact that alexina valley is being killed in a terrible way and in front of everyone's eyes. russia has expelled 20 diplomats from the czech republic it's a reaction to a similar move by prague accusing the russian spies of involvement in a 2014 explosion at an arms depo the men in question are also wanted in the u.k.

for the poisoning of a former russian spy and his daughter. better being reports of shelling in eastern ukraine radio free europe published a video showing soldiers inside a trench and the sound of gunfire heard in the distance the footage hasn't been independently verified the report comes as tensions rise between moscow and kiev over the build up of russian troops along the ukrainian border. a band of political party in pakistan has released 11 police officers it took hostage during protests on sunday police had earlier raided the offices of the technique l.-a back which led to violent protests that killed 3 people a massive fire in cape town has ravaged large parts of table mountain slopes above the newmans neighborhood or in flames more residential areas are threatened cape town university has been evacuated those are the headlines coming up next on al-jazeera aids inside story good bye for now. you.

lost thousands of our program. documentaries. subscribe to. al-jazeera english. well russia would go to war against ukraine moscow masses its troops along the border what's prompted the escalation and how much of a threat is it to ukraine's unity this is inside story. alone welcome to the show i'm sami's a than concerns are growing of a possible war between russia and ukraine the 2 have been in dispute since 2014 when russia and that's crimea and back separatists fighting government troops in

eastern ukraine there had been a relative stalemate in fighting cease fires and violations of cease fires but the situation is now on the brink of a major escalation kiev has expelled the russian diplomat in response to a similar move by moscow and russian president vladimir putin is beefing up his nation's naval presence in the black sea the international community is alarmed well since the start of the year there's been more fighting in eastern ukraine then last month russia deployed its largest military buildup near ukraine's border since 2014 nato warned russia it won't leave kiev on its own and urged moscow to withdraw its troops u.s. president joe biden called on vladimir putin to deescalate tension he's proposed a summit with the russian president european leaders have also demanded russian forces a pullback from the border ukraine's the to held talks with the french president

and german chancellor in paris on friday under serious charles stratford reports from kiev on people's fears. ukrainian soldiers on the front line on the highest level of alert since the signing of an often violated cease fire agreement with pro russian separatists 7 years ago russia says its deployment of an estimated 100000 soldiers and heavy weaponry to areas near the border with ukraine poses no threat ukrainian military say they are preparing for the worst. i was mobilized and came back to the front line i believe this is a crucial moment to defend my country world leaders and nato have urged moscow to pull back its forces most of these houses were destroyed in fighting in 2015 around a 1000000 people live in a 10 kilometer wide so-called contact zone the stretches on both sides across the

front line. oxana says she fled with her son genya from separatist controlled areas 2 years ago yet that. i have lived here since 29 i used to live in our lives but i had to flee because of my political views it has been quiet these last few days but this is the 2nd night in a row my cell wakes in the middle of the night screaming there is similar devastation in pro russia separatists control the areas. they have been shooting recently everyone waits but nobody knows how the negotiations will end. the leaders of ukraine russia germany and france the so-called normandy format have repeatedly failed to find a political solution to the conflict. crain refuses russia's demand that it talk directly to pro moscow separatist leaders russia refuses to withdraw from crimea but she documented in 2014. and lists

a political deadlock on many levels remain the breakdown in the current ceasefire was fairly predictable because the sides were negotiating in good faith it's not negotiating in good faith in it probably in about october and they've reached the point where they were instead of trying to find common ground they were deliberately putting forth proposals that they knew would annoy the other side or that they knew would be nonstarters and once that starts to happen then you know that the breakdown of the ceasefire is only a small it's only a matter of time russia calls it a military exercise ukraine says it is a dangerous provocation after 7 years of failed peace negotiations the un says almost 3 and a half 1000000 people are an urgent need of humanitarian assistance and protection in eastern ukraine. but al-jazeera. well let's bring in our guests into the show we have joining us from moscow victor all over church a political analyst and leader of the center for actual politics in care of than

esky associate professor of sociology at the national university of kiev more cademy and. these and a professor of international relations at the university of southeast norway welcome to the show if i could start with mikhail oh so why did the cease fire collapse in eastern ukraine. well i think that that's a question perhaps too. to those that have been baited the gun tree in that program more a question of to the russians but the russians i've been provoking this the. various types of escalation the no negotiation cease fires none of these fires last 7 years the reality is that ukraine in 2014 lost a grand total of 7 percent of the fairy story so they actually not very much 7 percent being lost including the crimea so in other words this is not exactly

a huge amount of territory but nevertheless it is a thorn in in ukraine tight cunt because territory has been lost and it's been lost due to aggression from the russians but so why are the why why are these continuing to to to to attack where the continuing to try to move forward after there have been i mean the clinton side and the new president the left he has actually come out but it is very simple the ukraine fight is going to stop shooting unless being shot act so the provocations are governed not by directing the question is probably better to arrest him culch. let's take a question then to big to moscow what prompted the russian military buildup that we suddenly the world was kind of surprised to see so many russian forces and tanks massing at the border victor well the situation in the southeastern ukraine has to be looked at from the point of view of rivalry in russian american relations

and we have seen that joseph biden and those close to him and his foreign policy. block war and stated on numerous occasions during the election campaign last year that if their candidates was going to win the american approach to russia would be much tougher than time suppose the time for the station approach that they're going to use our various new instruments to pressure russia on various fronts and after biden won our our the election last year and became us president he started to use a new study shows started to implement those. implemented that course towards russia sanctions have been expanded our rhetoric doors russia has been significantly hardened and also kiev has been has

also toughened its bought its rhetoric towards moscow and towards elements sympathetic to russia within ukraine and has also taken action against more action against those elements for example the closing of several t.v. channels that were more sympathetic towards russia actions against the. official politician sympathetic to moscow and some other politicians and so our moscow easy is viewing this as a pressure. point and is. that one of or on on the specific level it's you as ok. to pressure the ukraine and as a bargaining chip ok i can see there that is shaking his head i'll give you 15 seconds to come back in on some of that before we we move on to glenn ok i very

quickly i mean at the end of the day is not a bargaining chip ukraine is a country and it's very nice that you know president putin and psychoanalysts can probably have a field day with russian president thinks in terms of you know ukraine or excuse me russian u.s. rivalry that's all very fine and dandy but it's not u.s. soldiers that are dying on the ground in front and ukrainian soldiers they are defending their own country and this is nothing to do in fact i mean except we're you know in strange minds with geopolitics this is everything to do with a a very real war that is happening in a very real country that has nothing to do with you know wouldn't it be a fairytale it wouldn't be fair though to say that ukraine is caught in the geopolitics of relations between the u.s. and russia you do recognize that don't to all of course it's cotton not of course cotton not in its current crop when i think that it's i mean it's the thing that i'm trying to get away from is the narrative that is being proposed by the kremlin

which basically says that screening doesn't matter as such it's simply a territory over over which supposedly the forests and russia are going to be ok and that that's just the wrong way if you mean a major point maybe out of fairness let me give also 15 seconds to victor if he wants to pick up on anything before i move on to glenn. well there is no question that the situation that here developed in the u.k. in the best 70 years has been bowler's unfortunate and very tragic. for our for the country and for boers those that live in on the territories controlled by kiev and in that area there is that controlled by the so-called peoples the publics right in the southeast however ukraine is a matter of. of negotiation and of rivalry between them leisure powers between the us and i'm sure there is simply

a fact there are. yes there is there the simply a fact that key of course to take into account and thus take into account in the right policy deliberations and since we're talking about geopolitics between countries glenn i want to ask you to what extent is the whole issue of nato membership playing out here i think it was 3 days after joe biden took office there was some talk from the ukrainian side from the ukrainian president in fact about moving forward with the process of joining nato is this washes way of saying nato membership is a red line. now definitely i think again i think we should all be empathetic about the difficult situation ukraine is in what has to be point out that this is that mostly about nato expansion and one also have to point out that it's important to note that ukraine actually began emboldened by the u.s. to mobilize its troops to worse the conflict line was done by before russia then

responded by mobilizing its troops so russia has been very clear therefore that it would intervene if it's attacked and the reason yes nato it also it has a domestic component of course that is russia country really just stand by its political impossible if it's competitor it's in eastern ukraine are mowed down by decreeing an army but primarily this is about nato is is the geo political problem that was cost 7 years ago and nato expansionism into ukraine is deemed to be an existential threat to russia so this is the source of the conflict that is russia not nato refuses to hold its expansion and pursue neutral turn it is for countries along the russian borders while ukridge no role in russia said like a clear red line against further expansion which it intends to uphold but previously mentioned there was no political solutions. but the minsk agreement was the mutual agreement for

a political settlement and this agreement did entails that. the government think he would negotiate directly with us or it isn't don't bust and pursue deep constitutional reforms to decentralize power and ground don't buy us a certain degree of autonomy the problem of course for ukraine is if they do it they're going to have a lot of internal divisions but ukrainian nationalists will not accept this and furthermore an autonomous don't bus could block nato expansionism not this is the main reason why both ukraine and the u.s. has been signaling that they do not intend to other don't like ations other to minsk agreement so i think all of this very much responds to the issue of nato expansion i can see me i think is shaking his head again let me give you a chance to come back. i'm quite frankly shocked by by by what the men are reasonably good fuck you but look nato expansion into ukraine was monster an issue and was never even a possibility until 2014 when russia attacked grant when that is when i mean

the poll results are very very clear the political situation is very very clear nato was never ever on the on the agenda and its session to nato was never on the agenda until such time as russia decided to attack you print so to now say that somehow ukraine is at fault for going for an actively pursuing major membership i mean what exactly would would would be the logical alternative when you are attacked when your when your territory is taken away by a country that supposedly was a guarantor of peace when ukraine gave up the nuclear weapons under the would have memorandum supposedly russia was supposed to guarantee ukraine's borders here russia's coming in and violating those borders and the only way that ukraine is going to going to be able to defend itself is through nato but what is very

important is that in fact what i call this just recently said it is in fact just basically not true ukraine that not mobilize any troops and nor is it in any way shape or form possible the ukraine would attack russia this is a narrative that is being propagated by the kremlin at this point that is completely untrue ukraine has a grand total army of 250000 troops russia has over a 1000000 people in under arms a 1000000 men a 1000000 troops there is no possible way that ukraine is going to attacking russia russia may be attacking ukraine and may be taking more territory and that of course is in russia's interest because of this point the annexation of crimea is obviously very much untenable because of the problem is a problem lou person such as that all right we're running out of time we do have all the points to cover let me give glenn i can see glenn wants to get in on this but in 15 seconds. yes well in 2008 nato said that the

ukraine would eventually become a member and this is been a thorn in the side ever since but my point is simply if if nato expansionism is really off the table why doesn't pay to go out and put this in writing and say to russia this would definitely calm down the conflict and it would open up the program neutral alternative all right ok let me let me get 15 seconds back to you mikhail o. before we go once again to moscow with victor. look i'm going to be very brief at the end of the day there's a $100000.00 troops that are being pressed troops that are being massed on the borders of ukraine this in fact troops if they are going to be invading ukraine will not be in beating the past because frankly the boston area that is being meet it it is actually depressed reach there's very little interest in actually it right however there is an interest obviously if you're interested in a very clear economic interest creating

a land bridge crimea and that means cutting off grain from the black sea ok that has that us interest in obviously that but it's nothing to do with nato or anything else that's simply russian expansionism in and you're ok you made your point let me ask victor what is the bottom line of this phase of the escalation do you think russia wants to to go to war with ukraine directly and divert the and through into a war with ukraine. look despite kiev success theory shows ukraine is not to become a need to member and one of the uses for that is that if there's an active territorial dispute with one of its neighbors in this case with russia and the additionally need to does not accept new members that have active conflicts with their neighbors because in that case neither could be. forced to intervene directly and that's not something that washington and so you think this support the idea that and moscow

one of the less collated or put its troops at the border to make this an issue to block ukraine ever from thinking or being able to join nato thinking exactly one of the reasons for russia intervening in 2014 was there are after you know quite reach the former ukrainian president was deposed in the core and they much more pro western government came to power in kiev moscow was. and that the new government there knew more progress than government could see need a membership and took action in part to prevent that mosque you see is need our expansion as a strategic threat and it took their act action to prevent that from the need to from expanding to ukraine and we see that play out throughout the last 7 years so that the threat of need to expansion to ukraine that the reactor expansion is not

has been sort of moved back at the same time moscow is seeking to use its presence in ukraine as borders as a show of force as a shore of its force possible force projection and of its capabilities at the same time what my ukrainian call you care has been seeing what he said about the land be in the crimea and the rest of russia that that is something that russia simply does not care for these sources to sustain even if russia would undertake that action there is the national economy would not be able to sustain those states or his measure of new territory is within the russia although that's not something that russia would seek to do our other than other than some are put in loyalist simply making a stark and allowed state or is let's not get bogged down too much into some

minutia of particular movements on the ground i want to try and maybe broaden the discussion out with the hi-lo if i may and ask about what this whole cycle means of the cycle of tension. and the escalation means for polarization within ukraine. well in fact one of the things that we've seen over the last 7 years is the unification of print on has not been a polarization and actually much more about unification i want to do want to make one more point and one last one about that they don't think are just so that we realize i mean it's not just a question of russia reacting to nato expansion ukraine is a sovereign country ukraine has been attacked it's 7 percent of its territory has been taken away he illegal it has a right to defend itself defending itself means through alliance this is a logical step mark question of you know someone is attacking russia no one's attacking russia russia has attacked and ukraine is defending itself that in fact

is a narrative that has. very much united be craning population well i think i'm citing a jump in there the move which the ukrainian president then ski made to close the t.v. station of the pro russian on iraq has he seen victor medved choke won't move. alienate at least those ethnic russians in ukraine or ukraine is of ethnic russian origin that is opponents i thought not. first of all ethnic russians in ukraine according to the friend of the previous and the very reason now that the now that the crimea has been annexed and is not counted as part of ukraine now isn't the eastern region the bottom of the generous part of ukraine so that we understand ethnic russians in ukraine make up less than 5 percent population so alienating a group of less than 5 percent of the population may be of course problematic from

the point of view of humanity humanitarian pressure but we need to understand 95 percent of the population is in support of ukrainian unity and sees russia as an aggressor with respect to the 3 channel yes it's true but in fact those 3 channels were outlets for basically money laundering of illegal activities by this like the government to kill who in fact is a basically a family member of what you would want to laundering money from illegal activities within ukraine including financing separateness on the eastern front so i mean it's really problematic with respect to be rechanneled yes there is an issue those $3.00 channels were were were closed there were no protests. unlike various other things that have caused the streets recently the ringing of those channels were in fact very very low they were broadcasting progress and propaganda and it wasn't being supported by by the by the ukrainian population so i mean at the end of the day has

created more of a ruckus in the kremlin than it has been doing all right i could say bland i want to get in on this let me bring you in for some perspective i think we've got about a minute left. you know i would point out that if ukraine indeed was this united the selenski would not continue to live here the right there is the ukrainian nationalist because if you create would actually live up to its obligations under the minsk agreement and talk to. us you would very quickly see a ukrainian nationalist march through cheap so there is a strong limited what can actually be done so also when one should not confuse this there with ethnic russians are supposed to russian speakers as well and the overall . wouldn't disagree that the day the conflict is obviously pushed greater unity in ukraine in terms of standing up for their sovereignty. but to suggest that suddenly everyone is on the same page and to russia. down to russian policies i definitely

would not agree with every poll indicates this is well that is something that everyone does not support you know and against russia ok and afraid we are out of time so we are going to end it then let's thank our guests very much victor leverage me hi-lo we need ski and glenn decent and thank you to 4 g. you can see the show again any time by visiting our website al-jazeera dot com for further discussion head over to our facebook page that's facebook dot com forward slash a.j. inside story can also join the conversation on twitter our handle there is at a.j. inside story from me sam is a then and i hope to hear from now on. the states are 4 months it's the mouth of their rabid gulf at the eastern end of the arab peninsula if you look at the arabian peninsula as a whole there are

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thousands of our programs award winning documentary sit down these are posts. subscribe to the cheap food sloshing al-jazeera english. another record single day surge in corona virus infections in india its capital will be under curfew for a week. from about the same this is all to 0 live from doha also coming up next in a volley must receive medical aid says the top e.u. diplomat warning russia is responsible for the jailed opposition leaders else. the political party in pakistan really.