ah, russia's military has these control of europe's largest nuclear power plant in southeastern ukraine. a fire broke out at a complex overnight after it was hit my shelley, but the reactors were not affected. meanwhile, western allies at the united nations security council of to monitor the crime. they never allow an attack on nuclear power like that to happen again. it cranes un ambassador, as rush as a tax, if you could threaten the entire world. marianna gross, the director general living we have survived denied that could have stopped the history of ukraine in europe. said the president of ukraine this morning. indeed, every day provides us with a new, a new evidence that it is not only ukraine. honda russian attack.

it is europe, it is the entire world. it is humanity. and finally, it is the future of the next generations. meanwhile, russia's ambassador to you and it denied his country's military ever attacked the power plant soonest. as you go, no, that should have verbal good. today's meeting is another attempt by keyboard thorazine to create artificial hysteria around what is happening in ukraine, and they being assisted in this by their western beckers. today we have once again heard, lies about our russian troops to take this operation nuclear power plant. and this is all part of an unprecedented campaign of lies and disinformation against russia . you are trying to present the situation in such a way as though the zapata, she, a power plant, was allegedly shelled by the russian military as a result of which a fire broke out these statements. a simply untruth. yeah. meanwhile,

inside ukraine, russian forces of encircled the port city of my apple. according to the mayor, electricity and water have been cut off. the village of chicky north west of the crane and capital has been heavily bombarded with shelling as russian forces pushed close to the capital kiev. and other developments russia has continued to crack down on what it considers the spread of false information about his armed forces. a parliament or duma has passed legislation in jesus introduce prison terms of up to 15 years for spreading false news. people found guilty also face huge fines full or is also likely to target social media posts, as well as news on russia's military losses and movements not backed by the defense ministry. the bottom line is coming up next with david asha, the us government, mr. sanctions, as is known about the economic war against russia. ah,

hi, i'm steve clements and i have a question. as the war in ukraine gets uglier, will the massive global sanctions now imposed against russia and many russian oligarchs, and vladimir putin himself work. let's get to the bottom line ah, in response to the russian attack on ukraine, the u. s. in its allies have chosen to punish it in part with financial weapons. the plan in theory, at least is to cut the russian government from its hundreds of billions of dollars in reserves and shut it out of the global financial system. sanctions aren't a new form of warfare. the u. s. has been targeting iran, venezuela, north korea, and cuba for decades. russia itself has been living with lower level american sanctions since 2014, when it annexed the crimean peninsula from ukraine. but russia produces huge amounts of gas and wheat and other global commodities, which give it some leverage and russian gas is not affected by the sanctions right

now. but at least one senator joe mansion of west virginia has said its time to unleash the real economic atomic bomb which is boycotting russia fuel imports to the united states. so can sanctions actually force russia to change course? or do they just make life miserable for the average russian citizen? while the government finds other ways to fund itself? our sanctions just a way to fake action when there are few other options to stop a power play from happening. today we're talking with lee jones, professor of political economy and international relations at the university of london. he's the author of societies under siege, exploring how international economic sanctions in parentheses do not work. and then david asher, a senior fellow at the hudson institute here in washington, dc, who's been an advisor to the u. s. government on sanctions evasion, including economic warfare campaign strategies against the atlantic state has belie in lebanon and iran. david, let me start with you. when have sanctions work, what are the characteristics of making sanctions efficacious? particularly in a cases we're looking at russia right now, but,

but looking at other historic cases, steve, they've, they worked effectively when they're part of a campaign of a broader policy to disrupt or, or affect or even deter a state or society or trans national organization. a terrorist organization, drug cartel, for example. i at rob reagan had economic war campaign that he founded in the form of a national security council document, 92 that became the center of a massive effort by the u. s. government to disrupt the soviet economy. no one seems to remember how much impact it had, but it was absolutely central to the for the fall, the berlin wall, and the change in the soviet government toward modern day russia, which of course is how turned back toward the soviet union. we it, we would be wise to remember what, how it worked and what it accomplished and to try to re

a vive certain aspects of it. because these, that the goal there was to make life difficult for the leadership to disrupt their is their center of gravity. their thinking, it wasn't just, it wasn't at heart, the russian people. oh, the most detrimental action that we took. of course, if you've read the unclassified or now declassified documents was of the explosion of the russian far east pipeline to pipeline the very pipeline to this, to dave feeding gas into western europe. i'm not advocating that, but in 1982 in a 3 that was the option that hadn't been completed. it wasn't yet connected to europe. and the registration saw the value of making that disconnection palpable. so you know, sanctions was that was not a sanction. there was an action sanctions worked in the, in the best form when they're combined with the varieties of a variety of overton covert actions. i think right now an issue i have is we just

have a sanctions policy. we don't really have a broader policy yet. we're starting to, thanks to the reaction to the tyranny and the oppressiveness of what's going on in ukraine. do you think vladimir putin has surprised you? think his cronies, the oligarchs around him, have a price that deterring them freezing their assets. ah, collapsing the asset values around them matters to these people. there is a price in my mind towards putin's reputation in his mojo. you gotta look at him like tony soprano, the famous my boss from the t. v series. i'm guy luca, john gotti. i was involved going after guy named john. got you as a major. you were you were you helped go after john? god, i was the avi, i went up. they gambino crime, family writ large. mom and i went after the synagogue, drug cartel under chapel guzman. and we had a similar sort of theory of operation. we had a concept that we could create

a situation where they weren't able to ha, basically tend to the needs of their inner sanctum. we complicated their, their command control, communications, their reliability, and the dependability. as bosses and it's called value based targeting, i did the very same approach toward a kim jung il in north korea, the previous leader. i was after going after all the going after all the things that really matter to him. we came up with a very detailed assessment in 2002 of what mattered to keep him alive as a leader. and we attacked every one of them. and that worked quite well until the administration decided i was too successful. and they said, you know, the, with the warrant, iraq, that i was gonna create a regime change in north korea, which is what i had been ordered to do. but, you know, not, not kinetically, but the point is, i think there is a, there is a way to effect vladimir putin. it's not just money though. it's a lot. there are a lot of things that need to be attacked is beyond money. and so sanctions are just

the piece will lead jones, a really appreciate you. joining us from london, you've written it variances, paper saying sanctions won't save you crane. and the, and the subhead line is they are a comforting illusion in a leaderless war. it will give us your understanding of sanctions policy where they work, where they haven't worked. i think you just heard is right. this is the academic evidence. they'll suggest that sanctions alone, i'm not very successful. they work. i me about 5 percent of the time when they're just deployed on the rowing and when they're deployed. alongside other meshes, the general consensus in the academic research is that they work about 30 percent of the time. so they still have about 2 thirds of the time. and i think one of the reasons why they fail so often. i mean, there are many ways, i think one of the key ones. if the issue we've just been discussing about whether there is a price. so there is an underlying logic to sanctions that if i can manipulate, you know, cost benefit analysis. if i can create additional costs for you,

then you will revise your cost benefit analysis and rationally choose to change your behavior. and what we just heard is that, that works against drugs cartel, so the logic is, well, it should also work again split the lead to the difficulty is that i think political leaders are not like drug cartels. they're not business. their primary goal is not to make money to have a whole host of other objectives and goals, which are not necessarily convertible, $2.00, and so on. so it becomes quite difficult, i think, to say, okay, let's just, you know, wrap it up the costs just a little bit more and then go be able to tweak their cost benefit analysis. because i think what, what we've seen in history is many regimes willing to endure really quite colossal economic costs in order to prioritize securing political and security code. so if

you type the, the case of north korea that's just been mention in sanctions against north korea have not been successful in the sense that the north korean regime has been willing to, into isolation. reputational damage, poverty among its own population, its own in order to secure nuclear weapons which it beliefs are essential to the preservation of the regimes own security against attractive united states. we saw the also in iraq, the boss regime under his saying, was willing to forego certain objectives. i was willing by what we were told in 2003 to disarm it. weapons of mass destruction. it was willing to withdraw from, from way to an issue, respiration, but it was not willing to just abandon power. it was, it would rather see fractions in the, in the regime across the see the criminalization of the state, the impoverished one, that the population before it would relinquish power and it took troops to finish

off the racing. so when it comes to the main toots and what we have to ask, you, made it primarily motivated by his own junior re interests. right? he's probably your bank balance, and i'll do the all the galks around to promote really interested in that. and all the, you know, 70 percent plots of people who vote for him, or they motivated regularly by that early bought. or are they going to prioritize the political and security goals above that peculiar interest? and if they do that, then they can pretend but eventually be quite severe economic suffering on the rushing side without it leading to the outcome that we want. so we have to be able to tell a plausible story when we impose sanctions. what is the plausible link between imposing economic pain and the political game that we seek? and is there a plausible causal story?

we can tell if there isn't. then there's the risk that we just impose hardship without getting what we want. david, what is your reaction to that? because i agree. i mean, people to understand ancient can. i've never approach sanctions like this on off button or faucet. you just turn off the hot and cold water. it's never been my approach. my approach, it's always been a not course of diplomacy, as they call it or stay craft. my approach has been absolute pressure, containment, destruction, deterrence, and disruption. it's not about playing soft power games, which i am afraid is how we are. we want to rush, you know, i know and you know, and he's a really young fellow not too young anymore. but his view, i think is that this is somebody you use to modulate a behavior. i have no doubt that it will not modulate behavior if anything, what we're doing right now is probably an accelerate prudence decision making. now

that might be useful though, because he's building his own quagmire. okay, so, but that's probably not what they're doing. okay, what i'd be doing is i would be doing things to affect his sanctity, his inner sanctum, his peace of mind. i be using economic warfare as a part of warfare. you know, when i went after this, he went and he said this city at his, at pain, you know, with general mcfarland as our combined commander, sean and i went to war against their finances. and we literally bombed the central bank in mosul, where the money was blew a 1000000000 to 2000000000. i think about $2000000000.00 in cash. bagdad, he cried. okay. and yes, think algiers perfect viewers will respect that. i mean, we literally, you know, picked him up on the radio and he was screaming in horror. his, we just blew up his money. i mean, it was not about trying to change his decision making process. his decision making process like couldn't was set. we had to destroy his his,

his mojo. i guess you want to call it. well, let me see to balance our mojo david, because part of it is, you know, exceed, oh, like dara pasco for audience. willinger pasco is a major global aluminum tycoon, michael friedman, who is the chairman of alpha bank and, and the c u of letter one, living in london. a ukrainian russian has come out of strongly critical of this war and conflict. and so it begins to raise the question of whether or not the pressure that's being created around some of the people around putin begin to create a dynamic that changes his i can't, i don't think it's gonna change, puts you. yeah, i think it's going to lead to potential alternatives to put him in the future. i mean, you've really got to think ahead with it when, when reagan imposed his pressure strategy, which was well beyond sanctions. we did have sanctions, but they'd been long standing against roger and nike to it was about it bringing down the berlin wall. i mean, literally this, the berlin famous berlin wall, bringing out the wall speech was all linked to the national security policy

decisions that worse surrounding the economic warfare campaign against the soviet union. we gave money to solidarity to rise up in po and poland. we gave money inside russia to scientists who were a refuse next in and who came bright to rebel against the soviet system. and we encourage massa defections including of some of the smartest people in the country who were related to their economic system. if you look back on some of the things i was involved with, the north korea, you'll see some of the same hallmarks. i mean, you know, a lot of smart people left it and then the others were killed. and i'm not saying i kill them, but they just died as part of the process. this was of really tough approach. it's not nice. i, you know, we, it's, it's not just, you know, we're going to turn the sanction off. we're creating permanent conditions to break or band, or, you know, undermine a regime. and that's what we should do if we're going to go to economic ward putin

. when he understands economic war, i'm afraid, right now we're reaching the sanctions. like we have all the cards and they have none. they have a huge ability to counter attack and we haven't seen the yet. i'm low surprised. i think women's been a little he's is he by we're going to probably see huge cyber attacks against our financial system. and, you know, i don't know why americans are prepared to lose a 1000 points in the stock market. you know, in the nasdaq raise and really important point i want to throw back to lee jones is do we do, do our citizens in the u. k? have a price, do american citizens have a price in this, in this process as well? i mean, you, you said something very important that i, i have already heard reports about malicious malware. ah, having impacts both in europe in the united states. because when you launch mall, where did the system it can have in it. but whether it was, you know, consciously targeted at, at the u. s. or not. but there are, there are these questions, which i think lee jones got right. which is, which is the price that those that are trying to defend against aggression or

willing to pay, or whether they're willing to acquiesce your thoughts. li, well, i think you're right. i mean, it's a very interesting thing to say because i think that's quite a different view of sanctions to i think the mainstream of policy making certainly in europe other things as much desirable or way along the part of most of the nato powers. and perhaps also the united states to combine sanctions with much wider suites of coercion because it measures i mean it's not possible to physically bomb the russian central bank, for example, that we are a very dangerous point if we're heading into a confrontation of the nuclear power and i think that the hasn't been very much clear strategic thinking about in heading into this crisis, because the russians have made that position by which is that they're not willing to tolerate the emergence of nato states on the board this. and they've been by georgia to night and ukraine 2014, to illustrate how serious they are. and i think they take the position you and

position has been fundament, require a big us on the one hand that no said will protect the ukraine. on the other hand, but having said that, you won't protect ukraine, the thought to enter that big us position, which has kind of emboldened the ukrainian government to say that we're going to join later. we're going to join you in further antagonize russia. so on the one hand, they haven't accommodated rushing security interest, but they haven't done enough to fully deter rusher even. and so that's been a sort of lack of clear strategic thinking. it's a real strategic, landrum, westport thing. and then when it comes to functions, you know, suddenly the population and certainly in the, in, in europe. i think it's fair to say, sure about united states. but i suppose it may be true that to the 1st time that we've really thought about what, what does it really mean to engage in those, in the really serious confrontation with where the russia are. we really going to

go to war for ukraine? i mean, the government to have a clear that not going to happen when push comes to shove, i'll be willing to go to economic bull with russia. i think that's also really hard for populations because the big way that you can really damage, you know, call it the kind of wreckage and carnage that they've been talking about. the way that you could do that with russia to sanction they run a jackport for nearly 60 percent of their export. so any other oil gas in coal? but europe is heavily dependent on impulse of oil and gas from russia. let me, david, let me jump to you and ask you, do we understand where the consequences should go as sanctions are bandied about as a tool, which both of you have said and have dramatic impacts, not just on the leader. it or maybe not even on the leader, but on society's a whole me look yeah. what, what, what am, how did i meant economic historian and a proud wander? not many of us in the world, a graduate of oxford,

or did my doctorate and m. i have studied the blow back from sanctions as well. i'm at the disagreeing with li entirely at all. i mean, people, people don't quite. they think of me as mr. sanctions and i've been involved in sanctioning that huge number of entities in my career, probably more than anyone in the u. s. government except me, while prod morning was her out a actually because i've been around through a democrat and republican government, so i have not just been a partisan. i am. there is a cost a that can occur and blow back. you can, you can also, you blow up yourself in this for all of sanctions. you know, when we sanctions to japanese in 939940 their oil enterprises in their oil. are our oil exports to them and from southeast asia it led them to attack pro harbor. okay. there's no doubt about that. when we were after milosevic in $98.00, it would have very clear concept for operations, which was in a matrix,

literally called operation matrix. we had all these different attack the f vectors, we went after the people that but they were against them and we built up the people that actually went after the people that were supporting them. and we helped the people that were against them. i mean, we know we play both sides, built one side up against the other, and then we attacked his finances and literally went to cyprus in 1998. and i think was in the spring as i recall and told the cypriots that they have $3300000000.00 and milosevic is money and either they freeze, freeze it and cut him off at the knees. or we were in a cut off cypress. and it was a separate government did without having even a legal basis. they cut off those which in, you know, about 6 weeks later, as i recall, he fell from power. he came that he really walked in. okay, so there is a history of course it sanctions working, coerce of sanction. so is different than course of diplomacy, right? this whole idea, you can just use it as a diplomatic tool. i've rejected that. i've used them as of as a type of containment tool as a deterrent tool. um, but not really for

a negotiation, you know, like, you know, raise the cost on a gangster so that he quits being a gangster. it's just not going to work that way. we can do is you can raise the cost on his survival. so that opposing forces come to bear. i mean, it's it, you know, i, when i go to economic war than adversary, i go to war. i don't play around a li, i'd love to get you in our, in our final minutes, to share with us. if you were to correct those mistakes and create a more efficacious sanctions regime that could have traction in a case like we're seeing in ukraine. what would be the elements of that that you would suggest? i think at the thought, always with an analysis of the target society. because you could take sanctions that succeeded extensively in one case and copy them in a word for word dollar a dollar to another case. and it would have a completely different outcome because the political economy of that target society and the political dynamics in that society. a completely different so people often

talk about south africa and say, well, the functions worked so they can work in case x. but that's not obviously not the case. south africa had a very unique set of circumstances that allowed sanctions to play some kind of role . so we have to look at a target like russia and say, okay, let's assume that we're able to design sanctions that can impose serious economic calm and russia without ideally, blowing ourselves up, as david says, which is quite hard, given how dependent we've become on russian commodity export, or even as she was the logic, how is this going to change things in russia? is it going to split the peach in regime or into prom defections from the regime from the military? the only got going to, i was to, it's any of this remotely plausible. and it seems to me an arm and not rushing. it should emphasize it seems to me that peyton is highly popular. enjoy the

popularity rates in 69 percent last time he invited ukraine, his popularity rating increased by 20 percent. right. it looks to me like the elite thing, say in the united behind him, you know, full 100 to one in the do you mind phase or recognizing the breakaway republics? that he was able to address down his spite, chiefly on live television for bluffing his lines at the right of the stage monday . security council meeting now appear to me say as a non special that there are many in the practice that sanctions could exploit. in short term, that's the causal story that we need to be able to tell. right? isn't possible that by inflicting economic pay, we're going to get the political game that we want. and if not, then potentially we crate in a very widespread offering. but without getting what we need, i want to thank very much university of one. professor lee jones and hudson

institute senior fellow, some people call him mister sanctions. david asher. thank you both for being with us today. this was terrific. thank you. thank you. so what's the bottom line? there's always a debate about the nature of power. is it military force, or is it economic strength? the debate about sanctions a similar, are they useful or not useful to some sanctioning russian president vladimir putin who's launched a war against the neighboring country is pathetically weak. but as mister sanctions himself said today, there could be power in targeting players who violate cor, international stability and acceptable codes of conduct. other countries will try to expose fries and erase the personal assets of these rulers and their cronies, who use power to get rich or use their riches to get power. but it's lee jones reminds sanctions don't always have a good track record as a tool to change the behavior of governments. 10 years ago i would have agreed and said sanctions are feckless. now. i believe they are an essential weapon in the arsenal pointed at the world's most reckless. and that's the bottom line.

ah ah, rivers are trying out greasing land is shrinking in some roots long used by wildlife for migration have been blocked by human settlements. to deal with all this, kenya needs more money for conservation. and with a corona virus pandemic keeping many visitors away. revenue from tourism isn't enough. here at the embassy national park, an annual ceremony has been launched. the ha parisha than individuals pay 5000 years dollars to name an elephant. the aim this year is to raise $1000000.00, much of it for conservation initiatives. with hello,

i'm pleased to say that the rain is now easing for eastern parts of australia. i'm afraid there are still some showers in the forecast so that really will exacerbate the flooding that we have anywhere from the southeast of queensland down across that east side of new south wales and little weather system to just making its way across victoria. and we'll just might not just wait a little further. reese was getting back into a new south wells as we go on through saturday, joining up with the showers that was seen across the east coast. so the will be flat further flooding concerns and across we're right. across the sidney base and pushing up towards the gold coast, pushing up towards brisbin and beyond could see some shower say just around the sunshine coast. as while meanwhile, wet weather will nudge its way towards new zealand as we go on through the weekend . but ahead of that is not too bad at all. a large, dry and fine warm sunshine. oakland at around $27.00 degrees celsius is settled. here has been settled recently in the japan, but we have got some more snow in the forecast over the next day or so. it is

gathering now to go through saturday. that snow becoming a little more widespread woman off in tokyo, those shells by the mountains at 19 degrees celsius. it does cool off as we go one through sunday, we are going to see it increased the avalanche risk as a result of that brighter, clearer skies. coming in behind, ah, on counting the cost, the can energy reserves and china help russia bluntly impact the massive western sanctions with grain export from ukraine. disrupted, worries, mouths about global food security. and will you energy sanction to put pressure on the in mas military, counting the cost of al jazeera and talk to al jazeera. we also do you believe that the threats of an invasion of ukraine is currently the biggest threat to international peace and security? we listen, we are focusing so much on the humanitarian crisis that we forget the long term development we meet with global news makers. i'm talk about the stories that matter

on al jazeera, ah, holding the powerful to account. as we examined the u. s. role in the world on al jazeera. ah, this is al jazeera ah, hello, i'm mary. i'm minimizing you. welcome to the news allan life from london coming up in the next 60 minutes along around the world, off to russian forces and ukraine attack and sees europe's largest nuclear plant.