this later started moving back, it started melting all there is something deeply wrong in this drawing. something we can not create thrice explorers had. the law is beginning to hold multinational to account we are all connected ethnic but by those emissions. and how the idea of giving nature legal rights is altering our relationship with the planet. this is what it's all about. it's about ensuring that life when actually senior planetary justice on al jazeera, ah 11 o'clock in the how the top stories here on al jazeera and brazil's new president louis sincerely to silver, has promised to rebuild the country he's sworn in for an unprecedented 3rd term. he said democracy was the true winner of october's election, which he narrowly defeated valuable scenario. or usaa massage overview with staples from sub today. i'll message to brazil is one of hope and reconstruction. the law

sovereignty and development that this nation built since 1988 has been systematically demolished in recent years. it has to rebuild these national rights and values that will guide all our efforts. the international monetary fund expects a 3rd of the global economy to go into recession this year. it's direct to says 2023 will be even tougher than the previous 12 months. now i'm f blames slow down in the u. s. europe and china due to inflation, our energy costs and rising interest rates all a fall out of the board in ukraine in the next few months. i think what the next thing is that they're going to be problems because of course cov, it is spreading. and then there's the question, of course of traveling to the rest of the world by us. sorry about chinese citizens where they go to the u. s. with the going to the u. k, whether they go to france and italy and spreading or course to many other countries as well. and that's a big issue for china. so over the next few months,

we're probably going to see what a slow down there as well. syria's army says the main international airport is out of service after an israeli attack on southern damascus. it says to military personnel were killed in missile strikes. israel has repeatedly bombed areas in syria saying it's targeting iranian back to fighters. ukrainian authorities say russia has damaged important infrastructure in its latest drone attacks, all the capital, keep in the surrounding region. earlier russia and ukraine accused each other of bombing civilian areas on years eve, russian strikes hit homes and a hotel and keith kelly. at least one person. moscow says it was targeting drone factories, low equal again. no, it is. okay. i wish you health dear ukrainians. new year, new day, $45.00 shy heads were shut down on the 1st night of the year. i thank our air forces, pilots, antea graft warriors, gratitude to the air defense of our ground forces for another 12 down iranian drones. our sense of unity, authenticity, life itself,

all those contrast dramatically with the fear that prevails and russia, they are afraid you can feel it. and they are right to be afraid because they are losing drones. missiles, anything else will not help them? because we are together, and they are together only with fear, and they will not take away a single year from ukraine that will not take away our independence. isn't going to come without the dish or the thought on december 31st. the armed forces of the russian federation carried out a strike with high precision long range air launched weapons at the facilities. the military industrial complex of ukraine evolved in the manufacture of combat. jones used to carry up terrorist attacks against the russian federation, storage areas and attack u. v launch sites were also hit. plans by the key of regime to carry out these attacks in the near future have been thwarted. and investigation is underway in uganda into the death of at least 10 people and across during years eve

celebrations. it happened to the shopping mal in the capital cam. paula. as people tried to enter the building after fireworks display, it was such a means to me. then he told us that we should go up on which by alex, from the packing up. then as we were going up, they told us, no, you have to go back. so people are some hydrate. they reached the packing. so the 1st them to come back to the main hall so that tricia from up under pressure from don't lead to bring to some, some colleagues of ours, which literally had this 14 people are being killed in an attack on a prison in the northern mexican city. water's that on assault by gunman and armored vehicle sell our 24 in master scape, an important bridge, connecting columbia and venezuela has fully reopened. it was close almost 7 years because of strained relations of headlines. more news coming up right after the

bottom line. i for now. oh i hi, i'm steve clements and i have a question with neither side willing to negotiate is the ukraine war becoming a forever war? let's get to the bottom line. ah. after 10 months of fighting, the ukraine war has settled into a scary cycle. any ukrainian advance and russian forces in the east is almost immediately followed by russian drone strikes on ukrainian infrastructure in the west. so besides the death and the destruction and displacement of people, folks who are also suffering in freezing temperatures with no electricity. ukraine insist that the war is not over until the very last russian soldier leaves his territory. moscow can afford to wait it out because the fighting is on its soil and

western sanctions haven't crippled the economy. sure, the conflict is coming home for russians as they hear horror stories from their own young, mobilize mostly male population on the front lines. but the war machine just rages on. meanwhile, us president joe biden has been able to spend an average of $7000000000.00 per month on the ukraine war. but now that the republicans control congress, can he keep up the pace next year, or will ukraine soon have to make tough compromises and sit down at the negotiating table. today we're taking a look at the next phase of the war with steven wall, professor of international relations at harvard university and author of the hell of good intentions, american foreign policy lead and the decline of us primacy. steve, it's so great to be with you. again, this is always a tough discussion. i want to tell people none of us take what's going on lightly. but i'm very happy to be talking to dr. walt today about what history tells us at moments like this. what, what should we be thinking about that maybe we're afraid to talk about about where

the ukraine is. a war is going, steve. well, i think probably the scariest prospect for most of us is that you won't get the site kind of decisive hollywood ending. but many people would like to see here. i think most of us would like to see where you get sort of decisive humiliating defeat of russia. the united states and its allies can claim, you know, a great foreign policy victory, the ukrainians, get all of their territory back. and russia is a chassis and in the future by this that's, i think what many people would like to see. and the problem is that while that is, i guess, still a remote possibility is by no means the most likely possibility. i think the most likely possibility is that if we have this conversation a year from now, russia is still controlling a substantial amount of ukrainian territory. vladimir putin is still in power in moscow, and ukraine has suffered another years worth of damage. that's not going to look

like such a happy story. but it's precisely in situations like that that each side has to start rethinking what it's war aims are, as far as asking whether there is some sort of political compromise that neither one is necessarily going to like very much. but better than allowing the war to continue forever. well, president biden has been very hesitant to ask ukraine to begin any sort of real negotiations process, but both around the president, but also very top tier national security voices are beginning to say we need another track. one of them is henry kissinger and henry kissinger in the spectator, wrote, the time is approaching to build on the strategic changes which have already been accomplished and to integrate them into a new structure towards achieving peace through negotiation. a representative of president vladimir zaleski was very quick to respond. he says, all supporters of simple solutions should remember the obvious. any agreement with

the devil, a bad piece at the expense of your, the in territories will be a victory for putin and a recipe for success for autocrats around the world. and that was ukrainian presidential aid mac. hi lo puddle. jak. well, i think that frames pretty well, you know, 2 dimensions in the, in the debate. and i guess one of the questions i have for you, steven is america and nato. so wrapped up in this process, now that we can't be the party that begins talking about how to seek a compromise or negotiate, or we stu stuck on one side of this, that we're no longer able to see the other side. i don't think that's quite true. it's true that the united states may not be the best honest broker here, given that we're all in on, on one particular side. and there may have to be 3rd parties that help sort of smooth the beginnings of this discussion. i might add that the a,

the president soleski is right. this is not going to be an easy negotiation by any means. and the obstacles to any kind of political settlement are formidable in people who talk about, you know, going to p stocks and reaching a solution very quickly. i think have not thought to clearly just how difficult this is going to be. ukraine has every reason to want some kind of assurances that this isn't going to happen again. russia will undoubtedly have its own desires for certain assurances so that the things that helped lead it to start the war in the 1st place are alleviated. and none of these are going to be easy to work out at all, so i wouldn't be naive about it. but nonetheless, the thing that's going to drive, i think, consideration of some form of negotiated settlement is the difficulty that both sides are going to have an achieving any kind of decisive breakthrough on the ground. it's quite clear that the initial russian war plan was badly designed there

forces mismanage that they weren't prepared. they made miscalculation after miscalculation, but at this point, there are war effort does appear to be improving slightly. they have defensible positions that are going to be hard for the ukrainians to tackle. it's going to be increasingly hard for either side, i think to make really decisive gains. and yet the pain will continue. and it's a point like that. sometimes it's called a hurting stalemate, that then you get people to say, well, ok, we're not going to get everything we might want. what can we get that we might be able to live with? i don't think we're there yet by the way. but that's i think, where this is ultimately going and up. one of the questions i have is, how much pain are the russians feeling from this? and recently i met with gentlemen who was the former chief of staff of the german defense ministry is now working for the minute munich security conference. and he's very adamant that ukraine will win and will prevail. in this he said that the

russian soldiers are untrained, unprepared. they are, while we're seeing pictures of ukrainians. you know, freezing in these, in these terrible temperatures because of hit infrastructure. he said the moment, ah, the russian soldiers get wet or their uniforms aren't, aren't managed properly. they will freeze in these temperatures because they're untrained to know what to do. and i'm just interested at some certain levels at whether the feedback coming back into russia with the mobilization of so many of its young men and the battlefield seeds on the russian side, which are pretty horrific. whether not from your experience, that matter is in a place like russia, that even if it's not a democracy in the way, you and i look at it, a lot of russians still think they are a democracy. right? there is no question that the russian soldiers have suffered enormously and we're not particularly well prepared for this. again, there are some indications that they're getting their act together to some degree.

one of the things, it's very frustrating and trying to figure out where we are in this particular conflict, is it, it's hard to know what the relative balances on either side. i think we tend to get more upbeat reports from what's happening on the ukrainian side. it's hard to get numbers on exactly what your cranium losses have been. we hear a lot about how badly the russians are suffering. we don't hear as much about what's happening on the ukrainian side, apart from the civilian suffering that ukraine is going through. and that makes it really hard to know exactly what the balance of forces likely to be. to also be worth remembering. rushes got 3 times the population pollutants. mobilization has brought 300000 more soldiers into the, into the meat grinder. how well prepared they're going to be, how well they're be able to fight, remains to be seen. it seems to me, but again, the russians at this point are fighting on the defensive and they have devoted an

enormous amount of effort over the last few months to building defensive positions in some key areas. whether that will be enough. again, we don't know yet. it would be in some respect, what all of us hope for is of it that turns out not to be effective. what i don't think any of this is going to do though, is cause a fundamental rethinking in moscow anytime soon you're not going to see it seems to me a popular uprising. i think the combination of russian propaganda and the security forces around pollutant are going to be able to keep the lid on this. so even though it's not particularly popular, even though the conduct of the war, it gets lots of criticism in the russian blogosphere as well and on email and things like that. i don't think that's going to lead to the kind of political change in russia that will cause an immediate, as i said, hollywood ending to this particular conflict. and i, i take no pleasure whatsoever in saying that let me put up some figures of what

u. s. a to ukraine is amounting to be in 2022 alone. we have contributed about $68000000000.00. president biden has now requested an additional $37700000000.00, and that would bring the total if approved up to about 100105 1000000000. it's running about $7000000000.00 a month to, to support ukraine. and as we said, congress is going to be, have a new dimension here shortly in a couple of weeks, and the republicans will be controlling it now to be clear to our prince republicans are not anti supporting ukraine. some republicans are some democrats are, but this may become more of an issue about whether or not there is a blank check to supporting ukraine. and i'm wondering whether you see where you see that going in terms of pressure. you've advocated that maybe we need another course, maybe we need to find a way towards the negotiated outcome of this given the realities. but does that

pressure on the financial side help? well, i don't think there's going to, you're going to see a congressionally mandated cut off anytime soon. i think congress will give the by the administration what it wants, at least for the next next few months. so i don't think that's going to be an issue . i do worry about the fact that even with the best will in the world, it may be somewhat more difficult for the west to include the united states to provide the levels of support that they've been able to sustain up until now. and that's in part because we've simply drawn down a lot of our own ammunition stocks to provide it to the ukrainians. so even if we want to keep supporting them at the level we have that may be hard to do sort of the military equivalent of a supply chain problem. but the thing that i think, worries me the most, is that we still don't have a completely effective counter and may never get one to the attacks. the russians have been making on ukraine civilian infrastructure and especially it's power grid

that kind of damage. if it eventually were to bring down the ukrainian power grid is a true catastrophe. and again, it's not just undermining ukrainian morale at that point. you really have a situation where, you know, millions of ukrainians might end up having to leave the country, which is already an issue for them. so there are, there are things that could happen in the next few months. again, i hope they do not, which worrying me greatly and are somewhat independent of the billions of dollars up or down that the united states is able to provide both your article that appeared recently in foreign policy magazine. i highly recommended people called the perpetually irrational ukraine debate, but also henry kissinger's article in the spectator. both out very recently, kind of raise this broad issue that, that where we're going right now isn't going to work. and to kissinger's point, he said in world war one, which was a fight about a lot of things, a fight about morality, a fight about, you know,

alliances essentially the united states at that moment in world war. and eventually became someone who could come in and come in from the the side and begin trying to do something different. is there anywhere you know, you're famous in, in our air of israel to talk. so is there an off flow out there? you can use also any more because they're now in nato, i guess. but i mean, is there a force out there that could come by way and begin becoming part of the scene, set the stable, set the dinner, bring the parties together and begin talking about potential alternative outcomes. you know, i don't think so when they were initially broke out, i thought that the country that might be able to perform a role like that was actually china that it had influence with russia. it had a reasonably good standing with ukrainians. it wasn't actively involved in the fight and he's in pain, could represent himself as an independent mediator, just trying to bring peace and score some great diplomatic points. if you were able

to pull that off. i think the chinese response, which has been to that have tacitly lean in support of the russians, has now remove them from that role and they're not really interested in, in plainness. i don't think there is a 3rd party now that can essentially come in, grab each side by the scruff of the neck and say, okay, you're going to to make a deal. it's too politically brought for the bite and administration to try and play that role. i don't think turkey, although it's played a mediating role on some minor issues connected with the conflict. but it's not in a position, doesn't have the leverage to produce the kind of deal. and ultimately this will come down to the 2 sides deciding that they are better off reaching some kind of an agreement. i don't know what form that agreement would take. and that will, as i said earlier, involve an awful lot of complex bargaining over where lines are going to be drawn. the repack creation of prisoners reconstruction aid for ukraine,

the whole issue of ukrainian neutrality, which is one of the reasons the war started assurances from the russian side. they're not simply going to rearm and start this up again a few years down the road, etc. there's an enormous number of issues that would have to be thrashed out here. and perhaps the best one could hope for is a, a genuine armistice that doesn't necessarily end the quote unquote conflict, but puts each side in a position where they don't want to resume things. a number of people. i think gideon rockman, in the financial times have recently raised the korea example. there's still no peace treaty ending the korean war. fought for 3 years from 1950 to 953. but we have had an armistice that has held ever since then and something like that, but fashioned appropriately for the specific circumstances of ukraine might be where we end up here. of course, the korean war and part depends upon the trigger of us soldiers deployed there. in

part including, you know, the likelihood of a nuclear potential, you know, option can there. so as a sort of scary scenario to begin thinking about. but i think on another side of it, i've been trying to ask myself for the united states and nato, and i've been around a lot of officials recently who are just absolutely adamant that russia can not be given another permission slip as some people said it was given after the invasion and alex station of crimea, that it's expansion activities are, are one, you know, and troubling in the, in parts of eastern europe was something that needed a signal back. otherwise, if you don't respond, then this problem will become a larger one. do you think there's logic in that, in that argument? i understand the logic, but i'm not persuaded by it. the idea is that if somehow russia gets anything out of this, you know, even permanent control of crimea, that we've somehow rewarded regression. we've somehow given them a free pass,

and i think if you look at the damage that's been done to russian but done to the russian military, it's quite clear that this is a strategic defeat for russia. even if they extract some kind of pyrrhic victory in some kind of final settlement. and if you just consider what this is done to the russian economy, what it's done to the russian military, what it's done to russia's global reputation, europe permanently weaning itself off of russia, oil and gas. russia being largely cut off from the most sophisticated forms of western technology are forced to smuggle them in. this is going to have a long term negative consequences for russia. in other words, they're paying an enormous price for what the decision bladder report made. so even if they were to extract some set of concessions at the end, preserve some control of crimea or other parts of what was originally ukrainian territory. again, not something i would like to see happen,

but if that were to happen, they have paid an enormous price for it and i don't think putting would be eager at any point in what's left of his life. to replay, this kind of experiment again somewhere else. the international community has, in fact, taught the lesson that aggression really does get penalized, and it really doesn't pay. even if again, there's some kind of compromise deal that ends the war. you and i have discuss china before and china as a much more serious geo strategic challenge to the united states and allies. what do you think china is learning from this lesson? are they seeing in america and a nato that are willing to engage more deeply than they had, or they seeing us trapped in a strategic, you know, pit that we can't extract ourselves from? i'm sure there are a range of chinese interpretations of what's going on here, but i think there are several lessons they ought to be drawing. one is that even,

you know, sophisticated or well prepared, military, sometimes screw up. and in fact, a elaborate military plans don't always go the way you expect them to. so that suggest a conventional military assault on taiwan, which would be difficult in the best of circumstances, is something they ought to really not consider. or at least not assume would go smoothly. that's lesson number one less. number 2 is the one you alluded to that, that in fact, the international community tends to respond very vigorously to acts of unprovoked aggression. and the chinese assault on taiwan would be seen in that light. so the assumption that there would be disarray that america's asian partners would, you know, not know how to respond idea that nato would not react perhaps even in an asian context. all of those things are, are things that i think the chinese would not. we should take these or lessons the chinese should observe from this. there was more life left in the western alliance

than they may have believed. however, that the 3rd part of this is that the longer this war goes on, the better it probably is for china. in a huge distraction, it takes enormous amount of bandwidth is consuming american resources and western resources that could be used for other purposes. so in a chinese contact in some out, and one finally, it's making russia more dependent upon china and ultimately a more compliant ally. so if you are looking for a grand strategic imperative to try and bring the ward to an end sooner rather than later. it's also so that the united states can focus on what is the longer geo strategic challenge, which is china and not russia. recently, see by interview the incoming chair, the house commerce and energy committee, kathy morris rogers and i asked her about where her support for ukraine was,

and how much were hurt own constituents willing to tolerate high prices, shortages, etc, down the road potentially related to the crisis and her response was, you know, my people really don't want to see prices continue to go up. inflation is really hurting them. and she still, of course, sympathetic you know that on the ukraine front, but it raises syncing question of how the, what the future is going to look like we're seeing, you know, a global food security crisis. we're seeing energy weaponized, we're seeing authoritarianism, popular populism, etc. in reaction to some of these, how messy a year or a couple of years the, you see a head as a result of a crisis like this one very, you know, as you know, they've been, since there's been some good news on the inflation front at least here in the united states, less so in other parts of the world. so that's something we may hope you know, continues. but i think you've put your finger on what is it a real problem? now if we do end up with a stalemate in ukraine, and that is,

it's one thing to get people in other countries to make sacrifices in the short term. if they think those sacrifices are going to pay off, it's much harder to get people to continue to make the same sacrifices when it appears to be kind of open ended, that this is not ultimately going to get resolved any time soon. are we going to have to do this for years to 3 years, 4 years that will you? and i saw the same problem with the so called forever wars in afghanistan and iraq, even when there's public support initially for them. if you don't have the prospect of success down the road, it's much harder to get people to continue to pony up and then it makes it even worse. of course, if conditions at home become more difficult, i think this is something actually the ukranian government is well aware of, which is one of the reasons they have been trying to count recent military successes. and i think are hoping for more because the more they can demonstrate that momentum is on their side and this isn't going to take forever. more likely

western support is to be sustained. the difficulty is, i think the military challenge for them is actually going to get harder, not easier in the future. and then the domestic considerations that you just raised, you're going to kick in more powerfully or steven wall, harvard university professor of international relations. thank you for your candra . thanks so much for being with us today. great talking with you as always to. so what's the bottom line ending? the war in ukraine is a tough decision for the western allies. they feel that they didn't do enough in 2014 when russia annexed crimea. and that kind of gave russian president vladimir putin a permission slip in my view, to try to roll over the rest of the country. now the u. s. in the other nato nations have made ukraine, which was not an ally, and that has to be noted, be defining challenge for themselves. that means their own self image and their own sense of security is also wrapped up in the fate of ukraine. but how long will americans accept to pump money and weapons into this cause?

if it becomes a forever war, american and european support is bound to whither? so what should ukraine do? it's damned if it compromises and damned if it doesn't. and both options have very tragic consequences. so as we head into a new year, we have nothing to look forward to, but a slow slog of back and forth victories and tragedies in freezing temperature. sadly, this war seems to nowhere near to an end. and that's the bottom line, ah witness inspiring films from around the world. they shall not stop the violence until the power is best witnessed. award winning voice is telling ground breaking stories. witness on al jazeera. ah, with

lou. 11 o'clock into how it's up stories here. analogy, zera and brazil. you president lewis not feeling the silver has promised to rebuild the country who sworn in for an unprecedented 3rd term. he said democracy was the true winner of october election in which he narrowly defeated jaya. boss morrow or you read me aside, you over the you with today i'll message to brazil is one of her.