this is bbc news, the headlines: president biden�*s told us citizens to leave ukraine now. fears remain that the country's to be invaded by russia as a military buildup near the border continues. the president warned the army's one of the biggest in the world and "things could go crazy quickly". the uk's most senior police officer has handed in her resignation. cressida dick, the head of london's metropolitan police force said she'd been left with no choice after the capital's mayor made it clear he had no confidence in her leadership. in canada, protests led by truckers over coronavirus restrictions are growing. there are blocks and delays on at least three land border crossings into the us, including one of the most important trade routes over the ambassador bridge. car makers report the disruption�*s having an impact on production. now on bbc news, it's time for

hardtalk with stephen sackur. welcome to hardtalk, i'm stephen sackur. vladimir putin knows how to probe for weakness in the west. with his troop build—up on the ukrainian border he is testing the unity of nato — in particular, he's putting pressure on europe's eastern flank. how will nations once in the soviet orbit respond? well, my guest is kiril petkov, prime minister of bulgaria, which moscow says must not host a nato military presence. now, this is a big test for a new prime minister in the eu's poorest country. is bulgaria ready to stand up to russia?

prime minister kiril petkov, in sofia, welcome to hardtalk. hi, stephen. it's good to be with you. it's great to have you on the show, prime minister. ijust referred to vladimir putin probing for weaknesses in nato. do you think bulgaria is a weak link in nato? not at all, not at all. we have made a very clear position that we are a strong voice in nato and in the european union, and what you see from bulgaria is a very predictable member of nato, and i don't think the word weakness should be associated with us at all.

you say very predictable — some would say it's not quite clear where bulgaria stands right now, because the nato member states are very keen to push more forces into the eastern and southeastern flank of nato, including to your country. we've got spain, the netherlands, the uk offering warplanes to bulgaria. do you want them? first, stephen, i want to make sure that all the viewers know that being part of nato, the bulgarian troops are also nato troops, and what we believe is that no matter where the nato troops are from originally, we act as one. that's the strength of nato. so, what we have decided as a government is to put bulgaria as a framework nation with a battalion, and this battalion would be under bulgarian command, coordinated fully, and coordinated fully with the nato command, and at the same time, we fully realise that we don't have all the capabilities

required for a truly effective battalion, so, all the deficits that we have in terms of both equipment and troops, we're inviting our partners from nato to join so we can have a really effective battle group on the ground — but this is the first time that bulgaria has decided not to be just a consumer of security, but to be a constructive member and actually putting its own troops as part of the whole nato force. right, but... so, i think this is as clear... right. sorry, prime minister, sorry to interrupt, but the question is, who's calling the shots here? is it nato command telling you, bulgaria, what you will do in response to what is perceived to be a growing threat precipitated by the ukraine crisis? or are you in sofia calling the shots? because your defence minister, he seems to be on a slightly different page from you, mryanev says, "no—one," and he's clearly talking

about nato high command, "no—one will impose decisions on us related to our security." so, are you going to take those warplanes from spain, the netherlands and the uk or not? yes, we are inviting our nato partners to be part of the total strategy that's located in bulgaria, but for the first time, we're trying to do something different. we are trying to put the bulgarian battalion first for two reasons. first of all, we want to be an active participant, notjust to host our friends to come into bulgaria, but to be working with them. the second thing is throughout the last years, unfortunately, our investment in defence has been very sporadic. there has not been a systematic approach to investment in security. so, what we're trying to do is to use the crisis as an opportunity. form a bulgarian battalion, be under bulgarian command, identify where the deficits

and weaknesses... right. ..invite nato partners, and then, interestingly, invest in the military capacity going forward to fulfil these deficits. so... so, hang on... i want to be very, very clear. all right. so, what is your message to vladimir putin, then? he's made — the russians have made it plain that they regard nato military presence on your soil as an unacceptable provocation, and they want a nato pull—back from bulgaria. it sounds like you're prepared to provoke putin. i want to say very clearly another very important point. we do not believe, in bulgaria, in areas of influence. we do not believe... this is a past century, early past century history

where somebody was drawing lines on a napkin. there is no such thing. every country has the ability to decide for itself. no foreign country can tell — for example, russia cannot tell how many troops we should have ourselves, and the whole idea of areas of influence is something that we do not believe. small countries should have equal strong voice of what they should do inside their borders — and another thing, i also, and i'm truly supported by our nato members, other member states, is it doesn't matter if you're small or you're big, you're part of nato. we cannot have class a and class b nato countries. we cannot have more to the east and more to the west. we are all nato countries and we should talk in one voice and act coordinated. that's the whole idea of nato, which i truly believe in. are you worried that while you're head of government and you give me that particular message, your head of state, that is president radev, he's saying something rather different? recently, he referred to crimea as being russian, "currently russian", he said, and he also argued that western sanctions

against moscow simply don't work — so, vladimir putin may enjoy hearing his words rather more than yours. one thing that we have absolutely the same with the president, and i think he also believes in this and i believe in this, is that, of course, de—escalation is our first priority. it should be a priority for all of europe. for all of nato countries. diplomacy should be the first way to go, no matter what sanctions, and any military build—up is only in case of no other choice. so, in this respect, we speak in the same voice. he says — he says sanctions don't work.

you say sanctions do work, do you? becausejoe biden, as you will be well aware, wants you and all of the western allies in nato and the european union to impose the most severe of sanctions if vladimir putin launches a new military operation in ukraine. are you telling me here and now that bulgaria will be part of those crippling sanctions on russia? i want to tell you something very important for nato and for the european union. we have to discuss as much as we have to, but, in the end, when we speak to russia, we have to speak in one voice. one of our strengths is to be connected, to be coordinated, to speak in one voice. if we start speaking in different voices within nato, then we become automatically weak. so... well, mr prime minister, you... maybe you need to tell your own president that, because your voice and his are rather different. no, no, i think that de—escalation is one voice, being part of nato is one voice. there is bulgarian troops and nato troops is in one voice. the one thing that i want to make sure that i confirm here in this discussion is that bulgaria's position towards crimea is identical and one of the same as the total

position of the european union, and that crimea is not part of russia. just one more question on sanctions. if it comes to pass that there is a russian military move in ukraine, and severe sanctions are put on putin, there is no doubt that putin will respond by taking measures, economic measures, against the eu and nato member states. bulgaria is extremely vulnerable. your energy sector is dominated by gazprom, by lukoil, by russian companies, and you will suffer. do you think your people, 25% of whom say that they regard russia as an ally which shares interests and values with bulgaria, do you think your own people will be happy with that? so, sanctions and energy risk is a big issue. this is why we want to explore all the steps of diplomacy and all the steps of de—escalation before sanctions are imposed, because you are absolutely right — our gas dependency on russia is absolutely, like, it's more than double the one of the average of europe. mm. we also have dependency on the electricity, on our nuclear stations, so, yes, that would be a big problem for us if there is such opposite sanctions — but here i had the chance to speak with our brussels friends

in the european commission, and we have a plan that, in the case of special sanctions, they could be where bulgaria is still a net exporter of electricity. maybe for some short period of time, there could be derogations. we are also building very fast right now the connection to greece, where we can actually have potential access to other sources of gas.

i've put this connection from bulgaria to greece to be a top priority. we expect it to happen in the next four to five months. so, we are actively trying to mitigate these risks — but it's important to say that these risks should be also borne by the unions together. we cannot separate the cost by individual country. we have to make sure that everybody has the same cost and weight if this happens as european union and as nato. in other words, we have to make sure that being together in one voice when we speak to russia, but also facing the costs as equally sharing it in case that happens. i really hope it doesn't. in a word, then, you are saying that you can survive if russia turns off the energy taps to bulgaria. only... if this happens, in this very severe case, if this happens, we can survive, but we have to limit our exports of electricity. so, that means the common european market should make an exception in that case just for that period of time. all right. now, let's move on to other issues. it strikes me this ukraine crisis has arisen at a time where you are wrestling with the deepest, most difficult challenges inside your own country. i mean, politically, you've sort of come from nowhere to become prime minister at the end of last year. you promised your people when you got the job that

you were going to make stopping corruption your number one priority. the problem is your mandate is weak. you only got 25% of the vote with your party. the turnout was profoundly low. only 38% of bulgarians bothered to vote. and now, your task is to completely change and reform bulgaria's system of governance to root out corruption. can you do it? yes, i truly believe we can. otherwise i would not be in this position. our whole party came from, mostly from the private sector, from businesses. we are alljust sick and tired of connecting bulgaria and corruption as common brands. so, our true dream is to speak to you in four years, and when we say corruption, bulgaria to be a positive brand where everybody would say, due to strong leadership in the anti—corruption campaign, bulgaria has been able to eradicate the fastest, the levels of corruption that it used to have. so, i really hope to have a harvard case in about four years, where we can say leadership can kill corruption in very fast way. now, in order not to sound like a dreamer, i want to tell you that we are taking active steps on it. so, the very first

week that we formed the government, we already have an anti—corruption commission in the parliament, one of ourfirst laws that we are working on is the anti—corruption commission investigative powers. we've put very strong language in the resilience and recovery plan, where we want to have specialjudge being able to prosecute the chief prosecutor, where we think a lot of the problem is hidden right now. we have stated very clearly zero tolerance to corruption. and let me tell you something, i gathered all my mps before we started and i said, "if any of you makes the wrong "choice in the next four years, we'll...really i'll be happy "to show an example that will start from our own group, "notjust the opposition." so, we have... the reason we got into power, and the reason why we'll stay in power, is because we'll have zero tolerance to corruption, and if this causes the stability of our coalition, we are willing to pay the price.

well, that's one heck of a pledge you're making, given that you are the eu's most corrupt country and transparency international actually suggests in recent years you've been going in the wrong direction, becoming more corrupt, not less, but the big problem you've got is that you don't have the tools to make good on your promise. for example, you just talked about the prosecutor general being a key player in this. you, i'm sure it's true to say, would like to fire the prosecutor general because he's a holdover...

true. ..from the previous borisov regime, but you can't fire him. indeed, he's fighting back, and accusing you of waging an illegitimate war against his office. you have a profound problem here. it's true. if it was easy, it would have been done by now, so, yes, by constitution, we need two thirds majority to change, let's say, the chief prosecutor's office, and to change the constitution in a way that this would not be repeated again. but i am truly a believer that if there is a will, there is a way. it may not happen as fast as every voter would like, and including myself and our team. but taking these steps already — so, last week, we already have the ability for the first time in bulgarian history for the judicial minister to actually put accusations towards the chief prosecutor and the constitutional court voted for that. but there may be a lot of bulgarians listening and watching to this interview. they want to know whether you're going to go after the oligarchs, the people, who, for years, without any democratic

accountability, have actually been running your country. they also want to know if you're going to go after your predecessor, mr borisov. there are some famous pictures that have been seen by all of your countrymen suggesting that in his bedroom he might have had gold and guns and all sorts of things. now, he denies the veracity of those pictures. he denies all allegations of corruption. but are you going to investigate borisov and these so—called oligarchs? so, let me say it this way. yesterday, i was at the chief prosecutor's office, and i gave the data for 19 people, which there is already a lot of public information for what they have done, and how they're connected with corruption. so, i went to the office, and i gave all this information

to the chief prosecutor and asked the chief prosecutor, "unless you have noticed, we have all this information. "you better start working for it." and one of the people, part of these 19 people, is mr borisov himself. and let me tell you something, it's not the usual political talk — opposition versus the party in power. it's about dividing the people that have benefited from public funds, and the people that haven't, and theft and corruption doesn't

have a political party name. it has full description of what they have done, and it doesn't matter who it is, as i said. even if we find anybody from our coalition to do that, we'll have zero tolerance, and we're going after it. i'm not afraid of any oligarchs. i made it clear on the national tv, and i'm making it clear now — all these people that all these years have been mentioned as the very powerful and scary, we're here to make a change, and if the change happens by removing them, that's exactly what we're going to do. all right. well, mr borisov, of course, denies allegations of corruption that have been aired in your country. we need to make that clear. let's move on. you have promised your people that bulgaria will be in a position to join the schengen free movement area in the eu and, even more, you've promised that you're going to join the eurozone byjanuary ist, 202a. given the state of your economy, the state of organised crime and corruption, and the lack of trust in bulgaria in brussels, how on earth are you going to deliver? the good thing is, we're only 6.5 million people, so in most places around the world, this is two neighbourhoods of new york, two neighbourhoods of istanbul. it's. . . it's not... it looks like a it's like such a large problem, but when you think about 6.5 million people —

it's manageable. so, first of all, the state of our economy is pretty good, i have to say this, at least this is the good part. our revenue, tax revenue is in good shape. our deficit is under control. our debt to gdp is in very good shape... yeah, the numbers aren't so terrible. i agree. but the bottom line is you're still the poorest nation in the european union. that's reality. i really hope, and that's, of course, how our economic policy's hoping to drive this. the moment we clean up the place from the corruption issue, and the moment we have government as we have right now, that is very pro—business oriented, very transparent, i hope that the convergence that you're going to see from bulgaria, and catching up to eu standards, would be fully integrated with this cleaning up of the corruption. so, i'm expecting high growth rates in the next few years. but you're right, the problems are there, and this is why we're here. if there was not these problems that you just described, i would have been doing my business and not being at all related with the political life of bulgaria. the problems made us all rise to power.

there's another issue when it comes to your country's reputation in brussels, and that is the issue of macedonia, north macedonia, and the stance you as a country have taken, blocking all accession talks that north macedonia believed it had been promised by the eu, but which bulgaria now says cannot go ahead, based, it seems, on your claim that macedonia is in effect really bulgaria, and that the macedonian language, for example, has no legitimacy because it's really bulgarian, and you want all of that written, for a start, it seems, into the macedonian constitution. what on earth is going on here? to quote one respected independent academic in sofia, ivaylo ditchev, he says, "there is no rational "explanation for the bulgarian veto on opening accession "talks with north macedonia." are you going to change policy?

absolutely. there are few... so, the very first day that my colleague dimitar got into power in north macedonia, i went to visit him, and a week later we met, where we signed three memorandums. a week later, today, we have yet another meeting on transport and common infrastructure, and tomorrow is the first flight that's flying from sofia to skopje. so, we've...we've changed the agenda to look at all the synergies we have versus all the problems. there are some problems. for example, one big issue for us has been — forget about all the historical focused stuff that everybody is talking about. there are some other issues that are still we have to tackle with. for example, the bulgarians in north macedonia still don't have legal protection rights, and that's about... with all due respect, neither do ethnic macedonians in bulgaria. in fact, the european court of human rights has heard more

cases on that basis than any experiences suffered by bulgarians inside macedonia. so, you're on very shaky ground there. the bottom line is it comes down to your political will because your president, your president says that your reaching out to the macedonian government is, quote unquote, "a mistake". so, you're going to have to take on a lot of powerful people in your own country if you want to normalise relations with macedonia. butjust to let me tell you, the good thing, the good news is when we're sitting with the prime minister of north macedonia, we actually agreed fully on the fact that the bulgarians should have the legal rights that all other macedonians have, and all other macedonians of other origins have, such as the albanians. so, we don't... the good thing here, the good story is that we are all in understanding about this. the question is what is the path to get there and what is the overall public opinion on both sides of the border that would allow us to get there faster? we're out of time, almost. just yes or no, do you want north macedonia to be in the eu? absolutely. no doubt about that. all right, and a final question then, which is more personal, it's about you. yours is a great story. you studied in the united states, you worked in a corporate in america, then you came back to bulgaria

because you wanted to make your life in your own country. many, many smart young bulgarians don't do what you did and return. they go and they stay away. you've got a massive demographic problem because there's a brain drain. how are you going to persuade smart young bulgarians to stay in your country? half of our political parties formed by smart young bulgarians that have returned, and what... all the potential of bulgaria is absolutely incredible. i studied economics at harvard, and all the economics models show we have to have a very strong growth. we have access to the biggest market in the world. we have good human capital. our geography is placed well. so, when you look at all those prerequisites, we should be a growing, fast—growing nation. we should be the eastern portal to the eu market. we have the lowest taxation of all of europe. so, just cleaning up the place, and, as i said, it's 6.5 million people. i believe many bulgarians would see the opportunity to be part of the change, and we already see this... we're returning people as we speak. prime minister petkov, i thank you so much forjoining me from sofia. thank you.

thank you so much as well. hello. we're certainly starting to see the signs of spring on the ground and in the trees in parts of the uk, all being helped certainly on tuesday by well above—average temperatures — widely 12—14 degrees across england and wales, just a touch cooler in scotland, northern ireland.

but a much cooler end to the week on the way. temperatures dropping down, but closer to where it should be for this stage in february. that cooler air has been to the north of us. it'll be pushing southwards beyond this weather front, which, overnight, only slowly works its way southwards and eastwards, the mildest air becoming confined to the southern half of england and wales as we start wednesday morning. a chilly start further north with some ice in places, covering of snow and the showers overnight in scotland. those wintry showers continuing through the day here and on the hills and northern ireland, best of the sunshine to the south and east. brightening up in northern england, north wales through the morning, and after a damp start through the rest of wales and the midlands, should turn brighter into the afternoon. but after a bright start in southern areas, it turns cloudier and damper, breezier, too. strongest of the winds with gusts in excess of 50—60 mph across the north, where it could feel colder than four or five celsius would suggest. still holding

onto that milder air in southernmost counties. where we'll continue see clouds and rain into the night through wednesday night into thursday morning, attention turns to what's happening in the north of scotland. we could see severe gales develop with more extensive snow to take us into thursday morning. those strong winds stop temperatures widely falling below freezing, but it will be a cold start to thursday morning with subzero temperatures on the hills. and with severe gales gusting 60—70 mph in the north of scotland to begin with, heavy snow for a while — that breaks up into sunshine and showers. showers on and off through the day across some western areas, brightening up to the south after a hazy start, and some sunshine continuing in the east through the afternoon. but all of us will feel chillier than the past few days. add on the effect of the wind, a substantial wind—chill for parts of scotland, feeling subzero as we go through thursday afternoon. with that colder air in place, a ridge of high pressure building in — the blue colours showing the cold air — it'll be the coldest morning of the week as we head into friday. temperatures widely below freezing right across the uk, maybe —6 or —7 through parts of scotland. but a lovely, bright start to the day, crisp, sunshine overhead, a few mist and fog patches. cloud increases from the west, one or two showers here and there before

the day's out, and many places will stay dry and bright. that's how it's looking. see you soon.

this is bbc news. i'm victoria fritz with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. britain's most senior police officer is to step down after london's mayor loses confidence in her leadership. president biden tells us citizens to leave ukraine now, warning "things could go crazy quickly" russian skater kamila valieva faces a fight for her future at the winter olympics after testing positive for a banned substance. celebrated for discovering hiv, but later sidelined by fellow scientists. french virologist luc montagnier has died aged 89. hello and welcome .