hello, you are watching bbc news, the headlines. the united states has oil prices have risen to their highest in seven years. it has taken billions of dollars of the value of russian and ukrainian assets. elevations are taking place in colombia after the country's highest court decriminalised abortion up to 24 decriminalised abortion up to 2a weeks of pregnancy. activists argue that illegal abortions were risking the lives of thousands of colombian women every year.

now in an interview recorded before president putin will hello, and welcome to hardtalk, i'm shaun ley. a weekend of diplomacy, late—night phone calls, a breakthrough in the early hours — a us—russia summit is now in the offing. just how far isjoe biden willing to go to avoid war in europe? washington and its nato allies can't agree on sanctions, and they won't fight. adam smith is chairman of the armed services committee in the us congress. what will it take to

stop russia's troops? adam smith, a warm welcome to hardtalk, thank you so much for making time in your busy schedule in europe to come into the studio and talk to us. we are told as we sit here, in fact, the news has only come out in the last few hours, that there is to be a summit between presidentjoe biden and president vladimir putin. to what purpose? well, the summit is not 100% agreed to at this point. it was floated, i believe, by president macron as an option, and the biden white house has said they are open to it. now, they do clearly state one condition — no further incursion into ukraine. i'm not going to go in and talk to you if you militarily invade. the purpose is to give diplomacy a chance so that the military option is not used. so, i think with that condition, and again, it hasn't been mutually agreed to, it's not like 100% going to happen, but diplomacy is better than war. sergey lavrov and antony blinken will meet face—to—face

on thursday in the hope that the groundwork can be laid for this. it will be, if it goes ahead, the third time that the two leaders have had direct talks. they met in helsinki. they had their virtual summit towards the end of last year. each time, vladimir putin has rattled his sabre and he's got a response, but he hasn't actually given anything on any of those occasions. is that necessarily a very productive path? well, again, i mean, to the extent that it stops the war from happening. nothing... stops orjust delays? well, in the short—term, those two words mean the same thing. 0k? if in the end, the war happens and certainly, you know, you can be frustrated by the fact that it wasn't stopped, but at the moment, the fact that we have united a coalition against the invasion and have, you know, presented this united front that helps delay it, it's a very difficult situation. at the end of the day, if president putin decides that he, you know, whatever

the sanctions come, whatever the cost, that he's just going to do this, we don't have a button that we can push to control vladimir putin in russia. so, we're negotiating in a very difficult and very dangerous situation. in that sense, it's a disadvantage. one advantage you have over the rest of us is that as chairman of the house armed services committee, you see classified intelligence briefings. how likely, based on what you have been told, do you believe an invasion to be? well, in the first part, they are 100% in position to do it. it's not a matter of... i mean, within hours. basically, if they say, let's go, they're lined up, they're in position to do it. and our intel gives us pretty strong indication that this is the way that putin wants to go. now, part of what he wants to do, though, number one, he wants to make it clear that he was provoked. 0k? he wants to have the pretext that we've talked a lot about. look, i haven't supported everything that the biden administration has done, but i think they've handled this crisis really well by making it public. putin wanted to sneak this in,

but we used their intent. we made it public, and we said, "no, you're not going to give us a pretext. you're going to go to war. it's your decision. you are doing that." and i think.... just before we... because i'd very much like to pursue that thought about the strategy the white house has adopted. butjust on the question of your understanding, i have no expectation, it would be quite wrong, and you wouldn't do it to give us any detail of what you were told in confidence. sure. and you can't be expected to breach that...that trust. but it's important to understand. i've asked you about an invasion. you say he's ready to do it. how likely is an invasion or how likely is an incursion? or how likely is an attack? because they mean different things, don't they? and they might affect how the west responds. absolutely. well, i can tell you, and it's been widely reported, you know, obviously it's based on some classified information, but without getting into sources and methods, as they say, it is the opinion of the us intel that he's going to do it. but what does that mean? there are a lot of different options. does he go into the breakaway

eastern provinces, send troops in there and secure them? does he send everybody in, from belarus and from crimea? that — there is less clarity, but it is the opinion of our intel committee, as has been reported, that putin has decided to attack. the details, um, you know, we don't necessarily have. and on friday, president biden was saying in his address from the roosevelt room at the white house "in the coming week". that precise? yes, i think that is the opinion. now, look, and then this is optimistic, but also possible... i don't think putin expected us to be as united in our criticism against him. and i will say one thing — in your opening, there actually is, and i was surprised in speaking with the german chancellor and nato and others that were at the munich security conference, there is, in fact, an agreement on a wide list of sanctions that will be ready to go if putin does a further incursion. i don't think putin expected us to be this united.

that's interesting you say that because even in reporting from diplomatic circles in europe just a few days ago, they were saying, "yeah, they agree on the broad principle, but there's a real arguing, to—ing and fro—ing about the actual detail." these individual economies in europe are worried about the impact on them. yes. i mean, it's going to impact. some economies will be impacted more than others. but, again, all...you know, germany and france, spain, italy are the countries that are, you know, most impacted by it and have been perceived as being most reluctant to agree to it. there was unanimity that there is a package of sanctions the european commission will implement like that if he invades. we'll talk more about sanctions. just on this question of strategy, the president said, "we're calling out russia's plans loudly and repeatedly because we're doing everything in our power to remove any reason that russia may give to justify invading ukraine." what is the risk, though, of miscalculation here, that in a sense, that's not the message that putin gets? the message he gets is that there's no point in talking because america isn't going to make or nato

and its allies, other members, aren't going to make any further concessions to us. therefore, we might as well take what we want because they're not going to fight, they're not going to stop us. yeah, well, um, that conflates several different thoughts. again, you know, when putin lined up 75% of his military, 130,000 troops on the border, there weren't a lot of outstanding options at that moment. he was ready to go. so, you know, ithink we employed what we could to — use your word — to delay it, and hopefully in that delay, putin's calculus changes, and a huge part of that calculus is making it public so that he can't argue that there was some pretext and he was provoked and he didn't start the war. put it on him, number one, and numbertwo, be united in the punishment that is going to come. the other part of it, of course, is we are reinforcing in poland, in the baltics, we are moving more troops, more nato. and that's. .. you know, putin has said he wants us out. his actions are

bringing us more in. yeah, to defend nato countries, but not to defend other countries in europe that aren't part of nato, but we'll come to that as well in time. just on this question of sanctions, last month there was a bill that would have imposed some sanctions now to kind of say, you know, you've already gone too far, it has to stop. it was defeated. it didn't make the number of votes required in the senate. it had support from almost every republican. some democrats — six, i think — supported it. most of your party didn't, so it's all very well to talk about the europeans united, but the congress isn't united on this, and democrats are the ones who seem to be holding back against action. yeah, well, congress is rarely united per se on anything. but i know it's one of your ambitions — i mean you did put on a united front at the munich security conference. but on this particular question, and broadly speaking, and to a degree which i have not seen much in congress in the last couple of years, republicans and democrats are united in opposing putin and how important this is in bringing the coalition together. i mean, certainly during the trump years, we had a tough time getting republicans

and democrats united on putin and russia. yeah. well, that's gone. republicans and democrats are in the same place. the one area of disagreement is what you just said. do you put the sanctions in place now or do you hold them out as a threat against the invasion? my personal opinion is we're trying to stop him from invading. so, if you put the sanctions in place now, the cost is baked in. but you calibrate, don't you? you do something now, and you... i mean, this is... absolutely. we already have a bunch of sanctions. yes, some of them right now, the consequences of crimea. but they clearly haven't done enough to stop him almost repeating the playbook. senator ted cruz, republican — "0nly immediately imposing sanctions could change putin's calculation, stop the ukrainian invasion and lift the existential threat posed by nord stream 2," which is the gas supply pipeline which many believe will change the calculus for western europe once we become dependent on the supply and will become even less willing to resist russia's blandishments. senator cruz is right, isn't he? i don't think so. again... and i understand there's an argument to be had on both

sides, and i respect that viewpoint. but the other argument is if you impose the sanctions now, you're essentially saying we know you're going to invade, these are the sanctions. and at that point, putin doesn't face any... the costs are already imposed. why not do the invasion? that is the opposite argument. you hold that cost out as an incentive not to invade. if you impose the cost before he invades, well, then, why wouldn't he just go ahead and do it since he's already bearing the cost? clearly not the view in the presidential palace in kyiv. president zelensky, in his interview with christiane amanpour on cnn, said, "we don't need your sanctions after the bombardment will happen and after our country will be fired at or after we have no borders or after we have no economy. why would we need those sanctions then?" and as his foreign minister said only on sunday, "we can see what's happening. we can see what's happening, we can see how these things are unfolding. russia needs to be stopped now." yes. and, again, the way

to stop them is to say, "if you invade, here is the cost." 0k? the argument is, and i disagree with president zelensky�*s interpretation, i think that if we were to impose the sanctions now, you can ask the same question, well, then why wouldn't putin invade at that point? i agree with president zelensky. we should be doing what we can to stop the invasion. i just think that the best way to stop the invasion is to say the costs will come if you invade. if the costs are going to come anyway, then why wouldn't putin just invade and take the costs and what he perceives as the benefit? the other part of this, of course, is, and this is where we've got to pick up the speed, is getting more weapons and more support to ukraine so that the other piece of the cost — in addition to nato moving in, in addition to the sanctions — putin's got to know he's not going to be able to easily... it's not going to be like crimea in the east. it's not going to be easy and relatively cost—free. it's going to cost lives and money for putin to do this. so, upping that part of

the cost is important as well. let's talk about that, about what the implications are because there would be fighting. it may not involve us troops, it will involve us equipment, and it would involve equipment and materiel from other parts of nato as well. president biden says the administration has supplied the ukrainian military with equipment to help them defend themselves. i wonder what your assessment is of that materiel the pentagon is has supplied to kyiv? i think it is, you know, we... there is more that needs to be done, but the part of it that people need to understand is you also have to train the ukrainian troops so that they can use the equipment that you're sending them. we've had this problem in other parts of the world. i mean, you send them planes, they don't how to fly them, they don't know how to repair them. and in this case... or they can't get the spares. exactly, they can't get the parts in. so, i mean, there's been a lot of focus, for instance, on air defences, patriot missiles and elsewhere. to put a patriot missile battery in place takes a lot of time, and then you have to know how to use it.

all right? so, we're trying to get equipment to ukraine that is going to best help them that they can actually implement and use. look, as we know from a military standpoint, you're not going to build ukraine up to be able to stand up against the russian military. the point isn't, you know, how can we get ukraine strong enough? the point is how do we deter russia from doing it in the first place? you, i mean, you've been on the armed services committee for more than a decade. 25 years. right, and you've been the chairman of it for the last two years. you know this stuff... last three years. you know this stuff in detail. let me put to you this scenario. president putin doesn't immediately send in troops, and you've said there are a number of scenarios he could pursue, but he deploys air strikes and missile strikes. according to a former us marine officer, the actual equipment then doesn't help very much because it's not the kind of stuff that will help them. it may be... it may allow us to do hand—to—hand fighting, but it won't allow you to protect yourselves from a bombardment. no, i think that's something we need to build up

in the future, is to help them with air defences. but what's sort of been lost in all of this... and i was in ukraine last august and had detailed conversations with both the ukrainian military leadership and political leadership and our us military forces there. part of the reason that ukraine hasn't come into nato yet is their military has to get to the point where it can integrate with nato. and there are all manner of different issues there. it wasn'tjust, "0h, we don't want to put ukraine in nato because then we might have to go to war with russia." you have to be able to integrate with nato. you have to have the troops trained to do that, to provide that type of air defence, to have a military training system that gets rid of corruption, that works properly. you know, all of the countries that have joined nato over the course of the last 20 years, they will... they've had to do a lot of work to get their military forces up to that nato level. so yes, we can't, like that, turn ukraine into a military power that can defy russia. but we have these other options to deter putin, and that's what the president is using. you say, you know,

we talk about air defence in the future. well, that future may not be very long. you're right. and so then we're left with army. i think the green berets, who've done some of the training, some referred to it as the porcupine strategy, which is effectively you make ukraine as uncomfortable a place to operate in as you possibly can. i mean, effectively, it becomes a guerrilla war. yeah, think afghanistan, for... afghanistan for the british back in the day, afghanistan for the soviets back in the day, afghanistan for us in the not...for all of us, for nato and our allies, not—too—distant past. and that's the other message... not a happy precedent. no, it's not. well, in this case, i hope putin is aware of that precedent because if he goes into ukraine and faces a bloody and difficult insurgency for years... and the other thing that really isn't widely understood — prior to 2014, ukraine had sort of mixed emotions about russia. there was a lot of history there. there were a lot of people that really... i've been, i've talked to the patriots in the east. i've talked to the patriots in the west, i understand exactly what you're saying. but after 2014, ukraine hates russia with a purple passion, just about all of them, because, surprise...

..unsurprisingly, countries don't like it when you militarily attack them. so... they don't necessarily hate them in the donbas, though, do they? because those two self—declared republics now look more russian than western. well, i think it's certainly split cos i don't think the people in the donbas have enjoyed being at war for the last eight years. it hasn't exactly made them sympathetic to ukraine. yeah, no, exactly. it's probably made them unsympathetic to both. i mean, as we speak, they're being shipped 1000 miles away from their home because russia told them to. my point is, if russia goes into ukraine, it is not the ukraine that they think it is. this ukraine isn't going to... in other words, your argument is it's changed from the days that vladimir putin, in your own words cos you've said it before, kind of dreams of and harks back to the days of the soviet union, when belarus and ukraine and russia were the core. and indeed it was the presidents of those countries that effectively agreed in a dacha in the middle of nowhere one night that actually we're dissolving

the soviet union. they are the heart of it. and you understand that. for somebody like putin, he doesn't see ukraine and belarus as separate countries, he sees them as manifestations of the russian identity. right. and i think that is something it was really important at the munich security conference is to talk about how do we get to a peaceful resolution of our differences? and i know a lot of people, you know, sanctions, all this sort of stuff, you know? what difference does it make if we fight...? we don't want to fight over every disagreement that we have. we don't want war to be the answer, and an important principle in that... you go back far enough in history, there's boundaries that have moved everywhere. if we're going to operate under the principle that if once upon a time i had this piece of land, then the whole world is going to be fighting forever. so, that is the principle... you don't change borders by military force today. yes, it's been done throughout history.

we're trying to stop that. yeah, you did it in 2014, though. putin did it in 2014, and he got away with it. so, from his perspective, you know, really is the west that convinced, is it really prepared to draw a line here? i mean, you know, we had this, didn't we? we've drawn the line. you say you've drawn the line. it's a question of whether he crosses it and how you respond. fair enough. the united states will honour its obligations under the nato treaty. i mean, you're an attorney by profession. you understand legal obligations much better than i would. so, it'll deploy, as it has done, its troops in germany and poland and romania. you mentioned that already in this interview, but as kori schake, who served at state in the bush administration, now at the american enterprise institute, wrote recently in the new york times on the 11th of february, "these commitments only convey that the us will fight to defend existing nato members, not the rules of order that have stabilised europe. we have confectively conceded to russia a sphere of influence to prey on countries beyond nato�*s border." he's right, isn't he? no, that's complete nonsense. really?

yes, it's complete nonsense because if you think that the only way, the only option that you have to enforce order is to shoot people, ok, if you think that's it, the only way you enforce rules is to go in... you're mischaracterising him... what he said was, you know, if we're not prepared to militarily defend a country, then we're not prepared to stand up for the rule of law. i'm not mischaracterising at all. that is precisely what he is saying, and i'm saying that there are a ton of other options for enforcing the law. and this is, you know, this is enforcing the law in any level. it's whether they work. yes. well, here's the thing — they do. all right. peace is kept in communities, in cities all over the world without actually fighting. it happens. you have to have a deterrent, you have to have some sort of force, but then you have rules, you have mores, you have sanctions. there are all manner of other penalties and other ways to make sure that laws are followed. and that's what we're doing in the case of ukraine and others — sanctions, moving more troops into the nato countries,

becoming more present, putting ukraine in the position to have an insurgency that would be very costly to russia. none of which would, if he was minded to, stop him. it's not... it's not the deterrent that military action would be. that's true. but you also don't have as many dead people, ok, if you try that. all right. yes, military can be a deterrent. military can also be an accelerant. all right. you know, the whole statement about how weakness invites aggression, aggression... again, that takes us back to the point about miscalculation. but the thing you've got to remember is aggression invites aggression, too. so, how do we find a way to get to a more peaceful outcome? and those are the tools that we are attempting to employ in this case, and we don't know for sure how this is going to play out. a — he hasn't invaded yet. b — if he does invade, i think there's a pretty widespread opinion that it's not going to be successful. so, there's two options here for this approach to actually wind up being a deterrent. if russia further invades ukraine, to quote your own words when you spoke to msnbc earlier in the month, i mean,

it acknowledges that it has already taken a chunk of ukraine, and most people think there's no way back from the annexation of crimea. from president zelensky, you can understand him being a little bit sceptical about how far nato will stand with him, can't you, given he's not a member? i mean, he's watched the slow motion of his dismemberment of his country for years now, and they've got a kind of peace process, but it's a peace process that if it actually is reactivated, minsk, would effectively say to kyiv, "you have to give up more of your powers over your country, bits of your country." i mean, is that a particularly productive path? one of the key parts of this that we also need to communicate whether it's the us, the eu, nato, we are not god, 0k. we are not all—powerful. we cannot bring peace to all corners of the world. number one, you know, we have other interests. sometimes we don't do it that well. but number two, it's simply not possible. so, i mean, iwas in a refugee camp injordan meeting

with syrian refugees probably ten years ago now, and they were really angry. they were really angry that the us hadn't come in and fixed assad. 0k? and i understand that, i do. not least because of what president 0bama said. but i also understand, from my perspective as chairman, we didn't have that option, 0k, as we proved in iraq, as we proved in afghanistan. military might isn't going to come in and bring peace to the world. it is a complicated and difficult task. and i know if i was president zelensky, i'd be looking to the world to say, come in and fix this problem. and i'd be remembering my continent's own history. when the sudetenland, czechoslovakia was told to give up, it gave up the sudetenland — five months later, it didn't even exist as a country. it was a protectorate of germany. but we're not doing that this time. we're not saying... we're not going to putin saying, "well, you can have this piece and everything will be fine." we're very much not doing that, which i think is an important step. there is one country which will be watching

very closely — china. it's seen the us scuttle out of kabul. it's observing how the us reacts to russia's attempt, as you've expressed it, to restore past glories, to restore part of what was the old soviet union. do you think how the us acts now over ukraine could influence china's moves in the south china sea towards taiwan? i know you want to see a tilt towards asia—pacific in us thinking. yeah, absolutely, 100%. i mean, i think xi is looking at this. look... the principle of changing borders by force post—world war ii was severely restricted compared to any other time in history, but severely restricted, not completely eliminated. 0bviously, some borders have been changed throughout the world since world war ii. but if putin goes into ukraine and takes it and the rest of the world simply accepts it, absolutely that changes that calculus and gives xi a much better idea as a green light. if, on the other hand, we either stop him completely, or impose painful costs, so it winds up looking like a bad thing for russia that they invaded, if either of those two things happen, then xi's calculation goes the other way.

adam smith, chairman of the house armed services committee in the us congress, thank you so much for being with us. thank you. really enjoyed it. appreciate it. hello. the weather is looking a little calmer and quieter the rest of this week. no new named storms but still some wet and windy weather at times, and of course we have the legacy of all those storms, still some flooding, this is the picture in shrewsbury in shropshire. vote we will see flood warnings in force particularly across england and wales, and a few for scotland as well.

all down to the fact that we have got another band of rain approaching from the north—west. some of that rain will be falling on areas that really could do without it. still quite a lot of isobars on the map. another breezy day on tuesday. certainly not as disruptive as the winds we have seen recently. to start the day it will be cold towards the east, where we will have had the clearest skies for longest overnight, but rain already in northern ireland and scotland could be quite heavy over tuesday morning, with some blustery winds. it sweeps across northern england into wales, and will tend to become quite light and patchy. followed by sunshine and showers, some of them wintry over the high ground of scotland and gusts of wind round about 40 mph. another fairly cool feeling day across scotland and northern ireland where you are exposed to the windier conditions too but reasonably mild the further south and east, temperatures 13 degrees but turning colder behind that cold front as it sweeps eastwards. 0vernight, we are in that colder air mass, lighter winds and clearer spells, so that is the recipe for quite a chilly night as we head into the early hours of wednesday. could be a touch of frost across england and wales

particularly, it will cloud overfrom the north bringing some rain across northern parts of scotland as we start the day. after that fairly cool but mostly dry start towards the south at least, what we will see is this where the frontjust making inroads into scotland and northern ireland, so trying to push on, bumping into higher pressure further south. that will bring outbreaks of rain, perhaps a bit of melting snow into scotland. later into northern ireland, perhaps a bit showers into the far north—west of scotland, but for england we are looking at a drier day on wednesday, some sunshine around, temperatures ten or 11 degrees in the south but to the north of that cold front, only read about seven degrees for stornoway for instance, and then we are looking at a colder day more widely on thursday, blustery showers, fairly windy day, things looking more warmer, drier and brighter by the time we get to friday. goodbye for now.

in nato because then we might have to go to war with russia." this is bbc news, with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. international condemnation as russia's president putin grants recognition to two rockaway regions of east ukraine and says he is sending troops in. the un security council meets to discuss the situation.- to discuss the situation. today president putin _ to discuss the situation. today president putin has _ to discuss the situation. today president putin has torn - to discuss the situation. today president putin has tom the i president putin has torn the minsk agreement to shreds. we have been clearer that we do not believe he will stop at that. ., �* , not believe he will stop at that. ., �*, ., ., that. now it's important to focus on — that. now it's important to focus on how _ that. now it's important to focus on how to _ that. now it's important to focus on how to avoid - that. now it's important to focus on how to avoid warl that. now it's important to i focus on how to avoid war and how— focus on how to avoid war and how to — focus on how to avoid war and how to force ukraine to stop the provocations against luhansk and do it.