hello, this is bbc news with victoria derbyshire. the headlines: several russian cruise missiles have struck the ukrainian capital, kyiv, causing large explosions. the attacks come as world leaders meet in germany where they'll discuss how to continue to support ukraine. among the leaders at the summit is borisjohnson who has said he is "actively thinking" about a third term, amid criticism of his leadership. at least 20 people are reported to have been found dead at a nightclub in the south african city of east london. now on bbc news, james naughtie talks to henry kissinger in his 100th year. henry kissinger is in his 100th year. for six decades, he's been diplomat and adviser to american presidents and an ever—present influence on the international stage in times of peace and war.

now, i've come to his home in new england in the united states to talk to this powerful and often controversial figure about a life that has taken him from nazi germany to the doors of the oval office itself and onto the world stage. we'll talk about the leaders he's known, his new book is called leadership, the events he's witnessed, the times he's lived through and the ideas that have shaped him. and, of course, about our disordered world. growing up in germany, henry kissinger was a witness to the nazi era and the events that shaped his ideas about the world. the family fled germany for america in 1938, and kissinger was drafted into the united states army in 1943, serving in germany. one of the liberators of a concentration camp, there he saw even more clearly

than before the cost of war. it was a subcamp of bergen—belsen, and of course, one had read about concentration camps. and i had not realised until i saw that camp the depths to which human beings could be reduced. it's the institutionalised degradation, because these camps were organized hierarchically. and in a way, that organization must have been one of the most horrifying aspects of it. the fact that it was so regimented, so the awfulness of the system was being perpetuated. perpetuated among prisoners who were fighting to survive day by day. his experience in army intelligence

informed his writing and teaching as an academic in the �*50s and then government called. kissinger served first as an adviser tojohn f kennedy and then forged a powerful relationship with president richard nixon, becoming national security adviser in 1969 and american secretary of state in 1973. a red—baiting, anti—communist crusader in the �*50s, nixon wanted to heal the rift with mao zedong, who led the communist revolution in china. the countries hadn't talked for decades. kissinger began in secret. none of this was done by cable on either side. we sent our messages on unmarked paper without signature, and they'd send it with an emissary, so every exchange

took about two weeks. it was like 19th century. and so eventually to mao himself, unbending autocrat and commander of the brutal and bloody cultural revolution of the �*60s, all powerful and, to the west, a figure of mystery as well as fascination, kissinger had to try to understand him. i had five meetings with him altogether. at first, he was primarily interested, exclusively interested in lining us and china between the soviet union, and he'd give me fatherly advice how to keepjapan in that combination. as time went on, he wanted us

in an open alliance. while my view, of course, nixon's view was that we should always be closer to china and russia than they were to each other. that's a consistent theme which persists in your mind to today, doesn't it? yes. the expedition to china was high drama, but it was the war in vietnam that became the defining foreign policy issue of nixon's presidency. milhous nixon. by the time he came to office, the conflict had poisoned america. nixon promised he would end it. "peace with honour," he said. kissinger won the nobel peace prize for the subsequent agreement, but after the united states withdrew its troops, the north overran the south. looking back now, can he really call it peace with honour? yes, in the sense that we stated

at the very beginning in every statement that our definition of peace with honour was that the people who had risked their lives for decades on behalf of their freedom would not be abandoned by american actions. the one irreducible demand we had was that the north vietnamese agreed to the principle of self—determination that would give the south vietnamese people an opportunity to express, and this we achieved. a penalty was that american politics had become so divisive and the people who were opposed

to this so entrenched that the price paid the most domestically for it was huge. for kissinger�*s critics, it was the bombing of cambodia which was kept secret from the public and congress that was his most controversial act. kissinger, though, sees it still as justified because for a country mired in war, it had been necessary. the war in vietnam presented itself to nixon. as 500,000 american troops already being in place and 50,000 in the pipeline when he became president, with 30,000 casualties having already been suffered.

and the debate in america had become so embittered that presidentjohnson couldn't appear in public, except on military bases. a significant part of the american elite had become convinced that a defeat was better for the american soul than a continuation of the war. you can hold a view like that out of government, but when you are in government, how to withdraw 150,000 people when there are 80,000 enemies and an equal number of allies

who will become enemies. one of the consequences of that was that, of course, that the administration felt it couldn't tell congress about what was going on across the border in cambodia and laos. do you regret that now? that was a mistake and they should have been told. that was a mistake and... they should have been told? the reaction would have been the same. it was naive to believe that you could conduct a clandestine military operation in the midst of it all. military operation. in the midst of it all, nixon himself, the president, who, as kissinger puts it, spent his life on a heroic struggle with himself, where 1973, early in his second term, his dark side — the dirty political fighter obsessed by his enemies — had plunged him into watergate, the third—rate burglary, as the white house called it, that mushroomed into a scandal

about secrecy, lawbreaking and the abuse of power. and it was to kissinger, as secretary of state, that nixon had to write his formal letter of resignation as president in 1974 — the only such letter ever written. kissinger watched as the presidency came apart. i saw nixon every day while he was going through this. he almost never raised these issues with me, except in a description of what he was going through. we have to remember here is this man from an unlikely background, raising himself with fantastic willpower against his own some destiny was awaiting him.

how did your relationship with him and your view of him develop after he left office in 1974? i do not say. he was a likeable person in the normal sense because he was always defending himself, protecting himself. but over the years, i developed a feeling of warmth for him and as i look back on his presidency, he taught or tried to teach america

an important lesson, namely that one cannot construct international relations like personal relations because one is dealing with the destiny of the societies and that unfolds over a long period. all kissinger�*s thinking about american policy was challenged by the arrival in 2016 of a president in donald trump with no obvious interest in history or international relations, a nato skeptic, a tycoon for whom foreign policy was just more deal—making. yet still, the call came from the oval office. i knew trump socially when i first came to new york after government service and then i lost

all contact with him, but it had never occurred to me that he would become president. i think it's right to say that you talked to him before his summit with putin. he certainly knew my view of it. his would be totally different from my approach. his view would be the strength of his personal relationship with putin would play a big role in his assessment and he had the established conservative view that there was a strong adversarial aspect. my view would have been that personal relations, while somewhat important,

cannot be decisive. it brings us to putin himself. you've known him for a long time. i met putin when he was deputy mayor of st petersburg and i met him at a lunch in st petersburg. where, because somebody had failed to produce an interpreter, putin and i were engaged because we could talk german to each other. what do you make of him as a man and as a leader? intelligent, driven, but a kind of mystic view of russia. not an ideological view

that others could share, but of russia's unique capacity to survive across many time zones and many enemies around them. by the faith of the russian people in themselves. but deploring what had been taken away from russia through the collapse of the soviet union. so it was not a hitlerian view of conquest, but very firm view about the essence of reality.

and so, for example, ukraine was notjust a successive state, but something carved out of the russian entity. of course, the irony here is that by his invasion of ukraine, putin has created exactly the kind of national consciousness through president zelensky, who's been able to express it that he insisted had not existed before. yes, and it makes it inconceivable that his original war aim of returning ukraine to a state of dependence on russia could never come out of this this war except by russian military victory.

i believe that putin's position in russia will be very precarious and probably not maintainable over a substantial period of time. i think that most european leaders that i know, in my opinion, agree with what i said. putin cannot think he got away with anything. if it's objective to subjugate, the ukraine has been defeated. europe acted in unison. ukraine has been established as a viable european state. northern europe has been unified

inside nato and the argument about whether ukraine should be part of nato has been practically resolved because there's no way of going back to that partition. in that sense, you're suggesting that it has been all but settled. no, i think if the war is ended on the line and therefore most of donbas and much of the black sea coast remains russian that in the end it will be perceived as a russian success. so i would consider that a defeat and i would think, if that happened, that the new dividing line

is at the limit of the current russian advance. that would be very unfortunate. so they need to be pushed back further, in your view? they have to be pushed back to the borders that they had before. but that would be a defeat for russia. it would have been diminished in that sense. but the key in my mind would then be now a dialogue between europe, nato and russia might establish a stabler system. is that possible with putin still in power? i don't believe putin will be in power when that evolves. partly because of longevity in office. this is the objective. i would think even if

putin were in power. but it's not what i would prefer. to look at another problem which is not burning at the moment, but is smoldering, we go back to china and taiwan. what lies ahead for taiwan, in your view? the essence of the taiwan relationship for chinese, taiwan is an inextricable part of the chinese system. so when we reestablish relations, on the one hand, we accept the concept of one china. 0n the other hand,

the chinese accepted a long period of evolution which mao described as even 100 years, so how to handle this period? and in my opinion, which is not the accepted opinion, constant confrontations over taiwan have the exact opposite effect, because the more we affirm taiwan as a second china and the more the chinese feel they have to reply to that and the more armed forces are built up around it, the more tense the situation becomes. neither country should be asked to give up its basic principle explicitly and so america has made clear that

a violent attack on taiwan would meet significant american reaction. it would mean war. but to answer this question, the way it was done publicly, regionally, is exactly what may produce the situation, and so if one could cool he rhetoric cool the rhetoric and what the actions, if military action takes place, then we have a decision to make, which must be overwhelmingly influenced by what has gone on,

but if taiwan becomes a subject of domestic intense interest in both countries explicitly, the tension can only get worse. it's clear kissinger feels the west isn't yet engaged with the long—term challenge china represents. i asked him how the west should confront it. we will have to develop a concept of dealing with china that can be maintained over an indefinite period of time. it can change with every administration. i think it is a historic task for the west. just as all american presidents used to summon the evangelist billy graham for a public show of spiritual contemplation, so kissinger plays that role in foreign affairs. it means that even in his 100th

year, he's writing and talking and being listened to, above all about the danger, as he sees it, of a world in which alliances and understandings give way to a narrow definition of self—interest with potential consequences that have never been more threatening. the confrontational aspect of international affairs, which is prerequisite to the ability to do anything else, has become inconceivably dangerous and in some respects out of control, even of leaders, and one needs a conceptual approach.

to be strong, but to conduct a serious dialogue. a new mentality has to be created, not between those who want peace and others who want war, but between those who are prepared to defend, but also prepared to accommodate within the limits that their values permit. it's very hard to achieve because it means that within each country, you need enough confidence in each other, so that you can live with decisions because you have confidence that, over a long period of time, the society will hold together. henry kissinger, thank

you very much indeed. hello, everyone. i hope you're doing all right. well, we had a plentiful supply of heavy, blustery showers yesterday and more of that to come for many of us today. but we are seeing some brightness, so it's not a complete write—off as far as the unsettled weather is concerned. and the reason we're seeing this is down to what we're having here on the pressure chart, an area of low pressure. this is nearby, it's not really going anywhere in a hurry. you can see the winds swirling around it here and the winds are introducing those heavy, blustery downpours.

so showery spells of rain moving in from western parts. you can see the weather frontier trailing from parts of scotland, northern ireland through the northwest of england, western parts of wales, eventually creeping into the south west of england as well. there is a bit of an east—west split today, however, the further east you go, the drier it is and the warmer it is. top temperatures 23 celsius across southeastern parts of england, whereas parts of wales, northern ireland in particular cooler. and we'll have those heavy downpours as mentioned. now, i've spoken about the winds already, thanks to the presence of that low pressure. these are the wind gusts in excess of a0 to 50 miles per hour across the isle of man, parts of anglesey, western coastal fringes, for example. yes, it will be breezy or blustery further east, but not quite as windy here. how is it looking at glastonbury? well, it will be quite windy at times, i think, with some heavy showers, but it will brighten up and i think we will see some sunshine at times. let's head through this evening, then. the weather front is very slowly

creeping across towards the east, introducing those heavy downpours with it. again, we could hear the odd rumble of thunder, i think eastern parts of england remaining dry, but we can't rule out the odd shower here as well. top temperatures reaching 11 or 12 celsius as far as our lows are concerned tonight. now, the low pressure i was speaking of earlier is moving away towards the north, but we are shortly going to be joined by another low. this is creeping in from the west as we head through the next 2a hours or so. so monday starts off dry for many of us. we still have those heavy downpours, however, they're moving across towards the east. here's the low pressure introducing that weather front into parts of northern ireland. another windy one, i think. these are the average wind speeds, but gusts in excess of what we're seeing there. and top temperatures quite similar, about 22 or 23 celsius, fairly unsettled at times this week, i think, thanks to the low pressure. but temperatures will rise a bit for a time. we'll keep you posted. see you soon.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. one person has been killed after russian cruise missiles strike the ukrainian capital, kyiv, causing large explosions. the attacks come as world leaders meet in germany where they'll discuss how to continue to support ukraine. us presidentjoe biden meets with german chancellor 0laf scholz and expresses the need for unity with nato against vladimir putin. we have to stay together because putin has been counting on, from the beginning, that somehow nato and the g7 would splinter. but we haven't and we're not going to. among the leaders at the summit is borisjohnson who has said he is "actively thinking" about a third term,

amid criticism of his leadership.