this is bbc news, the headlines: officials in california say 17 people are now known to have died following weeks of torrential rain. there's been widespread flooding and landslides. weather experts predict more rain in the coming days. severe weather warnings are in place, potentially affecting millions of people. new climate data suggests 2022 was the fifth hottest year on record, with europe and the polar regions hardest hit by global warming. the measurements confirm that the last eight years have been the warmest ever recorded. australia's cardinal george pell, the former treasurer of the vatican, who was acquitted of sexual abuse charges, has died aged 81.

he spent more than a year in prison after a jury found him guilty, but the verdict was quashed on appeal. now on bbc news it's hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. vladimir putin's ruthless bid to impose his will on ukraine hasn't worked, at least not yet. on the contrary, it has taken an enormous toll of russian blood and treasure, and left the country militarily and economically weakened. so, how come there hasn't been more open dissent within the russian elite? is it fear, brainwashing or a deeper, shared ethno—nationalism? well, my guest, boris bondarev, is unique. he's a russian diplomat who quit and condemned

putin's ukraine war. why is his a lone voice of insider dissent? boris bondarev, in switzerland, welcome to hardtalk. i want to begin, if i may, by getting a sense of what life is like for you today. last may, you quit your post. you delivered a scathing condemnation of putin and his war. so how is life for you today? well, it's become relatively easier than it was because i

don't have to go to my office any more. and i... well, officially and practically, iam now unemployed, so i have a lot of free time to think and to read and to look for information i need in order to have my opinion on what is going on around russia and ukraine and europe and all. you can't go home? no, i don't think so. i don't think i can. well, i can physically, but i don't think it would be a very pleasant trip, you know. so i have... i think it's better for me to stay outside for some time. and... as for many other russians. yes. for our audience, just to be aware of the situation, you made it plain to us it wouldn't be wise for you to reveal your location in switzerland. why is that exactly? well, that's the concerns of the swiss authorities, which take care of my family's safety and security.

first of all, they are concerned that there might be some risk of threats to my safety. well, so if they have some reasons to think so, well, yeah, why not? i don't... i don't intend to exaggerate my own significance, of course. well, we'll talk about... but for some reasons, yeah. we'll talk about your significance, mr bondarev. let us begin that by discussing your decision in may of last year to notjust quit your post as a diplomat in geneva, working on arms control issues, representing the russian government at the united nations in geneva. not just that, but also to leave with the most vitriolic condemnation of what you saw as vladimir putin's entirely unjustified aggression in ukraine. how difficult a decision

was that to make? how long did it take you to reach that decision? well, first of all, it was it was both easy and hard. easy, because, from the very beginning, i realised that i had to quit, because to keep working for the government, keep working in the mfa of russia, would mean that i approve this war, i approve this policy. i approve all these crimes committed on behalf of my country and on my...my own...my own name, eventually. but difficult, of course, it was to do it, you know, practically, because it would mean that i would have to quit myjob, i would have to leave my country to stay somewhere and have no prospects, no certainty about my future, first of all. and, yes, it was not very,

very, very, very light decision for me, of course. so it took some time to take the decision and to get myself prepared to do, to act on this decision. well, i'm always interested... i'm always interested in the nature of these personal tipping points, because for you, you'd spent two decades as a loyal diplomat, mid—ranking diplomat inside the russian government system. you had remained loyal to the government and its lines through russia's military actions in ukraine in 2014, the illegal annexation of crimea, before that, in 2008, you'd watched russian tanks get involved in georgia, you'd also seen russian air forces involved in assad's levelling of cities in syria, so, i'm just wondering what pushed you over the edge in the early part of 2022? well, i believe because it was the most outrageous thing

russian government has ever done for all my 20 years in public service. those events that you listed, like georgia, crimea, syria and all, i cannot say that i disapproved them when it was back in that time, because i was much younger. i was less experienced and i was more pro—moscow, so to speak. of course, i really shared a lot of things which are now... ..which are now obvious to me that they are wrong and they are counterproductive. they're counter genuine interests of russia. but ten years ago and even more, i was much younger and i was much more

naive, i could say so. so when... i was...i was growing. i was growing, personally. so when you talked about your shame, "i am so ashamed of my country," you said on 23rd of may 2022, had you felt shame before about putin's foreign policies and some of his military actions and interventions in the past, or was this shame new to you? no, it was not new, but it was maybe the highest... ..the highest level of shame. but, yeah, i did feel the shame before, but it was not about this military operations performed by putin's government. to the contrary, at that time, i did think of them that they were really a success and i wasn't ashamed of them, but i was ashamed for a lot

of things which happened within the ministry of foreign affairs, for instance. i was ashamed for many russian political approaches, position, statements that had been done for many years, and i wouldn't specify them, but, for instance, i was repeatedly shamed by how the spokeswoman of minister of foreign affairs, madame zakharova, behaved at her briefings, her statements, whatever...whatever she pronounced, because, yes, she's now is an embodiment of russian foreign policy. and it was shame to see and to hear what she was speaking many times, for instance. just wondering whether you now reflect on some of your own actions in the past and those of colleagues in the foreign ministry. and would you say that the way

the foreign ministry works and the way you had to work in the past — and you've been very candid about it — the degree to which there was a sort of yes—man culture, where you could not question the overarching strategies and decisions coming from the centre, coming from the kremlin, you simply had to support and service what you saw as the kremlin's needs. do you think that actually contributed to putin's decision—making in ukraine? because you, for example, you could have told him much more from your expertise in arms control about the weaknesses of the russian military as sanctions began to bite after 2014. but it seems you didn't really deliver that message. um... well, i didn't deliver that message because it wasn't my area of competence to do that. yes, because minister of foreign affairs is not about making our country less dependent on imports of critical components,

because it is a job for other ministries, like ministry of trade and industry, some state corporations which are directly involved in the production of military goods and commodities and weapons and armaments and all. of course, i had my glance on this and i was sure, pretty sure, that if i see that, if i know that, of course, those people who are professionally involved in that, they will see... they see it, well, as well. so i was sure for many years that it's not a secret. everybody understood that our military might is not that powerful as it is advertised, that our military industry is dependent, in many regards, on import from the western countries, mostly.

and if i knew that, why anybody else wouldn't? they also knew, but i believe they reported it, that it was not that, you know, that... . . really important. that everybody could be solved, everybody could be substituted, and all, everything could be substituted. and then i think this report made the very false picture at the very high. did you expect fellow diplomats to join you? were you convinced that there was a body of colleagues inside the foreign ministry who felt just as anguished and unhappy with the direction of putin's policy as you did? well, first of all, i knew, by the time, that there were some diplomats who had already quit from the service, some of them i knew personally, so... you mean, they'd quit since february of 20...

since february 2ath? yeah, yeah. yes, yes. yes. but they did it silently? yes. yes, they did it silently. most of them did it in moscow. and it's perfectly understandable why they did it silently. and i know also that there are also a few guys who quit after my statement, but not, i don't think, not because of my statement, butjust maybe, maybe my statement affected them somehow. well, why not? but i didn't have much hope that if i do this statement, if i make a statement, that it would, you know, encourage many other diplomats to follow this case. no, because i understood that those who wanted to quit, those who didn't want to keep working for that, they did it already or they had to adjust themselves to new circumstances.

as i see also many of my colleagues who do not approve of all of this, who are not ok with the war, with this anti—ukrainian war and all these atrocities and all, and they're not ok with this foreign policy which leads our country into abyss and total degradation and isolation. but they say, "what can we do? "we are small people. it is not ours to decide. "ours is to just to obey and to do what we are told "to by our bosses." what do you think of that argument from many people you know inside the system who say, "what can we do? "we just follow orders? " what do you, on a moral basis, what do you think of that? i think that, of course, it's... ..it�*s morally very weak position, of course. but also, we must understand that there are different people

and everyone acts differently in these circumstances in which he or she has never been before. and of course, this war has become the existential conflict for, i think, all russians, and each russian has or had to make the choice. so i did mine. i thought it was only one possible choice, morallyjustified for me. others did theirs, and we also cannot blame them for this, because if someone makes the choice to stay and to work because he had some career prospects, well, i don't think it's a good idea. but if people don't wantjust to lose theirjobs and to go into nowhere, and if they have kids or very old parents to take care of, and if they lose a job, they don't have any income and all, that's

a different situation. it's... and i don't want to blame any of them. yes. it's notjust about fear, though, is it? and it's notjust about the pressure that comes with wanting to keep yourjob and keep feeding your family. there are other motivations at work in russia too, and you know that very well from personal experience. i hesitate to get too personal with you, but isn't it true that your own father has disowned your decision? and indeed your own father, even though he's in his 70s, he actually made an effort to enlist in the russian military tojoin this war on putin's behalf. yes, i was told so, and i was, of course, surprised by this. but, ok, so, you know, he's an example how propaganda works with people. i rememberthat, in 2000, he was the only one around my circle who said, "don't vote for putin, "because if you vote for putin now, "he may become a dictator or something." and everybody said, "well,

we want a strong leader. "we don't want a dictator, but putin will not be dictator, "he will be strong leader. "we need strong leader after yeltsin, after all this "weakness and shame and all." and also, i was 20 years old, i did vote for putin. sorry for that. it was my first elections, presidential elections and putin was like, you know, what seemed then, in 2000, as like... ..as an only one option. i'm just wondering whether you feel that the decision you've made — and we see, you know, with your father's reaction, but we also see the evidence in russia that, yes, there are thousands of people who've protested against the war, but the real clear majority of russians, as far as we can tell in an authoritarian society, appear, for the moment at least, to be supportive of this war and still supportive of putin. so i'm wondering, do you think it's completely and forever destroyed your relationship with your own family and with your homeland?

first of all, let's agree what we understand by the word �*support�* or �*supportive�*, because support may be active support, when someone calls upon you and you rush to fight for him. yes, that we can call support. but if support means that people are asked whom they support and they say, "yeah, we support our president," but they understand that if they say something otherwise, there can be some consequences for that. but it does mean that they will rush to fight for him if he calls upon them. and we see that russian authorities relied on volunteers first to send to the front to ukraine, and they managed to get about 10,000 or 20,000. that's all, for 140 million population. that means that active support of this war, active support of putin, is much less than it is shown by all these polls.

and you indicated it absolutely rightly that all the polls are conducted under the authoritarian dictatorship, while we should look at all their outcomes, results, with very much... ..with a very high degree of scepticism. but in a way, you're denying the agency of people like your father and ordinary russian people by saying, "you know what? they're brainwashed. "they are fearful. they are repressed." all of that may be true, but isn't there something, which many ukrainians and outside observers also point to, which is that vladimir putin taps into something real in the mind—set of many russians? yes, there is this kind of imperial — imperial views among people. but what are those views? those views are typical psychological compensation for they being totally unfree, totally dependent

on the government. people are very poor, very ignorant. they have no prospects, most of them, especially in those regions which recruit most soldiers to the front, like buryatia, like tuva, like some other remote regions. people, especially young people there, have no prospects. they have no decentjobs. they see they can do nothing about the future. and then you come up and say, "ok, we'll pay you," a fortune to them — a fortune. and you can go to kill those...untermensch. well, wonderful. why not? i actually want to tap in to your expertise on another issue as well, because you worked on arms control and non—proliferation within the russian foreign ministry. we don't know how this war is going to end. it clearly, right now, is not going well for vladimir putin, and he has said that in the end, he will use

all necessary means to defend russia's territory and national interest. as we sit here injanuary 2023, do you still believe there is a real threat of russian first use of nuclear weapons? well, last year we saw referendums in these newly annexed territories, and they were annexed to russia, so now part of ukraine is legally — "legally" russian. and after that, some of the territories came back to ukraine again. and putin did not defend those russian territories neither with nuclear weapons nor with any kind of other weapons. he just retreated. so does it make us think that all his threats about nuclear weapons are bluff? well, i'm very tempted to think

so, but i would like to urge that there may be moments when vladimir putin feels himself ultimately cornered and he will have to do something to make his previous threats sound even more real to support this, his threats. and maybe he will think, "ok, i threatened them with my nuclear weapons. "they didn't hear. they cornered me. "my troops are defeated. "then i should bomb them with some nuclear bombs." you say that remains as a possibility, although you say you don't think it's going to happen. isn't it, therefore, dangerous for you to call, as you have, for the west to understand that the only way to end this is, to use your phrase, to see that putin is comprehensively routed. the only way to win this war is for the west to determine what you want as the

outcome of this war. because when i ask someone about this, some western journalists or some western experts, they say we want just to — to free ukrainian territory from russian occupation. that's ok, but are you going to deal with putin after that? are you going to go back to normal with him? or you understand that it is putin, putin's regime, which is main threat to international peace and security, and not his war in ukraine? because war in ukraine is just the symptom. because even if he's routed in ukraine, even if he's defeated, but if he seizes, he keeps his power, he will be a threat. then he may resort to nuclear weapons use, or he may sell that to some other countries or some other terrorist organisations, or whatever he will do to harm europe, to harm the west. a final thought, if i may.

as you say what you say about putin, i'm mindful of what has happened to others that moscow now dismisses as traitors, because they call you a traitor today in moscow. and we know that others they've labelled as traitors have been killed, wherever they were in the world. i'm thinking of alexander litvinenko, poisoned in london. i'm thinking of the attempt to kill former kgb agent sergei skripal in salisbury in england, again with poison. do you fear for your own life, and will you continue to speak out despite what may be some fear? well... well, it's not the question that should be asked, really, i think so, because that's. .. we get what we get. you know, if something is destined to happen, it will happen. so i don't think about that. i think that as long as i have time, i must use it.

so my life is not, you know, is not spent, wasted in vain, so to speak. and it's not only me. there are hundreds of thousands of russians who are now outside of country who cannot go back because they don't see vladimir putin as their president. they see him as a traitor, as a usurper. so, while he may want to kill all of them, 0k. boris bondarev, we have to end there, but i thank you very much forjoining me on hardtalk. thank you. thank you for inviting me.

hello. 0ur wet and windy week of weather continues on wednesday, with the low pressure still very much driving our weather. there's going to be heavy downpours for some of us through the day and actually over the next few days. 0ften we're going to see rain, strengthening winds. mainly still quite mild for the time of year. but gales developing. 0vernight, rain sweeping its way eastwards, so, by the time we get to about 6:00 on wednesday morning, most of us generally frost—free, but some heavy showers from the word go pushing in from the north and the west. and low pressure is going to sit to the north of the uk through the day. you can see the proximity of all these isobars on the chart. that's showing us that it is going to be a blustery sort of day. plenty of showers driven in from the atlantic, so the heaviest of the downpours will be in the west during this morning — parts of scotland, northern ireland, and also then pushing into wales and western england too. gales around coastal parts of the english channel, through the irish sea coasts, up towards the western isles for instance, so 60mph gusts possible there, but even further inland, we're looking at 30mph, possibly 40mph gusts of wind

through the day on wednesday, so a blustery day. heavy downpours reaching eastern areas during the afternoon, after a fairly bright morning here, and temperatures a little cooler than recent days — about 7—11 degrees. feeling colder if you're exposed to the brisk wind and those heavy showers that many of us will see. some snow for a time over the higher ground of scotland too. 0vernight showers ease in the north, but the next batch of heavy rain sweeps eastwards across much of england and wales. so it's going to be a really quite damp start to thursday morning, i think. could be a touch of frost for some sheltered glens of scotland, but still mild to start the day towards the south on thursday. and thursday's weather driven by yet another low—pressure system, this time just moving in towards the north—west. this occluded front bringing some heavy showers. but down towards the south, we've also got more heavy rain across southern parts of england, lingering on that frontal system, combined with gales that are once again going to develop through the english channel, around some of these irish sea coasts, and turning windy later in the day across the northwest too. so the next band of rain crosses from west to east,

followed by sunny spells and scattered heavy downpours moving in from the northwest. temperatures still about 7—9 in the north, but up to about 13, possibly 14, down towards the southeast. so it stays mild. a hint that through the weekend things turn a little less unsettled, and those temperatures are going to drop a little bit by the time we get to sunday. bye— bye.

this is bbc news. i'm sally bundock, with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. more than 20,000 ambulance workers have gone on strike across the uk in a row over pay and conditions. at least 17 people are known to have died in floods and landslides across california, with warnings of more torrential rain to come. peru's attorney general investigates the new president, dina boluarte, for genocide after deadly clashes following the forced removal of her predecessor. joe biden meets the leaders of mexico and canada at what is being called the three amigos summit as they try to thrash out agreements on climate change, green energy and immigration.

and also ahead: a big night in hollywood.