voiceover: this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines and all the main news stories for you at the top of the hour, straight after this programme. at the kremlin, it was pomp with a purpose. fanfare to remind russians he is still

in charge around here. waiting for vladimir putin, 2500 soldiers and guards, and the defence minister the wagner mutineers wanted sacked. having survived it a time to say thank you. translation: you have saved our motherland from upheaval. - in fact, you have stopped a civil war. in fact, the reality was rather different. the wagner soldiers, who had been cheered on the streets of rostov, had only stopped their rebellion out of the kremlin did a deal with them, promising not to press charges against them and their leader yevgeny prigozhin. still, kremlin spin is presenting this as a triumph

for their president. the uprising is over and the kremlin is trying to reframe the optics as what happened as a victoria ——to reframe the optics as what happened as a victory bought the president and for russia. but where is yevgeny prigozhin? under his deal with the kremlin, he agreed to leave russia for belarus. today, the leader of belarus, alexander lukashenko, said yes, he is here, but in exile, could mr prigozhin still be a threat to the kremlin? not if vladimir putin can help it. he is suggesting that russian investigators might probe the wagner group's finances. a less than subtle hint to the wagner chief not to make trouble. the last few days have put him under huge pressure. now president putin is determined to show he is in control.

here in the ukrainian capital, i have spent most of the day talking to senior members of president zelensky�*s administration to see the mimic of the current situation. there has to be a major pinch of salt when you talk to people who are fighting what they believe is a life—and—death struggle for the independence of this country, but it is interesting nonetheless to get their opinions. and all of them said they believed that president putin was effectively finished, that the countdown was ticking down on his future. and they also said that there were, they believed, groups within moscow who were waiting to take their chance to push their preferred candidate for the succession when it ended. when and if president

putin steps down. i emphasise this is the opinion of the leadership here, so you have to accept that, that they are looking at it from a certain angle. one more thing, too — i asked about the progress of the ukrainian offensive, and one of the senior advisers said to me, "look, the mutiny did not make much "difference on the battlefield because it did not last "very long. and another one said, when i asked about progress, he made a face and did something like that, as if to say it is going slowly and they have not got all that far, though he was of course hopeful that things were going to get better from their point of perspective. and what i think they are trying to do is manage expectations, in case any of their western allies get overexcited, because despite everything that has happened in moscow, the russian army is still a formidable foe for the ukrainians.

chanting in nanterre today, thousands gathered to mark the void left by one local teenager and the rage that flowed in to fill it. the violence here last night still mapped onto the surrounding streets in ash and debris. nahel�*s mother leading a chant of "police, assassins." evan came from a suburb on the other side of paris, but the problems there were just the same, he said. translation: we do not have jobs. we do not get hired if we do not lie on our cv.

there is nothing for us, we feel abandoned, and on top of that, we get attacked by the people who are supposed to protect us. this is enough. this is one offence too many. the march ended this afternoon in a different kind of protest, burning cars, tear gas, clashes with police. one local resident told us her own teenage son had been mistreated by police, and that the violence following nahel�*s death was justified. translation: i would not be surprised if the trouble - continues as long as there are no consequences for this police officer. i am not in the heads of the young people but what is happening here is justified. police are the delinquents, not the youth. parents are doing everything they can. but i would agree with them. the officer is now in custody and fitting it onto voluntary homicide. the french interior minister said it was time for the violence to stop. translation: last night's riots and burning a school, _ a town hall, a social centre, that has nothing to do with what happened in nanterre. those responsible for the trouble should now go home.

but nobody we spoke to thought the anger had run its course. there is anger at president emmanuel macron and his government. there is anger at politics in general, but there's also a deep disappointment with the french state and the broken promises that people feel it makes to them. and the government is worried that that deeper disappointment might fuel a pattern of nightly riots, and so it is trying to curb the unrest, really on two different ways, and it is walking something of a tightrope between them. on the one hand, it wants to show that it understands the anger people feel towards the police actions that led to nahel�*s death. on the other, it is taking an increasingly tough policing approach violence on the streets, and the atmosphere here today was pretty tense at times, and i think there are many people here in paris tonight watching very carefully what tonight will bring.

george birnbaum may be one of the most influential people in the world you have never heard of, a sought—after political consultant who has helped a string of world leaders to power. benjamin netanyahu, viktor orban, as well as a serbian president, an austrian chancellor, and prime ministers in romania, the czech republic, bulgaria and even the mayor of kyiv, vitali klitschko. politically conservative with a strong sense of his jewish identity, he joined forces with arthur finkelstein in the 1990s. finkelstein was famous for making �*liberal�* a dirty word for many in america. a brilliant mathematician who liked to crunch electoral numbers. while george birnbaum worked on the campaign strategy. their first big joint success was benjamin netanyahu's surprise victory in israel in 1996 against the strong favourite.

how did you help benjamin netanyahu win? that is a fascinating case. when we came in, we took the system, a different system than people understand. it is a publicly financed campaign. your tv time is limited by the government. we came in and the idea of repetition. we would repeat the same advert several times in a four—minute block. what was the message? the message was about jerusalem, i think? two main messages there, but the main one was that perez would dividejerusalem, and the other was peace through security. in israel, there is a dividing line, and there has been for many years, between the right on the left. the left by and large, and this goes to the language and messaging, want peace at almost any cost, whereas the right side, we want

security first, then peace. so part of the language we used was netanyahu for secure peace. we took the language of the left and the right and put them together, because back then, the other dividing line was people who identified first as a jew versus people who identified first as an israeli. they were very different in the way they acted and the way they voted. so we needed to make sure that the people who self—identified asjews, who tend to vote more right of centre then left of centre, turned out to vote, and we had to use the one which of both camps, the perez will divide jerusalem was really meant to drive out the voters right of centre, and identified as jews first. was it true? would perez have divided jerusalem? it is hard to say. whether there would be a line down jerusalem, i don't think so, but there were areas of the palestinian authority

discussed as part of a peace deal. finkelstein and birnbaum taught benjamin netanyahu the art of reducing his campaign to a few simple slogans and then repeating them until enough people believe him. netanyahu before coming back, then remained israel's prime minister for the next 12 years. he finally lost in 2021, but bounced back last year for his sixth term as prime minister. mr netanyahu spoke of the need to reinvent yourself as the leader of the disenfranchised masses, face—to—face with a mythical elite. was that you and arthur finkelstein�*s idea, too? i will say this — any country anywhere in the world were people feel disenfranchised, who feel like they are not getting the opportunity that others get, and i will say that in most elections, people vote

from the heart not the head, vote based on emotions — fear, anger and hope and hope being the strongest emotion in elections. so what that means is different to every individual. could be a betterjob, a better education for their child, a better car, who knows what that means to someone? when you come in to help politicians plan a political campaign, is that what you are looking for, helping them to find ways to represent the disenfranchised masses? it is not the disenfranchised, i will tell you this, the most important aspect a politician running for office can have, the most important attribute, is that a voter looks at them and says, he or she is one of us. they understand my problems, they understand what i go through every day. so i think it is an exaggeration to say we prey on the desires of the disenfranchised. no. we talk to average people, to real people, and let them

know, we understand what you're going through, we understand what your challenges are. we are going to make those challenges easier and better for you, we are going to give you a better tomorrow. that was reagan's message, that was donald trump's message in his first election. benjamin netanyahu introduced the finkelstein—birnbaum duo to hungarian politician viktor orban in 1998. then in opposition, orban and his party won the 2010 election and have stayed in power ever since, using the techniques they taught him. it is notjust a way of simplifying your own message but of identifying an enemy, one that the public is told they ought to fear. but first, a suitable candidate needs to be found, one that cannot fight back. netanyahu, george birnbaum once said, that viktor orban

and benjamin netanyahu were their best pupils. he won in 2010 with a landslide, then he faced a problem, he had annihilated the opposition. you helped him find a new opponent, george soros. tell me about that. i have a problem with any leader in any country staying in power for too long. the other thing i have come to learn after all these years. i have a real problem with foreign or outside money influencing elections. whether it is a foreign national going into another country. in the united states, you have a large donor in michigan putting money into a race in california. i have a real problem with money influencing elections from the outside. and george soros, although he is hungarian, i will say this, i am the son and grandson of holocaust survivors. george soros is a survivor. he has built an empire. i have enormous respect, especially as a jew, for what george soros might have been able to do post—world war ii, post—holocaust.

i have a real problem with george soros' ideology and using his wealth to project that throughout the world. george soros set up an open society foundation in hungary in the late 1980s, supporting young democrats including, at that time, viktor orban. but orban's growing interest in an illiberal democracy increasing clashed with soros' vision of a liberal one. but soros, like birnbaum and finkelstein, was jewish. identifying soros as an enemy in a country from which more than half a millionjews were deported and murdered in the second world war risked replacing the demons of the past with the demons of the present. the new threat, according to orban, came from muslim migrants, brought into europe, however implausibly, by another outsider, a jew. although birnbaum stopped working for orban in 2015, and finkelstein

passed away in 2017, orban continued to vilify soros in his political campaigns. the duo had given orban one of the keys to his remarkable political success. in may 2017, giant billboards went up around the country showing george soros' face with the slogan, "don't let george soros have the last laugh." it was around the country and seemed to repeat a trope people saw in the 1930s of the grinning jew, the laughing financier exploiting the public, having a malign effect. what do you think of that campaign? i do not see it as an anti—semitic trope. i think it was seen as this extravagant, kind of secretive multi—billionaire spreading his influence.

which is of course what the nazis accused the jews of in the 1930s. sure, but in a very different way, and that was...to compare one individual, george soros, to the maligning of an entire people, i think is very different, very unfair. george soros was an individual target. and the fact he wasjewish, was that ever discussed between you and orban, between you and orban's advisers? never once came up. never once. did it cross your mind? it did not cross my mind at any point. in 2017, my 14—year—old son was playing football at school, and someone shouted in the playground, "stop," another of the kids shouted, "soros." is that not the danger of powerful political messaging, and it goes very deep in the society and actually divides that society even more than it was before?

it is interesting. political campaigns are all based on one thing, advertising, and winning any advertising campaign, whether you are coca—cola or a politician, is about repeating a message and getting people to remember and repeat the message. that's the most critical thing. we call it message penetration. if you turn one politician into a hero, do you have to demonise his or her opponent? you don't always have to demonise the opponent. but it can help? what's that? but it can help? it depends. again, it depends on where the votes are. it is good to have an enemy, and very rarely... when you find someone who is loved by everybody, and so, no, you don't always have to demonise your opponent, imean... but you can? you can. it's valid? sure, it's valid. if you have to, but not in a way that, again, i would never run a campaign attacking somebody based on their heritage or ethnicity. their ideology? you can absolutely demonise

someone on their ideology, i have no problem with that. that's what elections are about — ideologies and people choosing a set of policies that they think will make their lives better. this and the polarisation, eroding the centre, getting rid of the centre where everyone used to feel comfortable, aren't you one of the prophets, as it were, of polarisation in order to win elections? no, i think in fact that is very wrong. if you polarise too many people, you will not get to a majority of votes. i think polarisation is very dangerous. in fact, i think it is the opposite. i think you need to find the majority of voices in order to win an election, not the small wing of the party. that works in primaries, we have in the united states our primary elections, and what you'll find is that in order to win a primary, usually the person, on the democratic or republican side, whoever takes the most extreme position wins the primary. at the end of the day,

elections are about, and the people who turn out, are the ones who are the most energised to turn out. and the ones who are most energised to turn out are the extremists, and part of the problem of polarisation i think is forcing people who normally would make good candidates for office stay out of the electoral process altogether, because they do not want to be a part of what is going on. so i think polarisation, in the sense that it exists today, at least in the us and some other countries, is very dangerous for democracy. i am not in favour of that at all. if trump wins the republican nomination, would you work for him? no. why not? first of all, i have no desire to work in american politics, and i also do not know that... i learned this from arthur finkelstein. electing a president of the united states is a very serious business, and it affects millions of people, notjust

hundreds of millions of people, but billions of people. arthur said, "i really have to believe 100% and love deeply "person i am working for to elect the president "of the united states," and he had many offers to work for different people over the years, and he said no. i kind of feel that way about donald trump. i just don't have the deep feeling that i would want to work for a donald trump. quite frankly, if you ask me who i would want to work for in the united states elections, i do not know the answer. so the short answer is no. the long answer is, it is a very serious thing to elect a president of the united states, and i have to be fully behind that individual in order to elect the president. the constant use of surveys to collect our personal data is combined with deep learning algorithms to monitor our online habits.

political parties gain a remarkably accurate database of the gender, age, and personalities of their voters, and the tools to target them with new messages in real—time. donald trump and joe biden in the us, the brexit leave campaign in the uk, and viktor orban in hungary, learned how to create a wave of public opinion, then how to surf it. the modern campaign tools, social media, algorithms, appear to be creating an atmosphere of hatred, even mutual hatred. how worried are you by that? i am terrified by it, completely terrified. i grew up in an era where, although there were ideological differences, people put their country first. ronald reagan sat down with tip o'neill, put the country first, bill clinton sat down with newt gingrich, put the country first. that does not exist today, and that terrifies me, because at the end of the day, whether you are electing a president, senator, congressman, it is about putting the country first, people first. we have put political ideology and power first. that, to me, is dangerous, and, to me, could mean the end of democracy in the long run, because as long

as we go down this path, focusing on the extreme ideologies, on focusing on hatred, on focusing on scaring one another, on focusing on putting power before people, we are in a lot of trouble as a society, and that's where we are headed. let's talk about ukraine and russia. please. you are an adviser to vitali klitschko, mayor of kyiv. how are you helping the image of ukraine in the world? when the war started, i was very concerned. i was very concerned for ukraine, because i've been working in ukraine for many years, as i said, my wife is ukrainian, and i saw the beauty of ukrainian culture and history. but i saw from a political point of view, that by and large the people did not feel that they had an identity, the ukrainian identity. when the war broke out, suddenly ukraine found

its identity, and so, quite frankly, there's nothing i can do to help that image. that is something they did themselves, and it is something that, when this war ends, the people of ukraine for generations should be very proud of. vladimir putin has said that liberalism has become obsolete. he depicts the world as a battle between a declining west, something that viktor orban speaks about, something that donald trump has spoken about as well. he wanted a divided europe. he now has a unified europe. he wanted a weakened nato. he now has a stronger nato. he wanted a weakened west. he now has a stronger west. he has reminded us why freedom matters. he has reminded us why democracy matters. my hope is that this war reminds us why we have to find ways of working together across political divides within democratic countries and not focus on the divisions. so the ideas of liberal democracy, of human rights, things which, among others, george soros stands for, they are alive and kicking?

notjust george soros, i think billions of people around the world stand for that. but george soros as well? he does, which is absolutely fantastic, and i appreciate that. again, there are a lot of things he stands for that i disagree with politically and ideologically, but like i said, there are places where we can always find common ground, and if that means liberal democracy and human rights is one of the places we can find common ground, i would be happy to have a coffee with him and talk to him about it. you have helped many politicians emerge as strong leaders. how should a leader in the 21st century heal the divisions, reunify a country in a benign way? again, i think you need a leader who will talk to the commonality of human nature, someone who will be able to relate to what is important to everyone. it is not about ideology, it is about making sure

people's hopes and dreams are realised, and that is the solution for diminishing this polarisation of that exist today. george birnbaum, thank you very much for speaking to us today. thank you very much. hello there. conditions improve for much of the country for wednesday. we're in between weather systems. so again, it's going to be one of sunshine and showers, but nowhere near as wet as what we had across the south of the country on tuesday. now, that's tuesday's area of low pressure clearing off into the near continent. this area of low pressure will enhance showers

across scotland, northern ireland. but we're generally in between weather systems with lighter winds as well. now, it could still start wet and windy across the far east of east anglia first thing, but then that'll clear away. then it's a day of sunshine and showers. you could catch a shower pretty much anywhere, but i think the majority of them will be across scotland and northern ireland because the winds will be lighter. we should see more sunshine around, particularly across the south. we could be up to 20 or 21 celsius, otherwise it's the mid to high teens again in the north. so there is a threat of a passing shower or two for wimbledon. but wednesday's weather looks a lot better. we should get to see some play in the outside courts. so as we move through wednesday nights, most of those showers fade away and then it's drier and clearer for many of us. but breeze and clouds starts to pick up out west ahead of this area of low pressure temperature wise, ranging from 7—12 celsius. this is the pressure chart for thursday. we've got high pressure building over the near continent will keep things fine and settled for england and wales. this area of low pressure will park itselfjust to the west of ireland. that's going to bring cloud strong winds and outbreaks

of some heavy rain across northern ireland pushing up in towards western scotland. but the rest of the country should stay largely dry and good spells of sunshine start to pick up a southerly breeze. so temperatures will be picking up, 22 or 23 celsius. on friday, we have low pressure to the north and the west of the country, higher pressure to the south and the east. and we're drawing up some warm and humid air at this point from the south. so much of england and wales will have a dry, sunny and a very warm day. chances of showers or thunderstorms, particularly for western scotland and northern ireland, where it will also be windier. so it could be the mid to high 20s for england and wales on friday. noticeably warmer with increased humidity. but for the weekend low pressure sits out to the west of the uk and influences the weather pretty much across the whole country. so although it'll stay quite warm across the south on saturday as an increasing threat of showers and thunderstorms as we move through the weekend, temperatures dropping a little bit again on sunday.