pace's day w. news live from berlin and brush piles on the prosecutions against kremlin critic alexina valmy this time he is charged with slandering a will that transmit the melanie's already been sentenced to years in prison for violating parole russia's relations with the you are worsening fast over his fight also coming up to face violent same's of could happen again that's the final word

from prosecutors in donald trump's impeachment trial ferreting a speedy conviction but now it's the turn of trump's lawyers to make their case for acquittal. claim and counterclaim in the end mom on the 7th day of protests against the military coup activists accuse the old guard he's of using excessive force to break up their rallies the police insist lethal weapons are not being deployed. and germany bans travel from the popular all straight holiday region of tiro conical season in full swing the saturday doing their best to contain covert 9 taking the cases are still rising sharply. i'm rebecca rate as welcome to the program kremlin critic alexina valmy is back in

court this time on charges of defaming a world war 2 veteran who appeared in a government video novelli appeared in the dock today this off the. he was sentenced to several years in jail for allegedly violating his probation in germany while he recovered from a poisoning attack develop these arrests street protests across russia latest have called for his release for those trading ties between the european union and russia . i'm joined now by our correspondent on tilton in moscow arran what's this latest legal move all about. well basically election of all and he is answering for on charges of slander in connection to statements he made on social media back in 2020 you know this was all these comments came in the run up to the constitutional referendum which ended up passing which alexei navalny was opposed to basically the referendum change the constitution of russia and has a lot of situation to come to effect with like a reputed could potentially stay in power well into the twenty's thirty's which was

of course something that alexy of all he opposed now he was specifically commenting on a video released by russia today that's russia's state broadcaster in support of the referendum and he had some rather choice things to say about people who participated in the view including including calling them traitors now that had him been slapped with these charges of slander which we know seem see him answering for today originally the trial was supposed to take place last year but of course due to all these poisoning with nova truck they actually ended up in pushing it off until his return to the country earlier this year well is there any indication of when we can expect a verdict then and what that verdict might likely be. well we don't know exactly how the court is likely to rule but it does bear saying that russian courts have not often ruled and mr know all of these favor i've been paying attention to some of the the arguments that prosecutors have been arguing throughout the day and it

seems that they are are not necessarily. trying to focus on adding some more jail time to move on the sentence but rather they seem to be focusing on some type of monetary compensation potentially for the veteran in question if you ask people in the vollies orbit they say that this is actually an attempt by the russian government to her you know all these reputation more broadly within russian society you know veterans really do have kind of an almost sacrosanct status within the russian society so by convicting him of slandering one of them it would be a big knock against his reputation at the same time it also ties up his legal staff at a time when they are working very hard to try to free mr of all in the end get him out of prison so that's part of the reason they're saying that this is part of a campaign of legal harassment directed against them and now russia's foreign minister sergey lavrov has said that moscow is ready to sever ties with the european union other that threaten sanctions let's take a look at what he had to say used to move. if we see again as we have felt more

than once sanctions imposed in some areas creates risks to our economy including in the most sensitive spirit is such as supplies of parts and components i'm convinced that with regards to the military we've become completely self-sufficient we need to achieve the same situation in the economy. yes once again we don't want to be isolated from international life when you've got you but we must be ready for that if you want to be prepared for war. group which due to go. some pretty determined words there how serious do you think mr lavrov is about potentially cutting economic ties with the. i wouldn't necessarily blow his comments out of proportion i mean you have to really think of the context that these comments took place and it was on a live broadcast from a russian firebrand journalist by the name of ludwig as a lot of you know now he's often referred to as one the kremlin's chief

propagandist he's very very critical of the european union and of the west in general and often helps the kremlin kind of shape their communication for the domestic audience in these were very very simple in his comments he was making right there and that's kind of a statement or a sentiment rather we've been hearing from other parts of the russian government to meijer peskov putin's press representative actually walk back to the statements that lavrov made earlier in the day saying that he's been taken out of context he said that europe action or inaction europe rather russia wants better relations with europe and he was saying that lavrov was attempting to express the fact that they're ready for all possibilities if new sanctions are introduced but not but said that he didn't want to stress that the russian government was interested in ending a relationship with the e.u. any time soon i am thank you aaron tilden in moscow. well as we've just heard alexina valley is the focus of a growing diplomatic crisis between the e.u. and russia moscow says it's ready to come ties with brussels if the a year goes ahead with harsh economic sanctions one possible target is

a nearly complete gas pipeline between russia and germany but skeptics say linking the project to human rights is a bad idea. the north stream too is ready at least the german end of the nearly 2500 kilometer long pipeline it starts here in the baltic sea town of lukeman the receiving terminal with its thick pipes and heavy safety valves has been ready to go since the summer. goodmans mayor oxus force is concerned that despite this the russian gas pipeline might never be operational. it would give us a very bad public image if we had an investment disaster of this magnitude and the political debate continued to be so heated i suspect that would also scare off investors we'd like to keep. this 150 kilometers of pipeline has become a hot topic. the section has yet to be completed on the bottom of the baltic sea.

but calls for tougher sanctions against russia are getting louder. after the reported poisoning of opposition politician alex enough ali many demanded a halt to the construction of the north stream to local authorities refused to believe that construction might be stopped. in 5 nobody can you really link the case of nevaeh in the to a project like north stream to. what would it be better to look at these 2 events separately especially when the facts at least according to my assessment are not yet clear enough to place the blame on russian government or. the mayor is voicing the opinion of the citizens of lukeman a seaside resort on the baltic sea. because of the coronavirus there aren't enough tourists but there are also very few locals on the beach their opinion is almost unanimous. people think everything the russians do is bad that's not right the

volley is unimportant north stream is important to. us can we afford to waste millions billions compromises have to be made i think it must be completed i think it was dismissed because both only one person dares to criticize russia even the longer they were historically a reliable partner as long as it benefited them for political reasons i would not continue this project. if you just pour your mission for folks all that matters is a consistent supply of energy after germany's nuclear phaseout gas will become essential he says even if it comes from russia will we find russia including vladimir putin to be a reliable partner in social and economic life in the state of mecklenburg western primer a nia and especially here at our energy and business site i see no reason for putin

or the russian government to be sidelined like that. lupin expects russian natural gas to flow through these pipes soon. prosecutors and the us congress have wrapped up their case in the 2nd impatient trial against donald trump they are the senate has to convict the former president for inciting the violent mob that stormed the capitol building on january 6th democrats say trump must be convicted to ensure they can be no repeat in a few hours time chimes defense team will begin presenting its side of the story. to. a timely end to the day's hearings on the 3rd day of the impeachment trial of donald trump prosecutors made their closing pitch without using up their allotted speaking time of 16 hours. i wanted to start simply by saying that in the history of humanity democracies an extremely rare and frau draw and

precarious and transitory thing this wasn't just an attack on the capitol building and the dedicated people inside it was an attack on what we were elected to preserve our democracy. for you. the prosecution made heavy use of video footage of the january 6th riots to prove that the former president had incited the violent insurrection. impeachment is not to punish but to prevent we are not here to punish donald trump we're here to prevent the seeds of hatred that he planted from bearing any more fruit republican lawmakers who are quick to dismiss the arguments that argument today. that they were awfully repetitive. over the course. trump's defense team will make its case on friday a final vote is expected this week and the 2 thirds majority is needed to impeach

a trumpery meaning 17 republican senators have to cross the aisle you know. meanwhile u.s. president joe biden has confirmed he'll take part in next week's munich security conference becoming the 1st sitting american president to do so event organizers announced in a tweet that the conference will be held virtually this year and broadcast live the munich security conference is a k. event for addressing international defense issues biden has attended the conference in the past while vice president to barack obama according to a white house press secretary biden is expected to push for greater cooperation between the u.s. and europe. let's bring in data reports that william. joe biden will be the 1st sitting u.s. president to participate in this conference how significant is that for transit let the transatlantic relationship. well it's certainly not anything to sneeze

at joe biden is a big time foreign policy buff himself he himself values and understands the importance of the transatlantic relationship and beyond all of the domestic crises he's facing as president mostly due to the pandemic he has made very clear also before he was sworn in as president that the transatlantic relationship and foreign policy in general will not take a backseat in his presidency we heard his remarks at the state department just about a week and a half ago where he talked with the importance of reengaging with allies rebuilding trust engaging with also with adversaries it was quite a reversal of the america 1st doctor that we heard from donald trump which saw alliance is a 0 sum transactional kind of thing and a weakness for america where as biden is seen diplomacy as a strength and this event he's agreed to take part in a special edition munich security council so to speak is a sign of that one of the main challenges facing the president do you think will

will he be welcomed at the conference. what i'm being told is of course you will be welcome there's great excitement and anticipation about him coming and a chance to like i said rebuild the relationship beyond the individual issues whether it's nordstrom to human rights issues in the volley with russia rising china beyond any individual issue the key problem here is trust europeans have learned over the last 4 years that they can't trust the united states to be a reliable permanent partner in the united states can't really trust the european union to step up and assume more responsibility so the u.s. doesn't have to be the one always taking care of things or seeing that way and that's very much the comments that. told me when i got a chance to speak to him he is the chairman of the munich security conference and obviously is quite heavily involved in you know all of the organizing of these events like now this special m.-s. say we'll also see contributions from other very own eyes ations an alms the un for

example the commission of course nato and the w.h.o. what should we expect to say come out of this is talks well one thing i find very interesting that planners have told me is that when it comes to transplant relationship it's going to be mostly a by the medical back and forth which means it's very much being framed as he murmured the u.s. issue not necessarily at the european level we can also expect possibly things are climate on coded what can be done as a global response to those issues and the sticking points are going to be if like i said vali comes up human rights issues with russia and north stream to which the united states and many many of the european union are outright against and germany is pushing ahead with completing even out of the threat of u.s. sanctions which started under donald trump and are continuing under joe biden where i went off thanks very much for that update. let's turn now to some of the other

stories making headlines around the world the south authorities in india have adult relief materials to villages cut off after in place to collapse.