i the, the the this is the w news lie from berlin, a sigh of relief from germany. political establishment after the far right fails to win a key state election. anglo american conservatives when big and fight off the challenge from the populace. alternative for germany party. the poll was the last real passed before national elections in september. also coming up churches in the netherlands,

begin hearing evidence against for man, accused of shooting down malaysia airlines flight an age 17 families are racing to hear harrowing testimony about their loved ones, deaths 7 years ago. and as india emerges from a devastating 2nd wave of the pandemic, the capital valley prepared to unlock city officials and say it's time to get the economy back on track. ah, i'm problem for us. welcome to the program. the far right has failed to redraw germany's political map angle americans. conservatives have comfortably seen off the challenge from the alternative for germany in the eastern state of saxony. house the chancellors party, the see to you one more than a 3rd of the vote. the

a f t last votes, but remains the 2nd biggest party in the state. parliament is followed by the left party, the social democrats, the free democrats, and the greens. this bonnet was closely watched as it was the last test of public opinion before september is national elections. for months in the pose, 2 parties were breathing down each other's next here in the east, in german state of stack to me on house. in the endo, a resounding unexpectedly strong wind for the conservative t d u. and nothing close to an upset from the far right alternative for germany. a f d i was just on lots of devices have taken a clear stand on a large majority of our citizens have said, we don't want to be associated in any way with the 3 latest date. if the and i'm very grateful for the shipment done on many here in fact to me on how to relatively poor estate who could win and would win. it pulled strongly for months,

capitalizing on voted. dissatisfaction with the pandemic while keeping to with core and to migration message. instead sundays result indicate d i f d may be weakening and it's strong hold areas, but it's putting a positive spin on the result. and as it is not bad, we're very happy with the result. it's pretty much what we got last time. and i have to say it's important to me that we got the working class back the left part. he has lost voters and the work is in this day came to us and i'm actually very happy with this result. even though it sucks to me on how it is a small day to see, to use when here is a much needed to federal leader and lash at it. he's got a lot on his place. like sending off the challenge nationally from the greens he were riding high in the pole. if he succeeds lash, it's done the greatest chance of winning the biggest prize. replacing with uncle

michael as chancellor call me back. well, for more analysis, let's go to d. w. chief political editor, me, kayla kuth. now i mckayla good to see, you know, some opinion polls showed the far right a f d at did have a chance of winning this election, but the conservative tough the polls. what was it that made them so popular in the end? well, it was kind hearted off the state premier of anger makeover, c d u policy. he won over the electorate by what he calls, having a centrist cause, but also looking at the issues that people care about. and the other interesting aspect of course, is not the pulling was so completely off the results completely off the mark. and there was certainly a feeling that and those pulled that. so the forward a s d in the lead might have spooked a lot of voters into actually going and putting their vote down for the conservative cd you party. suddenly there's indications that

a huge chunk of non voters decided to go to the polls because they wanted to prevent the fall, right? a s d. so the success of the c, d, u is as much a product of the failure of the a s d. and to succeed more following in strong hold states, he is what c d u leda and want to be tom. so candidate, while he is the top that kind of want to be follow of angular, michael as chancellor had to say about devised psych oh, what does the cloud come election shows that are clear stance against the i f d is not only the right one. it's one also supported by the people, and we will consistently continue this centrist cause. that's what i stand for as potty chairman and candidates. the chancellor, the centrist course, will not move a millimeter. and we're sticking to dash hiding really made for n dot arm in last year there at speaking at just mckayla. how much of

a boost is this result for the c d u, considering the national elections are in september? well, it certainly is a very much needed boost for armand last at the top candidate. even the guy not higher law for the state, premier of saxony, unhide preferred someone else marco suda, who was seen as having a much more conservative profile that was seen as the only way to really tackle the far right a f t party. now this election victory shows that at the very least, i mean last it seen as the continuity a candidate to follow in under michael's footsteps. he didn't prevent the seaview from succeeding against the far right. a sd, that's something he desperately needed to prove. he himself also said at the very press conference that really the opponent now was the green party was had a rather poor showing in sacks in the on house,

but whose rice has been continuous here in germany. and that will be the real test . that's what the conservative is, c d u union says itself, but they of course, haven't even published their own program yet. so we're in for another couple of weeks of very interesting debates. the between the conservative angle, michael's camp, and particularly those greens, who may well come ahead in those polls on september 26th. all right, we'll leave it there will be keeping a close eye on that. me, kayla. cozen i. d w chief political editor. thank you for that. right. moving on and judges in the netherlands have begun hearing evidence against 4 men who are suspected of being behind the downing of malaysia airlines flight m h 17 over eastern ukraine. hearing in the murder trial has just got underway. it's being held near amsterdam, shipple airport from where m h. 17 took off on its final flight. the 3 russians under ukrainian suspect are

still at large, meaning the they're being tried in absentia or 298 people on board and age. 17 died when the plane was shot down nearly 7 years ago. the families of the victims are bracing to hear painful details in court. a tree for each of the people who never returned the memorial sight. next his people airport has $298.00 trees and total 3 of them are dedicated to pete books. family. he lost his brother, his sister in law and their son on board flight mh 17. they left 2 daughters who did go with him and only those 2 young daughters at the, at the time. and so yeah, i had to tell the daughter that their their father and mother and brother died. and

i had to tell my parents who were in the hospital at the time. so that was very shocking. yeah. pete teeth chairs, a foundation bringing together thousands of next of kin. he says the image, 17 disaster header, real impact on all of dirt society where the bodies were repetitive. the whole dutch nation was, was, was what she did on television and the stairwell. but this was also very, very beautiful. that there was so much compassion among the dutch people like m a 17, took off here at the people airport and never reach the spinal destination in malaysia. now after years of investigations, a court here in the middle and is determined to find out what exactly happened on that fateful day in 2014 and also who is responsible at the center of this inquiry

are the remnants of the bowing. triple 7 here being viewed by the court. a massive jigsaw puzzle that was pieced back together in a dutch military base. the crash site 7 years ago, or 298 on board, the plane were killed when it was blown out of the sky over a war zone and eastern ukraine. evidence points to a book, anti aircraft system, which was moved from russia and to rebel territory controlled by pro russian separatists. these 4 men will stand trial. they remain at large, allegedly protected by russia. those were presenting the victims family, say this doesn't make the case any less important. law has alarm, you know, also in time can take 5 can take 10 years, maybe 50 years and mr. put in and his regime will not always be in power. so maybe if there's a shift in government and if there will be shipped from policy. also there will be

a shifting policy in this file so they will have no rest. the suspects, i'm sure that peter put on the other hand, says he doesn't care that much whether the suspects go to jail. he just wants the truth to be spoken. i think it's important that, that we know what the role of the russia if they had the role, what role of the russian federation was not only will push the button, but also who was in the and responsible for all for all. what happened? so this can take years and even 7 years after mh 17 crashed, he's determined to see this through until the end. right, well we're joined by cristo grows if he's a russia investigator with the investigative journalism collective belen car. he was part of a team that discovered uncollected key information about the downing of flight and h 17 and he joins me from the austrian capital vienna,

welcome to the w. and from all the evidence you've seen, is there any doubt that russia was behind the shooting down of m. h 70? no, there is no doubt. and we've seen even more evidence than the one that's been present in court because we've been stake. looked at every shred of telecommunications data, every stuff like photo, every social media posting of russian soldiers who move from course, where the 53rd brigade, which is the gate that the investigative, the justification team believes was the source of the book, this l to the border of russia, we've seen so much neutrally corroborating evidence of that holistic lee. there is no alternative explanation than the fact that russia provide the weapon that shut down and killed 298 people. right. well, talk to us now about russia's role in the aftermath you said in an online piece that russian state actors not only, and a co op,

didn't cooperate in the investigation, but actively tried to falsify evidence and spread miss information. so tell us a little bit more about this. will the russian position after the, in the aftermath of the downing was to spread as many mutually conflicting and contradictory theories about what might have happened. that the average viewer, a consumer of news would get just tired. i mean, somebody recently likened this to a very with metaphor that like to borrow, which is d d all saying the mine to ddr seen the media essentially bombarding the media with alternative theories with counted more than 75 different theories that have been proper promulgated by different russian agencies, both state and, and private, but working with proxy of the state including the, the, the airplanes airplane scenario where they claim that people living down in east ukraine were able, with their simple, with a naked eye to see a ukrainian airplane that was flying about the clouds,

this is something that is even scientifically and technically no possible. but that's just one example of, of a theory that has been used to dilute the, the evidence. what i'd rather consider is that if russia wanted to find the truth, it would just be cooperating with the investigation to the degree that is being requested to. and it's still declining store, for example, the investigative team. the judges have requested russia to provide access for questioning to members of the 53rd brigade, 2 officers from the 50s or gate in order for them to exonerate themselves or to exonerate russia. russia is just silent on this and they do not provide. so texas, russia continues claiming that it's excluded from the investigation is not given a chance to provide an input, but at the same time it doesn't comply with such requests for data. right? you've mentioned there, that therapy in plenty of theories will say, how hard is it been for investigators not to full for red herrings? well, at the beginning it was very hard. it's very clear that a,

the international team was still learning on the job. how to deal with a state actor that is very experienced that misinformation and i like we've met over the years, some of the members of the drug investigation team and i believe that they were just not prepared for this. this for this sort of a counterpart on the other side.