more details about the near east in the next few minutes. let me remind you that iran has been in turmoil these days. well, first of all, because literally on july 30, he took the oath there after the early presidential elections, after the death of the previous president raisi, masoud, pezeshkiyan, and in the context of these events, ceremonial events, something unexpected happened, although, as for whom, in fact, israel reached out, reached out and quite effectively to one of the political leaders of the terrorist hamas, hamas, the network of which is still based in the sector gaza, and that is why the operation of the israel defense forces in this sector continues, in particular to liberate its own hostages. mykhailo

yakubovych, orientalist, candidate of historical sciences, researcher at the oriental studies department of the university of freiburg in germany. mr. mykhailo, i congratulate you, glory to ukraine. glory to the heroes, good evening. a striking precedent is the destruction of the leader of hamas in tehran. and this is a very pointy liquidation that israel succeeded in. the first question, which is asked, in particular, by the common man. how will it affect in general, on the effectiveness of the activities of the terrorist group hamas? well, first of all, israel did not directly take responsibility for this action, although whether only israel was there, or whether it was not without the help of other parties, that is the question. here, by the way, it happened at the time when ganya came to the inauguration of the new president of iran, which is also quite interesting, by the way, because he was...

positioned by some iranian circles as such a reformer, a person who would enter into a dialogue with the west , here they actually put the new iranian president in such a status that he we immediately have to start with what raisi ended, i.e. talk about the need for a tough policy, the answer to the fight against israel, the fight against america, that is, in fact, the iranian elite took advantage of many things to... immediately put the new president in the place that he the ayatollah is removed, israel here, by the way, played well with him in this. if we talk about gania, then gania arrived in qatar and they are burying him in the same way in qatar, he arrived from qatar and they are burying him there. in qatar, obviously israel would not want to do this, because i would not want to spoil relations with arab countries, but to be honest, hannia has already caught many, like hamas himself, and the saudis, and the emiratis, and... the tatars, for

many this situation in the gas sector, well, relatively speaking, is a big problem , which you want to complete, and on the one hand israel continues negotiations, not agreeing to the terms of hamas, even today the delegation again arrived in cairo for negotiations, that is, hamas, which is very interesting, did not leave the negotiations completely, but if from a position of strength it would be worth it to do, well, how do you kill our leader here too to negotiate with you, that is, we see that even on... them, israel has conducted a lot of successful operations, that is, when netanyahu announced that hamas would be destroyed as an organization, many expressed doubts about it, well, they said, it would not be possible to completely destroy it, somewhere there will be some reconciliation. nevertheless, netanyahu pursues this policy not without the help of his western partners, of course. it is difficult to predict what will happen next, but now the situation will obviously shift a little from the gas sector. to lebanon, because given

the latest reports and the iranian response will be through lebanon and there are already calls for citizens to leave beirut, well, the north of israel as well , a huge evacuation of the population was carried out and continues to be carried out, and that is, this confirms the predictions expressed by some analysts that a huge, large-scale conflict with lebanon is being prepared for the fall, when israel . managed to weaken hamas in many ways in the gaza sector, to defuse the situation there, now, well, it is time to give a proper response to hezbollah, and hezbollah is also preparing for this conflict, that is, we can wait for the opening of the second front, although whether the hostilities there will reach the scale of 2006 with such full-fledged airstrikes on the south of lebanon, well, that is also a question, although in the future, if not...

in the next month, then a year, i think this can be expected, because without removing the threat from hezbollah, well, to talk about some kind of security in israel on... is it possible, and even more so, the strikes on lebanon, they will be perceived completely differently than the strikes on the gas sector, even in arabic with the public, because the hands of hezbollah, it is not has as many supporters in arab countries as hamas did because hamas is such a sunni movement that was associated with the muslim brothers, here it turned out that the palestinians, the indigenous population of the region, resisting the occupation, that is , the narrative looked relatively attractive. here are some iranian advisers, shiites, fanatics who came to lebanon, deceived the locals, it is not clear why they are attacking israel, that is , from the point of view of, for example, saudi arabia or the united arab emirates, in principle

hizbullah can be easily merged and there is no special there will be no protest, even if we we talk about north africa and those countries in the same way, so in principle... such a moment has come, again the question is how israel's allies will react, specifically joe biden, who is now withdrawing from affairs, we see this, because trump had a declarative policy more anti-iranian, and he is now demonstrating that if he was, hamas would not have attacked, well, these are well-known propaganda theses, and somewhere the israelis are also obviously waiting for the american elections, in this case, even when we see biden removed from ... and the arrival of trump conditionally became more realistic on the horizon, and netanyahu is his staunch supporter, then israel significantly, well, so to speak, pressed the gas, and began to conduct some

operations in yemen and in lebanon more successfully, apparently having secured the support of some american circles, and we see that this gave a new signal for the possibility of escalation, well, it delayed the issue... of returning the hostages for an indefinite period, because as we can see, netanyahu still does not agree to the terms of hamas, this is approximately the situation now. regarding the definition escalation, it seems, before, before this powerful blow, joseph biden called on netanyahu to be more careful, to stop the escalation, and it could even be about the limitation of aid from the liaison. states if the israeli leader does not listen to these very subtle but sure advices. at the same time, the un secretary general considers the elimination of pro-iranian partisans in beirut and

tehran as a dangerous escalation, which is interesting. well, besides, i don't know if our viewers and listeners noticed it. but on july 30 he was at the inauguration of the new president of iran a rather high-ranking diplomat from europe is present, the european commission sent its representative there, and actually many people were a little surprised by this, but is it normal in this situation, according to the spokesperson of the european commission , peter stano, actually we... need to adhere to the policy of critical interaction, mr. mykhailo, is this situation normal, or are we basically just seeing and observing certain ceremonial things? i think that from the point of view of the european union, it is quite

normal, even this last exchange, when putin's killer was returned from germany, in calm in principle, although germany could react this way to the murder of even another citizen. with a russian killer, how iran is now trying to react, it is in principle the same situation, but the person was deported, and, well, it turned out that it is possible, so when we hear that dialogue with russia is impossible there, it is a terrorist state, it cannot be no negotiations and so on, well, such things, they significantly question this narrative, because there is a real policy and a rational calculation, if we talk about iran, then diplomatic relations with the iranians are maintained, for example, the biden administration lifted some restrictions introduced by trump, for example, trump did not let iranians into the united states at all, he did not even open visas for scientists, in fact, i have colleagues who could not leave iran because of such events. despite the fact that supposedly people are not related to the regime, but

we see the european union in the same way, he still believes that there may be some kind of agreement in the future that iran will not... still make nuclear weapons, and we buy cheaper oil, and iran constantly speculates on this, and the european union does not want iran to finally slide to such a satellite. and divided between china and russia, and the iranians themselves do not want this, they have a very long history of dialogue with israel and the west. we can recall the events of 7-8 years ago, when iran dispatched its military to fight against isis, which, by the way, the europeans encouraged in every possible way, and in fact, when, for example, they liberated mosul and northern iraq from isis, there were a lot of iranian soldiers there, and the bombing was carried out. with north americans and members of the coalition, in fact they were allies, which led to

the preservation of bashar assad's regime, and there are many such questions, by the way, about iraq, in general , iraq is trying to balance successfully between the west and iran, that is, these relations, as european diplomacy believes , did not cross red lines, even, let's take the issue of the supply of iranian weapons to russia, well , except for these martyrs, which russia itself is already producing. well, in principle, iran throws something up there from time to time, but it is not armament of the level of ballistic missiles. also, for example, there are many russians their weapons are produced using israeli technologies and others, and well, no one says that israel supplies weapons to russia. therefore, the issue here with iran and sanctions is very ambiguous, and unfortunately, european diplomacy here in many respects demonstrates the same amorphousness. as it demonstrates even in the issues of the russian invasion of ukraine,

that is why here we europeans still believe that it will be possible to come to an agreement with iran very calmly and easily, and this agreement with iran is in the future, it is even more realistic than the agreement with russia there, because iran after all well, formally, until he attacked anyone, he only worked directly through a proxy, and the israeli attack was successful, an attack on israel. was successfully repelled and resembled, to be honest, rather, well, such, you know, a controversial show off, rather than a real blow. mr. mykhailo, thank you for this high-quality analysis for our viewers and listeners, mykhailo yakubovych, orientalist, candidate of historical sciences, researcher at the oriental studies department of the university of freiburg in germany, joined the saturday political club, in which for a few vitaly portnikov, whom we are all eagerly waiting for, will appear in a few minutes. there are discounts

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hours to learn about the war and what the world is like, two hours to keep up with economic news and sports news, two hours in the company of favorite presenters, presenters who have become likeable to many, as well as distinguished guests of the studio, the events of the day in two hours, vasyl zima's big broadcast, a project for smart and caring people, in the evening for espresso. this is the saturday political club, my name is khrystyna. yatskiv and in the future we have more than an hour to enjoy and analyze, critically analyze the latest events, and i am already glad to welcome vitaly portnikov, without whom this program cannot be imagined, in connection with our kyiv studio. i congratulate you, mr. vitaly. greetings, ms. khrystyna, long time no see, very mutual, long time no see, and i am glad

to be with you again in the same ethereal context. i wanted to start with... on the topic of the large prisoner exchange, i would like to remind the audience that russia and belarus on the one hand, the united states, germany, slovenia and the united kingdom on the other, have exchanged prisoners, and this is an extremely large-scale event, which already overgrown a certain analysis, but right now in the minds of ukrainians there is also a certain quite understandable criticism, we will talk about it a little later, to you, mr. vitaly, the main question: why this exchange right now to putin and why is it on the other hand to the united states in the person of joseph biden, and the democrats? well, i think that putin has had one goal for a long time, quite important. this is the release of krasikov, a man who is known for his murder right in berlin in terganter park dashvili,

a georgian citizen of chechen origin. this is a well-known political story murder, and this very story, of course , always interested putin, because we already know that krasikov is a personal acquaintance for him, this is a person who carried out some special confidential assignments, maybe not only putin, maybe all of this so- called of the ozero cooperative, and in addition to this murder of khongashvili, krasykov is known for being involved in the murder of several russian businessmen in the northwest. in the northwestern region of russia, and this is a person who served in federal security of the russian federation, and before that in the kgb, that is , this is just a person from the same corporation as putin, close to putin personally, i even believe that he was once his bodyguard during the st. petersburg period of putin's activities, when putin was the vice-mayor of st. petersburg, and of course in this situation, it was very important for putin

to show that people who carry out such orders of his cannot leave this prisoner, especially since... in the case of the handsome man, it was about life imprisonment, and by the way, i i want to remind you that putin came personally to the airport to meet these people who were released, he hugged the handsome man and told him: great, and by and large, after buta krasikov - this was the second such russian prisoner among western prisoners, and it was very important for putin to do so, for him to be released, but there was such a problem that krasikov was in germany. germany does not go to such an exchange quite often, so putin needed the united states to be interested in releasing its citizens, so that those citizens of the united states states was an important goal of the american administration to have the american administration cooperate with the german government to release krasikov, that was such an important

point, you know, that the russians started just taking american citizens hostage. here's how our colleague from the wall street journal, evena hershkovich, who was released in this exchange, others were known hostages for american citizenship, a former marine, our colleague from radio liberty, and here, now let's look at the american interest, here's to joseph biden it was very important to release these people during his presidency. because the biggest nightmare of any american president is what happened to jimmy carter. jimmy carter negotiated in the last period of his term with iran for the release of american diplomats who were then held hostage by the american, iranian leadership in tehran, and he did practically all the work on this exchange, his

administration was successful, but then in november, as it always is in the united states, jimi. lost the election to ronald reagan and the iranians released these men on the day of ronald reagan's inauguration. and biden , of course, wanted to prevent such a situation in any case. first, that it should happen during his term of office. the second thing is that it doesn't happen, you know, that he did all the work, and then trump won the election all of a sudden. and on the day of trump's inauguration, something new is happening. putin releases american citizens, as they say, see, i became the president and everything started to be resolved, and even more so, even if it happened after november. trump spoke, even mine there is no inauguration, russia is already afraid of us, that is, it had to happen by november, this is a very important moment, it is a moment of american

interest, now a moment of german interest, germany was very reluctant to release krasikav, we can see it, it even caused an outpouring of emotions in german media, it means that it was necessary for the federal chancellor that he is not just releasing american citizens in exchange for a bribe, but that he is releasing german citizens, and putin just went to take the germans hostage, even lukashenka this adventure, you know that lukashenka just a few weeks before that was a death sentence to a german citizen, no one at all understands what this person really did. and lukashenko pardoned this person after the death sentence, this is not even a life sentence for you, i apologize, and of course, it was

important for germany that it had a humanitarian context, that is, the head of the german ministry of foreign affairs, annalin burbeck, you know she is a representative of the green party, she was categorically against the release of katz and believed that it would be a catastrophe, moral, and olaf scholz and anthony... blinkin and all the others convinced her that no, people's lives were more important than such things, so let krasikov sit there in russia, but the main thing is that we will release american citizens and your citizens, german citizens, but one more important humanitarian component was added, that is, russian political prisoners, moreover, in principle, the west believed that if we replaced, say, krasikov with navalny, then germany would not have no... special questions at all, because you know that navalny's fate was personally taken care of by angela merkel, after his poisoning, he was treated in charita, and if this

had happened, you see, krasikov was released , along with navalny's american citizens, several more russian politicians, then this would not have caused any indignation of public opinion, and they believed that putin was even ready for this... to go, there is information that roman abramovich was talking to him, and putin seemed to be interested in this, but just a few days before this exchange, navalny died, that is, it was such a cynical game that we had already agreed on the exchange, in principle, decided who, how, but then navalny died, and the exchange was postponed for several months, because then they again began to think about who could be included in this exchange so, so that this exchange... had a humanitarian character, these russian law enforcement officers were included, by the way, i do not understand why the belarusian ones were not included, if

there was a person pardoned by lukashenko, the nobel laureate ales biletsky, let's say, he is in prison, who won the nobel prize together with ours oleksandra mitveichuk and her organization, well , there are a lot of political prisoners in belarus after the 20th year, maybe someone at least... should have been included as well, well, this is such a rhetorical question, this is just me thinking about myself, well , so all these interests converged, because germany was interested in the fact that there would still be such a humanitarian moment as the release from russian prisons, if novalny is no longer there, well, several iconic russian political prisoners who opposed the putin regime and against the war, you know that yashin just likes it. and there are a few more people there are those who left because they condemned russia’s war against ukraine, kara morza has a more serious charge, he

has treason there, he has been there for 55 years, it seems that there is something like that, here, but there are other people, they left about what just fakes about the army and the like, the like, oleg orlov, the chairman of the board , is now banned from the memorial, so in this regard, the germans still had it. it is important to demonstrate that they are releasing from russian prisons people who protested against putin's war of aggression against ukraine, well, that is also an important point, and several people immediately from fbk from this navalny fund, well, there is no navalny, but we at least give the opportunity to get freedom to his associates from russian regions, well, this approach, if it is logical, it is clear what happened? mr. vitaly, if i understood you correctly, there is a possibility that alexei navalny... well, let's say, could have died in connection with this exchange, assuming, i believe, that he died in connection with they just laughed at the event, huh. as for the fact that

they already understood that krasikov would be released, please, yes, yes, yes, that krasikov will be released, but at the same time they will not give navalny's symbol, but at the same time they will not give navalny, of course, this was their main idea, that in principle the parameters of the exchange are clear, this exchange will take place at all, because biden is interested in this, the americans need to be released, but without navalny, well, it was such a cynical, cruel game of theirs. on the other hand, i have always told you and i will say now that i do not understand the logic of people at all, i will never be convinced by it, who go to prison and then, realizing that they will be put in prison, and then they will have to pay for them, let's say, all these russian bandits and spies,

well... navalny returned to russia from germany, we remember this after the poisoning, for which he expected kara murzu also tried several times to triple, in the end they gave him 25 years, the situation is also strange, because he says that he would generally like to return to russia and continue his activities there, but he will not return, because he understands that then there will be no exchanges, he wanted... people were released later, i never understood it, and i don't understand it, they say it's courage, but it seems to me that it's just a misunderstanding of the situation, that these people invented some kind of country that does not exist, and for their life will not exist, and they will simply fall into the trap of the russian regime, ugh, i don't know if you have read or watched , there was a situation exactly like this in the 20s, i

think. of our century with the famous russian politician, boris savink, who was a famous terrorist of the time of the empire, and then, when the soviet union had already appeared, and the whites lost the elections, he was an asser, that is , a socialist, a revolutionary, he created a fairly influential opposition organization, and he was ready for the armed forces. struggle, as you understand, he knew what armed struggle is, because he was a terrorist, the head of a combat organization, mr. vitaly, we lost the sound with you, we still do not hear, unfortunately, but now, now yes, yes, in touch, there was a whole story with savinkov, ugh, in soviet times, people who watched soviet films, they remember it as savinkov

lured to soviet russia: lured to soviet russia illegally, people who were nkvd agents announced that they, oppositionists and associates of savinkov, he came, believed that he would have great success, and in the end there was a show trial against tsavinkov, to whom he told that he agreed with the soviet authorities, and then he seemed to end his life by suicide. in the building of the ogpu, well, we understand that he was simply killed, and we understand that, mr. vitaly, i again ask you to fix the microphone, or do something with the sound, for us with the audience, every word of yours is extremely important, so and so when, when there was such a situation with... with sayankov, when i think of sayankov,

i think of navalny, of yashin, of karamurza, i think that it is approximately the same the situation itself, salinkov absolutely did not understand russia, the russia that had appeared, and he was sure that he understood, because, well, he had lived in russia all his life, he was engaged in revolutionary activities there, he was the commissar of petrograd during of the provisional government, how could he think that the country in which he spent so much time, so changed. this is literally in 6-7 years, is this a different country at all? and putin's russia, since 2014, and even more so after 2022, has changed beyond recognition, it so often happens when the regime goes from an authoritarian to a totalitarian state, by the way, sayenko was already killed after the death of lemin, ugh, this is important .