how vladimir putin's philosophy explains so much about the war in ukraine, plus, the future of u.s. sanctions on russia and putin's maga star rally. and combating moscow's disinformation machine. good evening. i'm mehdi hasan.

the nazi conquest of europe, that's how president zelenskyy described the invasion of his country. he spoke as russia continued its air assault. and in the wake of vladimir putin's peektry speaking of victory at a trump-style rally. we've seen words like naziism and fascism thrown around a lot. we feed to talk about a man named evan, born in 1883.

he soon became a fan of muse lany. it wasn't just mussolini. he wrote an article headlined "national socialism". he formulated a vision for a very russian-form of fascism. he ended up leaving germany before the war began and died if switzerland in on security in 1954. now you might think a russian exile wouldn't have much support for russia today.

tens of millions of russians died during world war ii, including if the seat of lennon grad. today moscow tries to falsely claim they're fighting the nazis. yet, russian elites are been turning to evan elian. they are trying to rehabilitate this long-dead philosopher. when someone only begins talking

about the separation, they believe that to speak of ukraine was to be a mortal enemy of russia. in 2006, putin reclaimed elian's papers. to cast a light on elian's major and lion influence on russian politics, by then, putin was citing elian in his annual addresses. putin relied on elian for invading ukraine. putin cited elian as his authority on the past. the kremlin was sending copies

of elian's words. an article was referring to evan elian as putin's philosopher while describing him as a first conspiracy theorist. if a philosopher is a guiding light and inspiration for the russian president, what does that make putin himself. >> he is a war criminal. a murderous dictator, a pure thug waging an immoral war against the people of ukraine. >> tough words, but one word biden hasn't used so far,

fascist. putin is behaving in a fascist way, while obsessing over nazis in ukraine. it has become a moderate fascist state. i want to put up a quote from robert paxton, the preimnant scholar who literally wrote the book on this. fascism, he says, may be defined as political behavior marked by preoccupation with community decline, victim hood and nationalist militants working in effective collaboration with

traditional elites, pursues goals of internal cleansing and external expansion. let's take that last line about goals. external expansion. he's trying conquer the entire country. listen to the man himself speaking a few days ago. if that stuff sounds scary to

you, that's because it is, with pure, unadulterated fascism, as is the nationalist garbage he was spewing on friday, celebrating the illegal annexation of crimea. you'll know i've spent the past year talking a great deal about the f-word, about fascism and the rise of trump. but tonight we need to recognize that in eastern europe we are facing a fascism much worse, much more violent, in which is inspired every step of the way by evan elian.

he has used his ideas to portray ukraine, europe and the united states as existential dangers to russia. joining me now tim snider, who drew attention to elian's role to putinism. thanks for coming back on the show, and first off, thank you for your work on all this. highlighting this guy, elian on putin. what would he make of the invasion of ukraine in. >> on the presidency, he would very much approve. elian's idea of politics was this a one-party state was too much. there should be zero parties. putin sent that to everyone in his party so they would know just how important they were.

there should be no institutional barriers. with no consultation, the president can send an army out to invade another country. he had the idea which putin repeats that russia is an all-embracing civilization. he refused to use the word ukraine, he always put it in quotation marks. if you use the word ukraine, you're attacking russia as up. it's research the type of thing that elian would be supporting. >> he wrote a piece in defense of naziism, how does putin

explain or justify that to himself? >> it's interesting. appreciate you doing this segment. he does read books and cited other philosophers besides elian. elian not exactly ay correct. his collective writings were distributed on a mass basis in early 2014 when russia was about to invade ukraine. putin cites him in the equivalent of the state of the union address. this is not a secret to russians. the fact that this is a fascist, though, tricky. in popular discourse in russia, fascist doesn't have any meaning like nazi doesn't have any meaning. it just means the other side.

it doesn't mean that you can't call somebody else a fascist. >> interesting about putin reading. experts are telling the washington post at that we could be looking at astalemate in ukraine. based on your understandings of putin and elian, is there a middle ground for putin in will he accept a negotiated peace in . >> when putin talks about de-nazification, he means i am the one who gets to say what

nazi means. he means destroy the state and the nation. he's reached the point of when you're a fascist calling someone else a fascist. he's using it to mean that he has the right to decide when it war over, and it will only be over when ukraine is so humiliated that it is ready to accept his definition of it. i think we're in for a long struggle unless mr. putin himself starts to feel that his power might be threatened. >> yeah, and of course there is a neo-nazi faction, but it doesn't run the country. one last question before i let you go. i want to ask about the putin

rally in moscow. it looked to me like a trump-style maga rally, filled with the same disinformation, gas lighting. there a real overlap between american and russian fascist movement the right now is there not in. >> it's much more connected than the left. the right copies everything from it ever. i would have to say that he's talking about the death of russians in war as a good thing, the kind of redemptive violence abroad as the thing that unifies us. those are openly fascist themes. but it looks a little bit like trump, it also looks like a

low-intensity nuremberg. when the cameras are close to people, there was the marked lack of enthusiasm. so this isn't a rally that seemed to be terribly successful. from yeah, putin there in his designer threads doing his best to rally the crowd. tim snyder, appreciate it. next we are live in lviv, ukraine with the alleged use of hyperonic missiles. s onic missi. . are you taking a statin drug to reduce cholesterol? it can also deplete your coq10 levels. i recommend considering qunol coq10

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welcome back. we're going to go cliefrn now to ukraine. the military carried out hypersonic missile strikes, the second time it's done so in two days. what more do we know about such strikes? >> we know there were these quote-unquote hypersonic

strikes. they say they hit an underground bunker filled with ammunition and weapons. no way to independently verify that that's true. they've been starting to target here in the west, try to hit any resupply chains. we do know they've been using it here in the east. just in the last two hours in kyiv, we understand the bombardment there as vicious as it has been since the beginning of the war. multiple explosions taking place in that city. it's really happening right now, and in mariupol which we've spent a lot of time talking about, it seems that the intensification has picked up. more than 80% of the buildings have been completely destroyed in that city. this is one of those places we talk about in the way we talk about aleppo, it's being bombed into rubble and the rubble being shelled. you have people hiding underground. in kharkiv, it's not just the

bodies of civilians but the bodies of russian soldiers in the streets, a pretty good indication that their advancement did not go as planned. we've heard this from the state department, it is why they are turning their attention on indiscriminately shelling these residential areas. >> cal perry, thank you for that update and please do stay safe. coming up, senator ben cardin joins me to react ukrainians are being deported to russia. rchblt the supreme court saying justice clarence thomas was admitted to the hospital after experiencing flu-like symptoms, apparently not related to covid-19 for which he is vaccinated and boosted. the 73-year-old's symptoms are

abating and he is resting comfortably. in the meantime, he will participate in the discussion of any cases for which he is not present on the basis of oral audio. he expects to be released from the hospital in the flex next d two. flex next day or two.

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the mariupol city council

claims ukrainians are being relocated forcibly troish. to russia. ben cardin joins us. thanks so much for coming on the show. first off, your reaction to these shocking claims that ukrainians might be being force bring relocated to russia. >> first, it's good to be with you. it's all part of mr. putin's propaganda. he's trying to show that ukrainians want to come to russia, when they're really trying to seek refuge from russia. i think it feeds into his misinformation. it's outrageous. the ukrainians, all they want is for russia to leave their country, and they certainly don't want to go to russia. >> there's a lot of talk from

your colleagues in the senate about escalating sanctions. would you support a zelenskyy peace deal with russia, say, that led to an automatic revoking of u.s. sanctions on moscow. is that going to be part of any deal? >> at this point we want to ratchet up the sanctions. i authored a bill in the senate that would extend the original magnitsky sanctions. if mr. zelenskyy is able to reach an agreement and part of that is for us to release the sectorial sanctions, that's fine, but i must tell you, from putin needs to be held accountable for his atrocities. he needs to be tried as a war

criminal. >> joe biden called him a war criminal earlier this week. you just said he should be tried for war crimes. where should he be tried? we the united states have not signed up for the international criminal court. do you think we should now? >> there are several ways that could be done. we could create a special venue like we did after world war ii. we could use the hague. there are different venues we could use without the united states joining the icc. >> so you don't support the united states joining the international criminal court right now? >> i think we need to work with the international community. there's some complications in that regard because of issues unrelated to the ukrainian situation. so i think we need to take that off as a separate issue. it should not slow us down one step in having a forum to try

mr. putin as a criminal. there's firm unity among the global community and let's seize this moment to make sure that the politics of the icc do not interfere with venue to try him as a war criminal. >> you mentioned putin's own responsibility. but is there a danger we're squeezing ordinary russians too hard who aren't responsible for putin, the prices rising in their super markets. is there a danger that we're squeezing the russian people instead of the russian ruler in. >> you should really ask that to mr. putin.

make no mistake about it. his corrupt regime takes away from the standard living of russians, so he can pursue this type of war activity. what mr. putin does is robs the russian people of the fruits of their economy. what we're doing now in protecting against the invasion against ukraine, yes, we will go against the russian economy in order to dry up the funds that mr. putin uses to pursue war. this is all caused by from putin's behavior, so when they ask what's happened to their economy thirks should look to one person and one person only and that is mr. putin. >> russians may blame the west. that's something we have to factor in. just on sanctions, while we're talking about sanctions, one

more question on sanctions. you support sanctions on russia, and you lid the bill in the senate to criminalize any sanctions against israel, quote-unquote, bds movement. is it time that we in america acknowledge that calling out a foreign country for human rights abuse, were it's russia over ukraine or saudi arabia over yemen, there's nothing racist in that, is there? >> an individual can make whatever decision they want to make. what we don't want to see is an entity black list a company from being able to participate in international commerce, if they want to boycott israel, that's

their right, but they shouldn't be intimidated to do that because the action of an international organization or state. >> i was trying to establish that we all agree. sanctions, boycotts, they can be used in russia. hopefully it's going to work to get putin to back down. putin did a propaganda rally on friday. it was reminiscent to me of a maga rally in the u.s. is there an overlap? >> well, we did see some similarities. no doubt about it, they're planned for putin. they're designed to talk about patriotism. it's part of his fabrication. it's part of the lies that he tells his people and he supports it with these themes saying that

he has to sport russian population. this is all part of his playbook. and it's outrageous. so, you know, mr. putin needs to be stopped. he needs to be stopped, and this campaign against ukraine, and we would hope that the russian people would understand that by following his leadership, they're hurting their country, they are a hurting themselves. >> and senator, one last question for you, on the supreme court this week judge ketanji brown jackson begins her confirmation hearings in the senate. how much racist dog whistling do you expect? she's already being accused of being soft on child sex offenders.

>> she is imminently qualified, has a great deal of experience. i chaired her hearing for the sentencing commission when she was first involved in a hearing that involved a confirmation. i think she'll do very well during the confirmation hearings this week. some of my colleagues, knowing the way they are, will do things that i find disregrettable but at the end of the day she's going to be confirmed and a justice on the supreme court of the united states. >> she will get all 50 democratic votes in the senate, including joe manchin in your view in. >> i am hoping the republicans will support her also. i hope this is a confirmation process based upon her qualifications. and if that is done she'll get a majority of senators supporting

her. >> we know three republican senators voted for her to be on the bench she's on now. next, we're calling out the hypocrisy of putin's constant nazi talk. did you know that the mehdi show now a podcast? . e mehdi show now a podcast? i don't cook. wait, what? it's a good thing he's so handsome. subway keeps refreshing and refre- okay everyone, our mission is to provide complete balanced nutrition for strength and energy. woo hoo! ensure, complete balanced nutrition with 27 vitamins and minerals. and ensure complete with 30 grams of protein. ♪ ♪

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welcome back. it's time now for what i call the 60-second wrap. this week on russia and the far right. start the clock. i'm so tired of russia going on and on about nazis. do they have a problem in the form of neo-nazis in the form of azov? yes, they do. russia has their own neo-nazi group in ukraine. there's the militant group, russian national unity who like doing national salutes. they worked to rally these groups, not only does putin not

do anything to stop them, he sends them to ukraine. next, a journalist's mission to spread the truth about what's really happening in ukraine. e ts really happening in ukraine. why give your family just any eggs when they can enjoy the best? eggland's best. the only eggs with more fresh and delicious taste. plus, superior nutrition. which is now more important than ever. only eggland's best. we have to be able to repair the enamel on a daily basis. with pronamel repair toothpaste, we can help actively repair enamel in its weakened state. it's innovative. my go to toothpaste is going to be pronamel repair.

i knew that the russian people are not aware of such things that are happening. so i urge the russian people and the soldiers in ukraine to understand the propaganda and the disinformation that you're being told. i ask you to help me spread the truth >> arnold schwarzenegger posting an impassioned plea on twitter that wracked up more than 30 million views. schwarzenegger is a huge deal in russia. don't take my word for it.

he has just one of 22 counts followed. he is talking directly to the russian people and taking aim at the kremlin's digital iron curtain. in recent weeks, russia's crackdown on the free press has gone from bad to worst, forcing reporters to flee the country. earlier this month, a tweet, never thought it would come to this, but i did have to leave russia, crossing the border on foot in the middle of the night with my panic-packed bags on my back and my dog in tow. thank you so much for coming on the show tonight. talk to us about your journey out of moscow, first of all, and what motivated you to leave. what was that like? >> hi, and thank you for having me. it was a pretty much momentous

decision. on march 2, i was still making plans for like a week ahead in moscow. and march 3 it was already clear that we should leave now, like right now, because there were rumors circulating already that the next day martial law would be instituted in russia. that would suspend most of the liberties like free press, which i'm part of, and closed borders. it didn't quite happen, but when we arrived in latvia the next day we found out that my website was blocked and the russian parliament made an extraordinary decision in a joint session of both chambers, which doesn't happen that often, passed a law that effectively criminalizes my work. so we were right to pick up and leave. we basically, passed border on

foot. >> how has your job changed? you mentioned that your website is blocked. are you still able to reach fellow russians? >> actually, we have. the blocking hasn't impacted our readership. we still have millions of readers every day, and on our telegram channel which jumped to well north of a million in a few days. so yes, people are seeking out independent, uncensored information, and i'm just really proud to be able to provide it. >> you recently tweeted that we may have to redefine the word disinformation. in the russia-ukraine case, it's no longer about electing a bad president, many russians are brainwashed into complicit in war crimes whose victims are their own kin.

you mentioned brainwashing. do you believe putin can turn a country the size of russia into another north korea? >> let's hope not. i can't really tell you anything. as i told you, a few weeks ago i was still making plans as though it was peacetime. it is not. i cannot make any long or short-term predictions. but yeah, it's quite terrifying to watch people you actually know and trust showing them pictures and telling them, not just sending them links to news stories that they can dismiss as fake news, but when you're telling them things you've seen yourself, and they tell you no, this can't be, because we are told on the news there is no war in ukraine and russia is just getting ukraine cleansed of nazis, and that's it of the the news is telling us that the russian military is not striking ukrainian targets. it's quite disarming when you

face that. not just some strangers, but the people in your family. >> yeah, i can imagine not just for strangers but people in your family is bizarre, alarming and depressing. circumvent soviet state censorship with short wave radio broadcasts. in 2022, of course, that strategy needs some updating, especially in a world of social media and digital iron curtains. is there a place for social media videos like the one i just played from arnold schwarzenegger. can messages like that help win the information war in russia from the outside? >> i just checked before our segment. arnold schwarzenegger posted the same video and telegram, which many russians do use. i don't expect it to be blocked any time soon because the state propaganda, it's actually using the same infrastructure.

and the russian state media channels have been banned from twitter and facebook, so they have no other option other than news telegram. yeah. it's close to a million views there. and i think it's exclusively russians who use telegram. so, yeah, i mean it's great that we have it and i don't expect it to be banned any time soon. >> and one last question to you. at the start of the show i talked about vladimir putin and the influence of fascist ideology and thought. how would you describe russia today? >> if you have any doubts as to whether putin is sincere when he's talking about getting rid of nazis in ukraine, i implore everyone to google the current head of russian space agency, who was quite recently a member

of an openly nazi organization. you mentioned it in your 60 second rant. the russian national unity. >> yes. >> and i quite recently, less than a decade ago he was filmed at these neo-nazi rallies on live television, and he's never been de-nazified. he currently leads russia's space agency. i hope that answers my question. >> keen observation may be at home rather than abroad for the russian government. alexi, thank you so much for joining us. i know it is late night. i appreciate you getting up for us and i hope you can stay safe. thank you. >> thank you for having me. >> coming up at the top of the hour with ayman mohyeldin, the political editor of the kyiv independent oleksiy sorokin describes day-to-day life. stick around we'll be right back, me and ayman chatting. ck,. time of the year, ♪

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thank you for watching. we'll be right back here next sunday at 8:00 p.m. eastern live. and you can catch me monday through thursday live on 7:00 p.m. eastern. now as ever it is time to hand it over to my friend, ayman mohyeldin. before i go, i have to say i watched some of jen psaki's white house press briefings on ukraine this week, and something stood out to me. have a listen.

>> is the white house and administration facilitating transfer of s300 anti-air missiles? >> president volodymyr zelenskyy in his remarks to congress again made his request for a no-fly zone. he no doubt is aware of president biden's position on that. is there any scenario in which president biden would change his mind? >> would a strike on supplies or anything really automatically be met with a military forceful response or would it be a conversation among allies on how to respond? >> of course those are all valid questions. but what is often missing from a lot of these press briefings are questions from reporters about diplomacy, about peace, about the prospects for negotiations. i do worry in our industry there can sometimes be a bias unwitting, even, towards conflict and combat and confrontation, escalation. and we have an obligation, don't we, as journalists not only to ask about arms transfers and no

fly zones but also about what this administration is going to get a peace deal. to end the car and not just escalate it further. >> no. you bring up an excellent point. i have been looking at the sheer devastation in mariupol and kharkiv. i was wondering if the u.s. and the west's objectives at this stage should be about saving ukraine and ukrainian lives or whether it's about defeating russia. i can tell you when you are on the ground, those losing loved ones and suffering, they usually want the fighting to stop before they think about larger geopolitical ramifications. with every weapon we send to ukraine and questions like we just heard there, we're, it seems to me, more focussed on defeating russia at this stage. but we also need to know what the u.s. and the west, as you were saying, will accept as a peace agreement. because russia will undoubtedly want any and all of those sanctions lifted off of it. that's not something ukraine has the power to do. >> yeah. >> it will be have to be

co-signed by washington, which means the u.s. officials have to be asked what will the u.s. accept to achieve peace and be willing to do to achieve that peace? and not just about what the u.s. can do in terms of providing fighter jets, bombs and bullets. >> yeah. so on that note, i had senator ben cardin on the show earlier from the foreign relations commit i. i was pleased to hear him say that, yes, the united states would be up to rolling back sanctions based on putin actually pulling out of ukraine, which is important. but then when i asked him about the impact of sanctions on ordinary russians, will that make them more anti-western, he simply said, that's the fault of vladamir putin. it is the fault of vladamir putin but we have to think about the consequences of our actions. is it about defeating russia or trying to get a durable peace on the ground? trying not to turn ordinary russians against us? that would be the worst outcome. if instead of toppling putin,

they are incited into more nationalistic attitudes. that's not to say i'm opposed to sanctions on russia. it's just something we have to consider. >> no. and it's absolutely a valid point. certainly when you listen to people like lindsey graham calling for regime change, we are going into a whole different territory once you start going into that rhetoric. great show as always. >> thank you. good evening. i'm ayman mohyeldin. good evening, everyone. i'm ayman mohyeldin. it is 9:00 p.m. in new york. 3:00 a.m. in kviv where there are reports of new explosions on the ground. we will get a live update on that from ukraine. tonight, we are also following new developments on those peace talks between russia and ukraine. turkey's foreign minister saying the two sides have actually made progress and they're, quote, close to an agreement.