the. beasts in which bryson if you move the song from phones to impression it's. nice for instance on t.v. dot com. early welcome if you just joined us all of the live in moscow top stories this hour on rest has broken out in a ukrainian court after a judge ordered the arrest of the country's former prime minister yulia timoshenko she's been on trial since june over alleged misuse of power plus i think gas deals with russia are in two thousand and nine. markets are volatile worldwide often the worst downturn since two thousand and eight some experts have been predicting a new wave of global recession in the wake of the weakening u.s. economy and the death. of the syrian knew that his fate might

take a grim turn if you fail to carry out reforms this comes as the siege of an opposition held city continues and more protests are expected friday prayers. also reporting this hour a group of hardline muslims is trying to enforce tougher sharia law in london critics say the provocative campaign could lead to further cultural divisions. on the eve of the third anniversary of the war in south a city at present if it had spread to t. as well as the radio and georgian t.v. channel peak he spoke about the tough decisions he had to make an august two thousand and eight and the consequences of the war that interview is next on r.t. . that's a question let's just say mr president thank you very much for agreeing to answer our questions but let us go back to the events of two thousand and eight back then you met with the georgian president mikheil saakashvili your meeting took place in st petersburg and there was an impression at that point i think to b.c.

and in moscow that we had arrived at some sort of an accord and the dispute would not be allowed to pile over into an armed conflict and i reiterate that this feeling that present both in moscow and in the sink could you tell us that he managed to agree on anything with the georgian president back then. but question you know catherine i had the same impression at the time but i can still recall meeting president saakashvili for the first time it was in some petersburg we met in the constantine palace and mr secretary arrived i told him literally a little bit you know there are many problems in the region at the moment georgia is an obsolete these unrecognized states but i can assure you that as a newly elected president of russia i will do everything in my capacity to help him find some compromise solutions that would accommodate everyone would eventually facilitate a reintegration of jordan territory that's acceptable for all the parties in the cage a negotiation naturally couples but this is what i told word for word and his response

was spot of course we are ready to go at a rate and i also have this impression that we could at least try to find some creative solutions if not a new chapter in time but first of all there was an opportunity to meet on a regular basis but i can tell you earnestly i spent the next month checking regularly for any feedback from our georgetown counterparts and there was no way out of the same time georgia was getting more and more visits from envoys from across the ocean but as they were dubbed. the moment of truth for me as i realized later while analyzing those events in hindsight over and over again came with a visit by u.s. secretary of state condoleezza rice still flying following that visit my georgian colleague simply to. all communication with us he simply stopped talking to us he stopped writing letters and making phone calls it was apparent that he had some new plans now and those plans were implemented later. mr president am i correct to assume that the way you see it that visit by the u.s.

secretary of state was meant to urge president saakashvili. do you think the united states was deliberately encouraging georgia to pursue a conflict with almost no i don't think so the united states is a very large country headed by pragmatic people but in politics connotations a nuance is a very important as it is i don't believe the americans have heard georgia's president to reinvade but i do believe that there were certain subtleties and certain hints made statements like it's time to restore constitutional order or it's time to be more assertive which could effectively feed saakashvili as a parent hopes that the americans would back him in any conflict that they would stand up for georgia and even go to war with the russians therefore i do see a relation between ms rice's visit to georgia and the events that followed just as i see a link in my further discussions with the u.s. president our phone conversation and then also from the meetings at that. there was no green light from the white house this is

a phrase they often repeat when analyzing the war of two thousand and eight it must have been a green lighted by washington when i would have to at least have some official information or intelligence reports to be able to make such a statement i don't have them we can make an analysis why jordan counterpart ceased all communication with us following the visit by congolese or rice or maybe that was just a coincidence but i'm almost absolutely sure the back was when they came up with a plan for the military gamble which ensured in august two thousand and eight which was in any case mr president war represents a failure of diplomacy and looking back at the situation three years later what would you have done in a different way what is it that russia fails to do. event there will always follow i can tell you frankly i realized back in july two thousand and eight that mr saakashvili was nurturing such plans in his inflamed mind maybe i would have addressed him in an even tougher way and i would have tried to drag him out of his

environment at home get him to come to russia some third country in order to talk to him simply talk him out of this but of course i had no idea so when it all happened even though we had been aware that there were plans in georgia to restore their territorial integrity through the use of force i still thought it was a paranoid scenario that would never become reality you always keep hoping that common sense will prevail over this kind of rationale that is why i was surprised by what happened on august the eighth and i've explained it many times i realized that by unleashing this war suckers fully had personally devoted his country to destruction and that is the scariest part both for him and for the georgian people . russian forces reached lisi boy but i believe that the peace enforcement operation which took five days was a mission accomplished our mission was not to capture tbilisi or any other city in georgia or rolling objective was to halt the invasion that sucker's really had

unleashed decides i'm neither a judge nor an executioner which i'd like to stress once again that it's up to the people of georgia to assess saakashvili and decide his fate through a democratic vote well maybe they could also use other means the way it sometimes happens in history but deposing saakashvili by force was not on my agenda back and i can tell you earnestly i still think it was the right decision even though it would have been a piece of cake. well look one more question in here up they still believe that while washers initial response was legitimate self-defense the further actions of the russian troops where excessive why wasn't this an option to push the georgian forces out of the set yet and stop at that point to change. course they said. you know sophie people are free to make speculations like that all that was what i have come across the many times to try putting yourself in the shoes of russia's

commander in chief my shoes that i'm sure sure we could have merely forced them out and stopped there might be hearing from georgia with that we should fall back to our initial position and our american friends and that allies we thought it was rearm get on the aircraft and whatnot and then we should resume the same offensive with renewed vigor the world was letting them do that it would have been a crime against the memory of those who died protecting their land and therefore our mission at the time was to destroy georgia's one regime so that it wouldn't be able to target civilians i a second. on the russian federation because as you know what it's all mixed that good look i was there when i knew michael well let it go better i'm going to treat them. mr president you were referring to the peace in horseman's operation i keep thinking back to today libya and syria when do you consider it acceptable to stoop . to rationale for deciding whether it's ok to launch a piece of equipment we should have got back here in russia a billion to gadhafi in libya and here it is imposing sanctions against syria how

do you come to decisions on georgia batman and russia's stance on today's prizes. you see alexey it's always case by case there are no identical countries and there are no identical solutions i guess it's clear to you what is going on in libya so there's a man who has been running the country for forty years and at some point he decided to use force against his own people but will also do this was condemned by the entire international community including russia which is when. taking any part in the military campaign reza few nations are attempting to learn still order in lego through military means we don't think it's the right thing to do but there is one nuance you should keep in mind georgia had been split into three parts by the time of the war with them it should have been about pulling the country back together for them rather than merely restoring constitutional order reza libya is still in one piece such a risk does exist for libya but so far if the parties in a conflict or block lending the so-called rebels in the program dappy forces have

pledged to preserve their country's territorial integrity so the situations are quite different however i'm not saying this to explain how we make decisions or so i'm merely trying to demonstrate that all of these situations and scenarios are totally diverse this goes for other countries as well. i see it on syria and they should syria syria is a more complex issue but sadly their situation has been unfolding in a very dramatic way so far ok i don't like all of us practical politician should keep a close watch on the developments in that country but it daffy for one had issued unequivocal orders to slaughter opposition activists by contrast syria's president never ordered anything like that unfortunately people are dying in syria in great numbers and that arouses our deepest concern that therefore in my discussions with president assad during our personal conversationalist and in our correspondence

i've been advocating one principle idea that he should immediately north reforms reconcile with the opposition restore civil authority and start developing a modern state should he fail to do that he's in for a grim faces and we will eventually have to take some decisions on syria to actually we've been watching developments very attentively with the situation is changing and so are our objectives and i mean it's not as if that's the crux of this is that some of the numbers anyway can. warranty thousand and eight russian envoy said the representatives of south a sect is the de facto government are good at fighting in simi valley which claims two thousand blanks that was the number that was a noun that later on russia's investigative committee estimates of the casualties at knoebels nine hundred fifty people meanwhile it was this alleged toll of two thousand that would serve to some of the main reasons for not showing the so-called peace enforcement operation how do you count this discrepancy now three years after

the initial yeah let's go look at really more the history you get from it so for me i have explained by rationale for taking a as a solution all of you can receive cajuns you see i didn't go look at any figures from a position this isn't exactly a place for mathematics it more wasn't very remind you what was going on where's the war on the night between august the seventh and also gives the eighth well i received a phone call from the defense minister i was on vacation sailing down the volga river and the whole world was looking forward to the olympics that were about to take off in china my minister told me that georgia had launched a full scale combat operation so look at the be honest my initial reaction was complete without authorisation i told the minister we should check is really completely out of it are the problem maybe it's just a provocative act and maybe he stress test seconds it trying to send us some kind of message and i will later the minister reported to me very this is no bluff they haven't lived until i was out hillary which i'm now using grad rocket launchers and

what last look. i said all right i'll wait for another update or some more trying to foster the minister called again if i have something to tell you i believe they've just leveled a tent full of our peacekeepers killing every one of them and what was i supposed to do i said return fire and shoot to kill no figures have been announced at that point it would come fortunately such situations are always about instant situation reports and instant decisions and difficult for them as to which unfortunately i can tell you that was the hardest night of my life casualty a scottish started coming in later i think is that they did divergent they don't they still do i'm not a detectives nor a forensic expert i don't perform explanations or certain friends and colleagues tell us that many bodies were buried back that and remain missing to this point but like meanwhile jordan analysts present different estimates of those that you know we can use this kind of logic two thousand lives are serious enough about one hundred fifty doesn't even qualify as casualties for essentially what was called

little or that it come on mr president you said you gave the order to reach your final i think there are the operation continued after the heavy weapons rolled in and the conflict turned into an all out war tell us about how you made the decision to continue the operation answer another question get all our colleagues would like answered you who goes on first did you call prime minister putin in beijing first or did he call you do you know how did you and the prime minister called me to move . with that so the first time i contacted hill that's conflict still was about twenty four hours after it had broken out someone who was involved was already ablaze what are we supposed to just made a statement condemning tbilisi's movement that was the right thing to do of course but as we spoke twenty four hours after the attack over a secure law it was you might imagine understand it's not very appropriate to discuss matters like this by south korea because it's also a lot of trouble to establish who along with someone who's in a different country that we taught to talk you know when he came back i mean but even before his return i called

a meeting of the security council i explained my position my decision to return fire and engage in a conflict with the security council members voiced their support for my decision that some time later we had the meeting in softly which mr putin attended with this if you believe it so in relation to this we have to mention mr sarkozy who was at the time chairman of the european union. is all i can talk about him without a smile unlike the other president we discussed today because i like him better. i see according to some it was sarkozy who persuaded you to pull the russian forces march towards d.c. . you know has come of course not but no head of state is capable of talking another head of state into anything but look at the world trying to talk about what it is giving up without they persuaded him to do anything you know and i don't think they will but surely he would sooner die in his bunker let me stress this again taking cities was never our goal our goal was to stop the war machine which was at that time aimed at two breakaway territories and regrettably at all citizens

pretty much what suppose he did was very current he called me and said i heard there was a conflict do you want me to fly over to moscow i said i would be happy to see him and he told me i'm currently chairing the e.u. i could come over to discuss the incident naturally but he's very good at this sort of thing you know and he loves doing it he came to moscow and we talked i explained my position to him what he told me i understand and i agree. some things i will be able to say in public or some i won't but regardless of that i did want to have a part in stopping this conflict i told him all right let's put a plan together that plan was later called to make the end of the cease fire as we told him he could take the plan to georgia the best thing about what he did was probably that he had the courage to come to russia at a time when literally everyone was talking about what he had done he was brave enough to go on to georgia with our initiatives and he counted a satisfactory reaction play the georgian authorities. president saakashvili first

and foremost and that's that was his confirmation to the diplomatic corps that helped solve the conflict because he was present in the west it's a belief that recognizing our president's office says yes it is not in accordance with the spirit of the peace treaty the needs of sarkozy's plan which at the end of the war i called for the return of the armed forces to the pre-war positions by russia though reckons as to sovereignty of this republic and kept its armed forces in the region right now there are russian military bases in every president's office says yeah how did sarkozy the co-author of the plan react to this sort of i can say that i never discussed the matter with him but he did not come to moscow to discuss you happy he was never involved in my letter of course i can tell you that he knew several other e.u. representatives disapproved of the decision but they told us we were creating problems for ourselves i heard them with pleasing our partners here not my priority

when i made this decision. and as for the medvedev psycho's the plan it was not about the breakaway republics but a plan was aimed at stopping the war the suckers believes are taken had caused video in that sense it was a complete success russia's position on the vatican is quite similar probably made the plan both carried out and it was successful i consider all of the interpretations of the events to be wrong let's just get across that. french officials write music you. and recently president sarkozy have said there was still waiting for president material to complete immigrants are. rather well. i can tell you one thing that france has its own position and so does the e.u. these positions are different from ours we can't do anything about that they're just different but i believe i have fully completed the yet have sarkozy plan with the plan said nothing about russia not recognizing abkhazia and south of satire or anything of the sort as for the retreat our forces have retreated to what russia

believed to be their pre-war position was one thousand to sail regarding the e.u. and international perception of the conflict and the us and even in criticizing russia for failing to complete mitigated the plan in addition the us senate recently stated guys like the european parliament they believe that russia's actions in georgia have led to the occupation and descent of georgia's territory as a liberal leader how do you feel about them phrasing it that way but said mr president you know the most critical i think that as the liberal leader of a modern and developing russia i can only give one possible answer these statements are unfounded they reflect the preferences of certain senior citizens in the senate who do to nonobjective reasons have aligned themselves with certain individuals that's completely up to them but we are talking about a foreign a problem and i do not much care about how they phrase their statements and my position is different it is embodied in the decrees i've signed over that difficult

period which i will be frank with you although you may disagree i am not ashamed of having signed those decrees so not only am i not ashamed i believe these decisions were much needed and they were right there was no other way to stop the tragedy but those decisions were very difficult to make. i realise what sort of repercussions they might bring up so i can tell you that i have had long discussions with my aides about these decrees that was and we saw no obvious solution to the crisis at first nevertheless i think the decisions i made a well thought out the essence of it was to recognise the territory as a subject to international law so we could protect them as for what that might bring a question that inevitably follows no one knows you know i would be very happy if i were georgian abkhazia and south a setting an authority as went to the negotiating table to discuss how they would continue living side by side how peace and security could be enforced in the region

or the future holds for their closely related peoples what they could create together i would be happy if it came to that russia would never obstruct such negotiations. well we have talked about the reactions of the u.s. senate and the european parliament will now ask you about how all partners in the collective security treaty organization and c.i.s. reacted not to single member of the c.s.t. or c.i.s. or the shanghai cooperation organization supported russia's actions these are countries the full of themselves russia's allies and they didn't support russia's actions and they did not recognize the great wherewithal that allows you feel today when you discuss the matter with issues from the students solution. let me tell you how it went when the conflict broke out i called for a c s t zero meeting i spoke to my partners and i told them that i had to make a difficult decision i told them i did not expect anything from them i understood how hard it would be for them to make a decision of that sort i said

a lot of you have territorial issues a lot of you have economic problems the world we live in is complicated and i wanted to pedal and floor the decision we've made is final but that does not mean i'm asking you to recognize these new republics if you do recognize them it will be by your own decision because if you cannot our position will not change now i may be a young and liberal president but i do have some experience and i realize that i would not find many supporters after having made that admission but that is another matter. but. there are no political forces in georgia who would accept the loss of. life and this means that even with those who will come after saakashvili russia will have fundamental differences that is the less it will yes i mean we have our differences of course they would be people we would be able to negotiate with i'm sure they will be willing to negotiate in spite

of all possible disagreements. because countries. continue to vote for the people currently in charge of the way the country is going on but still not having them go their way say some unflattering words about saakashvili because unlike president sarkozy he does not seem to be a person worthy of respect. but i cannot insult the toward the little people of georgia vote for a certain defeat because that is a choice made by the people of georgia we will respect that it would probably not have a very good effect on our relations but we will respect the choice of the georgian people. and we worship. the caucus because you've said that even in your close circles there were differences over whether to recognize a pardon south of setia there's a question both in russia and georgia since the end of the war russia has given forty billion rubles in aid to applies in south. this is a huge amount of money that could have been used for russia's internally what does

russia need this for. well. there was that well not so sure we have a lot of programs to help them support other countries that are causing or in south a set to right now maybe he's closer to russia or in diplomatic terms they are entirely dependent on those things they are close to us and the russian citizens living back now if we're providing aid to foreign citizens in foreign states and of course we're going to provide nearby independent character is going to with a large share of russian citizens this is normal you know we used to how god knows who you know you know i mean in saudi times i was still in the city authority. a bit worried about having said that does russia believe an international fabulous' would be found it to look into events a little over two thousand and eight but. i look at it as annoying i would like let's forget about saakashvili for a moment that if it's an international tribunal initiated by one has several states supported by the international community then there is no problem that what if the

tribunals in question is an example of volunteerism but if its purpose is to resolve a political problem by removing a leader then i am against it that's the difference but if an international tribunal is called to judge alito following an international incident then such a tribe you know has the legal competence the higher justice if you will to judge a head of state. but if the tribunals is only motivated by someone's going to change the political system of a state i would strongly disapprove. it with. the but i think what happened there was a flagrant violation of international law and order's however it would not be possible to rely on russia's position alone on this matter so the creation of such a tribunal is impossible this means the conflict will ultimately be judged by history and a short term perspective the voters of georgia will have to decide which way the country should go. i don't want anything on the question of russia's accession to

the world trade organization is very relevant these days russian was into the top of the w c o wants russian the problem as far as we understand is that georgia is blocking russia's expression it is the only country that's not in favor of russia joining the w t. s in talking about georgia agreeing to agree to russia's expression if russia lifts its impact on the imported georgian goods or make some other concessions is russia willing to party for it and what is your take on the prospect of russia joining the w t n. what version that was very well put and one but i don't want to do it carter for it up of the morals that a moderate order has a position on russia's w.o.t. over session we respect that position as we respect the stylus as any of us other in a state as long as that position is in line with the goal set out in the governing kyrgyzstan after the trade secret preferences custom regimes are we are ready to discuss it all the important line of mineral water we will discuss several things

that have the look of the problem is something else in essence our colleagues in georgia are trying to force us a new edition of the political problem just under the guise of w t o recession i'm referring to entry point control over the traffic of goods then they will want to get the e.u. involved russian opposition on this is clear if you want information about the traffic of goods including transit for abkhazia and south asensio we will provide it by a modern electronic database i've agreed to the suggestion is made by the swiss president as god exists there and i recently discussed it of president obama that what we're ready to implement the model but switzerland has proposed to guzzle whatsoever if they try to change the current political reality yes they're serving it as a prerequisite for russia to really take over session we won't fall for that. recessional is not too high a price to pay that that's going out across. i have a question about russian georgian relations not the recent conflict some media have

reported that the cia has confirmed georgia's version about the bombing of the us embassy in tbilisi being organized by russia's special services as well as a number of other bombings in georgia some media have reported that some world leaders that confronted you about this cannot confirm this. and the idea lida let me put this plane here a little you know head of state has said anything about this to me because he thought there might be upset about this but this subject is not on my agenda of negotiations with the here leaders it's just not their subject was painful in two thousand and eight because of the conflicts last night was not good now it's off the agenda but there is one issue i suppose that the w.t. every session which we are discussing mainly with the us but sometimes with e.u. representatives as for the explosions the version you mentioned is pure provocative and on some of it but also a simple question of how you were trying to get what you didn't is not an eight you ashamed do you suffer because of it now the three years have passed how would you

describe your emotions. so i will try to answer this i don't know if i can do it like a child ward but i will try i suffer to this day because of what happened then i am convinced however for the decision to retaliate and the recognition of the breakaway republics as subjects to international law with my decisions to make what i believe my actions will constitutional not only on my own ashamed of what i have done i believe my decisions were nor for thought out unnecessary bookings said question thank you very much mr president. well for british science some. guys. hi guys.