hello and welcome to cross talk where all things considered i'm peter lavelle how should we characterize events playing out in ukraine a legitimate democratic movement or a small number of highly motivated radicals forcing violent regime change is this movement is peaceful as western media claims and is ukraine hopelessly divided west against east. to cross-talk ukraine i'm joined by my guest john laughlin in paris he is the director of studies at the institute of democracy and cooperation in london we have tony help and he is a journalist and former moscow bureau chief for the times and in moscow we cross to

dimitri bobbitt he's a political analyst with voice of russia all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i very much encourage it john if i go to you in paris the government has resigned the cabinet has resigned you know covert has reached out to the opposition so is the ball in his corner or the opposition's. well in a sense it's in the opposition's because they have been making the running in this as you said in your question they have or you applied anyway in your question they have shown extreme violence the opposition they have shown themselves to be very radical they've demanded of course the resignation of the president which they haven't yet attained and the government for the most part has responded with proposals of compromise the earlier proposals to appoint one of their members as prime minister was rejected and now the compromise has taken a different form and has included of course as you know the repeal of certain laws i think it is in their ball although the ball is in their court but at the same time what strikes me in this whole thing is how incredibly weak and fragile the

ukrainian state obviously is we had demonstrations here in paris on sunday demanding the resignation of the french president and the idea that those demonstrators who were about sixteen or seventeen thousand could have left the authorised demonstration place and gone and occupied the ministry of agriculture nearby is completely incredible and the fact that the demonstrators were able to occupy that ministry on friday and then the ministry of justice the day before yesterday shows that this state is a state which really is extremely fragile indeed tony how do you reflect upon that because you know colbert for better or worse he's making compromises he did over the weekend it was rejected by the opposition i mean what more do they want after all mr unocal which is democratically elected in recognized by western capitals and everyone else in the world the view the electorate spoke why do they need him removed now i think it has to be recognized that the trigger for this latest round of the crisis which has been going on already for more than

a couple of months was the passing of these repressive laws on january the sixteenth which have now been repealed in a hurry today and the reason those laws have been repealed is because of the reaction it produced from people on the streets they were designed specifically to criminalize people who have until that point been demonstrating peacefully for the most part only but today as i justify the violence did that justify those i'll have a part of the protesters later does that justify violence. violence is deplorable but when you're in a revolutionary situation it's inevitable that extremists get attracted to large scale demonstrations and the responsibility for creating that situation unfortunately lay with the government and president yanukovych who wrote ramrodded these laws through parliament in a matter of a few minutes without debate with very questionable voting procedures which had been introduced only two days prior if the democratic path had been closed as it

was to the demonstrators and to the opposition they are left with only one response which is to take to the streets and unfortunately that's what happened happily now the democratic track seems to have been restored to the ok so we would expect the opposition and the authorities to try and negotiate a resolution that's where i want to go here in moscow would you describe the opposition is democratic. no i fortunately i absolutely disagree with tony on that one i think there first we should remember that violence started back in december before these laws which don't need to pour so much were passed they were passed on january the sixteenth one of the laws rather police attacked peaceful demonstrators on november thirtieth. and right after that you know a group of regular minded protesters i would not want to call them that name but they tried to attack the presidential administration and you remember what how terrible was the fight there but what i want to say is that bond of the wars that

was revealed today is the war that criminalizes denying the nazi crimes in ukraine and here i think it's very important what i'm going to say i'm not going to call these people protesters i'm going to call them neo nazis and here's why i'm doing that to day in their area off kiev they have these supporters of this man step on bond there are you know kind of the ukrainian nationalists who helped the german nazis invade ukraine in one thousand nine hundred one i have in my hands this is a magazine this is not a russian magazine this is a polish magazine it shows mr bond there is face and he says bond there are regular terrorist bund there and his men killed thousands of joules poor russians in ukraine they killed all sought tens of thousands of ukrainians and somehow he's the only man whose portrait these people are carrying and if you look at their so-called protesters you will see that there are ukrainian flags and there are many

red and black flags these are the flags ok so called ukrainian insurgent army ok mcgovern i love you all these people brought your medals there you know your mess you've made your point john would you reflect upon that because one of the reasons why i wanted to do this program is that it seems to me most of western media mainstream media likes to overlook this not everyone but most people do why well because the. pro so-called pro european nazis are pro europeans and that's what counts i mean dmitri is quite right to draw attention to the ideological soil in which part of the opposition movement in ukraine has grown and there is absolutely no doubt and i know this through direct experience that part of it is rooted in nationalism but there is violence i think in the d.n.a. of the ukrainian opposition more profoundly after all mr klitschko party. is called punch in russian means punch in the ukraine as well he is a boxer and he has now presented himself on to the political scene but clearly as

a man who wishes to embody still as a politician the kind of violence that he practiced when he was a boxer i think when such situations escalate there's always the question of who started it did the police started on the thirtieth of number november or did the demonstrators i've certainly seen plenty of videos of demonstrating of demonstrators attacking the police with incredible brutality including of course pictures of police being burned and those videos date from back in december as dimitri said but ultimately i think the fault if you like the political fault because after all the situation on the street can explode at any time does fly with the european union when the ukrainian opposition back in september last year decided to include to the extreme right wing party in its ranks the european union turned a blind eye even though it must have perfectly well known that these people are the same kind of people that they attack as fascists when they're in hungary or in france and the european union because of its political agenda turned

a blind eye to that and has ever since. as i say given in direct support at least to the kind of violence that we've seen on the streets and that is extremely regrettable because i think the real danger is the breakup of ukraine itself where we're going to get to that point it will get better and wife and it'll soon enough come tony can i go to you because i again i mean. in the information age you can see a lot of different videos ok and we all in media know that you can make things or give a certain spin to it but looking at a lot of those videos here when i look at the protesters i see rioters i don't see democracy i see a lot of really negative symbols from the past and bobbit on the program has mentioned it how do you reflect upon that. what i'm curious about them is argument is it your contention that a mother everybody on the streets of kiev and other cities are part of some grand fascist conspiracy would simply respond and if you're on my dime came into being ok

he has all these people are these people lot of them are holding slogans what are you not pan out at all sure that means ukraine is above all this is a translation of the german down to us when you see a slogan like that and you're a normal person you leave even if you don't like the gun ok ok you made your point go ahead tony continue please. all kinds of people can charge what they like but the contention that you put forward is that these people are neo fascists it's clearly not the case the euro my down began as a protest against the about of president in a matter of days from deciding to sign the association agreement with the european union to rejecting that agreement without preparing in any way his electorate therefore he got a response from those who are unhappy with that decision as i repeat the. demonstrations that took place were overwhelmingly peaceful for a number of months until the point where laws were passed in very rapid to television tony with a credit who is thinking troll of this. in your mind telling us and who do you

think is in charge of these opposition groups right now is it is it organized well i think more of the core that you should control some of because there is certainly violence being committed on the streets there and it's not only of the authorities . well i think the very big question today in ukraine is whether anyone's in control the government has resigned president yannick overage his reputation is clearly severely dented and the opposition is very fragmented group of people who don't really have a recognizable single leader the way forward in those circumstances and is one of the opposition demands is to put the decision to the people to elect their leaders whether that comes out of what are still ongoing negotiations will have to see but it is a very big question whether anybody currently has the democratic legitimacy to enforce their decisions. and we did have an election you know which was elected in was recognized by the electorate and was recognized by the international community just

because you have a riot doesn't mean you have to have an election i mean then you should have elections in the european union all the time go ahead. i don't agree with what tony has just said as you've just said in your question peter the election of the president was not contested by anybody and nor was the parliamentary election which brought his party to power. the decision not to sign the agreement with brussels was a totally legitimate decision under no circumstances can that be called a reason for removing a government from power and those for these so-called repressive anti demonstration laws again this is a caricature of the laws prohibiting the wearing of masks and helmets these laws exist in many european states including in france where i live in france you're not allowed to go about on the street with your face covered in your certainly already gentlemen i'm afraid our spirit been here with you we're going to go it was short periods were getting out of that short break we'll continue our discussion on

ukraine stay with r.t. . this. is. gentlemen i guess you'll mostly. be a few hundred a day come across it honestly. i'm going to go for. it we've got people coming in with criminals we've got people from who knows where

in the world this is the united states i'm very tough by the way you know to sure i was worried that they may not know what they live on mars you know mars. so we pick up things like. turbans prayer rugs so when we know they do they're coming from the middle east say concentration camp. concentration camp. as in the white house not even want to disclose the fact that. a stranger.

welcome back to cross talk where all things are considered i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing the ongoing crisis in ukraine. right game i'd like to go back to you here in moscow where do we go from here because we started out the program is that mr unocal which is making

a number of concessions here what's the opposition going to do what should they do for the welfare of the entirety of ukraine because over the years it looks more and more like ukraine can't stay together the way it is go ahead deal or. well i don't want to advise the so-called opposition because i just told you i think any normal person when he sees the slogan like. you cry you know about alice when he says that slogan he leaves so i'm not prepared to advise these people what they should do i understand why me stars are of creed if you want you can go to their you tube by and watch videos how he's been insulted in the in the rather the ukrainian parliament how they call him a russian prostitute how the paper said he him all these people from their nationalist factions and i would say that i don't know what the situation will be with the european union because the european union in fact rammed through its a genda. suggested a number of compromises he suggested trial

a trial negotiations between russia ukraine and the european union the you said no it's only between you and us suggested changing their cessation agreement the you said no it's going to be the way we roll with it so. the e.u. is not accepting compromises and their so-called opposition is not accepting compromises in this situation i'm not sure russia will be able to disburse the economic aid that it promised to ukraine because you know this economic aid consists in ukraine's government boards why should russia by the government wants all the government that will all busily be controlled by and to russian people their u.s. doesn't buy iranian government bonds and their rhetoric which mr yatsenyuk and mystically each core and mr bork used towards russia is very much unlike their rhetoric that the rainy and move us use against the united states about almost a big set and for them ok tony where would you suggest they go because again. this

was really dependent on go ahead tony go ahead what was russian they depended on the rejection of the e.u. then. i don't quite understand the question russia rejected the. i think that russia may need to rethink its side. i think there were a rash or offer to make it is by a small disbursements. first just bought a bus meant is supposed to be three billion euros it was not made divert dependent or the inclusion a lot inclusion or ukraine in this is sort of agreement but it's a good will of russia if ukraine changes its government if there is in fact i think it's a coup d'etat in ukraine then why should russia respect a grievance that were made with a government that doesn't doesn't exist anymore jon if this is were you know why exactly where i want to go on this program because it looks like irrespective how you feel about mr you know covert is that you know with the with the firing or the

resignation of the government here i mean what is his political calculus here because the liberals in care of hate him they've always hated him ok always but what about his base in the east because it's the decisive indecisive does he have a plan because if you look at his the way he dealt with the association agreement one way to look at it is that he made an abrupt decision or if you step back and say this guy was a smart guy because he played both sides against the middle and one at least at the time john go ahead. i think that's pretty optimistic spin to put on it i think it was a pretty badly managed to sit and even if i can see why he took it i think he should've as tony said earlier he should have prepared his electorate longer and he shouldn't of withdrawing his signature at the very last minute rationally you're right the decision was that would certainly if he had signed the agreement would have led to ukraine's collapse i think which is quite a weak leader as i said in my first remarks and i think he presides over

a very weak state and ultimately i think that these problems to some extent intractable there intractable because ukraine unlike all the other soviet states has absolutely no national basis on which to construct a state when the soviet union collapsed in one thousand nine hundred. all the soviet republics were to find themselves in front of a fait accompli which was that they needed to set themselves up as states even though many of them had never tried or sought for independence and that was certainly the case of ukraine in the case of nearly all the other states they have had some national basis however artificial and however unpleasantly manipulated on which to create a state and that has not been the case with ukraine which doesn't have a national basis on which to create a state add to that the fact that it has this extremely weak political position comparable perhaps to the traditional position of poland between two great powers poland traditionally between germany and russia ukraine now in a sense has inherited that unfortunate geo political position and the result is

that when as has happened the european union sets about a very expansionist political agenda geo political agenda the ukraine ultimately has become a sort of battlefield and i think that these problems will not be resolved until the root core the root problem is the core problem is rooted out and that is that the european union abandons what i regard as a very anti russian political agenda and instead decides to get around a table with russia to try to reconcile its own customs union with that with the eurasian customs union tony you and i have been to care of many many times over the years i remember meeting your gut when you were going to the train station here in moscow when you're on your way to care. you know both east and west of ukraine and we both know there are very very different places and you know every few years we get this flare up here what is that what can be an issue for a compromise here because i know many many people that have relatives in eastern

ukraine and they just don't accept these people in the west there they are characterized very much i'll give a barbecue on the program as described them here these are very different places how do you keep it together well frankly i don't think you resolve the current crisis in ukraine by questioning the legitimacy of the u.k. . in your state it is what it is everybody living in ukraine today was born in a country called ukraine and the way to resolve the crisis that they face is to have elections to create legitimate people having to wait for the money they keep having i'll surely slow them her into over and over again elect ok i mean you know this is a very social issues but it's a problem that's adjusted to solve our problems it doesn't solve problems it does solve problems because the striking fact the striking thing about the current set of protests is that it's not limited to the west you see them going on into the proper throats in persia and other cities as well in the north in kharkiv and

elsewhere so it's simply not the case that this is the west rising up against the russian domination in the us it's people who are fed up with what they perceive to be a corrupt regime who's doing live very little to improve their living standards and people are taking the opportunity perhaps from the fact that the protests started with a different goal which was over the european union association but are using that opportunity now to express their own maybe different discontents demand how do you look at that this is an awkward go ahead re i would agree with tanya on many points i think that we should not question the legitimacy of the ukrainian state just you know different regions of ukraine have very different historic destiny as western ukraine had never been a part of the russian empire it was a part of the australian garion empire then it be became a part of florida but there are certain things which are constant and i think whatever the suffering or west ukrainian sandor the polish occupation and then under the star stalinist rule when mr bunn there are whom i show again in his man

started to cooperate with the german artists back in one thousand thirty nine first against paul and then against the soviet union they made a pact with the devil and the problem is that they're all near people in europe i mean. they are if you want political success are the only people in europe who have not repented in a new way for their corporation with the nazis even in a large tear or a new store near or in finland people are somehow uneasy about the spirit of their history they say were forced to do it in western ukraine they say well brought out everything was done right and i think before we start to construct anything in your create or ukraine or start to construct anything the ukraine they should clearly separate themselves from these kind of people because these people are not european they are not ukrainian they're in fact unacceptable in any society and it's a shame that the us shutting its eyes on that and that the huge i would say the

majority of european press pretends not to notice it john the press pretends not to notice it again these are i mean game is a very good historian i know him very very well and he knows his history well here and i see these posters also i hear these chants and it sends you know i get my hair stands up in the back of my head is that i can't believe in two thousand and fourteen someone is marching in the streets of ukraine saying these things with torture us with a lie to torture just like fascists did in one thousand so if you know and i mean. we had a big demonstration in paris on sunday and the interior minister condemned the demonstrators as right wing and extreme right wing and yet the idea that any of them would for example hold up a portrait of marshal peten is completely incredible so we are indeed dealing with a radicalism which has no equivalent i think anywhere else in europe except possibly in the baltic states i would say on tony's remark i would say this surely

the outcome to the crisis is to have a referendum on the european the court after all that was the issue which triggered the crisis and that is the issue which the ukrainian people might be invited to vote upon the opposition has never as far as i know called for. referendum to be held because i think it would probably lose it and precisely what i think has made the situation worse is that the opposition the palette the opposition parties have exploited this european issue and turned it into a simple struggle for power and that is what is right and radicalize the situation on the ground and that is what has led to the violence all right in all fairness you had all this way out is that we got to look at the reception. problem to how will the word go ahead tony well surely any election that was called mouth would effectively be such a referendum because there would only be one issue are you voting for parties that favor reviving the association agreement with the you or for parties that wish to

establish closer ties with russia as mr yanik overage did that's the nub of the crisis and i think that will be the center of an electoral campaign all right that's a very good idea maybe we'll try it gentlemen thank you very much we've run out of time many thanks to my guests in paris london and in moscow and thanks to our viewers for watching us here are to see you next time and remember. why do you think this is for alive for all the other planets why the truth is this such disregard this one one of the things i think that's a human mission to mars will accomplish is to make humans here on earth more

sensible about life about life on this planet about the planet itself about the environment as so one of the one of the key benefits for you mr marsh will be a better earth. right from the sea. first trip. and i think pictures. on our reporters twitter. and instagram. could be in the little.

bit of the new home of an ally should be. the face i think sometimes. a pleasure to have you with us here on our t.v. today i'm sure. live live.

live. live please liz liz .

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