hello and welcome to cross talk where all things considered i'm peter lavelle

divisions within ukraine are becoming greater with each passing day the western backed regime shows no interest in compromise or negotiations at the same time civilians in the east continue to die is going for broke. to call something crisis in ukraine i'm joined by my guest michael shank in washington he's an associate director at the friends committee on national legislation in berlin we have writer he's a journalist editor and reporter he's the editor in chief of new york. a few weeks and months they've been over to do in eastern ukraine to stop the violence and at the same is offered the same for gas which and they're still saying no to what's going on but it does come to the table and started to negotiate and it's a massive step forward i mean the conditions. the dollars per thousand meter that

they've been talking about then a deal would be struck and the whole gas thing. isn't as neat economically and. concrete practical question is a huge positive however you know the ukraine is playing hardball. satisfaction because there's still bounds in theory but i think the price signing the contract. which would leave them with this four hundred dollars plus cost of us . but the fact that the russians are trying to compromise looks like they're looking for a way out of this which which i'm very pleased to hear that ok michael i'm a out of this is actually should make you the europeans a lot happier too because ukraine is in the middle of all of this here why isn't the regime in care of more open to negotiations because on a number of occasions putin said that he thought the referendum in the east wasn't a good idea when. the foreign minister said that if ukraine

signs an association agreement with the european union russia won't sanction ukraine i mean we keep hearing this over and over again but the ukrainians keep saying no. well my guess for and i think ben's right ukraine's on its knees economically as i've said before publicly and c.n.n. with former congressman russ carnahan the way to go forward on gas is actually to diminish or decrease our reliance on gas or oil i know the u.s. government and u.s. industry is very keen to come in and supplant russia's gas imports into the e.u. which make up a third of their gas imports much of which crosses ukraine with replace it with renewable energy unfortunately republicans in the u.s. and industry in the u.s. is quite keen to send in crude oil shale gas that's not the way to go now in terms of other negotiations i think ukraine president has shown that he's keen to negotiate when it comes to the east i think forays by the german foreign minister steinmeier in the polish foreign minister sikorski any effort to deescalate

sikorsky saying that nato is not on the table for ukraine was a gesture of good gesture to russia and so any effort there to deescalate the rhetoric is key certainly ukraine president's speech on saturday is good in terms of amnesty for rebels wanting to disarm safe passage back to russia problem there. are also ukrainian president ukrainian citizens defending themselves i'm afraid you know there's a green men looking for these little green men just isn't really the case i mean it's ukrainians defending themselves people that speak russian and ethnic russians who mean well if i can if i can go to you to berlin i mean it seems to me that the west isn't trying to deescalate this here i mean they would tell their friend that you better to pull back you militias stop killing people stop showing apartment buildings were civilians live i mean it's i'm not i don't see the escalation in the way i see i.c.l. escalation in the rhetoric coming from the russian side. i think you will

completely get the point because we have to see that today's ukraine is more or less a sort of a failed state failed entity which is disintegrated already so we have in the western ukraine the rest ukraine we have polish inquest the president and president poroshenko all gifts very contradicting messages since he was elected he said on the one side yes he wants to the escalate especially when he speaks towards the west but he says on the other side as well he wants to crush the uprising in the east he wants to take back. at the same time we hear for example the speaker or the chairman of the right sector saying he can even imagine to put in our terrorists. on crimea so we see pushing course right now playing on both violence when it comes to moscow and i heard something very interesting when i was interviewing last week

a russian diplomat who said well to whom short of speak if it comes to ukraine is it really that poroshenko is the one who has such a big influence on what is done in ukraine or not or is it the west which is spec'ing portion of the west could easily influence publishing co and the rest ukraine by saying if you are not negotiating if you are not coming down if you don't stop your attacks against civilians we will stop immediately all our support but the west doesn't do that by the way this is the same principle for example we see in syria the syrian war is going as long as the west is spec'ing the so-called rebellion at the moment the west doesn't back anymore any rebellion it will stop so it's the same in ukraine pushing for hence the support of the west and as long the west is not stopping that support with pushing him to serious negotiations it won't stop it will go on then where do you think the ukrainian president i mean who does the weird. is power base is it washington in brussels or is it people like the

right sector he has a genuine supports amongst the ukrainian people both in the east in the west i mean he did poll far ahead of anybody else in the presidential elections and partly because he doesn't belong belong to any of the traditional camps need the party of regions of going to court fish which was strong in the east nor the orange group strong in the west and the ukrainian people said in the election they basically want to break from the past they want to get rid of these oligarchic camps and make a fresh start with a pragmatist and publishing who works in both the head of corporate administration and then you shall go orange ministration before that and so he is a pragmatist i mean if you listen to his rhetoric clearly at the moment a man will put up a good point you know there's a question over his legitimacy when he comes to the east of the country i mean he's whether sconce to in the west of the country where the ukrainian nationalist ukrainian speakers live moreover he has the backing of the west for unclear but

when it comes to the east is authority there is questionable in so much as lots of people in the east of ukraine were rejecting the european deal rejecting the european vision which is not to say they want to join russia tomorrow but they wanted more of a choice and so left with this impossible task of trying to please everybody when people on the two sides a shooting at each other because their disagreements are so so enraged at this point and he's going to have a very hard time of it but if you listen to his comments it when he says things like the nationalist things like he wants crimea back but he's also reached out to moscow and said any future without russia or ukraine is not workable that russia is going to have to be involved in it and now we have this very difficult and long process of going through that and getting those two different messages to reconcile each other and it has to happen at some point but the problem is in the meantime the fighting is going on the tension. remained high and so we had looking for

a way to back out of it and this comes out of pragmatism so i mean the russians of have learned with an orange an olive branch in the form of trying to cut some sort of gas deal but you're right to say on the western side they've never been arguing this pragmatism they have no interest in either economic nor strategic in ukraine particularly not the usa at the same time they've been arguing purely on principle and when you get one side arguing on principle and the other side you can pragmatism there's no mean a middle ground for them and so i think we're going to be stuck until particularly the west backs off its moral high ground and if you start to deal with the nuts and bolts issues of like we've got to make this country work again you know someone's going to have to finance it someone is going to have to help you know with all the investment that it needs before you can actually get it functioning again and before any of that starts you need peace exactly michael we need peace here why doesn't the ukrainian government call pull back its troops and its militias and

start a dialogue. yeah well ben hit on a couple points that i'd like to reiterate the west has definitely escalated the situation as several of you have already mentioned obama calling for a billion more in military aid right when we were going to bring down our eighty thousand troops from europe a couple years ago the pentagon was ready to do that now the white house is ramping up military aid bolstering nato the wrong move it's escalating the situation i think poroshenko feels bolstered by the i.m.f. seventeen billion i think he feels bolstered by obama's rhetoric military ramp up of the nato so that's not helpful when i was in berlin in warsaw a couple months ago saner voices there were talking about deescalation they weren't putting nato on the table i think that's what we need to follow if there are any western voices there are more likely in berlin in warsaw than in washington so that's key for the u.s. government to back down its rhetoric i think vice president a little good cop bad cop vice president biden over the weekend supporting porcher and co and saying yes the peace deals the way to go but then bomb

a talking about military ramp up so you're getting to voices from washington which isn't helpful when it comes to deescalate in the east when well you know it's amazing to me six months ago we the possibility of having the current situation seemed unthinkable you have an illegal coup you break up the country and now you have more military hardware going into europe i mean what a screw up. well when we when we look back i think in november or even october november december nobody really wants what's what's really seeing that what will come that we will have now is such a geo political tsunami what it's now going on in ukraine and we have to say it very clear it's not to rechannel thing it's not about what if maybe there will be a federalist say if a federal sation off the eastern parts of the country or even if they will split off it it's now and there's a lot on the state it's a big game now right now going on we see that we very debating in europe about i

mean well then let me let me jump in here well let me jump in here we're going to go to a short break and after that show break we'll continue our discussion on ukraine staying with our key. anything we see. is or. i married you join me. in that in part and. carry cancer news and much much. only on the bus and i'm.

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identifying the problem truck rational debate and a real discussion critical issues facing america find a job ready to join the movement then walk a little bit there. welcome back to crossfire for all things considered i'm peter lavelle to mind you we're discussing the continuing crisis in ukraine.

ok many men when i look back will go back to you in berlin and you know i always when i look at the situation today on the ground i always reflect upon the agreement that was agreed to on february twenty first where we had the e.u. brokering and we had a russian official in the room witnessing the signatures and there was a deal it was a deal to to have political reform in the country new elections there was a push towards that and then we all know what happened in the elected government and elected president was overthrown you know in looking back now that deal with such a sweet deal and i don't know if we'll ever get it again. no i think i think this was maybe a very very unique chance to end the conflict before it really escalates but now we have to see it escalated and we have a major geo political conflict right in front of the gates of the european union on the one side and right in front of the gates of moscow on the other side and we

have to see that we speak now since a couple of months in terms of a really hot cold voller already i mean people are dying now every day especially in the east of ukraine and we have to see the that our politicians now we have now again debates about reinforcement of nato forces in europe and all of the sudden the nato is very much in fashion again in europe we see that nato air force us is going to do the politics dates and when we just one sentence when we think back why or what where the purpose of the nato when it was found that the spare the three things which were set by the first general secretary of the nato lord use me set the three keeps to keep the americans in europe to keep the russians down off europe and to keep the german stollen in europe so at least purpose one and three we see now it's very actual right now ben one of the biggest problems i think when

when policymakers particularly in washington when they look at ukraine is that no partly east cannot dominate the west the west can dominate the east and in this is just a historical reality of cultural reality because we have very different narratives of different populations within a country that is so diverse here and i think the diversity of ukraine is so misunderstood when it comes to policymakers particularly people like big torii a new one in this really goes back to what's been said from the very very beginning ukraine needs to deal with federalization or some kind of centralization. i think the policy made to make is in a most of had a bit of a shock there was a very interesting paper this week from. these two academics in the states who have been following russia from the beginning and they were speculating that you know the from the u.s. perspective there were basically two options for russia or either we was going to reform and be pro western strong and you know successful it was posed to be under yeltsin or it was going to go down and authoritarian route or and then it would

never reform and it would be economically weak and what we've actually seen is that it's gone not progress to the root and it's become economically strong at the same time and there is simply not prepared for a per prepared for this in our area and so everyone's been left scrambling to catch up again you'd look at the policymakers from the states who are watching the whole eastern europe and they're just cold war warriors who've come back to the fore and they've just put it back in those terms because that's their default understanding of a russia that's not pro western and is economically powerful and militarily powerful but we have a totally different situation to the cold war the two sides were antithetical the opposed to each other communism and capitalism but russia signed up to the capitalism game and they're just asserting that saying that we're doing it a different way we have our own interests we you have any particular friendly to us

and so we're going to assert our interest in ukraine we have a thousand years of shared cultural historical and economic values from the beginning and that you just can't walk off with ukraine without talking to us you know our two economies are intimately tied together and you have to take that into account and that wasn't taken into account because it became this cold war play and hence we've got into this mess and they only way out is when the west wake up to the fact that you know things have changed but russia is an enemy these actually signed up to the capitalist club. and therefore there should be some cooperation that can be done even if they're not going to be best friends but at the moment it's not being played like that it's all it's just you know get the nato war planes because nato was set up to defend against the soviet union and as far as they're concerned that's back again well that sums it up right there i mean michael it's very interesting is that if you look at public opinion polls of the people that

lived in east ukraine before this conflict there wasn't much longing to be part of russia at all they just wanted to keep care of it bay they wanted more regional autonomy but as every day passes in the violence continues the more and more people there would like to join russia now i mean again the law of unintended consequences breaking up the country partitioning the country which is in the cards. yeah i think his play paid lip service to local elections decentralisation russian language in the east a lot of people are critical that his lip service isn't genuine so we'll see how that plays out i want to go to the cold warriors cold war warriors point that ben made in washington and he's absolutely right there's a whole kind of bastion of older white men who were cold war experts and now who've been brought out again and they're very excited because they have kind of renewed career here to weigh in on all things russia it is cold war mentality that's problematic that's not helpful and i think russia has signed up to the capitals

club when i was in berlin i was talking with german business men and women there six thousand business people in russia who could negotiate with russia in a way that the governments perhaps can't i do think the private sector has a role to play here in deescalating but i'd be curious for benjamin well and peter your thoughts on the a c. and further negotiations going forward organization for security cooperation in europe are they the riots brokers for any negotiated agreement any ceasefire or how is that perceived in russia is a problematic so i'd be keen to question all three of you on the a c. and where should they take place st petersburg vienna elsewhere but to your point peter you any any gesture from par shango for the east currently perceived as disingenuous when the allies see i don't see it as being very fair broker it's a lot of former intelligence and military people that are involved in it and i find them to be quite biased but what i think and i think the question back to everyone

else here is that i think that the that washington in brussels and moscow should talk to the people they know on the ground there and you know go to helsinki or something and sit around a table and talk why don't we start talking first i mean this is a twenty first century we all have email and stuff ok do it on twitter if you have to ok then this is where it has to go. it really has to get the players on the ground to start talking to each other because the forces that you care that it's that were behind this forced regime change they're the ones that are maximalist they want everything and that's not going to work i think it doesn't matter which forum you choose doesn't matter is some of the talk being between kerry and lavrov america and russia which i found rather than so much is we're talking about europe and european country so what they have you know why when the europeans invited i mean the point with the table is that it has to have everyone at it i mean the

second point is this this this point about capitalism because i think that's going to be the long term solution to this how we're going to you know mend these wounds and his business is business german business is heavily invested into russia they're very interested in ukraine the agricultural potential there is enormous some ip as the ukrainian companies have done in london have been hugely successful and have been long you know government has become more and more beholden to business and as those business ties develop and the money that's being made and the significant money russia and ukraine together you know form a massive consumer market and one of the few that still growing and as those business ties deeper then you're going to see the business lobby pressuring the government from beneath in order to find some sort of restitution between the fights and the whole thing with principle will go away because it will come back to the pragmatism of life but we have hundreds of millions of dollars invested into this country we are making huge profits as they catch up to our standard of living

and that's going to go on for decades and then we'll get to a point where you know it will smooth all over i think i come back to my original point that one of the reasons why america is being so problematic in this is because it has no interest neither economic norse here in the region it will mean well that's right i mean the americans have an ideological interest they like to bring through force democracy that's what they call it anyway what it does is often just export chaos and the ukrainians are a victim of victims of it this time round. i think we have two contradicting ideologies no not not anymore as like in the old cold war when we had communism on the one side and capitalism on the other side we have now a sort of let me call it a post modernist or democratic. ideology coming from certain neo con circles from us will say we have to bring democracy everywhere and if the people don't want to take it with a color of illusion they will take it with some bombs this is on the one side and we have

a concept of the polarity from russia concept of civil rayna ts concept off of independence so these concepts are of course contradicting because the concept will not accept any other concept which says we will talk on the same level so this for the first the second thing what your question was about why they are there no negotiations with the round table where the people sit we have one certain problem there should be one very important condition because if we do such a round table where russia is sitting where people from ukraine are sitting from the european states as well from the us and again i ask myself why should the us sit on such a table it's not their business so but if they are sitting on the table there is one important point is that the states are negotiating on their own behalf and not on behalf of others this means germany the german minister steinmeier should sit there of the german chancellor and should negotiate on behalf of germany on behalf

of the german business of the very important business relations with russia as well as to ukraine and not on behalf of nato and not on behalf of the friendship to washington and on the behalf of the long tradition of liberal well us or whatever i think this is the major point that the european states should be months you paint them so first from the so-called west before we can negotiate in an equal way on the same level all right gentlemen we will run out of time fascinating discussion. thanks to my guests in washington berlin and here in moscow thanks to our viewers for watching us here at the see you next time remember a couple. of things one. is that.

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