in russian imperialism which gets repeated constantly in fact so often that is not even question but if you stop to think about it if you were trapped in a region at war and you were going to escape odd foot where would you go into the heart of the aggressors imperialists no you go in the direct opposite direction interestingly enough in both this conflict and the two thousand and eight war in georgia the overwhelming majority of refugees flee towards russia excluding some sort of bizarre stockholm syndrome it seems that for people in break we were publics in ukraine and georgia russia is a safe haven they often say that people vote with their feet and in the case of the most recent wars in european history it is clear whose feet are voting for whom and no mainstream media talking points can deny that but that's just my opinion.

when you think you are. a loon welcome to crossfire where all things are considered on peter lavelle as ukraine. struggles with the ceasefire the regime in kiev says it is committed to an

association agreement with the e.u. the impact of which could be truly painful for the ukrainian people dividing ukraine continues. to cross-talk the crisis in ukraine i'm joined by my guests union putting him in belfast he's an independent journalist who's written extensively on international affairs most recently on the situation in ukraine in london we have jonathan steele he's an international affairs commentator writing mainly for the guardian and here in moscow we cross the marks of all that he is a senior lecturer in researcher at moscow state university right gentlemen cross-talk rules and you can jump in anytime you want and i very much encourage you jonathan in london if i can go to you first president putin says he wants a ceasefire in eastern ukraine present president poroshenko in ukraine says he wants a cease fire due to continue a new crane there is no cease fire in ukraine all the while care of is bent on

signing an association agreement with the european union which was very unpopular with mr unocal which and we know what happened there so summit up for me jonathan what the heck is going on well i think it's actually more hopeful than despairing at the moment i mean i think the fact that they did agree to a cease fire was a huge step forward to both sides except to do it to most of the rebels also seem to accept it of course there are violations it's very rare in any international ceasefire that you have a complete hostilities you know overnight to immediately within seconds of the signing of the agreement of a cease fire so i wouldn't be too concerned about that and i think president putin has served it should be extended to power sharing through the certain thing i think the pressure should be put on the rebels from both political leaderships of various kinds to go to all of the cease fire so i wouldn't be too despairing just yet well maybe if i go to you and belfast it seems like the ukrainian side the poroshenko say hasn't really honored the ceasefire so you know when someone's firing you you

tend to fire back. well look that's very true peter i mean and i would be much more concerned than jonathan of this so-called cease fire i mean since it's been declared last friday by the regime there's been massive and widespread violations of the cease fire tens of thousands of people have been displaced pushed across the border there have been several. months occurs over civilians and indiscriminate attacks on civilian centers like in churches were were at or. artillery fire the village of semi. was firebombed by the key f. regime forces par stations have been put out of action so people don't have water or electricity and with a massive displacement of the population this is a cynical description to say that is to say so far it's nothing nothing anything

like a ceasefire and that's what the local militia and political representatives of the people in donetsk and the lookouts have been saying all week that this is a facade that is just a cover an orwellian name for the continuation all of a must suffer assault on the people and you can call it crimes against humanity and even genocide when you when you thought up the casualties and the effects the impact on the civilian population of displacement quite an awful basic utilities and i think. come come in there but i would like to follow that up at another time. market what's going to take a plan here because i don't see a huge commitment to it it he seems to still believe there's a military solution to this all the while this week we had president putin asked to have his war powers revoked revoked to send in troops the eastern ukraine that's

a step of good will in my opinion it isn't being accepted in the same way in. that's my interpretation because be perfectly clear there has never been a ceasefire on the ground in the ukraine and there is not currently one the artillery shells have never stopped falling on the people of nova c. on the people of the on the outs and lugansk within hours of announcing a cease fire quote unquote the kiev regime conducted air strikes against the civilian population of the east ukraine so it is indeed as has been said a cynical and orwellian term there is no truth to it on the ground it is a fiction it is largely a p.r. move by the kiev regime simply in the weeks leading up to this signing of this new liberal shock therapy agreement it is largely to for the benefit of the conscience of e.u. parliamentarian's who we don't want to be wringing their hands that they're signing

a agreement with a government that is busy murdering its own would be people in the week running up to this however this entire week while the operations have continued we have also seen it being used as a pretext in a cover for moving in a tremendous amount of heavy military gear of new and even deadlier capabilities into the don the outs going lugansk regions the most recent word on the ground is that they are moving right now as we speak to cut off lugansk completely. from any outside. ability to reach the city or for refugees to leave it so once this assignment agreement is signed i'm sure we will see some kind of excuse or perhaps a provocation some false flag event from the regime in kiev and by the end of this weekend the mass repression and state terror campaign that the kiev regime is conducting against the people of ukraine will be resumed at full scale to

a new. far deadlier and more severe scope and this is the peace plan that pours shank always on the night we have we have a dissenting voice here jonathan would you like to react to what we've heard here go ahead well i mean i'm not on the ground and i don't think our two guests are on the ground so it's really important to know whether we're getting correct and accurate information because there is a huge propaganda war going on and very biased reporting on both sides so i would be i have no family on the group i have been only on the ground with american united the united nations the united nations refugee committee spokesperson all the ground confirmed that there are at least fifteen thought. people displaced or into the role stoff province of russia no that's the uganda speaking that's not the kremlin that's the uganda you know yes good where sort of sort of are you saying there's others saying there's a very saying there's eighty thousand people have moved across the border and

become refugees since the ceasefire was proclaimed. it will at least seven thought this week seven for isn't this week that's what the union is saying top all the other. previous weeks. ok when i put in a ten before i may jump in here ok let me jump in jonathan. i find it really perverse in a way that. the people in the european union they want to sign an agreement with this regime and care for the probably going to happen on on friday of this week here but they have i hear no words of discussed about the atrocities that are being committed in eastern ukraine and we can talk about the scale but they're certainly there but i hear no voices talking about the humanitarian situation in ukraine and i'm not trying to take sides here i'm reflecting on what you said well i mean i think the main thing is to get our a c. monitors in there and also don't let's forget that some of the or see people are still being held hostage don't you have people i mean what are they doing holding

hostages of unarmed civilian internationally recognized monitors who are there with the agreement of russia as well as of the kiev government if they were sent there with the permission of the two governments that are in power in the dunn and screech and they did not ask permission from the authorities in that region who are the people of danny it's going lugansk let's be let's be frank oh a c. monitors are not civilians they are military intelligence to a man ok and there's. the risk there are copious video footage is showing civilian muss occurs by the kiev forces in donetsk people lying on the ground civilians obviously civilians with their heads blown off their upper body shot to pieces in a deliberate policy of shoot to kill the was the muscle core of it to people in the government building in lugansk the city of lugansk on the second of june when it to

people were killed when a kiev commanded air. borne the government building it. people were killed that day there are several atrocities going on that can be verified with the by the video. you know on the ground reportage it's not it's not equivocal or disputable there is the risk clear evidence that violations are being carried out yet the western media have sure no interest in covering these atrocities these war crimes these crimes against humanity i mean three journalists have been killed in a korean to two russian guys for the television last weekend two guys the shot to the. last quick to the russian journalists were shot down. so that they were shelled deliberately by the kiev forces in lookout's previously the reason italian journalist who was also killed in what looked like to be

a shoot to kill i am situation is just not you know hey i know you guys we've got this we've got three good to ask you a question i didn't hear an awning jonathan do you do you think that we can't seem to believe that there is a military solution to this because that's what it looks like on from what i've seen reported from the ground well i certainly hope they don't think that because that would be foolish there is no military solution to this the never is just involves more and more casualties so i think they should be honoring the cease fire they should be leached reaching out to the people of eastern ukraine and trying to find some political compromise and that's what seemed to be happening on monday evening went back to milford shook and learned. people from the east met together and it looked as though that could be the beginning of a political process and that's what i'm really hoping will develop so i don't think one as i said at the very beginning should highlight too much the violations of the cease fire one should try to upgrade the political process and try and get that

going good ok political process this this cease fire has been promulgated. it's an ultimatum that just yesterday john kerry was saying that the russians have to prove good will about the ceasefire that volodymyr putin would have to deliver certain practical steps and one of those steps is to ask for the the separatists or the federalists in east and so is ukraine to lay dawn their weapons in front of the armed forces no that's not a peace process that's not reaching all right gentlemen i'm going to jump in here we're going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on ukraine stay with r.k. . i

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could be in the. i pick the box by military does realize that the pileup on have become a problem for box fun but it is just too late the taliban have sunk deep roots in pakistan and it's very difficult to beat the enemy. when it was previously your friend and your. please. welcome back to cross talk where all things considered i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing the recent developments in ukraine.

ok mark at the very end of the first part of the program we heard the word russia and vladimir putin and what john kerry the u.s. secretary of state expects of russia and vladimir putin what is russia's involvement in all this we don't hear much about it we just hear a lot of accusations go ahead bark ok i want to be perfectly clear full disclosure i have family in laws who are right now at the barricades in eastern ukraine fighting for their freedom and their lives so i do have a personal interest and biases to what i say but i think my analysis bears out regardless i have been watching hopefully for signs that russia should be doing something to protect the people and support the people of eastern ukraine from this regime that has come to power in the kiev business bent on using military force to subjugate them to what's rule but unfortunately i have not seen it every western

reporter that has embedded him self with the forces inside of eastern ukraine for mark friend shetty who was recently live on ukrainian t.v. to simon shows to reporting for time has shown that these people are for the most part the vast majority of them are ordinary you eastern ukrainian people they have very little military training they have no military support they have no monetary support they have no russian advisers i wish to god that i see that they did have any of this it would give me some hope by unfortunately i do not. see it i think the move by the russian presidential administration. rescinding their right granted by the federation council to use military force in eastern ukraine is a tragic mistake i think pulling back the military forces from the border at first gave this regime a green light to begin this heavy artillery barrage and airstrikes in earnest a month ago and now without even the hope of some kind of deterrent it will only

accelerate i don't see any type of russian control i don't see any type of russian support and quite frankly i think it's shameful ok jonathan it's one of these interesting cases depending on what side of the barricade you are either putin is doing too much or he's not doing enough well i think used during virtually the right thing i mean he's he's calling for a political solution he's withdrawing the resolution and the supreme servitude to that gives him you know power to go in there with separation all council troops and so on. well the federation council i'm sorry i'm out of date right sorry keep going to get out of there is out of date keep going. keep going oh ok all right federation council. but you know that so that is good and he's calling for talks and he's sending his serve representatives to join the talks so i think all that is very good and i think there's been some suppression from the size of the careful thought that is so so that all that it's good i mean i don't want any side to be

ramping up the military. question and i think. it's wrong to suggest that somehow we call betraying the interests of the people have done yet sq in changing those things that the federation council was asked to do initially well i mean it actually does not have the right to intervene in ukraine even if russian citizens are being massacred it is a un thing that should be done countries do not have the right to cross from just unilaterally without u.n. authorization whatever the provocation on the ground when a regime when a western governments have violated international relations international law by openly interfering in the domestic political affairs of the ukraine supporting financing and orchestrating regime change and a porch in the country russia has every right and duty to intervene to protect the people of eastern ukraine city and belfast you want to jump in the lot said here are. yes well i think that this hold to be it not this program but the western

media to be it is trying to narrow the focus and distort the picture into you know like a miniscule distortion of the bigger picture which is that as mark just said there's been in the illegal criminal regime change interference in the sovereign a first of ukraine and going back over several months and indeed several years noite as well as up that the background to this is that the nato has expanded aggressive fully relentlessly over twenty years on russia's from two years and is continuing to do so even in the last few weeks there's been massive war games in the baltics and former us eastern europe thirdly let's just talk about another point that the two months for the last two months the key has been a program of mass. violence indiscriminate violence and crimes against humanity with with food western support american support no talk of thirdly fourthly let's

talk about energy politics what this is all a ploy is america trying to smash up decades of russian energy triaged with europe and trying to display the us russia for its own self interests. well ok in the big bigger picture issues that are not being addressed as you just begun the program with is this illegal regime and key if it's not signing away sovereign affairs or the country of you with no monday at noon the chitta mysie they are signing up to the e.u. association pact they're signing they want to sign up with nato on what mandate or authority have they got poroshenko with an election with only forty five percent of the electorate and large parts of the country didn't even vote ok all right as he was let me go let me go to jonathan here and let me go to jonathan here why the association agreement so fast i mean this is something that i really am puzzled by they mean they want it done immediately i mean wouldn't it be better to get

a consensus on the ground i mean this all started you know back in november but there were people that wanted unico which is on it he didn't dismiss it he did say he didn't want to sign a debt that time and then we all know the events that have happened but why is the e.u. pushing so fast so hard to get this sign because if you read the fine print jonathan there's a lot of pain ahead well actually let's not forget that the political side of this agreement was already signed off of the crew in february so this is that you can all make sign such side of it sort of the big question you're asking are should have been asked back in early march will serve when it was first signed i mean you know i'm against the signature of that i think there should be tripartite talks with russia and the e.u. and the careful start is to try and work out a rescue package for the ukrainian economy which is on its knees that would not involve a zero sum game with one side claiming that they've won on the other side having to sadies they've lost the should be a combination of common sense until you can all make reality our enemy got an

economy going i'm ok a little i will continue to so yeah well let me go to mark here i mean you know victoria nuland you find her to be a reasonable same person because none of this should have happened in the first place when russia said exactly what jonathan said before all. this there should be a trilateral commission all three sides should talk the u.s. does not want to talk it just wants to push push and push and it doesn't care what the cost is. yes from the very beginning of the onset of this when the e.u. association agreement was presented sensually as an ultimatum non-negotiable to the ukrainian government the democratically elected legitimate government at that time they said that the ukraine had to make a civilizational choice and putting this and these manichean terms trying to draw a dividing line in an ethnically and culturally divided country with no common sense

of national identity such as the ukraine was an absolute recipe for disaster that has thus unfolded as russia warned at the time both the ukrainian government at the time and russia recreated repeatedly requested trilateral in the goshi ations on an economic settlement that would. help what is then and is even more so now a completely failed ukrainian economy this was rejected ukraine europe rejected any negotiations with russia they were bent on bringing and they are still bent on bringing ukraine into the european union's the west's geo politically orbit not because they care so much about the ukraine or certainly not about the ukrainians but simply as hillary clinton has earlier stated through it is an

absolute necessity for the west to stop a formation of the eurasian union they see that as a geo political necessity they feared in the year between the signing the not signing of the e.u. association agreement and the next elections that would some. how commit ukraine irreversibly to the eurasian union and that is why all of us i don't have time here i want to go back to belfast here one of the things i think is very interesting is that this thing will be signed but it will sign it and you know what all the pain that will come thereafter will be blamed on russia what do you bet. well if they want to be a pittance economic adviser. described it as economic suicide and i would i would agree with his prognosis but what i what i want to get back to you peter is what's what does all this emphasis on our perspective on russia what can russia do you know the western media commentators are all asking for for russia to do

something or to prove something i think the question is what is the u.s. what is washington european allies doing about this they are the ones who have escalated this crisis they have instigated the crisis they have escalated they are escalating the crisis they are they are continuing discreet the crisis yet all the onus has been placed on voting near putin in moscow to prove some sort of bona fide a bloody mayor putin and sergey lavrov have been doing excellent work over the last few months to try and calm the situation daryn the geneva seventy seventeenth of april accord that was signed to try. to bring about a dialogue with all groups and disarmament of all groups that was signed up to by the you yes the e.u. the kiev regime and russia what does that is not being honored by the three other parties that moscow is the only party that is actually asking for this

geneva deal to be implemented meanwhile all the pressure all the emphasis being placed on putin to prove their bona fide is have already been proven were the bona fide is from washington and brussels there are none they are escalating the situation they are sponsoring the regime and that has been illegally installed that doesn't have a mandate that slaughtering civilians as we speak. and yet there is no moral obligation or onus or examination or interrogation or of washington or brussels to go right on the with more pessimistic now gentlemen we've run out of time many thanks and i guess. in belfast london and in moscow and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at r.t. see you next time and remember proper. placement. is on.

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only. pitches for you ukraine's president signs a trade deal with the e.u. along with the leaders of georgia and. as i said live pictures for you right now from brussels it's of course the very same agreement which ignited the february revolution the conflict we've seen in previous months in ukraine's defiant east. also in the eye cash for rebels the u.s. president pushes congress to cough up half a billion dollars in aid to syrian opposition fighters to help train them and provide equipment. just one flaw in the longer.