welcome to worlds apart for decades russians have both laughed and despair that the inadequacies of their system while also struggling to accept the same kind of criticism from foreign theirs and when russia decided to hold a mirror to their west own imperfections including by setting up this child it turned out western tolerance to criticism is even more why is it so difficult to communicate pointing out what's wrong with one another well to discuss that i'm now joined by tony cabin a former diplomat and the author of a book called return to moscow well mr cavanaugh it's great to have you in the studio thank you very much for your time and happiness charlie a day thank you very much. now when you say australia in the russian context it conjures up an image of a beautiful faraway land with a bright sun blue sky beautiful beaches with friendly people who spent most of that

time surfing and i know it's a typical but i think it's a nice mental picture to get you through the long russian winter but i suspect when you say russia and there's trial and contacts. the associations are probably not so positive are they. they can be quite negative unfortunately we've been fed a diet of cliches about russia. russia is still very much seen through a post soviet lens. of success the state to the soviet union and somehow or other. of starvation in the countries of extreme cold discomfort of. the kinds of things that unfortunately still linger and you wrote the whole book to address some of those negative stereotypes and i think you have a very unusual take for western. i'm

a western diplomat. when it comes to russia because. i think there's a lot of understanding there's also a lot of compassion in your book and i really appreciate that but i will want to ask you whether you ever felt that you are giving this country an easy pass i don't think so i think that the majority of the content of my book deals with the sometimes very disagreeable parts of russia's history i've got a chapter on the leg museum i've got a chapter on the jewish museum of tolerance and i talk very frankly in those two chapters of some of the black spots in russia's history. and i think what i felt as a former professional diplomat for thirty years and i was an ambassador to poland but there were mother asked postings. i felt i had a certain responsibility to my own society. look we are being fed.

bad fantasies about russia the real russia is not what we're being told about. i want to go and i want to see what it's like and my process of disenchantment from the western propaganda machine against russia it really began pretty much in interest thousand and fourteen with the events in ukraine and the way in which they were being reported now i hope we will go into the ukrainian events a little bit later on into the program but. you mentioned the this negative image of russia and russia is definitely not an easy country it's a very complex society it's sometimes a very contorted country and i think we the russians are the first to you know and experience that and i think that actually goes to the very notion of russian patriotism it's loving russia is it's a bit like caring for the disabled loved one you know the disability you hate them but you love the person all the more because of that and that is actually i think

the most moving part of your book for me that you accept those disabilities rather than the typical western scolding that russia is not good enough but what i thought even more troubling is that that's cold thing that irritated russians a lot if you years back now seems acceptable because it essentially dick rest into the open bigotry why do you think this lack of compassion not even the lack of basic decency towards this country has become so does your mental conditioning and mutual propagandizing to the point where people come to believe each other if they keep telling each other that's good you know if you if you repeat lies often enough they become the truth and when you've got people in time media communities who are constantly. prince and each other with attitudes and opinions that really have no basis in fact unfortunately fulfill turn to will to fulfill certain reality takes

hold and i found when i decided to come to russia i was confronted by my friends and my colleagues in canberra which is the government center of australia with all sorts of illusions once you get outside moscow people will be stuffing better not get sick in moscow you in russia you won't be looked after properly all rubbish but the point is these have become general beliefs and i felt as a former ambassador whatever authority i still had and whatever credibility i still had. i wanted to put it at the service of writing a book that would encourage a better understanding of russia now i wonder. whether this issue of portraying russia always in a very negative light is also connected to the west's own south perception because in your book you're afraid to. liberal interventionist as the driving force behind

many of the west or america's adventures and we i think it's impossible not to agree that many of those adventures created more harm than good and yet they also produced very little in the way of south for selection to what extent this insistence on portraying russia as really ugly is predicted on the need of the west to see the south as invariably good despite all its recent policy blunders yes i think you're absolutely right. it's very important for the west and i late however you define that military diplomatic political media that does. believe in their own objectivity they have to believe in it but it's not just objectivity it's some sort of internal goodness. the other side being always. in the wrong well yes although i'm not sure that i very many people would

talk about being good and evil i mean that's that's a moral concept in the west that it's become a many many of the speeches of western politicians you constantly hear these theme of moral superiority drawing you know making i think this is a recurring theme in many of the present obama statements and in many of the statements by british politicians that they could be no moral equivalency between for example russia and the west where in fact why would you even think about equating anyone morally everybody makes mistakes everybody has his own or her own difficulties why would you need to compare anyone on the moral basis yes well i find that really very strange and limited thinking on that because to me russia is one of the most morally conscious countries in the world i mean the country that produced the story if. it's all about morality it's all about what is good what is evil this is something that preoccupies russians in

a very noble very noble sort of way on the other hand i see the west my own country australia which is the small satellite of america not so much as a country that is sort of moral sense of itself but a country that believes in its own pragmatism we like to pretend that we are totally realistic when we're not we become prisoners there and illusions in your book here i think very eloquently explain the russians have this deeply ingrained fear of war which comes back to our losses in world war two and perhaps even before that and i think you can easily make a case that russians sometimes overplay those fears those insecurities or security concerns but i wonder why do you think people in the west have lost out fear because they seem to be treating all those in interventions especially in foreign lands very. casually without any concern for the people there and for the own.

well being because you mentioned the issue of pragmatism but what is so pragmatic about going into libya or syria well i think that's a very good question because to my mind war and entertainment have become good in our culture and we children grow up playing playing war games on their computer this war has somehow been domesticated as entertainment. the major hollywood film industry. films about war. remember the way george bush when he wanted to declare victory. over the hussein's iraq he went to an aircraft carrier and put on the boat much eckert and the like tom cruise but look at the way he package that i mean he was basically making a little. and so i think russians on the other hand the war is a dreadful reality for them this this this wonderful new tradition of the much of

the poke to russians this because nothing funny about it is serious and i'm sure that russia will be there to extend your question little bit i'm sure that russia will be the last country in the world to abandon its nuclear deterrent i think russia will be the last to give up nuclear weapons because russia regards nuclear weapons as the bow walk against invasion or war but it's the period coalition of speaking about this affair superior outside coalition forces those tensions that we've been discussing came to had in ukraine in two thousand and fourteen and in your book here try to explain both russian and western thinking in great detail and there is this popular view in moscow that as painful as the ukrainian rupture was and it certainly was and is for russia russia is playing it a great cost for the kind of decisions that made in the ukrainian conflict there is also believed that rapture. how to prevent

a much bigger conflict between russia and nato that if russia didn't act. moment back in two thousand and fourteen that the nature would continue pushing across its border and there would be no other way escape that direct confrontation how much do you crave at that very much i mean there was a sort of a rehearsal for crimea some years beforehand and in georgia of course went under a lot of american encouragement of the saakashvili government but very provocatively towards russia and a couple of ethnic parts of georgia and iran and i think i forget the name of that number when the current dutch and russia drew a line and then russia moved in with support for the local local governments local ethnic groups and drew a line that was a dress rehearsal if you like. ukraine became the real thing because for many years before the the overthrow of the you know in

a case which government for many years before two thousand and fourteen there worth all kinds of encouragement being given to nationalistic elements in the crowd and the russian element by the united states and by certain european countries do you think they actually understood the seriousness of encouraging those kind of forces and the kind of reaction that they may provoke in russia where they understood and simply didn't care i think the latter i think they didn't care i think it was you know whatever we can do to encourage the build up of of anti russian opinion in ukraine is worth doing whatever the risks because ukraine so important strategically so important economically and if we can prise it away from the russian world to the nato world it would be worth spilling some china breaking some china and spilling the sort of on the way so i think they underestimated the seriousness of the nazi elements new crown. and russia had

to draw a line somewhere in ukraine as if you get further in georgia what have they done and if that they've helped a very small part of ukraine i mean. it's been done it pretty small amount of territory what five percent of ukraine they they've helped crimea carry out an act of self-determination and. they did it under enormous provocation if they hadn't been in the mud. they would not have been the warden at least mystic and i could argue that the west did similar things in other countries but as an official's would reply to that there is no moral equivalency anyway we have to take a short break now but we'll be back in just a few moments stay tuned. welcome

back to worlds apart with tony cabinet foremost charland diplomat in russia and the author of a book called return to moscow. mr cameron what. we started discussing your crane before the break the break and there was definitely a genuine aliment in that uprising people wanted change positive change they wanted

to they and to to corruption the they wanted a more fair more representative a more transparent government and all of those. calls you can hear in russia these days changes also have pretty popular world in this country but i think russia's relationship with changes is interesting because as part of the loop and the former prime minister of the imperial russia once said everything changes in russian ten years and nothing in two hundred i wonder what are some of those changes the norm changes that struck you when you came back to this country after a very long break. well obviously we're talking about since the cold war years when i worked to forty six years ago it's a very different country now totally different in terms of material living standards in terms of the the the menace of the people the old rudeness and and roughness that i remember about russia wrist maybe it was a full picture even then but i certainly felt it and i don't feel it's

a toll that i feel russians were very well managed people know what are the changes i think there's a much greater self-confidence in russia today. and i think it's growing because i think russia's learnt in the last few years particularly since you cry and since that experience since syria. russia has learned that. the west when it criticizes russia has not been good they haven't. basically tried to undermine russian full steam and i think russia has learned that yes we have our own problems we have our own disputes we have to deal with for example gender equality we have to deal with the way we treat option the really really old. particularly the way we treat homosexuals because i think for homosexuals there is still a very big future about being russian and it shouldn't be that way but it's not my place and it's not the west good place to lecture russia about these things well i

know you have very reluctant to criticize russia openly but you just mentioned this attitude towards the community and if you actually look at the polls you will see that russians by and large. homophobic they for example if you ask people do you mind homosexual couple living in the apartment next door to you they would usually say the majority would say no i don't care and yet in the political. environment these days you hear a lot about the traditional values the patriarchy and so on and so forth where in fact i would argue they have realistically no place in the russian society this is a society that is. empowered by strong women that we have lots of single mother families you know women taking care of the entire families women tend to be i think in other countries too more tolerant towards people who are different so i

wonder if you perhaps would go as far as to say that the russian elites are exploiting exploiting some of the things and perhaps fostering some of the negative attitudes dead actually do not have that deep of a root in the russian culture not enough about russia to answer your question but i'm very interested in what you say i can only say that just recently in australia we've had an extremely controversial. new law passed in december which we call the marriage equality law which for the first time allowed a sexual couples to marry it was very difficult to get that passed because our political elites were much more conservative than the population it was clear that the population wanted it that certain powerful politicians in the power limit and did their very best to to him paid it what i did find if i may extend the question a little is i'm probably of jewish origin i'm half irish catholic and have been a jewish by descent. i'd expect the degree of that to semitism in

russia. i didn't encounter it and i was enormously impressed with the jewish museum . and its presentation of the jewish contribution to russian history and culture right through the years since russia conquered potent in the jewish population of poland and below russia became russian citizens that whole story was fascinating i left that museum with a spirit of uplift because my folks showed us that russia and its row getting on the path of peace and mutually respectful relation. mitchell a respectful relationship between russia and israel is not a problem i think they are now a little bit concerned that the personal relationship between putin and benjamin netanyahu is endangering the middle east peace process because everybody's so

accommodating towards israel but rather than going into international affairs i want to ask you know specifically about the logic and putin has been in power of on and off for eighteen years and you've just recently speaking at one of the conferences here in russia you said that you wish and his foreign minister sergey lavrov along political careers the world needs now wisdom and moderation even if that's your genuine failing donte think you know the long stay in power i'm a in danger of russia in the long run because. power transition is inevitable one day we all believe this world and. with having one leader even their very popular leader in power for so long don't you think that it will make russia vulnerable more vulnerable when time comes to hand over the keys to the kremlin to somebody else i see what you're getting at and i think you're worried about some sort of personality cult developing around putin especially in the west and perhaps by the way not so much in russia but i think also in the western press because much

of the western coverage about russia is about putin that's right we we personalize everything and when i gave a lecture in perth i don't know whether it's you know on my website i've got that lecture and i've got the photographs that i put up during the lecture one of them in particular is a pair of photographs the there's an ordinary tass or something new this picture of putin sitting at his desk his head and shoulders and the next picture is the famous cover of the economist which portrayed put in as a devil it's a photo shopped image of exactly that same picture so we put it in that image mr cameron i am sorry for indigestion i think it's safe to say but that both of us have a. fairly neutral if not positive attitude towards putin of what he has done for this country but. that none of us standing my question still stands don't you think that. you know he too has to think about what russia yeah will be after he's gone

absolutely and i think and i talk about this in my book in the chapter about suicide oh i think he's trying to leave. a positive legacy of ideas the idea of the russian wilderness can mirror the idea of. civil is that he is actually trying to leave a legacy of a multicultural russia a russia of many of the cities not just to the docks russia. certainly proper respect for orthodoxy has in england this respect for the anglican church but not not as the periodicity of both the docs you have are up their religions and i think he's trying to leave a legacy of multiculturalism and i talk about that quite a lot. he's trying to leave you know as i thought up this question. what is the russian motherland if you're not if you not offer books what is the road enough to you and he's trying to help broaden that concept we have to do this

in australia too because when i was young australia was basically what i think was sex and now we're i think we're well on the way to being a generally multicultural country and in that respect i think russia and australia have a lot in common already well there as you point out in your book many commonalities between russia and australia being the outsiders being territorially expansive countries perhaps sometimes struggling to defined who they are but i want to bring you back to the question of logic of putin's and sergey lavrov along political careers because there is now a rumor in moscow that sergei lavrov for example the foreign minister asked for his retirement several times because as much as he if i see him lost his job it is quite tiring there was also speculation does put in wasn't planning on coming back to power or running for presidency again in two thousand and twelve but the events

in libya and the murder of moammar gadhafi the disintegration of libya afterwards made him change his mind i wonder to what extent western policies are responsible for keeping those perhaps not fully appreciated individuals in power for so long well those two room as you mentioned. may be a conspiracy theorist but i suspect the origins of some of those rumors think this is all part of trying to make russia feel weak about. the and the information war it's ruthless and ongoing thing against against russian stability but let me come back. what what makes them special i remember even when i was forty seven years ago and thirdly and most subsequent twenty five years as a diplomat the smartest people in russian embassies were almost the kind of creepy people now it's no accident that a young ambitious intelligent man like putin growing up in leningrad in fairly

tough circumstances looking at his career opportunities just will join the k.g.b. there's nothing sinister about this it was the most cagey business there is that people see if that's what. it was where ambitious people would would gravitate and so it's a mark of his own ability that he was promoted so quickly in the k.g.b. and finished up in east germany to the time of the which i just left it off for a friend of mine was a fellow diplomat of lover of the united nations. thirty five forty years ago they worked together in a committee he said was super bright and you know super organized just the professional diplomat you can see that no leverage gives a media conference without notes and he just talks about every use you want of us and gets the right gets the language exactly right we have running out of time here and i want to ask quiz and one more question there is a presumption in the west that if put in it were not in the kremlin that russian

policy somehow would have been different that russia would be such a big star and in the side of the west and i get it from your book. you really chide she showed that russia's decisions recent decisions they comply with certain historical logic that there is certain continuity to decision making in russia if it wasn't put in let's say for alexina vallone comes to power at this year and next year do you think the west should expect a dramatically different foreign policy line from russia i don't think there's any chance of novell becoming to anybody else i mean any other lady if rigs. later of the communist party kind of power or it's. the daughter of a totally stopped shot came to power i don't think that the huge difference is because as you've said there is a professionalism at the competence about the russian administrative class which which would continue mr cameron we have to leave it there thank you very much for your time and to our viewers please keep the conversation going on our social media

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such. israeli military hits twelve targets in syria after damascus shoots down an israeli fighter jet for the first time in thirty six years. meanwhile turkey's president says one of his country's military helicopters has been downed near the syrian border where entre is carrying out an offensive against a kurdish militia. thank god the far right surge is causing concern in italy ahead of a general election anti-fascist activists rallied in several cities after six african migrants were injured in a shooting. and kim jong sr invites the south korean president to visit north korea and the latest sign of him from relations between the two countries.