i hope we will go into the ukrainian events a little bit later on into the program but. you mentioned these 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 find 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 in time media communities who are constantly referencing each other with attitudes and opinions that really have no basis in fact unfortunately fulfill turn to will to fulfill to the 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 was

a former ambassador for whatever authority i still had and whatever credibility i still had. i want to put it to 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 own self 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 really i think it's impossible not to agree that many of those adventures created more harm than good and yet they also produce very little in the way of south reflection to what extent this insistence on portraying russia as. ugly is predicted on the need of the west to see the self 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 laid however you define that military diplomatic political media that. believe in their own objectivity they have to believe in it but it's not just objectivity it's some sort of eternal goodness. the other side being always in the wrong well. i'm not sure that very many people would talk about being good and evil i mean that's that's a moral concept in the west 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 on the moral basis yes well i find that really very strange and limited thinking on that because to me russian is one of the most morally conscious countries in the world i mean the country that produced. 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 a 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 we 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 but russians have this deeply ingrained

fear of war which comes back to you 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 beach treating all those in interventions especially in foreign lands very casually without any concern for the people there and for their own. wellbeing because you mentioned the issue of pragmatism but what is so pregnant about going into syria well i think that's a very good question because to my mind war and entertainment have become blurred in our culture and we've children grow up playing playing war games on their computers war has somehow been domesticated as entertainment.

hollywood film industry. films about war. remember the way george bush when he wanted to declare victory. over hussein's iraq he went to an aircraft carrier and put on a boat much eckert and stood there like tom cruise but look at the way he package that i mean he was basically making a little woman. and so i think russians on the other hand towards that dreadful reality for them this this this wonderful new tradition of the much of the poke to russians this because nothing funny about war it is so serious and i'm sure that russia will get 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 by a superior coalition of speaking about this affair superior outside coalition

a force as 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 as a great cost for the kind of decisions that made in the ukrainian conflict they also believe that 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 to escape that direct confrontation how much do you crave at that oh very much so 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 group parts of georgia and up here and i think i forget the name of that number when the current dutch and russia drew a line that 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 in the case which government for many years before two thousand and fourteen there was 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 really 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 free self-determination and. they did it under enormous provocation if they hadn't been in the mud. they would not have been awarded at least mystic and i

could argue that the west did similar things in other countries but as i have western officials 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. that's in american interest to not see any russians die in terrorist attacks as it is in russian interest to prevent any terrorist attacks in the united states or elsewhere in the world so i don't think there's any dispute on that in congress and i think maybe some of the posturing is frankly political as opposed to substantive.

about your sudden passing i've only just learned you worry yourself in taking your last wrong turn. your attitude up to you as we all knew it would i tell you i'm sorry i could so i write these last words in hopes to put to rest these things that i never got off my chest. i remember when we first met my life turned on each breath. but then my feelings started to change you talked about war like it was again still some are fond of you those that didn't like to question our arc and i secretly promised to never be like it said one does not leave a funeral the same as one enters my mind it's consumed with death this one quite different person i speak to now because there are no other takers. to claim that mainstream media has met its maker. in america a college degree requires a great deal. paying

a decades long debt. studying so hard it requires transition. going through humiliation to enter an elite society. one parching to death sometimes quite literally. want other true colors of universities in the us. welcome to mexico as are financial survival guide. political or three or less without. yanks this is what happens to pensions in britain delegates i do watch kaiser report.

welcome back to worlds apart tony cabin therefore must travel and diplomat in russia and the author of the book called return to moscow. mr cameron what. we started discussing your train before the break the break and there was definitely a genuine aliment in that uprising people wanted change positive change they wanted to day and to to corruption they wanted a more fair more representative and 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 you were talking about the cold war you know when

i worked at 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 memo's of the people the old rudeness and roughness that i remember about russia wrist maybe it was a false picture even then but i certainly felt it. looked or told i feel russians were very well managed people know what are the challenges i think there's much greater self-confidence in russia today. and i think it's growing because i think russia in the last few years is particularly since you crying since that experience from syria. russia that. the west when it criticizes russia is not big but they haven't. tried to undermine russian self-esteem and i think russia has learned that yes we have our own problems we have a dispute we have to deal with for example gender equality we have to deal with the

way we treat option the. old the. particularly the way we treat homosexuals because i think for homosexuals there are still very biggest you should be playing 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 called the marriage equality law which for the first time a lot of 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 but certain powerful politicians in the parliament did the very best to to impede 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 expected a degree of that to semitism in russia. i didn't encounter it and i was enormously impressed with the jewish museum. i found the presentation of the jewish contribution to russian history and culture right through the years since russia conquered parts of poland 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 i folk this means that russia and its row getting on the

path of decent mutually respectful relationship. issues a respectful relationship between russia and israel is not a problem i think the we 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 could accommodating to 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 to my putin and his foreign minister sergey lavrov along political careers the world needs that was them in 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. the 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 western press 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 the you know 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's sitting in this disc of his head and shoulders and the next picture is the famous cover of the economist which portrayed putin as a devil it's

a photoshop image of exactly that same picture so we we demonize putin 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 will be after he's gone absolutely and i think and i talk about this in my book in the chapter about through this though i think he's trying to leave. a positive legacy of ideas the idea of the russian world risking mira 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 the ducks he has in england this respect for the anglican church but

not not as the periodic table of the ducks you have are up the 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 sort out this question. what is the russian motherland if you're not if you're not off the books what is broad 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 genuinely multicultural country and in that respect i think russia and australia have a lot in common already older 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 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 i assume lost his job it is quite tiring there was also speculation that 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 self 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 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 it's an ability that he was promoted quickly in the k.g.b. and finished up in east germany to the time of the which i just left it off 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. super organized just

a superb professional diplomat you can see that no leverage gives a media conference without notes and he just talks about if you want to 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 putin of were not in the kremlin that russian policy somehow would have been different that russia wouldn't 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 safe alexina vallone comes to power at this year or 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 not only coming to anybody else i mean any other lady if rigs. later of

the communist party kind of power or. the daughter of a totally stopped shot came to power i don't think there'd be huge differences because as you've said there is a professionalism at the competence about the russian administrative class which which would continue well 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 pages and i hope to see you again same place same time here on of all the part.

ran out of the book uploading the best out of the jewels with. the concepts was plain to perform i had to actually prepare myself to die i. don't know said he'd what i'm so sorry trust me. as most of. you it was slow and homo stuff her.

scanty was. she had the goods sold on. so we'll see if you think. it was that he could with us here. yesterday at the permission so i told upshift education a couple so kind of toilet b.s. get very good job was. what politicians do something to. put themselves on the line to get accepted or rejected. so when you want to be president. or something want to. have to go right to be first to support them before three in the morning can't be good. i'm interested always in the water using my. first sip.

tens of billions hundreds of billions probably a trillion dollars of u.s. government subsidies a seat on the energy industry yes government can subsidize mining of big brother crypto currencies and put those into a wall it's called american citizens going to each have an automatic wallet tied to the salsa security couch and they can get a daily weekly or monthly airdrop of crypto cords that they can then years to boost economy with the government can easily do that. about your sudden passing i've only just learnt you worry yourself in taking your last wrong turn. your attitude up to you as we all knew it would i tell you i'm sorry for me i could so i write these last words in hopes to put to rest these things that i never got off my chest. i remember when we first met my life turned on each breath. but then my feeling started to change you talked about war like it

was a cave still some are fond of you those that didn't like to question our ark and i secretly promised to never be like it said one does not leave a funeral the same as one enters the mind it's consumed with death this one different person to speak to now because there are no other takers. to blame that mainstream media has met its maker. but it. was not there. was. such a. it

passenger plane with seventy one people on board crashes shortly after takeoff from moscow leaving no survivors the cause of the tragedy is so far. one of the black boxes is recovered from the crash site where a massive search operation is ongoing. and in the russian city of the ill fated plane a should have landed distraught relatives of grief the loss of their loved ones. broadcasting live direct from our studios in moscow recapping the week's top stories in our weekly program this is our international.