very little in the way of south first 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 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 yes although i'm not sure that i very many people would talk about being good and evil i mean that's a that's a moral concept in the west that it's become a many many of these speeches are forced implications you constantly hear these theme of moral superiority on this 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 their part 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 a small shack a lot of america not so much as a country that is sort of morals and it's a. of 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 here because they seem to beach treating all those into interventions especially in foreign lands very casually without any concern for the people there and for tel own. wellbeing because you mentioned the issue of pragmatist but what is still pretty much about going into libya or syria well i think that's a very good question because to my mind that war and entertainment have become

blood in our culture and we've 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 saddam hussein's iraq he went to an aircraft carrier and put on the bomber jacket and stood there 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 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 will 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. against invasion no war by a superior coalition of speaking about disappear disappear outside coalition forces those tensions that we've been discussing came to how the new ukrainian 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 paying it a great cost for the kind of decisions that made in the ukrainian conflict there is also believed that the rapture how to prevent a march 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 before in georgia of course went under a lot of american encouragement severely government but very provocatively towards russia and a couple of ethnic group from georgia and you know 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 if the groups and drew a lot and 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 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 just really meant georgia what have they done and if that but 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 square could they would not have been the warden at least mr kim and i could argue that the west did similar things in other countries but as 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. for survival guide books to give the story.

repatriations look at the rest of seventy. philip a separate track record. so what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have it's crazy foundation let it be an arms race is often clearly dramatic development is only going to exist i don't see how that strategy will be successful very critical time to sit down and tom. welcome back to worlds apart with tony cabinet foremost troll and diplomat in

russia and the author of the 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 some change positive change they wanted to they on 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 madness 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 that. the west when it criticizes russia has not been good they haven't. basically tried to undermine russian self-esteem 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 it is still very biggest news 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're 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 the 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 half being a jewish by descent. i'd expect the degree that the semitism in russia. 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 because of russian citizens that whole story was fascinating i left that museum with the spirit of uplift because i throw this show to 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 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 so has israel but rather than going into international affairs i want to ask you 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 sergei lavrov along political careers the world needs now wisdom and moderation even if that's your genuine sailing 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 letter 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 and mr

cameron i am sorry for indigestion i think it's safe to say but 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 through isto 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 the ducks he has in england this respect for the anglican church but not not as the periodicity of both the docs for other 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 thought up this question. what is the russian motherland if you're not if you're not off the docks 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 no we 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 wanted 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 it 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. and the information war it's ruthless and ongoing thing against against russian stability but let me come back. putin a lover of what what makes him special i remember even when i was here forty seven

years ago and certainly in my 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 he had to know 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 that which i just left it off a friend of mine was a fellow diplomat of lever of the united nations. thirty five forty years ago they worked together in a committee he said lever off was bright and you know super organized just a superb 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 it right gets the language exactly right we had 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 then to crown land that russian policy somehow would have been different that russia would be suddenly chides he showed that it's certain historical hour at this year and next year it polish the line from russia i mean this party came to power or it's. the door to the professionalism of the competence of betty knew well mr cameron we have to the same place same time here. as u.s.

discards russian intelligence plus. the german city of camden. and amid a wave of. now we're driving to the southern part of the swedish capital. one of the areas i'm told by police as vulnerable or especially vulnerable. to our broadcasts and. this is an international thomas certainly glad to have you. are at a crucial battle is looming in the last trouble stronghold in the syrian province of lib the u.n. special envoy for syria says there are around ten thousand terrorists there and that the group is capable of producing chemical weapons however the u.s.

state department has dismissed the idea of a pending false flag attack by terrorists which of course could escalate the conflict further. the issue of avoiding the potential use of chemical weapons if indeed crucial and would be totally unacceptable we all know that both the government and have that cup ability to produce weaponized glory the russians are claiming now and this one other groups are stockpiling chemical weapons and planning an attack so you know and i think that's more false flag type reporting talking about this is enough for when you try to play the blame they try to put the onus on other groups and we don't buy into that. russia says it has information on the delivery of toxic substances to italy province acquaints they got there with the help of the self-styled rescue group the white elephant and are to be used in a false flag attack russia's foreign minister sergey lavrov explained that the

motivation behind the plot. the chemical weapons provocation which is being prepared is aimed at keeping al nasra they're counting on using it against the so-called regime as they call it following the alleged goot a chemical attack russia's warning that rebels will try to stage as similar incident in egypt to draw the u.s. france and britain in get them to hit a sad again russia says an incident is imminent especially after the u.s. and the allies jointly stated that they would act if it looks like as had launched another chemical attack that's almost an invitation to do so says moscow. now when the u.s. is steering the situation around we want to know how can damascus have chemical weapons if the u.s. france and great britain destroyed them last year you know what the us and says we never said that france did it's do or dive for the g hardest rebels nowhere left to

run nothing left to lose and their sponsors the west the gulf which have pumped billions upon billions of dollars into a cause that's on its last legs the mascot's and moscow a trying to work out a deal to reduce perhaps avoid the bloodshed but the job for it syria russia adamant this swamp of terror and zealotry has no future. group which are this is the last place for the terrorists so from all points of view this abscess should be removed of course what everybody's fearful of is escalation given the us russian military buildup in the region everyone has a gun pointed at each other and given that this is it the final act of the syrian war the urge to shoot might just be overwhelming the united states doesn't believe

that the rebels have that capability whereas the. there's tremendous documentation to show that they do have the capability they've probably been storing it for months if not years in the province and they have used it in the past they have that capability and it is a last ditch hold for them so it cannot be ruled out and it's not it's not beyond the realm of possibility that the u.s. is trying to get assad out they're going to continue trying and and even though donald trump wants to. get the u.s. out of syria there are elements within the u.s. government that don't want that to happen well back into concerns about the white helmets the controversial syrian a rescue group political activist and a rock musician roger waters from pink floyd who has long been a vocal critic of the organization and shared his thoughts on them with r.t.

. if there is a grassroots footy called the way home it's of. for the people who actually started to stumble it was it didn't start it was started by an english soldier. in istanbul but if that body exists. and they and they go and help people. in the. south of the russians or somebody else was struck them then i support them whole heartedly with every fiber of my being. put. all the evidence points to the fact that that is not the reality i don't know if you did you did you see the the documentary that won the oscar. i mean have you ever seen anything so

obviously scripted and carefully shot. roger waters has had plenty to say while on tour in russia this week i can testify to that and our full interview with him starts the new season of sophie and co right here on r t on september second. saturday's clashes in the german city of kemet some between anti migrant protesters and rival groups left eighteen people injured and saw multiple arrests city hasn't been hit by an arrest of throughout the week after the stabbing of a local man here is a round up of what has been happening. i. please . please. please was how.

this murder has affected us too even though we had nothing to do with it we're still having to pay the price even though we did nothing to eat it. was if you seen this place you're behind me a lot of crime. and so on to steal everything and so on and it's too much and i think we must help people but now it's too much was played out. to be honest i'm ashamed of this city when these right wing extremists spread hate like that we should leave and piece together with the refugees was played out what i have seen in calmness is something that has

no place in a constitutional spades it's become a witch hunt mall the spewing hate streets this has no place in our country. the way you want when you stream is tough capitalized on this terrible heinous crime. it's toasters and opponents and we reject it is not acceptable when people who look foreign are being attacked in the course of a spontaneous rally. or protesters have also been displaying photos of people who have a crime have been assaulted by asylum seekers blaming flaws in germany's own legal and enforcement systems with more details our europe correspondent peter odom. migration policy in germany is firmly in focus right now but what to do when it's been decided that the person doesn't have the right to be here and should be deported well at the bizarre end of the spectrum is the case of one man in

frankfurt who the city's office of public order confirmed to r.t. is how what ping five hundred and forty two criminal investigations against him the man who doesn't have a passport can't be deported because the authorities can't prove which nation he originally comes from oh and by the way this has been going on since ninety ninety eight over the last twenty years most of his offenses have involved drug charges driving offenses driving without a license and violations of the residency act but who year is remains a mystery we have a loose biography that suggests that he was born in one nine hundred fifty nine in north africa in the past he said that he was from morocco and also from his from algeria it could be that he is from one of those two countries or it could be from somewhere entirely different opposition figures say that this case shows the flaws in the current system in germany.