our top story the two suspects named by the u.k. in the poisoning of russian double agents a gay script paul and his daughter back in march have given an exclusive interview to r.t. is as is her in chief let's take a look at parts of that interview with margarita simonyan and our breakdown of it on the program. we pose on you to me and i've been to one you called me on my cell phone and told me that you are a slumber i should have the looks on the floor at all. we but it really looked like the pictures shown to us by the u.k. doesn't mean that if it. makes you. with us on why you. we are those who are shown to you in the pictures. and i would throw at the russians are those your real names the national the your real names you know what does he just called them but even now when you are talking about it to tell you the truth you look very nervous is one then. i could move would you look like you or

look at us when your life was turned upside down in a moment in just one day and changed our lives this story has been headlines it's march but it's only about a week ten days ago that these two faces these themes appeared in media in public discourse released by yuko thora to these men certainly resemble those in c.c.t.v. images released by u.k. police they have confirmed they should have followed exotic petroff that they were in the u.k. on those days they were on those c.c.t.v. images a lot of digging a lot of journalists trying to do some some news how it worked out to track them down in the end they came forward voluntarily they made a phone call to margaret to see when our editor in chief and voluntarily decided to answer some of the key questions i'm sure many people would have had about what exactly happened on those days and they exam this is certainly what is from london you won't get those now famous codes and sneakers and souls breed. with all these

people you yes there's still time to go what were you doing there and our friends have been suggesting for a long time that we visit this wonderful town souls' brewery a wonderful town and yes a tourist town. there is the famous solsbury cathedral famous not only in europe but in the whole world and. it's famous for its one hundred twenty three metre spire. on the minute. it is famous for its clock one of the first ever created in the world it's still working. without a body of a big meeting. bit of a book. this is all you came to solve greta take a look at your clock some on the cello no we plan to visit london and first to have fun there. it wasn't

a business trip this time. and we planned to go to london and then to salisbury. but when we were almost there we thought the plane wouldn't land on the first drive it was there was a heavy snow storms but that's because of all the having they had with the transport in the u.k. on march second and third because of heavy snowfall but nearly all the cities were paralyzed and we were unable to go anywhere now so that's just a small x. said this whole thing goes all of my groups are asking them some pretty basic questions for trying to get in there to get some info from them the main thing of course britain says alleges is that the. russian intelligence officers that was tackled to year those surprises they denied any links to the g.r.u. the russian military intelligence service they didn't reveal too much about their business their work they said they work in the sports industry in sports nutrition fitzsimmons protein amino acids. interview they said they decided to come to the media for protection they didn't know where to turn and they were confused by the

media attention the speculation saying their lives that effectively been turned upside down by all of us would i do you work for the g.r.u. and you me know and you and i don't either but no one accuses me of working for the jerry but you are being accused of that your colleagues accuse us of that by your colleagues you mean journalists you are being accused by you get for it it yes that's the scariest thing where do you work if you are adults you need to make a living if we tell you about our business people we work with will be affected tell me anything so that we believe you everyone has questions what do you do to cut a long story short we're in the fitness industry all right now they also want to say don't they that their lives in badly affected by this they say they came to our. margaret is a prominent broadcaster here and often online that they came to our team for some of the safety of the calls we're journalists not lawyers what was that about yeah that's right and the but that's one of the quotes that moderators job was to get

some answers to some questions not to defend them or protect them to get those answers and for the viewer to decide whether they believe this version or not they say they can't leave the house they can't go to the shop can't go to the petrol station they fear for their families being somehow involved implicated in all of this. that's why they chose to come forward voluntarily to some of these questions although there may be more questions than answers of course after all of this let's take a listen. to me why did you decide to go to the media your photos were published some time ago together with your names but you kept silent with them today you called me because you want to speak to the media and what changed. was she to ask for protection is to them or the way you can say we kept silent after our lives turned into a nightmare we didn't know what to do where to go when the police the investigative committee by the u.k. embassy you know. or the f.s.b. we don't know why would you go to the u.k. embassy. we really didn't know what to do where to go hello.

you know when your life is turned upside down you don't really understand what to do and where to go and many say why don't they go to the u.k. embassy and explain everything. think a lot of you are going to see this interview will have quite mixed feelings the men are clearly slightly uncomfortable some will have more questions to ask some will view this as another piece of the jigsaw puzzle that is the case of course that has been a bit of a game of chess really between the u.k. and russia. the men refused to show their passports that is docked identity documents on a camera they said that what journalistic aerial digging into their past the lives their families they did show them to margarita simonyan she confirmed that they do maps. with her identity she made a few comments after the interview just giving some of her own prussians about their interaction i knew they were nervous and sweating a lot i had to turn up the air conditioning a lot higher than usual and still they were sweating and wiping their foreheads

which obviously happens when people are nervous there could be a lot of reasons for it i understand this was the first interview in their lives but they could have been nervous for other reasons as well that's also possible they refused to show their i.d.'s on camera because they didn't want to be pursued and identified further but they showed them to me that i did not run a polygraph on them as a journalist i believe what they see i saw those were the people i saw their i.d.'s and that they feed the photos and video what was going through their minds and whether they were speaking the truth it's hard to see it's up to those who watched the interview to decide. really this is but a chance for those two suspects to give some sort of have some sort of right of reply here to give their version of events their story and explain their presence in the u.k. account for their actions during those days and i mean really give their version of events here whether the public will believe that as margarita said she didn't want to give her impression her job was to ask those questions that of course remains to

be seen and we're waiting now for responses from. officials see where this goes next. reacting to the interview britain's top diplomat slammed it as a fake t.v. show our london correspondent polly boyko goes through some of the other reactions from u.k. officials including the prime minister's office we saw margarita simonyan saying that it's up to the viewer to decide what to make of this interview and it's fair to say that the british government has given it a massive thumbs down to resume a spokesperson has rubbish the accounts provided by alexander patrol from a share of and they've used pretty strong language to do it take a listen and blades in for brooke asians in this interview given to a russian state sponsored t.v. station r and then sold to the public's intelligence well that same government statement goes on to say that an illegal chemical weapon was used on the streets of

the country and that four people asked seriously ill in hospital and an innocent woman died and russia has responded with contempt now this is the second official statement that we've had from the government from downing street earlier on immediately after the interview was first aired there was a statement from the government and it was similarly scathing take a listen the government is clear these men are officers of the russian military intelligence service the g.r.u. who used to devastatingly toxic illegal chemical weapon on the streets of our country we have repeatedly asked russia to account for what happened in salzburg in march today just as we have seen throughout they have responded with all of this case and lies. so i think to say that the british authorities are buying it is to say nothing at all really no one's going to be lining up to give them any acting accolades certainly not here in the u.k.

all the politicians have been rather skeptical to the member of parliament for soulsby john glenn he's tweeted saying that he's delighted that alexander patrol from respond to share of enjoyed the world class attractions that sells but he has to offer but it's very strange to come all this way for just two days while carrying novacek in their luggage he also said that soulsby welcomes tourists from around the world and it is very much open for business but the patrols the sheriff statements according to john glenn are not credible and don't match the widely accepted intelligence that the u.k. has on these individuals so you can see that this is a spat that is getting worse and we've got to the next stage of it now because we've had a response from the russian foreign ministry spokesperson that's maria's the horror of us so she's responded to the u.k.'s response to the interview and she has some questions for the british authorities there so the surely need to i believe it's

absolutely unacceptable to accuse people of telling lies forty minutes after they have spoken so i repeat my question directly to the british what is the legal basis and framework for accusing russian citizens of telling lies forty minutes after new interview what was the reason for that what was so specifically non-credible and what the. official authorities accuse someone of. you must be responsible for the. so we're in a situation now where london is dismissing the interview and ask questions about why london is dismissing the interview and london is reminding moscow that they have questions that haven't been answered by the kremlin from the very beginning in this affair it looks like we're getting statements and counter statements but that doesn't appear to be any dialogue taking place between london and moscow right now russia and lest martin mccauley think this unlikely that either london or moscow or

change their stance on the scrap our case. government has claimed that patrol bushehr of where our offices of the g.r.u. that's the point of made over and over again and of course they can't know when they say they're not the country to go back british government cannot go back sorry we made a mistake so therefore the british government is keeping to its arguments which is usually our six months and most quiz keeping to its arguments and of course there's one statement counter statement one side says one thing the other side says no that's not correct we don't believe that we want further clarification of the british point of view they just keep on repeating what have said before they haven't really offered then any different attitude and

a different point of view and a different evidence to show that. the arbiter of and be sure of our members g.r.u. because from british government point of view it's absolutely impossible to prove that actually members they're the officers of the g.r.u. because they don't have access to the. two that have information all they can say is the bones of probability it is we think that. we're almost certain that that's as far as the british government can go. because it. may cause the vowing to impose new more so this sanctions on russia for its alleged have been they have agents in the script case plan to impose a very severe second round of sanctions under the sea the global community will not tolerate behavior such as we've seen from russia especially in poisoning and killing its own citizens we are absolutely prepared to fully implement the second round of sanctions she says it will include banking sanctions

a prohibition on obtaining defense articles and aid money but back in august it was stated that the second round of sanctions could include cutting diplomatic ties with russia and in all aeroflot travel and stopping all imports and exports but things said that the second round of sanctions would not be imposed if russia commits to on site inspections we have indicated to them that they can evade they can make themselves not subject to these sanctions if they allow the on site inspections as you've indicated if they give us a verifiable assurance that they will not use these nerve agents against their own people again they have not done so so far it should be noted that last october the u.n. verified the destruction of russia's chemical weapons and confirmed that all of russia's chemical weapons facilities were closed through on site inspections do you think that they're going to admit their use goes in there when people. congressman at this point it's not even

a matter of russia admitting it we we know they did that i know but this all began when a former double agent and his daughter were poisoned back in march chuck was determined to be the agent used and everyone blamed russia because the agent was originally developed in the former u.s.s.r. but since ninety one it's been developed in several other countries russia has repeatedly denied involvement and has even offered to cooperate in an investigation and the o.p.c. w. and porton down the british lab that analyzed the samples couldn't even identify the source or country of origin with all that being said all we can do right now is wait until november to see if the sanctions are indeed imposed. staying on the topic of sanctions still no trump signed off on tackling alleged foreign interference in the us elections which he describes as a national and the agency the president's issued an executive order which focuses on any attempts by individuals countries to influence. the kind of things that were

shown to be true from the revolution that came from briggs sample edward snowden quite frankly whatever miniscule impact that russia or china has it's so small it's either nonexistent or so small as to be irrelevant when it comes to united states elections neither oppose any kind of meaningful significant threat of any kind the actual threat to our elections come from the organizations that benefit from government spending we're talking about teachers you were talking about the military industrial complex lobby is metal that american elections those people meddle in american elections. the russian military has claimed those extremists in syria's adlib province have staged films a chemical attack which they intend to blame on president assad's forces most case says the fighters will send some of the footage to the united nations and say collate the rest online. following the filming on the evening of the same day at

a joint meeting between representatives of the white helmet and terrorists from the sham out of the nine videos from the two were approved to be sent to the us and the o.p.c. w. the rest of the material was suggested for social media because of low quality. according to the russian reconsideration center the preparations were made to near the syrian town of khan show couldn't when and alleged chemical attack occurred in april last year it's claims the filming took place in a nearby village where there's also a chemical stockpile washington has ignored warnings from russia that the self-styled syrian rescue group the white helmet is directly involved in staging the attack saying there is no evidence to support the claim and us the battlefield live province looms the u.s. is pouring troops into syria saying that if that is a chemical attack there will be a much stronger response than before jack looks into how washington's approach in syria has evolved over recently is. the deeper the u.s.

gets sucked into the syrian conflict the more the continuity of time seems to change when it comes to decision making in washington back in two thousand and thirteen when allegations of chemical attacks arose barack obama was still in the hot seat and time still seemed linear we intend to investigate thoroughly exactly what happened. obviously in syria right now you've got a war zone we have to make sure that we know exactly what happened what was the nature of the incident what can we document what can we prove. our commonsense review the evidence and attack if justified later the idea that investigations require time those were the good old days but two thousand and seventeen came and times changed syrian dictator bashar. launched a horrible chemical weapons attack. on innocent civilians less than seventy two

hours later the u.s. fired fifty nine cruise missiles at the airbase they suspected chemical weapons were launched from before any investigation took place. only months later did a un report come out placing the blame at the feet of the syrian government position today to send a message to countries that do not participate in a civilized way but there will be punished there are a lot of different ways to do that the energy industry being want to. call and have all n.s.a. shipp professor of political science thinks the u.s. is trying to keep a gret on the global energy markets but he says though but just a simple way what he means is they don't follow the u.s. dictates they're threatening iran directly with any type of political activity and they're threatening russia with its north stream to or with gas

pipeline to europe so united states it's a campaign to do who's going to supply who do we or here is us fear those who are doing that cause this is no good. politics to the situation. except roasted liquefied natural gas to the north stream to welcome it however the euro month stand on its own should be. back to our top story and the to a man named by britain the suspects in the script poisoning her a few the allegations against them we've got their side of the story in a world exclusive you can watch it all in full here not international just moments away.

join me every first week on the alex simon show and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics sports business i'm show business i'll see that. we. need a minimum of bidding to get one. because that is still a little fun but should have you had it sounds a bit off or something put off it with one shot of. it and then a horse or not those two number because of his birth and that's it for that i get it next year we deal with that someone did a couple. in the some didn't get their way because of the you know from the show. some of it over at the russian station in the you know the national station. now.