hello and welcome across not where all things are considered i'm peter lavelle on this edition of the program we discussed russia's relationship with the west ukraine and a lot of history. knocking the gordian knot i'm joined by michael c. or moscow geoffrey roberts he's a historian senior fellow at the helsinki for advanced studies and a member of the royal irish academy and we have nick like petro he is a professor of political science at the university of rhode island all right gentlemen let's talk about cutting the not we're we all know the poor state of relations between the west and russia we both know that very well. how do we get out of this cold or we just have to accept the status quo for

a very long time to come. i'm afraid it's the latter. i don't see any political figure all on the horizon in the west who could take the lead and show that kind of innovative thinking that would lead to an era of mutual benefit and potential reconciliation between the east and west because i do think in the long run it will happen. because there's a lot of general frustration among many knowledgeable politicians and academics and observers but there's no one willing to step up to the plate as it were and assume that responsibility basically of saying you know the the emperor has no clothes we need a different one we needed a nixon to go to china something something like yes and to see. through the hope it

been that trump would be able to do this but he seems to be bamboozled by his own advisors and unable to extricate himself from the general morass that is washington today. when there's this old marxist slogan which i still rob a lot which is pessimism of the intellect optimism of the will so you are right to be pessimistic about the current conjuncture it russia's relations with the west it's very difficult to see in the media forward whatever and i think we need to you know optimistic in terms of future prospects look we've been here we poor there's been very bad periods in russian american thought russian relations before. trying. to situation which french. is ok there is lots of. specific issues that dispute between russia and the west at the moment but there is something more general going on isn't there which is that the west is trying to to isolate a marginalize russia and not succeeding by the way as an international player and

that's what's happened in the past we're going to be talking about some some some history in just a moment i hope one lesson is that history is that if you want to solve world problems problems of peace security stability you have to involve russian i think that fundamental lesson will actually come to the full when this side of the pond people that i talked to here there is what's the point in trying to talk they don't want to talk isolation the soviet union was sanctioned in isolated it's not something that's new keir i mean. i think that the willingness to reach out to him the russian hand go out to the west is quite limited right now what's the point once the next round of sanctions based on what you've never produced to us or the public i think there's there's a lot less of a sense of initiative on the russian side now after all this. true and.

there is this sense that there is the the idea that the ball is in the other person's court and we're waiting it to for it to be law back but one of the things that i think distinguishes this period of hostility from previous periods is the lack of basic respect for the other side. and there is a sense in washington among people who seem to have lost touch with reality and and lost any awareness of history specifically that. respect somehow is due only to people who have power who can hurt you. but respect actually has to go deeper it has to be a more general respect and awareness for the cultural and cultural tradition of

other other people not only for what they how they could potentially harm you and until we regain some broader sense of how russia fits into the west is part of the western community i'm afraid we won't be able to talk to each other. if you mentioned history here we have the enter bursary of the new agreement the preamble to the start of the second world war in europe what can we learn from that because there's one big people always remember from that they don't always remember the year they don't always remember the characters of watching on cable t.v. they screw it up all of a piece of it right now but we are in a moment now kind of echoing what nicol had to say is that if you can then sure forward to try to get involved in some kind of dialogue to cut this gordian knot you are committing that is

a really bad place to be well. it was always felt to sign the lesson of history is that people from history now often he was wrong not think the lesson from history people do learn from history but i learned the wrong lesson and the wrong lesson. from the munich crisis is that peace peace because wrong concessions are wrong completely the wrong direction there's nothing wrong with appeasement and the cause . an international conjuncture that's what we need we need a peace we need concessions we need negotiation we need a competition. in the community. you could peace hit the nazis but. you can't a piece of it to tell you all of the old appeasement comp. noble foreign policy which which was before before the immediate crisis so let's learn from history let's learn the right lessons of history. while getting back back to what i said about respect respect presume that you are trying to listen

to what the other side has to say and that's where dialogue comes in. dialogue again presumes that two voices are speaking not just not just one voice in an echo chamber taking a public stand too much is taking place in the public eye and not enough where it used to be international diplomacy in the in the quietness of rooms where people can actually negotiate agreements with each other and then bring them forth when everything is done in the spotlight we see from. reverie thing in the news that the it brings out the worst in people you know. if it does. too much public display diplomacy i need to know. if this is called public diplomacy i mean it's almost intentional they're intentionally sabotaging it i mean

it is there is no there's no genuine went up to be interested in doing it because unfortunately going back to this term or mis understood in wrongly remembered term appeasement is that your when you if you get involved in a dialogue you're involved in a dialogue with some of that is no moral stature and that's the problem we have right now i mean i like nixon went to china i mean two very different systems china had just gone through the was. through the great cultural revolution but nixon had the guts and foresight to do we don't have the problem of public diplomacy is it it's a prisoner of domestic politics more often the problem i grieve the question of respect is fundamentally i also think it's a question of trust is the change of restoration process restoration of clear respect no. political movement for. your earlier point about well you know how much longer should russia continue to hand up the had the friendship hold out how the friendship and cooperation when we can see what happens

i've been really impressed by the persistence of it's to russia russian federation putin love for us continue to. continue to try to find anyone who actually found for the meaningless in the waning days of the obama administration to different cease fires were set up for syria and when we know what party broke those ceasefires because they didn't want to see russia on the same equal diplomatic playing field that was intentional and we had it iran agreement and we had the iranian grand we. much of what has happened with north korea is also thanks to the persistent efforts of russia to foster a peaceful resolution on that on that principle. so russia has a sensible policy and i do believe that the rest of the

world comparing russia's policy with the united states and and some of its european partners sees that so that even if you have to take public stances. in favor of policies that are not sensible in the long run your own national interest dictates a more sensible approach and that brings you willy nilly closer to russia you know it's unfortunately we have no assistance zero sum game one side wins one side loses and it's black and white but that i mean you can go through the great power rivalries of the the seventeenth eighteenth nineteenth century and then even in the early twentieth century we've never had a complete zero so. you know it's some point you know going back to national interests you should be able to find your national interests and be able to co-exist with your adversary always keeping your national interests there there's no reason why it should be. that's a political choice that's

a choice. but political choices and. a foreign policy that is based on on respect mutual respect creates a positive dynamic creates what social scientists call a virtuous circle so you can. by fostering hostility lead to the withdrawal of. good really of the damaging of relations and of trust or you can reverse that cycle and lead to a positive this is zero sum game concept is really in the middle where you they're on one side of it or another and moving in that direction so i think just as we have been moving in a direction which heightens tension and creates crises by reversing the the policy that we're now doing that will lead us in the opposite direction hold that thought here we're going to go to

a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on russia's relations with the with state with our. that information would have made it possible in this if not to the life of that innocent civilians and to him by all means we can be no plot but i think even you know at all and you know. committing a crime was to say is international it's the say against a lot of it's exactly as you mentioned and again also a lot of principles and values. cooked additional supposed to not of what was an ounce of the longer some of these it's just a book you're looking it's not the most. simple

yet so intimately to know she'll proceed. to look at with a showing of the where it's going to snooze last when the church. do you think it should be. your bishop so to. vote of shipping. up and most of both the book did the work of the person you will still mostly know so i do know what the war. was the latest news in the us. boys and i believe that the show you have put to this was going to do so. little fish through so many stories yeah. it doesn't. feel right.

welcome back across the uk where all things are considered i'm peter little to remind you we're discussing rush's relate. with the west. can we go back to jeffrey one of the things where russia in the united states popped up over the last few days was president trump's address to the general assembly of the united nations he talked about all lot of things we could make an entire week of programs on everything that he mentioned but what caught your eye when it came to russia what the. speech prompted me is that we should actually stop . trump speeches we should stop watching we shut because watching trump speak gets in the way up understand what he's trying to say so i think we should actually concentrate on the on his tax revenue on these performance so if you read the text

of these speak to the u.n. what what struck me about it was that how ideologically driven trump is as a political leader and the thing is if you look if you actually deconstruct the ideological perspective he's putting forward in that space you know he talks about sovereignty a nation states patrick is critical realism his kind of the vision of global politics isn't actually that much different from the vision of russia to be one of china the division of other countries but of course at the same time he's doing he's saying yeah let's return there's a return to nativism and co-exist happily together he is also trying to boss the united states to try to boss the whole world like it used to trying to interfere friend here deep to deploy its power now what that tells me is this is that trump is very much a transitional figure in this process of a movement away from american globalism ideologically and politically so in

a way that kind of gives me hope for the future is that this is just a thought we're going for and the direction of this is in that that is in the direction of a kind of reconstruction of russia of relations with the rest and you know. the fundamental thing which we need is the integration of russia into the western system that's the father of much of the meat. i agree i think that well i agree with some what you said i think we are seeing a conflict right now. and it could be as you say transitional but we could be there could be a. reaction of what trump calls the globalist forces but one of the reasons that in this speech and in his healthy speech. the text is ignored and the gaffes and. that's what is is highlighted in the american media is in order to distract

from he is the sensible middle of some of his idea of sort of and to portray him as a lunatic and with him by portraying him as a lunatic all of the ideas that anyone associated in any way with being critical of the democratic establishment and so. the i would call the the low bowl the global liberal internationalist establishment in the united states is shocked at the fact that it is it is no longer seen as it's no longer in power and no longer universally reviewed in the united states and and but it is retrenching and it's not keeping up and it will see this fight with to the end it's very interesting after the helsinki summit i noticed it was quite glaring to me is that even his inner circle the people around him did not defend him in public

or tried to explain nikki haley after the general assembly she went on the on the cable stations and tried to convince them that the people world were laughing with trump and not against. ok or not it is an expense and i think that's a together collectively what you're saying is very interesting because you know. it's going to sapphic that you know one of the problems is he's got many problems. but one of these problems is that you know he plays into the hands of the liberal globalist critics by. bracing elements that the you know the neo adventurous militarist kind of a program second they temper trampling all over the multilateralism yes trashy multilateralism in every car and every at every opportunity yes and that's not that's not right you know it's possible to combine a concept of global politics based on nation states by some sovereignty and all of that kind of thing with sensible multilateralism which includes united nations

includes. of various kinds you know i've thought about it it's a prerequisite if you're going to have a multi serious multilateral agreements you need them to be among nation states that are sovereign going to feel themselves to stand for something that they know what they're standing for well here the whole discussion of sovereignty was quite peculiar in many ways because he was talking about how every country has a right to defend their sovereignty it's their responsibility to do so but then he was threatening the sovereignty of other countries that was rather contradictory you spent some time recently in ukraine elections are coming up western media doesn't talk a lot about ukraine these days what's going on there what's the political situation and what can we expect that the elections and ukraine's relationship with the west and russia it's about ten questions in one go ahead. we started this discussion with the phrase the gordian knot and at the heart of the gordian knot between

russia and the west is ukraine it's probably the central issue of contention between them. that situation i fear is only going to be exacerbated next year at the end of this year next year precisely because of the presidential and then parliamentary elections presidential of elections in march and then parliamentary elections in the fall. right now the candidates are running to their respective extreme corners and that leaves the middle position the one where dialogue could take place in a lonely place right now. but who in twenty fourteen. ran as the candidate who would end the war in a matter of hours and he could have gone to the da there was still that opening

where he might have been able to do that yes and and he vall said he would and he would eat but crucially he ran as a candidate for peace. that peace has now been formally sanctioned as a resistance to russian aggression and until russia is defeated in this war that's increasingly the terminology and it is really game right and and this is this is his new campaign platform. but. because running at six or seven percent of the popular vote. i think his strategy now has to be to shore up his base which is very much a regional base that it's they in the west the only chance he has in my opinion of reaching the second round is to dominate and win in the west and gain enough

votes that way and then veer sharply to try to reach out to the east and south where his popularity is is nil essentially you know. is this another frozen conflict you just like i can't see really. i mean i mean if you give in the domestic politics in the rest of ukraine your compromises for both you can't compromise on leads issues very much hope is frozen conflict seems to me at the moment in the shelter better than the australian prospect. could bring a little bit of history back into this. crisis one thinks of the comparisons off between you know the crimean secession from your crying and the learn german. it's actually the wrong historical analogy for correcting sturrock analogies what happens six months later. when when hitler sponsored the breakup of the czech

is it looks like you have a need to plan the slip and german troops march into into prague now you compare that with what russia's role in your current process did russia occupy you crying a lot of the country. which could have done. you know what it is that she tried to find a resolution that the conflict the civil war in ukraine on the bicycle even of the separatists terrorists actually becoming part of ukraine again so it seems to me that's the best historical power. russia has acted to leave huge restraint in relation to the process so that gives me some hope for the future could set on the what. going to i'm concerned about the western meddling in the conflict but i'm hopeful that russia is going to try and control the whole discussion in russia during all of this in juxtaposition in the west as putin is doing too little i mean that's how far apart we are at looking at this they're going to follow up on this

point. the chords are the consensus view of all the signatories including russia that the done boss must become part of ukraine again. the question arises why has that not yet happened. i think one serious concern is that the ukrainian government is extremely reluctant to see forty five million voters enter the pl the political spectrum in ukraine that are essentially opposite in opposition to their view of ukraine and as long as they can keep that at bay. they can continue their current policies. so essentially that would be. i'm not assuming under any conditions that i can think of that russia would accept the

donbass into the russian federation that's something that i don't think it's going to just do your current situation it's only going to change if you credit to mystic politics changes. for the better but that could be quite a long time in coming we have one minute and i heard this phrase once from a friend of mine ukraine is a nationalism without a nation how do you feel about that. there is a ukrainian nation but it is a pluralistic it is culturally plural nation and it doesn't want to recognize the current government does not want to recognize that culture plurality it is therefore defeating it's going against the grain of its own national history and identity twenty seconds to church. one of the examples of this is the current effort to take the canonical of the status of the ukrainian orthodox church which is the only canonical church in ukraine and destroy it and create

a new national church which will not be in. union with the rest of the orthodox world. an unprecedented even thing even the church can you know have to know that's all the time we have gentlemen many thanks my guest here in moscow and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at r.t.c. the next time you remember those. is

a. secret indeed priests accused of sexually abusing children can get away with it quite literally i like to call this the geographic solution so what the bishop needs to do then he finds out that the priest is is a perpetrator is simply moves him to a different spot where the previous standard is not known the highest ranks of the catholic church conceal the accused priests from the police and justice system to that end i know that's not going to ask the i don't think that i think you look at it to use this data and. this. is faith. you know world of big part of the lot and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that mainstream media refuses to tell more than

ever we need to be smart we need to stop slamming the door. and shouting past each other. it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now for watching closely watching the hawks. don't accept the sort of the best was the right to be leaders it's. the speed. of television. i don't believe. me. why doesn't somebody know how does know it's a mask you never know what's happening and whether they're shooting whether they're

it's your. mistrust the tibetans are. just thinking of the new but i'm a dick of the city that's been in the muslims well he's going to win the.

in the stories that shaped the week donald trump takes center stage at the u.n. general assembly in new york making one bold claim after another also ahead. of. the motion only charge the committee hearing orders an f.b.i. investigation into the claims of sexual assault at his supreme court nominee. plus the locals say their daily lives have been turned into a nightmare after special.