security policy analyst in the office of the secretary of defense all right crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate mary let me go to you first here. i obviously read up on prepared for this program i looked at all western media and government reactions and i have foreign policy an article that came out on the twenty seventh and the title is putin pushes russia ukraine tensions to a four year high now the reason i mention that and i think i'll quote something of it later is that there's something that they can assume what russia's intentions are always no matter what the topic but in this instance there's very little attention given to what ukraine actually did and then russia's reaction to those actions here again we have these diametrical different. narratives in play here one of demonization and one is a wrong party when it's far more complex than that and far more dangerous than that

go ahead barry. well i was i have to say that i was very surprised to wake up to discover the. clash of navies essentially in the straits of care that russia and ukraine seemed to be on the verge of a maritime war. and it all seemed incredibly dangerous. and ukraine had managed very successfully i think to get its version of the story out first. so their version which i mean it has essentially been disproved. was that there were two gunboats and a tug and that russian ship. crashed into the tugboat deliberately. there are two. the crews of the

two gunboats have been taken prisoner. in what is. russian next crimea so i think there is the fact that but the question of why there's not married they're not even address those are not even the facts ok first of all if you look at the footage the tugboat was desperate to be hit by the russian ship i mean it with zigging and zagging and if you understand russian well enough you couldn't repeat those words in english because they were saying basically get out of the way all right ok let me go to michael here michael this all happened on sunday but saturday and the friday before and the week before and the month before ships were going under that bridge into that sea unimpeded why you got a call up and say hey we're coming through this is our type of boat this is the type of time this is what we're carrying and we can and do you have

a pilot there that can escort us that protocol that they'd been doing that for years but not on sunday and ukraine didn't put that story out it didn't notify the proper authorities here that story the ukrainians forgot to give out go ahead michael. yeah it's subject to the protocols back in two thousand and three and up right at that point they were abiding by it for the most part but the problem is this is in a larger strategic picture what you're seeing here is the west looking for an excuse to go after moscow secondly you're also seeing that poor shank of the president of ukraine is in serious political troubles are you strong and i smell a tail wagging the dog here reminiscent of saakashvili back in georgia in two thousand and eight when he provoked the russians and shot. russian

peacekeepers in the south of setia and then the war was on at that time it was to try and get nato to protect georgia in this case i think by declaring martial law as for shango did he's trying to solidify his political base if he can so let it out at night at eight percent and so little for every all of you go to you in london let me give this little tidbit out to everybody when you know kobe was even legally ejected from the presidency in february two thousand and fourteen his public opinion approval was twenty four percent puerto schank oh by even ukrainian accounts is eight percent so i wonder what's really in play here i don't know what the intentions were on the street straight but i can see political maneuvering on the part of put a schenkel in the people that put him in power go ahead in london. thank you peter

as you rightly pointed out. it is the. in. the march two thousand nine hundred. we should see the elections coming in the ukraine in the support of the current president of ukraine was the poroshenko just did what he did so. what he he violated i mean the ukraine violated the article mine hundred twenty of the un convention or the. all the see. it was a provocation as everyone is saying this but what was the purpose of this. all of this provocation is internally to the. you know. any sort of gatherings or protests in ukraine to regulate the media as you rightly pointed out mr poroshenko estimating today he's chances to get through the

second round of the presidential elections in ukraine is zero he's not even able to get to the second round what mr. he's waiting for the coast qantas straight from the u.s. he's waiting to be a good knowledge of the right for hold all the power in the ukraine or also this. for the us neo cons to use the ukraine for the base to attack russia in the future i mean because be clear yesterday my professor from from the you know university of warsaw professor contacted me at night saying what they are doing asking me what they are doing well i mean when we are sitting in moscow in washington know in london it looks like a zero is another conflict no you know that on the border between ukraine and poland there are protests and people who are fighting one child ok i go ok all

right let me i'm not them yeah let me go let me go to mary here you know you know mary with this proclamation of martial law all of us here on this program and many of our viewers have been following what's been going on in ukraine so this is the first crisis situation ukraine is face to declare martial law that is quite amazing here. and of course with the impending election cycle. the shutting down of public display discourse controlling the media here where is the outrage about vacuum western media and from the u.s. state department and everybody else that was quick to blame. interpret russia's intentions go ahead mary. well i think that the declaration of martial law was certainly see as a quite drastic move which seemed completely out of proportion to the clash the been in the straits of coach. but i think that something quite interesting this

happens that may reflect. some of the difficulty is that maybe some of ukraine's western sponsors had with the with the whole concept of declaring martial law so close to an election and this was that when the proposal came before parliament in ukraine as i understand it it's actually been reduced quite significantly so while the initial idea was that the whole of ukraine would be subject to martial law with all the restrictions on freedom of speech freedom of assembly presumably election campaigning and all that. the the provision that is actually passed through parliament is for something rather less than that i think it only goes up to the twenty seventh of december so yet couple of months before the election it's also restricted to the border areas of ukraine

so to that extent it can be seen or at least it can be justified by ukraine as. a security measure and i wouldn't be i mean and i just get the impression and this may be totally wrong that between. president poroshenko saying he was proposing martial law and paula meant actually discussing it that may have been some rather urgent to find mr may he finally says and weston vice to say well maybe this actually doesn't look very good to maybe you had better think if it . may be limited to a bit in terms of the time in terms of the geo graffiti. and i think that's what seems to have happened ok michael i could tell you want to jump in go ahead. what hasn't been mentioned yet is that under that martial law. he can actually postpone

elections if he so chooses so this gives him on the usual a lot of presidential authority in which he can in which he can. you know continue on and and you can mix and he can expand the martial law provisions indefinitely if he chooses to do so so this is not this is almost an open ended and all course it is that the west is not i'm not addressing well in those kind of a i mean look i mean ukraine on sunday broke a number of provisions of international law when it comes to the to the c.s. ok so i mean do we have a lot of confidence that they're going to keep their word out or passing this law through parliament i mean one other i have to jump in there mike i've got to jump in here we have to go to a hard break after that break we'll continue our discussion on strained relations stayed with our.

join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics small business i'm show business i'll see if and. when a loved one is murdered it's natural to seek the death penalty for the murder i would prefer it be newlin the death penalty just because i think that's the fair thing the right thing research shows that for every nine executions one convict is found innocent the idea that we were executing innocent people is terrifying there's just

no really hasn't been that we hear even many of the dems families want the death penalty to be abolished the reason we have to keep the death penalty here is because that's what murder victims' families want to that's going to give them peace that's going to give them justice and we come in saying. not quite enough we've been through this this isn't the way. you know world of big partisan movies a 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 smarter 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.

is finally cooking this out of need bud. your mother. arrived to have the powder but i again gouge and goes what island. ya's this tide and how do you. think i'm going to feel is going to go with a brick. we're trying to bring you the other side of the muslim not the whole cd i mean look at the good good for you the law has a funny because you gotta love it when you. get out of four hundred days and write down the bank if you work on the baseball card chemical lies and as our business is going to that he would get out and you treat them in their international market know that these industries out of polluting you had to simply ignore the one that had most of them nothing else and when we lost a lot of them like means we lost the end of this.

welcome back across like we're all things are considered i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing. ok let's go back to michael maloof in washington we had to cut you off we had to go hard break finish up my friend you know it one thing that's not been mentioned all that much in western media is the fact that for months leading up to this through this episode. ukrainian ships were also detaining russian ships in that very same area and that's been going back and forth back and forth because of the protocols and the challenges that are required so this is not just a one sided thing and if and this morning there was a an interview of the captain of the ukrainian ships who basically said we were

asked to provide information and what our intentions were and we and my my orders from higher authority was don't respond. so it really looks like it was a planned provocation but what i think i think is quite clear to anyone that wants to look at the facts here if you are to mention nato here nato popped up or immediately to talking about ukraine i mean ukraine is not a member of nato number one ok and it should be made clear here and also this seems to be a provocation on a larger scale to have ukraine become a member of nato which you know it's kind of like forcing it through here but this is the but this is very this is very ill founded logic because if in case we saw on sunday there are tensions between russia and ukraine for a variety of reasons why would nato want to have

a member within their alliance that has bad relations with and with a neighbor that could come to a military exchange what is the logic i thought nato was about projecting speace instability it seems to me they're doing just the opposite go ahead in london. it's one thing to have. a ukraine as a member in order to use eastern europeans as a common for the they know the ukrainian. current situation in ukraine led by the nazis because that will be a clear all the jewish newspapers and all the media and all the research as the new analyses in ukraine is doing very well so the main main main main cause and main main thing to have as a close all is to use the. as a stick to the russian bear and also from the geopolitical point of view let us not

forget. who clearly written in his democratic ideals and reality. that. rule. europe commands the heartland who rules the. island who rules the world island commands the world so let us not be deceived by the news papers like for the guardian. simon jenkins has written all of a problem straight off the information coming out the. ukrainian soldiers sailors have been captured forget about breaks in the ukraine the war in ukraine. for europe so let us be fair the machinery to p.r. machinery behind this is coming from the english there i mean it is beyond

comprehension i mean you know where you project it's just the opposite is very comprehensive to me because it all seems to fit together i mean like it's like an oiled machine it really kicked in mary of course i mean you know hang on we're going to marry that we got to make it you see there's a big talk is one of the first reactions to all of this is that this is also aimed at the trumpet ministration you know the trumpet ministration is saying should russia over and over again congress has more sanctions on the way for the script fair that the u.s. has nothing to do with but anyway. and then we have the g. twenty i mean you know so make sure trump and putin don't talk here i mean i think that's a bit of a stretch but because i think the u.s. russia relations have been so soured it'll take a generation for that to change and i can tell you most people on my side of the pond of just given up on good relations just have to remain bear getting through

what we are now go ahead mary. yes well i mean the question of the g twenty and the probable meeting of president trump and president putin in argentina in the framework of that meeting. that has certainly been mentioned as a consideration maybe for the timing. of this clash in the current straits now i don't know whether that's true or not but in a way if it was designed to do such a meeting and to prevent any sort of agreement it's probably only half succeeded because in a way new tension between russia and ukraine actually provides a better reason for the two of them to talk so i mean i'm not completely convinced that it would actually frustrate that sort of meeting but i think that's something else that maybe we've neglected in all of this which is that when you look at the map. of the sea of ours of where this instant happened.

this is an accident waiting to happen yeah it is an absolute nightmare for free and when you when you actually consider you know i think what was forgotten when when this clash was first reported nobody has mentioned i think the fact that there was actually a clash way back in two thousand and three you know almost in the very same place and the fact that there is another occasion agreement for the sea of dates for that clash that was the outcome of that clash that it was agreed that there should be shared navigation between russia and ukraine through the sea of ourself and the regulations put in place and in a way it's almost remarked more remarkable that this is the first serious serious incident since two thousand and three. than that and then nothing else

force. yes regulations which were put in place from an emergency basis how factually held yeah yeah but you're absolutely let me go to michael here mary brings up an excellent point but then that goes we go right back to the beginning it was a mechanism that did work it was working up until saturday and then there was an intention to break that understanding here and we have to remember there's a three point two billion dollar bridge there now which is a great strategic importance to russia they have to use extra assets to protect it and we've heard ukrainian politicians and others that say it's a legitimate target for destruction an act of terror go ahead michael yeah i you know i don't believe in coincidences at all. the fact the fact that there is going to be the g. twenty and this this indicates that porsche and co was leading up to that pretty

much like what we saw as i refer back again to two thousand and eight with the georgian incident in which saakashvili was warned repeatedly don't antagonize russia which he was planning to do this is what's happening again and now it's drawn in as a result the big the big boys and what's interesting is that trump himself has been rather silent on all this so i think that he and he is sending a signal really that intends to cheat to cool it down a little bit he's going to have that meeting and things are going to work out i think he's looking forward to that meeting with with putin and he still has a desire to work with putin on a number of a myriad of issues but but this clearly was a calculation on the part of poor shank oh and people close to him and the people within the state particularly the state department and the neo cons that antagonize these guys because that their relationship with the porsche and go government is

very very strong and so they're the. amount of instigation there is incredible to do in site and i think that that's what we have here in preparation for this meeting in order to get basically to say i'm not going to talk to putin i don't think that that's what trump wants to do you know what he wants to make and i think he's and i think that it's going to be an outline and i think it's interesting is that he would prefer to blast to resume over briggs then to tweet about ukraine. g.'s to resume he can't win for losing these this. is not high on his priority is not how i do it let me go back to add really in london here it's speaking of the sea of. resolve you know i have read that the land council is proposing members of the atlantic council that the this should be militarized is that you know what nato should go in there it's a shallow sea then nato ships can't even navigate it maybe some dogs but i think

it's like seven meters deep what are you going to do what kind of ship do you want to put in there i mean i guess if they want to do that then why shouldn't rush should be able to put its ships into lake michigan that's fair when you say go ahead. i mean what we can see a difference between the behavior of russia and america i think any any other country than russia if they would be attacked and program. you know constantly by so many western powers we would already have a nuclear holocaust in this planet are. full of you know praise for for president putin and for his administration that they. keep you know the on the ground i mean you know they are not willing to participate in this you know it is foreign policy movement this is

a textbook study in patients to interested. patience and mary you know i said in my introduction. you know russia is the demonized and called aggressive when it defends its own sovereignty i think you know that's something the foreign policy blob with michael is right now they can never come to the conclusion they never can reflect upon but. russia will do everything it can to protect its sovereignty and its demonized for it last word goes to you mary. yes well i mean i think there's an awful lot of misreading of russia's position. pretty much everything pretty much with the with the assumption that russia is aggressive rather than defensive and the motives a mis read because of that. but i also think that michael and both absolutely right when they say that both trump and putin. have

really kept out of this latest flash or whatever they said has been very low key and designed to tone things down and i think that means that water hopefully absolutely. but i think that that means that whatever. the rights and wrongs of may have happened the two big players in this are at the moment determined that it shouldn't escalate into well sort of ok let's keep our fingers crossed that's a semi optimistic note here that's all the time we have here many thanks to my guests in london and in washington and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at r.t. see you next time and remember crosstalk. tony

. i'm one of the what i think ended up by one news we're buddies. with and i don't want. to know that if you hear that it yeah. that he had a ticking dad when i say he made them with all the money that he had one of them for.

us producing a lot of oil and gas and our energy and abandonware as big as them in russia and saudi arabia but as you're making there is that they're actually losing money on every. u.s. veterans who come back from war often tell those same stories. were going after the people who were killing civilians they were not interested in the wellbeing of their own soldiers either they're already several generations of them so i just got this memo from a certain branches officer says we're going to attack and destroy the government in seven countries in five years americans pay for the wars with them money on those with. if we were willing to go into harm's way and willing to risk being killed for a war surely we can risk some discomfort for an easy way for

. when a loved one is murder it's natural to seek the death penalty for the murderer i would prefer it be with the death penalty just because i think that's the fair thing the right thing research shows that for every nine executions one convict is found innocent the idea that we were executing innocent people is terrifying those just mooned the arrogant and that we are even many of the times families want the death penalty to be abolished the reason we have to keep the death penalty here is because that's what murder victims' families what that's going to give them peace that's going to give them justice and we come in and say. not quite enough we've been through this this isn't the way. it was put it up in.

the. headlines stories of this hour wiki leaks purrs to take the u.k.'s guardian newspaper to court saying it over an alleged meeting between julian assault the former trump campaign chief old mana ford also ahead in the program.