became close to us during the second world war there liberate the north east of mark. north most come. next in the someone next there we are celebrating seventy five years of liberation among those who advocate the necessity to invite blood they may have put in because the owner of rights bravery belongs to russia it cost you two thousand soldiers life and we cannot make a symbolic act like thoughts or contemporary. you mentioned the russian or have quite an extensive history but as somebody who has spent a lot of time both and to the soviet union and to russia i want to get your perspective on how different these two geopolitical or how similar these two geopolitical and it is are because i interview a lot of people in the west and they relate russian the soviet they think of

russian the soviet union as one of the same and i think tosses it as russians that is that this is a totally different periods absolutely i must confess that domestic policies in russia or the soviet union always fascinated me more than the foreign policy however russia today is not the soviet union. arguments against the soviet union that was on. it was the absence of the liberty of its. and the speech freedom those three rights have been restored they've. disappeared from russia there are partly censorship it on that where is that not believe me so it's unfair to say that putin has restored the soviet union there are so many publications i have in my book shelves . fifteen volumes of the weekly reports from

k.g.b. to stalin from twenty six to thirty four about everything that happened in the service society it's so much has been published in communist russia that only. idiots can believe that as a way back in the one once you mention put his name in the e.u. had your introduction to that man long before many other people did because i read somewhere that you were served coffee by here when he was still deputy mayor or perhaps even an assistant to the mayor of st petersburg administration what was so memorable about that the man that made you remember why would do you. buy his boss the man who introduced both let him and putin. did meet him it did if the politics was. shocked he was my friend. and people have to remember after the putsch the.

sub chuck became the second most popular leader of the but his hilson and that's when i meet putin the first time i had been publishing a book it was called return to europe about russia and i gave it to some shock in small may well lenin was in charge of the revolution. and we were sitting bickering a bit about freedom in russia and i said toward alexandrovitch you have to remove lenin in front of the small small the palace and it's a no no that's our history he will say when we were seven like outs the chief of ministration ten men pouring coffee that was by the mid-point ten different during the conversation. and in the front office who will sit in the. watching the front of the force his assistants they need to the minute they get under my point as the one of the leading democrats in persia communist russia he was the mensa of

the mit put in and the method in the video and putin delivered his commission as a measure of k.g.b. in the middle of the coup in ninety one put them at the most crucial points of russian post communist history it sided with democracy nineteenth of august month in ninety one when western journalists write about contemporary russia they never fail to mention putin had a k.g.b. experience but they almost never mention his experience at the st petersburg administration the phrase democratic city administration that country or that he was for example a personal friend of the thousand it's a fairly family why do you think those connections the connections that he had and the associations that he had after k.g.b. don't matter to western know russia poorly as some mentioned to you don't mistake relationships in russia fascinate me to distaste much more than foreign

policy and putin he was right publishing a very interesting book in the spring or month in two thousand appeared from the first mammal the states. and then he is describing his period a sick age of the major in the east germany in the autumn of eighty nine weeks before the downfall of the berlin wall and he writes in the book that we were sitting and they take a dissident tour in the us and burning secret documents until the oval one two zero and is said we didn't quite understand what happened in germany but we did have a feeling that the soviet union was mortally it was called the power lies of governments one of the most quoted and misquoted sayings of putin is that because

of the soviet union it was one of the greatest tragedies of the twentieth century you saw that in real time when you were stationed in russia back then what was it like for you and that experience of the whole universe i suppose collapsing came very abruptly but i understood that. finished because of the. it was as close as people who committed this i was inside the white house with borders hilson. covering this from the yeltsin side. so we did understand already in august that something was going very very wrong from the shore and yes was there when the and this was the proper elected president of the russian serviette republic. but we knew des would comparable and speak or say economy the soviet economy was more integrated than in the

european union and of course these problems came and the nineteen thirties i will not repeat but i would prefer the part to they are killed the second who said the nine to ninety s. of russian history is among the worst episodes in contemporary russian history you had a loss of population and the nine to nine this bordering to ten million men according to the president of the medical union of russia in two thousand and one ten million men vanished by the day one of boom or they died primitive prematurely so what happened in the ninth in ninety nine to ninety is to a large degree discredited the top history of modern democracy and you have a nice way of saying it in russian you called the. decision you call it pretty

much i have translated that into english it wasn't the privatisation but the priorities of the euro advisor very traumatic time and i was a very young teenager the time and if things that i remember most vividly are not the lines not the shortages but the collapse of coordinates for good and evil you know the role models that we had before were discredited and the new role models were not that clear do you think russia has. overcome that collapse no corballis in our no there's no to russia to soviet union collapses outward lenin in with the church but you get to vacuum effects in russia after a month you want the vacuum of los. fifteen yes to restore contemporary long. all the panel code words from month in fifty seven there was no paragraph defending private property for instance but more important you get the value and mock values

you have to find new i don't new it deals and it took. us before putin restored the codex of sonic relied to sutton for offices for instance so this vacuum effect in the philosophical way became a huge endurance and after all russia has its house in the political history you had a democracy more or less fought twenty six s. and everything connected to decode temporary world. and you think for russians you had to develop a state without institutions from ninety nine to two i always think about it as a as a person who had a stroke or had to relearn how to walk how to talk how to think how to function and

the way we have to take a very short break now but we'll be back in just a few moments. you know i work with potential school shooters for a period of twelve years and none of the students who we work with in our facility the syllabi ever went on to commit a school shooting so that gives me hope that if we catch the students early enough and provide the kind of support and mental health treatment that they need that they can come out of the crisis.

since your simplest approach the worst point of going for walter jones came it comes to football. impressively between the. two bush a. system but what's good about it when you go for. the future. you know you goes to. the more you know what door you will get for. each other purpose to you personally get a clear shot. don't you the sport or. somebody because.

welcome back to worlds apart where a prominent their region journalist from same felt i missed it before the break we were talking about this collapse of the world view of. the russians experience in the early ninety's and there are some people in russia who argue that the west is now going through a milder version of that when a familiar world things that you used to believe or used to take for granted now being questioned and i would would suggest that it comes as a result of the west's own policy is pretty much like it happened to the soviet union because the soviet union wasn't destroyed by the west it collapsed under its own contradictions do you agree with that. let me wrap up the soviet experience because in a nineteen ninety one richard nixon came to borders hilson was present and nixon

said an important thing emphasizing the thing of the opportunity by the west and nineteen months in one thousand nine hundred ninety two nixon was an american president we spent trillions of american dollars on contentment against the aggressive soviet communism we were not willing to insure their young and frail russian democracy with a few tens billions of dollars it was eighty billion dollars which was the foreign debt of the soviet union how the west's when russia was on its knees paid away those that's this paris club then we would have been a catalyst of economic growth and the nineties might have been happy but and they and the russians did pay that doubt all by themselves. that certainly didn't make the ninety's easier but i think russia has been progressing

as vast as it can toward something that was a more stable system you've been very critical of the russian democratic institutions you suggested that perhaps the russians are to perturb wholistic there to submissive to the authority is that still your view and do you think russians are still failing when it comes to building the institutions. i'm not been suppressed to call against a constitution that was written by. i remind you that when vladimir putin returned for the third time he made speak this be the speech state of the union a travel talk to twelve of the sun by two thousand and twelve in the kremlin and he said if we do not soon do something for those between twenty and forty five that means building lodging facilities houses. russia

may fall apart in fifteen to twenty years as did the soviet union what in russia's economic policies is distribution of wealth you have not this feature in your economy distribution of wealth that is why the privatization of the ninety's became a big big tragedy for russia can i still take you back to my first question about the west reconsidering its values because their argument is that the cold war didn't actually end in one thousand and one it is only an ending now and not with collapse of want system but also when the crumbling over of another system that's an extreme message for some in the west do you gribben that a no no i do don't think west is about to collapse i definitely agree that in western europe you have the biggest political leadership crisis since nineteen

thirty nine and we have not in the white house we have putin in the kremlin it's not the best of situations a very good friend of mine whom you know well a moscow leg of montfort he resigned as moscow and bustle of the five yes. in september and he says we went to school together that not relationships have been so ruined via the bureaucracies will not be able to restore the relationship on the east west says if the politicians do not sit down stop talking and agree to agree that is exactly what ronald reagan and a bunch of they have but you know that's never going to happen and i'm serving some persistent because as a former workers one day i know that you also covered. many conflicts. the war in

afghanistan was start to. bring the end to the soviet union it. made many people within the soviet union to question its moral foreign foundations didn't the war in libya play exactly the same role for the west because it did and it did produce the migration crisis that definitely energized. the opposition to the liberal world order and there it may have not have collapsed but it has been undermined i don't see it quite as a peril because the afghani war within seventy nine and it was much more traumatic for the soviet union than the middle east has been for the west but i do agree i do agree that the facets. to the treatment of iraq and syria you can observe in some of these turkey three million refugees definitely but it doesn't shake the western system the western system and the european union

is that finitely pressed by the migration but they have bigger problems like the brics for one thing they have nationalism in poland and hungary so the test on the european union now is a very very sinister one mentioned many differences that russia and the west have but i think the biggest one is ukraine and you said on a number of occasions that the west including norway khant failure crane what do you mean by that let me take you back to on to the sutta that december one thousand nine hundred ninety one in the village will be a lobbyist push and that's where the soviet union formally is closed down by but is . given. kraft should have been elected a week earlier as the ukrainian president was telling us in two thousand and

fourteen only that he had been sitting there waiting for him to say we russians want to take with us the crimea peninsula. so close. of course. but in the afternoon yeltsin got sick and forgot about the whole crimea in january of ninety two i was told. as you say in russia if they were. religiously mad at the else and because he forgot it this is an important point about sebastopol you said that in one of your interviews that russia's actions in crimea were triggered by the fears that nato ships would be one has said so himself i mean. seeing the the kind of politics that ukraine has right now do you think those fears were justified you know i think we have to understand one important thing and that this day. to the sanctions stemming

from down exceptional to crimea and ninety nine to two russia's president boris yeltsin asked for an enlargement of the hasn't k. treaty of seventy five it was the treaty got on seeing the post-war borders in europe yes an os that this monday be enlarged also to be valid for the buddhists between the formally soviet republics fifteen countries this was done it was ratified also by russia so by going in and. taking over the crimea in two thousand and fourteen russia broke international law russia could have got to crimea without weapons because seventy percent of the population on the crimea the russians no one but all due respect i mean. there are people who investor who agree that russia broke the international law but it is

true but in this world everybody breaks international law so you cannot demand one single country to a pal that when everybody else including russia main rival sending the same. book optimist i remain an optimist he writes that the only solution to the conflict in ukraine is the fulfilling of the two diplomatic process russia has been failing to do not because the pro russian. separatists in south east your crane should be. cooled down doubt send thousand lives lost my point is that. and in doing what putin did in two thousand and fourteen many people and notably all the western countries think that he read how police say the debris is new doctrine defending the invasion of czechoslovakia

twenty first of august one is it that was said that that was why he did. i think that putin felt an infringement the nato enlargement again towards the east infringed russia however yes i do think that the russians panicked because i was in kiev i broke all of my coverage should go limp again since or she going to t. of the bloodbath ninety people were killed by the. don't know at this point who actually was there i saw where the snipers one day while on the roof of the government and on. front of the february two thousand and fourteen i counted fifty people killed in front of the number on the highway was i'm in love with and i was also there. did you count fifty people dead in front of your camera i did then the mood changed and your crane. pretty a prior to this the majority of the your

training in stay were against nato membership after this killing ninety people killed in one way it switched really don't know who send those snipers there and who orders they were well i think even in ukraine the investigation is still ongoing it's not conclusive it's been five years after ukraine you've been there i've been there i think we can agree that most of the aspirations that people had on their mind and square at that time haven't been fulfilled except for cutting ties with russia but that was russian was one of them was russian failure. because the russian state claimed i hate the us it's not about the russians i mean whatever russians do did not influence the. potence of precious miss today and your friend the comedy hour of the alleged. russia's most profits for the right. day got zero point sixty one percentages during the president showed elections in the

ukraine in two thousand and seven a lot of nationalist. ultranationalists in ukraine you would not argue that doesn't russia however you cannot say to see two aspects of the conflicts between russia and ukraine first it's a tragedy imagine all these millions when mommy is ukrainian and daddy is russia just a friend a lot like me and just the other day ukrainian president not just the right sector but the ukrainian presidency banned all russians from visiting their relatives in the ukraine that don't get earlier through either as that order was still in force you've been critical of russia you noted there russia's missteps do you think that a country that wants to be part of the european union should respond to a never naval arctic altercation by banning the entire population of another country is that democratic is that in line with western values first place you have to understand that the skin and the sound where russia

took three naval vessels is a military and military at it must be brought to a class. and then done the standing of the. point is that that is a war of war by proxy a mob between ukraine and russia in the southeast in the manner that is banning the entire population of another country is a proportionate action to that no it's not. how. these things happen when there's no dialogue that's why i support got a bunch of who says that the only solution is to get back to the conference table and negotiate a controlled. media in south east your friend if not this with content there any appetite for that in kiev. here's a journalist do you think. i thing openside think by his policies put an alienated

forty million your prince in this is not what i asked you you said that we need to go back to this existence when it means the rivers are signed and then with. all of the nation i do not think it is a big up it side however this march to criticize on domestic affairs and ukraine as it is and russia useless on there is similar and you are experts from quarrelling and you quote a well mile however it is a situation that this unpredictable and that is why it's dangerous i think both russia and ukraine need to understand that they need assistance now in order to reestablish a dialogue done a lot of things to talk about and others why i reminded you that at the peak of the cold war. ronald reagan and go but you'll see. i got

a bunch of he even said the first some of the strike reconstruction. we continue to live like this i repeat his words today we know it continued to live like this while mr said felt every kind of continue to talk about because our time is up but i'm really appreciate your candor today and your time with us thank you very much thank you thank urge our viewers to keep this conversation going in our social media pages. same place same time here on worlds apart.

in this economy who gets in the debt deeper is the winner because everyone's going to default simultaneously and with the biggest debt you're the winner that said so absolutely right to get us to from twenty two to thirty to thirty five to forty trillion dollars in debt that's the best way to grow the economy without doubt. prosecution will need to become almost. a fulfilled design. where you push. the threat of fines. by the number one place you do i mean jani i mean political pressure on the only moon conclude you know through security jenison knows when to pull your bundled up business models used by american corporations doubtless was incomplete police sold on good mental disease an abuse if you choose

to see. the solution. please of the dissociation. i know to can he saw it is just somebody closer to the team to an investigative documentary. ghost war on oxy. you know world of big partisan movie 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 on the back 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.

negative. austrian police launched an investigation into russian biathletes over alleged violations of the rules of the twenty seventeen. championships.