welcome to worlds apart the ukrainian presidential elections are just days away with what all eligible voters still undecided on them to support with thirty nine candidates in their race is the choice too broad or perhaps too constricted well to discuss that i'm now joined by a prominent ukrainian politician. if you like mr troop so good to see you thank you very much for this opportunity to talk to you good afternoon but dunham key is. the chief international sociology institute's it published its poll which says over twenty four percent of ukrainians are still undecided who to vote for what is the reason for the what do you think about the. release of the moves to my mind. this is something quite natural this is

a natural reaction to. repair your crane. i mean the president show. it's pretty. a lot of. means are applied it never happened before. neither of you are in a presidential race nor a parliamentary race with the mood you want but you could. mean i can understand why the people decided they want to have objective information they get lost they do not know whom to vote for they do not know how to vote the election do you. refer to the right figure that's true. we have as many people undecided but if a car problem when you up it also looks like ukraine's western part. also undecided from the same because none of the candidates have been able to get the west's indorsement so far is because the choice is to be. or there's any other reason for

that why the western partners of ukraine are so undecided because we're not like that five years ago there was a situation today is very different. talk about the second round of election only folk and it is have the chances to pass selenski. these four candidates. you mentioned the opinion poll so these that you're to sociology but this very morning one of the four in the. social sciences census published results of an opinion poll shows that selenski is. the. boy with a very small difference between them in terms of voice and. this. she is also trailing behind but ever so slightly today the struggle will be very

tight. as reasons why there was hasn't decided. to support. what i think that. is as follows. there are three candidates in place is a bad. one candidate. these four is associated to all four matic normal relations with russia that is boy. well different from the other three and that is why he receives no attention from the wise thing is probably the reason why the west keeps silent some say they. are ok with any of the three candidates i mentioned that is why they do not want to see them. by choosing some. particular candidates. because if they place their bet on one and the other wins. that would be

a problem i think that's the reason. just mentioned the west or the united states probably already they probably already have any problem in tory election campaign you have a daughter the situation is in town and there's board it's. just got support from the trunk from the president trying to get ministration and with that in the background president poroshenko attempt to win sympathy. not yielding results and trumps between trump and poroshenko do you think. for one think as follows if you would ask me. do you think the trump administration supported ukraine i would say it's not. as it's based on fact couple of days ago very same prosecutors general. a number of things about the u.s. ambassador already started to. take.

previously no one has looked into this even though the opposition platform for life and i personally said back then that the head of the national anti-corruption body should be taken to court that's what we said but no one paid attention and. he on the decision of the district court of december last year could be. legally intervened in. the company and he accused. the force of legal. money in the ukraine. the date the information was published even though the investigation is not exist and there is no investigation but all the data all the information has been leaked to mass media for in. the court ruled back then that those actions were against the

law and those two. citizens they damaged crane's foreign policy interests. and they interfered we shall in the us election that's what the course. of the last two years is a different situation as being very popular the investigation into alleged russia's intervention you know if you were pretty much what you see in the report has not been published at the time but this is not just information from mass media talk about know that came from ukraine scored. that should matter for anyone to say. but no one paid attention and we do know about the actions of. his companions won the election and you asked was. a prosecutor general he surely. he was.

he had position in mind. knew it was not new back then that the u.s. would not support him during the election. it would support someone else and he thought i think thought that the u.s. would support zelinsky that's my opinion. but i didn't what then was this move made by administration was made after. the us some. you are fond of each made quite a few strong statements about elections in ukraine don't you think that both the united states and russia are using basically the same rhetoric when speaking about the ukraine's elections. are concerned they are skeptical don't you think. it's an interesting fact i'm stuffed or all these years the positions of the united . actually the same. you know i really think.

what we see is a very tough and dirty campaign of the current authorities they use their resources and the president uses these resources to. every mechanism they can reach out to the broad. they. begin you. want and that's happened on the thirtieth. vote counting will be underway i mentioned a number of candidates right but you should understand that two of the candidates. were registered just candidates technically superficially. why would they need them only for one purpose. so that. it would be possible to play and correct to the right people to all the polling

stations. that would give the authorities a conscious forces not to have a lever of the vote count and influence the product of the outcomes of election. started with building that foundation for the vote rigging and of course everyone knew that it was impossible not to notice that there was that foundations and the walls were constructed and the roof will be put on top of it and that will happen on. russia. no surprises here. quite skeptical about. tymoshenko and also. all these candidates are basically given a choice between the present is can you clear and understandable to people yet loath to some future with some hope what do you thing. ukrainian society is now

craving what is most important that people want things want. it's very simple. take the recent opinion polls some of the last year maybe two or three years then we will see that most of the ukrainians have certain expectations. expectations from the future president and from. the first of ukrainians who want to see peace in the donbass know how to stay. still majority of the ukrainians believe that this is. a problem number one and ukraine second. terror of genocide is recall it and. is a second problem terms of its breath or scope about the even come of our people and there are many more reasons there's no end to these problems the current authorities they do what they can. stay in power and over the last year did

so many things things as bad as no other government did before i'll give you a number of. prices and. meet for example they. rose by three hundred fifty percent can you imagine that if we take gret four hundred percent vegetables up to four hundred percent rise in prices we'll take care of gas tariffs. rise. central heating. and that's how much the prices. have gone up the income. in europe as well as bunch and retirement benefits the lowest in europe the g.d.p. per capita again. last in europe we are the

poorest country in europe. and that's what we became thanks to that government we have the government the authority is still struggle still want to remain in office with these other things to which. our people are preoccupied with. there are these three candidates pretty much and. so good well i'm very much skeptical about. why. that's simple because they are they say. they want to become part of nato but no one wants nato they want to become part of the e.u. but. it's not for us because free trade zone has already during our economy and has been plugged into the situation we are in now with these three candidates other people who think that but you. can be achieved through sanctions

sanctions against russia but if we see sentients against russia. well nothing will happen. we want to. position. we want to give you don't buy a special status we want to guarantee these people security and this way we want to bring them back to ukraine but these three candidates they want more pressure on russia for political and military means and as they say you know use expect anything from them they know this they do that deliberately they have their money fast and they know that nothing day proposed will be done but we have the real program makes things better well we have to take a short break now but we will be back in just a few moments. in

terms of mr white oh. he's played a useful role but i think that the mistake he's made thus far he's not announcing that he would not stand for president so to say to the venezuelan people in the national community i've done my role which i believe is a constitutional one is the interim president but don't look for me to. think if he were to do that in this situation venezuela be perceived as less one of the united states.

welcome back to worlds apart will be i discussed see ukraine's upcoming elections with a prominent ukrainian politician victor me. supports your candidate it's understandable that to support him we're going to u.t. boy but as far as i understand he's don't see top counted eighteen this race is great to go for for third depending on the poll by day why do you think this position is not really paul pillow with the ukrainians has this is the go team in the if you take the situation with you because should you be a dawn bass of things that the majority of people unfortunately. but let me conclude my last thought. that those who propose that i need to do you know smart people but they actually propose things in such a way as to never actually also deliver on their promises they want to win their voters now and then you could use people who leave all of the territories ukraine

does not control just boy i mean the dawn bass. they are not voting they will not vote for these three candidates and that is why is these three candidates. they're quite convincing what it comes to reaching out to the basis. people who see this catholic express and believe that it is russia to be blamed and the counter forces are not to be playing these people they trust these three candidates the future mistake on their part but that's true i mean if these people vote for one of these three candidates they will not see peace in the donbas because neither of the three would be no one would be so they don't need that peace that's the main reason i mean the last closeness staff got i mean you mentioned all the difficulties the ukrainian votes have to face in the selection process and it's quite obvious that

millions of ukrainian citizens will not be able to vote in this election even those who live in the. us and since so many voters will not be part of it will be legitimate. i think this is not possible. today they did not give you to vote just three million people who work in russia they have to work in russia because the current authorities refused to give them jobs here in the ukraine and. today people who live on this uncontrolled terraces of ukraine they cannot vote those who believe in this. again we see that russia's observers were not allowed to copy all these events they just go to show that these election cannot be seen as legitimate but you must understand why do you insist on participating in this election and promoting

your candidate in that case there is no idea about this. position of principle we do not want to sit idly we do not want to lose hope we will continue to fight to the will fight for our voters will fight for the interests of the southeastern ukraine for the russian speaking population of your grade will be fighting against . who started the genocide in criminal law fullness and total lawlessness and you're crazy when you believe you make the regular if we do not do that there will be no one else to do no political power to help people who work in russia to get the right to vote because these are what do you want to see in this part is they know that those who work in poland or in russia will not vote for the current of one of those who leave these uncontrolled they will not vote for the current but you sure they know it. but we need these people we care for them because what we

want to do is to give them their constitutional rights we want them to be full fledged citizens nationals of ukraine if not for us then who would do that. because you already mentioned several times this term terry of genocide hughes to say how difficult it is for citizens or ukraine to live they pay for gas they pay for utilities and as far as i know your. russian prime minister was in part us more about the supplies of gas from russia to ukraine i see. my question is about after everything that's been between russia and ukraine will these two countries be able to separate economics and politics i say you because you know russia has been accused of using its and your resources to exert influence and to put pressure on the neighboring countries and that you think it's still possible to separate economics and politics into relations between our two

countries. but as. a good girl first. i am convinced that this can be done of course i can. i think that this should be done regardless of what you can do that. we need to care about the people the current a source. told tales about the jobs about. anything they promise a lot but they may fail to deliver when we went to moscow to conduct talks. we care about the interests of people and. the current authorities they say that ukraine has finally became independent from russian gas but by the very same gas russia's gas but at high prices and these

prices they are a burden on the people the source is robbing the people of the terrorists they have gone up by a thousand percent as i said. if the current authorities. do not do that. well they will be discredited again let me return to my. visit to moscow do not represent the official forces we went there to give people the signal that there is an opportunity to talk to russia's authorities to negotiate with the leadership of gas problem we demonstrated that it is possible to come to terms with them with mr miller for instance and we showed the people that we can. put down the prices by twenty five percent and that is a very clear. and the current authorities it's hard to them to. do anything

to counter what we did well they can start a criminal investigator. because of. illegal border crossing you know that. suggests. the door busters given some special status and that again was taken as an evidence starts another criminal case that's what they do but they do not want to do is to lower the prices for gas. heating for everything which they can't do that. then you can surely know one of the most sensitive issues in the relations between russia and ukraine. i mean it's not course for naser membership and they have been changes made to ukrainian constitutions constitution that kept the countries course for. the possible to continue developing the economic ties and just ignore that out has. been tried in

that myself as an expert on constitutional law and it's not the final law in ukraine. i mean these amendments you can write anything you want. any course you want. it doesn't matter. well none of the twenty eight. members of nato want to buy tickets for the fight for the war against russia washington for instance they have here restored external control over ukraine and they use ukraine as a means of fighting russia. but americans they do not want to accept ukraine into nato because all these disputed. border. issue. let's take that agreement which was dropped because the agreement on

borders and let's say. the fact that ukraine is the only country in europe which still fails to agree on borders and we have very long borders was russia and this question is still undecided. so all in all i do not think that nato would do anything to help ukraine became part of it can make some statements very good statements and everything but it will all become part of it no. still there is quite a large number of ukrainians from forty to seventy percent according to different. support that they consider russian to be. what do you think you can exchange and what should be done for that to change. what first and foremost i should say that that opinion he's changing it's not seventy percent no.

i can tell you that it was never true not even the fifty percent supported which is a creation in nature is a parade its inclusion in nato lower than that we have a lot of opinions polls and they conducted such opinion polls to show that it never had been the case at this point between forty and forty four percent of people support natures inclusion in eight. to thirty six percent are against this you see there is no overwhelming majority here. and. i've introduced a number of. russia's cultural products. programs . of russian. goodness they were good but what we see now is that. fifty four to fifty nine

percent. things that this is bad news against the constitution of ukraine two years ago it was different. now let's understand of all the more you balance things the more people want them gone back at two hundred ninety there is a response to that russophobia i'm going to seize and then tie russian of the syria because there is another thing. i like to mention in may two thousand. could i see eighty five percent of the ukrainians were. very positive about russia. and we had forty seven percent of people having very good attitude towards russia at this point could see fifty seven percent of the ukrainians are very positive about russia they have very positive attitudes the poor people. have very bad attitude towards russia there are only twenty nine percent of them the situation is changing with the rest of the group that's an argument for me that's what we are

doing we are fighting for the people. we are promoting our candidate we are very active and we will be very active to follow mentary action because we fight for the interests of people. who will be people who do not agree with that criminal but it in power is very much against russia its allies diminish the truth thank you very much for your time and i really hope that russians and ukrainians will understand each other and forgive each other one fine day i do believe this will happen i encourage our viewers to keep this conversation going in our social media pages and hope to see you again same place same time here on the walls apart.

great tragicomedy known as russia is slowly becoming part of history the resistance continues to resist clearly the president has the wind at its back now is a time for a great awakening what are the lessons to be learned in can the liberal media from this. i.

know. it was supposed to be. divorced from the e.u. instead the country. again today. every single election in america since two thousand and four in the george w. bush. and race. good morning life about.