a lot of mythology all systems have a lot of mythology about the moment at the moment both sides in the u.k. try to mobilize their sort of particular image of how they think the british system ought to work well likewise in russia yes there is absolutely this personalization but i think it is actually true that this is a system which has come to depend on the central a c. of one man not least as the sort of final arbiter of kinds of different disputes within the athlete the countrywide voting that i mentioned in the beginning of the program it is coming on september 8th and it's going to involve all $84.00 regions of russia not just moscow and those regions have huge disparities in terms of social economic political development i know that you've been planning a lot about the moscow developments and we will talk about them in a moment but i'm just curious as an expert on russia have you looked at all into what's happening election wise beyond moscow i call pundits and i like to start talking grand terms but no i mean i think seriously if you look at it local

elections are very much about local issues woman thing else and it's quite interesting that we have a situation in which you the way the old the old identifiers of quite what united russia stood for beginning to break down. and therefore i think that most of these elections really going to be in some ways referenda on just how well the local administration is is seen as dealing with what is sometimes serious crises sometimes not and it doesn't necessarily mean that where when times are hard people will be voting against the regime but i think this is this is why it's important and this is why in some ways the the whole issue of the protests in moscow absolutely very important but they're also a distraction from what local elections are meant to be about which is precisely it's about local issues the reason i'm asking this is because in several of your interviews are heard you say that russian elections i'm not real elections and admittedly there is still fraud and manipulation going on some of it. being caught

on camera is installed at the expense of the state but they're also i would say some positive developments i mean the last in the year ago the whole gubernatorial elections in the far east red canceled because of the fraud and arguably this is a much more unusual than protests in moscow don't you think that there is perhaps a day attention is being skewed from russia as a whole as a country to you know just a couple of individuals who are aiming for that attention i wouldn't want to make it that i mean to go would go into my point about elections not being real elections my point in that is that i mean there is no in my opinion truly meaningful opposition within this is the systemic opposition parties the coldness the so-called liberal democrats and so forth secondly there is a huge mobilization of administered resource before but it's not just about stuffing ballot boxes it's also about precisely who gets what posters and so forth now that does not mean that this is not democratic. in the sense of that there is

no democracy this is a no no for a terrorism pretending to be a democracy this is a strange system that is something between this is change system that was clinically dad 15 or 20 years ago and that is trying to make something of itself i mean it's not you know sort of looking from the top down and it's trying to pull it solved by the bootstraps that's a critical difference and i think that's how you should consider the trajectory is it getting better more transparent or is it you know getting worse this is one reason why unfashionably optimistic about russia trajectory in a way we have 3 different processes the kind of coming together there is and this is the sort of the story of often sort of deeply corrupt or lazy local elites who just simply want to continue to hold power so then there is the job we do have pressure from russians to actually have a say in their in their own. and what what matters around them and then doesn't

necessarily mean they're anti kremlin i mean you know for some it's absolutely that they want more of the same and so forth but nonetheless the point is our voices need to be heard that leads me into the 3rd element which is which is actually the kind of the role of the kremlin which again is too often characterized simply as well we want to control what's going on it's not that this is not a regime in my opinion that wants to just simply rig everything it wants it needs enthusiasm it needs legitimacy it wants change on the control what it once had was to improve the system but it wants to keep its perhaps sometimes too tight control of the process is that a fair summation it is yeah now i wanted to ask you specifically about the moscow developments and elections and the response to them i personally decided that i'm not going to be voting because i think the system out for italy demonstrated its bias and if you look at the pauls the majority of moscow it's sort of tend to agree of the bad they look positively at the protest without necessarily supporting any

specific candidates how important is that distinction people wanting a fair process versus people who are rooting for specific political personalities what do you think the moscow projects are all about yeah i agree if this is not specifically about india yashin or any of the other kind of specific kind of i mean obviously some will but the protests manifestation as a whole is precisely because of the terribly clumsy way in which the these candidates were just excluded on the most spurious of grounds the issue is just simply we have posters everywhere saying that on this day in september we get a chance to choose and yet we're not being allowed to choose it's not about the specific candidates and that is it for me is a very positive sign because it actually says that apathy is not dominant russians do not feel that the structures do not matter in the slightest instead. just saying

no then have elections let's have elections and yes many probably like you won't be voting the fascinating things i understand that president putin's district doesn't have a kind of approach official candidate he's in charge choice between the communists the liberal democrats who are into the just russia i don't know if he'll be voting . well i think for now here try to kind of stay above defied but how do you think this thing may be conceptualized in the kremlin because this ultimately will define the course of action because if that thing is seen as you know a couple of troublemakers supported by the west trying to start trouble that calls for. you know course of action but if you actually see that as a social demand for you know that evolution of the electoral system to require something else yeah i mean this is one of the things which from from point of view of it outside observer it's an incredibly hard to really get at what actually what is what is going through the minds of the people that relative handful of people who are making decisions the interesting thing is that i think that just is this is

a dispute in the struggle in wider society about the future of russia this is also kind of an intellectual dispute that's going on behind the kremlin walls there are absolutely those who seem to genuinely believe that this is a result of subversion supported by the by the foreign powers and such like and there are others who i'm sure know full well that it's not and it's that struggle that that is backing out of almost a sort of a security driven approach compared with the social political driven approach and on this particular point the security people seem to have had the upper hand now what we don't know is whether or not. when decisions are made about ok well how do they go with a decision will be made well that was a stupid move it was crazy unnecessary protests or whether it was actually decided that yes we have to admit this in the bud we'll have to wait and see now speaking about security response there is a lot of speculation in moscow about why the authorities chose to ask the situation because indeed they were very have a hand and sometimes violent more than

a 1000 people detained some of them in pretty cruel and brutal way and one of the theory that at least resonated with me was expressed by alexander by enough of the carnegie moscow center who said that both the opposition and the authorities see that as a task for future elections specifically parliamentary elections in 2021 and the presidential vote in 2024 and he said just the death or in their thirty's decided to preemptively do surgery as he put it on an abscess died as not he had dangerous and give themselves. sort of a training exercise for how to put down a future of revolution do you agree with that do you think the russian opposition non-systemic opposition as you put it has and now off to actually put together

revolution i don't think there's any prospect of that i don't think the russian people want to revolution they want change but that's a very different thing from a revolution if they are if you are someone who would think of revolution i think 117 they maybe think 991 that's not examples that really commend themselves to them and to be honest the authorities have or the moment the coercive power they could me if that is indeed the assessment that was made if it was a well we think we're going to face this that speaks to something that i've been feeling which is actually that one of the problems of the moment is you have an elite i mean how do you define that. this feeling nervous and jumping the doesn't know what the future holds as a whole issue about what happens in 2024 you know whether or not putin remains in power all of these things and leaving them feeling particularly nervous and therefore they tend to overreact and i think particularly after we had the. church case and then we also had the case of the journalist people who move. to way too often we need to show

a strong current you mentioned those cases before. them and with that i think there is a huge difference between what happened in the you could sit and work and they've been glove because there's a fairly i mean genuinely to mass sick and local issues and the authorities have to respond to them but when it comes to the opposition it's also quite clear that the 0 they opposition is not being fully transparent because some of the people of those rejected candidates are genuine city activists with proven track record of meaningful c.d.o. work and some of them are just being loud and trying to you know attract attention or take aim at the kremlin i would suggest that the protest is something that the kremlin or the authorities may view totally differently perhaps through the prism of national security which is you know the ultimate priority here for all governments and russia show but look i mean again i would absolutely agree that i'm sure that the majority of the high profile candidates who are trying to stand in

these elections were not doing so because of the excitement well you're talking about. but that it's entirely normal for people to regard local politics as a stepping stone for national politics the whole thing about that. there are certain countries but i think russia has somewhat different tradition don't you think so i mean from a point of view of society as a whole do you think it's worthwhile to make stop those. you know those causes i mean if you really want to have genuine democracy more transparency in the system doesn't it make sense to kind of grow it from from the grassroots and. allow this broader representation at least on the local level and in this case the local level is the entire city of moscow the thing about democracy is that it is not the state's job to decide what is the right not the just starting in the great britain bad in russia things don't work quite the same right i think no i mean i look i appreciate that there are always the going to be differences between countries but when it comes down to it it's for the electorate decide know this candidate he's

not standing for the right reasons and therefore i'm not going to vote for him or her or actually show all this person's regarding this as a sort of a stepping stone but still i think they can do some go to whatever it's a really dangerous position when the state decides of these persons reasons not good enough mark we have to take a short break now but he will be back in just a few moments states. during the great depression which are old enough to remember there was most of my family were working class and it wasn't it was bad you know much worse objectively day but there was an expectation that things were going to get better. there was a real sense of hopefulness there isn't today today's america was shaped by the

turn principles of concentration of wealth and power. reduced democracy attack soloed. engineer elections manufacture consent and other principles according to no on. one set of rules for the rich opposite several so. that's what happens when you put her into the. sector of will switch will is dedicated to increasing power for chills just as you'd expect one of the most influential intellectuals. speaks about the modern civilization of america. so what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have it's crazy the infantry shouldn't let it be an arms race is often experience dramatic development is only really going to resist i don't see how that strategy will be successful

very critical time time to sit down and talk. welcome back to worlds apart with mark professor at university college london. very prolific writer but there is one book i as a. payroll propagandist concepts that this is your treaties and put in a published earlier this year called we need to talk about putin. and the why do we need to do that well the subtitle of the book is one of the west gets in rome. the

we is the the outside world and this book which i freely admit is many ways simply a rant and there are some who say why everyone else who gets it wrong and why i am right tackles many over i think the very dangerous myths that surround putin and as a result of that russia our heard you say. book was in part a response to your frustrations about how russia is being portrayed in the western media and the amount of caricature is in cliches that misguide discourse on the end . you make a reference to put in type $1.00 and you go on to claim that putin is quote trying to get us to treat russia as if it were much more than 1.7 meters tall is that analysis well i mean that is actually a cheap shot obviously but it is a way that a straight shooter has written for a general audience the fact that actually russia is

a country with an economy the sons of italy which is nonetheless seeking to punch its weight as if it's a global power in the world but if you're making it about size and russia is still the largest country in the world in terms of its territories at least you know on the level you got your matter 1st misaligned but what i mean i think it's a perfectly adequate metaphor in that sense i mean sure russia has a lower country but simple science in this respect for quite a phrase doesn't matter while i well in fact do you claim that it does because you're not sure i only taking a person's immutable characteristic such as high but you're actually applying the whole country and inferring something from a release me to ask how tall are you. i only don't find the level i mean on a map which is the only answer now but this is what i mean really if there are no issues and to take one line of the book somehow i can credibly important but the

wider point that i make a great selling is not about to a war even himself it was i made the point not just about food and i mean i'm happy making fun of putin because i mean i find it to be the oldest cliche out how they are i mean it's the most i mean it's essentially you're making it an argument about penis envy you're saying that putin is short and that's why he's trying to make russia no greater than it is show you that the better only read the battle between for you know for trying to just know that for you to think that your is a narrative about russia that's highly ironic to have that in the book now no i mean. someone who hasn't read the book thinking that somehow this is the sort of central strand one throwaway line the crucial point is nothing to do with penis envy or whatever it is to do with actually the kind of. totally predictable post-imperial issue of when a country which was once a superpower literally overnight suddenly goes through this the psychological

trauma of becoming another power in fact one that the rest of the world thinks that is either it is negligible or a problem it is not about putin himself it is about russia it's about a country that actually suddenly has to kind of get. some kind of understanding of its new place in the world and in the process is actually doing surprisingly effectively a job of actually getting the world to treat it as if it were much larger and stronger richer than it really is you know obviously claim that russia is not a great country by any objective measure and the measure that the you most often mention is g.d.p. the size of the economy you just mentioned it here i want to ask you as a historian do you think a country like russia but it's very non-linear development with its huge asymmetries with its size with its weaponry with this cult of its interests and ambitions can it really be imagined by such a yardstick as g.d.p. you know no single yardstick and encompass it and i think i was mentioning i mean

again maybe i'm being overly pedantic i mean i think russia actually is a great country i say it's not a great power obviously all countries have a whole variety of different sort of asymmetric strengths whether it's soft power whether it's location it's more that you might say i find that in the west there is too easily either. treating russia as if it's some kind of developing world country which is totally negligible importance or conversely at the other end treating it as if it has this massive existential threat to the point is one that one and i do on that g.d.p. issues not that i think that is the single the own you know benchmark of everything but on the other hand it is one of the few objective standards we do for a look i interview a lot of prominent economists on this tour and every one of them complains that g.d.p. is reductionist even when you talk about a country's economy russia has approved in the records of doing more with last how do you count for that there is a huge intellectual capital here in terms of the imagination entrepreneurial ism

that is present secondly interest in the nuts and bolts terms it's the fact that because for example the russian military minds russian you know you don't have a sort of a don't. ruble comparison makes no sense a really russian defense spending is about triple in real terms what the straightforward sort of an international measure would be and the russia can also develop certain technologies in in a very sure the amount of time and i don't know if you take pretense of words at face value but what he's actually arguing right now is that russia has nuclear superiority over the united states imagining some if that's true and i don't think he would be lying about it in his state of the nation address he's to legally stick for that if that's true that's an enormous achievement for a country that was on the brink of collapse just a couple of decades ago isn't it well no i would say it's not i mean i would say that's actually a depressing indicator because that is not what russia needs what an earth does nuclear superiority mean how many times do you need to blow the world how many tons

are enough i would just one move to the point is this obsession with security which is frankly increasingly antiquated because nato is not about to roll across the borders or whatever it is to me a problem and i think it's going to i decide it's a tragic problem because there's so much that could be done in russia that is not being done precisely because of the continued heavy spend on the fence talk about that because in your book you provide your take on the evolution of putin's thinking especially his approach to foreign policy and you talk about all those familiar things nato and dominik security conference but one thing you never mention is libya even though everyone in moscow would tell you that this was a pivotal moment for. personally and for russia. i mean there are many people who believe that putin made a decision to come back to presidency in 2012 precisely because of how he processed the libyan affair you don't think it's important at all you know i do and i think

it fits into a much much wider thing that i do talk about in the book which is putin's belief not without reason that the basically the west is sanctimoniously hypocritical that the west talks about the importance of you know international norms and following all the rules and so forth and yet you think north those rules when it is in its own interest and that's something that is clear putin is both angry about and almost and feels that she represents a challenge to russia the wave of fairness for process and kremlin. they showed the absolute negligence if not to say stupidity oh western thinking western foreign policy because if you have a president like obama arguably the most educated the most risk averse of the american presidents not only destroying he's just another arab country but even so little consideration to geo strategic factors leave his geographic position its role in constraining the african migration and the consequences that migration can

have on america's closest allies in europe that's that realisation is really scary and shows that the west is incapable of foreseeing obvious dangers to itself let alone dangerous to russia i mean what war and some existential anxiety on bush's part seeing what was done to one of the most prosperous countries on the african continent because it's essentially been turned into one large slave market and nobody nobody faced any count ability now i mean you're absolutely right in this no way no one will get me to defend western policy only being in that respect but i think coming certainly in in my conversations with the people in moscow who are more connected into the sort of security scene. it's not just simply that the west messed up in his face the west as moscow sees it play bait and switch they persuaded the russians to go along with what seemed to be very very limited military action and they use that as an excuse to basically know which a regime change campaign and the campaign that have major repercussions for the

west itself not just for libya i mean who cares about those inner arabs but for the west itself because the migration crisis is going to attack the west for years to come the consequences a massive and you also. kind of have this mantra. the west needs to stand united to face off to russia that is supposedly waging a political campaign against the west but don't she think that perhaps western actions are also objectively can she be doing to russia's great fear of insecurity and of course i mean and this is this is a part of the book which actually i'm making it clear that there is this is not about russia being the geopolitical villain there are things it does that i think all maybe villainous shall we say but on the other hand the whole point is to also try and give people a sense of how the world may look from a different perspective and absolutely from from a different perspective 11 can see you know even under barack obama actually the

united states becomes a more more embroiled in foreign adventures in foreign adventures that were for the drone and so for the honey destabilizing measures. and in in that case there is inevitably going to be a sort of a pressure on russia to feel that won't we cannot rely on international order to provide our own security do you understand correctly that if the west wants russia to change his posture. to change its posture 1st is that a fair summation. i'm a little hesitant to mount saying who has to go 1st the tragedy i feel at the moment is we have a system in which basically both sides a locked into into processes i mean a microcosm let's look at the american sanctions regime which has no clear off ramp it's not done something that we think is wrong these are the sanctions and if you fix it the sanctions go away it's basically we don't like you the russians would

argue it's always been this way but now now this is just the last draft well i mean obviously i mean you know one can get into the whole would the russians feel that way yes and there is also an element of russian victimology i would suggest that you know what i mean when it comes down to it it is not actually that i think one can say oh the russians are all bad this certainly is not the case that the west is all good there are absolutely things that the west needs to be doing and what i would like to see is much much less of the totally counterproductive rhetorical struggles we see against russia that it's you know it's become an easy way of getting certain audiences to approach you is to come out with russia bashing and that helps no one markets always great pleasure talking to you think you are for indulging me with this conversation my pleasure and. our viewers can keep this conversation going in our social media pages and i hope to see you again same place same time here in the wilds of part.

of. what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have it's crazy confront a shoe let it be an arms race in this on all sides very dramatic. evolved into only going to exist i don't see how that strategy will be successful but a critical time time to sit down and talk. officer. told him to get up off the ground the officer began to pet him down.

and then place on the sounds of an mit grown man like wrestling essentially. through his or her own. twisted away from the officer. of his group. the obvious or did they kind of lunge for the web in one's midst and then when it happened on 3 swung at the observations didn't hit them i never saw any contact with. any kind of went back to where they were so the officers back here there try again 15 feet apart at this point and that's when the officer pulled out his gun and he did it on 3. i. ready ready ready ready ready need to stop it for continuing to grow. i just never know

very good about the idea of bringing children into the world because i didn't feel like things were in very good shape. life was just going to be a lot of software programs. there's no reason in the world to take things that are to me that. there's no reason to make something else that. everybody's scared to talk about it certifiable is truly dependent on us addressing this issue and if we can even talk about it and reach anyone have a conversation about it then. we're in trouble ready.

a badly strong investment school commemorating the victims of a militancy 50 years ago we talked to survivors of the deadliest terrorist attack. russia's modern history is that i revisit the sides of the masses. to submit i also have to put. it in the trust to buy when is it. easy usually shaheed are. also to come tends.