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 of the of one man not least as the sort of final arbiter of kinds of different disputes within the athlete the country wide voting that i mentioned in the beginning of the program it is coming on september 8th and it's going to involve all 84 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 say we're 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 we're trying to hold 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 so fraud and manipulation going on some of it being caught on camera installed at the expense of the state but there also i would. say some

positive developments i mean last than a year ago the whole gubernatorial elections in the far east where canceled because of the fraud and arguably this is a much more unusual than protests in moscow don't you think that there's 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 cold minutes the so-called liberal democrats and so forth secondly there is a huge mobilization of administered resource before 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 not a no for a terrorism pretending to be a democracy this is a

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 it's china 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 fact we do have pressure from russians to actually have a say in their in their own lives and what matters around them and then it 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 lets me just actually 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 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 it was to improve the system but it was. to kibitz perhaps sometimes too tight control of the process is that a fair summation it is you now i want to ask you specifically about the moscow developments in moscow 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. they look positively at the protest 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 protests 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 oh but the protests manifestation as a whole is precisely because overly terribly clumsy way in which the these candidates were just excluded on the most spirited 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 they just saying no they have elections let's have elections and yes many probably like you won't be voting the frustrating things i understand that president putin's district

doesn't have a kind of a pro fishel candidate he's been charged 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 he tried to kind of stay above the 5 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 stir trouble bad calls for. you know course of action but if you actually see that as a social demand for you know i never aleutian of the electoral system to require something else 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 make decisions the interesting thing is that i think that just as 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 the rhythms 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 we'll have to go with a decision will be made well that was a stupid move it was create unnecessary protests or whether it was actually decided that yes we have to this in the bud will 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 in sometimes violent more than a 1000 people detained some of them in cruel and brutal way and one of the theory

that at least resonated with me was expressed by alexander bahl 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 jasper. the death or their thirty's decided to preemptively do surgery as he put it on an abscess that is not he had dangerous and give them solace. 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 somewhat to think of revolution i think 917 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 jumpy that 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 are 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 the man will move. to the new city where we back to way too often we need to show a strong current you mentioned those cases before him with them and with that i

think there's a huge difference between what happened in the yucatan and work and they've done glove because there's a fairly i mean genuinely to mastic and local issues and therefore she's had 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. them are just being allowed in trying to you know attract attention or take aim at the kremlin i would suggest that the data problem has is something that the kremlin or the authorities may view totally differently perhaps through the prism of national security which is you know the 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 about those moves you talk about being but that it's entirely normal for people to regard local politics

as a stepping stone for national politics the whole thing about that. gas in countries but i think it has somewhat different traditions on to things i mean from a point of view of society as a whole do you think it's worthwhile to make saab 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 it's not the state's job and in the great britain bad in russia things don't work quite the same right i think no i mean i think look i appreciate that there oversea going to be differences between countries but when it comes down to it it's for the electorate decide you 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 sure this person is 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 stay tuned. i'm.

ready ready ready ready sure to stop at the 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 that a life was just going to be a lot of software programs. there's no reason the more. you take things that are to me the movies on the move something else that. everybody's scared to talk to that is certifiable is truly dependent on us addressing this issue and if we can even talk about it every chance even have a conversation or that it then. we're in trouble ready.

welcome back to worlds apart with mark professor at university college london mark here very prolific writer but there is one book i as a. player all traffic and concept step and this is your cheesy. putin published earlier this year called we need to talk about putin why are we and why do we need to do that well the subtitle of the book is why the west gets in rome. the we is the outside world and this book which i freely admit is many ways some people rant and there are some who say why everyone else gets it wrong and why i am right tackles many of us think the very dangerous myths that surround putin as a result of russia are heard you say. 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 and yet in chapters 3 you make reference to put in type $1.00 and you go on to claim that is quote trying to get us to treat russia as if it were much more than the 1.7 meters tall is that analysis what 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 size of italy which is nonetheless seeking to sort of 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 trying to only taking a person's immutable characteristic such as high but you're actually applying the whole country i'm inferring something from a relieved me to ask how tall are you. i only don't find the level of me on a map which is the only answer. now with the. way i laid there are no easy shows and to take one line of the book somehow i can credibly important but the one to point that i make a great selling is not about toward even himself it is not just about food and i mean i'm happy making fun of him 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 an argument about penis envy you're saying that putin is short and that's why he's trying to make russia greater than it is and show you that sometimes only read the

bible because we're for you know for trying to just know that for you to experience a narrative about russia that's highly ironic to have that in the book you know i mean can you sort of someone who hasn't read the book was thinking that somehow this is a 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 i mean in fact one that the rest of the world thinks that he is negligible or a problem it is not about putin himself it is about russia and 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 stronger richer than it really is you know obviously a 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 the country like russia that it's very non-linear development where it's huge asymmetry 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 sort of negligible importance or converse to the other and

treating it as if it is this massive existential threat the point is one that one and i do it on the 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 very well look i interview a lot of prominent economists on this tour and every one of them complains that g.d.p. . is reductionist even though when you talk about a country's economy russia has approved in the records of doing more with last how do you come 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 mines russian you know you don't have a sort of a dollar for 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 sam if that's true and i don't think you 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 you need to blow up the world how many tons are enough i would ringback suggest one will do the point is this obsession with security which is frankly increasingly antiquated because nato is not about to roll across the borders or whatever is for 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 dave aleutian 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 tit moment for. personally and for russia's trajectory 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 you have to think north those rules when it is in its own interests 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 where 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 giving so little consideration to geo strategic factors libya's geographic position its role in constraining the african migration and the consequences dop 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 in the war and some existential anxiety on russia'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 be 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 and mosco 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 libi 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 died the west needs to stand united to face up 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 and 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 you 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 but the tragedy i feel at the moment is we have a system in which basically both sides are. lucked 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 if you say 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 well 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 up with cheap russian bashing and that helps no one markets always great pleasure talking to you thank you 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 politicians do something to. put themselves on the line. to get accepted or rejected. so if you want to be president and she. wanted. you to do it to be crossed. that's why the 43 in the morning can't be good i'm interested always in the waters of our. question. when the old make its manufacture consent instead of public wealth. when the ruling closest to protect themselves. when the finance merry go round lifts only the one percent. to ignore middle of the room signals. to leave the room dream real meaning is

really the word. said she stressed to make sure that the british at the bill of books had out. to. see the face to face which. you. see deaf and i know what you. are best teacher for a moment to me what you. want to do so through my it's your bonus for syria. to mr ellsworth supporters are still with them to. do this interview but you believe these that it's a stupid actually. most of the people are should stop them spinning.

expressed. during the great depression which i'm old enough to remember that it was most of my family were working. there wasn't it was bed you know much worse objectively today 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 solo doubt engineer elections manufacture consent and other principles according to no i'm colmes one set of rules for the rich opposite. that's what happens when you put her into the. narrow sector of wilf which will is dedicated to increasing power for chills just as you'd expect one of the

most influential intellectuals of our time speaks about the modern civilization of america. 3 the bell is rung in. russia commemorates the victims of the militants seized 15 years ago and almost 1000 people were taken hostage we talked to survivors of the deadliest terror attack in the country's modern history as they revisit the site of the massacre. at district. tool. applies to quit at the. force of the purse will be wrong or should. stop them speeding.

tens of thousands take to the streets across the u.k. is prime minister boris johnson's.