ah, hello and welcome to wealth apart more than a century ago, mark twain, the remark that god created for so that americans would learn geography. my guess today has supported all recent american left wars and attempts to regime change. but he's absolutely appalled by russia's actions in the ukraine. why is that? to discuss that? i'm now joined by a former us national security advisor and former us ambassador to the united nations, john bolton, ambassador bolton, it's such a rare treat for a russian journalist to speak to you. thank you very much for this occasion. well, thank you for having me. glad to do it. now you have the reputation of being pretty hawkish, thing current, especially when it comes to russia. when you look at the vans in and around ukraine, whom do you blame 1st? is it president putin o president biden?

well, i think this is unquestionably an active unprovoked aggression by russia, and there's no legitimate explanation for so i think the responsibility does live with president colton and his government, i think unfortunately that the west failed adequately to deter potent from, from launching the invasion and, and that's a great tragedy but, but in this instance, it's pretty clear where the responsibility laws now president put it in his own words, is motivated by defending rushes, strategic interest. so he will definitely disagree with your definition of an unprovoked aggression. but let me a stablish that phrase, do you believe that russia has any security prerogative when it comes to its own neighborhood? and especially when it comes to the american and made a presence in its neighborhood? well, i certainly has an interest in its on strategic security, but the fact is,

the countries that border on russia have an interest in their strategic security as well. and it's not just dealing with eastern and central european countries that were previously independent. estonia live in lithuania, have all join nato, they border on russia. they were part of the soviet union by force, not by choice, and by choice they've decided to join nato. finland may soon decide to join nato as may sweden. so, you know, every country gets to determine how its own security plays out. nato has always been a defensive alliance. russia has always known that every contract, if you would agree, it has also its own choice of the means that it uses to defend interests. now that means that vladimir putin chose to defend russia's interest may seem disproportionate or excessive to some, but i'm sure it to you,

they're pretty conventional given that you're somebody who supported or advocated for military action in iran, iraq, syria, live in israel, a cuba, north korea and the lease goes on, i you saying that the use of force that seems to be so permissible to the united states in your own eyes should be absolutely off limits when it comes to other great powers. well, obviously, any use of force has to be justified and certainly acting in self defense is a legitimate use of force. nobody questions that i think the preemptive use of force against a real threat to the united states, towards friends and allies in order to prevent devastation of innocent civilians is also justifiable. so when states like iran or north korea seek nuclear weapons, use of force is fully justifiable when a country commits unprovoked aggression as iraq did against kuwait in,

in 1900. 90 kuwait is entitled in the exercise of its own self defense to ask her out us to protect it, why we iraq. so there are a lot of there are, there are a lot of different situations and different facts. different circumstances give rise to different remedies. absolutely. but the, in most of those circumstances be as a central interest of the united states, we're not involved. your own populations were not threatened either in libya or in theory, or for that matter during the 2nd iraqi invasion that you saw eagerly supported. no, no, no. well no that's, that's simply not correct in either case. and you can, you can talk about these others as well. in the case of syria where terrorists supported by iran, supported by the government of syria, were threatening to create an islamic state. there would have threatened the west

as a whole and had very strong western support across the board with our nato allies to destroy the islamic state. nobody can argue, nobody in their right mind can argue that ukraine posed any threat to russia, none whatsoever. well, we will talk more about that. that's certainly the case that russia is trying to advance, and russia has sounded deep displeasure with native moving formerly in formerly towards the borders for quite some time, including when you were in office. you visited me as president trump national security advisor. you shook hands with why did we put in? i remember, i think it was in summer, 2018. you even talked about the value of communication between leaders in the most difficult of times. in all fairness, didn't the crumbling use all the diplomatic means at its disposal to limit the welcome and i would say malicious us presence close to russian borders. there's

simply no truth to what you're saying. nato didn't move toward brushes, borders just just for, for the benefit of people in russia who may not hear this. it was the nations of eastern central europe once the war. so pack broke up after decades of repression by the soviet union. that came to nato and requested membership, so that they could create their own free governments and societies and so that they could have peace and security against external threats. nato didn't decide it wanted to expand into eastern europe democratically elected governments expressing the will of their peoples, asked for nato membership. i'm bassett, or bold and with all due respect, i think you're a sure the now think you understand that mosca would find it's quite provocative that the united states was arming, providing ukraine with lethal weapons for pretty long period of time. you may

disagree that it poses spread to moscow, but moscow is within its own ride to determine what is this as threatening as it did signal, if this pleasure with a didn't it so. so you believe moscow would be perfectly with vantage rights to attack custodial lives be, enlist wendy, are right now. absolutely no, because i don't think last way is tonia are big enough countries to pose a security threat to russia. ukraine, very large european country would be given that president laskey recently raised a spectre of a nuclear confrontation of reestablishing its nuclear expertise. you think that the russians should have missed that comment that the media security conference. so, so let me get, let me get your, your rationale here for countries big enough like ukraine then russia isn't titled to invade, have that no one should take if security interest seriously. and i think they've

communicated that to the americans. you can't deny, denies that russia has legitimate security interest, but that doesn't mean that they don't legitimate security interest. can you define that? for example, in terms of b fly time that it takes for the rockets to reach moscow? how would you define that security interest? what would be the comfortable lifetime for you, for rockets to reach russia? well, i don't know russian rock as can reach the united states in 30 minutes. that's not very comfortable either. the point is that the, the, the question of what constitutes a legitimate threat to russian security is a subject. russia has to prove. and there's absolutely no evidence that ukraine has ever had the capacity to threaten russia. well, i think russia is growing that right now on the battlefield, but rather than arguing about that because we could never agree, let's face and you think i should, is proving on the battlefield is the incompetence of its military and intelligence

service. we will definitely also talk about the tactics of the russian military. but before we do that, i want to ask you something about the decisions of the bite and administration. because he says recently that it was a strategic mistake by, by them. by to said that nato would never interfere with russia's actions in ukraine. what about america's presence in the ukraine? i mean, the armament security advisors, those advocate prime promises to ukraine, to care with regards to its membership prospects, especially when we consider, you know, very loosely, the desire on the part of the west to come to ukraine's defense is do you think it was iranian to make ukraine believe that the west that would come to support? well, i think that that nato made a significant mistake in 2008 when it rejected president george w bush's proposal to put ukraine in georgia on

a fast track toward nato membership. and i think president saw bad mistake, and 4 months later invaded georgia. now the fact is that neither the united states nor nato responded effectively to bad act been provoked aggression. and in 2014 president cody struck again and invaded ukraine. and once again, neither the united states, their nato, took effective action in response to that on provoked aggression. but the fact that that these mistakes were made doesn't justify russia taking another active unprovoked digression. what it says is that only when russia is deterred adequate way, does it not act with military force? and that's why in this case, making sure that brush doesn't benefit from this act of aggression is very important. you mentioned that it was a mistake not to grant ukraine in georgia,

formal membership, but as it is viewed from the crime. and it doesn't really matter whether the membership is formal or informal. the fact of arming your credit, which the west has been doing a very eagerly over the last couple of months and years already constitute security threat for moscow, or at least in the prominence calculus. and i want to ask you something as a strategy. and this is purely a pretext on the crime on part what was look to do was make sure that it had adequate defensive k for does it have adequate defense capabilities right now? did that premise worked out well? does it have it now? well, it's doing a lot better than the kremlin expected. that's for sure. well, that's not good enough, but let me, let me ask you again. why would you like ukrainian troops marching into russia, which, you know, if the russian forces continue to perform as poorly as they have both, what i would like here for us to be grounded in reality, you know,

a reality matters something in this world. and i do this for, at this point, russia has failed to achieve its objectives. we don't know exactly what russians casualties are, but i think they're going to be a lot of families in russia, missing their sons this coming year. i'm bassett. a bold and let me ask you something as a strategist rather than an ideologue, whatever you think of putin, i'm sure also rising in operation like this was a huge moral historical dilemma for him because russia indeed has a very special connection to ukraine. i wonder if the boldness or the brazen this with which the west was militarized. ukraine of late was, in fact, promised on the calculation that russia would never, ever use force against ukraine. oh, what, what you have in ukraine is a government freely elected by its people, which you do not have in russia. and the freely elected government in ukraine

looked for defensive capabilities. having seen what russian arms achieved in 2014 seizing the crimea, seizing territory in the don bass, they wanted to be ability to withstand that to deter future rush and aggression. now anybody who believes that the quantity and quality of military assistance being provided to ukraine, gave them anything more than an enhanced defensive capability, doesn't understand what was going on. it's simply incredible. to argue that somehow a buttressed ukrainian defensive capability was a threat to russia. it absolutely was not, and i don't even think vladimir putin believes that i think what he thinks he's doing is making good on what he said in 2005 about reversing the breakup of the soviet union. that was a hard thing for russia, but history is a hard teacher. and failing to understand that that was basically an irrevocable

breakup is what's causing this tragedy today. well, i'm back in a bolt and we have to take a very short break right now, but we will be back in just a few moments. stay tuned. ah, for ah, ah, ah, ah.

so what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have. it's crazy confrontation, let it be an arms. race is often very dramatic. development. only personally, i'm going to resist. i don't see how that strategy will be successfully, very difficult time. time to sit down and talk ah welcome back to world to parts with former us national security adviser on both an ambassador bolton you mentioned that in put in mind and americans for some reason i left so much to re put in mind. so i will rely on the capacity to do that because read the russians don't always,

don't always succeed in that. do you think the ukrainian state will continue to exist after russia fulfills its objectives in ukraine? it's military objectives. well, we don't know what the military objectives are, but i think the ukranian state can certainly exist in exile even in the worst of circumstances as governments did in world war 2, after the nazi occupation. and i think that's something that the coding and his advisor should have considered before they began this operation. but i don't see how at this point the russian military can really expect to take control of the entire country. i think that's beyond their grass. maybe that has also beyond their aspiration because the kremlin has never pronounced that to be an it's objective. all, it's sad as it said, what it is. no, it hasn't said whether its objectives are, but it's a tax the capital soon. you know, it's a day to day or objective number one was demilitarization and taking out the

ukraine's military infrastructure. the 2nd objective was what he called dina to vacation. that is the elimination of fire right militia groups in ukraine. but let's talk about photo pretext. as we know, those are, you know, they're bad, they're miss are both on the, you know, how many times the united states attack foreign lands on fulls, pre access innumerable times. but you know, times as far as i know, especially the 2nd invasion of iraq. yeah. the chemical weapons and we'll remember that. but anyway, you said that the russian effort, the russian military efforts is now bogged down to the surprise of many western analysts. and i wonder if this surprise of western analysts rose out of the very different ways in which the russians and the americans find that wars the russians relying far more on the manpower and the americans relying far more on they have a artillery. well, let's go back to iraq's chemical weapons. you know,

who also believe that iraq had chemical weapons, the united nations, because iraq itself had declared those chemical weapons after the 1st gulf war. and sure they say, you know, you are hiding behind the, for the united nation. that wasn't then no, my strong point in your career. you were never i thought it might be impressive. you. the issue now is not, not the different styles of warfare that countries engage. and although the russian style is going to cost it in casualties, sad sadly for russia going forward and the families that will suffer as a result from it. it's whether completely unprovoked aggression is acceptable, and the answer is that it's not. so this is something that the brush is going to pay a heavy price for the tragedy. so i think is that the u. s. failed to deter, to begin with,

but that's not less than the price for russia. i actually believe review that, agree with you, that the russians are taking upon themselves a risk of higher military casualties. precisely because they have an objective of limiting civilian death toll. and there is a very understandable tactic. very good, really doing that. pretty good job. and if you compare the, the casualties in the 1st few weeks. so let's say be iraq here. i've found safe and the ukranian offensive is incomparable. you can't even compare that fruit. that's true, there substantially greater civilian casualties and ukraine killer lying here because according to the you, in the 4 weeks of the ukrainian campaign around 800 people were killed. if we compare that to this 1st 6 weeks of the shock and operation, it was around $7400.00 civilians killed those official figures. and we are not even talking about how those official figures were achieved. but coming back to the

issue, coming back to the issue of different styles of offensive the russians having to rely much more on demand power. and that americans having to rely much more on be how they are tillery and essentially bombing the cities. and only a ban. moving in, can't you at least give russians the credit for trying to protect civilians? because i know we are adversaries. but the, you know, at least the russian culture there is a tradition of respecting, be, you know, noble acts of the, of the adversaries. can you be a little bit more straightforward here? well, i'd respect noble acts if i so, and the fact is the approach that rushes using here, very familiar to president code. and what he did in chechnya, in the 2nd chechnya war during the yeltsin term, what he has been doing in syria. and really it is

a style of warfare that i think is shocking to the rest of the world. it may, it may be unusual, it may, it may be because it's in europe rather than chechnya or syria. it shouldn't be that different. but in fact, i think people understand this is a very brutal form of warfare, and it's not, it's not going to achieve rushes objectives to say the least any, a form of warfare, brutal, but it's much more careful of the civilian casualties than the american style. and since you mentioned, say, lee, i should because that's the key style. because in theory, if you remember, if you look at the map of theory and hearing that offensive, there were lots of opposition. how enclave located right next to the government controlled areas. precisely because a frosh, a refusal to use heavy artillery on heavily populated areas. that's a very different from the way the americans form that war. and the russians brought a totally new style of warfare to the middle is to reach the middle east actually

appreciates. believe it or not. yeah, well, we could take a vote of that throughout the middle east. i mean, i think russia and some of that would be our to, to, to attack the civilian targets. the russians gave them intelligence about the we're talking before about the theory and how the, how syria posed a threat to the united states because it was a seed of islamic terrorism. now there is that credible concern, not only in russia, but also around the world, about the rise of fly ride battalions in ukraine, ukraine, that according to america, its own experts has been used as a training ground for foreign militia from around the world. and you know, the forces that present lansky despite his 3 years and office not being able to control is that legitimate threat as far as you're concerned? well, american legislation forbids any assistance that we give to ukraine,

going into any terrorist hands right, left or, or anywhere else. and those don't become acceptable simply because they happen to be on the ukranian side of the border. but none of that excuses. the aggression that russia has committed and continues to, to commit these again are a pretext that are coming after the decision was made that code and wanted to establish russian had gemini over ukraine through, through the use of force. well, you mentioned it's free tech says that only a period after the launch of this offensive. and i want to give you some figures from the time magazine article last year, which cited that 17000 for insiders have come to ukraine over the last 6 years from over 50 countries. some of there were associated with terrorist attacks in the west, including the one in christ church, new zealand, where 51 people were killed if that were happening close to your border. would you

be ok with that? well, if i thought it were true, it would be a concern, but you have this. and if you, if you have this information and can verify, then i think you need to present it and people can make up their own mind. but even if everything you've just said is true, as absolutely nothing to do with rushes, invasion or view crime, well how is it not? how that's if have anything to do with russia's invasion in your brain. because if you actually look at what's happening on the ground, the most notorious class is the fiercest class that occurred. there. i'm not between the russian and ukrainian military forces there between the russians troops . and before i arrived military battalions, you know, were just for my information, where do you suppose it clashes take? well, are you familiar with this town? i think they're around 130000 civilians that are being still health hostage. they're not being left out despite the existence of humanity, humanitarian corridors, both to russia and 2,

mainly the ukraine. have you ever heard about that town? many open and there is that to see this is the only news cast of which i am aware that says the people fighting there for ukraine are right, wayne terrorist. and i think that's something you really need to consider. everything we see and independent was western press. observers believe that this is the ukrainian army making, a very heroic stand against overwhelming force has nothing to do with was right going terrorist. now let's talk about how these may and you advocated for the harshest possible sanctions against russia, ronald reagan type of response, which would combine a firm stance and support for russia's opposition. what can possibly be achieved through that? well, i think this is really up to the russian people. now, i don't, i don't know that anything will necessary necessarily take place during the course of war. but i think a lot of russians are voting with their feet,

leaving the country and, and expressing their concerns. we've seen some real acts of bravery inside russia. and at one point we could find out what russians really thank if they'd actually have a free and fair election. can i ask you one more question about the reaction of china? because many analysts, both in the east and west, agreed that china's position would be crucial in determining how much pain russia suffers in the face of western sanctions. and it's evident from the latest cold between president bolton who has been bullied. and i'm sorry, president biden. your wish, i'm sure you will press and hold on. but the reason cold between president by the and president she died in the u. s. main means of decision now are threats sticks rather than kara's or any form of positive reinforcement. do you think they she will find it appealing or threatening enough to comply with washington?

well, i think china is a threat in and of itself to, to the united states and the west as a whole. and the question of how to deal with china is going to be a huge, subjective debate. i don't know whether these telephone calls from president biden will dissuade china or not. but i think china is going to need to think about this because if they have designs on free places like taiwan and others in the endo pacific, they need to recognize that there's a stronger and stronger view in the united states. we will not accept this while there may be a stronger and stronger view, but the tools in your toolbox seems to be rather limited. in fact, i've heard the number of analyst suggest that the most opportune time for beijing tissue full control of taiwan would rise right after the end of the russian operation in ukraine. because the american ability to hit beijing, the sanctions would be at its minimum. do you think that will come to pass?

well, i think china would be making a huge mistake if they drew that conclusion. that's for sure. and in terms of the policy of the united states, if you think it's tough under joe biden, wait until we get an administration whose views are closer to mine. well, god, how plaza has had time and i sent her both. but that will leave. we have to leave and kiera had this point when you come to office, i really request that interview again, but for the time being, thank you very much for your perspective. glad together and thank you for watching hope to see you again next week on with me. ah.

with you to look up for a muscle with noon. she doesn't being in the green show or a nurse to me as close to mom with his ashley, of at least one of the work with you. but now it's not. but with the metal for phones or something like that. we got that with that. have that a

a i'm being told that every day, more and more such trophy weapons fall in the hands of the russian troops. one of our correspondents on the grounds in ukraine get along with some of these western weapons which pouring into the country despite us led to coast with fighting intensifies for the key ukrainian city of mario paul left. the russian military presses on with its drive to clear out. nationalist poll says, who are using civilian building a portion that gets pro he had to stand on the conflict terminated by a russian power live and active. it knows what people in don't boss really being marianna now home of us told us she's paid a heavy price for her. possess.