an engagement equals the trail. when so many find themselves worlds apart, we choose to look for common ground. ah, the e u commission chief deletes or post in which he claimed 100000 ukrainian soldiers had been killed in the war. the figures 10 times more than the one announced by ukrainian officials in august 3 people are reportedly killed and more than 20 injured in a deadly blast in pakistan. it comes after the pakistani taliban terrorist group called for attacks to take place across the country. following the end of a ceasefire and hundreds of people gather in front of a jail in pretoria to protest the release of the convicted murderer of south african anti apartheid leader. this comes as days before he was able,

he was to be set free on parole. the assassin was stabbed in prison with just after 4 pm here in moscow, and you're watching r t international. i'm your host donald quarter. welcome to the program. our top story, 100000 ukrainian troops. that's the estimated death toll estimated by the european commission chief for the war in ukraine. she made the claim in a video posted to her twitter page, which was later deleted. the figure hasn't been mentioned in any press briefings. rush, us invasion of ukraine has brought death, devastation and unspeakable suffering. we all remember the horace of boucher. it is estimated that more than 20000 civilians and more than 100000 ukrainian

military offices have been killed so far. the estimate echoes a similar one made by the chairman of the u. s. joint chiefs of staff from earlier this month who claimed that both russia and ukraine had each suffered more than $100000.00 soldiers killed or wounded. over the number drastically differs from what the ukrainian politicians had been saying. last such public announcement was made by a ukrainian top general in late august with knowledge, nearly 90000 ukrainian military personnel had been killed. he has reportedly commented on the deletion of bonder land statement saying information about. busy losses is sensitive, so only top officials can voice it. but to get more on this now we're going to cross live to discuss this issue with author and war correspond, thomas roper, thanks for joining us on the program. so what do you think prompted the deletion of this post detailing the ukrainian losses? that's a good question. well, i think it's,

it disturbs there in the west and ukrainian narrative of the ukraine winning the war. it's interesting, i have just found an announcement from the speaker of the you commission who said that the figures were just incorrect. they were an estimation and were not very correct. and so they did, he did it, and they just used this figure to us, show the cruelty of russia. but then i have a question. does that mean that the you commission is officially lying all the time of their talking to ukraine? so we have 2 possibilities, either have $100000.00, so just dead or you commission just officially said they are lying when we got ukraine. so quite interesting topic. why do you think there would be a difference? a tenfold difference rather in the e. u and ukrainian estimates of the losses in the conflict. while i was there several times, nothing the estimation of 100000 is quite correct. the problem is you have to see if it's 100000 really dead you creating soldiers. i think we have an additional

200000 wounded soldiers, which means altogether losses of some level 300000. this is the number of ukrainian army before the russian intervention. this will be a catastrophe. it means that you quit, you k, this just blotting out you craning media have cited up a spokesperson for the landscape, says that only top ukrainian officials may announce the death toll. what do you think is behind that strategy? what they want to keep the figure as low as possible, the officer official figures and that's why they allow you several people to talk about this. well, nothing, nothing surprisingly well or so. we could say that ursula underlay in statement isn't anything new really has the top us general mark . milly already alleged back on in november that around 100000 russian and 100000 ukranian soldiers had been killed or wounded, as you said in the war. and ukraine, however, the word wounded wasn't mentioned by the commission sheets. so do you think that

would would mean that more of them have been killed, been wounded? well, as i said, she mentions 100000 dead, you trading soldiers. and normally this would mean that additionally, 200000 are warranted which is an official what an altogether loss of $300000.00. and again, this would be ukranian retrain. this blotting out it's the whole, the whole we can. i mean, was that 250000 before february and would mean that not only that many soldiers that killed but also many people who are mobilized so many people who are somehow civilians which were sent to the front without any preparation really. so if the figures, if they are true and i believe them would mean it's a contrast if before you craig this, they want to hide wonderland statement didn't just cover casualties. but she also said that russia must pay financially for the devastation that it caused her. apparently, the damage is estimated at 600000000000 euros. do you think this money will ever be

given from russia, and do you think it's fair to demand that kind of money from russia? and the figures are not you and ukraine and you, you, you, you had a conference in berlin not long ago, where they officially announced that they want to confiscate the money, which they have frozen in europe. the russian money she now mentioned in the video 300000000 of central bank reserves of russia and 19000000000 of so called oligarchs, which they want to confiscate and give to ukraine. so this is nothing really new and i think they will never get the, the, the rest of the money from, from russia, and whether they will be able to use the money they have frozen is also big question. because if russia then reacts like i'm also freezing and confiscating a vested investment in russia, which should be higher than this 300000000000 they have mentioned it's, it's a complicated what we have to see. but russia will take the money back somehow from

from western investors. and this will be, again, not very popular in the west when it comes to that confiscating western money in russia. so do you think that confiscation is ultimately going to take place, or do you think perhaps somewhere down the roads, russia and the west will be able to negotiate the release of those frozen assets? to be honest, i have no idea. i'm the decision of the you commission in the last half a year even before they are some are quite yeah. oh, let's could stupid. it's a dog. so they do some things which are not logical but maybe even dictated from across the ocean. i don't. so what they will decide at the end, i well, i believe they able to do centrally any stupidity which is which is possible because that is the last month we will, we will see what i just said as rush s as measures to react of that. and so i'm not speculating on the, on the future,

but i'm ready to expect everything from the condition of this one terms of e law. do you think brussels, you know, has a legal rights are legal justification to take those russian assets? i'm not yet. that's what they were talking about, the conference of berlin, when they said they're working on these instruments. so they are intending to change the laws to make it possible right now. it's not possible, but them will change and legislation is nothing so complicated. they will find a way if they really want to do it well in russia, will find a way to react. so yeah, it's, it's just for the escalation which doesn't give any good for any of the science. all right, author and war correspondent, thomas roper, thanks for joining us on the program. thank you. about another news. 3 people have reportedly been killed and more than 20 wounded in a suicide car bombing and pakistan. a militant group known as the pakistani taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack. the explosion occurred outside

a medical facility near the afghanistan border, and official say at least 15 of the victims were police officers. were there to maintain security. the pakistani taliban said the attack was revenge for the recent killing of one of the groups founding members militant said in recent days, they would conduct a fresh wave of attacks across the country, as it accuses the government of having violated a prior peace agreement. we submit to the people of pakistan that we have repeatedly warned you and continued to be patient so that the negotiation process is not sabotaged, at least by us. but the army and intelligence agencies do not stop and continue the attack. so now our retaliatory attacks will also start across the country. earlier we spoke with said colored mohammed who is an international security analyst, and the director general of the command 11 think tank. he believes the terrorist threat is so high that the only option the pakistani government has, is to engage in all out conflict with the militants. the army of marcus,

i'm going to head strong into a barn as time they put a lot of pressure on the learning government on. now we have a government in nevada and is the taliban, which many people consider to believe is a part of the pakistani military establishment? ah, that donavon has assured focused on that their soil would not be used against any other country yet the teaching be enjoy safe haven. they enjoy so clean relations with the taliban and they are. you have no interest in bringing any stop to this warfare. the only option, the government of pakistan actually has this particular open war against the thought of on the ttp, not that donna barn of on his son. but the thought he keep donavon bach is not. we are headed towards a military solution. because even though none of us like the idea of the military being involved and taking that, taken this to a bloodshed level. because if you wage war against the d. b, they would wage war against the people of pakistan from 2007 until 2009. we lost 80000 lives. now we're not ready to sacrifice 80000 people again when the taliban

sitting across the board of partisan are not willing to be friends and hold up to their agreements with us. the former leader of the people's republic of china jang zeeman has passed away at the age of 96. he reportedly had leukemia and eventually succumbed to organ failure. mister jenks served as the country's president for a decade. he was also the general secretary of the chinese communist party and he rose to power following the tenement square protests of 1989. throughout his term as the parties head, china's economy experienced wide economic expansion. and now to don boss, a clearing operation is underway in the outskirts of the long and battled city of our charm. that's according to the head of the den. yes, the people's republic, as russian forces pushed back on the front line and the region advanced weapons are being brought into the battlefield. our senior correspondent, more gazda,

of can tell us more. this battle ground forests and woods is both a cuss and the blessing. the enemy can conceal entire armies, but then, so can you the t 90 m. but if will break through have translated into english. this is a me machine. it's uniqueness, is that the engineers were designed, that took the best as of every modification tag modification that is currently with a russian armed forces. they took well beth, and they put it into this, the best armed with the best far controlled system, the best on the on board computer. when a legs a designated is pointed by the enemy. at the switch, he, the senses detected them. the told his was about to be the main god to a tug toward the source of the laser designated the computer on board gives the

the, to the crew, the option of firing at the enemy said, oh, but because of our vod studies ukrainians, the nationalists for the far mercenaries where the use any opportunity and sees any opportunity to try and hard these down. which itself is a challenge. the t 90 m. eas, packed with active and passive defense systems. cameras covered $360.00 degrees missiles and rockets flying that the tank automatically intercepted with shrapnel which degrades their penetration potential making process. get them occurs. look, our crew is preparing for steak out on a comrade mission. the tank is excellent, especially in skilled hands. our crew is well trained, we work together really well. he craniums fear us. when we get into position and for our troops, we instill confidence. the ukranian conflict,

put paid to the meet the pangs ah, outdated, the dead easy to kill. they, aren't they? a terrifying bain for infantry the front lines here in logan's region are almost entirely stagnant. ukrainian forces have been unable to make any headway over the past month, suffering thousands killed and injured in the attempt. russian forces hold fast. it is believed that they are mashing for

a counter attack when and where it'll come is entirely unknown. or i'd gazda of odds, he from logan's creegan. ah, once again the u. s. has accused a foreign state of meddling in its elections this time. apparently, it's the president of the central american nation of el salvador, the claims cotton, despite washington's own recent admissions of interfering and other countries when american interests are at stake. here's ortiz kellum off and on the story, the u. s. state department decided it was time to take up the issue of election meddling once again. this time they took aim at the central american nation of el salvador. throughout our last electoral process, we noticed with alarm increasingly direct attempts by some salvadorans to directly influence certain electoral outcomes in the united states. as we have repeatedly made clear, this is unacceptable. the will of the people must not be undermined by foreign

influence. so what in the world are they talking about? well, a woman who ran for congress in the recent mid term vote issued a statement recently saying many of the online attacks directed against her originated from el salvador as president naive, who kelly. she cited tweets that he made against her. i hope that all my salvadoran, mexican honduran, guatemalan, dominican venezuelan brothers and all latin americans in california 35th district, do not vote for norma j taurus. she does not work for you. she only seeks to keep our country's underdeveloped. so the president of a foreign country tweeting constitutes election madeline. this sounds a bit paranoid and delusional on the part of us leaders. after all, the idea that all it takes to influence the u. s. election results is a tweet by a foreign leader. that sounds a bit unhinged. the allegation is especially hard to take seriously when you look

at the many decades of efforts to influence the political system of other countries by the united states. take al salvatore, for example. during the 1980s, el salvador was overrun with right wing paramilitary groups. many countries and south and central america sent their soldiers to fort benning and georgia to attend the school of the americas and learn techniques to crush dissents and leftist opposition violence from us trained paramilitaries caused tens of thousands of people in el salvador to flee. then in the mid nineties, bill clinton allowed their temporary protected status to expire and many were forced to return to their home country decades of war. busy imposed by the united states and a flood of us made weapons as made al salvatore, a rather violent place gang violence is a plague on everyday life in the country as a particularly high murder rate. recently the country experienced an entire day

without one murder and that caused headlines and was very notable because it rarely happens. so if anyone should be complaining about foreign meddling, it should be the salvador ends. we recently seen a number of washington officials speaking up and talking about how far americas foreign meddling south of the border goes. i do want to ask a follow up when we were talking about what is capable of what you need to do to be able to plan a coo and use you said in your expertise, having planned coos, i'm not going to get into specifics, but successful cruise well, i wrote about venezuela in, in the book and it turned out not to be successful if we ever tried to metal and other countries election. oh probably. but it was for the good of the system in order to avoid the communists from coming over. for example, in europe, in 474849, the greeks and the italians. we don't do that. we don't mess around other people

only from very good to via video and those former early for a very good cause. but according to us officials interfering and other countries, funding death, squads and paramilitaries, and over throwing elected governments. that's just democracy and helping countries back onto the correct path. watch out for tweet by a foreign countries president. that is a violation of sovereignty that cannot be tolerated. kayla martin r. t. new york. in other news, almost 200 palestinian civil society organizations have written to letters to the international criminal court, calling on it to take action over israel's conduct. the letters highlight the designation of 6 palestinian organizations as terrorist organizations by israel, as well as later raids on their headquarters. israel accused them of operating as part of a network run by the popular front for the liberation of palestine. leftist group

considered to be terrorist by israel and the wet and the west. the civil society groups which pens the letters have called on the courts to condemn the moves by israel and further scrutinize its actions in palestine. they also urge the issuing of statements demanding israel to stop practices, which according to palestinians, are human rights violations. but to get more on this now, we're going to cross live to shawanda bar in the general director of l hawk, which is a palestinian human rights organization in the west bank. which is also one of the groups which signed the letter and had previously had its offices rated by the by israel. welcome to the program, sir. your organization was designated as a terrorist, one by israel, by israel. why do you think they do that? despite condemnation of the move by international organizations, they did that too for political reasons, you know, because they dislike our,

the nature of our work to the human human rights violations. and then technician the crimes taking place in pun assigned by the israeli military and israeli. different institutions. that's the reason. another thing is because we corporate well with the i c c, the international committee code to hold due to criminals accountable. that's the main issue. just you can imagine they have in charlie's our information since 79 until today. they haven't ever kelly's, our information or legal analyst. and because of that, they dislike, you know, our approximately our networks, our walk in this field, them this area. they want us just to keep saying something good, think about the human rights issues in general, maybe train people to say that the universal declaration of human rights is good

and that's it. but don't go after the criminals. that's the case. and this is the reason and the european countries, they know this very well. they have a very strong relations with these writers in the intelligence level. i'm sure this is the 1st time ever, you know, since 48th, until today, that some centers, you know, they took, or they were in a different position regarding which called terrorism. because this is a series for particular reasons they pull to suffice this term, you know, just to live and to get motor friends, you know, just to go after us and silence us on to our resource. and that's what's, what's happened. we would continue. what we challenge them. we know that maybe we pay, you know, a personal price or other thing, but the work in human rights field flow and justice is smoke picnic in palestine and it's not

a job for us. will have these terrorist designations and the raid of your office how, how those both affected your work. look, we intensify the world to be honest with you. we are working more than before or so even if they are in the office, even they take everything we're ready to do all of these kinds of for because as i said to you, it's not a picnic and it's not a job for us. we can work from home, we can walk from street from everywhere. that's the case because of that in the 1st day that they close the and they're in the office and they closed the office. and they declared that our floor that we went directly to the, our office, we often it and retail is israel is and even we said it's not because we are champions, but we could, because we do believe about what we do. and these rate is they are committing crimes by doing this and illegal actions. and even in our point of view, it's

a great preacher. that's the case, the military commander, he has no right to do this. i think according our understanding of the intermission to humanitarian law, mainly for geneva convention. what to what degree do you think these letters and the international condemnation of israel's actions are going to influence the course of what it's doing? oh, look good. now the court, you know, when we send the letter to the court just to encourage them to, to move. that's the issue because to designate us and it's not the 1st time to be honest with you. we have been under smear campaign. and the last 15 years that since the last 15 years, we were in a very intensive, severe smearing campaign against our heart and our staff members 1000000 euro.

that's the case. this is the phone. different means it's like a mafia massage that they use against us. but we continue, i think they are lee. i'll hark in this field. since 1979, we are, we are the 1st the human race organization in middle east. it's not just yesterday that the rebuild is strong click war. more than that, our profession is the i c phase. the was going to be hard and with me. and now when it comes to the court, this letter to the court to say to them, we are cooperating with you because of the work with you. that's the case that they did it because when they started severe campaign, they started it. and 2015, mainly, mainly at that time, it was like you turning point address time because of the policy nikita to the i c . c. as we corporate funds, we submitted submissions about the information,

the crimes took place and we ban goes a strip. this is the weight of the i, c. c has jurisdiction over the crime. and we said to then you have to use also to come out, you know, just to defend, also your partner as i see and you do this according to your staff. this is called the preventive. preventive is statement or preventive whole or something like that . you have to do this, you can't keep silence. another thing is about also the victims, not just we are trying to different our says to be honest with you, we are defending the victims. our role is to defend, you know, the victim's rights for justice, for remedy. and that's our role. this is our mission, not to defend ourselves. that's what we said to them. and we said to them, you delayed, of, you know, issuing warrant s against these criminals. why you do this?

another thing is we said, we reminded them on what's going on for instance and unafraid. why in 5 minutes you did all of these things, but nothing, palestine, palestine has been under this attacks on the international crime since so long. and you haven't, you move one practical step and you haven't taken any specific action like the warrant for instance, against the criminals. this is what we said. we said euro justice delayed justice the night. that's what we said to them. all right, shawn jabbar and the general director of i'll hock a palestinian human rights organization in the west bank. thanks for joining us in the program. now we go to south

africa, where hundreds of people have gathered to protest the upcoming release of the killer of a south african anti apartheid leader. demonstrators marched to the walls of the prison where the con, where the convicted murderer is currently held. number held signs with the slogan, don't kill chris canny again, voicing their outreach over the release on the role of the prison just days before his schedule released, the man was stabbed and injured in prison. he's been held behind bars for 3 decades, and the court's decision. to free him has stirred up painful memories for many archie is carbo le, tata picks up, the story ya, new swallows is said to have been stabbed in his cell y, one of the inmates, and he has subsequently been rushed to hospital. the statement by the correctional services says that there was an unfortunate fare being incident and the sentiment that is really grabbing south africa on twitter and other social media platforms is

why was the word unfortunate used as part of that statement of the 729 years in prison for killing south african communist parties, general secretary chris honey, the countries i ask, what has grunted parole to polish immigrant? ya, new swallows. one of the issues at the knob of were, loses released from prison is that he must serve the rest of his parole conditions here in south africa. and was given a permanency residence by the minister of home affairs in order to keep him here. part of the deal is that he cannot use his polish passports or his identity in order to leave the country. chris honey was considered by many as the natural successor to nelson mandela and a radical who would have brought much need a change to south africa. that judgment has seemingly opened up old woods cuz i know for us he will never die because i never presented aspirational for people's

liberation. he was a fighter for our people who have rolled out a program to protest this thing to show our displeasure and were taken other legal steps are going forward. so that this decision and can be reversed, where, where, where we are, we just coming out of me to consulting with our lawyers. and we've been in touch with them over the last few days to see how to take up this meta illegal. because what i was doing was rated arrogantly by the constitutional court, which, by the way, we want to caution them in the seat of the coast to snow courts. when you pass judgments, when you pass just the, the humblest, this sincere we respect for them. but we saw arrow against authoritarianism, disdainful mis, disrespect at some of the charge is basically saying we are in charge. that's absolutely nonsensical and you don't just.