the eurasian union, in our discussion now, reached a different level. this is again the customs union idea of bringing ukraine into the russian customs union. the idea that was initially put forward on the part of the russians, negotiation between the eurasian union and the european union to have higher level trade negotiations. some variation of that is now back on the table. there are talks including coming out to the eu there has to be away of diffusing these tension officers come petting trade blocs. the idea of the european union association agreements, the transatlantic trade partner ship, transpacific partnership, the idea that the wto has ground to a halt and although trade negotiations are going nowhere and that maybe a regional whether bloc could find -- more likely to lead to confrontation and to more confusion. so now there's a discussion going on behind the scenes about how can we get across that? how can we find different ways of discussing this and finding out what is the main construct by the russians and others by the creation of these b

tried and carved out a place as an independent nation. >> you believe putin is driven by this eurasian union that he can create as part of his own legacy of coming back from the very darkest days after the fall of soviet union? >> i think he believes ukraine is essential of having a sphere of influence including the former soviet republic that he includes important for the future of russia. these comments are made about how russian as the knicks and speakers under some sort of threat turned out to be demonstrably false. trying to keep ukraine from orienting to europe. they are going to. the fall of the president in ukraine was precisely due to the fact he pulled back an association of trade agreement with europe because of the objections as some of the basically, payment that russia was willing to make to offset its pulling back. that was the cause of the crisis. putin thought it was unacceptable. >> was there any possibility that if europe had moved faster they could have made the connection and avoided some of this? >> i think in that europe could have moved faster and probably moved stron

and the agreement of the eurasian economic union. that was waiting for signature in may. it is not guaranteed that this will happen. what will be the content of this agreement is not very clear. how successful will it be? one more thing which i would probably point out in the context of what was said, with the sanctions, yes, right now you see all the signs in the shops. obama is not welcome here, as a on thee to the sanctions russian elites. i think this is temporary. it cannot last for long. this solid there is a nation with the bureaucracy and the top, not just resident putin himself, the top leaders who are usually considered corrupt and inefficient and so on and selfish, that is something that can actually in the final analysis turn against president putin. it creates for the division between the public and the bureaucracy rather than consolidation around the flag. concur, we might remember that after the georgian war there was a similar burst of nationalism and support. protests did not come that long afterwards. so that kind o

independent nation for themselves. >> charlie: you believe putin is driven most of all by this eurasian union he can create as part of his own legacy of coming back from the very dakest days after the fall of the soviet union? >> i believe he believes ukraine is absolutely central to his having a sphere of influence around russia and that includes the former soviet republic, considers it important for the future of russia. i think the comments made about, you know, how there were russianettrussianethnics and spr crimea turned out to be false. so the real point is a protection of russian interest in trying to keep ukraine from orienting to europe. ukraine is going to orient to europe. indeed the fall of the president in ukraine was precisely due to the fact that he pulled back from an association of a free trade agreement with europe because of the objections and essentially some of the, basically, payment that russia was willing to make to offset its pulling back, that was the cause of the crisis and putin saw it as unacceptable behavior by a government regarding as an element in his sphere o

the of the blowback is also where it comes to the issue of the eurasian union. tin has been trying to go, this is why ukraine has been important, this expanded customs union of russia, elvis and kazakhstan and also now are many. violence can actually basically work against us. and opinion polls about 80% of russians are against immigration and against migration. meaning people moving around the rest of the russian federation. the eurasian union is supposed to be like the european union, open borders, free movement of peoples. 30% of the population russian is not very keen on this to get out of situations out of control. this doesn't bode well for the future of the eurasian union. if russia goes too far in the defense of russian speakers, what do they kazakhstan belarusians with the very population of russian speakers going to think about the implications of the eurasian union? so all of these different narratives are going to work against each other over the longer-term. this is what the difficulty becomes of these balancing act. you to keep control of your narra

this idea of the eurasian union. it was timely. the thing is fundamental in relations between our countries. of course there are differing approaches in assessments. i must say that the idea has been getting more and more supporters every year and now we can see the results and news directors have emerged from this idea with the view to pick his moves with the options. it's kind of difficult times or so but as i type is never questioned the need for integration policy. today the spears has discovered various aspects of cooperation economic social political and humanitarian reforms initiated in the country twenty years ago will be continued in the foreign policy field and new structures such as the eurasian economic union the customs union and a single economic space to be established. with that but smith is no mention of july has been done over the last twenty years. however there's still much to be done nicholson with a presence in our nation's interact to produce page for all organizations and people of course. in order to create

he's got a thing called the eurasian union. it's got a customs union attached.t a security organization sort of mirrored on nato. so he's trying to build a set of institutions to rebuild, if you will, a russian empire. and you can see how far he's gone so far. >> we put those in red. so you have here three countries. kazakhstan, russia itself, and belarus. we were talking earlier about how he's pulling armenia here, and kyrgyzstan closer, they're not in it yet, but they're coming closer. >> they're putting a lot of pressure on it. armenia had an association agreement with the eu. after three and a half hours in moscow, the president said we're going to go with the euroasian union. >> there's diplomatic pressure, there's financial pressure. >> but the key to making this work is ukraine. with ukraine, because of its historical ties to russia, because of its industry, because of its population, with ukraine this begins to look like a convincing empire. without it, it's never really going to rival the west. >> i learned a word today that ukraine means buffer. and in

i've heard his vision for the eurasian economic union.pivotal to that was to have ukraine as part of that union, not crimea but ukraine. and he felt he won the first battle last fall, right? he took on the eu, and when push came to shove, president yanukovich sided with him and didn't sign up for an a accessin freedom with the european union. they felt smug their vision was coming to fruition. that's why the story about how yanukovich was toppled, or ran, because i don't think he was topple, and i think this was a reactive short-term tactical response of what he did in crimea. and i don't think he knows what tend game is for him. i think that makes him vulnerable to the kinds of pressures that bet both my colleagues were talking about and particularly on the economic side for us but the ukrainians ultimately will decide on the security part about what the cost will be of this occupation. >> charlie: my friend david had a call today of what he calls russia's mistake in which he quotes napoleon who is said of cautioned in an 1805 battle, wh

this idea of the eurasian union. it was timely. the th

had grand ambitions to bring ukraine back into what he called his ue racial union and one -- eurasian union and one thing we forgot, when that evolt rose in ukraine, and yanukovych was pushed out, that was an enormous defeat for putin. who had spent a lot of time wooing yanukovych and ukraine in his direction. so he -- this isn't just ukraine. this isn't just putin grabbing for victory. this is putin staving off what would have been a defeat. >> but have we already seen the end game here? i mean, whether it's annexation or whether it remains ambiguous, putin keeps his port in crimea. keeps control one way or another. i mean, isn't -- it is what it is? >> it's hard to see how the united states and -- can roll back the russian presence in crimea. they have very few measures that would do that. that they seem willing to take anyway. and it's hard to change the status quo on the ground. putin owns the province. he has several thousand ukrainians and 30,000 troops there, probably not that many. and they could possibly stop him from going further. that's been the first priority this week. we're n

it was a real blow to his concept of fear of influencing crew in a, blow to the understand of eurasian union as a counterpoint. that's not just fanciful it's impossible. he's acted here and essentially with a military black operation in crimea bjorn borg i'll ask you to stick around for part two of our product with we want to continue to cover this story with breaking news. we'll talk to him some more in a few minutes. i'll be back in a moment with some personal thoughts. there's a saying around here, you stand behind what you say. around here you don't make excuses. you make commitments. and when you can't live up to them, you own up, and make it right. some people think the kind of accountability that thrives on so many streets in this country has gone missing in the places where it's needed most. but i know you'll still find it when you know where to look. >> schieffer: i dreamed i was a fly on the wall friday when secretary of state john kerry moat in lone conwith his russian counterpart sergei lavrov, russian troops were holding war games on the border, tension was building by the minut

. >> reporter: the russians want ukraine to be part of their own eurasian union, a kind of reconstituted soviet union. but you still think putin has miscalculated here. >> i do think he's miscalculated. the idea that the russians are going to win ukrainian hearts and minds any time for the foreseeable future is pretty much out of the question at this point, so, arguably, what have the russians gained? they've gained control of crimea. they've shaken their fist at the west. but in terms of the long-term goal, it's hard to see how this serves russian interests. >> reporter: a wider conflict is risky for russia, too. it could disrupt the flow through those pipelines, and more than half of russia's budget revenue, scott, comes from oil and gas. >> pelley: russia is the world's largest oil producer, after saudi arabia. anthony, you mentioned in your story that ukraine is virtually broke and owes a lot of money that it could default on. who does it owe the money to? >> it's biggest creditor, scott, are the russians. so the billions they asked for, much of that money, would end up going through

relationship to the ukrainian state you know it fresh i had wondered before to have ukraine join the eurasian union. that i can see that happening or at least for a very long time and clearly with all of the moves that have been announced by the united states and also by the european union it has cost russia something politically and it certainly cost russia something economically i would say there of course for russia they may well be outweighed from the kremlin's point of view by the gains but this is not without costs as well well i totally agree with you the only. thing that i would add is that made it clear that he's not interested in and next thing crimea and i think it would be an extremely difficult undertaking for him to do a given the current circumstances but let's take a short break now when we come back is the ukrainian stand of a turning point in the u.s. russian relationship or rather the point of no return that's coming up in a few moments on worlds apart. wheel caught on the road side to the car skidded at breakneck speed and fell into a ditch and i was thrown out of the car it was

that said, he does and has openly said he has this policy the eurasian union, perhaps a lose political union of some former soviet states. but before they were soviet states of course they were really territories of the russian empire. so i think speaking of brzinski, elements of what putin thinks of natural allies or the national russian empire. so to russians in the foreign ministry to mr. putin and average russians it is a perfectly natural and reasonable thing to do and it's simply making more formal what they think exists de facto anyway. >> yerg i want to go to you and talk about sanctions. u.s. and canada are talking a big game on sacks sanctions. there are 28 sovereign countries that have to agree in europe on what they want to do. is there any chance that the west will have one voice on russia? >> well, i think it is emerging. what we saw coming out of the eu summit yesterday was basically a three-staged approach. the first stage implement now, is basic to -- basically diplomacy yet another chance. and today within the very limited time frame this is now for the time for russi

it would join with russia in the eurasian union. it is important because it has more pipelines for natural gas than any other in the world. toroximately 50% goes ukraine. hydrocarbonsl be in the to terrell orders of the black state. they were drawn off the coast of crimea. the russians would hope to gain access to these resources. the interest ukraine is both political and economic. >> let's talk about the economic interest in ukraine. is it likely that without the disturbance and final situation right now that ukraine would deny russia access to the pipelines? why is he concerned? i do not think that is really a problem for russia. the gasas twice about to ukraine using natural gas supplies as a point of leverage. ukraine conceivably might the willing to shut off the supply off toia uses gas cut pressure ukraine. otherwise do not see ukraine is doing that. the major gas exporter in russia has been trying to buy the pipeline for years. ukraine intelligently does not want to do that. if they control the pipelines, it will be a very g

perennially plotting west trying to impinge on russian security and destroy putin's dream of the eurasian unionsuccessful, he painted himself into the corner and could not back out of this narrative. domestically, he had to do something for his domestic audience and recover initiative and stanch the wound before he starts leading politically. that is why he reacted the way he did. >> sounds like what we do here in the united states. if you are a politician, you throw med -- you throw red meat to your audience. you believe that there is a time when passed history shows prologue. 's and napoleon's tactics similar? >> first of all, they are very similar in being lucky. remember that napoleon always promoted generals based not on their education or credentials, but his first question he would ask is are they lucky? putin has been very lucky. russia, oil over was 18 dollars a barrel. he adopted the polian's tactics. i don't know if you read you get into the haven't been lucky until this major blunder of his career. getting doing it now, into a fight and then he stops and looks around and sees what t

primary and -- crimea if he feels he has reassurance that there will be no threat of joining the eurasian union the eu, for the time being, that that is put on ice, and the character of the government in to reassurerged people in the southern ukraine they will not be humiliated in the future. way out.e is the >> thank you, jonathan steele, a , antoncorrespondent shekhovtsov and keith gessen. when we come back, we go south to venezuela. two protesters killed overnight. who were the protesters, what is happening there? stay with us. ♪ [music break] some."ill give you a -- a song." this is democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. with juanodman gonzalez. >> we turn now to venezuela, which this week marked the one-year anniversary of the death of longtime president hugo chÁvez. this comes as his successor, nicolas maduro, has faced a month of violent demonstrations. the protests began last month in the city of san cristobal, in western tachira state, near the columbia border, and then spread to the capital, caracas, where thousands of opposition protesters have held regular marche

putin wants to create a eurasian union. that is supposed to include all of the soviet states. ukraine is a big prize. >> it would increase the population of russia. >> the argument you can make is that all of you get out of this is crimea, you have lost strategically. if you have part of eastern ukraine, you have lost strategically. you need all of ukraine. the game is about how you get a government that is going to be not hostile. it will not move closer to that. it will keep ukraine in play to a point. >> professor kimberly marten just said that ancients may not do much for us. what is your view? do we have economic tools that could get president putin to temper his ambitions? >> no. we are not prepared to do a lot of harm. it has to be both. it has to be a consolidated issue. there is a lot of economic hardship you could create that might cause putin to rethink. we would have to be prepared to sacrifice on our side. they are intertwined. you cannot hurt them without hurting us. the problem is that when you look at this rob the standpoint -- from the standpoint of interest,

how do you commit to kazakhstan, belarus, partners, eurasian union and say, "we'll have rule of law in which russia abides by preestablished standard", it will be difficult for russia to ensure a lot of other soviet satellites that it's a rural-based power. >> do you expect russia to do something more radical - grab ukraine, cut off gas supplies to europe. are these things that are on the table? >> these could be on the table. going further into ukraine is on the tail. if you are putin, the russian government, you have to think about the end game. you have to think about what happens the day after tomorrow, and those are the really tough questions. they are not going to get - there's a lot of - we - you haven't seen china, who russia tries to see as saying "we like the move", china doesn't like the move. >> cutting off gas is a two-way sword. 70% of russian national gas comes from european sales. the sales to europe are more important than they are to europe. >> you don't think they'll cut off the gas but expand further. >> i don't want to predict what they'll do. they'll try to find w

russia at that point was looking to entice them to eurasian union they are keane to build.was political rather than an economic decision. as part of the deal they have reserved the right to revert back to the old day on review every three months. still too early to say what will happen but it could revert back to the older price. >> ukraine has been making noises in the last couple of years about establishing energy independence, which of course would help it greatly. it's clearly not there at the moment. is it getting there? >> no. they have to have their own source of energy. they have chevron and others to search and explore for shale gas. but that is a long-term process. exploration of ordinary conventional oil and gas takes many years. a few more years and many hundreds of millions of dollars. so it is a long-term process. i'm optimistic. but in practice you have to be realistic. it takes time. >> they do rely on this. they also rely on the transit fee they receive. >> indeed. >> for the ukrainians. >> it's not just ukraine. it is the european union and western europe.

political establishment and economy towards this eurasian union and closer relations with russia which would see it permanently pulled out of the e.u. orbit they couldn't let this stand which means the entire fiasco which has essentially destroyed the ukraine as a state is about geopolitics ok chris of it's all about geopolitics because i because i find it really quite fascinating as mark brought it up is that you know we go back to south of setia the russians warned nato and the west do not cross these lines ukraine is a line as well and they did it anyway and this is what the result is i don't think anyone in their right mind should be surprised what happened in crimea it's perfect logic it's a piece taken off the chessboard as ukraine goes into some kind of catastrophic collapse. correct so and if you do this kind of thing you know who was demonstrating on my done yes if you read it kills and yes nato countries have cooperated with them yes but what the ordinary ukrainian people were standing for and we tend to forget that also in this today's discussion they were standing against c

he has a stance, kind of a fanciful idea, he can build a eurasian union to be a counter-point to the european union. he knows it would be impossible without ukraine. >> what does he plan for ukraine? it appears crimea is under his control. there would be a referendum so the de facto authority is then bolstered by some kind of de jour authority. is he presumably going to try to influence the rest of ukraine through various kinds of intelligence operations, money, things like that, bribing politicians? that has been what they've done in the past after all. >> i think that is. those are the sources of their influence. this is a full-fledged black op in ukraine right now with multiple elements to it, information warfare, military action, and political action including the putting on this referendum. what i think the goal here is to get more influence in the situation, to regain leverage, to be able to influence ukraine's future and to, i fear, also to destabilize the situation and it also i think he wanted to put himself in a situation here to give him the most leverage in any negotiatio

russia wanted ukraine to become a member of something called the eurasian union, which is a dictatorship. in order for ukraine to become a member, ukraine had to become a military regime like russia. russian financial aid proceeded and seems likely to have been the cause -- it is in the billions. it was made contingent upon ukrainians authorities of pressing and killing their own citizens. if that were not the case, if there were huge russian money backing the killing of ukrainian citizens, there would not been a revolution in ukraine. russia was still have a leader it liked in ukraine. one of the reasons he russia is invading ukraine now is to make sure we forget all about that. if russia had not overreached in ukraine, it would not approve of the revolution which it is so unhappy about now. >> ray mcgovern, your response? a professor snyder mentioned canada and mexico. look this over and consider putin or lavrov from the foreign minister, handing out chocolate chip cookies to violent demonstrators in mexico city or ottawa or toronto. is sacred totier us. we even used have something cal

the russian world, the customs union, the eurasian union will be a source of stability because russia cannot provide that security, integrity and national independence. >> ifill: nadia diuk, finalward on the point, whether moving toward the e.u. is worth it or worth it for the other nations who now fear they may be targets. >> well, i mean, you have to remember what happened prior to this annexation of crimea. there were ukrainians who were leaving and, in the case of about 100 people dying on the euro midan, whose primary aim was to support ukraine's integration into europe, so the ukrainians obviously think that it's worth having a big sacrifice in order to preserve the future for their children and for their grandchildren and many have expressed this desire. >> ifill: nadia diuk for the national endowment for democracy and janusz bugajski, senior associate at the center for strategic and international studies. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: the obama administration announced today that 4.2 million people have signed up for enrollment so far in the health insurance

creation of what he calls the customs union in which ukraine was supposed to be dragged into the eurasian unionudes belarus, kazakhstan, armenia and possibly ukraine if ukraine agrees and it doesn't, that would be the soviet yawn union light or the russian empire light. this is a legacy. don't forget, putin is 62. he got all he could dream of. he became the leader of the second nuclear power and the largest country on earth. he has more oil and gas in the ground in russia than the king saudi arabia. why do we get did the boy who has everything? an empire. >> what about the question you talk about him being 62 years old. when you see strong men around the world, when they hit a certain age, they start to look bizarrely young. i'm going to put him in that category. there's no wrinkles on his face. he does what he needs to do to look young and viral. why does he do this? all jokes aside. >> well, i think he believes that russia, a country where the average life expectancy for men is, drumbeat, 62, he needs to look young. so that he can get re-elected. and he already dropped more than a hint that h

, the agreement on the eurasian economic union. if i remember correctly was planned for signature in may. it's not guaranteed that this will happen and, what would, what will be the content of this agreement is also not very clear. i mean how successful it will be. one more thing which i would probably point out in the context of what dmitry gorenburg also said, you sigh the signs in the shops. obama is not welcome here as a response to the sanctions imposed on on the russian elites but i think this is temporary. it can not last for long. this -- with the bureaucracy and the top, not just with putin himself but with the top leaders who are usually considered corrupt and inefficient and so on and selfish, that is something that can actually in the final analysis turn against putin. also politically and domestically producing further division between the public and the bureaucracy rather than consolidation around the flag. >> yeah, we might just to concur we might remember that there was, after the georgia war there was a similar bur

agreements on the eurasian economic union. it was planned for signature in may. it is not guaranteed this will happen. the will be the content of agreement is not clear, how successful it will be. one more thing which i would probably point out in the context of what he said were the sanctions. right now, you see signs in "obama is not welcome here" as a response to the sanctions imposed on russian leaders. i think this is temporary. it cannot last long. the polarization with the bureaucracy, and not just putin himself, but the top leaders who are usually considered corrupt and inefficient and selfish, that can turnhing against putin politically and domestically. there is a division between the public and bureaucracy rather than consolidation around the flags. concur, we might remember after the georgia war, there was a similar first -- first of support. the protested not come that long afterward. that kind of thing can happen again. i want to say one more thing on the crimean tatars. i think you are right on being concerned a

it may be mutually exclusive to be in this eurasian union. i said this on "meet the press" a week ago, eight days ago, i noticed a lot of people in the new government in kiev were walking around the palace and the presidency over there wearing ski masks. they weren't confident at all they weren't being provocative to moscow. and secondly, i noticed the russians didn't wear uniforms when they came. in both sides seem to be aware that this is going to go on for a while and they're hedging their bets a bit. it's fascinating. the insiders seem to know this thing is not going to be over for a while. >> that's right. and that's why the impression i got from talking to people inside the administration is that they want to be quite careful in both their public and private utterances to see what they can do to walk it back. they don't think there is any benefit in doing their own saber rattling at this point. and also, to follow the dictum that you don't want to threaten when you can't follow through. >> exactly. >> which is one of the criticisms of o