it is my honor to introduce mikhail kasyanov. [applause] >> thank you very much. ladies and gentlemen, it was a great pleasure for me to be here with you today here in washington this afternoon and to foreign-policyon . we wanted to discuss at length here in washington, the described to you how we could you potentially a brighter future -- how we could view potentially a brighter future. unfortunately, the situation has escalated so much. the whole world is concentrated on events in russian and ukraine relations. ago we had some kind of [indiscernible] several times mr. putin stated that the newly established states and territory of the former soviet union were independent states had not quite full legitimacy. just sovereignty. if he wouldsed that feel that something should be changed to their -- changed there, he would step in. theappens soon after 2008, nato summit in bucharest. went to the countries, like georgia and ukraine, just wanted -- when two countries, like georgia and ukraine, just wanted consideration to join the summit and they didn't get the proper

it's a real honor and privilege to be here and introduced introduce my good friend mikhail kasyanov. you're not hear to from me but mr. kasyanov. current crisis underscores how a regime treats its own people is often indicative how it will behave in hits foreign policy thus we shouldn't be surprised when we see putin supporting bashar al-assad in syria and in the slaughter of the syrian people. nor should we be surprised when we see putin trying to block efforts by his neighbors to move in a more western direction, to try to demock advertise, to try to move toward politicalization, respect for rule of law, respect for human rights, all the things frankly anathema to vladmir putin. these are examples where we see in the latest crisis putin professed saying concern about the welfare of ethnic russians, or russian speakers or whatever phrase you want to use in crimea and in ukraine when he doesn't give a damn about the welfare of russians living inside russia itself. so the paradox i think is quite striking the situation inside russia perhaps focused an as much given current crisis in ru

the floor is >> it is a pleasure and honor to be here to introduce my good friend mikhail kasyanov. i will be very brief because you are not here to hear me. you're here to hear from mr. kasyanov. the current crisis underscores that how a regime treats its own people is also indicative of how it will behave in its foreign-policy. thus we shouldn't be surprised when we see putin supporting bashar assad in syria in the slaughter of the syrian people, nor should we be surprised when we see putin trying to block efforts by his neighbors to move in a more western direction, to try to democratize, to ride -- to respect the rule of law, to respect human rights, all the things that are anathema to ladimir putin. these are examples where we see in the latest crisis putin professing concern about the welfare of ethnic russians or russian speakers or whatever phrase you want to use in crimean, in ukraine when he doesn't give a damn about the welfare of russians living nside russia itself. the paradox is quite triking. the situation inside russia perhaps not focused on as much in light of the c