in the foreground of russian politics he represented the main program boris yeltsin and was first elected. three five years later reached the top of his governmental career when he was appointed deputy prime minister with a responsibility for social issues however a few days later say it was not an area of expertise after spending fifteen years in parliament has become one of the most active opponents of the established power and has held a protest rally. hello vladimir nice to have you here in the studio welcome welcome to spotlight well a you are one of the organizers and an active participant some of these recent recent rallies well they're called for fair elections what who are these protesters labeled as the angry citizens in the russian press and do you think that these people really can influence the kremlin today you know this this protest movement is where it it why. it includes as well politicians as well just regular citizens and i could say that may mean maybe seventy percent of protesters not. are not belong to political camps seventy percent of just regular old people from t

or attempting to impeach yeltsin and i think a lot of our viewers may not be aware of that or forgot and i think some people in the opposition forgotten the very bad years of the one nine hundred ninety s. now this pay a pendulum has to swing back a little bit i think what tom was saying making it easier for a political party to get registered and that we would see more pearlers them but we would at the same time we wouldn't see the chaos that we saw in the one nine hundred ninety s. i think that the kind of investors that i work with would very much welcome. that kind of that kind of orderly transition right now a lot of money is sort of sitting on the sidelines waiting we've seen that you know sort of most obviously in the equity markets. you know pulling back sharply at the end of this and of last year and rebounding a bit and in the first two months of this year but we also work with a number of private equity and venture capital players who are considering investing in russia and. and what they tell me is is that they'll they'll be making their sort of final decisions on potenti

i could go on at great length about how boris yeltsin undermined democracy and became a hero democracy. lech walnsa in many ways was not the. working bloke many made him not to be. gorbachev was a visionary who came to power. he saw he needed to change the country. he used his powers to do that. he withdrew from afghanistan. he called for nuclear abolition. he worked with ronald reagan. he understood you need political solutions, not military solutions. when the soviet troops were ready to come out of the barracks so the berlin wall would not come down, he told them to stay in the barracks, the empire is going. we cannot be a country that will be one of glasnost and perestroika if we live the way we have. it is the 20th anniversary of the soviet union, the end of the soviet union. many people in russia blame him for the economic conditions in which they live. they blame him for the end of the country that many felt was the cradle to grave welfare state instead of a totalitarian system. i have great respect for him. you can also see people's weaknesses. you talked about all salvador. wh

there are a lot of things that have significantly improved over the last years since the time of the yeltsin era. but that that really isn't the point the point is us interference in terminal russian election affairs is something that ought not to be tolerated and it's quite right not to tolerate it. you can get more on this and other stories online twenty four hours a day at r.t. dot com here's a glimpse of what is waiting for you there right now. from tragedy to treasure hunt thousands of works of art are up for grabs the board of the stricken luxury liner. including jewels and antiques plus. lessons with michelle obama who's living up to her reputation as one of america's most vigorous advocates of a healthy lifestyle the full story and much more at r.t. dot com. iran says it will not give in to international pressure and abandon its nuclear program even if it's banned from selling a single barrel of oil in response to this week's approval by a us senate committee of a package of new sweeping sanctions against the islamic state but the bill has yet to pass through congress america's initi

over the last two months russia has seen the biggest relish since the time of yeltsin an active electorate and they did political debate is what makes the current presidential race different from the previous two it all started with protests over the stay do my election results last december when the ruling united russia party won which triggered ballot rigging accusations of a since the opposition has regularly held its rallies and has become exceptionally active online demanding changes that would make the election process more transparent last weekend however the protesters have to face the fact the government supporters are also ready to defend their point of view on the streets according to the data he should by the police the pro-government rally even outnumbered the anti government one in their putin addressed both sides shortly after the meetings in the other of his pre-election articles the prime minister's manifesto published in russia school in their sunday league. admits the quality of the state is lagging behind civil society which has become more mature active and responsible

in the first years of the yeltsin era reforms a strange thing happened in the country. this date assigned apartments, many of them shall be in in not very good condition, suddenly began to be worth money. and the elderly alcoholic confirm mentally ill in some cases residents of russian apartments which suddenly had value began to disappear, and oftentimes they were found in the forest, especially after the snow melted, sometimes there were even found on a garbage heaps. and it was discovered that somehow or other they have signed over there apartments to mysterious companies with snow began to obsess hundreds of these apartments. and to make huge amounts of money off of them. what was this criminal conspiracy was only possible and it existed in virtually every major russian city, and it was a sign of the times. i remember in moscow walking along and sank an absolutely blood chilling notice attached to a bulletin board in the area where i was living, and said, are you sick, so, do you need help? we will pay your rent and take care of you on condition that the apartment i

there are a lot of things that have significantly improved over the last years since the time of the yeltsin era. but that that really isn't the point the point is u.s. interference in internal russian election affairs is something that ought not to be tolerated and it's quite right not to tolerate it. and there's more about moscow's rival rallies online as thousands gathered for a day of protests in our photographer. check out the pictures on our facebook profile and there's more analysis on this and more on other top stories at our. iran says it won't bow to international pressure and abandon its nuclear program even if it's banned from selling a single barrel of oil this is a response to the when this week's approval by a u.s. senate committee of a package of new sweeping sanctions against the islamic state but the bill has yet to pass through the full congress the u.s. initiative targeting to iran's nuclear program follows the adopting a total bardot on iranian oil due to come into force in july islamic republic in turn has repeatedly said it will halt all crude supplies to some european

are a lot of things that have significantly improved over the last two years since the time of the yeltsin era. but that that really isn't the point the point is u.s. interference in internal russian election affairs is something that ought not to be tolerated and it's quite right not to tolerate it. but all adults dmitri babich thinks there is no split in russian society but rallies will positively influence the political climate in the country. it's mostly just emotions fueled by the media some people were obviously irritated seen the same two faces on television maybe to march in the last few months especially some people were terrified when they saw their position and it's more than seven when they failed to handle the west behind it so it's mostly media driven there is no real cost struggle behind it there are people and reach people in both ratings there are people of all kinds of ethnic groups in both race so right now i think it's mostly a positive effect because it sort of wakes up the government to the needs of the people so until now there are consequences more and more stabilit

it is the position of the person who declared before we had a very poor in economical way country yeltsin and all this period will try to improve the situation and now dear friends and how it's a electorate i have to receive the possibility to start to looking forward and to do something that's not the position from the people of the foreigner or robber or point of view it's position of a person who says yes we did something but it's not enough but we did something and we have to do something more well here's a quote from the russian prime minister on why russia should develop modern technologies. russia must play a bigger part in the international division of labor not only as a supplier of commodities analogy but as a number of regularly rooted carting engine technology in at least some sectors otherwise we are doomed to deplete our resources by constantly exchanging down for expensive for in technology to produce consumer goods materials and pharmaceuticals that we cannot develop ourselves. well this quote basically means that russia has not overcome its dependence on commodities which

there are a lot of things that have significantly improved over the last years since the time of the yeltsin era. but that that really isn't the point the point is u.s. interference in terminal russian election affairs is something that ought not to be tolerated in there and it's quite right not to tolerate it iran says it won't give in to international pressure at abandon its controversial nuclear program even if it's banned from selling a single barrel of oil it's tara's a response to this week's approval by the u.s. senate committee of a package of sweeping new sanctions against the islamic state but. a bill has yet to pass through before congress u.s. initiative targeting to iran's nuclear program follows the e.u. adopting a total of want to wrongly in oil do come into force in july public in turn has repeatedly said it will stop all crude supplies to some european countries before summer tehran maintains its atomic ambitions are peaceful and seeking to prove it by cooperating more closely with the u.n. nuclear watchdog a team of inspectors visited iran this week planning to return in fe

became a target of these plots just in one thousand nine hundred three back then president buddies yeltsin almost became a target of bomb plot before that during the soviet times soviet leader i learned british if he's a motorcade was attacked by a gunman but i think it's probably. the lead in who tops this list since some historians believe that he survived up to ten assassination sustentation attempts on his life. ok article pace of life from central moscow i thank you for that. well today's news is of course on against the backdrop of the presidential election that's taking place on sunday let's focus on the campaign itself now putin has been writing a series of articles in leading newspapers outlining his plans recent one is on foreign policy let's discuss it with mr mitchy bobbitt she joins us now in the studio here when our team well putin says that russia will pursue an independent foreign policy as he talked about russia's veto that the u.n. security council resolution on syria what do you make of that and doesn't some compromise have to be made but i think it's nothing new because

several of the country's previous leaders have also been targets of assassination plots morris yeltsin macao gorbachev leonid brezhnev end of life in your line and almost to avoid being killed thanks to their security guards and intelligence agencies. assassination plots aside prime minister putin is gearing up for his presidential bid sunday publishing his latest article outlining a vision for russia's future this time the focus on foreign policy the premier criticized u.s. efforts to promote regime change in the arab world. the recent events showed that the desire to impose democracy by force can and often does lead to opposite results leads to a rise in extremism which attempts to change the course of the country's development and secure rule putin also reaffirmed moscow's refusal to back the u.s. led drive to pressure the syrian president to step down political analyst dmitri babich thinks the kremlin simply wants the international community to adopt a more balance and key specific approach to solving the conflict i think the whole article is not anti western. we do know obviously

there are a lot of things that have significantly improved over the last years since the time of the yeltsin era. but that that really isn't the point the point is us interference in internal russian election affairs is something that ought not to be tolerated and it's quite right not to tolerate it who do you think western countries would prefer to see as the next russian president old well the cast of opposition people that they're financing and back in are pretty dubious a lot. of me and so forth these are all people who've sold their soul to washington for one price or another i think really their expectation is to create as much internal unrest in russia as possible to distract the prospective new putin presidency at a time when russia is going to face challenges with the missile defense with the destabilization of the assad regime in syria the attempt to create regime change in iran and throughout the middle east and you raise or to try to divert any russian any incoming russian government from dealing with these crises and they have the latest rallies have any bearing on how russia is