:00:00. > :00:00.denies murder and claims he mistook her for an intruder. Now on BBC
:00:00. > :00:19.News, it's time for HARDtalk. Welcome to HARDtalk. Just how far
:00:20. > :00:24.will Russia go? It is a question preoccupying not just Ukrainians at
:00:25. > :00:31.government across the Western world. Vladimir Putin has Crimea firmly in
:00:32. > :00:37.his grip, pushing his forces on into areas of eastern Ukraine. It could
:00:38. > :00:47.surely tip this crisis into a shooting war. I am joined by two
:00:48. > :00:50.gas. Andriy Shevchenko and Alexander Nekrassov. Is there a way back from
:00:51. > :01:26.the brink? Alexander Nekrassov in London and
:01:27. > :01:32.also Andriy Shevchenko in Kiev, Ukraine, well, both of you to
:01:33. > :01:38.HARDtalk. We have heard from Vladimir Putin, saying that Russia
:01:39. > :01:46.reserves the right to use all means at its disposal in this crisis with
:01:47. > :01:53.Ukraine. Having heard what he said, do you believe military operations
:01:54. > :01:57.against the expanded further? President Putin pointed out there is
:01:58. > :02:01.a possibility this might happen so we can only take him on his word.
:02:02. > :02:09.But the way the situation has been developing, I think the general view
:02:10. > :02:15.that Russia takes and Moscow's President Putin as well is that the
:02:16. > :02:19.West has greatly miss judged the way Russia would respond to events in
:02:20. > :02:26.the Ukraine. I think, the thinking was in Western capitals that Russia
:02:27. > :02:31.would be taking it sitting back, in a way that it would not take any
:02:32. > :02:36.drastic measure. The assumption was that Russia would not violate
:02:37. > :02:46.international norms and laws. The other mistake that was made was that
:02:47. > :02:49.the interim government in Ukraine quickly achieved support across the
:02:50. > :02:54.country and that did not happen as well. The interim government, in my
:02:55. > :03:00.opinion, make a big mistake of sounding very hostile to the Russian
:03:01. > :03:05.speaking community especially with that law on Russian language in the
:03:06. > :03:09.country and others. Let me stop you there. We will get to what happened
:03:10. > :03:15.after the immediate aftermath of president Viktor Yanukovich, and his
:03:16. > :03:22.fleeing the country. I want to turn to Andriy Shevchenko in Kiev to also
:03:23. > :03:28.analyse where we are right now. You to heard the words of Vladimir
:03:29. > :03:35.Putin. Clearly he has Crimea under his military control and your
:03:36. > :03:40.government has declared that as an outrageous provocation and an act of
:03:41. > :03:48.war. I am wondering whether you still expect to see a military
:03:49. > :03:53.response from your government? We have been witnessing a clear
:03:54. > :04:01.military intervention into Ukrainian territorial. I think it is a great
:04:02. > :04:06.challenge not just for a country but a huge challenge for the coalition
:04:07. > :04:11.and the whole world. I think Russia has taken the world back into the
:04:12. > :04:17.era of the Cold War. I think now it is a challenge for the international
:04:18. > :04:24.immunity and the only way to get out of this is to see the military
:04:25. > :04:31.withdrawn from the Crimean peninsulas and deescalation isn't
:04:32. > :04:35.the only way out of the crisis. As things stand, there is no sign of
:04:36. > :04:42.deescalation. He appears to have not plans to de-escalate, Vladimir
:04:43. > :04:49.Putin. I come back to the basic question, if your government is
:04:50. > :05:03.describing what has happened as an act of war, explain to me why there
:05:04. > :05:25.has not been a Ukrainian military response? From the very first day we
:05:26. > :05:46.clearly saw that it was meant to be a provocation and the goal of the
:05:47. > :06:07.provocation was to start a full-scale battle operation. I
:06:08. > :06:27.think, we still have a chance to get out of this crisis with political
:06:28. > :06:51.and diplomatic means. Ukraine has just gone through a shock of mass
:06:52. > :07:19.violence and mass murder in the streets of Kiev. What this country
:07:20. > :07:37.needs at the moment is peace and stability and we believe we still
:07:38. > :07:39.have a way, a chance to find eight is full solution. Albright. Let us
:07:40. > :07:45.think for a second about how we got here and their wickedness in what
:07:46. > :07:59.happens next. Alexander Nekrassov, would you accept the Russian
:08:00. > :08:24.narrative of what happened after the fall of Viktor Yanukovich has small
:08:25. > :08:40.holes in it than a is cheese? Would you accept that? No, I do not. The
:08:41. > :08:59.pressure on Ukraine started to build up after the agreement with Ukraine
:09:00. > :09:01.from the EU fell through and president Viktor Yanukovich went
:09:02. > :09:12.with the Russian agreement. I saw that agreement. I am one of the few
:09:13. > :09:16.people that know the text. You are talking about the association
:09:17. > :09:28.agreement? That is taking us back to November. We know what Viktor
:09:29. > :09:31.Yanukovich did... That is an important thing. After that, once
:09:32. > :09:35.Viktor Yanukovich refused to sign it, there were protests on the
:09:36. > :09:37.street and people had legitimate grievances. We accept that. Viktor
:09:38. > :09:38.Yanukovich was not the best presidents, his government was
:09:39. > :09:41.incompetent but what happened afterwards, extremists and radicals
:09:42. > :09:43.started to take over and use of the protests to put pressure on the
:09:44. > :09:46.government and push out Viktor Yanukovich. Can we talk on the
:09:47. > :09:48.agreement? I will get you back in in a second. While I talk about a
:09:49. > :09:51.Russian narrative having more holes than a Swiss cheese primarily
:09:52. > :09:53.because of these, Putin says that Russian forces are written Crimea
:09:54. > :09:55.because president Viktor Yanukovich, whom he still recognises even though
:09:56. > :09:58.he says he has no real future, he says that Viktor Yanukovich wrote in
:09:59. > :10:00.a letter on March one requesting Russian military intervention to
:10:01. > :10:02.save the Russian ethnic population in Crimea. The problem is, on the
:10:03. > :10:04.28th of February, just one day before, in public, president Viktor
:10:05. > :10:06.Yanukovich has said the stash any is unacceptable for Viktor Yanukovich
:10:07. > :10:10.asked Ron meant anything, is simply not true. The government of the crop
:10:11. > :10:16.and also Datia happen without a shot being fired the country. Troops
:10:17. > :10:19.Russia 6,000 Russians and in. The stable part of their steel arm group
:10:20. > :10:39.depots. When your transitional government
:10:40. > :10:47.took over, it made fundamental mistakes. Like the signal you sent
:10:48. > :10:53.when you decided Russia would no longer be accepted as an official
:10:54. > :11:01.language immediately after the new government was formed. That was a
:11:02. > :11:07.terrible mistake. This law, which was not downgrading the Russian
:11:08. > :11:18.language because it is detected by the Constitution... This law never
:11:19. > :11:24.was enacted. It was voted in the Parliament. This never happened. But
:11:25. > :11:29.from then on, Russia propaganda was talking bout of this law. The
:11:30. > :11:37.reality is very different. In the streets of Kiev, 90% of newspapers
:11:38. > :11:43.are in Russian. 88% of magazines are in Russian. There are plenty of
:11:44. > :11:47.Russian schools around the country. This assumption is very important to
:11:48. > :11:55.understand. It is not the Russian speaking community which invited the
:11:56. > :12:01.Russian troops to Crimea. It is a nightmare for the Russian people in
:12:02. > :12:05.Crimea to see Russians with guns on the streets. The decision made in
:12:06. > :12:13.Moscow has nothing to do with the will of Ukrainian people. Why is
:12:14. > :12:18.Russia, both the state and the state owned media, telling what can only
:12:19. > :12:28.be described as lies inside Ukraine? Reports of 600,000 Russian
:12:29. > :12:36.speaking Ukrainians fearing persecution. That was reported but
:12:37. > :12:40.it was not true. It is an interesting question. I was planning
:12:41. > :12:44.to ask Andriy Shevchenko, how does it happen that Western media is
:12:45. > :12:53.publishing information that is not true. He cannot be held responsible
:12:54. > :13:00.for Western media. But you, as an adviser and a Russian journalist,
:13:01. > :13:06.can answer these how can they peddle those lies when they are going to
:13:07. > :13:11.exacerbate the crisis? I will say to you that the Western media has been
:13:12. > :13:15.peddling propaganda and the very latest example is the so-called
:13:16. > :13:25.ultimatum which was supposedly, supposedly, delivered to the
:13:26. > :13:31.Ukrainian forces in Crimea. It came from Kiev, from an unnamed source
:13:32. > :13:35.will stop just like it happen, the so-called stand-off in one of the
:13:36. > :13:42.bases which was eight classical propaganda exercise. Would you be
:13:43. > :13:48.prepared to answer my question? Which was about the claims... And
:13:49. > :13:53.you have said on this programme that you have knowledge of the
:13:54. > :13:58.prosecutions and dangers faced by Russian community in the Ukraine.
:13:59. > :14:02.Explain to me what evidence of the reason for the reporting of state
:14:03. > :14:06.owned media that hundreds of thousands of Russian speaking
:14:07. > :14:10.Ukrainians are so fearful for their lives that they are fleeing across
:14:11. > :14:20.the border into Russia to stop give me one shred of evidence for that?
:14:21. > :14:27.First of all, I never saw the figure. The Governor said that to
:14:28. > :14:33.his knowledge, there were already 140,000 refugees. I think he got
:14:34. > :14:37.that wrong because there are people who are openly worried about what
:14:38. > :14:42.might happen to them and they are voicing their concerns publicly. A
:14:43. > :14:48.lot of relatives talk to each other over the border with Russia. That is
:14:49. > :14:58.how it happens. They give figures are people. This is a confusing
:14:59. > :15:05.situation, of course. Can I give you two specific examples? This is the
:15:06. > :15:11.picture above, the picture shown by Russian television. About
:15:12. > :15:16.Russian-speaking minorities fleeing the country. This was actually taken
:15:17. > :15:24.from the Polish border. And this was what was actually on the Russian,
:15:25. > :15:27.Ukrainian border. It is empty. Another picture of fighting between
:15:28. > :15:33.protesters and police. It was actually taken in Kiev, one month
:15:34. > :15:39.earlier. You may present that evidence. We have no way of
:15:40. > :15:45.verifying it but there are serious questions for you too. Clearly,
:15:46. > :15:48.there are people in the Russian speaking communities in Ukraine and
:15:49. > :15:53.certainly in Russia itself, who look at the make-up of the government in
:15:54. > :15:57.which your party, the Fatherland Party plays a dominant role, and
:15:58. > :16:03.they are seriously worried it has taken a major turn toward the
:16:04. > :16:10.nationalist, even the racist. Look at some of the people inside your
:16:11. > :16:16.government today. Several ministers are extreme right with a history
:16:17. > :16:22.that has used anti-Semitic language and racist language. Also senior
:16:23. > :16:25.officials in your government from the right sector movement which is
:16:26. > :16:31.even more extreme. How can you justify that? Let me pick up on
:16:32. > :16:37.that. The two first protesters who were killed by police in Maidan were
:16:38. > :16:51.ethnic Russians. They have been here in the done since the first day. The
:16:52. > :16:54.Crimean have been mostly Maidan. One of the first decisions of the new
:16:55. > :17:00.administration was to appoint the president of the Jewish
:17:01. > :17:10.Confederation of Ukraine. If all that the case, how uncomfortable
:17:11. > :17:15.must you be to see right sector as key constituents of this new
:17:16. > :17:20.government in Ukraine? The right sector has not yet joined the
:17:21. > :17:24.government and there is a question whether they will be part of a new
:17:25. > :17:27.station or not. It is a parliamentary party that has shown
:17:28. > :17:34.its abolition. My point is very clear. It has been a peaceful
:17:35. > :17:38.country. This treatment of ethnic minorities explains why we have
:17:39. > :17:42.never had military action in this area since World War II. That is
:17:43. > :17:48.something which is very different from how Russia treat its ethnic
:17:49. > :17:51.minorities. There is not a single Ukrainian school in Russia but there
:17:52. > :17:58.are dozens of Russian schools here in Ukraine. That is the difference.
:17:59. > :18:02.We have sort of trade accusations to an extent a letter now focus on
:18:03. > :18:09.where we go from here in this crisis. First, a simple question for
:18:10. > :18:15.you, Alexander Nekrassov, does Russia still accept that Crimea is
:18:16. > :18:18.sovereign Ukrainian territory, an integral part of Ukraine and has no
:18:19. > :18:26.interest in annex a share in of Premier? Most definitely marked,
:18:27. > :18:29.there is a part here. The people of Crimea have never been given a
:18:30. > :18:35.chance to hold a referendum about their future. They were just past of
:18:36. > :18:43.upright Nikita Khrushchev without being asked. In 1991, there was no
:18:44. > :18:48.referendum or decision. If these people are allowed to have a
:18:49. > :18:53.referendum and to decide how they want to be governed, that is when we
:18:54. > :18:58.will start to think how we can help them. Are you saying that without
:18:59. > :19:01.that referendum granted by the Ukrainian government, Russian forces
:19:02. > :19:07.will not leave their current positions across Crimea? At the
:19:08. > :19:12.moment, we are saying one thing. But the stability in Crimea has to be
:19:13. > :19:16.protected. Otherwise, we will have chaos which has a ruptured in
:19:17. > :19:19.certain areas of the country. It seems to me that maybe on both sides
:19:20. > :19:25.there is a real innovation that the best you are looking over is so deep
:19:26. > :19:28.and terrifying that you have realised on both sides of this
:19:29. > :19:33.argument that you need to take a step back. Economics is important
:19:34. > :19:42.here. We saw the Russian stock market for by more than 10%. Rebel
:19:43. > :19:46.hitting historic lows. Russia is economically vulnerable and Vladimir
:19:47. > :19:51.Putin knows it. The markets have recovered after that. The ruble has
:19:52. > :19:55.strengthened. In the hope that they will not be all-out war. Like any
:19:56. > :20:03.country, will not be all-out war. Like any
:20:04. > :20:12.that when Russia's market suffer their own investments by Western
:20:13. > :20:15.funds that suffer as well. When people like the founder of the fund
:20:16. > :20:21.management group said investor confidence in Russia has been dealt
:20:22. > :20:26.a massive blow, you need to worry. Unfortunately this crisis has
:20:27. > :20:32.revealed that we have a chilly war, not a Cold War. It has been running
:20:33. > :20:38.for a while now. We should not pay too much attention to this statement
:20:39. > :20:40.because I have been a professional journalist for many years and I am
:20:41. > :20:45.astonished by the level of propaganda in Western media during
:20:46. > :20:51.the courage of the Ukrainian crisis. Astonished! You will have to stay
:20:52. > :20:55.astonished because I am turning to a Andriy Shevchenko. You must be aware
:20:56. > :21:00.there are divisions within the west about just how strong a response to
:21:01. > :21:03.deliver to Vladimir Putin while the US is talking about taking
:21:04. > :21:07.significant economic and diplomatic actions right away. It is clear that
:21:08. > :21:12.the EU, led by the Germans want to be much more cautious because
:21:13. > :21:15.Germany has a huge investment in Russian energy. You are not going to
:21:16. > :21:23.get the isolation of Moscow that you would like to see, are you? I think
:21:24. > :21:29.the only solution is the installation of the region. It is a
:21:30. > :21:34.challenge to the United States of America and to the United Kingdom,
:21:35. > :21:42.which in 1994, signed an agreement which was supposed to protect
:21:43. > :21:45.Ukrainian territorial integrity. One important thing to understand. That
:21:46. > :21:55.think about the Crimea itself. We should tell the difference between
:21:56. > :21:58.occupation. Premier will suffer from this crisis. Most Crimeans are
:21:59. > :22:02.shocked with what has been happening because they understand it is
:22:03. > :22:12.killing the prosperous future of the peninsular.
:22:13. > :22:21.I think it might be a complete disaster if this conflict continues
:22:22. > :22:27.on. Talking of disaster, you need 30 billion dollars to stop your country
:22:28. > :22:31.going bust. We know that Russia was putting up 15 billion which of
:22:32. > :22:35.course it has now suspended. The US and EU were talking about a couple
:22:36. > :22:40.of billion they would throw you in the short-term but Ukraine cannot
:22:41. > :22:44.survive unless you find a compromise solution with Russia because Russia
:22:45. > :22:49.provides your energy and in the end, will always be your key trading
:22:50. > :22:52.partner. Isn't that actually why we here already that there are talks
:22:53. > :22:57.now between your government and Russian ministers? There will have
:22:58. > :23:04.to be a dialogue to get out of this. I think these days, we have a really
:23:05. > :23:09.important chance to start a new relationship between the two
:23:10. > :23:14.countries. In many senses, it is a blank sheet. We know quite well what
:23:15. > :23:18.it means to be dependent on Russia. We are sick and tired of that. We
:23:19. > :23:24.know quite well what it means to be independent. We need to learn what
:23:25. > :23:28.interdependence means. I really hope that we find a new model of
:23:29. > :23:32.relationship between the two countries and both of us will
:23:33. > :23:36.benefit. It will not start from a military occupation. Do you think
:23:37. > :23:43.about it Putin is prepared for compromise? Most definitely. Both
:23:44. > :23:47.countries cannot even imagine, it would be a nightmare, if there is
:23:48. > :23:51.any sort of fighting between Ukraine and Russia. Pigeon has sent copper
:23:52. > :24:34.signals, Temperatures are falling again. A
:24:35. > :24:41.cold start to the day but a day of contrasts across England and Wales.
:24:42. > :24:44.It will start cold with a touch of frost but most of the places will
:24:45. > :24:49.have a fine day. Through the morning, plenty of sunshine.