Andriy Shevchenko MP - Fatherland Party, Ukraine and Alexander Nekrassov - Former Kremlin Advisor HARDtalk

denies murder and claims he mistook her for an intruder. Now on BBC

News, it's time for HARDtalk. Welcome to HARDtalk. Just how far

will Russia go? It is a question preoccupying not just Ukrainians at

government across the Western world. Vladimir Putin has Crimea firmly in

his grip, pushing his forces on into areas of eastern Ukraine. It could

surely tip this crisis into a shooting war. I am joined by two

gas. Andriy Shevchenko and Alexander Nekrassov. Is there a way back from

the brink? Alexander Nekrassov in London and

also Andriy Shevchenko in Kiev, Ukraine, well, both of you to

HARDtalk. We have heard from Vladimir Putin, saying that Russia

reserves the right to use all means at its disposal in this crisis with

Ukraine. Having heard what he said, do you believe military operations

against the expanded further? President Putin pointed out there is

a possibility this might happen so we can only take him on his word.

But the way the situation has been developing, I think the general view

that Russia takes and Moscow's President Putin as well is that the

West has greatly miss judged the way Russia would respond to events in

the Ukraine. I think, the thinking was in Western capitals that Russia

would be taking it sitting back, in a way that it would not take any

drastic measure. The assumption was that Russia would not violate

international norms and laws. The other mistake that was made was that

the interim government in Ukraine quickly achieved support across the

country and that did not happen as well. The interim government, in my

opinion, make a big mistake of sounding very hostile to the Russian

speaking community especially with that law on Russian language in the

country and others. Let me stop you there. We will get to what happened

after the immediate aftermath of president Viktor Yanukovich, and his

fleeing the country. I want to turn to Andriy Shevchenko in Kiev to also

analyse where we are right now. You to heard the words of Vladimir

Putin. Clearly he has Crimea under his military control and your

government has declared that as an outrageous provocation and an act of

war. I am wondering whether you still expect to see a military

response from your government? We have been witnessing a clear

military intervention into Ukrainian territorial. I think it is a great

challenge not just for a country but a huge challenge for the coalition

and the whole world. I think Russia has taken the world back into the

era of the Cold War. I think now it is a challenge for the international

immunity and the only way to get out of this is to see the military

withdrawn from the Crimean peninsulas and deescalation isn't

the only way out of the crisis. As things stand, there is no sign of

deescalation. He appears to have not plans to de-escalate, Vladimir

Putin. I come back to the basic question, if your government is

describing what has happened as an act of war, explain to me why there

has not been a Ukrainian military response? From the very first day we

clearly saw that it was meant to be a provocation and the goal of the

provocation was to start a full-scale battle operation. I

think, we still have a chance to get out of this crisis with political

and diplomatic means. Ukraine has just gone through a shock of mass

violence and mass murder in the streets of Kiev. What this country

needs at the moment is peace and stability and we believe we still

have a way, a chance to find eight is full solution. Albright. Let us

think for a second about how we got here and their wickedness in what

happens next. Alexander Nekrassov, would you accept the Russian

narrative of what happened after the fall of Viktor Yanukovich has small

holes in it than a is cheese? Would you accept that? No, I do not. The

pressure on Ukraine started to build up after the agreement with Ukraine

from the EU fell through and president Viktor Yanukovich went

with the Russian agreement. I saw that agreement. I am one of the few

people that know the text. You are talking about the association

agreement? That is taking us back to November. We know what Viktor

Yanukovich did... That is an important thing. After that, once

Viktor Yanukovich refused to sign it, there were protests on the

street and people had legitimate grievances. We accept that. Viktor

Yanukovich was not the best presidents, his government was

incompetent but what happened afterwards, extremists and radicals

started to take over and use of the protests to put pressure on the

government and push out Viktor Yanukovich. Can we talk on the

agreement? I will get you back in in a second. While I talk about a

Russian narrative having more holes than a Swiss cheese primarily

because of these, Putin says that Russian forces are written Crimea

because president Viktor Yanukovich, whom he still recognises even though

he says he has no real future, he says that Viktor Yanukovich wrote in

a letter on March one requesting Russian military intervention to

save the Russian ethnic population in Crimea. The problem is, on the

28th of February, just one day before, in public, president Viktor

Yanukovich has said the stash any is unacceptable for Viktor Yanukovich

asked Ron meant anything, is simply not true. The government of the crop

and also Datia happen without a shot being fired the country. Troops

Russia 6,000 Russians and in. The stable part of their steel arm group

depots. When your transitional government

took over, it made fundamental mistakes. Like the signal you sent

when you decided Russia would no longer be accepted as an official

language immediately after the new government was formed. That was a

terrible mistake. This law, which was not downgrading the Russian

language because it is detected by the Constitution... This law never

was enacted. It was voted in the Parliament. This never happened. But

from then on, Russia propaganda was talking bout of this law. The

reality is very different. In the streets of Kiev, 90% of newspapers

are in Russian. 88% of magazines are in Russian. There are plenty of

Russian schools around the country. This assumption is very important to

understand. It is not the Russian speaking community which invited the

Russian troops to Crimea. It is a nightmare for the Russian people in

Crimea to see Russians with guns on the streets. The decision made in

Moscow has nothing to do with the will of Ukrainian people. Why is

Russia, both the state and the state owned media, telling what can only

be described as lies inside Ukraine? Reports of 600,000 Russian

speaking Ukrainians fearing persecution. That was reported but

it was not true. It is an interesting question. I was planning

to ask Andriy Shevchenko, how does it happen that Western media is

publishing information that is not true. He cannot be held responsible

for Western media. But you, as an adviser and a Russian journalist,

can answer these how can they peddle those lies when they are going to

exacerbate the crisis? I will say to you that the Western media has been

peddling propaganda and the very latest example is the so-called

ultimatum which was supposedly, supposedly, delivered to the

Ukrainian forces in Crimea. It came from Kiev, from an unnamed source

will stop just like it happen, the so-called stand-off in one of the

bases which was eight classical propaganda exercise. Would you be

prepared to answer my question? Which was about the claims... And

you have said on this programme that you have knowledge of the

prosecutions and dangers faced by Russian community in the Ukraine.

Explain to me what evidence of the reason for the reporting of state

owned media that hundreds of thousands of Russian speaking

Ukrainians are so fearful for their lives that they are fleeing across

the border into Russia to stop give me one shred of evidence for that?

First of all, I never saw the figure. The Governor said that to

his knowledge, there were already 140,000 refugees. I think he got

that wrong because there are people who are openly worried about what

might happen to them and they are voicing their concerns publicly. A

lot of relatives talk to each other over the border with Russia. That is

how it happens. They give figures are people. This is a confusing

situation, of course. Can I give you two specific examples? This is the

picture above, the picture shown by Russian television. About

Russian-speaking minorities fleeing the country. This was actually taken

from the Polish border. And this was what was actually on the Russian,

Ukrainian border. It is empty. Another picture of fighting between

protesters and police. It was actually taken in Kiev, one month

earlier. You may present that evidence. We have no way of

verifying it but there are serious questions for you too. Clearly,

there are people in the Russian speaking communities in Ukraine and

certainly in Russia itself, who look at the make-up of the government in

which your party, the Fatherland Party plays a dominant role, and

they are seriously worried it has taken a major turn toward the

nationalist, even the racist. Look at some of the people inside your

government today. Several ministers are extreme right with a history

that has used anti-Semitic language and racist language. Also senior

officials in your government from the right sector movement which is

even more extreme. How can you justify that? Let me pick up on

that. The two first protesters who were killed by police in Maidan were

ethnic Russians. They have been here in the done since the first day. The

Crimean have been mostly Maidan. One of the first decisions of the new

administration was to appoint the president of the Jewish

Confederation of Ukraine. If all that the case, how uncomfortable

must you be to see right sector as key constituents of this new

government in Ukraine? The right sector has not yet joined the

government and there is a question whether they will be part of a new

station or not. It is a parliamentary party that has shown

its abolition. My point is very clear. It has been a peaceful

country. This treatment of ethnic minorities explains why we have

never had military action in this area since World War II. That is

something which is very different from how Russia treat its ethnic

minorities. There is not a single Ukrainian school in Russia but there

are dozens of Russian schools here in Ukraine. That is the difference.

We have sort of trade accusations to an extent a letter now focus on

where we go from here in this crisis. First, a simple question for

you, Alexander Nekrassov, does Russia still accept that Crimea is

sovereign Ukrainian territory, an integral part of Ukraine and has no

interest in annex a share in of Premier? Most definitely marked,

there is a part here. The people of Crimea have never been given a

chance to hold a referendum about their future. They were just past of

upright Nikita Khrushchev without being asked. In 1991, there was no

referendum or decision. If these people are allowed to have a

referendum and to decide how they want to be governed, that is when we

will start to think how we can help them. Are you saying that without

that referendum granted by the Ukrainian government, Russian forces

will not leave their current positions across Crimea? At the

moment, we are saying one thing. But the stability in Crimea has to be

protected. Otherwise, we will have chaos which has a ruptured in

certain areas of the country. It seems to me that maybe on both sides

there is a real innovation that the best you are looking over is so deep

and terrifying that you have realised on both sides of this

argument that you need to take a step back. Economics is important

here. We saw the Russian stock market for by more than 10%. Rebel

hitting historic lows. Russia is economically vulnerable and Vladimir

Putin knows it. The markets have recovered after that. The ruble has

strengthened. In the hope that they will not be all-out war. Like any

country, will not be all-out war. Like any

that when Russia's market suffer their own investments by Western

funds that suffer as well. When people like the founder of the fund

management group said investor confidence in Russia has been dealt

a massive blow, you need to worry. Unfortunately this crisis has

revealed that we have a chilly war, not a Cold War. It has been running

for a while now. We should not pay too much attention to this statement

because I have been a professional journalist for many years and I am

astonished by the level of propaganda in Western media during

the courage of the Ukrainian crisis. Astonished! You will have to stay

astonished because I am turning to a Andriy Shevchenko. You must be aware

there are divisions within the west about just how strong a response to

deliver to Vladimir Putin while the US is talking about taking

significant economic and diplomatic actions right away. It is clear that

the EU, led by the Germans want to be much more cautious because

Germany has a huge investment in Russian energy. You are not going to

get the isolation of Moscow that you would like to see, are you? I think

the only solution is the installation of the region. It is a

challenge to the United States of America and to the United Kingdom,

which in 1994, signed an agreement which was supposed to protect

Ukrainian territorial integrity. One important thing to understand. That

think about the Crimea itself. We should tell the difference between

occupation. Premier will suffer from this crisis. Most Crimeans are

shocked with what has been happening because they understand it is

killing the prosperous future of the peninsular.

I think it might be a complete disaster if this conflict continues

on. Talking of disaster, you need 30 billion dollars to stop your country

going bust. We know that Russia was putting up 15 billion which of

course it has now suspended. The US and EU were talking about a couple

of billion they would throw you in the short-term but Ukraine cannot

survive unless you find a compromise solution with Russia because Russia

provides your energy and in the end, will always be your key trading

partner. Isn't that actually why we here already that there are talks

now between your government and Russian ministers? There will have

to be a dialogue to get out of this. I think these days, we have a really

important chance to start a new relationship between the two

countries. In many senses, it is a blank sheet. We know quite well what

it means to be dependent on Russia. We are sick and tired of that. We

know quite well what it means to be independent. We need to learn what

interdependence means. I really hope that we find a new model of

relationship between the two countries and both of us will

benefit. It will not start from a military occupation. Do you think

about it Putin is prepared for compromise? Most definitely. Both

countries cannot even imagine, it would be a nightmare, if there is

any sort of fighting between Ukraine and Russia. Pigeon has sent copper

signals, Temperatures are falling again. A

cold start to the day but a day of contrasts across England and Wales.

It will start cold with a touch of frost but most of the places will

have a fine day. Through the morning, plenty of sunshine.