part of ukraine closer is this nation be european union was supposed to be all about economy but instead it provoked a political rapture of the kind of the continent hasn't seen in decades can you really divorce politics from economy in the case of your brain full to discuss that i'm now joined by john brown a former british politician and currently in your market strategist for europe pacific capital mr brown thank you very much for being here. it's very good to be with you well and mr brown in minsk meeting between putin and patrol pressure produced a lot of media coverage but in practical terms and it didn't lead to much or at least much that we are aware of and here i think both of them are under extreme pressure from multiple sides to produce some sort of progress towards peace what are the chances in your view of them agreeing to anything constructive well i think it's a pretty modest sarge line at the moment and whether there are they're able to reach any form of agreement depends on the compromise between the united states europe

and russia. not really on the ukraine and syria really depends on those big what they would agree to and of course we should be seeking compromise i totally agree with you well it's interesting that you say that because today the russian daily commerce sandro that impression could put in perhaps for the first time mad if not their worth upon and then at least an equally skilled negotiator and i think it's also interesting that both of them when they were younger they used to practice judo so that perhaps impacted dire way of conducting politics i want to if you believe that any win win is possible between putin and poroshenko yes i think it is possible but it would have to be a negotiation table and that in other words whatever was if such a compromise was reached that table it's still got to be approved and agree. need

to buy the united states and europe that's the real battle is the almost cold war situation and this is a second table that's being talked about it would have to be approved at the top table and say whatever is agreed if there is an agreement. today then it would have to be approved to really hold will any water in the future but mr brown the united states and even the european union are far away whereas you know russia and ukraine share the border and obviously a bay both suffer from the conflict and if the new crane because of the refugees because of the damage to that bilateral trade what have you i mean it's simply you know for of humanitarian reasons they've devastating to have something like i do really think that they cannot decide just between the two of them on the bad it's the right time to put an end to it but i think they could that compromise or what i'm saying is that if that agreement was reached and it would be wonderful if it was it would still have to be approved at the top table and that's the big struggle

is between the united states and russia so if it was agreed with those two and maybe europe at that top table then it would say it would it would stand and of course you mentioned the economic side i don't believe that economics really can be removed from politics politics is about power an economy intelligence military the. will to use those things is politics and so economy is an integral part of of. politics and i don't think it can be removed and of course the economic suffering that's going on now on both sides in the ukraine and in russia is part of the political thing and of course now president obama having i think the americas made for great blunders festival they tried to extend nato into the russian sphere of influence in eastern europe. secondly they meddled in the ukraine

particularly european union trying to bring ukraine out of the russian sphere of influence into the european influence that was a big mistake because it threatened russia just as the extension of nato did and then america obama failed totally to see the similarity between the crimean situation and the cuban situation of the one nine hundred sixty s. in the cuban situation said the union trod on americans vital interests close to america and president kennedy could not stand down even if it meant going to nuclear summer and i'm sorry for interrupting you here but i think it's really all know that america doesn't see russia as an equal partner i mean what's allowed to america certainly in the in the minds of sound washington insiders is not allowed to russia but can i ask you about something that you mentioned earlier that you know any possible deal should be aggrieved by the big table by the big powers of

the united states and the really ripping union. yesterday really heard from some finnish officials that they were very instrumental in facilitating a secret and high level meeting between the americans and the russians on the ukrainian issue they said that that meeting took place somewhere in finland earlier this month so that perhaps shows that both russians and americans are looking for some sort of compromises in this crisis what would that compromise look like but i've no idea what the compromise would look like but i have my own personal opinion it's very good news of a compromise was reached i personally think that one solution would be good would be to have ukraine as an old thomas country within the russian sphere of influence totally autonomous with its own government and everything else and free and fair elections not like the last elections but really. proper elections and even with

the eastern ukraine being an autonomous region but mr brown when you say a russian sphere of influence what exactly do you are in in it were sent to the russian sphere of influence means that area that russia feels is really part of its sphere of influence and certainly the crimea was and i believe russia believes in the thinks that ukraine is also in its sphere of influence and resented deeply the efforts by the european union and the united states to try on a road to link between ukraine and russia and try to pull ukraine into the european union which i think would be a very grave mistake because it would only antagonize russia well mr brown if i may quote the russian president mr putin here yesterday he was very vocal about russia not wanting to exert any pressure of area claims he actually said that russia doesn't want to be a part of any. peace deal negotiations he believes that this is something that

ukrainians have to decide for themselves do you think by perhaps on their playing russia's interest here if he is playing quiet i mean he said that he's fine with ukrainian making their own choice but not at russia's expands that was crucial to him yes i think it's obama to the negotiating game to throw out these conditions and feelings of goodwill to show a willingness to negotiate to reach a compromise but how much credence to give them is another matter i believe that russia certainly will hold on to the primary it's a vital warm water vote and i believe russia will not agree to anything that allows the ukraine to slip from its sphere of influence into the european union and least a vote into nato now you mentioned some of the mistakes that you believe the obama administration made and i wonder if you believe that any possible deal could be sold to the american public because a bomb already has. been criticized as being too weak with putin on syria as you

know he's been lambasted by people both on the democratic and republican side war not playing tough against putin down here afford to accept any ah there peace deal without being criticized for appeasing putin while he's made it very difficult because the failure to see the similarity between a crime in and the cuban crisis of the one nine hundred sixty s. prevented him from coming to president putin and then both agreeing okra secretary president putin and both agreeing to a compromise over the ukraine on the crime in ukraine is really a child of the crime in president putin was so successful in the crimea that he started to get ambitious and look towards the ukraine and if obama had stalled that by reaching an overriding agreement saying ok we'll we'll play cooler on the crimea you take the crimea will pave group would you play fair on the ukraine i think a compromise responsible but obama failed to see that and then he magnified it even

more afraid to fight russia with soldiers on the ground he tried to institute sanctions and that exposed because the european union does almost ten times the trade with russia the artists within nato particularly germany and we've now got winter coming on. and germany has only as forty percent of its total energy imported from russia so i think obama has landed us in a very weak position and it's going to be very difficult for him to recover from it and still hold his head now let me just say that i totally disagree with your analysis on our russia's role in the ballance and if the new crane i think the united states and any other countries that allied rushes into fans there are yet to produce any evidence of that but having. sad that i think this is something that

ukrainians or at least the ukrainian establishment fully believes and they believe that they're at war with russia this is something that you hear all the time from ukrainian television channels and i think that puts poroshenko in a very difficult bind because on one hand he always they cannot expect to win over russia militarily but he also doesn't want to be seen as negotiating with putin what other options that he have kept he strike any deal with putin without being accused of being a traitor at home while he has called for new elections and it is as you rightly say it's very difficult situation because that is he would be seen as being weak. by reaching agreement with president putin but i think that that is what has got to happen otherwise there will be war and it will produce stars in the colder weather which favors the russians particularly threatening energy cut all cylinders the ukraine but even two other countries that come to the aid of the ukraine like

germany and so on. i think it's going to be very difficult but that is the aim that is compromised both sides must lose in a compromise but russia is by far the most powerful. entity at the negotiating table and will probably lose the least while mr brown let me challenge you on that because i sometimes think that the ukrainians actually have the strongest negotiating position because since they're broke they can really afford to make all sorts of threats including the threat of sabotaging the gas transit to europe every chance i think that ultimate trump card do you think they're likely to use that trump card is that really on the table now that a russian gas supplies would be totally cut off well yes that would be a very major trauma that dangerous to play would be like playing with a double edged sword most of all it would give russia. an ideal excuse to invade

our hardly the ukraine and reestablish a warsaw pact type regime on the ukraine secondly if the sabotage resulted in europe and particularly germany losing large parts of its energy germany would immediately stop the sanctions and would be forced more towards the russian camp than the american camp and so it would be a very dangerous two edge sword in my opinion ok mr brown we have to take a very short break now but when we come back if i didn't put in a really sad on invading for most of it here publics and i thought what for that coming up in a few moments on of all the part. legislates

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welcome back to worlds apart where we are discussing the ukrainian crisis big john brown a former british politician and currently senior market strategist for europe pacific capital mr brown we talked about fresh uncle we talked about obama let's talk about putin's i know that you wrote recently that president putin is trying to reduce the blish the old russian empire by using so-called tactics that are used by taking over small slices of territory which are too minor to spark a conflict and i personally don't think that crimea is that description but anyway if you look at the map of russia it's a huge country in fact is the largest country in the world by landmass so why on earth would you think that putin is motivated by territorial gains well i as you say russia has huge eleven time zones it's just enormous. but

a motivation is that two things first of all in the. the original piece the end of the cold war russia was smarting you know having looked as if it had been defeated by the united states and europe and so on and russia has a very proud nation and i think resents that and also russia if you look at it from the russian point of view is very keen on its defense a lot of its borders a mountain areas and huge rivers but the big corrido of flat ideal tank an armored warfare country comes through germany and poland into russia and therefore its western front is very important to secure and i believe that russia saw sutton the ukraine as a vital military installation and a vital interest to ukraine and that had to be taken back the ukraine was really the child of of the crimea because he was so successful in the crimea that he was

tempted to start getting back some of the territory that they felt that i feel russians you know were taken from them in the end of the cold war and countries not moldavia and even the baltics should be extremely worried well but mr brown is there any evidence to support the theory because we keep hearing it all the time from many western forces but you know they had the russian support for rubbles in ukraine ah there any concrete avid ends of that i mean i understand that some people may sympathize for a you know all sorts of reasons but odds are any concrete evidence of the russian state supporting be insurgency in your crane i did what i recall as i'm sitting here in america don't know anything on the ground it's just that i know the russians are an old country a very old and experienced diplomatic nation and it would be unwise to allow those sort of things to leak out into the west i see the headlines of the financial times

today photographs of so-called russian parachutists that were captured whether they are whether they're not is left as a nope. in question and quite rightly so russia wouldn't want to be seen to be over strong in this area everything's done sort of just this need to start with until it is provoked openly and if it was openly provoked as you suggested like sabotaging the gas pipelines and then oil pipelines things like that then russia would be more open but at the moment it's a clandestine game and therefore there's very little evidence and russia is trying to make sure that there is none but mr brown they have american intelligence services have very substantial global outreach i mean the whole world is being spied on by american satellites so if there were any significant movement troops and i'm not talking about those ten paratroopers who are quoting to the russian defense ministry just crossed over into ukraine by mistake because i mean if russia really wanted to say is send somebody into ukraine or i'm sure they were incensed

conscripts i think they would perhaps sound special forces but nonetheless the united states which supports this theory of russia's meddling in be craning insurgency still hasn't provided any avid dance any shot satellite images what have you of russian troops russian military russian equipment being there on the ground well america has said there are more than twenty thousand russian soldiers amassed on the border with tanks artillery and so on heavy equipment. but it i do know the american intelligence community what enough to say whether or not they feel it's in their interest to release photographs at the moment they i think of taking the judgment that it's not an american interest to release any photographs otherwise they would have done. just yes president kennedy or loose photographs say with cuba mr brown i mean even you mentioned the cuban crisis but i think in the cuban crisis americans did provide satellite images i think there was concrete evidence on the

table that you know that actually forced the russians into to back out. of cuba but i. danny the same in a some of the same was presented in ukraine we wouldn't spend but so far it's all just baseless speculation and it's totally unsubstantiated well you're right i guess what i said in cuba photographs were produced they went satellites we didn't have satellites in those days there were you to photograph from airplanes but the fact is that america hasn't produced the photographs and it clearly has them from satellite. and therefore it overseas sees that it's not in its interests yet to produce them. i don't know what the secret agreements or whether the top level of american terms think but it seems that there's a lot of them that are necessary for it into interjecting your you were comparing the crimean theater is situation to get to the cuban crisis but let me bring in and now there are example from history and this is the focal and conflict over the full

planned islands and i know that you worked in margaret thatcher's government the government that initiated that campaign to regain the. land islands and ever since the u.k. government maintained that the people of the full clans have a right to self-determination in two thousand and thirteen there was even a referendum that previous very similar result to the referendum in crimea so why do you think the right of self-determination was allowed to the people of the focal length but is not allowed to the people of crimea well i'm sorry to disagree agree with their eggs on a four guns a gin and tonic different battle was fought against a soul with a nation by great britain basically on its own with american intelligence and things like that but basically on its own and britain is quite secure in the fact that the majority of the island is want to stay with britain so it's very easy

for britain to say that we would only give them independence if the people voted for it prime or is entirely different or you have a big russian speaking population in the east river rather favor staying with russia and the others peoples in the west and the state is what tempted tempted to go along with the european. honey job that was held coming to us from being a using the economy of the military purposes to sort of wean them away from russia but mr brown if we look at the result of that referendum in crimea it was also overwhelmingly in favor of joint. in russia i mean most people in crimea who went to the polling stations they voted for aligning themselves with russia reach i think is very similar to what their you had in the fall when the islands the the results of those referendums are in the ninety's so i as far as i'm concerned it's quite similar well in the foreground islands the referendum suited the major issues

great britain in the ukraine the referendum did not suit the major which is russia and that is the big difference. well speaking about double standards here. well i mean super powers have double standards i mean look at the invasion of the gulf war two into iraq totally illegal by the united nations and international law totally illegal but america led the allies into that invasion and there is stupidly got rid of saddam hussein who was a sunni strongman holding the shiites a day and giving great stability to the middle east i mean got rid of saddam hussein american facing chaos in the middle east well i think america is facing cares not only in the middle east they're all not only in iraq but also in a number of other countries where you've got time to to install democratic leadership and i think the ukrainian example is also somewhat relevant here but if

i could bring it to the economic side of the things it wouldn't said that he's not going to negotiate the crimea but he said that he's quite open to negotiate a number of other questions for example the free trade agreement that still stands between russia and ukraine but according to put in there is one condition that the european union ukraine the united states have to take into account russia's considerations and perhaps make some concessions perhaps make some amendments to the association agreement so that russia feels that its opinion is also taking into account its concerns are. addressed if you were a what would you do because i mean percent is under very had a pressure of not. you know yielding anything to russia but on the other hand i think it would be a pretty good deal if he if he could preserve both the free trade with russia and go on on the path of close r.c.h. and with the european union what would you do in his place were are entirely agree

with you i think it would be a very good deal if he were able to keep his people. able to agree with him and support him in real. ching an agreement with russia so that russia did as those conditions say retained its overall influence over the ukraine although it allowed to do a whole ton of those things like trading and like that even internationally and would russia but the overall sphere of influence would be back with mother russia and that's what i think it will end up as but if. you crane and western ukraine was able to negotiate within those parameters i think you would have peace in the ukraine and i think you would have president obama only too willing to agree and get out of there and save the embarrassment and get rid of the sanctions which are harming particularly germany and european union and of course threatening the stability of nato so they would be very clean to came to find

a way out and that would offer a way out mr brown that you just mentioned president obama and obviously we have midterm elections coming up in the united states which will at least an official i guess kick off a new presidential campaign and i wonder if president obama can really really use this chance to turn these. policy crisis in ukraine into a policy success and perhaps event burnish. you know peacemaking credentials something that i think he wanted to do in both syria and gaza but failed is there is there any political points that he can score on the ukraine either himself or his party is very difficult having made the blunders he's made already it's very difficult to get out with an election winning hero's welcome i think history is going to prove that he is the most disastrous president america has ever had and it's going to be very difficult to cover that trial and i don't see russia cooperating to help him in any way while there is at least one incentive for russia

to call for a van that is to bring peace to ukraine ricci is sad for reaching a sad america would still be instrumental yes. america will be instrumental but it will be the ventura solution i believe to the ukraine as i said before will be an autonomous ukraine and the sphere of influence of russia with probably increased or ptolemy with the eastern russian speaking part of the ukraine which will virtually be a province of russia and that would suit russia it would bring priest to the ukraine and it would give obama an excuse to get out without too much egg on his face and would allow the repair of nato and the getting rid of the sanctions which are. very badly at a time of international recession looming on the horizon well at mr brown this is all we have time for we have to leave it here but i really appreciate you being on the shelf been a great pleasure and to our viewers please keep the conversation going on i twitter

facebook and you tube pages and i hope this hearing can fame place same time here in a while the party. gender trumpet simple as it is the gender madness in swedish i'm getting there because i found this. project with its finest seventy thousand euro to investigate the triumphant from a gender perspective. it's hard to see. it is the state sponsor russia

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play. ukraine's president petro poroshenko. hundreds of the generals building in central. heat. losses in the rest of the east. and syria will be looking into why the group is enjoying such a wide ranging appeal.