what does this choice mean for the relations between russia and germany and between russia and europe in general europe which is now in the grip of an economic turmoil who ask this and other questions to a prominent expert and international relations in germany that. prudence travel plans have received a lot of media attention lately. in america and went to. germany. contra to visit. president germany has long been brushed. and one of the biggest markets last year russia germany is worth a record seventeen. countries are also working together on. line which would deliver russia. its first line was launched. welcome to the show thank you very much for being with us well first of all how was it seen here in germany that mr putin chose berlin as his first destination in europe first foreign nation outside the space. where for. schools of thought in germany concerning russia one is very into the ethic about russia this is the business community and the enthusiastically of course welcomed mr putin here in germany and they understand that through mr putin they can do business with russia an

schools of thought in germany concerning russia one it's very interesting ethic about russia this is a business community and the enthusiastically of course welcomed mr putin here in germany and they understand that for mr putin they can do business with russia and as long as he's in power they will face stability on the russian market and they simply see no alternative to him and can't imagine any real turn to for him in the next six years there's another through school of thought that a lot of. i would say moralists. liberals here in germany who would rather like to conduct policy oriented and focused solely on values towards russia and to they think the drug is departing from democracy they think that russia is turning towards tele tarion system and they didn't welcome putting it all so so so the reaction was mixed but german chancellor angela merkel she pressed putin to allow democratic diversity ike wants to develop in russia how serious is this issue on democracy in miracles policy towards putin had a very difficult to understand. german see value oriented policy viz every real

to twelve so we celebrate russia today. commemorating russia's state sovereignty declaration that you were a member of parliament back then the very problem and adopted the declaration. what was the essence of the declaration as seen at the time and why is that today's russians often referred to june twelfth as the dependence day. but i wasn't just a member of parliament i was one of the people who are rude the declaration and from where i'm standing so bringing independence day or even russia on june the twelfth outright ridiculous. it doesn't it seem strange to me that it is absurd as the purpose of the declaration was to try to find a medellin's of competencies between new soviet union and russia as its constituent republic. those who think the declaration was strictly bout independence and not actually read it. they don't realize that its key point was to establish the russian soviet federative socialist republic as a legal state within the soviet union. what should. go and indivisible state doesn't that hilton's go lib

in russia of course the context is somewhat different. government takes a very significant role not only controlling those resources but in developing them and exploring them so i suppose for the canadian companies the challenge is how do you navigate the unique circumstances of the russian oil and gas industry and how it's developed and we're still learning but as we move along but i'm optimistic that as time goes by more and more canadian companies will take an interest in that sector in russia but you might have noticed that when you were already here in russia with your visit that prime minister medvedev came up with the. pretty extensive program of privatization you know he proposed privatization in all of the gas sector in the banking sector so so. that should be a step in the direction you know what that's a very very positive signal you know there have been some other positive signals as well i met with russia's natural resources minister yesterday and he updated me on some of the regulatory and legislative changes that the russia

the same time keep its relations with major economic partner as russia is anyhow you with russia are part of the us not the force there are stumbling blocks they want material. being a fully fledged member of the e.u. one of them is possibly nato membership which president nicholas said that he would never take on and the other is the recognition of course of a. mistake and it has already made it clear that if serbia has to choose between recognizing cost of a on the e.u. then it can forget about the e.u. there is nothing new in the foreign relations you cited namely the same formulation as were made by former president serbia's national assembly had adopted five six years ago. declaring the military neutrality of serbia. within the present constellation is politically determined not to become the member of nato. constitution plame costs as a part of the country so no politician. disobey the basic principle is as stated in the constitution of the country he's already wrote the votes as well hasn't he there were deep sort of undone some of the work that was done to restore relations w

russia southern half of our joint commitment to develop russia's strategic partnership. as you all know the results of the two last years mockable the russian w t o accession the partnership of madonna's vision and the common steps toward a visa free travel the e.u. russia relationship is enjoying its best identities for years however that is still much we need to do we all do and that what is potentially possible strong political will and hot work with will be needed even in the coming years i therefore welcome president clinton's commitment to bringing this work for the together with european you. would have talks on the all grow by that real agenda and overload issues such as the economy and some of the more pressing international issues i would like to highlight the following points first on the economy for your up these are testing times but good driven by clear commitment a clear that i mean mission to work our way through the challenges we are aiming at swing getting growth in the european union that are many initiatives in the making and we will take fodor this e

russia human rights conservationism to do wrestles to twenty national june next time you hope for russia to hope post the culture of nations and finally we had some good discussions on the range of foreign policy issues. on syria let me first say that the situation is appalling the syrian regime should immediately cease all forms of violence and provides filter or to do un supervision mission european union and russia might have some divergent assessments but before you agree that i'm not as a whole provides the best opportunity to break this cycle of violence in syria avoiding a civil war and finding a peaceful lost and solution we need to combine our efforts in order for this to happen and to find common messages on which we agree we need to walk towards an immediate stop of all forms of violence in syria and what's process of political transition a new round we agree on the urgent need to prevent iran from acquiring nuclear weapons you and russia are working closely together and we all the partners on this issue and we look forward to the next round of talks in moscow where the e.u. w

public opinion in those sectors of russia who would start off from russia as a teacher and stood up a duty oh well russia is a part of the customs union how this statement made by you remains true. i mean that the attention to w t o. a minimal economic block of the basic agreement and mr brosnahan opinion on how we do integration of russia w t o what influence we have to the. elaboration or for the new. treaty of partnership and cooperation thank you. no no it is a letters beginning with a w t o. we have you see have seen the response separate sectors of russian economy. when we are here to w t o there are reasons but the instruments which we use within the requirements of a double to make us think by implementing those tools in our economy we can minimize those risks for a separate. directions of industry that is agriculture agriculture engineering. car industry etc several instruments are beginning to be used all the things in full agreement with the w t o requirements and other w t o member states are using these instruments as well let's just first second during the talks includin

never knew before and every place china russia russia europe the united states the middle class feels itself under threat is dissatisfied. and this is an important motor for social change in russia still america i mean which sounds to me you're saying is this the normalization of russian politics it is and what i hope for is i mean these demonstrations are in effect fairly useless at this point because they represent a minority viewpoint the majority of russians voted for vladimir putin and would vote for glad to be a putin again but what we need is a real opposition and effective opposition in. the british notion of a loyal opposition not simply being against everyone and everything but being for some positive solution. and this begins with regional politics this begins with people running for office for the mayor of of their city and gradually developing a real political alternative in russia which is something which is the missing until now given what you think about the nature of the opposition here i think you know eric isn't really with all due respect i have a slightly differen

i thought show that russia is growing russia is changing but there was no blunt most importantly there was no blood i don't think it was any harder on demonstrators than in any other country nor myself. i myself hope very much that what they are happens on the streets it will be peaceful and things what it was peaceful so i think it's a big step forward for any country in the world to do it to have demonstrations protestors but to make sure that their lives hell for their well being absolutely not. and i think russia is moving and moving in the right direction that's my feeling i'm artist i'm not spending hours and hours myself on the streets sure even in st petersburg i work in actually i hope a lot of people of russia will do this they just work quite hard that's why i'm interested in your opinion because the opinion of politicians are more or less easy it's a game for them but for you it's not a game it's a piece of it is it music is your world and this thing it's part of your world of this so so this is why it's very important for me to know your point of view what do you think and

calling russia the u.s. number one foreign to geo political with everything else that is going on in the world it seems really surprising to me that he would choose to do this the bigger issue for americans is what this may mean for american businesses in russia that's a very big issue another question is whether it's going to be conducive to eliciting a cooperative response in foreign affairs from the russian government i don't see how it's going to be less at that it seems to me that it's very ill timed to have this kind of sort of cold war era rhetoric flying about in washington at a time when it really needs russia's cooperation on a number of very important issues it seems to me what the u.s. ought to be doing is finding a way to cooperate with russia on these issues rather than inviting it to have some sort of a difficult relationship going forward and i know that was a political consultant daniel wagner with his assessment of the timing of repercussions of the magnitsky bill of. tempest here in moscow

and russia are not the e.u. or russia. doesn't or that was interesting you don't see that serbia will have to she's between the e.u. and russia you think it's possible to keep the right balance between them. you have a call of the level that i prefer not to have to make the choice that i'd like serbia to be a home with two doors one to the west and the other to the east serbia simply belongs to the east as well as to the west we have a traditional and deep relationship with russia not only in terms of origin but also in religion with the history customs language we have complimentary industries of we've had exceptional economic relations since the second world war unfortunately we ruined our industry with senseless privatisation which led to people losing their jobs never the less we have the education we have the will power and natural resources to collaborate once again with the russian federation at a much higher level since two thousand serbia has moved away from russia until two thousand and eight when russia signed w

it's technology innovations all the developments around russia we've got this huge earth covered. this is already coming to life from moscow a reminder of the top stories russia and the u.s. hope to find common ground despite their polar approaches to ending the syrian bloodshed as foreign minister lavrov meets secretary of state hillary clinton in st petersburg. surprising compromise evaders make concessions to finally agree on funneling money to struggling banks there were actually with talks at a brussels summit running well into the night. plus as age of braces for fresh protests against military rule the huge psychological toll the eighteen months of unrest have taken on the nation's people often goes ignored. as they have lines next to its technology update here on our t.v. don't go away. hello and welcome to technology update geographically massive countries like russia their advantages in efficiency the braille based transit or as big as the states themselves ever since man first tars the power of the locomotive engine has been a prime mover of both people and goods and th

specific role because recently you said the russia correct me if i'm wrong that russia should not be considered as one of the brics nations and will never be included into the g eight if it continues with its with its basically protectionist policy what you know in the g eight you know your president decide the not to attend the g. eight summit because he said he was busy creating his own cabinet that was a bit of a strange thing to do or like a snob you know in the case of the breaks the point is you know russia's potential growth today based on their statements by that with the going to be our central bank is three and a half percent. trying. to recently were growing eight nine percent now they're slowing down so you have a county where you have low potential gold where there is that you know not as much market oriented there. you have an aging of hope or nation there is a certain amount of lack of transparency that is such that amount of co-op shown though some of. the seas in the party got system that is institutional weaknesses of course that also strength general or a source sa

well i think russia is vital for the e.u. especially for germany not only historically despite the second world war but russia and germany have a kind of economic synergy that fits quite quite well together in quite positively germany exports the machine tools the. high value added technology that russia needs to rebuild its infrastructure or to build its infrastructure russia has at moment at the moment the raw materials and also the scientific know all that is world class it's often forgotten that the russian technology which is often found in the military area because of the exigencies of the cold war is is cutting edge or bleeding edge and in many cases compared to that of the west especially of the united states today so i think there's a very natural fit with natural gas energy. transfers and also export of machine tools and german says austria technology due to russia school relations there between the two what about france is there a similar relationship that particularly bearing in mind we have a new president in fra

now also during his visit russia's foreign minister responded to hillary clinton's claims that moscow supplying syrian authorities with combat helicopters but artie's lives these counseling have now joins us here to share her insight on both claims lucy take us through this string of these allegations where are the claims come from and how did russia's foreign minister respond exactly sure i knew so well the u.n. top u.n. official may have labeled the crisis in syria a full scale civil war but according to the u.s. secretary of state russia could be to blame for the escalating crisis secretary of state hillary clinton raised some eyebrows and caused quite a diplomatic stir on tuesday when she claimed that russian attack helicopters were on their way to damascus take a look. we have confronted the russians about stopping their continued arms shipments to to syria. they have from time to time said that we shouldn't worry everything they're shipping is unrelated to their actions internally that peyton li untrue and we are concerned about the latest information we have that there are atta

and russia are committed to boosting trade because right now it's a seemingly low russia was admitted into the world trade organization but there's still the jackson invented amendment which imposes restrictions on american companies doing trade was washing the obama administration has made it very clear that you know they want to move forward on that one so we're expecting some progress there apart from the trade as you're talking about one of the biggest financial concerns at the moment to the g. twenty that makes you. you know well as far as the main mission of the g. twenty is a group would be you know to calm down the markets basically sunday elections in greece showed an outcome which sort of fierce around the world at least temporarily of its falling out of the eurozone greece's conservative pro austerity party won the election because the majority of you know they do want to stay in the euro zone but they still have to form a pro bailout coalition it's a very painful process for the greeks. the conditions of those bailouts but the fears that the country could fall out of the e

russia's reserves around forty percent of them are held in euros so russia's economy heavily depends on the health of the euro itself and while they said. that looking for ways to get the eurozone out of the crisis of the crisis is first of all a decision for the members of the eurozone itself but of course russia will be assisting in its own possible ways in order to get finally through this crisis center for. energy cooperation in general is one of the most important aspects of the cooperation between russia and germany i mean of course the north stream pipeline project which is an international project. russia and germany and is aimed to send the russian gas directly to the european union it's actually almost finished and by the end of this year russian gas should start flowing directly to you would be in consumers but also once again reminded. russia and germany our strategic partners and the trade turnover has grown by around a third exceeding seventy billion us dollars which means that germany's russia's second largest trade partner after china and of course both leaders are sa

in russia during this campaign as the u.s. top political foe does it really reflect the republican party i can't believe that i mean i know very very many senior republicans including george shultz and looting and you could sit you who's of you cannot believe that it is so we should say so and i don't it's just an election rhetoric or what. i don't quite understand and i know that and to take an analogy there were russians are better understand they're doing the putin's presidential campaign he seems to be opposing united states is a threat to russia which i don't believe and i'm not. so i don't know people say and campaigns sometimes take extreme statements. but i do not believe that's going to be a big issue in this campaign. i do believe they'll be a difference in the whether through romney or obama in terms of how us russian relations develop and i'm inclined to believe that i would develop a more positive vein under obama than under romney so well this is very important so you think the russians i mean the kremlin and rus

well russia's stance on the conflict in syria housing change that was reiterated by role of russia wants to see a peaceful solution achieved through negotiations to the situation in syria. of rove said russia wouldn't accept any measures puts. the united nations that could lead will be interpreted to allow any kind of outside military intervention they said though that russia wouldn't just veto any resolution on syria but said that any resolution does say could be interpreted to allow outside military intervention and will be flocked by by russia for the u.n. security council members russia wants to see both the sides sit down and discuss their problems to try and find a diplomatic solution though it's circular for of saying that kofi annan six point peace plan was still the only viable option if peace was to be achieved in syria however it did acknowledge that the peace plan was stumbling a little at the moment though in terms of other four other countries outside nations wanting to to push for regime change sergey lavrov said that the government must in syria mustn't be blamed totally

with combat helicopters russia's foreign minister said moscow is fulfilling its obligations on earlier contracts which only involve the air defense systems the comments were made during circle of robes of visit to tehran our correspondent. is in the iranian capital. so you i would have said that after that announcement by hillary clinton even the pentagon came out saying that it doesn't have the information to confirm these claims and said you know our office said that russia is supplying arms to syria and i thought you said in accordance with previous contracts and these arms can only be used for air defense and not for any sort of aggression against civilians since moscow is completely against that and against supplying any side of this conflict with weapons which can be used to harm civilians unlike the russian foreign minister said i'm like the united states was also. condemned the calls by some western nations to apply pressure slowly on syrian authorities. everyone should stop the violence in syria if a part of the international community understands kofi annan plan only as a dem

minds russia would be so much brighter if you knew.

if you want to argue live from moscow with now take a look at our top stories russia seeks to break the iranian nuclear standoff by hosting an international conference in moscow all sides are a dog indeed with tough new american and european sanctions looming over tehran which refuses to relinquish its right to atomic energy. good news for those gathering for the g. twenty meeting to discuss among others the dead battered eurozone breeze seems to be stay with the euro as a pro bailout party takes the lead in the u. action. that egyptians are awaiting the results of the country's presidential election and as you can see in this live picture people are gathering in central cairo tough rear square as long as claim and unofficial early lead in the first democratic presidential polls since the ouster of hosni mubarak well the official results though are expected to be announced on thursday. and next artie's as down with an american lawyer and democratic party politician who also served as a u.s. senator chris dodd is the focus of our interview next. christoper former he left center it's grea

with nato there was friendship with russia and russia was not present in chicago. what is happening in between? the next question deals with the economics of the plan to finance missile defense in economic difficulties. we are in the defense committee and sharing and actually more country's increasing defense budget so how do you plan to finance missile defense? >> jon? trine? >> the relationship with russia as i am sure you know is worse than it was in 2008. it is a piece of string. difficult to say what the relationship with russia is and we have to take into account all the negative developments. i am not completely without reason. given that list for missile defense, sounded much better than what it is. i had -- difficulty seeing what russia could gain from what is being offered. perhaps it is surprising there has been a downturn in the relationship and on some of that presidential debate, important for that relationship because nato is in russia perceived as the enemy. in the public is difficult, we are friends with nato. nato has been painted as the big doubl

russia's ministry of economic development. to me all prize during the year two thousand and twelve will be somewhere around one hundred dollars a barrel or do you agree with such an estimation one in roughly. of course an estimation is always based on certain assumptions and i don't know what the assumptions are what we can see at this moment that the prices went down today below ninety if you know ninety dollars a barrel eighty nine or eighty eight so that is that is that is really much change when you look into the prices a couple of months ago when we're talking about prices about one hundred twenty five and on the twenty eight dollars a barrel but of course the question is will prices continue to fall and that's why i always tell everybody asks me let's not be complacent because the situation as it is today can change change quite quickly let me just give you. a couple of examples one thing is that there is a growing energy demands all over the world especially in email. country's nothing is going to change that the second

a big deal in beijing russia and china sign up toward trade and watch to top last year's record breaking eighty billion dollars worth of business. spain is to seek up to one hundred billion euros to help salvage its tumbling banks making is the fourth e.u. country to ask for a bailout. and fountains of egyptians protest that their former leader wasn't sentenced to death and that he's last prime minister has made it to the runoff in the presidential poll. that i am in the russian capital you're watching r t on marina josh welcome to the program you want observers in syria are still trying to determine just how many people were massacred there on wednesday and who's to blame top u.n. officials admit the peace plan is being flouted by both sides of the conflict dozens have reportedly been killed across the country in the past twenty four hours alone while foreign calls for intervention are being ramped up as the now reports. duquesne body is lain side by side we mean children among them death was indiscriminate and bloody the pictures from syria this week have brought shock around the globe

checkmate russia russia the czech republic for one on the opening day of the european championships . deja vu novak djokovic on the rafael nadal qualified for the french open final marking the fourth street time but her will leak into the side. bolt in the blue olympic champion you same bolt wins a dramatic one hundred meter race in norway to throw down the gauntlet ahead of the fast approaching london games. be carful us pain it's been a dream star for the european football championships dick charges dominating the czech republic for one to move top of group a following the opening day in poland and ukraine rich of important was watching the action forcing of rotfl. russia's preparations about three weeks ago played free warm up matches and the final warm up match for be get really free meal which is a really big confidence boost for the team and it really in relaxed mood since that landed in warsaw and travelled to here down here ross love the game itself and the rush of a really dominated from around the fifteen minute mark didn't start to well after they really took a stranglehold