foreign minister in poland s new government. has support for ukraine become a burden that kyiv s allies are no longer ready to bear? radek sikorski, in warsaw, welcome to hardtalk. hello. good to see you again, stephen. it s great to have you on the programme. let s begin with a simple thought. the portents for ukraine in its grim battle against vladimir putin s forces in ukraine, the portents are really very negative, are they not? the supply of weaponry and of money coming from kyiv supporters is drying up. how concerned are you? that s not quite right. i was in kyiv within days of my appointment in december. my prime minister, the former head of the european council, donald tusk, has just been there, and the ukrainians have achieved a victory that has not been noticed in the western press, namely that, against stiff russian opposition, they have cleared western black sea of russian ships and they have now resumed grain shipments, not under a deal, from odesa via the wester
legislation following a pair of deadly mass shootings, proving that action can overcome partisan division. serbia is taking swift action on gun violence not a progressive country, by the way. just two mass shootings in may that left seven dead and 21 injured, serbia took action. it has the third largest rate of gun ownership in the world, and it pushed through new laws with near unanimous support despite deep political divides. joining us now with more nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel. richard, how were they able to get this done? reporter: well, the secret is it wasn t even that difficult. there were these two mass shootings last month. they were extremely rare. people were outraged. they took to the streets. but they weren t just dismissed as tragedies, dismissed as part of a problem that is too difficult to confront. the people got together. the government got together. lawmakers from a variety of political parties put their differences aside, a
it is topsy-turvy live news event kind of day. case in point, in a matter of about two minutes, we expect to hear from president biden. he will address the nation live on a number of topics, not the least of which is the abrupt stepback our country took today away from fairness and progress toward intolerance and discrimination. the conservative supreme court ruled 6-3 in favor of a colorado web designer, an evangelical named lori smith who refused to work on same sex weddings. the court said that the first amendment protected her from punishment. and it is a turning point decision that will flip the state of equal protections on its head and allow business owners to likewise evade punishment under similar laws in 29 states. and in the longer term, it could again signal a threat to the landmark decision of the 2015 case establishing the case of same sex couples to marry. and if you are wondering of the same sex couple, what they are doing, after being denied basic human decen
radek sikorski, in warsaw, welcome to hardtalk. hello. good to see you again, stephen. it s great to have you on the programme. let s begin with a simple thought. the portents for ukraine in its grim battle against vladimir putin s forces in ukraine, the portents are really very negative, are they not? the supply of weaponry and of money coming from kyiv supporters is drying up. how concerned are you? that s not quite right. i was in kyiv within days of my appointment in december. my prime minister, the former head of the european council, donald tusk, has just been there, and the ukrainians have achieved a victory that has not been noticed in the western press, namely that, against stiff russian opposition, they have cleared western black sea of russian ships and they have now resumed grain shipments, not under a deal, from odesa via the western black sea to the bosphorus and to africa and beyond. that s a considerable military success. that s not insignificant. and they als