so do you think it is inevitable then, that these autocratic regimes like. crosstalk. if i can recollect in my memory, just speaking about the russia and understanding, back in 2013, until the war started, we were about to sign the association agreement, the large trade agreement with the eu putin, he didn t care about the agreement, he didn t care about the trade, and basically it wasn t ukrainians who were thinking that we had to choose between the russia and the european union. we have never been thinking this way, when we were negotiating this agreement. but it is putin, who is putting us in front of the choice you choose europe or you choose russia and we were shocked that we were put in front of this choice, because we were not thinking this way. we were thinking about the democratic relations with, and friendship with russia, but it is them who has put us in front of that. so sergey, is it inevitable that these autocratic regimes will fall, and what happens?
who will be taking questions from our audience here. deputy prime minister of ukraine is olha stefanishyna. she has been very much the international face of the ukrainian government during this current crisis. kristina kvien is the charge d?affaires, that s the acting d affaires, that s the acting ambassador for washington, here in kyiv. carl bildt is a former swedish prime minister and one of europe s leading statesmen, and professor sergey radchenko is a russian born political scientist based in europe. that is our panel. welcome to you all. give them a round of applause. applause. and remember you too can join the conversation, it s #bbcglobalquestions. now, we re going to take a couple of questions to kick off with. first from olha. is the build up of russian troops on the ukrainian borders, - in your opinion, an attempt to get the world s attention or is there a real danger behind it?
this is bbc news. the headlines at 4pm. the former conservative minister nusrat ghani says she was sacked from herjob because of her muslim faith. the government chief whip says that s false. the justice secretary says a formal complaint is needed to trigger an inquiry. it can only happen if the person making the complaint makes it formally that s when the procedures kick in. and just to be clear about this, that advice was given to nus back in 2020. since then, nusrat ghani has said she asked the prime minister in 2020 to launch a government inquiry, but he told her to use the internal conservative party complaint process, which she thought was not appropriate. the government says russia will face severe economic sanctions if it installs a puppet regime in ukraine.
hello this is bbc news. the headlines. police will meet a conservative mp who s accused government whips of trying to blackmail politicians who ve tried to oust borisjohnson. the first shipment of american military aid to ukraine arrives there after talks over russia s troop build up on the border. the un has condemned an air strike on a yemen detention centre that has killed more than 80 people a week after tonga was devastated by a volcanic eruption and tsunami, humanitarian aid begins to reach the tens of thousands of people affected. the actor arnold schwarzenegger is involved in a multi vehicle crash in los angeles one person is in hospital, but it s not thought their injuries are life threatening now on bbc news with the latest
we have just seen russian troops go in as part of the collective security treaty organisation, into kazakhstan to help president tokayev there, sent a couple of thousand troops. he gets on very well with alexader lucashenko in belarus this is not somebody without friends in the region. so maybe sergey and carl can pick up on that. looking at post soviet countries and conflicts there, are there some aspects to putin s policy where he actually acts as a stabilising force, as he has in kazakhstan? i would argue yes. in terms of kazakhstan i personally think kazakhstan has been a hideous dictatorship, and but, you know, they had chaos. the russians went in, when they went in, the international expert community exploded with commentaries to the effect that russia was annexing almost kazakhstan, and restoring the ussr. a few days later they seemed to be on the way out.