sergey karaganov in moscow, welcome to hardtalk. good afternoon. good afternoon and welcome and let me ask you a simple question, after almost a year of war in ukraine is russia ready to acknowledge that it is going badly wrong? it is a war. and we will be winning the war, there is no question about that, the question is of course, the casualties, the destruction of ukraine, ukrainians are used as cannon fodder in order war as cannon fodder in our war with the west, i sympathise with them. but it is their fate. i m surprised you say that because a month before the invasion began on the 24th of debris, on the 19th of january you actually said this. i am sure we have no plans to invade ukraine because it would be and to quote your precise words, senseless. at thatjuncture this piece was never published. iassumed. but you still wrote it? i wrote it. i accept that. i assumed it would happen later or else i thought that it should have happened earlier but it happened when it happe
welcome to the programme. there are tentative signs that inflation is coming under control, and the recession forecast last year will be shallower and shorter than expected. butjust to make sure, the central banks are raising the interest rates again. yesterday it was the fed, today the bank of england increased the base rate, half a point, to 4% the highest it has been in m years. we think inflation will come down rapidly, and a lot of that is down to energy prices, which have fallen rapidly. but i m afraid there are big risks out there which mean that it may not happen in that way. yet we re still seeing stronger pressure from price and wage setting in the economy in the question is, will that start to ease off? coinciding with the bank s decision came a profit announcement from shell and a rather blunt illustration of why we re all getting poorer. the oil and gas giant has reaped profits of £40 billion last year. the taxman has reaped far less. shell said it paid $1
welcome to the programme. there are tentative signs that inflation is coming under control, and the recession forecast last year will be shallower and shorter than expected. butjust to make sure, the central banks are raising the interest rates again. yesterday it was the fed, today the bank of england increased the base rate, half a point, to 4% the highest it has been in m years. we think inflation will come down rapidly, and a lot of that is down to energy prices, which have fallen rapidly. but i m afraid there are big risks out there which mean that it may not happen in that way. yet we re still seeing stronger pressure from price and wage setting in the economy in the question is, will that start to ease off? coinciding with the bank s decision came a profit announcement from shell and a rather blunt illustration
marketing power produced the gas it s worth bearing in mind that shell is a company with a history of not telling the truth, exposed many years ago for misleading the public in their role in a massive corruption scandal in nigeria, involving a $1.1 million payment to a former oil minister. the truth came out through leaked e mails, so they are not a country to be trusted, i m afraid.- they are not a country to be trusted, i m afraid. shell said it is confident trusted, i m afraid. shell said it is confident that trusted, i m afraid. shell said it is confident that those - trusted, i m afraid. shell said it i is confident that those disclosures are compliant with all disclosures. i think what shell are hoping for his people won t look at the numbers and just take as read these quite broad claims about overall expenditures on what they describe as a renewables and energy solutions, when in actualfact as a renewables and energy solutions, when in actual fact the reality is quite dif