sadly. i m not a military person, i just yeah, i think we really need to take a longer view, don, and we re seven, eight days into this thing right now. it is not going well. there s a lot of killing going on, killing of civilians, but i still have a great deal of faith in the long term of the ukrainian forces and the ukrainian population in turning this around. mr. putin has not gained any of his strategic objectives. he has not divided nato. he has not further divided the united states, in fact he s actually unified us to the, slowly unified us to a greater degree. he has not achieved his objective of subjugating ukraine, one of his key objectives and turned into a criminal on the world stage and it s getting worse by the day. he will never be accepted back into any league of nations leaders in the near future. he is a paraiah and it s, dealing with him right now, he s
we are really peaceful people. but the new generation is, of course, pro democratic, the new generation know how we can live if we have a normal government. if we have normal management, our people wouldn t live in poverty in our country. but you said to me at the very beginning of this interview that putin s invasion of ukraine has changed everything. and i understand what you re saying, because it seems to me it s changed the nature of the decision that belarusian people have to make about their future. they may say that freedom and democracy involves turning westward, but they may also see for themselves that if they make that decision, the reality is russia, putin, will bring terrible retribution upon them and will seek to control them by military force. so there s a new, stark choice facing your people. which way will they go? i think people now understand that there is a possibility of the second iron curtain between russia and western
svetla na tikhanovskaya, welcome to hardtalk. hello. it s nice to have you in our studio. tell me, what are your feelings as you see your country, belarus, being used as a launchpad for vladimir putin s invasion of ukraine? you know, on 2a february, we woke up in a new reality, and we understood that lukashenko gave our land as the aircraft carrier for putin s troops to invade ukraine. we were shocked. nobody believed that the war could start because we remember
this is bbc news. i m sally bundock with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. ukraine s president says russia is guilty of a war crime after a maternity and children s hospital was bombed in the besieged city of mariupol while a ceasefire was supposed to be in place. the mayor says president putin has destroyed a peaceful city. translation: they wanted to take the lives of our - children, ourwomen, our doctors, who had been fighting for 1h days of war, for the lives of every child who came under fire from enemy weapons. meanwhile, in the city of irpin, uprooted civilians have managed to leave the town. the united nations is calling the situation a dark, historic first getting ready to meet the russian army.
because his message is quite clear he will use all the force necessary to enforce his vision of a greater russia, which clearly includes control of ukraine and clearly includes control, ultimate control, of your country, belarus, as well. so is your message to your people in belarus that you now are fighting for a belarus that will break free of moscow s control and will, like the zelensky government in ukraine, look westward to membership of the eu, maybe of nato? what is your vision for belarus? first of all, we have to return democracy in our country and then ask people, what do you want? because before the war started, there were polls where people responded that about 60% of people wanted a good relationship with russia, and the same 60% wanted a good