ambassador vasily nebenzya, welcome to hardtalk. thank you, stephen. ambassador, i want to begin with some words said recently by the uk foreign minister, david cameron. he said this: "the lights are flashing red right "across the global dashboard. "it is hard to think of a time when there's been so much danger, insecurity, instability in the world." would you agree with him on that? i would. and where do you see the instability at its most dangerous? the most pressing thing today is, of course, the middle east. you cannot deny it. it's obvious. it is a conflict that is fraught with the regional conflagration, potential global conflagration. you see what's happening — what has been happening in recent days. you have seen what's been happening in the red sea with the us aggression on yemen, with the recent us plus uk aggression on iraq and syria, the situation on the northern border of israel with lebanon. so, the middle east may explode, unfortunately. i'm looking at some of your recent quotes. you refer to the blatant act of american—british aggression against sovereign states. you talk about the us sowing chaos and destruction in the middle east. do you in russia right now feel that you are in some sort of de facto global conflict with the united states and the west? we are in a conflict with the west, that's for sure. we are saying that openly. that's a proxy war that the west is waging against russia, unfortunately at the expense of ukrainian lives. by providing weapons, including notjust regular weapons, but cluster munitions, multiple—launching rocket systems, depleted uranium shells. by participating in military planning, in satellite mapping, the us and the west are, of course, complicit in what is happening. we know that the west is providing weaponry to ukraine. we also know that iran and north korea are supplying weaponry to russian forces. what does that tell us about russia's geopolitical positioning? we hear it often, this accusation — i would call them allegations. nobody yet could provide us material evidence... ..besides highly likely ideas about it. well, there's uk satellite photographs of north korean cargo shipments headed to russia. we've got fragments of drones which are clearly iranian drones, found on the territory of ukraine after they had crashed there. we know this is happening, ambassador. you know we know. look, you remember when ukrainians initially accused us of using iranian drones. notjust ukrainians, but the west as such. and then ukrainians tried to negotiate with the iranians and the iranians said, "let's sit together at the table and provide us with the material evidence." ukrainians never came back. have you seen the photo of zelensky standing in the background of the shahed drone supposedly used in ukraine. if you judge by the scale, zelensky should have been three metres high. the scale doesn't match. again, nobody could provide us any real material evidence about these drones. vladimir putin has met kimjong—un. vladimir putin, i believe, just days ago hosted a very senior north korean delegation in moscow. there's no question of a strategic partnership that has been developed between moscow and pyongyang. the same, of course, is true of moscow and tehran. there is no secret about the closeness of your relations with these countries. no secret, no secret. we are developing our relations with iran. we have a full, legitimate right to do so. we do have the right to develop our relations with dprk. it's our neighbour. well, except you actually don't have the right to receive and trade weapons with north korea because russia is a signatory of a whole series of un security council resolutions. you know better than me — i718, 1874, 2270... i know them all. all of these. i know them all because they were adopted when i was here. that's right. you're violating them. who told you we did? except for allegations that we do. nobody yet was able to prove it and to provide material evidence. is this where you want to be, ambassador? with your most reliable friends, the ones that you now are getting logistical support for your war in ukraine, being north korea and iran — is that where russia wants to be? you proceed from the premise, which is your conviction, but it is not my conviction, so i cannot share it with you and i cannot discuss it with you on the same terms. i'm telling you that despite allegations, despite highly likely suppositions, we have nothing. nobody yet could provide us material evidence of this. hmm. no satellite photos will do. i refer to security council resolutions precluding arms trading with north korea. of course, there's a much more basic international law violation which russia stands accused of. and it goes back, of course, two years to the full—scale invasion of ukraine. you sat in the united nations security council knowing full well that putin's decision to launch that invasion would turn russia into a state regarded by most of the world as a violator of sovereignty and international law, didn't you? last week, the international court ofjustice took to impose two important judgments. one, under the convention, international convention on the suppression of terrorism financing, where ukraine accused us of financing terrorism. and the second one on the international convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination, where ukraine accused us of discriminating crimean tatars and ukrainians in crimea. in a nutshell, the court rejected to call russia aggressor state. secondly, the court declined to put responsibility on russia for downing mhi7, or the involvement of donetsk people's republic into it. third, the court rejected claims that russia financed terrorism and refused to recognise donetsk people's republic and luhansk people's republic terrorist organisations. and that, by the way, was a pretext when the ukraine kyiv regime started the anti—terrorist operation against the people of donbas in violation of its own constitution. i'm fascinated, ambassador... and finally, the court rejected claims that we are discriminating crimean tatars and ukrainians in crimea. i'm fascinated... that was the situation — into a fully different paradigm. that answer tells me of your deep respect for the international court ofjustice. i presume, then, it worries you a great deal that on the 16th of march 2022, the icj ruled by 13 to 2 that russia must immediately — immediately — halt all military operations inside ukraine. you're still, two years on, in total violation of that order. do you know that on the 2nd of february, the international court ofjustice took a procedural decision on that matter, saying that it has no jurisdiction to judge on the military part of it. but the ukrainians were accusing us of using the convention of genocide to justify the special military operation in donbas. while we were saying that we are justifying the operation by article 51 of the charter. so now, in a nutshell, ukrainians have now put themselves to the defendant in the bar because now they have to justify that they were not using genocide in donbas. and we have the full body of evidence. you're still in violation. you're still in violation of the order that you should halt all military operations. i mean, do you believe in the rules—based international order? do you respect... i do not believe in rules—based international order. i believe in the international order based on the un charter. you know what the former australian ambassador to iran, john lander, i think, said recently about the rules—based international order? he said that the rules—based international order was devised by the united states and it is an ever—changing, vacillating set of rules devised by the united states for the united states and its allies. and the most difficult thing, the most difficult thing about the rules based on international order is to understand what the rules are. international law — it's a simple phrase and it's an important phrase. do you believe in recognition of international law and the obligations it puts upon nation states like your own? of course. 0k. so in that case, do you also believe that annexing territory taken by military force and occupied by military force is illegal under international law? there was a referendum on these territories, where... i'm sorry, just... well, that referendum wasn't taken seriously by anybody, as the conflict was continuing. besides the territorial integrity, there is a principle of self—determination. you accuse the west, mr ambassador, of double standards, and you compare the reaction and response to ukraine with that that we've seen toward israel and its occupation in the west bank and, as many people still see it, the occupation in gaza. you cry hypocrisy, double standard. isn't there a basic double standard on russia's part? russia refuses to recognise, for example, israel's annexation of eastjerusalem and the golan heights because, you say, it's clearly illegal under international law. in what world can your annexation of four regions of ukraine therefore be legal? we didn't start that war. the war started... just answer my question. the war started in 2014, when the ukrainian... mr ambassador... ..regime started the anti—terrorist operation. how can it be legal? you know it cannot be legal. ..shelling it for eight years with the tacit approval of the west, which recently confessed that it never wanted to implement the minsk agreements, which were needed only for the cover—up of kyiv. and we came to end it. and in the process, the people of donbas, donetsk, kherson and zaporizhzhia just made their will known, and that was it. you know, mr ambassador, because you're a veteran of the un and a veteran diplomat, you know that only a handful of countries, and i can list them — syria, north korea, i think maybe belarus and nicaragua, as well — recognise russia's annexation of ukrainian territory. why do you think the rest of the world refuses? what do you mean by the rest of the world? the west? west is not the rest of the world. no, actually, i mean all but a handful of countries — syria, north korea, belarus — refuse to accept putin's worldview. who told you this? the global south is embracing... they are not recognising your so—called annexation. they're not. and you know it, because you sit at the united nations. you'rejudging by the un resolutions that were adopted at that time, when the us was twisting arms of everybody and telling them how to vote. ah, i see, i see. let's see what happens now, after the icj ruling, and that'll be interesting to watch. "let's see what happens now," you say. what we do see happening now is a russian military stuck in ukraine. you actually control less ukrainian territory today than you controlled two weeks into the full—scale invasion. what's gone wrong? nothing's gone wrong. nothing? nothing has gone wrong? look, i'm not a military planner, but i think that saving lives and resources is much more important. and gradually, strategically, winning the positions is much more important than just sending people to death, like the ukrainians do in the infamous counter—offensive. they've lost dozens of thousands of unfortunate ukrainian lives. you've lost, it seems, more than 300,000 men dead and injured in ukraine. you've lost territory. who does the count? that's from us intelligence sources, as you well know. of course. well, you don't publish figures to your own people. you won't even be held to account to your own people for how many soldiers you've lost. but the un, the us.... the figures, they were much less. they were publicly announced by the minister of defence. you tell me, then, how many personnel have you lost in this war? look, i'm not a military staff officer. i cannot give you the figures, but the figures were aired at a certain stage. i do remember it very well. and it was much, much less than the figure that you now... what we see, mr ambassador, is across the east of ukraine, we see front lines that are now attritional. russia may advance in certain places, ukraine may make a tiny advance in certain places. but for months now, the front lines have been pretty stuck. the one place where there is a dynamism to the conflict is actually on the water, on the black sea, and there the story for russia has been humiliation. you withdrew from the grain agreement that allowed ukraine to export through the black sea its wheat and other agricultural supplies. the ukrainians then decided to go on the offensive. they've hit your warships, they've opened up the sea channels. they are now exporting — without your permission — exporting as much grain today, pretty much, as they did before the war. what's gone wrong? let them do it. that's their business, exporting it through other channels. the black sea initiative worked only for ukraine. they exported, like, 30, nearly 33 million tonnes of grain... my point, mr ambassador, is that you've lost dozens of vessels. you've lost your flagship, the moskva. you see ships being sunk pretty much every week in the black sea. it's a humiliation. i'm trying to figure out why. every week? but the ukrainians, even during the black sea initiative, when it worked, used a safe channel to use — the uk, by the way — underwater drones to hit and attack the russian targets in crimea, where we had to interrupt the deal, because they were violating it. and by the deal, they exported 33 million tonnes of grain while we exported none. that was the result. and that's why we just withdrew from the deal, because it was nothing for us. you tell me the war�*s going the way you want it to go. i suggest to you it clearly isn't. i just wonder what the endgame for russia in ukraine is, because it seems to me you're sending two different signals. 0n the one hand, mr putin is saying that russia's objectives haven't changed, which presumably means he wants to control ukraine's political future. he's determined to see ukraine neverjoin nato. he's described the regime in kyiv as neo—nazi, and therefore one can only assume he wants the surrender of that regime. but on the other hand, russia says it's ready for negotiations. so what are you actually prepared to negotiate? we've never said we are not ready for negotiations, but do you know that zelensky a year, sometime in �*22, late �*22 or... �*22, he issued a decree, prohibiting himself to negotiate with putin? so how can we negotiate with a man who cannot do it, in fact? i'll ask the ukrainians what they're prepared to negotiate about. i'm asking you, as russia's un ambassador, what's russia prepared to negotiate about? if they tell you they are prepared to negotiate on the basis of the so—called copenhagen format, which is an ultimatum to nato, that is a nonstarter, of course. the actual negotiations will be defined by the situation on the ground when negotiation will start eventually. but are you prepared to negotiate on the basis that you will potentially reverse the annexation, which we've discussed, which the world community regards as illegal, of those four regions, which are ukrainian sovereign territory which you've annexed? are you prepared to discuss reversing that? i think that's not negotiable. they already joined the russian federation, and that is the done deal. and we are not prepared to negotiate this. not prepared to negotiate that? so, really, there's nothing to talk about, is there? there's much to talk about. what, you mean ukraine's surrender? is that what you want to talk about? they want us to surrender. but with greatest respect, ukraine isn't threatening one inch of russian territory. they're not making a claim on any russian land. you are making a claim on swathes of their territory. look, the ukrainians, it's notjust about ukraine. it's about pan—european and global security. and it started a long time ago. it started in 2007, even earlier, when putin made a speech in munich. and i remember those sarcastic faces of people who were looking at him and saying, "what are you talking about? what issues are you raising?" and what did we get from there? we got 2008, bucharest nato summit, where ukraine was promised nato membership. we got the 2008 saakashvili georgia aggression against south 0ssetia. we got maidan, the coup d'etat in kyiv 2014. finally, we made the final attempt in late 2021, addressing nato's members individually and the us, to negotiate the european security. and we work in the senate, and they rejected that. i'm not hearing any real change in russia's position, any sense from you that there is an opening toward real negotiation. the truth is, there's one element that may change in the coming year, and that is nothing to do with russia. we know vladimir putin will get re—elected in march with a thumping majority. that's the way the russian system works. what we don't know is who's going to be in the white house come november's presidential election in the us. are you actually in moscow just waiting and hoping for a trump victory? no. no! we think there's one thing that unites republicans and democrats these days — that's an anti—russian agenda. whoever comes to the white house, i don't foresee any major change. you call donald trump anti—russian? that will come as a great surprise to many people. i said what unites democrats and republicans, is the establishment... but my point to you is that if donald trump wins the white house, and donald trump has an ironclad grip on his republican party, things are going to change and maybe in a way that vladimir putin believes is going to be offering him a profound advantage come 2025. i wouldn't bet on that. but coming back to negotiations, we never rejected negotiations. we are saying now we're ready to negotiate, but on the basis of realism. you know that in april 2022, we were about to finalise the agreement that we reached with the ukrainians in istanbul. then you know who? it's a common fact now, borisjohnson — borisjohnson rushed to kyiv and told his kyiv puppets to backtrack and continue fighting. so borisjohnson, in fact, is an accomplice in the deaths of that dozens of thousands of ukrainians whose lives could have been spared. he made them cannon fodder, because him and us made the ukrainians to continue fighting instead of concluding an agreement that was about to be finalised at that time. could it be that what russia has done in its invasion of ukraine is the very reverse of what it intended to do? you've given a new impetus to europe's defence spending. of course, you've got two new members of nato — one, finland, confirmed, sweden, waiting in the queue, will soon be in nato. so nato's expanded and a whole host of your european neighbours are now upping their spending on defence. the german defence minister's saying, "our experts predict "in the next five to eight years a russian attack on nato could be possible." you've given a wake—up call to europe, which you may come to regret. europe is now suffering from a major economic crisis, which is benefiting us, because your eu industries are moving to the united states. the energy prices are exorbitant. europe is on the verge of recession. europe will be raising its defence spending and buying more us weapons. so who is the benefactor? you know whatjoe biden said about ukraine. he said it's a great investment, as if it was a business project, because 90% of the money that the us spends on ukraine remains in the us, in the united states. ambassador, you know the word "hubris"? ijust wonder whether it may come to be seen that right now russia was suffering from hubris. you have an economy that's roughly the size of italy. david cameron pointed out that the west's economy is 25 times the strength of yours, and yet you seem to think that right now you can fight and win a war against the west. look, the west is trying to inflict a strategic defeat on russia — that's an official expression — or at least to weaken it, and to weaken it including economically. but whatever they did, including 10,000 sanctions against public entities and people, individuals, the russian economy grew, contrary to all focus that were made upon it. the russian economy withstood, and i'm sure that this will give it an impetus, because we realise that we cannot rely either on europe or the us on the economic front. we have to do what we have to do. that was a wake—up call for us, as well, and for the economy. ambassador vassily nebenzia, thank you very much forjoining me on hardtalk. thank you, ambassador. thank you. hello there. there is some snow in the forecast over the next couple of days, but it's certainly not going to be everywhere. most of the snow — the disruptive and heavy snow — will be mainly for northern parts of the uk and particularly over the hills, where there'll be some drifting as the easterly wind picks up. and that's going to bring some travel disruption, particularly for transpennine routes. now we're seeing colder air move across most of the uk, but things are a bit milder towards the south and southwest, and where we've got that boundary, we've got this weather front here, and that's bringing wet weather up from the southwest, and as it hits the colder air, so this is where we're going to see it turning to sleet and snow. and the coldest air early on thursday morning is certainly going to be in scotland. we'll have a frost for a while in northern ireland and northern england. and we've got this amber snow and ice warning from the met office for thursday covering north wales, northwestern parts of shropshire, also the peak district and the southern pennines. and you can see it's mainly over the hills, but there could be a lot of snow over the higher ground. it's going to be more likely rain as you head further south across wales, the midlands and southern england. but as you move that wetter weather into the colder air, so we've got the threat of some snow mainly over the hills of northern england and also northern ireland, perhaps heading into the far south of scotland by the end of the day. could be some sunshine for the rest of scotland. chilly day, of course, with that wet weather, although it does turn much milder across the south, as that first band of wet weather moves through, briefly turning drier, but more rain coming into the south and more snow over the northern hills of england into southern scotland as well. now, this area of low pressure is bringing all the wet weather. it is pushing milder air northwards, but we've still got the cold conditions on friday in scotland. so this is where we're more likely to have some sleet and snow. there'll be a cold easterly wind picking up. could still be some snow over the northern pennines, but on the whole, across the rest of the uk, it's going to be too warm for snow. we're more likely to have some rain from time to time as temperatures are starting to rise. but it's still cold in scotland. but even here, temperatures are going to be rising on saturday. the colder air is really only in the far north of scotland, so there could be some sleet and snow here. otherwise there may well be some sunshine, may well be some showers. these are more likely to be of rain. temperatures are rising in scotland and reaching double figures across much of england and wales and also northern ireland. welcome to newsday, reporting live from singapore. the headlines.. a us drone strike on baghdad kills a senior leader of a pro—iran armed group — it was launched in retaliation for the attack last month that killed three us soldiers. israel's prime minister strikes a defiant tone — saying he'll settle for nothing less than the total defeat of hamas. polls open in a couple of hours in pakistan, after two exposions near the offices of election officials killed 28 people prince william thanks well wishers as he speaks publicly for the first time since king charles�* cancer diagnosis. i like to take this opportunity to say thank you for the kind messages of support for catherine and my father, especially in recent days, it means a great deal to us all. as millions in china make their move to celebrate the lunar new year, freezing rain and snowstorms cause travel chaos.