national committee doug heye and paul waugh cheif political commentator for the i paper welcome back to the programme. on sunday night the new chairman of the house foreign affairs committee told fox news the odds of conflict with china over taiwan the eu today pledged today to double the military aid programme for ukraine by training an extra 15,000 soldiers. ahead of a war summit in kyiv tomorrow, the european commission president, ursula von der leyen, said the eu will have a tenth package of russian sanctions, in place, by 24th february, the first anniversary of the invasion. meawnhile the chair of russia s council on foreign and defence policy, sergey karaganov, a putin ally told hardtalk s stephen sakur that russia would utilise all means necessary, to deal with the cancer that is nato. we are fighting the cancer is called nato and its expansion. we tried to persuade them by therapy and now, by
now on bbc news it is time for hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk, i m stephen sakur. economies across the industrialised world are feeling the strain of soaring fossil fuel energy costs. but the bad news for energy consumers represents a potential bonanza for the biggest producers. step forward gas rich russia, ideally placed to exert growing influence in europe s energy market. my guess is sergei ryabkov, russia s deputy minister of foreign affairs. given moscow s increasingly tense relations with the west, will energy deepen the mistrust?
he says certification for use would definitely cool soaring european gas prices. now, to many in europe, that sounds a little bit like an implicit threat that if they don t do what you want, with regard to nord stream 2, then there could be problems ahead this winter. it means, mr sakur, that your preferred option would be not to certify so that prices soar further. i will say that we are talking here on a market that is kept in the hands of those who, through spelling out policies and approaches, determine what will happen in the next few weeks and months. we would prefer to have here a bear market. russia is about bears. now it is not about bullies. it is about bears. this is where we work towards for. well, when you say a bear market, what do you mean? you d prefer a market where