regret that I wasn't pushy enough, I wasn't annoying enough, I wasn't me enough to force him to be here instead of England. Imagine if he was here fighting extradition to the US instead of England. It would be like a very different situation because this is not a banana republic. This is not a broken country. This is a country that still respects somehow the rule of law and the right to publish. And yes, Germany is not perfect. And we have lots of things to fix. We have democracy to fix. We have fairness to other countries to fix. But it is very different from the UK. And what I would like to tell you tonight, I would like to share tonight is the horrible experience we had last week in the first week of hearing with Julian. First, I want to introduce myself, and then I will introduce my co-panelist. My name is Renata Avila, and I'm a human rights lawyer and technology expert. I have been following WikiLeaks since 2007, and I got involved with and support the WikiLeaks from 2008. I have to say that Germany, and especially the Berlin community, has been central to the struggle of WikiLeaks. Julian is somehow a Berliner. Julian is somehow someone who loved and was fascinated by the solidarity, by the collaboration, by the principled activism of technologists and journalists and activists here in Berlin. And so that's why tonight makes me really happy to see all of you here. And I think that this will be just one of many meetings, because I think that we need lots of gatherings like this one to keep the spirit of Julian up, but also to keep fighting for what is at stake here, which is our right to know and the right to publish. And the right to publish things about the government that the interesting thing that really shocked me was when I became more aware of politics is the number of military bases of the US that you have here. So basically what is at stake here is you have a country whose leader is a crazy person, and you have the military of that country here in your land. And what is at stake in this WikiLeaks case and in the potential extradition of Julian is anyone holding accountable all these people with the most powerful military weapons here will be persecuted, prosecuted, and sent to the US. So it looks a lot like empire, and it is really scary. So tonight I'm joined by one of my oldest friends and WikiLeaks journalist and ambassador, Joseph Farrell, who's one of your early friends. He claims fake news now. And he's an African journalist who is based in the UK, and he's one of who has suffered this political persecution, surveillance, and harassment from the very beginning. And his name is also on the case doc of the extradition of Julian. And Esteban from who is still in spite of all the threats on whistleblowers is still trying to push forward a new whistleblowing platform, which is always hopeful, Ecoliqs. So we will start with short interventions. And what we want is to tell you what we experienced last week in the hearings. And then Esteban will tell us a little bit that in spite of all this harassment, why he still believes in whistleblowing. So we will start with Joseph. Are you going to ask me questions? Or I'll just exit. No, I think that you need to share whatever you want. I think the most interesting thing for everyone else is the dynamic that went on in the courtroom. And it was two things. First, it's a point that that case is happening, that it's going on, that the person who published war crimes, examples of abuse, corruption, malfeasance in so many different countries is the person that is in prison paying the price for it. That goes without saying. In the courtroom, what was quite interesting was that the evidence that is being talked about, it lays bare exactly everything that people don't quite know or have a bit of a feeling for. And when I say people, I mean mostly the journalists because there's a press annex of 60 journalists and another 40 journalists sitting in the courtroom. And for lots of them, it was the first time that they'd actually had a very detailed explanation, one what the indictment was about, two what the little machinations that went on that created the indictment. So that was very interesting. The three things that they dealt with very specifically were the fact that WikiLeaks wasn't the first person, wasn't the first media organization to publish the cables in an unredacted manner. The second was that there was no hacking going on because the system didn't even allow for that. You didn't need to use a word or username or password. And I cannot remember what was the third thing. Oh, the most wanted, a thing called a most wanted list, which they were talking about, was a list that WikiLeaks had put out saying to the world saying, why don't you tell us what the things you most want to be published are? And they proved that that wasn't solicitation. But in fact, it was a Wiki where everybody could join in. OK, so that's all quite technical. The other thing that was the dynamic, so to speak, was the fact that the layout of the court is very interesting. You have a magistrate who's on high, and then you have the defense and the prosecution and their teams behind them. And right at the back of the room, behind a thick bulletproof glass wall is Julian. So the only person he can see face on, other than the press on the side, which is not even face on, is the magistrate herself. He can't see his lawyer's face. He's not next to his lawyer. He can't talk to them. And towards the end of the week, there was an application put in to have Julian sit with his lawyers. His team argued that we had spent three or four days already. There wasn't necessarily a need for him to be sitting with his lawyers during those three days because it was all detailed legal arguments. But he's a gentle man of an academic nature and pose no threat. And the judge refused this. It got to the most bizarre point where the prosecution was arguing in favor of Julian being able to sit with his counsel. And the judge was requesting examples of case law and other situations where this had happened, from both the defense and the prosecution. And they were both on the same side. It's in what world does this happen? And in the end, they decided they said absolutely not. He couldn't sit with his team. Now, the importance of this, and Julian made this very obvious because the judge said, well, you know, if he wants to pass a note to you, he can wave to me. And they carried on talking, and then Julian did wave to her. And she said, look, he's waving now. And he said, that is the problem. That is exactly the problem. You will be, you will see when I want to speak to my lawyers. The other side will see when I want to speak to them. I can't do it subtly. I can't pass them a note. This is the problem. And it goes to the fact that it, it results in an unfair trial when both sides are not armed equally. There were people in the courtroom who were Department of Justice officials who got to speak to their lawyers over and over whenever they wanted hundreds of times more than Julian would. And he wasn't able to. And I would like to explain the dynamics because Julian is, I mean, probably the most difficult client that you could have as a lawyer, but also the one that will scrutinize the most out of you. Like he's, I mean, I think that the US knows it well because they have been watching us, watching the defense team for over seven years. I think that more. I mean, I think that we have been one of the most surveilled legal teams ever in history. And that makes very, very difficult. I mean, if you saw the terrible film of Laura Poitras, you will see me burning papers there. Why I was burning papers? Because I was, I knew the level, the high level of surveillance that we were under. And, but we had a, we are very large, very diverse, very interesting legal team. And it was different dynamic then. And they know it. They know it because they learn the way that we operate this legal case. And we usually will sit, you know, in a big round table with lawyers from at least five nationalities, at least four different branches of expertise, and decide to design a good legal strategy. And as you were saying before in an interview, he's the best legal strategy and the best political strategy that you can ever know. And I think that dynamic was very useful when we were preparing for his asylum case, for example. He will have the idea as he will find sources. He knows how to navigate the political and see beyond. And that's the ability that they want to cut. The second thing that the US and the UK want to cut is his ability to speak for himself. It is so, I mean, it's so frustrating. I mean, I'm from Guatemala and I have been like working in at least five countries that are not as sophisticated as the UK. And I have never seen this brutality against someone. I mean, not even in the Hague. I was one, I mean, I attended some of the Yugoslavia trials at the Special Court for Yugoslavia and I attended some hearings of the International Criminal Court. And not even the worst war criminals are restricted as him. But that's the point, is that they can't have him sitting with his lawyers being looking benign with 40 press people in there. He needs to be kept separate as a sign that he is a dangerous person, so that that view and so that every court illustrator that illustrates him has the image of glass or bars in front of him. And it's not only that, I mean, we cannot write him back. For example, I was sitting at the last row of lawyers because the most important lawyers sit at the front. I was down there, but I was lucky because I was closer to him, you know? And I was trying to put like really big font, don't tell it, oh my God, it's being recorded.  She didn't protect like the privacy of her screen. I was like almost curing him, screaming at me.  But I was trying to, I knew that he was reading my screen but that's ridiculous. I mean, do I really need to communicate with my client and my friend in that way? Yes, because if he was passing us a message, I mean, he has very little time to keep up with the hearing and to send us what he needs to be like said there. And in, but he's very brilliant mind. So he sent us some notes and some papers saying like, search for this opinion, this date, this name and that will give you the answer. And it was precisely the answer that lawyers needed at that moment. But you can only keep this speed as long as the judge allows and it is obviously a violation of process but also it's mental torture somehow because if you know the case, if you know the words, if you know the statement that will save your life from spending 175 years in prison and you cannot communicate it to your legal counsel in a private way. I mean, what's that if not abuse of process? What, that's torture. So I'm sorry that it's just a little bit like disconnected but I think it's important. I will like to hear your impressions because you want to start echo leaks and you know what happens to whistleblowers and you know how hard all of the, this is so. I want to hear your view and what do you think of Julian? Hello everyone. My name is Esteban Cervat, I'm from Argentina and I'm in Berlin since almost one year since having to flee my country for leaking some secret documents on environmental issues. First I want to say that it's just appalling to see how the world and the media of the world are allowing all of this to happen without going, without being enraged and we are all witnessing a very symbolic case for the death of freedom of the press and what's coming in a world of people like Trump and the violation of rights of the press and human rights that is just, this may just be the beginning. So I just think we all need to mobilize a lot more than what we are doing and reignite the inertia that we have fallen into after all these years of Assange being in this embassy with this fake charges against him. As for whistleblowing, well I'm a scientist, I was living in the countryside of Argentina in a place that had an exceptional environmental history protecting their water resources but one day the government brought fracking and this first wells of fracking were contaminating already the aquifers and a secret report was leaked to us by a whistleblower so we thought we should create an environmental version of WikiLeaks, a very South American style which has got this report and leaked it. We thought it was necessary to leak it and we built a very simple website. Since now in Germany I'm trying to build this into a global platform so we can offer, we can get leaks from all over the world and also make it public but this helped build a huge movement against fracking which at the time was the biggest in the world and in turn it also turned me into the target of all government persecution. I have the most criminal cases of anyone in Argentina for fighting fracking. Among them are the most absurd cases like public intimidation for saying that fracking was gonna cause the things that science has proven that it causes and then death threats at a number of political operations that at the end of, well in March of last year I decided to come to Berlin and from here I'm trying to help to continue the fight over there and also maybe build the proper infrastructures we can build echo leaks which right now is just like a project but it just shows it's a humble example of the things that can spring out of Assange and his legacy because like he said from the prison everyone must take my place. So we all must become whistleblowers and publishers and defenders of freedom of the press and have the courage that he inspired us to follow. So thank you for coming. One of the questions during the trial was whether Julian was politically motivated to do this. You can stop the extradition if the court considers that the crime was politically motivated. To me it was, I mean it is really emotional and I invite you to do the same to read the interviews of Julian 2010. There's a Vanityford interview and he says like, I'm very, very, very busy I'm trying to stop two wars. And what is that if not political motivation, you know? And there's an older like very idealistic interviews that you can read one in the Spiegel. I like that in the Spiegel he's like, I like crushing bastards.  So I want to hear from Joseph because you were, 2010 you were around, no? When those publications were released, what was the feeling and do you really, why were you motivated to work for WikiLeaks and what was the, and do you still want to, do you still believe the same, do you regret? No, I don't regret anything. Why I wanted to work for WikiLeaks? Well, because it was scientific journalism. It was for the first time you could actually, you didn't have to, it was quite interesting. I used to believe the press. I used to read the articles or even Vanity Fair and go, oh, yeah, okay. So that educated me quite well. Until very early on, just when I had met Julian, I wasn't working for him yet. I was still at the Center for Investigative Journalism and I was in a meeting that the Vanity Fair reported and it was completely different. And it was my first insight and admittedly I was much older than I should have been to realize that the press aren't actually accurate. It was my first insight into what is reported is not, it's no way near at times what actually happened. So when Julian offered me a job, I thought, well, that's wonderful because his entire ethos was we will write stories. We will do editorials. We will do it in partnership with what turned out to be more than 110 mainstream media organizations throughout the world. And if you don't like what you read in what we've written, all of the documents are there for you to go and make up your own mind, all of the source material, everything that allows you to come to your own conclusion. It's exactly like doing a scientific paper. All of your references are there and it's peer reviewed. So that's why I joined it. That's why I'm still there because it's credible. It is very interesting in the time of fake news when they want to like deploy algorithms and crazy bots to try to fix this. I mean, Julian had the solution to fake news like 10 years ago, publish the full documents and do not publish anything without supporting documents.  People will read things and they'll go, do you think it's fake news? It must be fake news, which is very useful. It makes you question what you're reading instead of just taking it. So do you think that WikiLeaks then was ahead of the time? WikiLeaks is always ahead of the time, always. Absolutely always.  It's the first time any publisher in the world has been gone after using it. He's always ahead of the times. Well, that's true because I remember when, even before Snowden, the spy files were published. Years before the Snowden revelation, years before Cambridge Analytica, he published when WikiLeaks met Google, questioning Big Tech. And the thing is that what makes the powerful most afraid of is what's next. And that's why they want to crush him and that's why they want to silence his voice. I know that it is not only about him. It's about the right to know and the right to freedom of the press. But tonight, let's make it about him. Let's make it about him because I'm a little bit tired and I don't know if you experienced the same, but I'm a little bit tired of the demonization of Julian. Julian is one of the best persons I know. I mean, it's one of the most complex, fascinating intellectuals of our time and it's totally unacceptable. And you will hear a lot of ugly things in the upcoming months because that has been the technique the past decade. Destroying his reputation by saying that he's a rapist, by saying that he's a bad person, by saying that he's impossible, by saying that he has 30 socks, that he ate the chocolate of a German man, that he tortured a cat.  I mean, I had to write a letter about that because media is so ridiculous that they will zoom into a cat, an unknown cat and not verify the facts, but they will refuse to interview the children that were like endured in the collateral murder video. That's our press, that's our time. So. They even said that he was spreading feces on the wall of the embassy. I read this in the biggest national newspaper of Argentina, Clarín, the biggest hegemonic paper that Assange was spreading feces on the wall. That's a smear campaign, literally. Well, when I invite you to like reflect, I mean, and I know that we have another panel coming to reflect here tonight is, I mean, he could have made a lot of money out of his talents. If you have an Apple device, chances are high that the thing protecting your privacy and securing your files has code written by Julian on it. But he released it to the community, you know, he wanted to make us all like better off on our privacy. He did a lot of things for the community in Australia as well. And then he did weekly, he dedicated lots of code hours and lots of time and thinking and strategic thinking into something for the people. And he revolutioned journalism and source protection.  He's free to do whatever he wants with us, not only free, you know, like he's above us, actually. And the person they're supporting us by our side is in a prison in Belmarsh with really dangerous criminals with a really poor, I mean, I will tweet later the list of items that he has access to. I mean, the things that he has access to, like he cannot, the food is terrible, of course, is a prison, but also the conditions. I mean, to me, in this case, it has been also a reflection. I thought that the prison conditions weren't only bad in the countries I was used to, but in the UK it's pretty terrible.  Probably. Yeah, but not on the food, like let's say something more emotional. I just want everyone to think that, you know, this is a case which could, well, we've said already, it's not about Julian, but it is about Julian, and it is about everybody else. And this is a case that could quite easily end up at the European Court of Human Rights, and so this is something that affects all of you here too, because if this case gets through, then that will set the precedent that no one is free to publish, and if they do, they can be picked up from anywhere. As a result, you'll have a big chilling effect, and nobody, well, you'll get less stuff published, less, you'll have a diminished right to know, and so your horizon of democracy will be slightly clouded. And, yeah, cheerful, isn't it? The last thing is to think between now and if and when that gets to the European Court of Human Rights, that by the time, at the earliest possible time that it will ever get there, Julian will have been detained for 13 years. He's already been detained for 10. We're talking about at minimum another three. Can you imagine not being able to make one single, solitary, spontaneous decision in two days, let alone 13 years? Thank you very much for inviting me, and I think we need to get to act and share this information, reawaken the people, because, like they said, the media have done a character assassination of Assange, and all of us are complicit with this if we allow this to keep going. I want to tell you what's next in the case, and then what we can do very quickly, because she's like, she's assanging me. So we have like, in May we need to make a lot of noise, but I want to invite you to gather here in Berlin, and we will think of the format. It will be 10 years of the publication of Collateral Murder, the video that shake the world, and the fifth of April, and I hope that we can do something here in Berlin at that date and globally, and I think it will be a good time to reflect on the political motivations of Wikileaks to stop wars, to bring more social justice and justice to the world, and I think there will be a day to not forget of someone who we haven't mentioned tonight, which is Chelsea Mannin. She is resisting in prison. She's refusing to testify against Julian, and she's a hearing of my personal hearing. I mean, it's really amazing what she does, and we must, every time that we mention Julian, and we fight for his freedom, we need to fight for her freedom and celebrate her courage. So that's it. Thank you for coming. Become a member of DM25 if you are not already, and please keep supporting this thing. Thank you. Thank you so much for your attendance and being here part of the discussion, and that's the word. I want to give the floor to our participants, the audience, if there is any question, you can ask them now. Chancellor, but I was wondering, I read the Craig Murray report about the proceedings. They seem to be quite accurate. Yes, yes. If you want to keep up to date with the reports, you can go to couragefoundation.org, couragefound.org, and there's daily reports and Craig Murray also produces good reports and in German Angela Richter, who's here in the audience, she's producing good account of the events in Freitag, and a whistleblower network who's coming also next to the Annegret Falter, her organization also is keeping track of all the press reports and things in German, resources in German, good resources in German, yeah. Have a question. I may have missed it, because I was looking, how does this campaign of photographs, how can we participate in disseminating it? Did you already talk about that? Petrach. Because it seems like it can be infectious.  We have to maintain his anonymity as per his request, but it's a very, the person who's come up with it has created it so that it is very easy to reproduce everywhere. That it's easy to print, it's easy to mount, and it's easy to take photos and add them on. And do we have an idea of how many people there are? No, we need to do that. But yes, it is infectious, and we can speak about it separately afterwards. We can think of, yeah. If you can find more information, I saw a hand there. There's a platform, but a website, which finds people to the ICIJ leak platform, exactly for... Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. The ICIJ copied WikiLeaks. We shouldn't be directing him to ICIJ. WikiLeaks has published lots of environmental things. Yeah, that's why I'm asking if he is in contact with... We're doing a lot of things with Extinction Rebellion in the fight against fracking. I just came back from Barcelona, where we also organized with them and in Ireland and in Germany. I know that what you're talking about is the British platform they created called, I forgot the name, but this is what you were talking about, right? Yeah, no, I would love to get in touch with them. Yeah. Do you have contact? No. Okay. Yeah, the people in Berlin, they didn't know about... They didn't know how to contact, at least the ones I know. But I'll try to get to them. Before we close this one, this round, EuroLeaks is coming as well, and that's going to be exciting, very soon. Thank you. So if there's no other question, I will thank you for being here and explaining about your experience. And... I'm going to start speaking in German, because we have our next three podium guests. Yes, a big applause, please. Our next podium guests, I would like to introduce them. They fit together very well. Angela Richter, director and always in contact with Julian Assange. She was more often in the Ecuadorian embassy and had a direct e-mail contact with him at the time. Anne-Grid Falter from Whistleblower.net, who was also in the Ecuadorian embassy and spoke to Julian and the journalist from Spiegel, Michael Sontheimer, who also... We have three people here who have already met Julian in the Ecuadorian embassy and are very involved and are able to provide some contributions from a journalist's point of view. I'm happy that you're here and I'll give you the microphone. Thank you very much. Thank you for all these great events here. I'm Anne-Grid Falter and I wasn't at the process meeting in London at the moment. I thought about what I should talk about. I noticed that there are three essential aspects in relation to the case of the first is the humanitarian. So what Renata has already painted with some incredible grayness, partly with Julian Assange, and I think that, like his rights during the process, they are increasingly unified. But I think Angela will say something about it. The second aspect is the press freedom and the informant and source protection. And what's going on here? The transition... The transition... Yes, that's why it doesn't go away, but it doesn't go away. The press, the transition with the issue of Assange, and the third is the legal aspect. And now a lot has been said about if Julian Assange had a political motivation, that it was probably talked about a lot in the first few days. That has been doubted, that is absurd, but that will be one of the most important points that will ultimately affect the court if you assume the rest of the legal aspect. At the same time, it will play a role if Assange has a fair process to be expected in the USA. He must not be delivered if he has a political process and definitely has not a fair process to be expected. And then I thought about how Chelsea Manning went. Renata mentioned Chelsea Manning before. And Chelsea Manning... With Chelsea Manning it has changed how many of you can probably not imagine it. I have followed the court-martial, the military court process at the time for a book. And the similarities to what Julian Assange and I have been dealing with have been frustrating. And I thought, I'll tell you quickly, you can't imagine what a political process in the USA means. What does that mean? It means that the man who is put out of this political process can actually be brought to justice in an unbearable way. And that's what happened with Chelsea Manning. And now I'll describe it very briefly. I've followed the court-martial again. I'll describe it very briefly how Chelsea Manning and the process of Chelsea Manning went. The process of Julian coming to London, right? Yes, and I'm talking about what will happen in the future when he is delivered. And we have to imagine what will really happen in the future. What is a political process? But you can do what you can when you speak about the process in London and then you speak about the press freedom and I will finally have Chelsea Manning. No problem. Okay, then we'll switch a bit by bit. Okay, yes, a lot has already been said by my predecessors here. We were all there. I was there for the first three days. And, to be honest, from my belief in the rule of law, at least in Great Britain, there hasn't been much left to do with this experience. So it's starting with the building. I'll try to explain briefly, but it's still the first thing that's happening to you. So normally there are courts like in the middle of the city, an open place where the citizens of a rule of law can be witnesses of how, from a state-owned point of view, there will be educatives where justice is found, so to speak. And that's why such places are relatively open. And usually there are also large cases that are of this importance and weight in Great Britain, also in large cells and in the middle of the city. In the case of Julian Assange, where you have to go out, it's difficult to get there within an hour and a half, and it's basically a extension of a high security crisis. And everything in this building is exactly the part of what courts are, in a classic way. It's a court that's not to allow justice to be passed, but to be judged. It's a judgment court in which it's very difficult to get in. So it looks similar to the prison from the outside. It's also a extension. Julian Assange is brought there every day per tunnel, so to speak. And there were only 25 places for journalists in the court room. And there were about 16 places, I think, for the public, for people who just want to watch. You can imagine how crowded that was. So I woke up at six in the morning and was about one of the first five and then had the luck to meet one of the judges in court. I also had an accreditation as a journalist and was able to talk about it on Friday. And then I had the luck to come in. Other than that, for example, for the other journalists, they were sitting in a container outside the court building. Most of them, of course. And there were only four of six monitors. They were royal pictures. You couldn't really see anything about it. Even Julian Assange really didn't. And the tone was very bad. So the judge couldn't hear himself in the hall. And the other lucky thing, when someone really spoke into the microphone, okay, but usually not. So it was a complete catastrophe and everything was served to simply not hear and not be able to see. So as little as possible to the outside world. And that was my impression of this whole spectacle. And you just don't expect it to start that it's a show process. It was absurd, the arguments were... We've heard that before, but I'll still say it again. By the way, what I forgot to say, I was sitting in the press and it was regularly the three days I was there, free of the 25 places. So five, six places were still unused. That means they haven't even filled the places that were there with journalists. You have to imagine that. So much for that. I wanted to tell you a little bit so that you can imagine what's going on there. And the others have already said, Julian Assange is sitting there like a heavy breaker and in the back of a panzerglass, like a terrorist. And you never have the impression that it's really about doing something that somehow... Where it's about to go, to find out where the guilt lies, if you can judge it, it's really a show process. And what for me, I'm a legal lawyer, but it was completely absurd. Of course, it was also to be seen that the U.S. is going there and it was the first two hours, it was a PR event for the press. I later spoke to Julian Assange, the American lawyer, who meant to me at least what he knows would not be allowed in America. So that the plaintiff turns directly to the press. So he turned around to us physically and said, this is not a case that the press is working on, the press is working on freedom, because Julian Assange is not a journalist. He is a very common criminal. And by the way, it is also not a political case. He is not accused at all, for example, that he solved the crime of war. He then literally called the collateral murder video as evidence. He said, we do not accuse him of the collateral murder video because of the publication. And the interesting thing is, but that didn't work at all, because this publication would have been completely legal. So it's totally absurd to argue like that at all. On the contrary, Reuters, the news editor Reuters, has tried for years to see this video, because two Reuters journalists have also come around. And the release date or the non-release date was just unfair. In this case, one already falls into the first sentences that the plaintiff speaks, one falls into the fact that they are talking bullshit. So to speak. And so it goes on. So it is said that he is a journalist and behind him. Yes, so in any case, it was super simple. And he still has that repeated for so long. I think 30 times he repeated these three arguments that he had there. And behind him there was no more time. Most journalists went out in the afternoon break, they didn't come back either. So they reported, because they all had deadlines. That means it was then the next day, all in the press, what the plaintiff said. But no one then, because afterwards it went on with the defense. And that somehow got someone along. Well, I'm really talking a lot and I'll go on to you now and then I'll talk about it again. So I think what Angela says fits well into the picture, that I understand the follow-up of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks no longer only as a political phenomenon or as a threat, but that is a gigantic secret service operation. So here are the most powerful secret services in this world and took the lead. Mike Pompeo, the former head of the ministry, said, this has come to an end. So WikiLeaks is made flat. And I know, in my friend's circle, some people have been installed in telephones. So a whole lot has happened. It's not only Julian's, but also others. It's also being applied to others. And we have to make sure of that first. So that's not a delivery process now, but there will be a state enemy, the United States, which the government sees as the biggest state enemy, will be led. And it will be broken. I'm afraid they're going to do it that way and then show it. Look, if you start to open our state secret somewhere, then look exactly how it will go. So that's a pure shock, actually a horror story that's going on with Julian in the eyes. And it was like that. Until about a year ago, I and a few other people went through Berlin and said, Julian Assange, it's not fair. And the people said, that's not the FaGewaltia or is it not in Moscow or what is it in front of one? And there was a massive character assassination, as we call it in English. So a secret service operation, Julian's Image, about the history of the FaGewaltia in Sweden. Julian's Image, to reach the end of solidarity and to spread his image of an iridescent left. I have never understood how journalists and colleagues of mine were able to write. He's crazy. They were never in a message. They didn't say anything to him. And he writes, he's crazy. He's Nazi. He's crazy.  A Russian agent and everything else. I was in a message company and met an unheard-of, friendly, friendly, interesting partner. I sat against him. I never understood it. The role of the media, but I don't want to talk too long about it, the role of the media, how it has been, so to speak, from the secret service operation propagandistic for Julian Karren. Until, yes, maybe two months ago, now it's a little bit like that, is also extremely embarrassing for my job. Yes, thank you, Michael. Yes, I'm going to do it again. That's how it is. So I have to do it again. Michael, what do you think? How could you, the interest on the Causa Assange now over the months and later over the years that are to be expected when it actually comes to a process before the EGMR? What can you do about it? What can the mirror do? What will the colleagues do to keep the interest awake? So I think one thing that is difficult with Julian Assange is the press freedom. What is what most people in their age no longer deals with. For us journalists, press freedom is important. Interns can do what we think is right and to the outside that we are not followed without reason. But otherwise it's just it's a relatively special responsibility. But we have to try to make it precise that a democracy can only work if there is a free press. That is why the press freedom is what all people who are interested in other democratic free countries are also interested in. So that's the one point. And then it is luckily and I have to say that it is for the most part, I think, my friend Günter Wallraff to thank a pretty unique intelligence journalist who called me in front of Christmas from the intensive station responsible for lung inflammation in the meantime. You already have the difference from Danny Kuhn-Bendet. And how did you do that? He then with Gerhard Baum and with Sigi Gabriel this manifest then collected people from all political camps. And that gave him a bit of a push. And then there is the great Nils Mälzer, a jurist who teaches in Glasgow and the assignment of the United Nations for Folter, against Folter for Folter who examined the case exactly and then gave a few interviews that opened up many pages of eyes and ears.  And then he said, well, really, and so on. And the Mälzer has formulated it so well and has, so to speak, once the authority of his office and then that he could really visit for a long time, talk to him for a long time, he could make a picture of himself. He then led with these interviews that people who have not always been interested in Julian Assange said, no, it was a joke. So many of my friends say, they want to know now what's going on with Julian, what's happening and it's no longer this similarity. And I hope that it will go on. And now, that's the question. Not now, but the moment has changed. There were still 50 journalists there. And then that's the actual task. And the problem is, but that the thing is urgent. So now again on the humanitarian aspect to come to speak, it is so that Julian Assange is already heavily attacked. So he was also very attacked when I visited him in the embassy the last time. I also wrote about it on Friday about a year ago, so a little over a year ago. I was there just before Christmas. And that was the first time to really see that this isolation that was already going on in the embassy when the government changed the Ecuador. They did everything to get him out of there. He was put off the heating. He was sitting there in a dungeon. And they tried to get him out of there. And then he saw that too. So he told me, I don't know, in the next few weeks I'll be here when they pull me out. And it happened in April. And he was already pretty attacked. And now I can't even imagine it. So I just got a code, so to speak, from him, with whom I can send him emails, but he can't answer me. So I send him emails, but it's a bit like a lesson. But you can imagine how it goes. Who is in a high-security prison and under isolation. And the problem is that I also spoke to his lawyers. And one of them said to me that he said to her that he was basically thinking about to get him out of there. And he's anyway, so Melzer was basically threatened with suicide. So I personally wasn't surprised because I watched the story seven or eight years ago. I was always there. And this terrible press, what Michael just described, was really difficult. And you couldn't resist it. It was really like a wrong world. So normally, when women say I was raped, they laugh out loud. So I exaggerate it, but then it's with them that they prove it. So it always means, how do you prove it? And do you have a mini-rock? And blah, blah, blah. So we don't even know that. That you suddenly, so I come from Yugoslavia and I know people who are rapists from the neighboring village have never been on the list of Interpol. So that's what made me mistrust from the beginning. That I thought, really? You're suddenly taking care of women. And well, this whole case has now been combined like a card house. But what it did with him, so all these smear campaigns over the years, okay, I'll do it at the end. And the problem is just... I just wanted to know something. My Julian knows what's happening in the company where he's always out of it, that he's being watched. But that's a Spanish insurance company, UC Global, whose business leader and owner David Morales is now in the middle of Madrid. That they thought about how to net the chain and not just thought about it, they took pictures of the one-sided entry. How you get in there. That you can poison them. Or Hillary says, later she says, it was just a joke. Can't we drone him? So this massive threat or this desire of the most powerful of all in this world, to turn him into a swine, that's of course an irresistible burden. That alone, they could have been better, that's enough. Yeah, that's right. And the idea, what's happening now, just as the last one, if he, for example, so it's very clear now, no matter who wins this round in the process, it goes on. So when the Amis wins, his team will of course put in the contradiction and vice versa. That means it goes to the Heidt Court, then it goes to the Supreme Court and then, where possible, somehow on a European Court. We've heard that before. That means it will take a few years. And if Assange continues to be stuck in such conditions, like this is the case now, under such a kind of isolation, Nitz-Melta also spoke to Folter, so isolation is Folter, we know that. And then the question is, whether this couple of years where the process takes place can survive at all. And that's why I mentioned it before, because I said, the question is not just to keep it up, but basically it has to be stopped now. Pinochet sat in a villa, a mass murderer, and he defended himself from there. And by the way, it wasn't delivered. There has to be something to happen and it has to happen immediately. And the question is just like him, right? Already now? I have an idea. It's not going well. At the end of the last year, it was decided on the highest political level in such cases.  If Bernie Sanders... Let's not pray, of course, but let's hope if Bernie Sanders wins the U.S. presidential election, there is a political possibility again that he says, like Obama and his administration, that he didn't follow Vickie Lee and Julie, because they said, first a man being freedom of choice is more important than getting this legislation from the first world. Well, that would look like another political situation, but we only have a little influence here in Berlin. You can say that the former prime minister had even brought a game to the left and the left to the left. He brought the game, the German government may think about it again, if you don't want to give him asylum. That seems to me counter-intuitive, a little illusory, but it was definitely the issue of asylum to get into the conversation at all. I think that's important. You should always think about it, whether whistleblowers from the important areas, national security, defense and secret services, whether such whistleblowers are not in law, they should also get asylum. In Germany, it would be a small thing to add asylum reasons to the asylum law, that whistleblowers can get asylum. That doesn't change the political process, how they run at the moment, that they may also negate this right. I wanted to say something about the smear campaign. I don't know if any of you remember Jake Appelbaum, if you remember, he's somewhere here, in the year 2000, before the history of collateral murder, before 2010, there was a blue break, the CIA, how to make WikiLeaks unbelievable, how to damage it, how to destroy WikiLeaks. And the great thing about WikiLeaks is that it was on the website, it was a wonderful irony back then, but apparently at a later point, the Americans found a way to make the smear campaign impossible. You have to think about it, there's no rationality that the Snowden is everybody's darling and that's the Schwiegermutter-dream in Germany. We made the campaign for Snowden, there were 250,000 people there, and the baker's wife wrote, I have a stove behind the stove, and the baker doesn't know, and he can go there too. So that was Snowden, and essentially it was completely dismantled. There's no argument for that, because if there was a historical innovation given through WikiLeaks, in the last 20 years, it was WikiLeaks, no politician dares anymore, believes that he can easily and without any problems. Something has changed in the ways of politicians or the authorities to take responsibility. But I think, I'll leave you both for a moment. Yes, but it could also be that I want to know, and then I'll ask if anyone wants to know how Chelsea Manning went, because I think we shouldn't forget to talk about Chelsea Manning, whatever. By the way, I can also say something about what you said about the court, as Marionette, the prosecutor in the court said that she is a puppet of Julien Assange and that he is the puppet master. Because they want to get him aiding and abetting the enemy. In order to use the espionage act on him, they have to prove that Chelsea Manning did not act on her behalf, but was manipulated by Julien Assange.  They did not react. That was, so to speak, the first ones and she herself said in front of the court that there is also a pedigree, a final pedigree and a lot of evidence and I couldn't see it anymore, the war crimes and so on. And the irony is that the attempts in the Assange case, so to speak, from Chelsea Manning to create a marionette from Assange, so that they get him because if she, because she acted on her behalf, then you can forget quite a lot of points. That's why you are in the subpoena, that's why you are in the kitchen now. Yes, but not just that. And so that you can confirm that that was from the beginning in your process, that you also tried Chelsea Manning, physically and psychologically, at least in terms of how that happened with Assange, in order to make a statement against Assange. I can only say it with Renata thank you to Chelsea Manning and it was wonderful how she survived, but now to the question from the audience. I'm sorry, I'm a journalist for over 40 years. So self-criticism is not something that you can do with a journalist. I'm sorry, I'm a journalist for over 40 years. So self-criticism is not something that you can do with a journalist. So self-criticism is not something that you can do with a journalist. And the problem is also that I'm a journalist now. It's embarrassing. Somehow why now suddenly there is news about Vicky that there was a Russian agent or someone who brought Trump to power or whatever. I think that there is simply opportunism in the media or something like the Lemmings. So if 10 journalists say that, then the next 5 and say that too, then there are 3 again and then there are many. And so to speak, it is sometimes difficult to really think about the speed. But the likeness with which Julian built this monster image I don't even know but it's amazing. But I think that's all Fortunately, there are also organizations that were so that borderless at the beginning and Julian supported it. It was a process and Mnist International and now you basically have a whole wide range of organizations that say it's okay and press-free in that case if journalists, if they publish secret documents in prison or with long sentences then they can no longer have the right to their own work and there is this beautiful word by George Orwell. George Orwell said that journalism is the publication of things that some people don't want to publish. Everything else is population. And that's a high demand for journalists. But if we want to be entitled to it, then we have to make sure that these, it's not just Julian and Chelsea Manning, but in the USA there are 4 or 5 other whistleblowers because of this espionage law from 1917 that was filed or prosecuted. It seems like in the USA there are already some photo reality winners and there are smaller cases that are not so well known. And there you just have to make the Americans a base but make it clear that with such laws the work of investigative journalists is very difficult and if we need something like that then these laws have to be removed. Chelsea Manning was the first to be prosecuted after the espionage act. But Michael again, you are absolutely right I know that the South German newspaper the FAZ, the mirror they will be read tomorrow and then there will be a launch and there will be the next article. It is actually the responsibility that the mirror is a father's place to keep the case. They have a special responsibility because we cooperated with WikiLeaks because of the mirror which was prosecuted in 2010 because of the 4 big releases that Chelsea Manning made because they found it in the mirror and from then on I don't want to go into detail but I have a hard time dealing with the mirror because he is a Russian agent and we don't work together and it happens in a lot of other media also in other journalists like John Götz you are part of WikiLeaks you are part of Julian it doesn't work and we have to have a distance and the funny thing is when the chief editor is nervous when Julian Assange is called then they will be a little cedric I came only to write because I didn't stop Michael has already met me in this context that's why we know each other even in the message we have a memorable evening which you can see online or through the CIA I started from despair to write because Julian Assange encouraged me and I also want to say that to characterization but he is actually a highly intelligent person and also to the subject of women feminism and so on you have read a lot of negative things I can say it, Renata can say it I have never actually met a man who took me so seriously like Julian Assange who encouraged me and to do what I have done the last 10 years I have completely to thank him and that's why I want to say it again because it is all bullshit and no one was interested in meeting him already in 2011 and 2012 I did the piece about him and there I had a lot of interviews and the fat guy sat me over and when I said positive things about him he said to me and do you think you are as sharp as a woman? and such questions were asked but then immediately understood that I am a fan girl because I am a woman I am not serious and that did not happen to me I can see 5 fingers the German journalists I know like Michael or John Götz all the others are opportunists and now you all turn around because you get scared because maybe you are on the wrong side of the story Jake, before I give the word I can say that is the problem at the moment there is a huge conjecture I have also signed we get requests without an end for interviews and at the moment there is a big chance but I know exactly that journalism is a new mess every week and if we ask what is the task for the next time and how can we really help the messians then it is always to consider how Renata also said on April 5 where collateral murder has been published and one of the collateral murder is two years for the punishment of Manning it was announced that it was not allowed to publish it or that it would not be punishable two years after the espionage act it was published Jake Hi Do you want to come here and speak to the mic? No, it is just a question for von Heimer actually Can you hear me? Yes I am curious when Spiegel is planning to do the big cover issue about this issue I was offered a deal by the US government that if I turn on Julian that I can come home to America where I have not been in seven years and it is interesting because I work with Spiegel at the time of these publications and when you are offered a deal this means you are someone that they like to charge but they are willing to give up charging you in order to get someone else that they want obviously I told them to fuck off there is no question about that but my question is when will Spiegel write the articles that include the confrontations about how everyone that worked on these publications is not also going to be targeted or confirm that they in fact will be will Marcel be targeted will Hoger be targeted will be targeted it feels to me like the answer to that question is potentially yes especially if Julian ends up in an American prison and so I feel that Spiegel especially as one of the media partners should be getting this out to everyone as a cover issue today I picked up that Spiegel is very happy to see in the bottom left corner that there is a big story by Marcel but it wasn't the cover story and I would like to just kind of ask when that is going to happen it needs to happen it's not okay to leave it hanging and Spiegel does really good, respectable work and if you keep doing it about Assange Jake would you introduce yourself so that everybody understands why you make this proposal I'm a journalist that has worked with Julian and also with Spiegel we did a lot of cover articles during the Snowden era in fact every Snowden publication that was published by Spiegel wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for Julian and Assange so just today we said we chose Berlin as the place to work on these things because we assessed that Germany had the best free speech and best free press laws basically in the world which if that is a surprise to you that's more a insult to the rest of the world that are complimented to Germany but coming from America especially when you see what's happening to Julian you realize we were able to publish in Germany and they want to put us in the ground in America so I basically there's a lot of stress for journalists that work on anything to do with Julian in these days because there's a lot of money and hating on Julian it's true there is if you want to write an op-ed fashion you can probably get paid for it pretty well so I just would like to see for example if he gets sent to America I hope that that merits a cover article for Spiegel Jake is it okay if I speak German or should I answer your name it's fine okay for them it was quite long yeah Spiegel had before the beginning of the process I think there were seven pages Marcel was there Dietmar, Piper the Great Britain correspondent I also made a disunion in the background and we said and it was planned as a title I don't know if then Corona what it's like then it was said now we have to make an actual title but it had the length that otherwise has a title story and internally we always have a lot of disarming so I'm also now to do more and I'll go back in and write myself but then there's just so much in the hierarchy people say we didn't do everything and Vicki is back and it's a long long discussion and I'm giving myself a try and what you said what you and other people in the circle of VickiLeaks or the part of VickiLeaks are and what is still being done if we have information if it makes sense to do a dispute with the lawyers we'll do it right away I did the last two pages about the surveillance of the company the purchase of the surveillance material to the Americans also on that topic we'll stay on we'll do our best we'll do our best are there any questions I've seen a hand in the middle no questions I would say oh there exactly maybe I've already experienced that it's so sad about the journalism a few months ago there was a mass action of the Australian media against this search for the house of a journalist to say is there anything not imaginable that there is some kind of military action in Germany or even in Europe doesn't that mean I think we should think that we can do a bit more than to write a letter to be photographed with a sign a bit more should be done but actually it would be good a concerted action of the five newspapers that were most profited New York Times The Guardian, El País, Le Monde and The Mirror those were the first that had the big cube I say that now as a director very dramaturgically it makes sense if these few newspapers would put together and say we are all together and make a concerted how do you call it action, wouldn't that be more effective than what you experience at the moment it's a great idea here is someone who wants to moderate and will never experience this there is a question the lady in red I can answer that because I was at the court when this thing was discussed and the prosecutor had a very small path because they were very very worried that the world or the press will not accuse them of prosecuting the press so he was emphasizing that this is not about press freedom that none of the other outlets will be prosecuted that they are not prosecuting a journalist but a simple criminal he emphasized that like 100 times and it was like going like a PR action just for the press so this is what I can say that what you are asking for because the truth is they should because one of the things they want to accuse him of that he endangered the sources that he put people's life sector risks namely Alice of the US and there Alice but as we now learned or I knew it like for 10 years but nobody believed it the Guardian was the first one to put a dangerous in life because two Guardian journalists Luke Harding and David Lee published in a best seller book that they put very fast without second thoughts they published the password who could open the files of all the leaks of Chelsea Manning that were out there because Julian and the partners of them were all trying to protect them even WikiLeaks wanted 15,000 cables not to be published they chose them and said like we can't do that when the Guardian put that password out and even when this was discussed by the defense on court that the Guardian was the first to put lives in danger unredacted material was accessible for everyone in the moment when they put this key out in the public first everybody was shutting up about it but then the Freitag published an article because they found out and they used the key and they said like wow everyone is in danger so at that moment WikiLeaks tried to even contact and this is on the terrible of Laura Poitras risk also the proof where Sarah Harrison and Julian Assange tried to call the State Department in the US and tried to reach Hillary Clinton and they are just not put through they say to him ok you have to wait for some hours at risk and the Guardian journalists wanted to make a fast dollar you know they put people at risk so actually this is very very important you know but this is a very long complicated method it is long but people should know sorry I do have to say something to the risk of journalists because the prosecutor in that process was asked by the defense concerned some item that had been published and that was one of the reasons why they said Julian was a criminal the prosecutor was asked by the defense whether they would also sue a journalist in case he or she had published that item I forgotten what the case was whether he or she would also be published or punished and prosecuted and the prosecution said yes yes clearly yes but Jake just to answer your question we are not afraid we are not scared no I can tell you we published together some of the Snowden documents I mean were we scared we weren't it's also not the point because they don't have to everyone now but if they managed to put him in jail for the rest of his life then it will be an automatic effect on everyone who wants to do the same so yeah it's very effective one more question do you think the damage is already restricted? yes of course it's only about the limit and of course it's not that easy because I think if he is really being judged and that everything is over then the damage is much bigger so it's already a damage but he can be catastrophic and I think it's all about because it's no longer a democracy in which we live because now it's not because a democracy can actually have no dissidents it's already in itself if we all from the war just want to get embedded journalists and if we all from the war want to get it then we have to let it go and if we don't want it then we have to intervene at certain points yes what have you seen in the last two years of action for Julian Assange and the help for the blue always in general you have to look at our blog as I said our network was prominent with these signatures and with the signatures which the Günter Wallraff Thank you for the FAC collected we we don't do we don't do it every week before the Brandenburg tour we are a very small network and we work to death I myself was at Julian Assange in the embassy and I asked him what you can do what I do is essentially the things from the legal side and to me in the blog or in a lot of interviews if you are Patrick you spoke to him Patrick? I know that is a light please read then you have to look at our blog there is there is in the press there is a lot of event I don't want to read let me just talk read where I appeared in the press last year every week or every month we can't do more as a tiny network okay? Jolanda? she is a publisher I think there is a lot of freedom there is a lot of freedom we are all in danger even if we are not under the name of a publisher that is why we are all in danger that is exactly the reason why we are sitting here and that is a good argument if that was the last question then thank you for being there and I am looking forward to working with you for you as information in 14 days the exhibition is open for 14 days we will be here with the 25 people so that your friends, family who are always interested can come by and on the 14th we would like to have another event with podium guests today like in Genf at a meeting and I assume that they will be able to come maybe other colleagues from the media and I would be very happy if you could tell people about the exhibition you could inform you can find a lot of information on our website because Julian Assange is a member of the 25 that is why we have worked together it is a great collaboration everything is a bit hazy we are activists and no professionals we don't earn money here so we are happy to spend and thank you for being there tell us more come by bring friends with you hopefully in 14 days


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Tensions continue to mount in Europe. It's been a hectic couple of days with a lot of press conferences, announcement of sanctions, a lot of it starting on Monday evening when Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he would recognize the independent republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. And from there, there's been a chain of events. What's going to happen in the next couple of days? It's hard to tell, but we'll be discussing the implications in this episode of Mapping Fault Lines. We're joined by Prabir Purkayas. Prabir, thank you so much for joining us. So as you know, over the past few days, there's been a lot of developments, a bit difficult to actually piece them together. But let's start with one key moment, which is that Russian President Vladimir Putin heard his key officials from various sectors talking about the Lugansk and Donetsk people's republics. All of them recommended that these should be recognized. He followed it with his own official announcement, also got permission to deploy troops. So let's first start with what you see is the implication of this move for Russia, for Ukraine, for the whole of Europe. You know, there are two sets of fault lines, since we call it the mapping of fault lines. Two sets of fault lines here. One is what Putin has referred to as the fault lines within Ukraine itself. And I think that's very important. And he's gone into a lot of history for that, which we'll come to later. Second is, of course, the larger fault lines, which is NATO versus Russia, in this case. And that has been simmering. And we've been talking about it earlier as well, the positioning of missiles, the NATO exercises in borders of Russia. And what Russia has also talked about in Putin has talked about in this speech is also about what NATO's plans were with respect to Ukraine, that though de facto it was a part of NATO, de facto it's a part of NATO, though officially it was not a part of NATO, that exercises were being done, bases were there, that they called it training facilities and so on. So I think these two fault lines need to therefore be also talked about separately. First is going back to the Ukrainian fault line. There is a history of Ukraine, which I'm not going to get into, which talks about the Rus and how Kiev was built by essentially Lenin and Stalin and how the Soviet Union had a faulty constitution, which allowed the dissolution of Soviet Union by Elsin. It's not because of the constitution that happened. Let's not get into that. But the reality is that Ukraine was, even if you read the word Ukraine, that's really borderlands. So in fact, some people say it should be called the Ukraine, like we call the Netherlands. So living that part out, Ukraine in the last 75, 80, 100 years would be called at best a multinational entity, whether it is a part of Soviet Union or later, a multinational entity meaning there are more than one ethnicities within Ukraine. A significant part of this was of course the Russian ethnicity, but more important, Russian speakers who were not Russian ethnicity, but the first language of Ukraine for a lot of people was Russian. Now this is the other fault line within Ukraine that post the Maidan 2014 basically overthrow of the government that existed and the Maidan dictated government that comes into place. We know behind the scenes, it was Newlands who was doing it. She even said, if you remember F dash dash K, EU and so on. So if you see that was really usurpation of usurping power by a certain group, which took advantage of the Maidan unrest and came into power and in that it was backed by a lot of quote-unquote nationalists as they now say in the world sentiments, which meant ethnic nationalism, which were very strongly anti-Russian, banning of language of the Russians to be taught in schools, first language etc being completely only Ukrainian. So even in shopping you had to use only Ukrainian. So whole lot of things came in and they attack on Russian newspapers and Russian television station and we are talking here of the language, we are not talking of the ethnicity here, plus also attacks on ethnic Russians. So all of this has been the fault lines within Ukraine and one of the reasons Zelensky has not been able to move on the Minsk Accord, which was basically what Lugansk and Donetsk region's demand was was autonomy, regional autonomy, autonomy of these two regions within Ukrainian state, that has been completely sabotaged or not proceeded on by Ukraine because of the street power of the fascist forces in Ukraine. So that has been the backdrop and there have been bombings, attacks, shelling, sporadic, more intense or otherwise going on. As you can see if you take the 18th, 19th, 20th figures or 18th figures, the maps of the OSCE observers are there and you can see the shelling is more inside the rebel hell territories as they have been called, that this is where most of the bombings and explosions were taking place, which is shelling. And this is what has been something that Putin has raised, that the shelling continuously you are trying to do this, you are eradicating the Russian language and ethnicity within Ukraine, you are constructing it as a state of Ukrainian ethnic nationalists, which are really fascists, he doesn't use the word in this form and also the street power that has been used time and again against Russian ethnicities, which is also the expression that you see in the attack of the Donbas region, particularly on the rebel hell territories. So this is the background which he has used and said yes to protect Russian ethnic and Russian language speakers, we have decided to now provide them protection. Now if you take the West, West has always argued the United States, European Union, the Russian forces are anyway there. Now they we know that they really were not there in the form that we now see. So of course there is a distinction between people who are ex-servicemen going there and fighting or Russian soldiers going there in planes, clothes or whatever between and officially Russian army moving in. So here you have a formal movement of Russian army and it does seem that if you take that into account immediately the shelling from across the line of control has reduced maybe not significantly but definitely it has visibly reduced. So it does seem that there is that part of it. What happens to rest of the Donbas region, which is also the official geographic boundary of Donetsk and Lugansk, only one third of this is under rebel control or the two entities which have declared independence since 2015. So this under their control, the two thirds which are not under their control but under Ukrainian government control. What happens to that is the big question. Otherwise it is in some sense rearrangement of the pieces but within the existing boundaries itself. So it's not in that sense a change as the European Union would like to say it's an invasion, this has happened, that has happened, Biden was predicting this. Since they all have claimed it was already Russia was there, they cannot call this an invasion. They have predicted everything. Also one thing they had not predicted is Russia will invade the rebel health entities because according to them rebel health entities were anyway with Russia and under Russian arms occupation. So given that this so-called invasion as Russian armist movement moved into Donetsk and Lugansk seems to not meet the criteria of invasion they had talked about earlier. Though now they are saying see we have already predicted it but yes if the line of control which is there between the rebel troops in this case the two breakaway provinces governments which Russia has recognized if that line of control is crossed we will have to say Russia is moving into Ukraine and there is an invasion even if it is support of the Russian ethnic population or a Russian speaking population it will have to be considered as an invasion and therefore it will draw a different kind of response. If you see most of the countries have said yeah it's not to go they should not have done this and so on but there is really nothing more they have said. The Chinese also haven't come out in condemning it or supporting it. In fact they're condemned to sanctions actually said that sanctions. Sanctions are yeah but if you look at it nobody is going to go either way if we're not already a protagonist like European Union and the United States is. So the question that is there is will they move on sanctions as you talked about or will Russian army move into the region that the Ukrainian government controls. I think these are the two questions that is there we can talk about the sanctions first before we go into what are the other possibilities. Right so probably talking about the sanctions and other responses we've seen Biden giving a speech yesterday the European Union foreign ministers agreeing on a sanctions package. The characteristic seems to be that in most cases those targeted are lawmakers who are involved in this process of recognition of these republics certain banks any institution which might have commercial you know dealings with these two republics and of course the big ticket announcement which was that Germany is going to pause the Nord Stream 2 project. So starting with the Nord Stream 2 and looking at some of the others are these actually very substantial blows to Russia or are they just sort of symbolic. You see Nord Stream 2 project means a lot to Germany. How much does it mean to Russia? Open question because Russia has the option of certainly selling its gas to China and in the next 10-15 years that seems to be its major market. So they have an option for European Union their option is either to buy LNG which is much higher in price try to get something from North Africa again might be pipelines and so on expensive cannot be done in a day or go back to Nord Stream 1 and what is coming from Ukraine already or the Yamal pipeline which is coming actually from Russia but across Poland. There are three pipelines from which European Union receives gas. If I leave out the Southern alignment which comes to Italy that that's basically one is Nord Stream 1 existing pipeline the one which is to Poland Yamal pipeline and then the third one which is coming from Ukraine which Putin has said the infrastructure of that is very poor it is leaking methane into the atmosphere causing global warming as the world always talks about. So that is why we are not so interested in selling further gas to Ukrainian pipeline but we will continue to honor our incremental 2025 of course unless there is a war then of course all bets are off. So looking at that Nord Stream was supposed to fulfill the future requirements of Germany as gas price rises so will electricity price rise in Germany and maybe other countries also. Now the net impact of this is a major cost of the people in winter months comes essentially from the price they pay for electricity and heating so Germany is going to be hit. So re-looking at this factor what it means is from Russia as the major supply of gas European Union could move now to North Africa and the United States more expensive gas but cutting their dependency on Russia. Now this is one of the objectives that United States had in the Ukrainian embryo because they wanted that to happen so that European Union becomes dependent on the United States higher price of gas both are desirable for United States and not on Russia that could be one of the outcomes of what's happening and the last part of it and I think that's also important to register that this gas the relationship between European Union gas and Russia erstwhile Soviet Union predates the stopping of Cold War it happened in fact at the height of Cold War in fact in 80s when the if you remember the Star Wars scenario was very much present the red gas coming from Soviet Union to European Union started was worked out as a part of a long-term understanding that European Union or Europe required gas coming from Eurasia essentially from Russia and that is something that should be protected outside the political conflict that it might be happening so it's interesting with the collapse of Soviet Union what should have been more easy has now become much more difficult and that that is the interesting development that finally European Union seems to have succumbed to the United States in all of this because they don't have an independent policy and if I may quote who was the first chief of NATO he said the objective maybe it was a joke but it's a quite a serious joke objective of NATO is to get US in Germany down and Russia out this is the objective of NATO that it seems though NATO had to withdraw from Afghanistan rather ignominiously it seems that through this crisis they are somewhere close to achieving that objective again except the fact that we are now far closer to a nuclear exchange possibly between United States and Russia which would be in the end of civilization or the world that we know it this is something which does not seem to be full figuring into our discussions or the world's discussions on what the crisis is all about thank you so much for being we'll be tracking this issue very closely in the coming days as well until then keep watching news click and people dispatch