Is Russia Waging A "Hybrid War" Against Europe?

0:00Hello everyone and welcome to the Amanpur Hour. Here's where we're headed this week. Russia bombards Europe with so-called grey attacks. What might President Putin do next? I asked the Czech President and former NATO general Petra Pavel. He's been sounding the alarm bells for months. Then remembering the remarkable glorious Steinem and her relentless fight for women's equality. The people who say the fight is over the same people who used to say to me it's impossible. You know it's against nature and now their current form of obstructionism is it's over. No, no, no, we've just barely begun. And warning from the top of the world after Nepal's catastrophic glacial meltdown a special report from where the people are still burying their dead. Also on the program.

1:05And I for an I the intriguing new documentary about an Iranian woman who killed her husband after years of abuse and has to pay his family for forgiveness or face execution. Plus. 35 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union how Russians drown their sorrows in vodka. You didn't get this word can you? I'm having my apartment repaired and no one will do anything for me unless I give him vodka. Welcome to the program everyone. I'm Cristiano Manpur in London with arson attacks airspace violations and assassination squads. Russia is waging a hybrid war against European NATO states. The conclusion just after Germany said Moscow was behind last months attack at Leipzig airport where an explosive drone was found near a Ukrainian cargo plane. CIA director John Ratcliffe went to Moscow last week to issue a warning. Do not escalate against NATO.

2:06But will they listen our first guest told this program back in April that Putin would likely attempt increasingly bold campaigns against NATO. The president of the Czech Republic and the former NATO general Petra Pavell joined me from Prague. Mr. President welcome back to our program. And as I mentioned you warned on this program a few months ago that this is precisely what Putin would do. Is this kind of the I told you so moment? I believe that this is exactly the pattern of Russian behavior in last couple of months. Russia aware that they cannot launch an open military action against NATO is using all the arsenal of indirect actions from subversion incursions into sovereign airspace provocation at the maritime space. But also information campaigns against different countries all motivated by the old rule divide and rule.

3:10And Mr. President do you think this is because apparently American intelligence has told Russia that they are not winning that the economic and military situation for Russia is very very dire. Do you think this is a desperate sort of Hail Mary pass by Putin? Obviously always going to do this. Well President Putin always seeks for an external enemy. There is no attention whatsoever from European countries to innovate Russia. No one is so crazy. But Russia always insists to their own population that they are under threat from the West. And that's why when they do not succeed aggression against Ukraine they are looking for external enemies and the first place European countries supporting Ukraine are now their direct focus. That's why they launch a number of indirect attacks against European countries to disunite European Union,

4:16NATO to discourage these countries from support to Ukraine and to create a perception that Russia can act wherever they choose. Well let me ask you that because this is the crux of the matter isn't it? I don't know whether they are successful in discouraging your countries from supporting Ukraine. But your country is having a really hard time right now supporting Ukraine. How do you particularly as a former military officer view the state of battle right now? It's more or less stalemate. Russia is not succeeding even though Russian propaganda insists that the war is going well. For every square kilometer that Russia achieves from Ukraine they lose more than 1,000 people. The rate of casualties is higher than the rate of recruitment. And over the last year they acquired less than 0.4% of Ukraine and

5:25territory. That cannot be translated as a success. And that's why they are trying to do anything possible to demonstrate that they have the power to win the conflict. That's why they are focusing on soft targets, creating terror, creating fear and creating beliefs that Russia cannot be defeated. We read anecdotally some in the Russian elite are somehow making it known that this war needs to stop whether it's in the economic sector, some diplomatic sector. We're reading evidence that at least some people are starting to say things out loud and it's not appreciated by the Kremlin. Do you think what do you know? What does your intelligence tell you about what's being said now? I believe that Russian population is generally tired by the war as a Ukrainian population. They don't want it in general. But at the same time they are being convinced by their

6:28leadership that Russia cannot lose this conflict that they eventually will prevail. And in Russian spirit losing means almost disaster. That's why they need at least perception of a victory. I believe that we all have to insist that ending the war is actually the victory for everyone. Including Russian population which will again get access to oil and gas, to all the goods they are used to because continuation of that conflict is not in their interest as it is not in our interest. You gave an interview to a British newspaper a couple of months ago. You said that there was essentially a two-month window. That's what you said back then to push Russia towards talks because there's going to be an election and that might you said close off room for negotiations. Can you explain and sort of expand on that? Well, up to now President Putin

7:30didn't come to calling for mobilization because he understood that it's highly unpopular among Russian male population. When they declared mobilization last time, about one and a half million young Russians fleeing the country to neighboring countries and to Europe, I think they are very aware that the war is highly unpopular and young people, young men are not willing to go to die because as the CIA director pointed when visiting Russia, a life expectancy of young recruits who come out to a battle field is between 20 and 30 minutes. So President Putin will be more willing to call for mobilization after the elections because then he can afford to ignore public perceptions and opinion. Finally, I just want to ask you then,

8:32is it better to try to engage the Russians or to keep trying to isolate them? For instance, as you well know, the G20, the United States administration invited the Russian finance minister to North Carolina, EU countries were furious, allies were furious and refused to take part in a photo op. What was your view of that? Frankly, I don't consider such a move in the right one. Because it sounds like an effort to normalize relationship with Russia. We shouldn't isolate completely Russia. We should be very firm in our position that we are open to negotiation without preconditions and after they stop fighting the line of contact as it is now. That's a foundational condition for any negotiation. I think we cannot normalize because any such a move would only encourage Russia that things are coming to normal even with continuation of war in Ukraine.

9:35That's really an interesting observation and we appreciate you being with us tonight. President of the Czech Republic, Petropevl, thanks for joining us. Thank you, Christian. A really difficult dilemma. And next, a tribute to an extraordinary and full life as glorious Steinem dies at 92. My conversation with the great feminist activists who fought for women everywhere. And later, life under Sharia law in Iran, the documentary that reveals what it's like to be a woman in Iran today. I speak to director Tanas Isaryan.

10:37And data centers. Have I got news for your ears? Check us out on Apple, Amazon Music, wherever you get your podcasts. Even better, you can watch The Vodka on Spotify. Welcome back to the program. This week, the world lost another grade. The inimitable, glorious Steinem has died at the grand old age of 92. She passed away at her home in New York. We're told surrounded by people who loved her. Undoubtedly, one of the most important activists of all time, she became the face and voice of the woman's liberation movement in the 1970s, which fought for equality and a fundamental right to control a woman's own body. This was for all women. And it was a course she dedicated her entire life to. So I'd like to revisit a couple of our conversations over the course of a decade to hear Gloria in her own words, first in 2015, when she told me about her life growing up on the road, including numerous trips abroad.

11:37And she turned that experience into her memoir. We've been through several waves of feminism. Where are we now? Because some people think the fight is over, is it? The people who say the fight is over, the same people who used to say to me, it's impossible. It's against nature. And now their current form of obstructionism is it's over. No, no, no, we've just barely begun. And obstructionism, you choose that word, obviously, with consideration. I mean, you still feel that the women we are being obstructed. Well, you know, we're all born into this very patriarchal culture. It takes different forms around the world. But the basis of it is that reproduction must be controlled by men. And that means controlling women's bodies. It may take different forms, religious forms, political forms, but that is the basic impulse. And so, you know, it's quite radical to say we are seizing control of reproduction, which we are.

12:40And it makes perfect sense because these are our bodies. And this was also the form of governance for millennia before patriarchy came along. And we had made progress in a lot of ways, but we still discuss, say, foreign policy and terrorism and all the disasters that you report, as if it was separate from the women's movement. The women's movement is a silo over here. Foreign policy is a silo over there and never the twain shall meet. How do you think the twain meets? The twain meets because the single biggest predictor of violence and a culture has always been the polarization of roles, hypermasculinity on one side, hyperfemininity and, you know, women and reproduction controlled on the other side. And if we simply looked at that as an indicator, we would not, for instance, have supported, say, the Mujaadine in Afghanistan who turned into the

13:40Taliban because they were way more hostile and way more violent towards females. Then the regime, we helped them overthrow. Here you are. I said your 81, nobody would believe it if they looked at you. I don't believe it. Once somebody asked you, you know, oh my god, you're 40 and you said, this is what 40 looks like, which is a very empowering thing to say. And you've been saying that every decade, which is great, people, we should own, you know, the road we've traveled. But what is it you think, despite all the pro-progress that you and we have made, that has not yet reached a tipping point, final momentum point, so that there is parity and there is gender justice, which is global justice, despite the fact that it would make, if all other arguments fell, economic sense. It wouldn't make economic sense to the people who are profiting from women being underpaid. But to GDP, it does. Yes, but that doesn't count caregiving, it doesn't get, you know. But the

14:44fundamental problem is that the gendered nature of violence is continuing and accelerating. And right now, there are fewer female human beings on earth than there are male human beings, because of all of these forms of violence, including domestic violence in this country, combined. And we are not paying attention to that. And we are not using it as an indicator in our foreign policy. Next, to part of an interview we had in May 2022, when we spoke for the last time, just as news was leaked that the Supreme Court would overturn the Roe vs. Wade ruling, no longer guaranteeing American women the right to a safe abortion. All of this had been glorious life's work trying to guarantee that right. We have a right to make decisions over our own physical selves. And no one has the right to tell us what to do. And that is the majority everywhere,

15:44that is going to prevail in the end. I'm old enough to remember, you know, before there were any real abortion rights, nonetheless, about one in three American women had had an abortion at some time in her life, even when it was maybe not legal. So, you know, there just is such a thing as natural law. And natural law says we get the right to make decisions over our own physical beings. Can I ask you because it goes to the heart of what you have been struggling for in your life as an activist. And in the dedication of your own book, My Life on the Road, you started by talking to a doctor, John Sharp. Can you read a little bit about that from that dedication? Yes, thank you for that because I think, you know, he embodies the gratitude that so many of us

16:46feel. This book is dedicated to Dr. John Sharp of London, who in 1957, a decade before physicians in England could legally perform an abortion for any reason, other than the health of the woman, took the considerable risk of referring for an abortion a 22-year-old American on her way to India, knowing only that she had broken and engaged with at home to seek an unknown fate. She said, you must promise me two things. He said, you must promise me two things. First, you will not tell anyone my name. Second, you will do what you want to do with your life, unquote. Dear Dr. Sharp, I believe you who knew the law was unjust would not mind if I say this so long after your death. I've done the best I could with my life. This book is for you. And I think there are women and men across this country saying thank you to physicians who recognize individual rights.

17:51And fittingly, Gloria Steinem will have the last word on her own legacy. Her final memoir and unexpected life will be released later this month. Next up, warning from the roof of the world, days after Nepal's devastating glacier meltdown, thousands of still missing CNN's Hanukkah Montgomery brings us a special report. I'm still hoping that they come back. We're looking for them and contacting all possible places, but we haven't found any leads. Welcome back. The scale of the disaster in Nepal and Tibet is becoming clearer with more than a thousand people now confirmed dead after last week's devastating floods. Thousands more are still thought to be missing, but as long as the search continues, it does keep hope alive as CNN's Hanukkah Montgomery now reports. Down in Nepal's plains, the river gives up its dead.

18:52Flood waters carried them far from where they were last seen, scattering them along the river banks. Right now we're on a search and recovery mission with the Nepalese police. They've found hundreds of bodies that have washed downstream from the Himalayas in this river, so we're just going to go and see if we can find any more human remains that might need recovering. Using sticks to probe the tall grass, they search for what the floods left behind. They find nothing, so the search continues downstream. They say they found something. I'm just going to put on my mask here in case it's a body. We found an animal carcass and you can tell that it's been here for a few days. It's pretty badly decomposed. The police tell us the same is happening to human remains. These scenes are very hard-wrenching, but we're keeping strong and working. The place is to search seem endless, and what they do recover, they bring here.

19:52A center where photographs of the found dead flicker across screens. Families stare at image after image, looking for a brother, a son, or for this man, his sisters. I'm still hoping that they come back. We're looking for them and contacting all possible places, but we haven't found any leads. The police told me over 800 people were reported missing at this center alone, just 12 were returned to families. Some he says are so badly decomposed, they're unrecognizable. The situation is very challenging. We're getting dead bodies, body parts, and we don't have enough people who are able to do this work. Reunited holds a different meaning here. Finding remains confirms an unbearable truth, but an end to the search for some families, allowing them to lay their loved ones to rest.

20:58But they're considered the lucky ones. The hundreds who can't be identified are brought deep into the forest to a freshly dug mass grave. Numbers are assigned for the unnamed, with the bleak hope that using collected DNA samples one day someone will come looking for them. Back at the river the police find what they're looking for. When we were with the Napoli police we didn't find any remains, but the same team they called us and they told us they found two bodies in the river and now begins the really painful process of identifying these people and then reuniting them with their families. Behind every missing person is a family still waiting and behind every recovered body, the enormous task of learning who they work. Hanna Kama Kamaari, CNN, Nepal. It is an ongoing tragedy and an ominous environmental warning. After the break and eye for an eye the true story of an Iranian woman who admits to murdering

22:01her husband now out of prison but still facing the harsh reality of Sharia law. I speak to director Tana's is Harian. What would drive a woman to think it actually is a good idea to murder her husband? I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, host of the Chasing Life podcast. Last week there was this important report that dropped that I think got a lot of attention. It's about football and there was this new study in the British Medical Journal which estimates that of all the NFL players who died between 2016 and 2021, about 878 players. At least 25% of them had confirmed CTE. That is the disease that is caused by repetitive hits to the brain. So CNN's resident NFL veteran Koi Wire, he called me, we called fellow CNN sports anchor Andy Sholes and we were talking about it. I know as a former player anytime I forget my keys if I get a slight headache it pops in my head.

23:07I'm thinking like man I hope this is just Andy do you forget your keys? I'm barely either. Oh dear husband say yes all the time Koi, make me feel better. Listen to Chasing Life streaming now wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to the program now it's been more than six months of war between the United States and Iran and tensions have escalated again this week with a new round of tit-for-tack military strikes and life for Iranians is more difficult than ever as President Trump reverts to telling them to rise up and fight, enable himself to bend the regime. The hardliners continue to consolidate power further tightening their oppressive grip on the country and as so often happens Iranian women or among those who suffer the most. Now a new documentary offers a rare glimpse into life under Sharia law there and I for an I tells the true story of a wife and mother who killed her husband in self-defense after years of suffering abuse then after years

24:10in prison she faces an impossible choice pay her husband's family the so-called blood money or face execution. I've been locked up in such a lihat. When she found me after cons checking his lawyer it was an annotation that I have never dialed off the traffic industry in a country or what I have seen. The smallalah and anxiety among poor people are preserving one's health and circumstances because they had lift lots of people out. But the rape is what never comes further, although most of us do not fight I spoke to the film director Tana's Esharian about her project.

25:11Tana's Esharian, welcome to the program. Thank you. OK, let's start from the beginning. It's really a murder, blood money, you know, human rights, if you like, women's rights stories. That's how I sort of see it. Let me just the pricey of what exactly happened, because the characters are very complex. And there's not, I mean, there's a lot of gray matter involved. So what drove the woman Tahiré to commit murder and kill her husband? Well, about 15 years ago, Tahiré had one evening thought. It was a good idea to murder her husband, swangle him with a scarf with the help of her two daughters. And this was after years of abuse. He was an opiomatic, and she had been living basically in hell. And one of the things actually that interested me in making this film was what would drive

26:17a woman to think it actually is a good idea to murder her husband? What is the backstory? And we explored in the film, essentially, she tried at some point to get a divorce and went to the court. And it's, as you probably know, it's very difficult for women to get a divorce, whereas a man can just simply divorce a woman. And she went and she explained how horrible he was like, he beat her and in the head. And it's just been, he's abusive. And apparently the judge said to her, lady, it sounds like child's play, go home. And so she had absolutely no backing. And she just took matters into her own hands. Yes. And then the story goes that she and her family, her two daughters and maybe some help from another character essentially buried the body in their own house. And then it continues because basically she then, they got found out.

27:20So she spent 14 years in jail. Then when she came out, that wasn't enough. And your film is called an eye for an eye. Otherwise, she had to either pay blood money to the family of her husband or they would have the decision to forgive or send her to execution. And that turned out to be really a difficult process. Can I first ask you why you call it an eye for an eye? Well, because this is actually the sharia law that we are watching play itself out. This is retaliation in kind an eye for an eye, desos in, in farcy. And that is since the Islamic Revolution, that is the law of Iran. And so that's what you're, that's what you're watching play out. If it's a situation, which is in this case, essentially a private murder, it's between families. It doesn't affect the larger population.

28:21You can have a negotiation, which is what you see in the film where instead of this woman being executed, she, if she can manage to raise the blood money that the victim's family demands, she has a way out. She will not end up hate. The other thing is, which I thought was really remarkable, it's not like you were trying to sympathize necessarily with her. She refused to be a sympathetic character. She didn't ever apologize for having killed him. Was it difficult for you profiling a woman with children who refused to apologize? It's, it's a great question. I actually thought this is a fascinating human being because she breaks so many stereotypes that the West has of women in the Middle East. And she just refuses to be the woe is me victim.

29:21And it actually attracted me to her story. I knew it would be difficult in terms of the fact that when people watch a film, they really do want to sympathize with someone. But the challenge that she's so not sympathetic and she actually breaks the stereotypes you might have was appealing to me. Like she's sitting there saying, you know what, he killed us a thousand times, I only killed him once. And I have no regret. I mean, it was, it was incredible. I was like, I have found a character that is remarkable. And people should see that this could happen in Iran. She can be this tough. I do want to ask you this. You know, I'm not, I don't know whether you were trying to make a judgment on the sort of barbaric Iranian justice system or what you're trying to say. But I found it very interesting that the Wall Street Journal review of all, of all, of all papers made a point of noting that the system was not so different than systems in

30:24other part of the world. And since 52% of Americans, they point out favor the death penalty according to the Gallup poll in October last year. Did that ever play into your mind when you were telling this story? You know, I don't think of systems as barbaric or not barbaric. I think of systems as it's, there's a system and people are trying to get their needs met in it. And there's always a complexity. And in this case, I actually thought, you know, there is, unlike in the West, there's a way out. Like if you get an execution sentence in the West, there's no way out of it. Whereas here, because it's, it's, it's, again, a private crime. It's between two families. And you can negotiate your way out of it. And the negotiations are complex. And frankly, it's, it's in a way, there's a humane answer. So I, I don't really think of it as barbaric.

31:26I actually think the instinct, the desire to have revenge in the form of an eye for an eye is human instinct. Well, on that note, that is quite provocative. And it's an incredibly absorbing film because of all that we've discussed about it. So congratulations and eye for an eye. Tana's is hearty on. Thanks for being with us. Thank you, Christian. It was a pleasure. It is incredible. And eye for an eye is available to watch on jolt.film. And it'll have a theatrical release as well. Coming up with Putin also thwarted in Ukraine, remember he once called the dissolution of the Soviet Union the greatest geostrategic catastrophe of the 20th century? Well, from my archives 35 years ago, I saw the bitter collapse from the perspective of a Moscow vodka factory. We sell a lot of vodka, but we pay almost 96% of our total income to the government. So now we are desperate for money.

32:34Welcome back. Now, earlier in the program, we discussed how a thwarted Putin might start lashing out to test NATO in Europe. We know he's still smarting from the breakup of the Soviet Empire, which began in earnest 35 years ago. First, President Mikhail Gorbachev allowed the Baltic states to go free. Today, they are thriving NATO democracies. By Christmas Day, 1991, the USSR became the CIS, the Commonwealth of Independence states. We were there as Gorbachev resigned, and his successor Boris Yeltsin became president. The West had a new ally, sort of, instead of a Cold War foe. But the Soviet people suffered greatly from the collapsing economy and what was called shock therapy to try to get it back on track. Even the most famous export vodka was hurting, and I went to a factory in Moscow to try to make sense of the economic lessons through Stolich Naya on ice.

33:34At the Kristall district in downtown Moscow, one of Russia's best known and best selling products rolls off the bottling line. Over a million cases of Stolich Naya vodka were shipped to the United States last year under a barter deal with Petsy Cola. Another million cases were sold abroad for hard currency. It is big business, but now the vodka industry is on the rocks, because of the chaos in the inefficient and broken down Soviet economy. The distillery is reeling from a huge tax the former Soviet government slapped on revenue from export sales. We sell a lot of vodka, but we pay almost 96% of our total income to the government. So now we are desperate for money. Kristall is desperate for supplies too. There's a bottle shortage, so they have to put vodka in Petsy bottles on one of the lines. That was, because of the recent massive price rises, the factory can't pay for the

34:37grain which it needs for the raw alcohol. So Kristall's marketing director spends most of his time on the phone trying to work out barter deals. Here, he offers his vodka for 25,000 tonnes of Polish grain. Domestic sales are hurting as well because of Gorbachev's old anti-alcoholism laws that restrict the amount people can buy, and because of Yeltsin's new price rises. This in a country where vodka is a vital part of daily life, it's even called liquid currency. I'm having my apartment repaired and no one will do anything for me unless I give him vodka, but it's five times more expensive now. The situation is so bad that police are stationed at liquor stores to prevent fights breaking out among angry customers. Look at the factory, they're fighting just to stay alive. For 90 years, Kristall was an example of a Russian industry that works, but unless it can fight the bureaucracy and beat the odds, its manager says his once-scribing factory could

35:41go bankrupt. Cristiano Manpour, CNN, Moscow. Well quite apart from the indignity of pouring vodka into coke bottles, today it is Putin enjuring the Russian economy thanks to his invasion of Ukraine. A Putin envoy quoted this week said that state finances risk going, quote, berserk, if it focuses entirely on the military industrial complex. When we come back, remembering a restaurant at the top of the world, 25 years since the September 11th attacks, CNN films take an intimate look at windows on the world and how the famous Twin Towers' eatery reflected the brilliance of New York before the tragedy of 9-11. And finally, next week, events across the United States will mark the 25th anniversary of the September 11th attacks, which saw 2,977 people killed.

36:46After planes were flown into the Twin Towers of New York City, the Pentagon, and when the United 93 flight crashed in Pennsylvania after its passengers bravely revolted against their captors. The attacks orchestrated by Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden shook the world and changed it forever. As part of our coverage of this anniversary, a new CNN film is focusing on the restaurant that sat atop the North Tower, the iconic windows on the world. At one point it was one of the most successful restaurants in all of America. It became a symbol for the thriving diversity of the city beneath, and tragically also a microcosm of the wide array of lives ruined by those horrific attacks. Here's a clip from that documentary called Top of the World. 2001 was the 25th anniversary of windows on the world. We were planning a series of parties. We had a plan for October.

37:49The move Klikoh Champagne printed a special label for us. It was a 25th anniversary label. 25 years for any restaurant is a celebration, and for us it was a momentous. And the CNN film Top of the World, premieres Monday at 8 p.m. Eastern. It is extraordinary to think that the entire 25 years of this 21st century has been imprinted with that dark, dark memory and that dark legacy of what 9-11 did and how the world reacted. That is all we have time for. Don't forget you can find all of our shows online as podcasts at CNN.com slash audio and on all other major platforms. I'm Cristiano Manpour in London. Thank you for watching, and I'll see you again next week. I'm going to explore grief and loss in all its complexities.

38:50My guess on the podcast is NASCAR Champion and Hall of Famer Kurt Busch is grieving the recent death of his younger brother NASCAR Champion Kyle Busch. I'm trying to grieve in ways to help people. I want your mom, my dad, and I try to do it where I'm not biting off more than I can chew and then back off a bit and trying to help everyone get through this and share stories. It's not going to get any easier, but time will help you. I have a nice therapist that I worked with towards the twilight of my career. His therapy helped. It has. I embraced it a few years back whereas the younger teenager, 20-year-old, 30-year-old, nah. Talking grief, building community. That's what the podcast is all about. This is all there is. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts.