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Press TV has conducted an interview with Christopher Walker, former Moscow correspondent of The Times, London, about the situation in Ukraine.

- From protests which began in late November to this, just three days ago where it appeared there was a breakthrough when the government accepted amnesty for these jailed demonstrators. What do you think is going on here? Do you believe that this is just the protest movement or is there foul play?

- I think it’s a bit of both and also it’s been very badly handled, I think, by the president because as you said it looked as though there might be some sort of breakthrough, and then there was a row in parliament and they wouldn’t allow any changes to the constitution to go through.

Now of course it’s become very much a struggle between Russia on the one side, America and the EU on the other.

Ukraine is very much divided between itself and caught in the middle. This does look now like the end game. I think in the next 48 hours we’ll judge whether the violence can be brought under some control or we are spiraling towards a civil war, because there has been an order that the paratroopers go in tonight to guard government buildings, defense building throughout the country.

These ominous ratcheting up of events seems to come without any much help of mediation.

Tomorrow, the EU’s going to consider imposing sanctions on the Ukraine leadership. If that was to go ahead, and there is a big question mark, there could be even more anger on those streets, this time those who are against the EU.

- This course of calls for sanctions, the fires are still burning there and it’s just coming so quickly – I mentioned the United States, France, the EU, also the UK joining that list, even the UN rights chief to have called for a probe into the clashes, no sooner than most recent clashes take place. Do you find that a bit surprising coming so quickly?

- I think it is surprising but I think it’s also symptomatic of the fact that the EU have not done very much on the ground to support their case, particularly they haven’t offered anything compared with the 15 billion dollars of economic aid that Putin is promising to pump into the ailing Ukrainian economy. The EU, as usual, 28 members often can’t agree amongst itself about monetary matter.

The sanctions, although it’s going to be proposed tomorrow, there is a rumor that Belgium does not approve of that move, and of course every one of the 28 members has to be agreed. It has to be unanimous. So, we’re not there yet.

There is a very much a Syrian echo about the way that this is going except, as you remember, the efforts on the West side to come to an agreement sort of collapsed in the end when only France supported the American call for some sort of military action and there wasn’t any.

- Well let’s look at what Russia has said, and it was not just Russia, Christopher Walker, that has made some deductions to this effect and that is the fact that several Western countries, as they’ve said, bear some responsibility for the current events by encouraging opposition, for example, to provocative actions. Extremists are also to blame for the events.

Do you think that there’s a hand by Western countries in this regards, because one of the announcements that has come out from the Ukrainian government security services is that they’re on alert, they’re actually going through executing anti-terrorist activities, announcing nationwide terrorist operation?

- Yes, I think there is. The West is making no secret really, in particular the EU, about how it’s determined to win Ukraine’s influence away from the former Soviet Union – Russia. It really wants, it seems, to get the economic claw into Ukraine.

But at the same time, don’t be fooled when they talk about those liberation movements in the square and such like. They’re not all liberals. There are some very right-wing Ukrainian nationalist groups amongst that party, as it were.

So, there’s no absolute simplicity here. You know, one side’s good, one side’s bad, or anything like that. It’s much more complicated. That’s why they haven’t come anything near to negotiating a compromise. There were talks only 24 hours ago between the opposition parties, the political parties and the government and they just broke down in disarray.

- It is indeed the case, Christopher Walker, of these dangerous ultra-nationalist groups, and based on the conclusions reached by [the previous guest speaker] Dimitri Babich that the EU not openly saying it but they’re supporting it along with the US.

I’m reading over here that for example this particular group has amassed a lethal arsenal of weapons in an interview - by the way from The Times - he declined to say exactly how many guns they have but said it is enough to defend all of Ukraine from the internal occupiers, in reference to the government.

At the same time, this anti-terrorist operation from the government of which the Ukrainian president just replaced the army chief, I believe, just an hour ago, the head of the army’s general staff, we’re heading, it appears, Christopher Walker, for a dangerous combination of the government forces of Ukraine to deal with groups such as this, which by the way have accounted for some of the deaths coming from this group from gunfire from that fifth floor. Are we looking at a crisis in the form of a civil war in Ukraine, Christopher Walker?

- I think we’re getting dangerously close to it. We’ll have to see how this new change in army tactics - putting in the paratroopers that’s coming very soon, the change in personnel - it does look as though there is something very ominous in the cooking pot, as it were.

The trouble is that the EU, although it’s been on the ground as your contributor from Moscow rightly says, Catherine Ashton has been there quite a lot. But that doesn’t mean that they understand of what’s going on, and they don’t really distinguish very much between the liberals and the ultra-nationalists. They just brand them altogether when they should really be looking towards who’s doing the real violence.

- I need to ask you about this conversation between the US State Department official Victoria Nuland and how her conversation was leaked with the US Ambassador to Ukraine. Doesn’t this spell interference by the US when she said Vitaly Klitschko, the boxer turned politician who’s one of the main opposition leaders, should not be in the new government because she said that this is not part of the strategy for political transition? Isn’t that clearly interference?

- Absolutely. There’s no doubt about it. Perhaps you should also go on to explain that the Americans showed very much contempt for the EU. In fact, the word that they used about them is not one we usually use on public television. They were extremely contemptuous of the EU performance, really saying, "look, we’re the Americans - we’re the ones who should be running this show - these EU people are pretty useless." That has been a pretty widespread view in Washington for some time.

But one particular problem here also we should pinpoint here in the debate is the fact that the opposition - we talk about the opposition but there isn’t a single man that the president can negotiate with. There are various political leaders of various groups. Some of them are right-wing. It’s not simple.

I agree with your colleague that the journalists – and I am a journalist, of course – do tend to simplify the situation because, as he says, the language is very much a problem.

The Europeans do not really find themselves much at home. They don’t speak Ukrainian, that’s for a start. They get on so much better in west Ukraine, which is looking towards Europe and which speaks their language in inverted commas.

Whereas in eastern Ukraine, where there is big support for Russia, they, one, speak Russian, and two, have all the heavy industry.

So, you really have the potential there for a split, a country which could split along the lines of other previous ex-Soviet countries which could be very dangerous and very bloody indeed.