The Interview

The fallout from Putin’s war on Ukraine is having a big impact on Romania, from the refugee crisis to fears of conflict spreading to neighbouring Moldova. How is Romania handling the pressure? Stephen Sackur speaks to the country’s Foreign Minister, Bogdan Aurescu.(Photo: Bogdan Aurescu in the Hardtalk studio)

Stephen Sackur is in Prague for an exclusive interview with the newly elected president of the Czech Republic, Petr Pavel. What does the election of this former NATO General tell us about the resolve of Europeans to continue their economic and military support for Ukraine?

Stephen Sackur speaks to Russian MP and pro-Kremlin TV host Evgeny Popov. The Ukraine invasion is beset with problems and Putin faces war crimes charges. Are cracks appearing?

Stephen Sackur speaks to the hugely successful bookseller James Daunt. From Waterstones to Barnes & Noble he has fought off ebooks and online retail to revive bricks and mortar bookstores. But is the books industry a place where creativity and diversity truly thrive?(Photo: James Daunt in the Hardtalk studio)

Stephen Sackur speaks to Palestinian politician, physician and civil rights activist Mustafa Barghouti. The seemingly endless Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be on the brink of getting a lot worse. If the two-state solution is dead, what option do the Palestinians have?(Photo: Mustafa Barghouti, leader of the Palestinian National Initiative, appears via videolink on Hardtalk)

Stephen Sackur is in Nice to speak to the former Russian oligarch and billionaire businessman Sergei Pugachev. He was once dubbed Putin’s banker, a close confidant who helped Putin reach the top. But their relationship soured. Pugachev was accused of massive financial crimes; he renounced his Russian citizenship and now lives with armed guards in the south of France. What does his extraordinary story tell us of Putin’s strengths and weaknesses?

Stephen Sackur speaks to Israeli politician Simcha Rothman, a key architect of the Netanyahu government’s controversial legal reforms aimed at radically overhauling the country’s judicial system. Critics say the plans threaten Israel’s democracy. This, alongside the rising violence in the occupied West Bank, raises questions about the strategic direction of Netanyahu’s ultra-nationalist government. Is Israel plunging into chaos?

The devastating train crash in Greece which killed 57 people generated a wave of grief and anger. Many Greeks see the disaster as symptomatic of a failing state, characterised by a lack of investment in public infrastructure and a lack of accountability at the heart of government. Other aspects of public policy are also facing harsh scrutiny, from migration to internal security. Stephen Sackur speaks to Greece’s asylum and migration minister Notis Mitarachi. Has his government lost the confidence of the Greek people?

Stephen Sackur speaks to Félix Maradiaga, the former opposition leader and presidential candidate imprisoned by Nicaragua’s veteran autocrat Daniel Ortega. Maradiaga was recently released, deported to the US and stripped of his Nicaraguan citizenship. Ortega is trying to eliminate all Nicaraguan opposition - could he succeed?

Stephen Sackur speaks to Tikhon Dzyadko, editor-in-chief of Russia’s independent TV news channel Dozhd (or TV Rain). Closed down in Moscow, now they are broadcasting online from Latvia, using YouTube to reach Russians. Is there a Russian audience for this alternative to Putin’s propaganda machine?(Photo: Tikhon Dzyadko, editor-in-chief of Dozhd TV appears via videolink on Hardtalk)

Stephen Sackur speaks to Ece Temelkuran, a prominent exiled Turkish writer and critic of President Erdogan. Erdogan has dominated Turkey for two decades but after the terrible earthquakes, with economic and political problems mounting and an election imminent, could his opponents finally bring him down?(Photo: Ece Temelkuran in the Hardtalk studio)

Stephen Sackur speaks to the British-Ukrainian historian and author Olesya Khromeychuk. She's written a book and a play about her brother Volodya, a soldier killed defending Ukraine in the Donbas long before Russia’s all out invasion began last year. Has Putin’s assault on Ukrainian identity strengthened what he set out to destroy?

Stephen Sackur speaks to Dr Stefanie Green, a leading advocate for Canada’s liberal assisted dying laws, who has herself overseen more than 300 deaths by euthanasia. Is Canada at ease with its role as a testing ground for complex ethical and medical arguments about assisted dying?

Stephen Sackur speaks to Waris Dirie, the Somali born model, writer and activist. She was raised in poverty, and later became the muse of big fashion houses in New York and beyond. She chose campaigning over the catwalk, speaking out against female genital mutilation, which she experienced and is now determined to eliminate. Is this a fight she can win?

Stephen Sackur speaks to Mick Lynch, leader of Britain’s biggest rail union the RMT. His members are striking for inflation proofed pay and job protection. It is a test case in a new era of worker versus employer fights with resonance across the world. But can the workers win?

Stephen Sackur speaks to Kenneth Roth, who spent three decades leading the campaign group Human Rights Watch. Why is the fight for human rights being lost in so many places?

Stephen Sackur speaks to Kira Rudik, a Ukrainian MP and leader of the opposition party Golos. As the first anniversary of Putin’s invasion looms, does Ukraine have the external support and the internal cohesion it needs to win this war?

Pervez Musharraf, the former Pakistani army chief who masterminded a coup in 1999 and ruled the country for nine years, has died in Dubai aged 79 after a long illness. Stephen Sackur spoke to General Musharraf in 2014, after he had returned from exile to Pakistan in an attempt to revive his political career. What did his rise and fall tell us about the realities of power in Pakistan?Image: Pervez Musharraf, pictured in 2013 (Credit: Mian Khursheed/Reuters)

Stephen Sackur speaks to Zsuzsanna Szelényi, a former ally, and now prominent opponent, of Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Has Orbán found a political formula, illiberal democracy, for which his opponents have no answer?

Stephen Sackur speaks to the Russian foreign policy strategist and sometime Kremlin adviser Sergey Karaganov. Russia is widely expected to launch a major new offensive in Ukraine very soon, but this war has already exposed Moscow’s vulnerabilities. Is Putin placing bets he cannot win?

Stephen Sackur speaks to the boss of Oxfam Great Britain, Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah. He took over after Oxfam was hit by scandal with staff abusing their positions and power in Haiti. He promised to reimagine how international aid should be done and to put a new focus on global economic justice. Is his approach working?

Stephen Sackur speaks to Robert Malley, US special envoy for Iran. He’s an experienced diplomat facing a looming crisis. The attempt to revive a deal to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions appears to be dead, Tehran is repressing protests at home and arming Putin’s Russia in Ukraine. What can the US and its allies do about it?

Stephen Sackur speaks to Leopoldo Lopez, a key leader of Venezuela’s opposition. Once a political prisoner, now in exile in Spain, his efforts to topple the socialist regime led by Nicolas Maduro have been thwarted. Has Venezuela’s pro-democracy movement been outmanoeuvred?

Stephen Sackur speaks to Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba. The war with Russia has hit a winter stalemate, but what will spring bring? From battle tanks to air defences, Ukraine wants more help from its allies. Is Western wavering undermining Kyiv’s strategic options?

Stephen Sackur speaks to Ruben Vardanyan, state minister of the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, run by ethnic Armenians but surrounded by Azerbaijan and the subject of years of conflict. The Armenians have traditionally been backed by Russia, but is Putin a reliable ally?

Brazilian President Lula must figure out whether another assault on government institutions is likely, and hold those responsible to account. All of that while he faces a mountain of economic, social and political challenges. How close is Brazil to being ungovernable? Stephen Sackur interviews Celso Amorim, formerly Brazil's foreign minister, now President Lula’s foreign policy advisor.

Stephen Sackur is in Geneva to speak to Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director general of the World Trade Organization. Her job is to maximise free and fair trade across the world. How is that possible in this age of big power tension and increased suspicion of globalisation?

Zeinab Badawi is in Sri Lanka to talk to one of the country’s most influential artists and archaeologists, Jagath Weerasinghe. What does his art tell us about Sri Lanka’s bloody and difficult past, and its prospects for a more peaceful future?

What makes a great photograph? In 2019, Stephen Sackur spoke to one of the pioneers of photojournalism, Marilyn Stafford. She was born in the United States but moved to Paris in the 1950s, where she became the protégé of the French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson. Like him, Stafford loved to capture intimate portraits of ordinary people. She photographed everything from refugees fleeing war to models on the fashion catwalks. Later in life, her work was discovered and admired by a new generation.This is another chance to listen to the interview with Marilyn Stafford after her recent death aged 97. The interview was updated on 13th January 2023.

Stephen Sackur speaks to the former Russian diplomat Boris Bondarev, who quit his post and launched a scathing attack on the Putin regime after the invasion of Ukraine. Why haven’t more Moscow insiders followed his lead?

War and extreme poverty drive millions of people from their homes every year. Some of them try to reach the rich Western world, where such inward migration routinely prompts fear and draconian counter-measures. Stephen Sackur interviews Waheed Arian, who fled war in Afghanistan as a child, made it to the UK and is now a doctor running his own medical charity. Do perceptions change when the story of migration is personalised?

Stephen Sackur speaks to Fawad Chaudhry, Pakistan’s former information minister and a senior figure in Imran Khan’s opposition PTI party. Pakistan is dealing with rampant inflation, an energy crisis and soaring national debt. Having lost the premiership, Khan is trying to bring down the current coalition government. Could political chaos tip the country into full-scale economic meltdown?

Stephen Sackur speaks to the Russian opposition activist Evgenia Kara-Murza, whose husband Vladimir, a prominent opponent of Vladimir Putin, is in prison in Russia having survived two apparent poisonings in recent years. Has Putin’s repression effectively neutralised meaningful opposition?

Passion, pain, tension, denial. This past year we’ve seen it all. Stephen Sackur presents excerpts from some of our most powerful interviews concerning matters of war and peace, human rights (in particular women’s rights), freedom of expression and freedom of information.

British nurses are striking, and the health service is in trouble. Stephen Sackur speaks to Wes Streeting, a rising star of the UK's Labour party and their shadow health secretary. Does Labour have a credible plan to fix public services and save the UK from a winter of economic discontent?

Stephen Sackur is in Oslo to talk to two of the three joint winners of this year's Nobel Peace Prize. Oleksandra Matviichuk is the head of the Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine. Yan Rachinsky is chairman of the human rights group Memorial in Russia. The third winner, pro-democracy activist Ales Bialiatski, is a political prisoner in Belarus. What can civil society activism achieve in the face of authoritarian aggression?Image: Yan Rachinsky (L) and Oleksandra Matviichuk (R) (Credit: NTB/Haakon Mosvold Larsen via Reuters)

In a special edition from San Francisco, Stephen Sackur speaks to billionaire tech investor David Friedberg. He’s convinced science and technology can fix the world’s biggest challenges – climate, sustainable food, and energy production. But will we use our knowledge wisely?

In an exclusive interview from California, Stephen Sackur speaks to Daniel Ellsberg, the Pentagon Papers whistleblower who exposed US government lies about Vietnam. He helped hasten President Nixon’s downfall and he’s warned Americans about the dangers of unchecked military power ever since. But are they listening?

Stephen Sackur is in the US to speak to San Francisco’s mayor London Breed, a rising star of the Democratic Party. Her city is one of contrasts - vast tech wealth alongside rampant crime, drug use and homelessness. It symbolises America’s urban dysfunction. Can the mayor fix it?

Stephen Sackur speaks to the palliative care doctor and author Rachel Clarke. She has written thought-provoking, moving accounts of what it's like to be a junior doctor, and how it felt to confront the Covid pandemic. But perhaps her most powerful book focuses on a subject that many doctors, and the public, find it difficult to discuss: Death. In Dear Life, she weaves together the personal story of a daughter facing the terminal cancer illness of her beloved father with that of a doctor who made a deliberate choice to focus her care on the dying. In the process of dying, which will of course be the fate of every one of us, Rachel Clarke finds life lessons which we would all do well to learn. She asks us to consider a tough question: can dying be life affirming?

Zeinab Badawi speaks to American artist and writer Barbara Chase-Riboud at the Serpentine Galleries in London. Over a career spanning seven decades, Chase-Riboud has explored public memory and commemorative forms, as well as shone a light on historical perspectives that have been overlooked or neglected. Her work raises fascinating questions about how society deals with public monuments of controversial figures from the past.

One of the most costly conflicts of the 21st century may be over. Representatives of the Ethiopian government and Tigrayan rebels signed a peace agreement earlier this month. After two years of war, and perhaps half a million civilian deaths, Tigrayan forces are to give up their weapons; the Ethiopian army will take control of Tigray; and aid should begin to reach millions of desperate people. Stephen Sackur speaks to Getachew Reda, who signed the deal on behalf of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. Was this in effect the TPLF’s surrender?

Stephen Sackur interviews former US intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, who leaked a trove of military secrets and spent seven years behind bars. Did her actions undermine American security?

The war in Ukraine has triggered fears that Vladimir Putin may set his sights on other former Soviet republics. Zeinab Badawi speaks to Salome Zourabichvili, the President of Georgia, whose country shares a long border with Russia. How worried is she?

Next month, the ruling ANC in South Africa holds its five-yearly national conference. President Cyril Ramaphosa is seeking re-election as leader of the party, which would him in position to contest nationwide elections in 2024. But South Africa is currently in the midst of a severe economic meltdown, with mass unemployment and crippling power cuts, and many are warning its political culture could bring the state to the point of collapse. Zeinab Badawi speaks to South African justice minister Ronald Lamola, seen as one of the rising stars of the ANC’s younger generation. How does he account for the government’s failure to address the myriad challenges it faces?

Global leaders often come together to work for what they hope is the greater good, such as tackling climate change, conflict and the economic crisis. But does the world need a new body to put leaders on trial? Zeinab Badawi speaks to the American judge and academic Mark Wolf, who is trying to establish an international anti-corruption court to bring to justice leaders who abuse their power for private gain. Is this an idea whose time has come, or do we already have sufficient levers to bring the kleptocrats to court?

Where do you get your news from, and do you trust it to be true? For many of us, the answers to these questions are changing. Social media is an increasingly dominant source of information; long-established news sources, like the BBC, are in a fight for audiences and for trust too. Stephen Sackur speaks to David Dimbleby, who, in the course of a long broadcasting career, became the face and voice of the BBC on the biggest occasions, from elections to royal ceremonies. Can his journalistic values survive in a world where opinion so often trumps truth?

The UK economy is in a hole. Inflation is high, interest rates are rising, public debt is soaring and, according to the Bank of England, Britons face two years of recession. Stephen Sackur speaks to Gerard Lyons, an economist and sometime adviser to governing Conservative politicians. Can Britain’s economy bounce back, or is any optimism misplaced?

Stephen Sackur is in Helsinki for an exclusive interview with Finland’s President Sauli Niinistö. After decades of pragmatic coexistence with Moscow, Finland has made a big strategic decision: to join Nato, back Ukraine with weapons and reinforce their border with Russia. Are Finns ready for potential tension with their giant neighbour to the east?

Stephen Sackur speaks to General Ben Hodges, former commander of the US army in Europe. He claims a Ukrainian victory in the war with Russia is inevitable, maybe within months. But given Putin’s pledge to use all means necessary to prevail, how does victory happen?