fairly high trust in the president, and the second thing that zelensky said is that postponing elections during wartime is legal. did you cancel the presidential election? canceled? no no. elections were canceled due to an emergency, due to the war, so they say. how will you react to this? first, nobody canceled any elections. the law says that elections cannot be held during a war and that's it, it's martial law. this is not me, this is not my new law. this is a law of ukraine that has been in place since the very beginning, so no one has canceled it. to our broadcast fyodor venislavskyi, people's deputy from servant of the people joins. i congratulate you. i congratulate you, glory to ukraine. glory to heroes. and in the past, let me remind you, you were also the president's representative in the constitutional court. please tell me whether the president's team sees any risks regarding the legitimacy of zelensky's tenure after may 20. is it a subject of discussion, for example, in the service of the people? in the service of the people

, there were absolutely no discussions about whether the president of ukraine will remain legitimate after may 20 of this year, there are none, at least i definitely don’t, no, no heard none of these discussions and did not participate in any discussions, this is the first, the second , you know, if you look at the situation, i listened to your broadcast for a few minutes, by and large, all the accents are very clearly and precisely, i don't know whether ... i didn't hear whether you named the main argument, which i believe removes any discussions, any disputes about what will happen after may 20, when the five-year term defined by the constitution of ukraine, indeed the five-year term of office , will end president zelenskyi. on this, this question gives an unambiguous, and in the imperative aspect, the answer is article 108 of the constitution of ukraine, it says that the president continues to fulfill the duties

of the newly elected president of ukraine, this is an unambiguous binding norm, which the president will be obliged to fulfill , this is the first, the second, since there is a reference to the election of a new president, here it is necessary to analyze whether it is possible to elect a new president, and on this question we have a whole series, i would say, a bouquet of both legal and political positions, very authoritative various institutions. firstly, i want to remind you that all... without exception, the factions represented in the current parliament have signed an agreement that there cannot be any elections until the end of martial law, secondly, international, all authoritative, all without exception authoritative international institutions that deal with election issues, there is an international foundation for electoral law, experts also drew attention to the fact that elections cannot be held during martial law, thirdly, we have current norms regarding the law of ukraine on legal martial law and electorally. of the code, which

also prohibit holding any elections during the legal regime of martial law, and finally, for me, as a constitutionalist, it is obvious that to observe the constitutional principles of holding any elections, whether local, parliamentary, or presidential, in principle it is impossible, and therefore they cannot be carried out, since we provide the citizens of ukraine with the opportunity to participate in the elections with observance of all the rights of all subjects of the electoral process, so i think that this is in addition to some political... speculation is an issue that we are currently discussing, it definitely does not have any legal basis. nevertheless, the rather authoritative ukrainian edition of the mirror of the week, citing its sources , writes that after all, the president's office has prepared the text of the appeal to the constitutional court, they are just still deciding, hesitating, whether it is necessary to appeal to the constitutional court with this appeal, and so the weekly mirror writes that if someone is going to do it, apply, then the president's office will authorize it to be done by... the people. tell me

please, do you still allow that the servant of the people will turn to the constitutional court so that the court interprets these provisions. you are interpreting one matter here, the constitutional court will interpret another matter. you know, i'll repeat to you what i've already said, there's no debate and no doubt that the president has an obligation to continue in office after his five-year term expires and not until he's elected . and the new president will not be sworn in through the inauguration procedure, he added there is none in our faction, so i honestly do not even see the point of turning to the constitutional court, although i, as an expert in the field of constitutional law, for example, would be very interested in discussing, and what you said that there is no certainty of having a sufficient number of votes , i would be very interested to hear the arguments of those who doubt whether it is possible to hold elections during the legal regime of martial law, which well... and

well simply, it is already such a scientific interest, so i would be happy to participate in the meeting any constitutional court there hypostasis in any status, but at present this issue is not discussed. i don't see any grounds for appealing to the constitutional court, so not yet, i think, at the moment i don't see any arguments for preparing such a submission and appealing. you answered quite comprehensively, i understood your position, fedir venislavskyi, people's deputy, servant of the people and representative of the president of ukraine in the constitutional court, 19-22 years. we continue this topic, ihor slidenko, judge of the constitutional court, 2014-22, joins our broadcast, good evening. good evening, well, i will once again quote the mirror of the week with reference to sources in the president's office, they write that the team has prepared an appeal to the constitutional court, they have not yet decided whether to send it or not, but they want to ask two questions before the court, if they eventually get there

they are before the court: the first is about whether, in fact, whether the constitution allows presidential elections to be held under martial law. as a former judge of the constitutional court, what would you say to this question? i 'll probably start with one, not without sarcasm remark, since you gave me the floor, the essence of it is that in the 21st year, president zelenskyi stated that the fact that the constitutional court is not working is even better for ukraine, and today, the question is in the plane that he allegedly will appeal to the constitutional court for interpretation, such a strange inconsistent position of the head of state, but you asked the question and... i can say that in the sense of this question, i think we are dealing with such a strange mystification that exists today. what is the essence of this mystification? besides the constitution, there is also a law, and the issue that you are talking about, it lies

entirely in the plane of e-e legitimate, that is, in the plane of action of the law. after all, the norms of the constitution are marked by a general character, and the law. in order to normalize and reveal the meaning of the norms of the constitution, there is currently a law in force that solves this issue completely, that is why i do not understand at all the meaning of applying to the constitutional court precisely with the interpretation of the relevant norms of the constitution, it is another matter if it were 45 people's deputies, for example , appealed to the constitutional court with... uh, contesting the norms of the law, respectively in the relevant part, from the point of view of the compliance of these norms, namely the norms that prohibit the holding of presidential elections during martial law and so on, i will not

list them all, from the point of view of their constitutionality, it would be, well, logical and correct from the point of view, strictly speaking, of those functions performed by constitutions. the court and the parliament, however, at the moment everyone is talking about interpretation for some reason, and what can the constitutional court interpret in this situation, if there are norms of the law that regulate this issue, this is of course a purely theoretical issue, however there are two ways, conditionally two ways of interpretation, one is the official interpretation of the constitutional court, and the other is the own legislation, the law also simply interprets the constitution in a certain specific way, that is, currently it is interpreted in the law. and the essence of this interpretation is fully revealed there, elections are prohibited. i understood you, and i understood your sarcasm. then the second question, the mirror of the week writes that such an argument is very important, an important question, it concerns the legitimacy of the president's authority after the end of his

five-year term in office, which will be after on may 20, how legitimate will it be, does this risk exist, what can the constitution say here, is there a reason. in the president's office to be afraid, to worry? again, we turn to the law, which resolves all these issues. another matter, is this law constitutional? and i really have doubts about the constitutionality of this law, certain of its norms, and if, for example, the norms of the constitution were applied in relation to the norms of the law, it would be possible to interpret them in such a way that certain norms of this law are still unconstitutional , but for... today today we are dealing, i say again, not only with the constitution, but also with the current law, which no one disputed in this part, and this problem, including the problem of the legitimacy of the president, is solved, that is, it is solved for the president in such a way that he remains its powers,

that's what the problem is, that is, why i say that it is mystification, because they turned the problem upside down, because at first it should probably have been logical. file a petition regarding the constitutionality of this law, and only then file other petitions or submissions, that's what, actually speaking, in my opinion, is the problem. anyway, what do you think, does it make sense, in principle, to turn to the constitutional court for some kind of clarification now, or is it already too late, or is there no point, and there will be no decision there, well, i don't know, because , for example, our colleagues, again from the mirror of the week, write that the president's office is not at all sure that the decision will be made in favor of the president, they are worried that the court may be politically involved, and so on, what do you think, is there any point refer to, you know about... during this activity of the constitutional court, if the decision was liked, it was considered non-involved, if some political

forces or the president, in particular, did not like it, it was considered involved, so talk about the involvement or non-involvement of the constitutional court in this composition i would not bet, whatever i would say about making any decision, especially so difficult and in such a difficult time, which now, during the war with erephia, will be very difficult, currently the current composition of the constitutional court 13 judges, it is very, very difficult to make any decision with such... a composition, because it is very difficult to find a consensus in such a, well, with such a small composition, i know from my own experience that it is very difficult, so it would be good if the court were supplemented, there are five more vacancies , that's the first thing i'd like to point out, the next thing that's about the political logic of going to the constitutional court on this issue, i think, in order to reassure the public, in order not to have these ... speculations, because an application for interpretation to the constitutional court regarding norms

of the constitution, i consider it either stupidity or politicking, so that this should not happen, it should probably still be requested that the constitutional court still clarify and find out whether these constitutional norms are the law or unconstitutional, and it was b is correct in my opinion, well, because we can assume that after may 20 there will be more and more frequent voices that president zelenskyi is allegedly illegal... we can also assume that, including, russia will launch these narratives, so you can probably understand why in the president's office is thinking about this, if this is true, please tell me how long, from your experience, it might take for the court to make its decision and give its conclusion, if, for example, today or tomorrow the president's office or a servant of the people will appeal there , the decision in such a case and in this regard precisely in this regard. question, it is not extremely complicated, there is no question here, rather the question here lies in the plane of political

expediency, one should not forget that the constitutional court is not a court, it is a political and legal body, and it decides the issue in including in the plane of political expediency, given that the issue is not too complicated, i think that if the court worked more or less normally, was staffed within a month, at most this issue could be resolved, you can recall some decisions of the constitution. of this court, for example, regarding the constitutionality of the elections of the current parliament, by the way, this will also be an issue , maybe they will raise it when the term of office of the people's deputies ends there, it has already ended, but the fact is that the constitution directly speaks about it, there are no different readings here, but the problem here is that the constitution, it is not defined in this part, regarding the president, the norms are not really possible there. indeed, it can be interpreted in such and such a way, depending on political expediency,

it is absolutely possible to make opposite decisions, however, the specifics, the specifics of the appeal to the constitutional court presupposes that the norms of the law are first challenged, and the norms of the constitution are not immediately interpreted, because the norms of the constitution are to interpret when the law that already solves this problem will extremely hard. thank you very much, ihor sdelenko, judge. of the court of ukraine 2014-2022 was on radio svoboda. that's all for today, i encourage you to subscribe to the radio liberty website, you can leave your questions, remarks, wishes under this video, like this broadcast, in this way you will support our work. well, we will see you tomorrow. there are

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pharmacies, plantain pam taschat. there are discounts. 10% in plantain, pam and oskad pharmacies. watch this week's judicial control with tatyana shustrova in the program. doubtful fortunes, fictitious divorces and attempts to avoid qualification evaluation are what judge pavlo gorbasenko is known for. my mother gave me two apartments and a car. but why is the head of the state court of the kyiv region hiding from journalists? depending on the load. with you someday to accept you, watch the judicial control program with tetyana shustrova on thursday, february 29 at 5:45 p.m. on the espresso tv channel. congratulations. we are looking for two children who disappeared in temporarily occupied donetsk. one of them is 15-year-old kostya tyzhneva. the connection with him

was cut off on october 26, 2023, and since then about the boy. nothing is known, due to the fact that he disappeared during the occupation, we know little about the circumstances of his disappearance. it is likely that kostya is still in the temporarily occupied territory, but for one reason or another he cannot report himself. therefore , i ask residents of donetsk, who may see this video on social networks, to look especially carefully at the photo of the boy. if you know about him if you have any information or where he might be, please let us know. the line of the child tracing service 116/30 and you can write to us either on our website or to the chatbot of the child tracing service in telegram. we are also looking for this girl, her name is angelina buynova, she is 16 years old and she also went missing in temporarily occupied donetsk. it happened in the fall of 2023, and since then

it is unknown where and with whom angelina is. unfortunately, it is possible that she could have been taken away. or deported to russia, this is, of course, only speculation and in general deportation of children is part of the crime of genocide, so i would like to note that if you know of any crime against a child, in particular deportation, do not be indifferent and immediately report it to the police, or report it to our website stopcrimeua. of course, you can do it anonymously if you wish. but of course the fact that the girl in russia is still only a verse. she may very well be both in the occupation and in the territory controlled by ukraine, so look at the photo, look into her face and if you know anything about her, let me know to us at number 11630. calls from all mobile operators in ukraine are free of charge. of course, searching for children in the temporarily occupied territories is a very difficult process, and

it may even seem to someone that it is almost impossible to find a child there, but this is not the case at all. in two years it is full. during the war , the magnolia children's search service managed to find many boys and girls who were considered missing during the occupation, and one of such incredible search stories is the story of 17-year-old nastya from the city of izyum in the kharkiv region. which was occupied in april 2022. for seven months, we told you about how the search for the girl was going, and for help in the search , nastya's friend, katya, turned to us, who then asked for a while... here is the appeal, so if you can, get in touch, then say that you are alive, that you have food, water, drink, clothes, and that you have a roof over your head, that everything is fine with you, please, just say this, that you are alive, and i will be the happiest , we immediately started searching for nastya and spreading information about her on all available media resources, and fortunately

after some time the girl made herself known, she reported that she was alive, but with her father. she is in the occupied territory, where there is almost no mobile communication, and therefore she could not report anything about herself for so long. of course, the most important thing for us at that time was that nastya got in touch, but at the same time we understood that the girl remained under occupation and in danger, after the de-occupation of izyum we managed to talk to the girl. hello, everything is fine with me, i am alive, healthy, we are with my family already. a month ago, they came home to their home in their hometown of izyum, which can't help but please. in turn, nastya's friend, katya, who was looking for nastya all this time with us. asks those who are looking for their relatives to believe to the last and never lose hope. you give up, don't listen to anyone and

keep believing for the best. i can say from my experience that i waited for seven months, long 7 months, when various horrors were written on the internet, that there were many dead people, that there was no city, i continued to believe. i have already friends who , to whom i was clouding my head with my worries, they already wrote: calm down there, maybe it’s too late, maybe not, it’s good so far, but no, i wrote to everyone, please close everything, i will believe until the end that everything it will be fine, everything will definitely be fine. this story is a clear testimony that there is a chance to find a missing child even in the most difficult situations, the main thing is not to lose hope, believe and act, so please go to the website of the children's search service, if you recognize someone, call our hotline , 16: 30 of all mobile operators in calls to ukraine are free.

the program of the ukrainian service is broadcast from washington. to the voice of america chas tym, i'm maria prus, congratulations. speakers of 23 parliaments of the world called on mike johnson, the speaker of the house of representatives of the us congress, to submit for consideration a bill on aid to ukraine. such an appeal was published by the chairman of the verkhovna rada of ukraine, ruslan stefanchuk. the leader of the republicans in the senate, mitch mcconnell, who has now announced that he is leaving this role, calls for agreeing to help ukraine. should we wait for a congressional vote on... assistance to ukraine in the near future. let's talk about it with our congress correspondent kateryna lisunova. hello, katya. today , the congress officially returned to work after

a one-week break. do the legislators still plan to consider this financing of aid to ukraine? in general, time is not playing in kyiv's favor, because aid to ukraine will not be considered the first priority after returning from vacation from the recess of the congress, since the legislators have not yet agreed on the budget of the... government for the current year, and this friday may happen probable shutdown, that is, a partial shutdown of the government, so this issue, the approval of at least short-term funding of the government is now the main issue for the legislators of the united states of america. in general, the senate returned to work earlier than the house of representatives. i spoke yesterday with senators, both democrats and republicans, about the fate of aid to ukraine. actually, what you said, what should be expected in ukraine now from the congress, and here we can say that the fate of aid to ukraine remains unclear, if the democrats remain firm in their position that aid to kyiv should be approved as soon as possible, then the position of the republicans is divided. some

believe that this draft law should be changed and voted on again, others oppose any aid to ukraine in principle. i suggest you listen to the position of both republicans and democrats in the senate right now in the comments they gave me yesterday. what is happening to the people of ukraine is heartbreaking. russia must lose. we need to do everything we can to help ukraine win. and i'm going to keep doing that that is in my power for this. but i'm disappointed that majority leader chuck schumer didn't bring up a bill that would have been all about military aid. because i'm not going to support a bill that provides a bunch of humanitarian money from biden for... three days ago i sat across from president zelensky at the negotiating table in lviv, i saw in his eyes a steely

determination, and also sadness, because the united states may not to be that reliable ally as promised. i believe we have an emergency moral obligation, as well as our own national security interest, to immediately provide the military and humanitarian aid that ukraine desperately needs. ukraine will lose. putin will win if the united states does not fulfill its moral political duty, which is part of our own self-interest, because our troops will bleed and die on the battlefield if we do not help the ukrainians who are dying now. we have already given them 115 billion dollars, which is more than all of europe combined, especially when it comes to euthanasia . i understand zelensky, he will go to anyone to try to get help. i'm sure i would do the same if i were... in his place, but we have to tell our european partners that they have to do more, and i'm emphasizing germany here: germany has a huge opportunity, they just refuse to act ,

as they have done for the last decades, they need to do more on this, and as for us, we need to focus our attention on the pacific. republican mitch mcconnell said he is stepping down as gop leader in the senate, earlier he called for approval of aid to ukraine. do such statements by fellow party members influence speaker johnson's opinion as to whether he may be inclined to bring this bill to a vote after all? hard to say. you, how exactly are the appeals of individual party members, as you rightly pointed out, the leader of the republicans in the senate michael, the speaker of the house of representatives, as well as the appeals now from international representatives, speakers of various european parliaments, but, but we can say, for sure, that there are several factors, that really make an impact speaker, at least according to the american media, there is some pressure on johnson from the previous president donald trump, who wants to use, according to

the american media, the border zone and the situation in ukraine in his election campaign, as well as publicly stated by lawmakers, even the republicans themselves, some far-right republicans are threatening to fire the speaker if he brings aid to ukraine to a vote, and i will note that in general today the leader of the democrats in the senate , chuck schumer, told how things happened talks at the white house yesterday and said that everyone who was part of those talks was in favor of... to agree to the aid as soon as possible, except for speaker mike johnson. and chuck schumer said that while talking to mike johnson, he noted that now johnson's decision will be historic and he may regret it. i suggest you listen. everyone in the room, except for the speaker, agreed that congress should get the bailout done as soon as possible because the future of ukraine and the west is at stake. speaker johnson

said who wants to think more. i was frank and said that the historical focus is now on him. i said, speaker, if you, the speaker , become the one to stop aid to ukraine , regardless of the short-term consequences, you will regret your decision in two years, or even for the rest of your life, because it will be remembered as a turning point for america , for our strong position, for the trust in us on the world stage and for our national security. in his turn, the leader of the republicans lashed out. even in today's in his final, so to speak, farewell speech, he emphasized that the united states of america should continue to support its partners, i invite you to listen. i am convinced of the indispensable role that my country plays as a leader of the free world. that's why i worked so hard to agree the aid package earlier this month. believe me, i know the politics within my party and the specific time period, i have

a lot. however, i am more convinced than ever that america's global leadership is vital to maintaining our shining a city on a hill, as ronald reagan said. i am no longer the young man who sat in the back hoping that my colleagues would remember my name. the time has come for the next generation of leaders. thank you, katya, it was voice of america correspondent at the congress, kateryna lisonova. february 24, 2022 divided the lives of millions of ukrainians into before and after a full-scale invasion, but the russian war against ukraine has lasted not two or even 10 years, say some historians. how long

does this fight last? bohdan tsupin found out. in february 2014, not all ukrainian soldiers in crimea understood that they had witnessed the russian occupation of the peninsula and the beginning of the russian-ukrainian war. president vladimir putin did not utter the word war and hid his actions. putin actually not only admits, he even bragged about it, that it was his decision. it turned out to be extremely popular in russia, his ratings went up a lot after that, but putin was talking about making a decision, and war, as a rule, in history is counted from, let's say, the first shot or the first first start of hostilities.