glory to ukraine, this is the verdict program, my name is serhii ordenko, i congratulate everyone and wish everyone good health. for the next two hours, we will talk about ukraine, the world, the war, and our victory. today we will talk about the situation on the eastern and southern fronts, the coronation of putin and the special role of china in the russian-ukrainian war. we will talk about it. during the next hour, with our guests, general serhiy kryvonos and journalist roman tsimbalyuk. in the second part of our program, which will start in exactly one hour. we will be people's deputies of ukraine, mykyta poturaev, rostislav pavlenko and yuliya kuzmenko. however, before starting our big conversation, i suggest watching a video of how the bulava shock unit of the separate presidential brigade named after bohdan khmelnytskyi destroyed an enemy tank column with drones. wild hornets, let's see.

glory to the armed forces of ukraine and death to the russian occupiers. friends, we are working live on the tv channel, as well as on our youtube and facebook platforms, for those who are currently watching us live there. please, vote in our poll, today we ask you about whether you are satisfied with the work of the government of denys shmyhal. yes, no, everything is quite simple on youtube, either yes or no, if you have a special opinion, you can. leave it in the comments under this video. if you watch us on tv, pick up your smartphone or phone and vote on the relevant numbers, if you are satisfied with the work of the shmyhal government, 0800 211-381, not 0800-211-382, all calls to these numbers are free, vote, at the end of the program we will sum up the results of this vote. i want to introduce today's first guest - serhiy kryvonos, reserve major general, first deputy commander. of

special operations forces in 2016-19, ex-deputy secretary of the national security council. mr. general, i welcome you, thank you for being with us today. good evening, everyone, glory to ukraine. glory to heroes. mr. general, let's begin our conversation with an analysis of the current situation on the eastern front. russia is conducting, the russians are conducting offensive actions, and obviously they will expand these offensive actions, as stated by general budanov in particular, as far as can be expected in the second half of may, at the beginning of june, the activation of the russians in various areas of the front, including in the north-eastern one, meaning sumy and kharkiv. separately, as regards sumy and kharkiv, in the coming days, uh, the russians have a certain amount of power. at the level of 5,000, which

they spread over the territory of the bryansk, belgorod and kut regions, and this is clearly not enough to start offensive operations, but it can give the ability to introduce border battles in order to draw back our forces and means from the russian-ukrainian front, they are doing this quite effectively, as for the other actions of the front that you are talking about... because at the moment the situation is quite difficult, the russians have a powerful advantage in the number of artillery, air superiority and the number of people , which are conducting offensive actions on certain areas of the front, and one of the main tasks that the authorities must solve now is not only providing the necessary number of weapons for our guys at the front, but also providing... people who could change

those people who are now fighting in the trenches. mr. general, how quickly and whether the authorities will be able to do it, considering that starting from the 18th. in may, the law on amendments to the mobilization legislation comes into force, didn’t the authorities have to wait for this and pump and chew this gum for the past six months, but simply implement that legislation, it already existed, it simply had to be implemented to the last millimeter and replenished with mobilized zsu, you yourself have already answered the... actual question, but in the meantime, let's consider it a little more broadly, because the issue of mobilization that the authorities talk about, for some reason they always talk only about people who need to be mobilized to military units, but this is the last point only in the previous law, in the law that

existed it was written that this is the transfer of the economy of ukraine to fanning in the conditions of a special period or wartime, transfer to functioning. authorities and enterprises of ukraine, and only then directly, there was a question about the military unit. the authorities absolutely did not fulfill the first three points then and still do not now, you know, they are somehow so selective about the implementation of the laws of ukraine. in fact, the law that was and existed in previous years is more than a working one, but everything was thought out and written in the blood of previous wars. the authorities are absolutely not in favor of... the issue of mobilization, and the issue of mobilization is attributed only to people who need to be called up, and this is a much broader complex, and first of all, when in the new law they determine that a huge number of officials who are in an inflated powerful official apparatus of ukraine, and this

not one hundred thousand men, a huge number of representatives of other power structures, who are given, you know, armor to fight at the front, certain citizens of ukraine have a question, why is there selectivity for them, and why is it not for others, that is why the law during the war, one must work one hundred percent, and again, it is an unpopular example for our government, when in israel, at the beginning of the war, a huge number of politicians and together with their relatives went to fight, this is just an example of a civil attitude towards the fulfillment of this constitutional duty, regardless of any position. as well as in the same great britain, one of the examples that even members of the royal family serve in hot spots, and we have had more than enough of these examples. the law must work for everyone, and when the government works according to the principle, for its own, as it should, for others the law, then it will never engage in

mobilization, it is not popular for it, it is unprofitable for it, and it is not interesting for it, therefore they didn't make any decisions and tried to stretch like a piece of chewing gum. the question is new law in order to divert attention from society, from those problems that exist, the fact that they adopted a new law, not the fact that it will work if they did not want to work with the previous one, that is, this thesis that this law establishes or gives certain guidelines for justice in society, it does not correspond to reality, because we have a large category of officials, high-ranking officials who do not spend time. under mobilization, justice is only among those who are lower in rank in society and who are not in positions and there are no specific reservations there, am i right? absolutely correct, mr. general, against

the background of this, the white house announced that the aid of the united states of america will allow ukraine to go on the offensive in 2025, about this... told the financial times, the national security advisor to the president of the united states of america, jake sullivan, he says, well quotes jake sullivan, he said that with new help from washington, kyiv will be able to hold the defense and ensure that ukraine withstands the russian attack during the 24th year, indicating the scenario of war next year, sullivan noted that ukraine intends to move forward to regain the territory that... the russians took from it, writes the financial times. do you, mr. general, share jake sullivan's optimism about a counteroffensive in '25? well, jake sullivan, as a statesman, as a man who works in

a state where the principles of constitutional duty are sacred, must clearly understand that, in addition to what he can endure for this year until the 25th year, the government must spend active work in four directions, active work, first of all, is the preparation of the population for the ability to defend itself. to the country with weapons in hand, this is the preparation of mobilization resources even before they cross, er, the gates of the territorial assembly center, the second is the transfer of the economy of ukraine to functioning under martial law, and the third is the fortification equipment of the territory of ukraine , and the fourth is the placement in certain important positions of people, professionals who understand... on issues of preparation and waging war in the state, well, now then in the complexes together with

american help it will work and then we can raise the issue of an offensive, without these things , we will not be able to carry out these functions, no matter how much help is given to us, because even simple weapons , which the americans provide to us, must get into the hands of people, and these people must... be drafted, three people must be trained, those people must be motivated. without people, weapons will remain nothing more than scrap metal. that is, mr. general, as far as i understand, we, we are not keeping up with the russians, the russians do it much faster, right? well, we had two years, we could have taken it more seriously already during the great war. i'm not saying that since 1999, certain processes related to the level of the country's educational capacity in... have been frozen and stopped by the authorities, so everything depends only on us, the fact that the russians

are still ahead does not mean that we are not we can hopefully catch up and overtake them, everything depends on us, mr. general, on the eve of the so- called inauguration of president putin, the ministry of foreign affairs the russian federation made several statements of warnings, in particular great britain, france, they summoned the ambassadors in moscow. talked about the fact that if the weapons of great britain will strike at the objects of the russian federation, on russian territory, as the head of the foreign ministry of great britain david cameron stated, then russia reserves the right to strike in response at the objects that are located on the territory of ukraine, meaning british, and beyond. do you think putin will dare to strike great britain if... the armed forces of ukraine, using british weapons, will they hit objects, military objects

located on the territory of russia? he will dare only in the case when a huge number of her relatives, children, officials of the russian political system will be taken out of britain, their property belonging to britain will be taken from them, a huge amount of money will be taken from them, which... is in british banks, then russia has nothing to lose, it can do it, at this stage britain has a powerful propeller, which at any moment it can spin to the russians in britain and it'll be over quickly enough, so from my point of view it's still a bluff about nothing, because you can say anything you want, but if you have leverage in the hands of your opponents, then... there's no point to bluff another statement that was

commented on by the russian federation of the ministry of foreign affairs of russia is macron's statement that in the event of a critical situation at the front, the russian-ukrainian front and a breakthrough of this front, that french troops may appear there and will fight on the side of ukraine, or to defend ukraine. macron later already declared that... france is not at war with either russia or the russian people. we have no desire to change the regime in moscow - emphasized the french leader, and today we saw that the representative of france was at the so -called inauguration of the so-called putin. according to you, what is macron afraid of when he takes a step forward and then two steps back? the economy of france is quite powerfully united with certain directions. economy of the russian federation, and even the issue of joint

ventures in mining and transportation processing of liquefied gas, this is just more to france, so one of the examples is when the french voted with their entire parliament to lift sanctions on a french-russian company for work on processing liquefied gas, so there is always an economic interest behind any of these statements, as well ... and other examples where russia is important for france are more than enough. as for the possibility, president macron, to enter ukrainian troops on the territory of the... french troops on the territory of ukraine , there are no problems at all, as for military units of the foreign legion, this does not require any permission from the parliament for such things, so the french want to be both smart and good in certain political nuances and do not want to lose the market for raw materials, because they still continue

to buy the same oil through third countries the already revised russian and many other things through third countries, therefore... his desire to appear in the eyes of both the world community and the russian community to be good for those and for those is understandable, because he, you know, has no choice, he does not want to create with russia, but in the meantime he has already shown himself to be a defender of ukraine, and it is quite difficult to sit on two chairs with one ass. absolutely right. also, mr. general, one piece of news that arrived literally in... these days is that the russian federation will conduct exercises using nuclear non-strategic weapons, today it became known that this will take place on the territory of belarus, the minister of defense stated this viktor khrenin of the republic of belarus, the same khrenin who assured our defense minister oleksiy reznikov on february 22, 2022, that with

russian troops will not go to belarus, so this khrenin confirmed that these exercises will be precisely on... on the territory of the republic of belarus, and there is a reaction from washington, and they say that so far they do not see signs of the possible use of nuclear weapons by the russian federation against of ukraine. this was stated by the spokesman of the state department of the united states of america, matthew miller. let's hear what miller said. russian nuclear rhetoric has been reckless and irresponsible throughout the conflict. but we do not see. reasons to change the positions of its own nuclear forces in response to these statements, since there are no signs that russia is preparing to use nuclear weapons in ukraine. mr. general, for two years there has been a lot of speculation on the part of the russian federation that they might use tactical nuclear weapons, and

this was said in the context of what if something were to threaten ours. they consider the occupied crimea and the temporarily occupied regions of the kherson, zaporizhzhya, donetsk and luhansk regions to be their territory, so we can, they say, use tactical nuclear weapons, that is, theoretically, the use of these tactical nuclear weapons, what did they lead to, what consequences for russia? well, western countries have more than enough high-precision weapons, and they clearly know everyone. raiding nuclear weapons storage sites of the russian federation and carrying out pre-emptive strikes if necessary, and at certain moments and landing their special forces at the signals of nuclear weapons storage, does not create any problems for nato countries, therefore, again , the nuclear blackmail and bluff of the russian federation

are subject to nato calm enough, but this keeps the gunpowder dry in its powder chambers. yesterday and the day before yesterday in paris, mr. general, xi jinping, the leader of china, was in paris, and he held talks with the president of france, emmanuel macron, and convinced that china will refrain from selling any weapons to the russian federation. macron, after meeting with sydzenpin, thanked him for his commitment to get help from putin. let's listen to what emmanuel macron said. we respect the long-standing ties between china and russia, as well as the efforts made over decades to stabilization of these relations. given this difficult history, we welcome the commitment of the chinese authorities to refrain from selling any arms or aid to moscow and to strictly control the export of dual-

use goods. mr. general, could there be any more convincing arguments. european leaders about china and about xi jinping, considering that they receive the lion's share of china's earnings from france in china and germany, that is, whether it was possible to put pressure, roughly speaking, on xi jinping so that he explained that there is nothing for him to do in ukraine, that is, such diplomacy, tough diplomacy, well, i would like it to be theirs. the words actually corresponded to reality, but nothing and no one prevents the same china from selling components to neighboring border countries. of the former soviet union, and then these components will absolutely calmly enter the territory of russia, because they promised not to help russia, but they did not promise not to sell

these components to the same person there, i will not name those countries, everyone understands which countries i am talking about, well obviously reaction and action we will soon see sidneypinny, because the composition of the participants of the global peace summit, which is to be held on june 16-17 in switzerland, will depend on these changes that took place in europe in... during the last few days. meanwhile, eu countries could purchase weapons for ukraine from ukrainian defense companies and quickly hand them over for military support to kyiv. this was stated by eu high representative josep borel at the eu ukraine defense industry forum. let's listen to what borel said. we should be more creative and look for new ways to deliver military support to ukraine.

denmark has set an example by starting the path of direct investment in the ukrainian defense industry. this is the way to go. purchasing equipment from ukrainian companies or joint european-ukrainian enterprises is an option that we will study together with the member countries. general, we have repeatedly talked about the ukrainian military-industrial complex, about its potential, about its capabilities, about what it could do more than once on our broadcasts before the big invasion, but did not, how do you assess what has happened in the military-industrial complex in the last five years and especially in the last two years, could we have done more than we have, could we have failed. .. to protect ourselves with those weapons that we are now begging from our western partners? we could not provide 100% of all types of weapons, but meanwhile

we could make the lion's share of high-precision long-range radio-guided munitions, including missiles for ssl jets under fire of the vilkha and vilchaem types, in much larger quantities. if there was a state defense order in the 20th, 21st years, and these things just... depended on the authorities, but the authorities did not want to deal with these problems and in general at certain stages tried to freeze our missile program related to the production of those artillery shells themselves, it was under this government in the 20th year that the tem plant , which produced shells, was transferred to a one-day work mode, here are examples of the unwillingness of the authorities to prepare for war, and in general , this should not even be considered as unwillingness, but as ee.. . open sabotage on benefit of the russian federation, and over time, i think that these dots over and will be placed by certain structures under a different government. as

for the general question of whether our defense-industrial complex could achieve something even more, of course it could, but at certain moments these things had to be done covertly, without publicizing it, because we remember the public relations of the leadership of ukrogenprom when. .. then russian missiles flew at the enterprises against which certain reports were made, i am not talking about the shameful case when the state audit the service of ukraine presents the results of the audit with specific components for the missiles of the luchna design bureau, on december 26 they present them, and on december 29 , russian missiles arrive at all related enterprises that cooperated with luchna. if this had not happened, the results could have been much better, therefore, unfortunately, at certain moments, our defense-industrial complex, due to

the incompetence of their leaders, is more engaged in pr than in the practical implementation of its functional tasks. general, the force was created in february this year of unmanned systems in the armed forces, in the structure of the armed forces. it is clear that drones now play a very important role in this. war and probably much more than we imagined two years ago, but today there was a message that the government supported zelenskyi's decree on the creation of a separate type of troops in the structure of the armed forces, now the ministry of defense will prepare and submit to the cabinet of ministers the relevant draft law, passed three months, that is, in the conditions of war, are such terms justified when the forces of unmanned systems are formed for so long... that is, when they in fact, there are, but where do these incomprehensible legal agreements and regulations take place,

why is it taking so long? if the children of the officials of the cabinet of ministers of the verkhovna rada and the ministry of defense were fighting at the front, i think that the issue would have been resolved in two or three days from the moment president zelenskyi signed this decree, and when their relatives are not fighting and they absolutely sneeze, it drags on for a long time process. i will give you an example, three months ago, the number of russian drones used per day at the front was calculated at the level of 45-70 units. now. per day already more than 550 units, at certain moments even more, here is an example of how quickly the russians react to certain changes in this war, if we want to win this war, the children of officials must fight, we do not have that, and officials are not interested in this victory. you are talking about the fact that the russians now have much

more drones than we do, and... that they have transferred their economy to war rails, we have not, and obviously there are a lot of questions about this million drones, whether and whether these are this million drones promised by zelenskyi, whether something will change on the front during the year, but there is an absolutely logical question, but how are we actually going to cope with the volumes that are necessary for the front, well, western partners can’t even bring us... drones and to produce and do what, in principle, apparently, in the conditions of war, ukraine could fix the production itself. ukraine can do this, but for this, the enterprises that exist in our country must take care of a clear defense order with a perspective, for a year, for two, for three, then the actual entrepreneurs, managers of these enterprises will be able to find resources and new equipment to increase the output and quality

of these products. therefore, everything again depends on us, and it is certain that the west, if it can help us in any way, will supply certain components, no more, no less. well , the very end of our conversation, mr. general, what do you think, the west has already clearly decided what to do, well, our western partners, that is, what they should do with russia, that is, whether they are ready for the defeat of russia, they are not ready for the defeat of ukraine, are they ready for the defeat of russia? they are not ready for defeat. russia, and they are absolutely not interested in russia as a state collapsing, because the only thing that prevents them from this, not even the raw material markets, sales markets that they have, first of all, a great fear of the fact that the enormous nuclear potential of the russian federation , uh, control over them will be lost, and then, a certain number of terrorist organizations will be able to get these nuclear weapons and blackmail the

western countries of these nuclear weapons, that's on... the very first such powerful, you know, the fear that european countries have, meanwhile, it can be solved quickly enough and simply by carrying out certain special operations to seize the nuclear arsenals of the russian federation on the territory of russia, all this can be solved, but from our side we we have to produce these things and deliver them to our partners, do they understand? or the current heads of our sul special operations, my number one question is whether they know about this, whether they understand it, i'm not sure. thank you, mr. general conversation, it was major general of the reserve, first deputy commander of the sso in 2016-19, former deputy secretary of the national security council, serhiy krivonos. so, friends, i remind you that we are working live on the espresso tv channel, as well as on our youtube and

facebook platforms for those. who is watching us there live now, please subscribe to our pages and also take part in our survey, today we are asking you about whether you are satisfied with the work of denis shmyhal's government, yes no, everything is quite simple on youtube, if you have your own personal opinion, you can write in the comments under this video, if you watch us on tv, pick up your smartphone or phone and vote if you are satisfied with the work of the government sly 0800 211 381, no 0800 211 380. all calls to these numbers are free, vote, at the end of the program we will sum up the results of our voting, then we will contact roman tsimbalyuk, journalist, former vlaskor union in moscow, a person who worked in the russian federation for a very long time and saw what was happening in russia on the eve of the war and personally asked questions to putin roman, me i congratulate you, thank you for being with us today. greetings, serhiy.