fought, and why did one neighbor fight , and why did the other neighbor fight, and why did the best man fight, and you did not fight, i would be ashamed to hear such a question from the children, you know, because of that, i can safely tell my wife that i live, even if i died in this war, but i lived my life with dignity, i am not ashamed, i am not ashamed in front of the children, i am not ashamed in front of the neighbors, there were times when people met us in the streets, and older women came up and... my son, it's good that you're here, thank you for defending us, it's really us we drove a stryker, more or less in a safe zone, we could afford to stop, we stopped at a shop to drink coffee, grandmothers came by, the saleswoman treated us to a box of cookies for free, they said that we boys know what it is like to be in occupation, we we are very grateful that you are here, and what we did without you, it was so nice to hear, me me... honestly, i

had tears in my eyes, we got into that striker, they waved to us, we waved to them accordingly, let's go, this feeling, this feeling is nowhere else you won't get, i don't know how to express it in words, this is the feeling when people thank you for saving them. on the air from washington, the program of the ukrainian service of the voice of america chas time, i am yuliya yarmolenko, congratulations. strengthening the air defense of ukraine will be one of the key topics of the extraordinary meeting of the ukraine-nato council. this was reported by the minister of foreign affairs dmytro kuleba. he stated that the request for such a meeting was sent by ukraine, and nato supported it. minister of foreign affairs of poland, radoslav. stated that in response to the increase

russian bombings of ukrainian cities, western partners should introduce even stronger sanctions against russia, as well as provide ukraine with long-range missiles. we need to answer putin in a language he understands, he emphasized. what weapons would be most effective and are there sanctions that could stop moscow? let's talk about this with my colleague andriy borys, who gathered the opinions of western military analysts. andrew, hello. congratulations, yulia! andrii, considering several massive attacks in the past week, how much can we talk about a change russia's war tactics, and what could this mean? well, yulia, it is important to explain the context, that is, the situation in which we now find ourselves. this year, russia has the largest, well, actually a record defense budget, it is approximately 140 billion dollars, it has increased by 70% compared to last year. this accordingly affects... the capabilities of russia, and the military-industrial complex is growing

at a frantic pace, and as some experts say , you can literally see from the satellite how their production at defense plants is increasing, including missiles, which they are currently using with which they are now hitting ukraine, at the same time, the issue of western, namely american aid to ukraine, is hanging in the balance, and accordingly, the number of anti-aircraft missiles that will be able to repel depends on this aid. russian attacks, we will receive, and what russia actually wants now, what tactics it is pursuing, it wants to achieve the point of actually exhausting the ukrainian air defense system, to bring to the point that the ukrainian air defense means, the forces had to choose which targets to shoot down, which targets knock down, but actually i am asking you to listen to the direct speech of experts from about this issue. in recent attacks

, the russians have used large numbers of missiles at once to try to overcome air defenses that have become quite effective against smaller attacks. when the enemy launches a hundred missiles, you're wasting a significant amount of air defenses, especially considering that the russians have a large stockpile of relatively inexpensive drones that need to be shot down as well. ukraine can use up a lot of missiles quite quickly, which means that there will be a constant demand for their supply with... in our estimation, russia deliberately stockpiled missiles of various sizes and capabilities during the fall and early winter of 2023 to create more diverse strike packages and take into account lessons learned from testing ukrainian air defense systems. this is done in order to overcome and bypass ukrainian air defenses, while using missiles to maximize damage to the intended targets. russian troops. especially during the recent

attacks , used a larger number of missiles as opposed to drones to overcome air defenses and increase their chances to hit critical targets. andrii, at the end of the year, the netherlands announced that they were preparing to hand over the first batch of f-16s to ukraine. how significantly can it help the ukrainian armed forces? to briefly answer your questions, yes, f-16s can have an actual impact and help ukrainian air defense. as you know, fighters, american f-16 fighters, they operate against both air and ground targets. experts said that the primary goal of providing ukraine in 2016 is its own assistance. air cover to ground attack forces ground forces, but they can also work against air targets as a whole, how effective it will be and help ukrainian air defense depends on actually one word quantity, how many f-16s we will get, ukraine will get f-16s and how many

missiles ukraine will get. please listen to the expert's direct speech on this issue. yes, of course, ukraine is a big country, it can't be all... covered with ground air defense batteries. many targets can be intercepted by fighter jets. and this is what airplanes did in the past. this of course also applies to drones rockets, but also rockets, caliber and cruise missiles. they can be intercepted in the same way as conventional aircraft. currently , the problem for ukraine is that there is a lack of missiles produced by russia for the soviet-made aircraft it has in service, the su-27 and mig-29 . and in the arsenals of... the number of such missiles is limited, so f-16s will perform this role in the near future. andrii, and what weapons from the west , according to experts, would be the most useful at this stage of the war to counter the russian air strikes? just now, as

the expert who just appeared on the air, gustav grezel, said, there is a rather limited amount of air defense equipment, air defense systems in the west, and this is related to that. that with the tactics of the nato countries' approach to warfare, they are convinced of their air superiority at the expense of aircraft and actually on air defense, as this expert explained, they do not pay much attention, that is , they pay less attention to it, and as we were told at the institute for the study of war, actually one it would be possible to help ukraine by means of tactics would, for example, help ukraine by providing atakams and tau. ballistic missiles , which could be directly at the sites from where the russians launch the missiles, or at the airports, from where the airfields, where their planes take off, again, we talked to philip breedlove, a retired american general, and this is what he said, interestingly, one should not underestimate

the existing existing air defense system in ukraine, it can be improved, that is, russia and ukraine are going like this now. they learn from each other and adjust in management in management tactics war, even the same patriots who shoot down daggers, they can after this attack, which was partially successful for russia, they can rearrange algorithms, that is, improve to shoot down missiles. please listen to his direct speech. so. exactly as russia learns and tries to improve, so do we. we learned that armada tanks are not invulnerable. in fact, they performed quite poorly on the battlefield. we learned a lot about them, how to attack and destroy them, even quite simply weapons we have learned a lot about how to deal with russian artillery and their

long-range artillery because the war has been going on for a long time. and yes, we learn every day about russian missile systems and how they attack, as well as the capabilities and , more importantly, the limitations of the dagger missile, questions about the effectiveness of western sanctions, whether western countries can impose such sanctions against russia, which would really affect moscow's ability to continue the war? yes, yulia, this question comes up quite often, russia adapts, it learns to live under sanctions, and it learns well, in particular from its ally iran, which has lived under sanctions for decades, which means that it can obtain these very elements to ... manufacture weapons to circumvent sanctions through third countries, and actually experts hope , that it will be more effective to limit russia through financial flows, through the so-called petrodollars. please listen to what one of the experts told us about this. debris indicates

that many of these rockets were created at all recently. this means that the sanctions are actually working, as the russians have to wait and fend off their attacks until they build enough missiles. it is unrealistic to think that we can stop their production completely. we can make it more expensive, limit their ability to upgrade. and the development of new weapons, but as long as there are gaps in the sanctions, western components reach russia through third parties. all these comments are important. andrei, thank you very much. my colleague andriy borys was in touch. we summed up the opinions of western analysts, including military analysts, about how the measure could help ukraine resist massive missile attacks and what sanctions might eventually work against russia. thank you, andrei. please. the second day of cleaning up the debris after the russian missile

attack on kyiv on january 2 continues, according to the capital's mayor's office, a total of 50 people were injured in the city, two were killed. residential buildings, warehouses, private cars and car dealerships were damaged in six districts of the capital. solominsky district suffered particularly badly. anna kostyuchenko and pavel sukhodolskyi will tell how the victims of kyiv recovered after the attack. award. uhu, from lithuania for services to lithuania of the second degree. 62-year-old dalia makarova is sorting through the rubble of her apartment. she is lithuanian by origin. over 40 years ago, she married a ukrainian and moved to kyiv. during the next russian attack on ukraine on january 2 , 2024, the woman was at home. i was at home in the bedroom, in bed. and that's what saved the down. hovdra and there is a stilt, the two walls of the door attacked me, me

i got off my feet like that, because everything was in pieces, that's all, but i don't have a single scratch. in 2017, she did a full renovation costing more than €35,000, says the woman. he does not know how to fix the apartment now. dalya received one-time assistance in the amount of uah 10,000 from the city government. the same amount for every person who lives in a village destroyed by the russians... however, the losses are too great for this money to be enough - says dalya. it's just an investigation, fixing the damage, and that's all for now, that is, they haven't even told us where we 'll live next, what to do, because there's no there is no light, no gas, no water, nothing, we live here, there is a draft, but that night we were at school, in the assembly hall on the beds. the woman is not sure whether it will be possible to return to life in her native apartment at all, because

it is not yet known whether the house is suitable for living, but the cracks are gone, and there it is, my god, it is terrible. the solomyan district of the capital of ukraine suffered perhaps the most. residents of the district, who have been united since 2014, are helping to dismantle rubble and clean glass in destroyed apartments. when a full-scale war began, this public took over such a responsibility to communicate with people when such things happen, as, for example, a tragedy now, or to help the military. volunteers of the district also organized points with hot tea to support the residents of the building. an elderly woman who lived in this house became ill, and the activists provided her with first aid. the residents are still in a state of shock and relatives are helping to clean the apartment, yesterday, when it happened, they came to pick up

my sister, because, as he said, she was almost unable to walk, well, the red cross helped transfer her there to the border of the policeman so that i could pick him up by car, because the car was not started, but an apartment was allowed here, not in the apartment, we only took it from the street, for yes... 43 residents of the solomyan district of kyiv city hall were injured as a result russian missile attack on january 2. so she will die and russia will pass it on. one woman died in her own apartment. in the solomyan district, school number 221 was also affected, where the headquarters was opened despite this. regular assistance to the victims. however, there is also destruction in the school itself, in particular, more than a hundred people flew away

windows on the day of the attack, about fifty people from dobrobat came to help remove the consequences of the destruction. association of caring people, which works in the kyiv, kharkiv, kherson, chernihiv, sumy mykolaiv regions and in the part of zaporizhzhia not occupied by the russians. they clean up the remains of the warehouse and cover the windows with plywood to protect the room from moisture. it. among the volunteers is 31-year-old norwegian thomas lund. he has been a volunteer for the needs of the armed forces since the beginning of the great invasion. at first, he collected a donation in norway, for which purchased several drones. and in the 20th year of his third year, he came to kyiv and joined dobrobat. norway is actively helping ukraine and we are trying to do what we can. i hope the rest of the countries will also follow our example. it is necessary for each state to do everything possible. many countries do a lot. i am very grateful to them, but everyone should step up their help. america needs to sort out

its priorities. everyone has to be on the same page, because it won't stop until we get to... because of the threat of a new ballistic attack, people are taking shelter, it's not only volunteers, but also residents of the affected building, who found temporary shelter at the school. anna kostyuchenko, pavel sukhodolskyi for voice of america from kyiv. meanwhile, fighting the enemy with... the armed forces of ukraine are helped by the latest developments of ukrainian students. in december, a group of young engineers from the kyiv polytechnic university presented their projects in washington at a conference on the defense and industrial base of ukraine. ivanka pidborska found out how the students decided to help the army and what their developments are already being used on the front lines.

students of kyiv polytechnic university developed reset systems, a project of drones and mine detector systems and presented them. all this at a conference in washington, and it all started a year and a half ago with the desire of students to help the military defend ukraine? this is just a caring team of students who at one point decided that we need to help the army more, that what we are doing is not enough. we have a member of the student parliament, this is student self-government in kpi, a member of the student parliament hondzheruk vlad, he said: "i have a development, here it is already used by the military , let's spread it." since then, all volunteers from different faculties without any special knowledge began to gather after couples and learn to create things needed on the front lines. fourth-year student yulia worked on reset systems for drones. we took a small course of a young fighter. to us vlad came. he was telling us what exactly the reset is made of.

we checked in practice how to do it. the reset system, it's trivial, it's just gone. there will be more, it has very few details, because vlad did it so that it was the most effective with minimal costs, it was to print the case itself on a 3d printer, solder all the parts into a pile, twist it all into the case and sew velcro to it. now more than 700 such systems are used on the front lines for various purposes, yulia says. dropping some kind of ammunition. it can also be some kind of provision delivery, whatever, it can also be used in civilian life, the guys, when they tested it for workability, they took it out with them on fishing trips and threw bait with it. and the third-year student oleksiy presented the development of unmanned aerial vehicles, on which he worked together with other students under the guidance of his teacher.

there are no analogues, precisely in terms of price, quality , a wingspan of 6 m, an aircraft weighing 200. which is capable of carrying a combat part of it can be up to 50 kg, it flies up to 1000 km, it is equipped with everything you need to make this distance to fly oleksiy and other students developed five test samples of such a drone, which were then handed over to sponsors for scaling. at the moment , 30 such planes have already been given to the military. and now they are already working on projects of aircraft that will be shot down. russian-iranian shaheda drones. we want to make it modular, so that its nose can be changed, and instead of a targeting system, we had a camera for the fpv pilot, that is, so that he himself already controlled it and flew not only up and down, but also could hit, well, ground targets objectives. and ivan presented the development of the minesweeper system. it is

an electromagnetic detection system for various engineering munitions, but it can be placed on any robot. ovanium system, whether it is evacuation vehicles for the wounded, that is, we are developing the concept itself, but it can be used in any other systems, we have already tested it and we have already found 10 out of 10 anti-tank mines, that is, we are working on improving this system and will try to find methods for its rapid spread to those areas where humanitarian demining is necessary. vice-rector of kpi. assures that the students coped with the main goal: to demonstrate the involvement of young people in the defense of ukraine, what is more, their work aroused interest among the participants in the conference, that the main goal... was to show precisely the involvement of the student body and the involvement of the university in the defense capability of our country, some specific results regarding the signing of some contracts

with foreign companies, such tasks were not set, but during these presentations, a number of ukrainian manufacturers, which are part of the ukrainian defense-industrial complex, were also interested in the development of our students, i realized that it is really american. potential, apparently, we once again made sure that they support ukraine, ukraine, they hear about ukraine, they know about ukraine and are ready to help. ivanna pidborska, vyacheslav filyushkin, kostyantyn golubchyk, voice of america. at least 100 people have been killed and more than 200 injured in explosions in iran. during the ceremony to honor the memory of supreme commander qassem soleimani,

killed by an american drone in 2020. the explosions rang out at the cemetery where suleimani is buried and where thousands of people gathered. according to iranian authorities, unnamed terrorists remotely detonated two explosive devices, installed along the road. no one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. gentseco called to bring the culprits to justice. according to us state department spokesman matthew miller, the united states is looking into reports of an attack but has no independent information about the incident. he, however, emphasized: the united states was in no way involved in this and has no reason to believe that israel could have been involved. some analysts suggest that today's incident threatens to increase tensions in the region, which have increased since the beginning war hamas and israel. speaker of the house

of representatives mike johnson went to the border of the united states with mexico on wednesday. together with him , a delegation of more than 50 republicans went to the town of eagle pass, in the state of texas. the reason for the trip is the record number of illegal migrants crossing the american border. previously , speaker johnson of sent an open letter to president biden. republican calls for action on border crisis, proposes, in particular, to restore donald-era immigration law trump only after the border situation is resolved, republicans say, will they be ready to vote for additional funding for ukraine, israel and other national security priorities. senators returned to washington early yesterday to continue negotiations on immigration legislation. however, there is currently no news. the house says that instead of trying to find a common solution, speaker johnson continues to block president biden's proposals to strengthen border security. approximately 300 thousand people in

tried to cross the border of mexico with the usa in december. these are record numbers for the month. only 50,000 passed through official checkpoints. how thousands of migrants are heading towards the usa. what do they hope for? oleksiy kovalenko will tell. thousands of migrants from central and south america are making their way to the us-mexico border, some of them congregating in the city of tapachula, in southeastern mexico on the border with guatemala, from where the caravan of migrants heads north. there are children and women with blisters on their feet, they are dehydrated, it's hard, it's hard to find the american dream, we want the government to at least give us permission to cross the border. the caravan set off a few days before a scheduled meeting between the us and mexican delegations to discuss ways to limit the flow of immigrants. according to

the authorities of the mexican state of chiapas , there are about 10,000 immigrants, including children, in the caravan heading to the american border. they say they don't have the money to pay for visas or the so-called coyotes who smuggle people. i don't have any a penny, no one gave me a single... morsel of food, but i'm determined and i'm not going to give up until i reach the border. luiz vilia gran also joined this caravan. he is the director of the non-profit organization center for human dignity. we ask only what is within the law, to provide documents to stay in the country legally. after negotiations with us secretary of state anthony blinken, the administration of the president of mexico announced that important agreements had been reached regarding the border. details which are not disclosed. only in december every day on about 10,000 migrants were arrested on the southwestern border of the united states. a record number of migrants at the us border could become

a factor in a presidential election year. and finally about ecology: the year 2023 broke temperature records in the world, it was the hottest year in the entire history of meteorological observations, and some scientists consider it the hottest in the last 125 years. the increased temperature has caused a number of climatic cataclysms around the world. an extremely hot year was explored by steve baragon. narrated by iryna shinkarenko. forest fires in canada, floods in libya, two disasters during a year of extreme weather. 2023 will go down in history as the hottest on record. each of its months from june to november was

the hottest for its own. july 2023 was the warmest on record, by far the warmest july. the global temperature on the planet in september so exceeded the norm that one of the climatologists called it amazingly crazy. unrelenting heat caused by climate change due to human activity and periodic the el niño weather phenomenon has affected extreme weather around the world. we know that this additional warming of the atmosphere brings with it additional. bad weather is not necessarily a consequence of climate change, but the effect of global warming in a number of weather disasters has been noted by climatologists from the world weather attribution web platform. in april , historical temperature records were broken in thailand and loos. scientists say such heat would be practically impossible without climate change. in the same month , temperature records were broken in zahidny

mediterranean sea, wave. the probability of which increased 100 times. southern europe was scorched again in july, as was china and the border region of the usa and mexico. in the city of phoenix, arizona , the temperature exceeded 43°c for 31 days. this is a record. it's not a record anyone wants to break, and it's certainly not one that people in phoenix are excited about. the intensity of these heat waves would have been nearly impossible without climate change, according to world weather attribution researchers. but on today's hotter planet, we can expect them every 5, 10 or 15 years. warmer temperatures dry out soils and vegetation faster and have contributed to the record wildfires that have ravaged eastern canada this year becoming one and a half times more intense. warming has also contributed to severe droughts in syria, iraq, and iran, and contributed to food crises in somalia and the rest of the horn of africa region, increasing the likelihood of these problems in the future

at least. 100 times. although somalia has little effect on climate change, somalis are among its biggest victims. climate change also increases droughts and floods, because warmer air holds more moisture, which means heavier downpours. for example, the one that broke through the dams in libya in september and killed thousands of people. the world weather attribution team says climate change has made this flood 50 times more likely and 1.5 times more severe. and torrential rains in november in the horn of africa were about twice as intense. the drought has already pushed many people in the region to the limit of what they can handle. and now it is accompanied by floods, indeed shows that humans can only adapt to small changes, and as long as we keep burning fossil fuels, this will happen again and again and again. currently there is none. some

signs that climate change will stop and as humans continue to heat the planet. weather that used to be considered extreme is becoming more frequent. iryna shenkarenko, steve baragona, voice of america. download the voice of america mobile application. the application allows you to bypass blocking automatically thanks to the built-in vpn service. read news, watch news programs and videos, and listen. podcasts of the ukrainian voice of america service. and that's the end of it. thank you for watching voice of america in ukrainian. see you tomorrow, all the best, take care. pope.