and there was preparation to start, they were already approaching, so to speak, and to kushtau, they got permission, made a lease agreement, and when the local population saw that this company was already approaching the sacred mountain for the bashkirs, the people gathered there, they closed the road , stood as a tent city for several days, the authorities, of course, drove both rosgvardiya and omon, and local private security companies participated there, but all this ended with the fact that the people did not allow these developers. and the mountain was defended, and this raised the spirit of the bashkir people population, and they remember it precisely as their victory, but at the same time the local leadership, which was appointed by moscow, of course, although there were formal elections there, but in russia, in today's russia, it is impossible to talk about free elections, so this leader seems to have hidden image, and today's events, they are to some extent around mount kushtau, well, formally, it is considered that this is such an eco-protest, and people came to the defense. real

problems, this is where it all begins and this is the cause of everything, this mountain and environmental issues end, is there any possible the deeper roots of this problem? yes, this is not a one-level, so to speak, phenomenon, what we are seeing now is primary, the main one is the protection of alsynov as an environmental activist, but he himself with so... file alsynov, he is an activist from bashkir. when various national associations and movements were still allowed, he was the head of several bashkir organizations that were banned, but others appeared. and now, in general, the organization he headed was called bashkord, it was declared extremist, and he was left with this ecological niche where the struggle was still possible to continue, but it turns out that now even this niche no longer exists, and although the people came out precisely for... the defense of fail as an environmental activist,

very quickly his detention, his condemnation, begins to acquire such a national color, or rather, a national-liberation color, when many say or hint that bashkortostan will be more independent or completely independent from moscow. this is a really big problem, because the subsoil of bashkortostan, which is neighboring tatarstan, by the way, because of oil, because of limestone, because of gold, which is mined in the same bashkarstani. they are simply being looted by the federal authorities and corporations that sit either in moscow or even outside of russia, and of course, they have no business with the social problems of the region, they just need these raw materials, and the people are very dissatisfied with this. and do you think there is a prospect that this protest will increase and perhaps even spread to neighboring regions, or do you still assume that it will be suppressed and that will be the end of it. the potential for this conflict

is there, but that does not mean that it will continue as it began, because there is no only the potential on the part of the population, there is also the question of the power of the central government, which, having the experience of the past 20-30 years, and especially under putin, created the infrastructure to suppress any protest. the current leadership of russia, in the person of putin and his associates, thinks that every protest is abnormal, it is like a destabilization of the regime, so they... prepared accordingly, prepared several structures, from the point of view of organizations, even those that will deal with suppression , this is rosgvardiya, omon, the ministry of internal affairs, there multi-layered protection and the regime is trying to preserve its existence by suppressing these sources of instability, especially since in march in russia president putin is expected to be re-elected for the next term. of course, during the preparation for this, the regime will do everything to avoid any manifestations or speculations about it. was not, by the way, i also

noticed that the russian media wrote about the fact that telegram was either banned or turned off in the region during the protests, or some separate telegram channels that talked about these protests, or it is so? it was, yes, but bashkir channels, in particular, were banned several times before these protests, even when the local authorities agreed, most likely, and i have no information. who did she deal with, or a fool, or through the federal authorities, it was all resolved, but the active groups, specifically the protestors, especially those who are abroad, were banned several times, they appeared, but they were banned again, this is true , in this sense , telegram as a means of communication raises big questions, big doubts from the point of view of security, at the same time there was another factor that it was during the protests and whatsapp slowed down to some extent, not sure if they were directly banned or extinguished. even in neighboring

regions of tatarstan, adjacent to bashkortostan, this was observed. to sum up, did i understand you correctly, that you do not expect that these protests in bashkortostan will lead to some kind of explosion and possibly become the beginning of big all-russian protests, some kind of russian rebellion, about which everyone says that maybe the people will rise up against the government, that is, it is not that case, that is, it is not the case? i said that the time is such that as long as the regime is strong, there is oil and gas money that it receives by any means to circumvent sanctions, it will not cause any wave. most likely, you are watching the situation in russia. for example, there were also events in makhachkala in dagestan, which no one expected, they arose out of nowhere. however, they did not receive a continuation, they were suppressed. most likely, we

will see the same in the case of bashkortostan, but this does not mean that everything will calm down. such events just show that it can pop out, it can explode. in any place. meanwhile, in russia , this winter's mass outages with heat and light in many regions, from the central regions to the far east, became another reason for dissatisfaction. people complain that the government does not provide heat in the cold winter period, and users of social networks even edited a video. we show it in the original language. we are addressing our president vladimir vladimirovich.

and that word, we freeze, we do not live, but exist in such conditions, the situation of the heating is catastrophic, most of the city is freezing , we are freezing, it is impossible to stay in the houses, we are freezing , freezing, freezing, freezing, and the houses are not heated , that is, we have a lot of problems that are not solved, but are only dealt with by signing off, we are freezing, but me already said, you are not a man, the law. for you there is no in our state, that’s how many, four, they are freezing at home, pavyde, zaye, the russian ministry of justice has banned the public demonstration of the symbols

of the organization of ukrainian nationalists and slogan glory to ukraine. the ministry of justice of russia says that they also banned the un emblem in the form of a stylized golden one. a tooth, the middle element of which is made in the shape of a sharp sword. the ban on the display of paraphernalia is explained by the fact that the oun and the upa added nazi paraphernalia to the re-list. in ukraine, they do not consider the upa to be nazi organizations, but those that fought for independent ukraine against the ussr and germany during the second world war. but in russia for propaganda or public display of the symbols of these organizations provided for a fine of up to 2 thousand. or administrative arrest for up to 15 days. the slogan slava ukraine and the response to the heroes slava gained popularity after the revolution of dignity on the maidan, as well as during the war in donbas. it has become especially popular since 2022, when ukraine repels russian armed

aggression. also, this slogan became known in the world as one of the brands of ukraine. ssu retiree yuriy yuryy yuzych. yuriy, i congratulate you. good evening. are you surprised by this reaction of the ministry of justice of russia, why are they actually afraid of this slogan. glory to ukraine? i i'm surprised that it wasn't done just now. and

they banned everything they could many years earlier. so, but in the fact that they made such decisions, it is obvious that they are working on their discourse. well, from... your point of view, this is the decision of the ministry of justice, that is, it is clear that not every third, probably russian, will shout this slogan. somewhere in russian cities, why ban it at such a state level? well , look, actually, back in the 13th year, when before the orange, well before the revolution of dignity, i saw photos when in the kuban, in the stadium there was a big banner glory to ukraine, glory to the kuban, was the answer, therefore, in principle, there are enough people in russia who understand what is happening now, and they obviously use... these are ukrainian congratulations, that is, this slogan is directed not, well, this is the decision it is not aimed at somehow

hitting ukraine, because obviously they do not have the opportunity to do that, but in relation to those activists who support ukraine, who, including somewhere in social networks, that is, somewhere openly use our ukrainian greeting, ugh, and what can you say, because the glory of ukraine is legally prohibited, why do you think... there is no continuation of these prohibitions, for example, the glory of the nation, death to enemies, which now in the context of the war against russia may have a corresponding context, well, look, the glory of the nation is not a continuation, it is informal, as if exclamations, they can be many different, the key thing is that the law of ukraine on the formation statute says that the salute in the armed forces of ukraine is the glory of ukraine. slava is the hero. that is, the first, by the way, er, such a legal greeting was introduced during

in the 18th year of the last century, when hetman pavlo skoropadskyi was the head of the ukrainian state, from august 18th, the hetmanslav's glory to ukraine was introduced. in the later 20s, there was an unofficial and then an official greeting in the environment of the organization of ukrainian nationalists, they also devoted themselves to glory to ukraine, but responded to the leader glory. and it is also indicative that the hetman environment of skoropadskyi in the diaspora in the 20s and 30s and the oun, these were the two strongest, for example, in canada and america, in argentina, one and the other literally formed combat units, there with weapons, with cannons in america, training was held, airplanes were bought, and they confronted each other, even those who were patriots, but despite everything, they had a consensus that they used both slogan glory to ukraine. the answers were different, some said glory to the hetman, others glory to the leader, and in the 41st year,

when the revolutionary organization of ukrainian nationalists headed by stepan bandera was created, a large gathering in krakow, even before the beginning, as they say in russia, of great honor it was their fault, it was decided that everyone in the oun is using, well, the revolutionary answer is glory to the heroes, not about the leader, not about the hetman, but about those guys who died at the front, before that, hundreds of people, well, sichovs died in carpathian january, transcarpathia in the 39th year in march with shouts of glory to ukraine, and there was obviously no response, as we can see and now we have similar cadres, that is why the slogan we use is ours, it is standardized in the 18th year, then it was officially implemented in the unr army in the 20th year greetings, glory to ukraine, and here... in the 15th year, no, not in the 15th, a little later, before a full-scale trade war, the law of ukraine

was introduced, all other appendices, there may be many different ones, that is, it is a human affair, thank you, he uses it , also one of the reasons for banning this slogan was the introduction of the oun and upa into nazi organizations, please remind me if somewhere in the world it is clear, well, first of all, how is the activity of the ounup regulated in ukraine and is it possible , if you know whether this discourse is related to the actions of the ounup during the events of the second world war of the world in some other country, in poland, for example? well, you see, the fact is that in the year 15 there were the so-called maundy thursday laws, they were the decommunization laws, but among one of the few laws that were passed at that time, the great code, there was a law recognizing the uun and the upa, in general

, there were several versions of this draft law, and they went in such a way that not only unupa was there, there were many other formations, but i already mentioned the carpathian sich, it was also recognized as a party that participated in the liberation struggle, and even the people's movement ukraine, they were recognized as a warring party for ukraine, therefore, in principle, in the ukrainian legal field, these structures are recognized, in fact, unfortunately, unfortunately, russian and polish narratives to a large extent, they do not give the opportunity, for example, the 80-vehicle brigade had the decision that... their brigade to receive an honorary name after roman shukhevych, but in the end we saw that a few months ago this brigade received the name halytska, which means that other amphibious assault brigades also received some territorial signs, a not, for example, the soldiers of the rebel army or the leaders of the organization of ukrainian nationalists, at the same time, for example, when

i was in poland last year, when i was still serving in the armed forces, we went to fix... i invite you to like this video and subscribe to radio svoboda channels on youtube and other social networks, telegram, instagram, tiktok, and don't forget radio svoboda.org and svooboda live will be back on monday. there are discounts on bronchi pred 20% in pharmacies plantain, you and save. vinyl agency presents the scene on january 22 at 7:30 p.m taras chubai of the lviv opera and songs that

all ukraine sings along to. the special guest of the concert is the lviv man. academic choir chapel dudaryk tickets to karabaskom, live sound, there are discounts on psyk, 10% in pharmacies plantain for you and savings. welcome to the espresso channel. today, the focus of our "war and weapons" program is two interrelated ones. topics that some consider a challenge to our security, others, on the contrary, new opportunities for the country's defense capability. so, the first topic is the development and use in ukraine of the potential of private, military and defense consulting companies, as one of the tools for strengthening the country's defense forces. in ukraine, by the way,

several draft laws regarding private military companies were prepared, but work on them was never completed. so, what experiences and practices should ukraine take into account right now in the conditions of war, what pros and cons there might be. and the second topic for discussion is the expansion of citizens' rights to own firearms. it would seem that after the 22nd year, the need for an adequate law on weapons, an increase in the percentage of owners weapons in the state are things that were clearly understood, and society demanded such a thing. certain liberal gun laws. let me remind you that in the first reading , the bill on the right to civilian firearms in ukraine was adopted a day before the start of the active phase of the war on march 23, 2022. however, the second reading of this draft law is currently being prepared in the parliament, and a significant number of amendments to this document have appeared, and

in essence, these amendments can be regarded rather as a step towards undermining the defense capability of our state, we will also talk about this in to our program, my name is serhiy sgurets, i am the director of the defense express company, which , together with the espresso channel, aims to cover the most relevant events and topics in the life of our army and the defense-industrial complex. andrii kepkalo, the founder and head of omega consulting group, joins us now. mr. andrii, i congratulate you, i am glad to see and hear you. greetings, mr. serhiy, thank you for the invitation. well, before the broadcast, we had such a certain discussion, not to repeat ourselves, about topics that we seem to have talked about before, but i looked and in fact, we now talk very little about private military companies, and here you are a person who has considerable experience in creating such companies, and there are a certain number of people

who believe that this step and this direction of movement in the state is towards private companies, dangerous and irrational. unfortunately, we have not yet been able to find an opponent to your position today, so i will try to master some things that concern private companies myself. but first of all, given your experience, i would like you, conditionally saying, they told that this is a private company in a certain standard understanding, if at all there is a standard understanding about it. vk or consulting companies, because i think the word consulting appeared in the name of your company for a reason, so let's start from the beginning, unfortunately, we have private military companies, they are always associated with mercenaries, this is very

bad, i do not support such an opinion, but if we are already talking about mercenaries, then i want to tell you that mercenaries exist as long as there is a war, for example, about mercenary troops, it is even written in the bible. there are a lot of examples when mercenary troops were once used by someone, i even read machiavelli, machiavelli against the use of mercenaries, but i have a different opinion on this matter, and there is the subject of mercenaries and private military companies, it unfolded for a very long time somewhere, somewhere to the early 2000s, and so... in the 2000s , the private military industry, it matured and became more regulated, why? because the united states of america, they

started, started hostilities, both on the territory of afghanistan and on the territory of iraq, and i directly participated in these activities, and i just want to remind you, yes, since the beginning of the 2000s, this, it has developed, we will not talk in the 1990s, 1980s, 1970s, and so on, as this topic of the pkk, it grew up in general, the united states of america, they made a decision to enter the territory of iraq, and i remember then as the minister of defense, if i'm not mistaken, there was donald rumsfeld, and he is. appeared on television and he said, let's put it this way , i think he was trying to reassure the people of the united states of america, and he said these

things: the war in iraq, it's going to last maybe 5 days, maybe five weeks, maybe five months , but it will not last 5 years, and it turned out that they, the americans , counted on one thing, it turned out something else, and when it turned out... something else and they realized that it would be a war for years, and then the question arose, what do we do with it will do, and american politicians, they decided to communicate, to think together, and what to do with it, and there were three options. again, this is not speculation on some facts, i was directly involved in this, and there were three options. the first option is to collect your things and leave, leave iraq, it... was not immediately, well, they did not accept it. the second option was to declare mobilization. and then, it was, well, political suicide. it

doesn't fit either. and so they chose the third option: to create private military companies and to use private military companies, both on the territory of iraq and on the territory afghanistan. that is, what are we getting to here in such a short excursion into history? that the united states of america is the country that uses private military companies the most, the second country is probably the arab emirates, for them a private military company was a support in a critical situation, unfortunately, in our country we are on private military companies are seen as a kind of caricature, you see, private military companies, there is a demand for them, everyone today uses private military companies, governments use private military companies. transnational corporations, such as exonmobil, shell, total, they all use, use the services of private military companies. non-governmental organizations, such as

save the children or caritas, they use the services of private military companies, other services a little bit, even there some logistics or some other, but these are private military companies, the security of the vatican, who are engaged today, the swiss , well... like the swiss got into the vatican, you can say mercenaries , and i don't want to use this example because it's very bad, i, well, i don't want to use it, but i have to, even terrorists have their own private military companies, i can call it malgama tactical , it is based, if i 'm not mistaken, in afghanistan, but it works for the benefit of terrorist organizations, that is, the whole world uses the services of private... military companies, and here for some reason it's always taboo, and uh, i don't understand why, and when we we are talking about a private military company, what signs or symptoms are, well... the basic things

that can really be said that this structure or this group of people is a private military company or a consulting company or a defense consulting company, what are the unmasking signs of a private company? it's a company, it's very simple, it 's a limited liability company that provides services of a military nature, well, for example, we are engaged in the training of the armed forces, we were engaged in, we are not engaged in now, because... we have no resources, we trained the armed forces of ukraine, we trained its operators, for example, anti-tank missiles, manpads, we trained sappers, we trained saboteurs and so on, that is, this kind of activity, it has signs of its activity of a military nature, well, here you go, for example, signs of the pmc, well, if a company is engaged in medical medicine, the training of medics there, is engaged in...

guarding airports, is engaged in gathering intelligence in the interests of law enforcement agencies, are these also private military companies? uh, no, but the last time you said intelligence gathering, it can already be considered a private military company, and by the way, there is a very big demand in the market now for private, let's call it, private intelligence agencies. intelligence companies, if you want an example, then let me give you this example belling cut, well, it is a private company, well, it is more like a journalist-investigator, the conclusions of this company are listened to, for example, by the haab court, well then it means that the limits there are still enough private companies blurred, it is difficult to determine why i am asking this, because, linguistically speaking, we had

a president this 20th year. says that we really need to define ourselves as private companies, two draft laws are being developed, they are hanging somewhere, zelenskyi says that it is necessary to make sure that they do not become the basis of certain oligarchic forces there and so on, that is where this threat or warning comes from to private companies appears, if it does not correspond to the essence of the pmcs themselves, given what you said earlier. that, that's a very, very pertinent question that you've asked now, you see, in civilized countries, i don't, i don't want to offend anyone, but in civilized countries, even such an idea does not arise that a private military company can obey some oligarch there and work in the interests of some private individuals there and, god forbid, try to remove

the government there or something else well... on the same large private military company in the united states, this is black water, which does not exist today, and i know its head, rick prince, well , believe me, he does not even think of such an option that he can someday the private military company black water or some other, turn it against the government and go there, well, i don’t know, remove the government there , who is today... joe biden and replace him with trump, for example, well, such a very simple example , you understand, that is, those events that happened in ukraine earlier, for example, if i am not mistaken, it was an incident in which mr. kolomoisky took part, when there were certain actions with ukrtransnafta, well, there were some people in black, armed, unarmed, they entered

on the territory of the enterprise and there ... listen, frankly speaking, it is not my problem that our law enforcement structures allow some illegal armed groups to exist in ukraine, and they could enter some enterprises there, to close them or to open and so on and the like, you understand, that is , it is a private military company, it is registered somewhere, that is , it is a legal entity, it can no longer be considered as an illegal group. because there is registration, of course, if there is a group, a group of people who have weapons available and there are some means individual protection, and there are a lot of them, so it falls, if i am not mistaken , under article 260 of the criminal code of ukraine, illegal armed or armed formations, but a private company, it is for...