city ​​at any time, just go to the site and report, and we will launch all possible mechanisms to punish the criminal, stop crime ua. there are discounts on optimal 15% in pharmacies psylanyk, pam and oskad. "when the great invasion began, denis was probably one of the first to break through to us in the dungeon. denis was among those brave people who met this challenge with open eyes, it happened in the end." i frankly say a tragedy, he went into

life young, working for the state, running, flying forward to our victory. events, events happening right now and affect our lives, of course , the news reports about them, but it is not enough to know what is happening, it is necessary to understand, antin borkovskyi and invited experts soberly assess the events, analyze them, modeling our future, every saturday at 1:10 p.m. with a repeat on sunday at 10 :10. studio zahid with anton borkovsky at espresso.

the first page of the great war. 242 days of fighting. 242 days of hell. defense. donetsk airport. we remember those who persevered. 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 the work on them was never completed, so what experiences and practices should ukraine take into account right now in the conditions of war, and what are the advantages. and cons here may be, and the second topic for discussion is the expansion of the rights of citizens 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 gun owners in the state - these are things that were clearly understood, and society demanded a kind of liberal law on weapons. let me remind you that in the first reading of the draft law on civil rights.

firearms in ukraine was approved a day before the start of the active phase of the war on march 23, 2020, but the second one is currently being prepared. reading this draft law in the parliament and a significant number of amendments to this document appeared, and in essence, the amendments can be regarded rather as a step towards undermining the defense capability of our state, we will also talk about this in our program. my name is serhiy zgurets, i am the director of the defense express company, which , together with the espresso channels, aims to cover the most relevant events and topics in the life of our army and the defense-industrial complex. and now to us. andriy kypkalo joins, he is the founder and head of the omega company consulting group. 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 this kind of discussion, not

to repeat ourselves about topics that we seem to have talked about before, but i looked and in fact we talk very little about private military companies now, and here you are... there is a person who has considerable experience in creating such companies, and there is a certain number of people who believe that this step and this direction of movement in the state towards private companies is dangerous and irrational. unfortunately, we are have not yet been able to find an opponent to your position today, then i will try to give a little opinion myself on some things related to private companies, but first of all, taking into account your experience, i would like you to tell us, relatively speaking, what a private company is in a certain standard understanding, if at all there is such a standard understanding regarding pmc or consulting companies, because the word consulting in the name of your company, i think, appeared for a reason, so

let's start from the beginning, unfortunately, we have private military companies, they always are. is 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 war, for example, about mercenary troops, it is even written in the bible, and there there are many 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 both mercenaries and private military companies, it is very long unfolded over a period of time

somewhere before the early 2000s, and in the 2000s the industry of private military companies, it grew up and became more in... why because the united states of america they started started hostilities both in the territory of afghanistan and in the territory iraq, and i directly participated in these events, and i just want to remind you how this topic has developed since the beginning of the 2000s, we will not talk about the 90s, the 80s, the 70s and so on further. how is this pvc topic, has it grown up at all? the united states america, they decided to enter the territory of iraq. and i remember at the time, the secretary

of defense, if i'm not mistaken, was donald rumsfeld, and he, he went on television, and he said, let's put it this way, he was guilty in my opinion, he was... trying to reassure the people of the united states of america , and he said these things: the war in iraq, it will last maybe 5 days, maybe five weeks, maybe five months, but it won't last 5 years, and it turned out that they, the americans, counted on one , another came out, and when another came out and they realized that it's going to be a war for years, and you... the question arose, what are we going to do about it, and the american politicians, they decided to talk, think together, and what to do about it, and there were three options, again, it's not speculation about some facts, i directly participated in this, and there were three options, the first option was to collect my things and

leave, to leave iraq, it was not immediately, well, they did not accept it, the second option was to declare mobilization . and then it was political suicide, not suitable either, and so they chose the third option: to create private military companies and for... you private military companies, both on the territory of iraq and on the territory of afghanistan. that is, what we are getting to here in this short excursion into history is that the united states of america is the country that uses private military companies the most, the second country is probably the united arab emirates, for them a private military company was a support in a critical situation. unfortunately, in our country we look at private military companies as a kind of caricature. do you understand private military companies, there is a demand for them, everyone today uses

private military companies, governments use private military companies, multinational corporations such as axonmobil, shell, total, they all use, use the services of private military companies, non-governmental organizations, well, which, for example, save the children, or caritas, they use the services of private military companies, others a little. services, even some logistic or other services, but this private military companies, the security of the vatican, who is involved today, the swiss, well, how did the swiss get into the vatican, you could say mercenaries, and i don't want to use this example because it's very bad, i don't want to use it , but i have to, even terrorists have their own private military companies, i can call malgam tactical. it is based, if i'm not mistaken, in afghanistan, but it works for

terrorist organizations, that is, the whole world uses the services of a private military companies, but for some reason it is always taboo here, and i don't understand why. and when we talk about a private military company, what are the signs or symptoms of, well, the basic things that you can really say 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, for example, we train the armed forces, were engaged in, we are not engaged in now, because we do not have the resources, we were engaged in the training of the armed forces of ukraine, we trained operators... for example, for example, atrk, manpads, we trained sappers, we trained

saboteurs and so on, that is, such activity, it has signs of activities of a military nature, well, here, for example , signs of pmk, fine, but if the company is engaged in medicine, the training of doctors there, is engaged in airport security, is engaged in gathering intelligence in the interests of the security forces, this... is also by private wax companies? no , but the last thing, when you said intelligence gathering , it can already be considered as a private military company, and by the way, there is a very big demand in the market right now for private, let's call it that, for private intelligence agencies, intelligence companies, if you want some example then let me give you that example bellingkat. well, this is a private company, well, put it this way, a journalist

listens to the conclusions of this company, for example, the haab court, well then it means that the limits of private companies all the same, they are quite blurred, it is difficult to determine here why i am asking this, because , linguistically speaking, we had this, the 20th year, president zelenskyy talks about the fact that we really need to define ourselves as private companies, two draft laws are being developed, they... . are hanging around, zelenskyi says that it is necessary to make sure that they do not become the basis of certain oligarchic forces there and so on, so where does this threat or warning to private companies come from, if it does not correspond to the essence of the pmcs themselves, in view of what you said earlier. this is very, very appropriate you understand the question you asked now. in civilized countries, 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 and work in the interests of some private individuals there and, god forbid, try to remove the government or something else, well the same large private military company in the united states is black water, which currently exists on... and i know its head, rick prince, well, believe me, he has no idea there is even such an option that one day he can turn his private military company... black voter or some other, against the government and go there, well, i don't know , eliminate the government there of the one who is currently joe biden and replace him with on trump , for example, well, this is a very simple example, you understand, that is, the events that happened in ukraine earlier, for example, if

i am not mistaken, it was an incident in which mr. kolomo took part. when there were certain actions with ukrtransnafta, well, there were some people in black, armed, unarmed, they entered the territory of the enterprise and so on , listen, frankly speaking, it is not my problem that our security forces allow some illegal armed groups to exist in ukraine, and they could do something there enter some enterprises or close or open them and so on and the like, you understand, that is, a private... military company, it, it is registered somewhere, that is, it is a legal entity, it can no longer be considered as an illegal group, because there is a registration , of course, if there is a group, a group people who have weapons available and there are some means of personal protection, and

there are a lot of them there, 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, it is registered somewhere, you understand, this is the first, the second, mentality, mentality, we looked at what happened in the russian federation, when wagner's pmk went on an assault, relatively speaking, of moscow, i don't want to offend anyone, but people who did nothing wrong... drank , they are nothing they are not afraid, you understand, that is, they are afraid that some pmcs will try to remove the government there, look at the events of 2014, people, people did not like what was happening in the country, people stood up, they used force, that's when we lost this monopoly by force,

the state lost its monopoly on force, the people rose up and they removed the... power, that is , yanukovych fled from ukraine and we, how to say, achieved this in the ukrainian language, i don't remember, with the help of the population, but not with the help of pvc, that is, i don't remember in ukraine some cases where the pmk, private military companies were involved in some illegal activities, that is, these fears we have are completely unfounded, the pmk is a tool. of the state, and not a tool against the state, but for some reason people do not want to hear it, or simply do not hear it, you understand, that is, as i understand it, the current attitude towards the pkk is rather a consequence of the fact that we are held hostage by our old mythologists, and because of that is, conditionally speaking, we do not want to see the potential that currently lies behind the pvc as

a union of structured citizens who can to ensure, well, the improvement of training or the creation of high-quality... units of the armed forces or separate units of other power structures, but then there is the issue of rationing, the law on private companies, britain, the united states, there are no such laws, although these companies are represented all over the world , we have then, which way to go, this flirting with the laws, they, the legislation , must be limited except by a certain licensing of such activities and transparent mechanisms should be created. tracking and control of such structures, well, this is like one of the options, well let's say so, a license, licensing , so maybe it can be obtained, but you understand, we have licenses for, for example, knowledge transfer, if we are talking about knowledge transfer, that is, we are limited only

to training, that is, if a private military company, for example , relatively speaking, she goes on a business trip to the congo, in order to train the armed forces of the democratic republic of the congo there, she needs a license to transfer knowledge, but here we restrict the pmc because we, we limit the activities of the pmc because we we speak exclusively about the activities of the pmc abroad of ukraine. if we return to the law of ukraine on pmc. then the law of ukraine already answers the question, it is the law of ukraine, which can act only on the territory of ukraine. the law of ukraine will not apply on the territory of mozambique, or on the territory. that is, that in ukraine we regulate with such a law. unfortunately, when there was a debate on this matter, the author of this

bill, mrs. vasylevska smaglyuk, she created a working group, but, well, i don't know how many times this working group met, but i was invited to one meeting, i was there spoke out, and i was no longer invited to these meetings of the working group, because... i was, well, categorically against many points of this law, for example, i don't see why our ukrainian pmc should create some warehouses with ammunition, with weapons , with armored vehicles and so on , what will we do with it, that is, this law in the format in which it was written, it is absolutely counterproductive, but it will never pass in the verkhovna rada, a law in which it is written that ukrainian private . i have a training ground, and that what should i do now, i should drive 10 bats to the training ground, put mortars there, put

machine guns, weapons, ammunition and so on there, put up security, the question arises, why do you need all this on the territory of ukraine, and therefore i believe that the the law, the bill that was written, it was written incorrectly. i expressed my opinion, i do, from this, from this working group. and when we still talk about private military companies, then what is the mechanism of financial existence for such enterprises, relatively speaking, if we say that these companies perform tasks there outside of ukraine, then indeed they have contracts there with potential foreign customers, if they work in ukraine. what should they pay money for and who will pay this money? yes, also

a very interesting question, first of all, let's understand if a ukrainian private military company has concluded a contract with a foreign customer, then this is the responsibility, the payment of services, this is the responsibility of the foreign customer exclusively. if a ukrainian private military company, for example, goes on a business trip, i call it a business trip, goes to a business trip, for example, to burkina faso, and she goes on a business trip in the interests of the state, then of course, first of all, such a business trip must be financed by the state, because we work in the interests of the state, after that there may be other options. financing, but in order for us to have a launch abroad in the interests of the state, the state must pay for it. if we are talking

now in the conditions of a war, a full-scale war with russia, the use of private military companies in ukraine, on the territory of ukraine. yes, er, i understand that this is very unpopular opinion, but it should be financed by the state, you know, a private military company. these are not beggars who should go around and beg for money. do you want us to do something, some specific action? well, i can't , i have people, i currently have people in ukraine whom i can use, and they want to work for us, but i personally do not have the resources to attract these specialists. the problem is that i have specialists, and these specialists are now... working on a contract with the armed forces of ukraine, but specialists work as stormtroopers , that is, they go and storm the trenches, and i believe that this is an inappropriate use

of resources, i have another proposal, i have already expressed this proposal, some people heard me, but there are no sanctions, you understand, there are no sanctions , so that i could take these people and use them somewhere in some other way. i have no money, no funding, no authority to take these people and use them for their purpose. this is the problem. i want to tell you that this is not the first time because i watched, i saw how we use, this is not a criticism, maybe some experts or experienced people will say that andrew, you are wrong and so on, but this is my personal opinion, i saw how we use. we use ssso operators on assaults of the same trenches, and now i have a question: if

he dies in a frontal attack. and the ssso operator from our side, and the banal mobilized side of the russian federation, how much time and money do we need, er, time - it is very important to prepare another ssso operator, who happens to be in died in frontal contact with a mobilized person from the russian federation, and how much time and money is needed to restore this mobilized person from the russian federation on... on the front in ukraine, you see, we have to train the ssso operator for at least six months, and the russians will replace this mobilized person tomorrow, what am i talking about, we use our resources sometimes, sometimes, i am not criticizing, again, this is a statement of facts, we use our resources inappropriately, i have people now sitting in ukraine, i can use them on others directions, but they just go and storm

the trenches, these are people... who have 20 years of combat experience, so actually you are talking about what if these people who are trained in your company, who have considerable experience, were used according to the complexity of the tasks, it would be much more effective than simply using them as stormtroopers that repelled one plantation near avdiivka, and we understand that then it does not correspond to the potential that is embedded in these people, who for years on... farted acquired filigree capabilities for combat operations. then the question arises, how to find 100%. how to find a way out of such a labyrinth so that, relatively speaking, the heads of private companies have more opportunities to interact with the military leadership, to receive some tasks that they solve comprehensively, relying on their capabilities, and not scattered among the storming

units there. existing brigades, you see, we, we, you and i talked for a long time about this matter, i talked with mr. bodrak and with other people, and we always we are talking about problems, problems, these are such problems, we have problems, we need to ask the question in a different way, what should be done in order to solve these problems, and in order to solve these problems... we need the authorities i heard, i myself, you understand, because i have no leverage, no, no contacts and so on, i also wrote a letter to the president, the former poroshenko, and i addressed president zelenskyi, i have a letter, a reply, and they write to me from the office of the president of ukraine, we inform you, and yours

an appeal with a proposal... regarding the possible use of private military companies, in particular limited liability companies of megaconsulting groups for the performance of tasks related to the sphere of national security and defense of the state , was sent to the apparatus of the national security and defense council of ukraine and the ministry of defense of ukraine with a request to consider and inform you of the results. that's the end of it, that is, we don't have a lobbyist who can come, i'm sorry, and say that this is what needs to be done. and then it is necessary to collect uh, a working group, but specialists should be invited to this working group, you know, someone from the nsdc should be invited, we should be invited, someone from the general staff, from the ministry of defense should be invited , uh, what is it called, profile , the profile committee, if i am not mistaken , of the verkhovna rada of ukraine and discuss, we have an urgent issue, we need to discuss together whether

it is expedient, and if it is expedient, how can we use private military companies, if it is not expedient, then we need some arguments, but it must be decided collegially, not like we have in ukraine, some analyst said, i am against it, because the state should have a monopoly on force, and we listened to him, said, well, he is against it and so on, all these conversations about , that private military companies from... are prohibited in ukraine, they are absolutely groundless, there is no law of ukraine prohibiting private military companies. we now have a full-scale war. if we have such an urgent question, in my opinion, we should gather a working group, talk, and i am sure that we would be able to find, find a solution.