welcome to the espresso channel. today , the focus of our war and weapons program is on two interrelated topics, which 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 on private military companies were prepared, but work on them never took place 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 seemed that after the 22nd year, the need for an adequate law on guns, increasing the percentage

of gun owners in the state - these are things that were clearly understood, and society demanded some kind of liberal gun law. let me remind you that in the first reading , the draft law on civil and firearms rights weapons in ukraine was approved a day before the start of the active phase of the war on 23 december 2022, but now the second reading of this draft law is being prepared in the parliament and he said. a significant number of amendments to this document, and in fact, in this regard, the amendments can be considered rather as a step towards undermining the defense capability of our country, we will also talk about this in our program. my name is serhii sgurets, i am the director of the defense express company, which is currently working together with the espresso channel to cover the most relevant events and topics in the life of our army and the defense-industrial complex. andriy kepkalo joins us now.

founder and head of omega consulting group, mr. andriy, i congratulate you, 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 a person with considerable experience . creation of such companies, and there are 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 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 to tell us, conditionally speaking... what is a private company in

a certain standard sense, if at all there is such a standard understanding of pmcs or consulting companies, because the word consulting in the name of your company i think it didn't appear just like that, yes, well then, let's start from the very beginning, we have, unfortunately, uh, 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 have existed as long as there has been war, for example, about mercenary armies, it is even written in the bible, and there are many examples, when mercenaries were once used by someone, i even read machiavelli.

machiavelli against the use of mercenaries, but in i have a different opinion on this matter, and there is the subject of both mercenaries and private military companies, it unfolded for a very long time somewhere, somewhere until the beginning of the 2000s, and here in the 2000s the industry of private military companies, it grew up and became more settled, 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 that since the beginning of the 2000s, this topic, it developed, we will not talk there about the 90s, 80s, 70s. and so on, as this

topic of the pmc, it grew up in general, the united states of america, they made a decision to enter the territory of iraq. and i remember the secretary of defense at the time, 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 in my opinion, he was trying to reassure the people of the united states of america, and he said things like that, the war in iraq, it will last, maybe 5 days, maybe five weeks, maybe 5 months, but it will not last p... years, and it turned out that they, the americans, counted on one thing, another turned out, and when the other turned out, and they realized that it would be a war for years, the question arose, what will we do with it to do, and

american politicians, they decided to talk, think together, and what to do about it, and there were three options, again, this is not speculation on some facts, i directly participated in it. and there were three options. the first option is to collect your things and leave, get out of iraq. it was not immediately, well, they did not accept it. the second the 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, i... on the territory of iraq, and on the territory of afghanistan, that is, what we are getting here in this short excursion into history, that the united states of america - this is the country that mostly uses private military companies, the second country is probably the arab emirates, for them a private military

the company was a support in a critical situation, unfortunately, in our country we look at private military companies as some kind of caricature, you know, private military companies on... they have a demand, everyone today uses private military companies, governments used by private military companies, multinational corporations, such as exonmobil, shell, total, they all use, use the services of private military companies. non-governmental organizations, such as, for example, save the children or caritas, they are they use the services of private military companies, other a little services, even there some kind of logistics. or some others, but these are private military companies, the security of the vatican, who is doing today, and the swiss, well, how did the swiss get into the vatican, you can say mercenaries, and i don't want to use this example because it is very bad , i would not like to use it, but i have to, even

terrorists have their own private military companies, i can call it malgam takactical, it is based, if i am not mistaken, on the state, but it works for the benefit of terrorist organizations, that is, the whole world uses the services of private military companies, and for some reason it is always taboo here, and i do not understand why. and when we talk about a private military company, what signs or symptoms are, 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 company. what are the unmasking signs of a private company? it company, it is very simple: it is a limited liability company that provides services of a military nature, for example

, we are engaged in training the armed forces operators , for example, for example, anti-aircraft missile defense system, tsr, we trained sappers, we trained saboteurs, and so on, that is, such activity has signs of military activity, well, here you have, for example, signs of pmk. well, what if the company deals with medicine, the training of medics there, deals with airport security, collects intelligence in the interests of law enforcement agencies, it is also a private city. 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 an example, let me give you one: belling cut, well, that's it a private company. well, if you say that such a journalist-investigative agency listens to the conclusions of this company, for example, the haab court, well then it means that the boundaries of private companies are still... quite blurred, it is difficult to determine why i am asking this, because linguistically speaking, in it was our 20th year, president zelenskyi says that we really need to define private companies, two draft laws are being developed, they are stuck somewhere, zelenskyi says that it is necessary to make sure that they do not become the basis of certain oligarchic forces and such else, where does this threat or warning come from? to private companies appears, if it does not correspond to the essence of the pmcs themselves, given what

you said earlier. this, this is a very , very relevant question that you have now asked, you know, in civilized countries, i do not want to offend anyone, but in civilized countries there is no such idea that a private military company can be subordinated to some oligarch there. and work in the interests of some private individuals there and, god forbid, try to eliminate the government or something else, well, the same big private the military company in the united states is black water, which does not exist today, and i know its head, rick prince, well, believe me, he does not even think of the option that he can one day have his own private military company, black water or some other . turn against against the government and go there, well, i don't know, eliminate the government there, who

is currently joe biden and replace him with trump, for example, well, such and such a very simple example, you understand, that is, the events that we have took place in ukraine earlier, for example, if i'm not mistaken, this was an incident in which mr. kolomoisky took part, when there were some. certain actions with ukrtransnafta, well, there are 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 power structures allow there to be some illegal armed forces in ukraine formations, and they could enter some enterprises there, close them or open them and so on and the like, you understand, that is, private military the company is... 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 of people who have weapons available and there are some means of personal protection, and there are a lot of them, if i am not mistaken, it falls 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, second, mentality, mentality, we looked what events happened in the russian federation when wagner's pmk went to storm, relatively speaking, moscow, i don't want to offend anyone, but people who have not done anything bad, they are not afraid of anything. you understand, that is, to be 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 on force, the state lost its monopoly on power, the people rose up and they removed the government, that is, yanukovych ran away. from ukraine and we , how to say, achieved this, in the ukrainian language, i don't remember, with the help of the population, and not with the help of the pmk, that is, i don't remember any cases in ukraine where the pmk private military companies were are involved in some illegal activities, that is , these fears that we have are completely unfounded, the pvc is a tool of the state, not a tool ... against the state, but for some reason people do not want to hear this, or simply do not hear it, you understand ? that is, as i understand it, the current

attitude towards the pvc is rather a consequence of the fact that we are held hostage by our old mythologists, and because of this, relatively speaking, we do not want to see the potential that is currently hidden behind the pvc as a union of structured citizens, which can be provided by, well, raising the standard or creating high-quality units of the armed forces. or separate divisions of other law enforcement agencies, but then there is the issue of regulation, 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 what way to go about flirting with laws, they say the legislation should definitely limit such activities to certain licensing and create transparent mechanisms for registration and control of such structures, well, this is like one of

the options, well, let's say it like this, a license, licensing, yes, it is possible to get it, but you understand in... in we are provided with licenses for, for example, the transfer of knowledge, if we are talking about the transfer of knowledge, that is, we are limited only to training, that is, if a private military company, for example , it goes on a mission to the congo, relatively speaking, for that in order to train the armed forces of the democratic republic of the congo there, it needs a license to... transfer knowledge, but we are limiting the pmk here because we, we are limiting the pmk's activities, because we are talking exclusively about the pmk's activities outside of ukraine. if we return to the law of ukraine on pmcs, then the law of ukraine already answers the question. this is a law of ukraine that can only be applied on the territory of ukraine. the law of ukraine will not

apply on the territory of mozambique, or on the territory of mali or burkina faso. that is, that in ukraine we regulate with such a law. unfortunately, when there was a debate on this issue, the author of this bill, ms. 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 spoke there, and i i was not invited to these meetings of the working group anymore, because i was, well, categorically. against many clauses of this law, for example, i don't see why our ukrainian pmc should create warehouses there with ammunition, with weapons, with armored vehicles and so on, what are we going to do with it, i.e. this this law in the format in which it was written is absolutely counterproductive, but it will never pass the verkhovna rada,

a law in which it is written that a ukrainian private military company, but i have a training ground. and what should i do now, should i drive 10 battleships 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 that's why i think that the law, the bill that was written, it was written incorrectly. i i expressed my opinion, yes, from this, from this working group, and when we are still talking about private military companies, then what is the mechanism of financial existence for such, relatively speaking, enterprises, if we say that these companies perform tasks there outside of ukraine, they really have

contracts there with potential foreign customers, if they work in ukraine, why should they be paid? and who will pay this money? yes, it is also a very interesting question, first of all, let's understand if a ukrainian private military company concluded a contract with a foreign customer , then this is the responsibility, payment of services , this is the responsibility of the foreign customer exclusively, if the ukrainian private military... the company, for example, goes on a business trip, i call it a business trip, goes on 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 financing options, but in order to... have start abroad is 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, i understand that this is a very unpopular opinion, but it should be financed by the state, you know, a private military company is not a beggar , who must go and beg. looking for money, you want us to do some, some certain actions, well, i can't, i have people, i now have people in ukraine whom i can use, and they... uh, want to work for us, but i personally don't have the resources to bring in these professionals. the problem is that

i have specialists, and these specialists are currently working on a contract with the armed forces of ukraine, but the specialists work as stormtroopers, that is, they go and storm the trenches, and i believe that this is an inappropriate use of its resources, in i have... another proposal, i have already expressed this proposal, some people have heard me, but there are no sanctions, you know, there are no sanctions, so that i can take these people and use them somewhere in some other way, i have neither money, nor funding, nor the authority to take these people and use them somewhere for their purpose, that's what it is 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, use ssso operators on assaults of those the trenches themselves, and i wonder if the operator of the ssso from our side will also die in a frontal attack. and the banal mobilized from the side of the russian federation , how much time and money do we need, time is very important, to prepare another sso operator who accidentally died in frontal contact with the mobilized from the russian federation, and how much time and money is needed to restore this mobilized from side of the russian federation at the front in ukraine, you understand, we have an operator. ssso should be prepared for at least six months, and the russians will replace this mobilized tomorrow. i

mean, we use our resources, sometimes, sometimes. i am not criticizing, again, this is a statement of fact. we use our resources inappropriately. i have people now sitting in ukraine, i can use them in other directions, but they just go and storm the trenches. these are people with 20 years of combat experience. well, that is, in fact , you are talking about the fact that what if these people who are trained by your company, who have considerable experience, were used accordingly to the complexity of the tasks, it would be much more effective than simply using them as stormtroopers that repelled one forest plantation near avdiyivka, and we understand that then it does not correspond at all to the potential that is embedded in these people, which has been accumulated and acquired over the years. . great opportunities for combat operations, then the question arises how to find, i am 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 obtain some tasks that they solve comprehensively, relying on their capabilities, and not scattered among the storming units of the 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 talk about problems, problems, these are the problems, we have problems, we have to ask questions in a different way, what should be done in order to solve these problems, and in order to solve these problems, it is necessary that the authorities us. heard, i myself, you understand, because in 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 zelensky, i have a letter, a reply, and they are writing to me from the office of the president of ukraine, we inform you that your request for an opportunity. 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 sent to the apparatus of the council of the national security and defense of ukraine and the ministry of defense of ukraine with a request to consider and inform you about 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 should be done, and then it should be collected. working group, but experts should be invited to this working group, you know, someone from the nsdc should be invited, we should be invited, we

should be invited for... someone from the general staff, from the ministry of defense, what is it called, a profile, a profile committee, if i i am not mistaken, 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 should be decided collegially, not.. .. just like in ukraine, some analyst said: i'm against it, because the state should have a monopoly on force, and we listened to him and said: well, he's against it, and so on. all these conversations about the fact that private military companies are prohibited in ukraine, they are completely baseless, there is no such thing the law of ukraine on the prohibition of private military companies. we have a full-scale war now, if we have such an urgent matter, i think

a task force should be assembled. communicate, and i am sure that we could find, find a solution, but i don't know how to do it, because i wrote to zelensky, i wrote to umerov, i wrote to zaluzhny, i wrote to kulebi, i wrote to naeva, there are no answers to my letters , that is, it is necessary for some person to come and say, it is necessary to consider this, i want you to have such a very good example, if there is any more... to cite, it is very importantly, i was lucky enough to work with and know personally the american general of the armed forces of the united states of america , david petraeus, and when the hostilities began in afghanistan and iraq and the united states of america realized that they were losing, david petraeus came to

the president. of the united states, and he said this phrase: he said, "mr. president, we can't just raise rates." partly there, today a little, tomorrow a little, the day after tomorrow a little. we have to put everything on con. in english it is called all in. because if we don't put everything on the line, we're going to lose this war. she was a very brave person because she simply came to the president and expressed her opinion. in this regard, i want to tell you that there is even such a book, it is called olyn, here it is, i took it with me, the author is general david petraeus, they called it olyn, all bets are off, and it turns out, that we have a war now, and we do not place all bets on the horse, and the americans only placed because someone attacked the pentagon and the volktrade center, people did not enter the country on tanks or

armored personnel carriers. they did not torture, destroy, or rape the population, it was just that usamadlandin attacked the world trade center and the pentagon, and they said that it is necessary to place all bets on the line, that is, we must use all the available forces and means that we have, and if we don't have these forces and means, so we need to create them, and they created the pmc, but we hesitate, mr. andriy, thank you very much for the inclusion, i have information at my disposal. resources and analytical resources, this is what i am trying to contribute to the promotion of the idea related to private companies, i hope that we will continue to do this and find like-minded people in power to come to an understanding of whether or not it is necessary to put dots over and and already after that to form a new strategy, but the fact that everything must be put on the line in these harsh conditions is absolutely true, thank you very much for the inclusion, for your explanation, i will remind our viewers that it was andriy kepkalo, the founder

and head of the private military company omega consulting group, we will be next talking about guns, more specifically about the civilian firearms bill, there are many comments on this bill, and we will talk about it in the context of how it affects positively or rather negatively the training of our military, in particular the training of our snipers, but about after the advertising and information block. there are discounts on paracetamol darnytsia 10% in the pharmacies of psarysnyk, bam and ochadnyk, there are discounts on zipelor 10% at pharmacies psarysnyk, vam and ochadnyk. 93 separate mechanized brigade cold ravine, has a sharp the need for fv drone.