let's talk with our correspondents in the white house and congress yuliya yarmolenko and kateryna lisonova. i congratulate you. julia, to you first, you listened to the briefing today at the white house, how did they react to the news about the changes in the ukrainian military leadership, what can you share? ostape, reacted as expected, john kirby, a representative of the us national security council, said that the supreme commander, actually volodymyr zelensky, should decide who he wants to see as the leader or head of his army. and too in times of war, so is he said that there is no concern in the united states that this could somehow destabilize the situation in any way. also, celeste wallender, the assistant to the head of the pentagon, said today that they are convinced that they will work effectively with the new command, and she herself said about general syrsky that he is an effective, experienced and successful commander. also today, john kirby, when -- one of

the questions came to him, he said that the united states was in no way, was not involved in the decision-making process, he said that it the decision of the ukrainian authorities, president zelenskyi, and in no way was it coordinated with the united states, here is his full comment today. president zelensky is the commander-in-chief of his armed forces, he decides what the leadership will be. to the army, that is civilian control, we know that and we will work with whoever is at the head of the military, we will continue to work with our ukrainian colleagues, i am not aware of any high-level discussions between officials in the usa and ukraine, regarding this decision, on the way before making this decision. yes, we constantly communicate with our ukrainian colleagues, but if the question is whether we somehow had the right to give a favorable or unfavorable

assessment to this decision, then this is not true, it is the decision of president zelenskyi. news of the change in ukrainian command came as the senate held a midterm vote today on aid to ukraine, israel and taiwan, but it was an important vote nonetheless. katya, did the legislators manage to get close to making a decision regarding ukraine? we can state one thing that the events in the congress are developing right before our eyes. if yesterday two republican votes were not enough to start this consideration of the aid package for ukraine and partners, today there were even more than the minimum required, because the minimum number of votes needed was 60, and 67 lawmakers of the senate voted to start the procedure consideration of the aid package to ukraine, israel, taiwan and other partners. in general, chuck schumer, the leader in the majority of the senate democrat stressed that this is an important vote because it starts the process itself. and it is after him that the debates and

amendments to this bill will begin, and the actual consideration of the aid package itself, i suggest listening to his comment immediately after the vote right now. it's great that the senate just voted to begin considering the bailout package. this is a good first step. this bill is important for our national. the bill also strengthens our military at a time when it needs it the most. the failure of this bill will only embolden autocrats like putin and sidzenklin, who want nothing more than america's decline. now that we have moved on to the bill, we hope to reach an agreement with our fellow republicans on. amendments, then

we should expect the actual consideration of the amendments and the debate on the amendments themselves, it is interesting and even ironic that some republicans, in particular one of the leading republicans , lynsey graham, who was usually usually known for support, stable support of the country, now declares that the legislation on border security should be added to this package of assistance to partners, even though the previous bill, which actually... had border security measures and was and was directly a bill on a bipartisan border agreement, was actually blocked by the republicans, but nevertheless, now one of the references that are being heard about the need to add to this package of assistance to partners is, in particular, also border security. in general, today i was able to talk with senators, both from the republican and democratic parties, and all of them say that aid to partners should be approved, some of them, although ...

some republicans say that aid to ukraine should be stopped, and others say that even if aid to partners should be continued, it is not known how this vote will end in the senate, what they say, even they do not know... how this vote will end and what amendments will be introduced as a result, i suggest listening to their comments. i will not vote for any further military or otherwise additional funding, until we agree on something that will actually secure our border. in general , i believe that all these issues should be considered separately. i think that first we have to... vote on legislation on the border, that's my main priority. at the same time, the way we view the situation in ukraine now is a stalemate. agreeing on this package is critical, especially for the fearless ukrainians who are fighting so bravely, as well as for

the humanitarian needs that are needed around the world, as well as aid for the pacific region we have to do it. it is clear that the democrats are ready to agree to help. assistance to ukraine without legislation abroad. we did it. we created a bipartisan bill that addresses the border issue. but yesterday the republicans all voted against it, along with the aid to ukraine that went into it. the united states must support its partners because there are many hostile countries around that are trying to harm the united states. so it's in america's best interest to help our partners, and i know there's a lot of support in congress for continuing to help partners, but i can't tell you what the final vote will be on that. now we don't know it ourselves, we also don't know what amendments will be made to this draft law. katya, the main question

that many people are interested in now is: when can we expect to consider this bill on its merits, and if it is passed in the senate, katya, what are the prospects. that it will also pass the house of representatives. in general, when the bill will be considered in the senate, it is difficult to predict, because everything depends on the number of amendments that lawmakers will offer and the debate and the speeches of lawmakers, but nevertheless, shah schumer said today that he is warning senators that they will work on this bill until the end, as long as it takes, and even those lawmakers , who propose to make amendments regarding border security, to this... package of aid to ukraine and its partners, linca graham, in particular, also claims that the legislators say that they should not go on a break for the weekend and directly not go, not finish work on friday slaughterhouse, a continue working on this package because it is very important. as for the fate in the house of representatives, it is as unpredictable as the fate in the senate of this

bill. if earlier the speaker of the house of representatives, mike johnson, stated that , in general, aid to ukraine and israel and taiwan should be considered separately, as separate bills, and he also... stated to journalists that aid to ukraine, in particular, should have more discussions, and in particular a plan administration of biden, then yesterday he stated that in principle he did not say that he against and that will block this aid package, and said that everything depends on what the final version of this bill will be, which will get to the house of representatives. yulia, i have a question for you, how exactly in the white house, the biden administration comments on the situation in the congress with aid to ukraine, what do they say there? you know, today karin genpierre, starting the briefing here at the white house, said that what's going on inside the republican party, she called it chaos, and she called again, as president biden called, actually republicans to decide who they want to serve the american people or someone

else, and we heard similar remarks yesterday, directly from president biden, who had several events in new york related to his presidential campaign, he said that in his entire time in congress. he's been a senator for over 35 years, he hasn't seen anything like this happen at all, and that's why the criticism in the white house is really the chaos, the incomprehensible situation that's going on in congress, but today john kirby, speaking also from the podium in the white house, said that according to their understanding, there is still strong bipartisan support for ukraine in the congress, both in the senate and in the house of representatives, he said that this is clear from the conversations that the representatives of the white house have without... let's listen to his words. we'll let the senators decide that. the president believes that ukraine's support is extremely important. especially now that russia continues to try

to strike at their defense industrial base by striking at their units on the front, from the east to the half day, it is vital and he is also confident. based on the meetings he had with the leaders on the capitalist hill and the discussions in recent weeks that the leadership, even the house of representatives , is firmly in support of ukraine now. ostape, so the white house still hopes that senators and also congressmen will agree to help for ukraine, and while they insist that they are working, focused on plan a, and do not yet want to talk about a possible plan b, if this does not happen. we will follow, julia, thank you very much for your work, katya, thank you to you also, who follow the events in the congress. yulia yarmolenko and kateryna lisnova were in touch with us. we talked about the reaction of the white house to the resignation of the head of state. duzhny and about supporting ukraine in the congress. let's move on to

other topics. in russia, the biggest demographic crisis since the beginning of the 19th century is predicted. russians began to give birth to fewer children, the demand for abortion pills increased in the country . and a bill was submitted to the state duma of russia to ban abortions in private clinics throughout the country. this ban is already introduction in several our correspondent iryna shinkarenko will tell you more, who will introduce you to the following story. 10 years ago, 2 million children were born in russia every year. in 2023, according to official data, there will be only 1,200,000 newborns, and this is the lowest figure since the collapse of the soviet union. sociologists say that a number of factors contribute to this situation. in general , the economic situation in people's lives has really worsened. the full-scale invasion of

ukraine made the russians pessimistic about the future, since february 22, the demand for abortion pills in russia increased by 60%. war - say independent analysts, is one of the influential factors of the demographic crisis in russians. probably the main reason. the biggest reason is definitely the war. in fact, this is the main reason and perhaps the biggest crime of vladimir putin against russia, against this country, against its people. falling birth rates prompted the authorities to think about ways to solve the problem. access to private abortion clinics has become more difficult in several regions of russia. the kremlin also undertook to encourage the russians to many children

according to analysts, such calls will do little to increase the birth rate while russia is waging war against ukraine. these are two things that contradict each other: trying to increase the birth rate and participating in an armed conflict. statisticians predict that 2024 will be the worst birth year in russia since the beginning. century. iryna shynkarenko, voice of america. meanwhile, ukrainian pilots in the us continue their training on f-16 fighters. at what stage is the training of pilots in the usa and europe now, and what about air force pilots western instructors say of the armed forces of ukraine. maria prus talked about this with a ukrainian pilot with the callsign phantom. and at what stage is this preparation now? preparation is now underway. according to the plan, not only the pilots are fully trained, as planned, but you know that the ground

staff are also trained, our mechanics who will maintain those aircraft, our support units who will ensure that the tasks are carried out, they are also trained, on time er, as planned, somewhere around six months, preparing one... a pilot or one group that enters, but there are nuances and they are mostly not related to our personnel, it is related to the administrative work of our partners, that is, there is a bureaucracy of its own, and it requires time, so this affected the time of preparation , but as i will say, as i said before, it is going according to plan. what are the challenges faced by ukrainian pilots training on the f-16 and

what are their impressions of these aircraft? as for impressions, of course, our pilots are very impressed, this aircraft, well, just exceeded their expectations, they, i will say that even with that with the amount of information that they have now received during this time that they are studying, they already... see great prospects and a great endowment that this aircraft will help our air force to increase the capability of our aviation. combat aviation, so you can imagine that this is information that they have not yet studied, they have not yet been given, what this aircraft can be capable of, of course, in terms of challenges, it is a new aircraft for our guys and it was a little difficult in the beginning, because it is a

new generation aircraft, it is more digitalized the plane, it has many systems and programs. which must be introduced during the flight before the flight, and we have not encountered such a thing, our training is a little different, and our plane is much simpler than the f-16. is there a difference in the training style or methodology by which ukrainian pilots are trained in the united states and in europe? i would say that the program is no different because the partners have discussed, uh, the training program itself, ie. it is agreed, you know that all the countries that are part of and are members of nato, they have some standards, therefore standards of training on airplanes, if it were not in the usa, or in denmark, or in greece or turkey, it is the same, therefore the training program is the same, but the approach itself may

differ, somewhat, and what are the impressions of western, american and ukrainian instructors pilots how do they rate their training, the speed with which they learn? the first impression from our instructor boys was that they are motivated, their eyes are burning, even one of the instructors said that their eyes are burning, we can see how they want to get started faster, faster retraining, and the feedback we receive from these instructors is very positive, having this training experience, pilots from other countries, they already have some kind of assessment, how to compare, so yes, they say that ukrainian pilots are very strong, and they see the experience that they have already gained during air combat in ukraine after the start of a full-scale invasion, it

is precisely these skills that they will try to improve... on er f-16 aircraft and they will help our pilots in this. and tell me, please, whether the infrastructure in ukraine is ready to accept f-16? yes, the infrastructure, as well as the rest of our personnel, which is currently preparing to receive the 16-th aircraft, is going according to plan. there are nuances, there are difficulties, but our partners help us with these difficulties, but... i can assure you that by the time the f-16 aircraft are ready for transfer to ukraine, the infrastructure will be ready, as well as our people . and how many ukrainian pilots are currently training on f-16s, or how many air forces of the ukrainian armed forces plan to transfer ukrainian pilots to these very planes? yes of course,

i can't tell you the number, but... i want to say that the number is sufficient to perform tasks on the number of aircraft that will be handed over to us at the time when they are already prepared, and then it is like a system that has already been built, a training system, she will continue to give us ready footage of those planes that will be transmitting. of course we would like to have more, but we return, we return again to the problems that are not only ours, with training and with the number of places for training that our partners have. if we talk about the maintenance of the f-16 aircraft, after all

each combat sortie is a certain amount of money, so how will the budget finance exactly this, exactly these expenses, or, for example, maybe compared to the cost of the aircraft and the cost of pilot training - these are not such large amounts? well , as for the cost of maintaining the aircraft and conducting combat operations on these aircraft, i can say one thing: aviation is not a cheap thing, all countries understand this, all countries support aviation. banal due to the fact that the effect that aviation gives on the battlefield greatly outweighs the costs that are spent on them, which... i might add that performing the tasks that we do with the aircraft, our existing fleet, it's also

not free, and it costs money, of course, compared to the amount we spend on soviet aircraft, it's a little more, but it's worth it, it there was a conversation between maria prou ​​and a ukrainian pilot with fant. meanwhile , the first feature film about the full-scale russian invasion of butch was previewed in the us. the picture tells about the horrors of the occupation of kyiv region. iryna solomko and pavlo met with the authors of the film and the audience in new york terekhov. do not worry.

oleksandr shchur, author of the script and producer of the film, calls bucha's film the most important project of his life. oleksandr worked for many years as a screenwriter at the kvartal-95 studio and wrote the script for a number of successful entertainment films. he decided to make a film about the buchi tragedy almost immediately. after the division of the city, when i heard the story of the volunteer kostiantyn gudauskas, who saved more than 200 people, i realized that this is what the americans say is a high concept, that is, a story that can affect everyone, and what is the concept, that he is a foreigner, that he is from kazakhstan, and he saves ukrainians, because when a ukrainian saves ukrainians, it is clear, here i just want to show the world that it is watching when such dark things are happening, a normal person cannot to be careful, in the process of work, oleksandr met... with the main characters of the picture, as well as relatives of those who died, consulted with the ukrainian military and intelligence officers in order to depict the events in buch during the occupation as realistically as possible. this

is a criminal investigation, but when it was brought out five men, one was put on his knee, shot, there's even the phrase that the officer says in the film, it's from witness statements. it is not easy to make a feature film, kolyvina is not over yet, and her wounds are still very deep - says oleksandr, but ukraine, in his opinion, does not have it. time to delay, the rat worked on the script for more than six months, collected funds from private investors, the american entrepreneur simion dukach, the founder of an investment company supporting immigrant startups, agreed to be the first to put money into the project. when we come to him, we will say, i am investing money, he says: what theoretically can be the profit in the best case? we say, well, like five times more than you invested. he says: well, i'm only interested in projects where there can be 100 times more. but your project, it's very important, and they really supported it not as a financial story, but more of a story that will help ukraine. in addition to

dukach, there are investors from poland, canada and ukraine. the budget was 600,000 dollars. filming lasted two months. the director of the film , stanislav tionov, says that a major role in the weather also plays a role in the picture. we wanted exactly those moments that were filmed a year ago, that is, both in weather and in snow, even in winter. and on the leaves, which for me have very key and important roles in this film. it makes sense that even the weather went crazy when the war started. the main character of the film volunteer is played by the polish actor cezaria lukaszewicz, the main anti-hero of the russian colonel vyacheslav dovzhenko. recruiting actors for the role of russians, the authors say, was not easy. and for me, to be honest, it's a lot strange, because it should be a challenge. for a professional actor to change his role and go to some other

acting world and try something new, slava dovzhenko did it perfectly, and for example, we have an example of one of the actors who played a russian, he is really an actor, and he is fighting right now, he arrived a day before filming from bakhmut, got dressed, took off his clothes and drove on. this is an example of real acting skills, that is, in the morning you kill the enemy, in the evening you play the enemy. and he played that scene perfectly, it's the scene with the washing machine. pravzhnia russian uniforms and weapons for playing the roles of russians were provided to the film crew by the main intelligence directorate of ukraine. for the director, working on the film was difficult, primarily emotional. i had to die for someone there 10 times. shoot someone down 20 times, then save someone, that is, it all goes through the director, therefore, if you do not live the life of each character, then you do not

understand how to convey his inner world, although the film tells about a terrible tragedy in the first weeks of a full-scale invasion, the tape, say its authors, gives hope there are people who come out after the film and say, i didn't pay much, and they will directly donate tens of thousands, there are people who say, yes, i have no problems, i have a wonderful life, and there are people who say, i have whole arms and legs, my relatives are alive, one of the first people to see the film in ukraine were the people of buchen who survived the occupation and the military... employees of gur. in new york, one of the two screenings was organized by yuriy shepchuk, the founder and director of the ukrainian film club of columbia university. there was no free space left in the hall. the film is important because people who may not know the history can learn more and hopefully he will encourage them to be more interested in it and not yet be so susceptible to the russian disinformation and propaganda that has unfortunately found fertile ground in the united

states. this shocks me. the fight against russian propaganda, which still officially calls it a production and spreading the truth about russian war crimes, is an important part of the film's presentation in the us, says oleksandr shchur. the russians are already spending a lot of money. they are filming their cinema, for example, they shot the film witness on a russian witness in they released it in august, shot it in english right away, and there they tell a story about - fictional, of course, in belgian. a jewish violinist, this is an analogue of the pianist romano palansky, who came to bucha and witnessed how ukrainians kill each other, steal wipers, all this is filmed by the american cnn and lies that the russians are doing it, and they are now trying to show this film everywhere, the authors are currently trying to sell the film rights to major streaming platforms to the film was seen by viewers all over the world, the goal and dream of director stanislav tiunov is that

his film will be seen by... at least 300 million people this year. from new york iryna solomko, pavlo terekhov, voice of america. with that, we say goodbye, have a peaceful night and a peaceful morning. last fall, we received a message from the police of the kherson region about the search for a 16-year-old boy who, according to the investigation, disappeared in the temporarily occupied territory. the left bank of the region was still at the beginning of a full-scale war. during all this time, we have prepared many search programs a teenager osin specialists were connected, they are specialists who search for information from open sources, and in the end, with their help, we managed to find a small clue, an actual page of the missing boy in social networks. this all happened at the end of last year, and of course we immediately texted the teenager. but for almost a month...

he didn't answer. imagine our surprise and joy when suddenly, at the end of january, we received feedback from the missing boy. hello, yes, i'm fine. boy said that he is still in the temporarily occupied territory, so for security reasons we do not mention his name and surname. at the same time, he agreed to talk with us via video link. let's watch a fragment of our conversation. so glad you are ok we got in touch today is january 26th year 24 and i'm ok it 's good like she's in distance learning sophomore year as the boyfriend is still

in in the temporarily occupied territory, no more details, the main thing is that he is alive, he is healthy and, as he assures us, is safe, and everything is fine with him. many children have disappeared since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, particularly in the kherson region, and we have prepared more than one program about their search. of course, we don't always get feedback from people who may have seen a missing child, but this story proves once again that you should never lose hope, just like yours. it is possible to help find the missing, i understand that ukrainian tv channels do not broadcast in the temporarily occupied territories, and local residents they see the search service for children, except on social networks, so your reposts of our videos and literally a few minutes of your attention are very important: they are 11-year-old artem abramovich, 12-year-old maksym kravchuk and six-year-old oleksandr kulish. all these guys are so…