and not only to those who are in ukraine, but also to those who, for known unfortunate reasons , are outside its borders. we also jointly improved the legislation in the field of social human rights, protection and promotion of the rights of minorities and the lgbti community. and these are just a few examples where we see very, very tangible results that we are very proud of. another aspect that is very important for every citizen of ukraine is that we have worked hard and achieved a better policy and a better legislative framework for the reform of local municipality. actually, these achievements are significant steps on the path of european integration of ukraine. last year, the european council and the european commission agreed to start negotiations on ukraine's accession to the eu. how the council of europe can now help us to harmonize our first of all

, let me congratulate ukraine on obtaining this candidate status and the start of negotiations, as this is a great achievement and, in my opinion , a significant change in the paradigm of european institutions regarding enlargement, when a country that is suffering from an aggressive war against it. gets such an opportunity, it is a huge signal for ukraine and ukrainians that we see that this war must end and that ukraine has a very clear european perspective. at the same time, ukraine has been a member of the council of europe for a long time, and we are very happy that thanks to our new action plan, the implementation of which began last year in 2023 and will last for four years until 2026, we can help. ukraine in this

direction. the plan is called resilience, recovery and rebuilding, which means we want to focus on immediate needs of ukraine and ukrainians, as well as in the medium term to help ukraine, both during the war and in the post-war period. in this regard, we have the largest budget within the framework of one action plan among the member states of the council of europe, approximately 50 million euros, which we have allocated. its implementation, and i am very happy about the support of the action plan for ukraine from other member states, which make voluntary contributions, and which is very large. as you mentioned, our action plan aims to help ukraine in those areas, in particular in the protection of human rights, democracy and the rule of law that will be screened. what it is called in european union jargon, and which will be important for the negotiations. on ukraine's accession

to the eu. in fact, many of the so-called political criteria for membership in the european union also belong to the key criteria of the council of europe. so we can say very clearly that a number of areas that we are working on as part of the action plan will directly contribute to the accession negotiations, starting with major reforms such as judicial and constitutional reforms, continuing with media work, and as well as the development of local self-government. after the start of a full-scale invasion of ukraine by russia in 2022, the council of europe became the first and in fact the only major international organization to almost immediately exclude russia from its membership, but now the question of responsibility is becoming increasingly acute, how to punish the leaders of russia and belarus for starting the war against ukraine and a crime. what

can the council of europe do, what is it already doing? the word responsibility has become a key word since the morning of february 24, 2022, when this terrible morning began with illegal aggression of the russian federation against ukraine. it was very obvious that the council of europe had to send a signal or russia would stop its aggression. withdraws troops, or is expelled from the organization, of course, they did not listen to anyone and were expelled in record time. this is the first time in the history of the council of europe that such a decision has been taken, and i am very proud that our organization has shown unity on this issue. this is one of the areas where we demonstrated what responsibility is. another direction is to immediately start assisting the prosecutor general of ukraine in the assembly evidence that in the future. may be

used in legal or other proceedings, as there was a serious threat of losing some of them. in the meantime, we created a loss register, which was and remains today. the first international accountability mechanism, that is, we backed up our words with actions: the registry is designed to collect evidence of losses, injuries or damages that have been caused to individual individuals or the state of ukraine by the terrible actions of the russian federation. of course, there must be a register of losses part of the overall compensation mechanism, this is only the first part, there are two others that need to be implemented. we are working on it with the international community. the issue that was on the table from the very beginning is, of course, the crime of aggression. the council of europe was a participant in the initiative when the first reflections began, how can we best contribute to the creation of a special

tribunal on the crime of aggression? i think the fact that the international criminal court has taken certain steps by issuing warrants for the arrest of putin and his cobblers. and children's affairs has become one of the right lines on the road to prosecution, but going back to the ad hoc tribunal, we have been working together with our experts for some time as part of a core group of countries interested in the idea of ​​a tribunal. we have particular expertise in evidence collection, procedural matters, and the transfer of criminal proceedings. time will tell how best to approach this. but the council of europe is already part of an international effort to prosecute and create a special tribunal regarding the crime of aggression. what are the latest news about the register of losses, when it will become operational,

when citizens of ukraine can start submitting applications to the register. let me start by mentioning the summit of heads of state and. of the council of europe, held last may in reykjavík, which decided to create a damage register. since may , several more important steps have been taken: the first is the creation of a conference of members of the body , which includes 44 members, 43 member states and the european union. it is important that among these 43 states are all members of the great sevens the second important body. the registry has a board consisting of seven members chosen from among the leading lawyers nominated by the conference of participants, with the former president of the european court of human rights, robert spano, elected as president. of course, we have a director nominated by the conference

of participants, and we have also located the registry in the hague, because the city of the hague is the center of international justice. netherlands. expressed a desire to have a registry, and we did it. we also wanted to open a representative office from the very beginning registry in kyiv, and now we are already on the way to that. we hope that the registry will be able to accept the first applications already in april. it is very important that the registry starts working now, but it is equally important to think about the next stages now. the first stage is the registration of claims, but then it is very important to create a corresponding commission with... responsible is an absolute prerequisite for achieving a just peace in the future, and the registry is one of the extremely important steps in this direction. and where do you expect to take these funds

for compensation? will it be frozen russian assets or something else? the council of europe leads and will continue to lead the work on the management of the damage register, but with regard to the creation of a common compensation mechanism, decisions must be made by the participating states of this process in a broader context. we would very much like to be part of this process as well, since its connection with the registry is key. i think that the participants who will work on creating a common compensation mechanism will find funding for... speaking of international tribunal for putin and lukashenka, are you discussing with the un or other international organizations the question of what form it can be created. this discussion

is currently taking place at the level of experts within the framework of the main group of states i mentioned. now. the moment has not yet come when the members of the core group will finally decide how and when to establish the tribunal. it is always important to involve as many international organizations as possible in such a process. i think a wider discussion about what would be the best solution, and how to move towards it, after reaching an agreement will lend legitimacy to the future tribunal once it is formed. therefore, it is good that the discussions are thorough and that all possible ways of creating a tribunal are really considered, this is necessary so that after the final decision is made. it could begin to function effectively.

events, events that are happening right now and affect our lives. of course, the news feed reports on them. however, it was not enough to know what was happening. it is necessary to understand. antin borkovskyi and invited experts soberly assess the events, analyze them, simulating ours future. every saturday at 13:10 with a repeat on sunday at 10:10. studio zahid with anton borkovsky at espresso. the russian army continues to put pressure on the defense positions of the armed forces of ukraine along the entire front line and has achieved local successes. in this program, we will show how to hold back storms. of the russian military , the swedish high-precision self-propelled gun of the new generation archer, and we will also tell the stories of ukrainian

infantrymen, who take the main blow of the aggressor country's troops. in particular, we spoke with a fighter who for 46 days, alone in complete surroundings, fought for his position and managed to get to his own. this is realia's donbas. congratulations. this is volodymyr godim, a fighter of the 22nd separate mechanized brigade. he. the only one who survived in his position and himself spent 46 days in the trenches. we met with him in the hospital, and he told how he went on an infantry rotation to the klyshchiivka area, and how did it turn out? we went in, it came out in three groups, well, the first two groups, if they had passed halfway, we came out and waited for the approach of the third group, well, here are the guys. came running, said that the third group had been hit by a drone and

there would be an evacuation, well, we thought further to advance, but we also started to be covered, the first day, we couldn't get into the positions either, the guys couldn't be changed, it turns out, on the second day we still passed, the distance between the positions did not exceed 100 m, says volodymyr. on the first night of the rotation , the russian drg entered the neighboring ukrainian position. one ukrainian soldier died in the battle. they were wounded. the next night, the drg came to us. came up. well, we destroyed it, as they say. we also had one fighter then, the 200th. they didn't make it, it turns out. well, they are, if only meters away 10-15 from the trench. we already got them...

from my position, that is, the two guys left, well, i just didn't see them anymore, only later volodymyr found out that the change simply couldn't reach his position due to constant shelling, in the neighboring position. at a nearby position, i watched two more guys , because they, if they still had a radio station working, and they must have been communicating, because the drone flew up to them and dropped water, well, a little, but still, dropped water , the boys also brought me, gave me treats, numbers. at some

point volodymyr realized that he was left alone, deep in the rear of the occupying army, but he had no idea how long he would have to deal with everything on his own, well, i thought that, well , i thought that ours would counterattack. i waited there, well, i don’t know , i sat there for a week, i waited, i thought that our artillery training was going on, it was as if it was banging, banging, but there was no offensive, well, i decided to just advance already, as they say to my own, volodymyr was waiting

for the right thing moment to get out of the trench and observe the situation around, soon... it became clear why his position was often bypassed by the attack aircraft of the russian federation, two under jumped into the trench, well, i destroyed them, they had a radio station, well, they had a radio station and it was coming out, i also thought at the time why they were not going, units were going, some units, and the main mass bypassed, and the position came out near the road finds volodymyr destroyed the russian soldiers who still managed to get to the position. i had a deep trench, equipped with branches, it was impossible

to simply approach it, and the neighboring trench, it was deep somewhere, it was shallow, it was somewhere... 5 m from mine, and they go there, they constantly hit there, and they go out there, they constantly jump there, the shelling starts and they slap and dig there , well, i go out and see, but i can’t be seen through the branches, i throw a grenade there, and then, when the shelling ended , arrived, finished off with a machine gun, well, there were about 10-11 of them in the trench for sure, soon vladimir ran out of food, on his...

i climbed into it, i dug it up there, found six cans of stew, in a moment volodymyr finally decided to make his way to his own, chose a day when it was raining and snowing, for such a day the weather is less likely to be noticed by russian drones, i got lost and once again came face to face with the enemy, i got out of the trench, i got out of the trench and two pods

passed by, as they say, they noticed me, i... i have nothing left had to do, i had to go to a combat encounter, i just one, well, one immediately, as they say, i threw a grenade, it turns out, one fell, and the other was a dugout on the road, and he went into it, hid, i the one who i fell and finished off the machine gun, and i just wanted to throw grenades at him, well, i'm somewhere threw two or three grenades there, and the explosion happened next to me, i still didn’t understand whether he threw the grenade away, or maybe from a drone, or a mine flew, well, i just heard an explosion, now i’m looking at my hand, a blow to i had a hand, the finger was just hanging, well, what to do, i

had, as they say, another grenade, i put a ring on my thumb and threw it to the left. before climbing in, i threw a grenade again, climbed in, and there was no one there, well, there were food products, it turns out, and bags. volodymyr spent another three weeks in shelter, food ended, he drank snow melted by a trench candle, during the explosion his leg was also injured by the debris and he is already in the hospital.

the main strike of artillery, mortars, aviation , and even for a close-quarters shooting battle, up to a firefight in the trenches, must always be ready,

we are already used to it, we already know where what is flying from, we know when it is flying, we know when it is possible to get out, walk, and when you don't have to do it. their assaults, well, i wouldn't say they're on the loose, they're going in full swing, well, they don't hide that they 're going, and they're clearly visible on the approaches, and if the group reacted quickly, well, their assaults are repulsed very easily, yes, there are many of them, you get tired, well, to let them into the trenches, you have to try very, very hard, that. it is enough that the enemy is very well prepared, and they are not sitting there stupidly , the constant in general, there are always

people at the positions who are watching, not relative to the situation that is happening, there is an assault, yes, or they start to storm, there are always people, who are observing, the position should not remain without observers, because a position that remains without observers is already possible it will not be at... the position of the machine gun, if it is very close, hand grenades, under the barrel, well, such up to 5.45 person, well, it is not often used, mainly machine guns, 7.62, older large-caliber machine guns also help quite a bit, which are located on, well, distance from us, they also see how the enemy is walking, moving, they sit a little higher than us, they see a little more. and also those that hit

the equipment, well, relatively well , lightly armored, bmp, bmp-1, bmp-2, then you can even destroy it with one shot from an rpg and make it incapacitated and that’s it, it happens, that one small group comes, and it is destroyed, and after 5-10 minutes another small group already comes, and so they roll up, roll up, roll up until... until the moment when the bc already runs out on the position, the fives yield more equipment than our artillery , well, it’s conditional to take half a piece costs uah 20,000 there, a kilogram of fireflies is attached to it, it flies for 10 km and hits a trench there, a warehouse from bc, automotive equipment, a good pilot, he can hit there with the help of a drone fly into the trench, destroy the equipment on foot. time

repulse the assault. alexander was never connected with the army before the war. in the first days of russia's full-scale invasion of ukraine , he was not accepted into the armed forces precisely because of his lack of experience. the most difficult thing, well, probably, is to mentally prepare yourself that you will still be shooting at a living person. yes, you must understand that this is the enemy, and you must know his purpose. if you don't... know him completely, well, you won't be able to do anything, you won't be able to shoot, you will be afraid, there will be panic, well, then it will be difficult for everyone, alexander accepted his first battle, when i became a tro fighter, he says , i don't forget that, i couldn't pull the trigger, because the understanding that you have a living person in front of you, well, life is still in my head, well, 30, 30,

well... i think i don't have them i kill, i simply destroy the enemy who came to our land, the most difficult moment i had was the loss of

my first brother. who saved my life twice, the first time he managed to pull me into a trench, a mine flew, and the second time during a machine gun attack, he simply covered me with himself, pushed me, which did not affect anyone, you have to fight not only with the russian army, but also weather: snow, frost, cold, rain, ice, all this directly affects the course of hostilities, yes, it is difficult, difficult, well indeed. it's hard now with the arrival of autumn, december, especially, rains, snow, it all melts, during shelling the trench fills up, and the swamp is knee-deep, well, we managed , we survived, now it's frost, the francheia is already dry, we cleaned everything, well, we hold, we hold the front, trench candles,

a trench candle is... you can use it, of course, you won't get very warm there in such a frost, at least you can dry your shoes, you can to dry the berse, the fact that if your feet are wet, everything is a minus, hands, feet must always be warm, everything, you know, everything is like that, somehow, some little things, but they are so important, you know, when you sit there with brother... knee-deep in the swamp and you sit there, talking , damn it, now it would be cool to eat snickers, but there are such moments that sink in, remain in the memory, multi-purpose swedish sao archer one after another,