these threats are much better. thank you, mr. valery. valery chalilei, diplomat, former ambassador of ukraine to the united states of america. we continue an important international discussion with serhii vovko, director of the center for transport strategies. congratulations, mr. serhiy. good evening. well, there has been a complete blockade of the border between poland and ukraine since february 20. despite the change of government, despite optimistic statements about the stabilization of the situation, everything continues and even worsens. well, if... that happens, i still hope that there will be a healthy stupidity, it will be in first of all, a shot in the foot, not even so much to ukrainian, as to european business, for the simple reason that imports from europe to ukraine are twice as much, about twice as much as what we export to europe, so first of all in turn, these will be significant problems for european and polish businessmen, this is the number one issue, the number two issue is that at the moment

ukraine's dependence on european export routes is decreasing, and this is also a fact, since we have ports, our main export now goes to the ports, as it is simply banally cheaper and logistically more profitable. the third aspect, and it is definitely very important, is that we need to very clearly distinguish and separate our own legal right. to protest , which, probably, we all respect as people who are in a democratic value system, and breaking the law, that is, where the breaking of the law begins, that's where the right to protest ends, so i think that the priority task for today is in fact, to highlight these corridors of solidarity, which are used to ensure the security of ukraine, and to a large extent this is the security of europe as well, i will certainly not talk much about it in a separate category and... any encroachments on these

channels, they should be considered as a violation of the law, and at the end of the day, first of all, again, it is in the interests of the polish side, because well, i don't have any information there, but one cannot help but think that this may also be some element of a hybrid war, and in this way the reaction of society is simply pumped up and, in general, just a simple possibility of blocking transport communications , which perform a number of functions, including. including security. tell me, mr. serhiy, please , considering that donald tusk met with denys shmyhal, and there were efforts to draw a road map for the general settlement of the situation. at the same time , donald tusk emphasizes that it is difficult to find a bigger sympathizer of ukraine than himself, but there is also food security. ukraine is asking itself a logical question, what can we do, what can we do in response. how long can this

be tolerated, on february 20, if all border crossings between poland and ukraine are blocked from the polish side, then in response ukrainian carriers plan to block the crossing point on the border with poland, yagodyn dorogusk, for example. many ideas on the topic of what we should do with polish goods on our shelves, whether it is worth investing in it, if they allow us to handle our grain at the border, and so on and so forth. my question is offensive. not only we are interested in the fact that the transport connection between our countries is preserved, and the matter here is not only in grain, as much as poland is now interested in us? for the first time, ukraine is among the ten largest export markets of polish business, for example, we exceed even such large countries as china or even the united states of america. therefore, for a number of product categories, in particular, it is the export of poultry to ukraine, which is very large.

despite the fact that europe is talking precisely about the fact that ukrainian poultry poses some threat to european business, it is the export of cheese from poland, it is the export of fruit and other products, certainly for a number of product categories, it will be a very painful blow, it the loss of the large ukrainian market, which will suffer if the poles really block it, in my opinion, of course there is definitely a business component here, we need to grow up, we are entering... the big market, the big eu market, where very often no one knows us does not wait, which is already largely structured and divided, and therefore very often we really need to look for opportunities for cooperation in this market, opportunities to legitimately defend our interests, and this is very important, for example, in the segment of the same road transport and road carriers, in whose polish business sees a certain threat to itself, it is simply more understandable to me, since i am a person with a transportation background. business

, the same certainly applies to agrarians, but this is the logic, you block us, we will block you, it is clear, but it will primarily be you... we ourselves understand to whom, it will be primarily beneficial to russia, which, by the way, has increased its supplies to europe 10 times this year, i.e. russian supplies to europe of the same grain have increased 10 times, of course this is enough scarce categories for europe, for europe, it is primarily hard grain, grain of hard varieties, but nevertheless it is a fact, that is, it is also an export of russian companies, which are carried out through... the baltic countries and other countries. this is what europe should pay attention to. and that really contains a certain threat for the european market as a whole. and in the end, we perfectly understand that the money they receive from this export, where do they go? they go to finance the war in

ukraine, which can be a logical continuation war in europe. therefore, this is where you need to understand and this is where you need to make a difference. and artificially, excuse me, from grass. well, putting two consumers in such positions , that is, depending on the situation, you don't take ours, we don't take yours, it's still a road to nowhere, and it seems to me that this story should be depoliticized as much as possible, in some cases when there is a direct violation of the law , as was the case, for example, with scattered grain, other blockages, it is necessary to act through law enforcement officers, and not through politicians and market dialogue, and a separate conclusion. indeed , the ways of solidarity into a separate category of infrastructure, encroachment on which is considered, well, as a crime, i have no other words, let's ask a very simple, very simple question, why in hungary, which, let's say, is not the most friendly, probably, i'm being soft i say , in ukraine, there is no such country, because

there is a different legislative regime, this is my simple answer, well, maybe it is also a question of a political nature before the election, you see, in hungary, no one cares much about elections, to be honest, in of poland all the time... the election period, parliamentary elections, local elections, there will be elections to the european parliament, then presidential elections, they live in this mode all the time, and of course they can envy viktor orbán, who is there, well, sometimes something is shaking in him, but not like that strongly, so that he thinks about his political ambitions there, in this form, of course, in this form, yes, i completely agree with you, but uh, it seems to me that it is very illogical, which have at the moment there, i do not i remember what positions there are in the confederation, but this... what i will say is marginal, not the main one the party, probably, i am not very much against the truth, you are more of an expert in politics, it cannot take hostage the bilateral trade relations of the two countries, and it is obvious that the emphasis on blocking the border is made precisely with this idea, precisely with the idea of ​​maximum, but

the polish peasant party in the coalition, which cannot risk the votes of the peasants, well , of course, there is, i agree with you that there is a political component here, but the political component is not... it can step on the throat of the same polish business that i still once again, exports to ukraine much more than it imports from ukraine, and in the end there really is a large component of polish business, including agricultural business, and cooperation with ukraine is beneficial if you guys have distortions in poland with the importation of grain from ukraine, you have some questions there about pesticides, about other things, let's solve it, but let's solve it. through normal trade, depoliticized negotiations, and this can be done, we have quite worthy negotiators for this, and a quite sufficient level of control and other things, but if you talk in the language of blackmail, well, two sides just lose, maybe we will lose more today, but tomorrow

poland will lose from this, this is obvious, and this, well, excuse me, not a binomial, it is very simply calculated, it is very obviously. we understand that not only polish goods go to ukraine through the ukrainian-polish border, can other countries that are interested in our goods end up on their markets and in selling their goods to us use their leverage here, as much as it is worth rely on this moment at all? well, in my opinion, this is a very correct statement of the question, that is, we have roughly 30 billion. dollars of imports to ukraine, which are transported by road transport, that is , well, de facto, to a large extent, it goes through poland, because these are imports that come from such countries as poland itself, germany and other countries of the center of europe, where industry is more developed, and very often, to a large extent, they stimulate our

agricultural sector there, because we understand that even the wheat that grows in ukraine, or grows in ukraine, it has a significant import component in order for it to be produced. we need fertilizers that are not produced in ukraine, we need other agrochemicals that are not produced in ukraine, that are produced by leading, for example, german concerns, there such as baschier or others. i do not want to name them here, it seems to me that what ukraine should do now is to highlight these priority trade, trade categories that form the basis of exports to ukraine and work with them and work with them so that they also put pressure to poland and the polish government to prevent this particular blocking, because at the end of the day, these are problems not only of ukraine, but of... other companies that carry out significant, that have

many clients in ukraine, who certainly did not want to lose such an attractive market, so with this needs to be worked on, but again, this is a matter of professional dialogue and professional conversation, and when you, excuse me, play football, you are hit on the legs in the form of scattered grain, i think we understand there , we understand its allegory, well here, of course, in such conditions, the only thing we get... c as a result, it is just embitterment on both sides, maximum politicization, but this is not the scenario that should be followed, well, this is probably the most important thing that we remove the politicization of this conflict, but on the other hand, it is not so easy to do, because even when prime minister tus says that i am the biggest supporter of ukraine, but there is food security, which means that there are even limitations in the tactics of such politicians, yes, well, farmers in europe, let's be honest, they have always protested. they are protesting and they will continue to protest probably because, well, i will put it mildly, but

the european agrarian business is definitely not a model of efficiency, and it depends to a large extent on subsidies, we understand that these protests that are going on in poland today, they are parallel to all the others countries, and they simply have at their core reasons that are very superficially related to ukraine, just the poles, when they artificially, well, polish farmers, i mean, when they artificially inflate this... ukrainian component, these grain supplies, which by the way, well, illegal, which, by the way, to still not proven as a fact, they are just trying to hit the corn that will have the maximum public publicity and the maximum political publicity, but again, in whose hands it is, we all also understand very well, so of course we have to deal with it , well, at the end of the day , the russian footprint in these events has been saying a lot for a long time, but for some reason it seems to me that we are polish law enforcement officers here. they are somewhat passive, especially in cases where it is simply an outright violation

of the law. ugh. thank you, mr. sergey. the law enforcement component must be seriously strengthened, although i am not a supporter of police methods of combating such conflicts, but it is obvious here. but this is an important emphasis. thank you for ending our conversation with you. serhii vovk, director of the center for transport strategies, about the situation that is now occurring once again on the polish-ukrainian border, we will move on for just a few minutes, but stay with us. maria gurska meets with the head of the polish foreign affairs committee every week the sejm, authorized by the polish government for the restoration of ukraine, pavel koval. as always, we talk about the most important things that happened this week in poland, ukraine, and europe. what they say about ukraine in the eu, how we should perceive the statements of european politicians and what our accession to the eu will look like, in the project about politics about the world with maria gurska. every sunday at 15.30 with a repeat at 22:00 in collaboration with sesttry au. saturday

political club khrystyna yatskiv and vitaly portnikov. and the most important events that received their reaction in ukraine, in the world and in russia the federations must have received something. let's talk now, with your permission, mr. vitaly, about the death of oleksiy navalny. he died in the colony, the official, now, as i understand it, intermediate or final version, syndrome of sudden... death, actually, were you surprised to learn that navalny was actually killed, or brought to death, or killed, we definitely we do not know what happened there, i was not surprised, what happened around navalny in the last, i would say, months, when he was transferred to this terrible colony in the north, and every time they put him in a solitary confinement cell, imagine the climatic conditions in this place in general, imagining that he was sitting there, well, close, yes, but he was not in solitary confinement as many times as navalny, and then sentsov was not poisoned with novachk before that, you can imagine, healthy i

am a person who has already been taken out of the other world, after such poisoning, ugh, and after that he was put in prison once or twice, transferred to the north and is constantly being held in a detention center, that is, i am not saying, by the way, that oleg could not i could also die there, but this is a question, you know, of health forces, so all this, for me it is... it was like a planned murder, by the way, i believe that they wanted to kill oleg there in a planned way, they just didn't have time, ugh, but with navalny they were able to do it, they had time. information that in a few months he could be exchanged for one of the kgb killers, who is actually sitting in europe now, but this will not happen, obviously, well, i don’t really believe that anyone wanted to exchange navalny under the russian leadership, they don’t like their enemies that way are given, the question arises here, how did it all happen, you see, the ukrainians have a rather ambiguous

attitude towards navalny, i will not trace his political evolution once again here... although you and i understand that this evolution took place, and it developed for many years, navalny always had such contradictory positions in to the russian political movement, from flirting with right-wing extremists, from this phrase about a sandwich, to the condemnation of putin's war, to the recognition of the territorial integrity of ukraine, all this was, i think, navalny is primarily not so much a politician, how much an anti-corruption activist, you know, the kind of person we should like, because she... was for justice, not for political changes, but for justice, i would say, very much, i would say, showed my ukrainian roots, navalny always seemed more ukrainian politicians than russian from the point of view of social processes, because instead of changing political institutions, he always spoke first of all about corruption, and the russians liked it very much, we have, as you remember, a lot of people also always did corruption 'eru precisely on this point, we simply do not have such, i would

say rigid relations between the government and society, as in russia, ugh, but i... it is clear that such and such an attitude towards political reality, it was useful for the russian authorities up to a certain point , because it did not undermine the very essence of statehood, well, yes, yes, such a state is stealing here, but the state is correct, and at some point, when navalny began to say that they do not steal, but putin steals, for by a large margin, he took over the baton of boris nimtsov, who was killed in 2015, who was talking about putin's corruption. of course, this was quite seriously reflected in the attitude towards him and by and large turned him into such a target of the regime number one, well, besides, he was much more charismatic than most of the russian oppositionists, it must also be admitted, he was a person who could to bring a large number of people to the streets to defend themselves, no one

else was able to do it, by and large, remember all these repressions against the russian opposition, which... took place for years, and not a single person was perceived as it was perceived by the average russian, first of all in moscow, because once again people perceived navalny as a person who fights for justice, why navalny returned after being poisoned, this is also an interesting story, but we may not be underestimating it, someone can consider it stupidity, someone may consider it courage, but somehow the man was not afraid to challenge... who actually wanted to destroy her, because it was no joke to be poisoned by a newcomer. ugh. i think there was an underestimation on the one hand regime, on the other hand, was confident in its popularity, exaggerated, perhaps, than it actually was. it is difficult to fully understand this whole story. i think that is real,

only when we see. the archives of the russian special services are opened, we will understand the essence of this story, you know, i often think about a person who, by and large, also became a hostage to this whole story of his political popularity, who, by the way, was also a person with ukrainian roots in russian history , this is the priest george gapon, ugh, do you remember such a person in in russian revolutionary movement, a person whose activity ended on bloody sunday in 1905, he was also an incredibly popular, incredibly charismatic person, a person who was ready to make a self-sacrifice, at the same time, a person who had some connections in various institutions of power, when gapon was

alive, no one knew about these connections, he was perceived as an absolute oppositionist, but then it became obvious. that there were certain structures in the government that were interested in such activities, in such and such in the so-called self-employment, because they believed that that it is safer than real political forces, than social democracy, than anarchists , than socialists, revolutionaries, than those who throw bombs, than real opposition, yes, and gapon, as a man, very sincerely, naively believed that if he will stand there for the workers, for justice, for the right... that he is doing a great thing, that he is changing the country, and in the end. in the end , this horror of bloody sunday happened, the shooting of workers in st. petersburg in front of the tsar's

palace, but you can imagine the level of popularity of the all-russian gapon at that moment, this is a forgotten person, but when this bloody sunday happened, gapon was hiding in maksym godko's apartment, he was a cult. person, and only when they found out that he had some connections with some special services there, that he had contacts with the authorities, he was eventually killed by the revolutionaries themselves, they could not forgive him, well, these socialist revolutionaries, who believed that he betrayed the revolutionary movement, but again, is it possible to think so, well, here again the person actually... did not understand how the political processes in russia empire, was very sincere, very charismatic , millions of russians were in love with this person, but to understand that it was real,

to write a book, if this is what i am telling you, these are the archives, you understand, but now imagine , which happened after 1905, if there were no archives, then the archives were opened, invented a story and wrote personally... comrade stalin that gopon was a provocateur of the tsarist guard, of course he was never any provocateur, he was a person who tried to protect by their workers some contacts in the special services, because they were trying to recruit people from the authorities to their side, and this, this story of this unfortunate, unfortunate georgy gapon, because he was an unfortunate person who devoted his whole... life to these simple people, and was killed in as a result of this, it reminds me very much of the life of oleksiy navalny with the only difference that we do not have an archive, and with the difference that we

still cannot write, we do not have a real book about georgy hopon, although we should not write it, because it is one of the most such incredible representatives of the ukrainian people in the imperial political life, as well as oleksiy navalny, these are two stories, you understand, two stories of this. of ukrainian truthfulness, even a person becomes a russian, as it were, and infects russians themselves with this truthfulness and this naive kind of faith in justice, which we so often see in the ukrainian people and not so often in the russian people, and even a person becomes a chauvinist in views, but still this truthfulness somehow remains childish, it is a phenomenon that will be talked about for a long time, talk for a very long time, but it is clear that... for the west, this story with navalny is another indicator that putin simply, that is exactly what i wanted to ask about, well, joseph

biden came out to speak with on the occasion of the death of oleksiy navalny, the munich conference began to revolve around this news at one point, and that's normal, as far as i'm concerned. it is a symbol, a symbol of contempt for political murder, but given all this, on the eve of its own elections. in the russian federation, in a year when everything can change in america and many, many other factors, shouldn't putin treat navalny like a sack and protect him like a baby, well, that's if you were putin, and putin is putin, he's not khrystyna yatskiva, why does putin have to sack someone bag, he wants to demonstrate that he is the master of the situation, he does what he wants, putin's main task. to show everyone around that he is, that there are no red lines that he could not cross , and that he does not count for anything at all, and by the way, i must say that now i

perceive putin as this, ee zmiya horynich, ugh , remember, there was one with three heads, this russian folklore character, there is one head of putin that i know well, that i have seen many times, since the beginning of the 90s, since the end of the 90s, this is the head of this peter. gopnik , ugh, yes, let's wet in the toilets, kill everyone, restore order, this putin seemed completely unsuitable for any serious political activity, he reacted completely abnormally to challenges, did not go to the residence when there was an accident with the kursk submarine, treated these with contempt unfortunate... women who lost their husbands, submariners, behaved completely inappropriately, like some person in sweatpants, came to the committee, to the office of the president of russia, and this putin did not go anywhere, we saw him at toker karsen

several times. then the second head of putin appeared, which scared me more than the first, it is the head of a completely cold-blooded man who calculates, who solves mathematical problems, who creates some traps for his enemies, all the time he is waiting for an opportunity to to strike, very calm, very balanced, who has and is smart, who is very rarely wrong in his plans of some sort, such a putin appeared around 2004. this second putin was terrible, but at least i could analyze him, when just like, you know, like one the computer is trying to work with another one there, and now i saw the third putin for a while, this putin, i think it was not me who first saw him, macron was the first to see him when he came to

moscow to talk about the attack, and ... read for 40 minutes a lecture on history, the same lecture, which we have now all seen in toker kalsen, and this is the putin i was told about, even after the 15th year, by people who worked with putin, that he is in some historical empires, that he lives there, that his, that he , as, as sergei lavrov said , he consults with ivan the terrible and peter i catherine, these are his three advisers, and this, and these are the three advisers of this schizophrenic, but the problem is that these two heads have not disappeared either, so here we have . dealing with such a three-headed monster, and you always have to understand which of the heads is making which decision at the moment, here is the decision on the death of navalny, it could have been a cold, cold calculation to show that he is not going to give his enemies anything, yeah, right before the presidential election, to show that this is not an election, but a plebiscite, this is strengthening absolute authoritarian power. what can

the west do now with putin? when navalny was jailed in 2021, president biden said that if something happened to navalny, putin would feel it quite severely in his country. now he is forced to state that all real possibilities for khrystyna has exhausted the sanctions pressure on the russian federation. this is an important point that needs to be said, this is the exhaustion of the resource, and then. do you have to agree with those who emphasize that the only way to respond to putin's murder of navalny is to prevent putin from strengthening ukraine? this is what mike johnson said, by the way, we mentioned it, that it is logical, why did the speaker of the house of the president of the american congress say it like that, because it is not known how else to answer, so what can you pester him with at this moment, there are sanctions, everything is disabled, there is no trade, the situation is difficult, well, i apologize.

don't give him ukraine, don't give him ukraine , and many people are writing about this now, if you want him to really understand what the consequences of navalny's murder could be, give ukraine russian assets, give ukraine $60 billion, give ukraine an opportunity if not to release all of its territory now, then at least not to give putin the opportunity to hope that he can seize this state, this is absolutely the right answer, because again, it is not only about the personality of navalny, the loss of navalny, this can be said to be such a loss for... those people in russia who were hoping for some alternative, different, you see, any alternative is important because it is an alternative, and russians have no alternatives, but the bottom line is, a situation that cannot be considered normal is a government that murders its political opponents in cold blood in a colony, puts them to death or arranges for their murder, ugh, because by and large we can honestly say that putin has restored

the death penalty in russia . obviously later navalny didn't do anything for which he deserved the death penalty, they kept inventing one crime after another, one after another, just making a mockery of what used to be justice, of course it didn't start now, it started in a big way with khodorkovsky, with yukos, when they simply decided to steal someone else's company, and then they started talking about... church justice, and when it turned out that nothing could be done with them, they believed that they could do the same with at that time this one begins regime to become what it is, there is always this imperfect reaction of the outside world, the fact that they continued to communicate with them, do business with them, conduct negotiations, always allowed them to believe that they could hold someone hostage, well , they released khodorkovsky too, released after many years of interest per person.