greetings, this is svoboda live, my name is vlasta lazur, president volodymyr zelenskyy for the first time released information about the losses among the ukrainian military, and this figure is lower than previous estimates published by western journalists. so, as the president said during his press conference, 31,000 ukrainian soldiers died at the beginning of the full-scale invasion of russia. the president added that he could not name the number of wounded soldiers, as russia would know how many people were killed on the battlefield. he too did not begin to name the number of soldiers who went missing after.

of the losses in the armed forces announced by the president , maryana bezugla, a deputy from the servant of the people and a representative of the national security and defense committee, reported that if we take into account the missing, the estimated number of dead could reach 50,000. the president declassified the losses of ukraine from february 24, 2022 . 31 thousand ukrainian soldiers. the general staff of the armed forces gave us the same number of dead. these are the lists in... each confirmed without taking into account missing persons, but theirs is accurate the number is also known. there are de facto dead among the missing, but this has not been confirmed, and we do not know for sure what happened to them, taking this into account there may be about 50,000 dead. both the figure announced by zelenskyi and the assumptions made by bezuglai are smaller than the estimates of losses of the ukrainian military previously published by the western press. well, for example, in august of last year

, the new york times newspaper, citing american intelligence, wrote that the united states estimated losses on the ukrainian side at 70,000 dead and 120,000 wounded. such figures were announced earlier also "zeconomist" publication. well, returning to the president's press conference, the information about losses from the ukrainian side is undoubtedly the loudest statement and the most important at the moment. but the president also made another rather resonant statement, which is definitely worth discussing. he said that the plan of the ukrainian counter-offensive... last year was on the kremlin's table even before the start of this offensive, how to understand that? roman kostenko, people's deputy, voice faction, secretary of the committee on national security, defense and intelligence, joins the broadcast, roman, good evening, good evening, let's start with the plans of the ukrainian counter-offensive, supposedly it was on the table in the kremlin, that before the beginning of how it was supposed to begin, how could it happen and in principle, what can you say in addition... to the fact that said the president, well

, with your permission, i'll start with the sufferings, about what you just talked about on the air, and we're talking about it, and we're talking about it, let's, let's talk about the losses, because we planned to talk about that too, okay , yeah, yeah, okay, uh, just uh, what the president said 3100, i was on the committee, i didn't i saw that the general staff was there and did not hear them, they said that we have up to 5-10 thousand, such information was not available at the committee, i was at almost all committees, somewhere they... talked about 7-8 thousand missing people, so it is somewhere up to 40 thousand, if you can add it yourself, this is what we talked about, so it is approximately so, this is what the representatives of the general staff announced at the time, and what the president said yesterday, and i believe that, in principle, the time has come to really tell this to the public, so that they see the intensity of hostilities, the losses that...

we suffered and how many heroes we lost during the war, because really, i knew this information for a long time, and when i was just there without spreading it to anyone, i asked people, and please tell me, what do you think are our losses, when the question mobilization was concerned, then i will say less than 100 00, no one ever told me this information, some said 200, some 300, some say, well, if they take 500, then we probably lost 500, and it was important to inform people. real information so that people understand that we have lost that number, it is the most intense times of hostilities, when we did not have a front line yet, when we had a serious shortage of ammunition, when the enemy prevailed in all directions, when there was no mobilization, when there were not as many drones as we have now, when we have there were no such trained personnel who had already gained combat experience when the enemy used up to 60 thousand per day. and now he can

use a maximum of 15 there, because he also has a shortage, and this very peak we lost so many of our brave men soldiers, you just assumed that it could be about 40 thousand, well, your colleague from the defense and intelligence committee, maryana bezugla, says that it could be somewhere around 50 thousand, well, i don't know how she calculates, i'm talking about the information that was broadcast there about plus or minus about 50 missing persons, i myself, being on the committee , never heard of it, ugh, but look, i just quoted the western press on this topic as well, back in the summer the publication of the law . the city, according to the new york times , called the figures 70,000 killed and 120,000 wounded, where then could these come from numbers, of course they refer to the data of american intelligence, well, i don't know where they have these numbers, where they get them, i'm saying that many people have guessed, i'll say it

again without disseminating any information, because the president in fact he spread them, he already said, and it is no longer a secret, er... or or there is, i don’t know, he said about it, yes, people already know about it, and before that, everyone i asked, just how much do you think, they say, well, i already talked about it there 500, 400, 300, 200, probably somehow from this and the journalists left, maybe they asked someone who did not know enough about this information, well, the fact is, it exists... it is like that , even when we have to understand that every year on the 22nd and 23rd, approximately the same number of our dead there were almost a thousand soldiers there, and what do you think, roman, why did the president still decide to make this data public, because even now you

know, many people argue whether it was appropriate to make it public or not, what is your answer, why in the end the president decided to call this figure, see. no matter what it was, we really understand, there are 31,000 people, that's a lot and we have to say that, it's a lot, these are our soldiers, our people, but when we talk again now about mobilization, about the need to continue to defend the country, since the motivation of many people was that we are being taken in the place of those who died, that is , there were 5,000 of us, but 5,000 died, so they are taking us, the people somehow had no idea, no one gave them an understanding that they would come, will learn, everything is for them... they believe that those who were with them, well, there were some wounded, but with million, millions of defense forces , we have such a number of dead there, so if we take even an average statically, it does not mean that those who leave, they will die, i think that this year, if we do better, we will

build defense lines, we're going to have more weapons, we're going to try harder to protect life, we have to work now to reduce, and that, from my point of view, is... also, whatever it sounds like, a motivating factor for people to understand, to understand , that well, defending the country does not mean that you have a one-way ticket, you will surely die, no, it is a question that, if you learn, you will be fine, let's say, they will be equipped, you will be on the battlefield and you will see that we really have such losses out of a million large-scale, when russia was conducting hostilities, in principle... let's say, we don't need 500 thousand people, maybe less, but this does not mean that you will necessarily die, that's why i also spoke, i also spoke about let's make it known so that people can see that the road to the front, the road to the defense of the state, with normal organization, is not necessarily means that you will die, perhaps

in this way, including volodymyr zelenskyi was already preparing arguments for the adoption of the law on mobilization. well, look, i submitted a separate law on motivation, and i thought, when i told you before, that in addition to the motivational norms that i added there, there was a question with them on libra, and if we go, then everyone is many i was told that if we go, we will surely die, i repeat again, a million people who are called up in the defense forces, we lost 31 00 of our soldiers during the toughest battles, we have to understand this. everyone is in their own head, and now we have to do our best, take this experience , take this and that weapon, in order to further reduce this number and prevent our soldiers from dying, so we have ways to work, we have experience and we have to implement it including attracting young people to the battlefield, motivating them,

these are the mechanisms that are in my law 11012 and showing that you have the opportunity to fight, that you will die, we will... minimize, as much as possible, how the state has more. okay, roman, and going back to the counterattack, the president also talked a lot about this and about the future counteroffensive, he said that for now... we will not share all the plans there, because he said that during the preparation of the last counteroffensive, apparently everyone shared plans too much and it turned out that the plan a counteroffensive was on the table in the kremlin , how do you understand it, because it can be interpreted in such a way that there were traitors or agents of the kremlin almost in the political or military leadership who reported the whole plan about the counteroffensive, or maybe there is some other explanation for this? i don't know what he means president, if this plan was in everyone 's hands, then of course it is not excluded that it could

be there somewhere, it's just that there are separate people in us, well , there are people involved who had access to those plans that we had in them, that's why we have the security service of ukraine, and there it is simply done, if there is really information from the intelligence there that the plan was on the table of our adversary, the security service of ukraine is taken, the circle of those people involved is taken, and this is serious, this the most strategic document in general is one of the during the war, the plan of the counteroffensive, for which they were preparing, if he was leaked, then these people can be detected, if they have not been detected, well, then something needs to be done with the security service, if it cannot do it, and i simply do not understand these words, before that, we also have such information in the committee there was no direct counterattack on the table, from the other side, well - i don't know what they meant by this plan, well... we had a plan, yes, we tried to pass the defense lines, the support lines ,

we reached where we reached because everyone said that the level of counterattack there is equal victories, but we see that it doesn't always happen like that, so many factors are needed here, in general, i don't know what, well, this is an attempt to say that we passed the plan and that's why we didn't pass, we couldn't counterattack, i don't know, here i am i think there is a deeper problem, here it is just me... i want to emphasize the fact that if you do not understand what it was about, then it was really very difficult for ordinary viewers and listeners who watched this press conference to understand, well indeed, well, i told you how it was supposed to be, yes, well, what is the plan of such a seriously hit the table to our adversary, well , the security service should rise and everyone who is there, they should have from morning to evening, well, excuse me, i don’t know, it’s not for bigus... to forge just this plan , to look for who leaked the plan, and then in we

have deputies and others there, and the deputies were already looking for a plan for 2024 and there they tried to get it somewhere, tried to see it, they just talk a lot about plans in our country, and then these plans appear somewhere on the enemy's table, that's why here it is necessary for the security service to work, to provide, to provide counter-intelligence support, it is there who to do what and they know what they need to do. roman , at the same time, zelensky said that russia will prepare offensive actions for the end of spring, the beginning of summer this year, well, in fact, he announced the next regular offensive of russia, and he said that ukraine is preparing for it, ukraine has its own plan, tell me, please, do you understand that it will be an offensive, what kind of offensive it will be, russian, end of spring, beginning of summer, what is the point in...

well, the question is, you know, it is very difficult to say here, when you got something there there is some information even in the committee, here it seems to be secret, here and there the president says about some things, and here too... the question is whether it has already become unsecret, or whether it still remains secret, there is such a fine line between all these questions , look, there is information there about what russia can accumulate there, at the same time there intelligence reports that russia has no resources and in the near future there will not be any resources to conduct something large-scale, i just don’t understand , which means the counteroffensive of the russians, the scale of which it will be, meaning, what the intelligence reports, they say that... there won't be the resources to do more than what they're doing now, can they accumulate until then, well,

the intelligence says not to the full extent, but we understand that everything changes very often there in the war, so of course, maybe the president has more information at that time, and he has in mind some specific directions, what we know, what is sometimes proven there, sometimes not systematically, that of course they will want uh... donetsk-luhansk region, like return the minimum in the borders and continue to try to push in the kupyansk direction, and the donetsk-luhansk region, well, there are many nuances about which i cannot say, but in general, yes, they have the administrative borders of the donetsk and luhansk regions, in them there is a kupyan direction, if they wanted, because it gives them a strategic deployment, and in general there are many directions, how do they work, where are the subtle cracks, if our defenses are sagging somewhere, they will concentrate their troops there and try chaotically sorry, if, speaking in your

language, where the thin is tearing, it looks like the thin is now somewhere in the area of... avdiyivka, because just today the ukrainian military confirmed the retreat from the village of lastochkine, it is sometimes near avdiyivka, deep state informed osinproekt analytical center even today in the afternoon that russian troops even went to the outskirts of orlivka, this is the next village after lastochkino next to avdiivka, and the problem is, analysts write, that in all these villages from the point of view of defense , the situation similar, there is nowhere. powerful defense , and in view of this, how far do you think the russian troops will advance right now, directly in the near future, from avdiyivka, what, what the front line may be in the near future, in this particular direction, about this very have been talking for a long time, and recently, being there, we also saw it, that here are the problems, the problems with the defense lines, which they talked about,

which, unfortunately, could not be dug up until now, and of course now it is possible. will look for some responsible ones, among their own will look for who, who could be responsible for this, and this is a real problem. in the same way, when i was asked recently what will happen after avdiivka, how will they go, and i said that the most effective, well, one of the effective actions on the battlefield is to attack the retreating enemy, we were withdrawing at that time, retreating, because the enemy at this time is just so weak, he does not have his own lines of defense, he needs to withdraw. it cannot be established on the frontiers, the system of its fire impression, it is unbalanced, there is no none, so it turns out that the enemy is starting to press, we couldn’t get a foothold , he continues to press, well, let’s see where they can stop him, of course they have room for maneuver, they can just move forward and make the same pincers, as they

did around avdiivka, they can do it further, so it is important here now. to stop them at those borders, where, where we are now standing. roman, and to whom, how to whom can you voice this claim of the soviet union about the lack of defense, which you just voiced, it is to the government, it is to the military, it is to whom in general, and does it make sense to talk about it now, while active hostilities are taking place there? well, don't look at the point , it won't get any easier for any military man from this chatter , but these are claims both to the military and to... well, let's say this, from the supreme commander to those people who are directly there the commanders of the brigades on the battlefield, because the commander, if he is standing, answers directly, yes , you can go to the platoon commander, but the platoon commander is the responsibility of the brigade commander, well, there are companies, i mean that he should give them commands to fix on one or the other, if they

didn't do it, well, it's not professional, at least, of course, there should be a command from the supreme commander-in-chief. after all, the system should have received the task of transitioning to defense a long time ago, well, you see, it didn't happen, nothing was done, now we 're raking it in. roman, thank you very much, roman kostenko, people's deputy, voice faction, secretary of the committee on national security, defense and intelligence, we analyzed volodymyr zelenskyi's answers during his press conferences, those related to the situation at the front and those related to losses on the ukrainian side. thank you very much. well, as i mentioned earlier, the ukrainian military confirmed the retreat from the village of lastochkine, which is located near avdiivka. as the spokesman of the operational-strategic grouping of the ukrainian troops, tavria, dmytro lykhova, said, the withdrawal from the village was necessary in order to organize the defense along the lines of the settlements of orlivka, tonenke, berdychi, and also

to prevent the further advance of the russian occupying forces further into in the western direction, but literally on ... the day before , the armed forces of the ukrainian armed forces denied the withdrawal of ukrainian troops from lastochkino, although the ukrainian autumn project deep state had already published footage of the withdrawal of ukrainian soldiers from the village yesterday, as of yesterday evening, according to analysts, it was extremely difficult to hold the village, the defense it was not built there, and the fighters had to actually withdraw from the battles in avdiivka and gain a foothold in the very process of hostilities. in the neighboring villages, it is said in the review, the situation is the same, but now we... offer you to see what is happening right now in the towns and villages near avdiyivka, we are leaving already, already, come on, we are leaving after 100 m, in short, here it is... avdiyivka, february, the third assault brigade arrived in the city to

reinforce the defense forces of ukraine, they occupied positions in the half-destroyed houses of the summer cooperative, where continuous defensive battles continued for another week after that. sheiva, are you ready? i sewed on february 17 , the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of ukraine oleksandr syrsky announced the withdrawal of ukrainian units from avdiyivka. nowadays the city looks like this. this video was posted on the telegram channel by denys pushylin, the leader of the dpr group. he came to avdiivka together with the military. meanwhile, russian forces continue to advance west of avdiivka. according to deepstate analysts, the fighting is taking place near the villages of orlivka, tonenko, and severne. children are being evacuated 60 km from these villages in pokrovsk due to the deterioration of the situation. we came from the city of selidove, which is under shelling, and

decided to take the children to recuperate. the fact is that some children in the 20-2nd year were evacuated, but the situation improved a little and the families returned to their places. and now, when things got worse, we decided, the parents decided to send them to a safe place. place, well, the school offered this opportunity, the teachers offered it, we discussed and decided that the child will go, why, because it is dangerous for him to stay here, it has become dangerous in our city, because avdiivka is located nearby, as you understand, there are heavy battles there, so we decided to ship it from here. the ukrainian military, who are in the east, complain about the shortage ammunition, so a 33-year-old fighter of the third separate assault brigade... with the call sign skula, who returned from avdiivka, emphasized that this is exactly the problem. the main reason, if you look at the battles, is the lack of shells,

lack of ammunition. when our artillery was working, it caused laughter and smiles. three shells per square and all missed, the enemy could put dozens of artillery shells in one building. our infantry with machine guns and grenades opposed the aviation artillery and tanks. that is, well, we held on, we are there were doing, uh, damage, yes, but it's really hard when people with machine guns are fighting against air artillery, so i think it was the right decision. in the bakhmut direction, the situation with ammunition is not better, so the commander of the artillery unit with the call sign rus said that now about 20% of ammunition remains in his warehouse. the number was completely different than now, roughly speaking, my field warehouse there, it was completely filled with ammunition, hundreds, even i would say, and now, well, 20 percent, probably with

what is left is what we have, and there is an uprising, a replenishment of the composition, roughly speaking , it has become much worse than it was before, i simply do not know what will happen if they do not supply us with ammunition, i don’t even want to do it somehow to believe that such a thing is possible, formerly the german edition. with reference to western special services , stated that without help , ukraine's own stocks of ammunition may run out by june this year. anastasia potapenko, radio liberty. and today, later in the afternoon, dibstate analysts reported that the russian military came to the outskirts of orlivka, this is the next settlement after the captured village of lastochkinnoy, all these villages are next to avdiivka, and... there is now happening with civilians, let's talk, pavlo dyachenko, inspector of the communications department of the main administration of the national police in donetsk region, a member of the white angel evacuation squad, good

evening, good evening, studio, pavlo, you are directly involved in the evacuation of civilians from the towns and villages and villages around avdiyivka, please tell us what the situation is in these days, how is the evacuation going, is it still possible at all? well, yes, of course, evacuation is being carried out from the surrounding settlements near avdiyivka, not many people are asking for help, well, most of them have already left by themselves, for a long time, because there are very active hostilities there , some settlements, well, are simply being destroyed as much as possible, these are both guided aerial bombs and artillery, it does not let up the cannonade. the humanitarian component is very difficult, i.e. people live without electricity, water, gas, we understand that in the current conditions...

it is impossible to restore and repair it, and we constantly work in close cooperation with the military administrations, that is, we have an understanding of where to bring aid, which people need it, the amount, well , of course, it is impossible to deliver everything there, the most important thing is exactly what is needed people, this is water, we can say that... evacuation, well, it is extremely important, it is directly the families in which the children are raised, fortunately they conducted another stage of evacuation measures from the ocheretynsk and marinensk communities, all the children who were in we are available, all the families left, evacuated,

some left by themselves, some left... already with the help of our white angel police crews, the evacuation was very fruitful in very close cooperation with emergency workers from the state emergency service, that is, everything was organized, all processes were directed together with military administrations, and thus we managed to evacuate 73 children in a fairly short period of time. and tell me, please, but there are, if we are talking about avdiivka and the cities and villages nearby, there are people who are absolutely categorical they refuse to go, and there are, of course, yes, and in avdiivka itself, according to such, well, this is not one hundred percent yes information, but we understand that approximately 700 residents stayed in aldiivka, and how do you

explain it, this the people who were waiting for russia there, did they have very objective reasons to stay there and important reasons? well , you know, it turns out that in person, when we arrived there, when there was a police crew of white angels who were there every day, every day, communicating with people, evacuating, helping, bringing humanitarian worker, no one personally says to the eyes that they are waiting, they are there... for russia, for the occupiers, no, maybe someone there was silently accepting either that humanitarian worker or something else, now it is not a secret for anyone, we see these the video materials were shot by russians, they circulate them there on social networks, there on their own resources, where they communicate with locals who meet them there, this is not a mass phenomenon, i

personally see it. there are about six or seven such videos, but there is such a thing, these are people you have seen before who refused to leave, you they were later recognized on videos on russian telegram channels, which rejoiced, well, i’m just for the audience’s understanding, i’ll remind you that, for example , 30,000 people lived in avdiivka before the full-scale war, if you say 700 remained, well , it’s true, you can say, it’s a unit , this is a small percentage. pavel, tell me, where is the situation now from your point of view? the most difficult after the ukrainian troops withdrew from avdiyivka, well, along the entire front line, it is very difficult along the entire front line, so there is no such understanding that somewhere something is safer, somewhere more difficult, these, well, we take attention to all settlements, including siversk and torske, zarichne, if

we take the lyman direction, times. yar , torets, yes, speechless, here, pavlo, tell me, please, what do you directly know about this village, lastochkino, and also other villages that are from where, for example, from lastochkino, as far as i know i understand that the ukrainian troops have left the villages, which are also leaving nearby , what was the situation there when you were there the last time, was there anyone from there to evacuate, for you, the last time was not... so long ago, but we , as the police, we we have our own conditional direction there, yes , there is a civilian one, work with the civilian population, and a military component, this, i’m sorry, is not for us , uh, well, for example, in the last time you were in the swallow, in the swallow, well, for sure , somewhere around six or seven days, well, it's roughly, it's not exactly, roughly, but the next village of orlivka, for example, analysts today.