editor-in-chief of ukrainian week magazine alla lazereva, she is in paris, and we will talk to her. greetings, hello. good afternoon, good evening. about the change in the french position , what, in your opinion, can somehow explain it, because it is really a serious change in the position of the french president, i think you will not deny how it is perceived in french society, what do you think about this change ? well, really a change, i would say radical, because if we remember how at the beginning of the war macron. called endlessly putin tried to convince everyone that he should not be insulted, he should not be humiliated, now he says, on the contrary, that it is impossible to avoid such an assumption that european military forces can be involved in ukraine, then he clarified that this is primarily about demining, about helping with the training of the military, that is, so to speak... he has reduced

this tone a little, but at the same time he categorically insists that the use of the military from european countries is absolutely easy to imagine, he is actively campaigning for this, and recently called leaders of political forces to explain their position, and again returned to the fact that he believes that such a possibility cannot be ruled out. why does he do that? well, only he can know, but in fact there could be several reasons. first of all, this is that it is absolutely obvious that the french special services are still not the worst at work, and in his explanations, macron himself states the constant aggression on the part of russia in cyberspace and on other levels, that is, these are his words that we can...

analyze and to which we can refer, it is obvious that in this sense there is absolute specifics, which was true before, but unfortunately he didn't talk about it before, and there is also probably a moment of close european elections, there is the fact that his opponents, the largest, the extreme right, the national association, and they ... they are very much gaining such power, and it is obvious that his political power is emphasizing, promoting exactly that, in fact, ukraine has become a factor in domestic russian politics, i would say so, and therefore, returning to the finished phrase, macron's political power is actively criticizes the extreme right for a pro-russian position, directly it...

they say, it's really new, it's so unexpected a bit, but it's obvious that the election factor is also at work here. and how did the french society react to these statements of macron, why did he need to hold a meeting with the leaders of political parties regarding this phrase about the possibility of using troops on ukrainian territory, because i do not recall such meetings, at least in recent years. no, no, no, this is also such an innovation of french politics, well, it was necessary, because many of his opponents, many of... opponents panicked, in particular, for example, lipin, she began to speak everywhere she could , saying that how come he imagines sending french boys to certain death, how can it be imagined, this is madness, then the extreme left panicked and began to express similar thoughts, but macron's counterargument is that... this is a war that is going on in

europe, this is our war, he started saying that, we can't lose it, this is his quote again, to which we can refer to which we can analyze why he was so clairvoyant, apparently, once again, he had such information that helped him understand that ukraine is really the eastern gate of europe, in principle, to the extent that france has economic opportunities and logistical opportunities, if we talk about the military. industrial complex in order to increase aid to ukraine, because we understand that now the aid from germany is still greater than from france, so they really do not have as much aid as it could have been, absolutely precisely in absolute numbers, but so the potential in france is not bad, in principle they are full the military cycle, they are the depositories of nuclear weapons, that is, not that they put us, will put us nuclear weapons, but basically their their voice in the security system. in the nato system, in the system

of western security, european security, is weighty, and they have every right to put forward both proposals and certain ones out loud. france has a very good military complex, which can really work more powerfully, and there can certainly be interest here, because there was talk a couple of weeks ago about a joint european, joint european loan, proposed estonia, and macron actively supported this idea, and if this joint european music will be with... in order to help ukraine with weapons, it is clear that french enterprises obviously hope to place part of the orders. it was said that macron was hoping to raise the stakes with his troop announcements, but he was met with so much misunderstanding from other european allies and fell short of the mark, do you

think he did or didn't? well, he is very, let's say, optimistic, he says that the same people who said that there are no it is necessary to send nothing but... and helmets, now today they are sending tanks and are ready to send airplanes, everything will be fine, don’t worry, and indeed, recently the polish leader expressed that it is possible to imagine the military presence of european troops in ukraine, expressed in the same keys are at the level of hypotheses, canadians, baltic countries, that is, if he seemed isolated in the first days, and russia was jumping with happiness that macron is isolated, then... there is no question of isolation, he is gradually convincing his partners in the european union in because in principle, why not imagine some more active actions, if the situation will contribute to it. but if

we talk about the trump factor, to what extent does it influence the change of position in general, to what extent is france afraid of the victory of donald trump in the presidential elections. in the united states, is very influential, strongly influential, because again, i remember macron's press conference that i was at, where he just said that the uncertainty across the ocean is encouraging europeans to take their own security into their own hands and started it's better to take care of it, and literally even he said something like that, do we have to give the keys to our security to the american voters, my answer is no, that is, yes, not determined across the ocean, his is absolutely definitely one of the elements that motivates him to be more active actions, and his own geopolitical dream, that is, let's remember that when he was elected for the first term, the project of the european european wing in

the nato system was one of the elements that made up such an important part of his campaign, and that he then, well, then he exactly was isolated and did not gain support. but this idea is close to him, that is, he has long believed that europe should be more actively involved in its security and not rely completely only on the united states. to what extent, in principle, can it be assumed that macron will be able to contribute here, to contribute to success, when the representatives of the states of central europe and the baltic states are primarily in support of him, but such an old europe remains, as it were , outside of this discussion? well, i think that the future of europe is precisely on... on this part of the continent, after all, in the center, in the east, and that the future european security emerges, crystallizes precisely on these lands, precisely because russia's war against ukraine is also taking place here, support blocs are gathering here, and i think that maybe he also felt this moment

and understands that the bet should be placed today on these countries, if that is, i think so, well, this is my, of course, my assumption, we will see, but i think that... so in france they will be afraid of this jealousy on the part of germany and these, as it were, spoiled relations between mneel and macron and olaf scholz, do they believe that they are such, i would said, the conditional problems that will be solved there at the next meetings at the berlin-paris level, well, let's say, macron does not have such warm relations with scholz as, say, sarkozy had with merkel, that is, they have some kind of personal contact there is no, and now the french press... very eloquently and ironically comments on the german position, so somehow it makes fun of scholz, of his indecisiveness, that is, in principle, on the one hand , it talks about the fact that perhaps there is no need to hurry and that macron is too decisive, but from another point of view

on the one hand, it is clear that the french are happy that their macron looks so, let's say, brave, and that compared to other neighboring leaders, he ... well, he looks more, let's say, more dignified, than the frightened scholz in their opinion, in the opinion of the french press . and tell me, how has the situation changed with the french positions in africa, which are constantly being undermined by the russian side, but recently we even saw texts that in african countries, some of them even operate ukrainian special forces, who fight with the wagnerites on the territory of the same for sudan, it is quite difficult to imagine this against the background of the fact that not long ago, you remember, the main such target was a frenchman. troops and they were dominant there? i think that this is also one of the elements that contributed to the change

in macron's position, because, again, in africa , the russians are actively displacing the french, in particular , in the arms markets, in the economic markets, in access to minerals, and all this cannot, cannot like france, we will remember mali, we will remember burkina faso. then even the recent elections in senegal, they were also, let's say, under the sign of such russians information attacks, and the russians are actively playing on, let's say, the anti-colonial sentiments of africans on their image of france, in order to impose their interests, to get to these profitable fields themselves and try to establish their own control, african countries are not yet aware of this they know they do not understand that they are trying to replace one colonizer with a worse one, because

russia is really a worse colonizer than france, not because the french are beautiful, but really, well, one empire was still more civilized and the second one is completely wild, so for now we can say that the russians, well, they manage to push, push the french, and it is clear that this is very not... paris likes it, it is actively discussed, and this is obviously also one of the elements that contributed to the change in the position of the palace regarding the war in ukraine. from his time, macron hoped to reach an agreement with putin on africa, we remember this famous summit in the castle of breganson, where macron and putin talked, it seems to me the last time on the territory of france, now there are no such illusions that it is possible to reach an agreement with putin and convince him you'. their mercenaries from african countries. well, it seems that he understood that there is no need to call there, that these

calls lead to absolutely nothing, and that in principle it is absolutely impossible to negotiate with someone who does not want to negotiate with you, you can negotiate when everyone is ready to some concessions, but in the case of russia, it is not ready for any concessions, it only wants to recruit and promote its expansion, well, i think recently it has given many examples, that in ukraine, that in africa, that this is exactly how it will act and. .. no what else he is not going to talk about, so it seems that he is so clear, he has learned this lesson, and will not call putin again, i hope, but how are marine le pen and her supporters really behaving in this situation, because now it is really a very tough conversation with them, i saw that the french prime minister gabriel athal said that there are no french troops in ukraine yet, and russian troops are already in france, and they are the troops of ms. le pen, i have never heard such a sharp polemic in the national assembly and such ... expressions to ms. lipen, as far as they correct their position, or do they still believe that they are

right and do not need to change in any way? very sharp debate, very sharp , really unexpectedly sharp, yesterday was a demonstration of macron's political power forward-republic, today the extreme right demonstrated, there were quite a few of them, and they were promoting just such anti-macron very sharp equally sharp narratives, and ... well this conflict is becoming more and more acute and, let's say, more unrestrained in words, the exchange of pleasantries takes on new and hostile tones, and the quotes we hear, they really completely different from what it seemed six months ago, but let's say even... the niece of marine le pen marichon marion, she is very

popular now, and her position is, well, the position, her words, which she constantly tries to repeat, this is about the fact that macron involves france in the war, macron is trying to start a war on the territory of france, that is, it was not macron who noticed the war that is taking place on the territory of... europe and in particular in ukraine, but he is starting a war and involving france to the war, that is, such a one the manipulation is quite crude, but it partially works, because, let's say, certain scoreboards and... certain such pro-lepenov bloggers, they actively disperse it, support it, and well , the situation socially and politically is quite complicated, quite tense, i can say that it is quite such a disturbing atmosphere in the country and conflict at the social level, if

we go from the extreme right to the extreme left and ask about the position of jean-luc melenchon, who was also always there. native with all this effort and president macron and other french politicians from the group of power to help ukraine to build a civilized position in the middle east, and mr. milanchon not only talks, he also acts actively, he recently visited beirut, for example, to express his support for lebanon and protest against israel, how far the far left can stop president macron and the government in an effort to help ukraine and build a tougher position, but he remained on... in his positions he once said that he did not know where the border of ukraine was before crimea or after crimea, that is, i don't know why he thought so was not lucky with geographical maps of his time, but for some reason he did not know this. then, when the full-scale war started , he dropped a little bit, obviously he was just reticling and hardly changed his position, of course, he is a pro-russian politician, just as pro-russian a politician as marine le pen and her

inner circle, and his party as well. .. in this sense, they coincide with the extreme left, the extreme left, with the extreme right, that is , geopolitically in relation to russia, their vision is the same, and perhaps there is a chance in the fact that the block of the extreme left and moderate left in the parliament actually split, it was called dnyupes, that is, formally now glaxman's public square has left, environmentalists are heard, and therefore... well, nelanchon's weight has decreased, and let's hope that he will not gain so much in the next elections to the european parliament, which already will, and will not influence, again, in the european parliament, the votes are related to the support of ukraine, but this is a politician who

consistently, systematically tries to convince us that we should... we have to sit down for style negotiations, although it is clearly not about negotiations, but about capitulation, which they are trying to impose in ukraine, he is in this rhetoric, as he was, and he is. thank you, mrs. alla, alla lazareva, deputy editor-in-chief of the ukrainian week magazine, we talked about how the position of french president emmanuel macron has changed, what can be expected from these statements about nato troops in ukraine, which the french leader has repeatedly made in recent weeks. now let's talk about the economy with konstantin zhivago, an investor, entrepreneur, philanthropist. congratulations, mr. konstantin. congratulations, vitaliy. so, let's talk about gdp and government forecasts. the government believes that gdp can grow by 5%. in military terms, this is not so bad. do you think this will actually happen? what

percentage of gdp growth can be expected this year. vitaly, actually. this is a very important issue for us as a country, for all ukrainians, because gdp is our taxes, because somewhere around 33% of gdp is redistributed to the state budget in the form of taxes, and if it is redistributed in the form of taxes, we we know that all these taxes primarily go to the armed forces of ukraine, that is, the greater the gdp, the greater its growth, the greater the gdp base, the more taxes, the greater the ability of our armed forces of ukraine to actually fight for ukraine, to repel aggression russian federation. and this is extremely important for any non-belligerent country, and for belligerent ukraine it is important, vitally important. so in response to your question, do i think five percent growth or gross domestic product growth next year is possible, i want to say a few things trailers, that is, as it grew by more than 5% the previous year, so it

will grow by 5% this year, which is real and possible, but the government, unfortunately, due to its incompetence. there is nothing to do with this, i.e. in the previous year it grew due to the fact that we had an approximate 5% devaluation of the national currency from the exchange rate of 36 to kopecks and today to the exchange rate of 38 to kopecks, i.e. as much as the hryvnia depreciated, so much did gdp grow, because all export currency and currency revenue that came in was recalculated the accounting rate, i.e. the exchange rate in the hryvnia to the united states dollar, therefore... increased not the nominal value of the gross domestic product, but in tonnage, i.e. the number of tons, or the produced or exported product, or the amount of electricity that was... consumed by our enterprises and our consumers , well, it did not grow by 5% in any way, in addition, i want to say that definitely, rather

, the military also made a huge impact, a huge contribution to the growth of the gdp of the previous year, by the fact that they opened the corridor, the sea corridor, because as soon as the sea corridor was opened, first of all , agricultural products began to be exported almost to pre-war levels, and this was already october, november, december, namely... the main thing is that the export of those products, which in general was closed since the beginning of the war, it is a product of the mining and metallurgical machine-building complex, but the main thing is a machine, it is a frontier-logical complex, because millions of tonnages are exported there, millions and millions of tons of finished products are actually exported there, which, if are produced by ukrainian enterprises, then they consume everything, starting with electricity, ending with gas, railway tariff, port services, everything that is in general in the economy of ukraine. there is, and when they start consuming it, because they export their products, have the opportunity to sell them to the western markets, here definitely, it makes a very good contribution to the gdp growth of that year, what

about this year, about 2024, actually i want to say , that if the government forecasts together, together with the imf and the national bank, that the national the currency will depreciate from 38 cents to 40 cents by the end of the year, that is, the average exchange rate will be around 40 cents, which means that we... get a few percent of gdp growth in general simply by transferring to our exports and currency that comes in export of ukrainian products to the nominal hryvnia, which will be more than what was in 2023, but this is not the main factor for the main contribution to gdp, in fact , the main contribution, in which i hope, will still be that there will be more work ukrainian industry, namely the main one managerial complex, because if in the previous year in the 23rd... it worked only in the last months, october, november, december, then here it is now working, starting from january of the 24th year, we have export volumes that are already today 60, 70, 80%

of exports from pre-war times, or for some types of products, because we lost mariupolyazost lych, we have less load of arcelor metal of kryvyi rih, we have less load of zaporizhia steel, we have less load of mining enterprises and kryvyi rih roga and poltava regions, but at the same time... at the same time, when we say 5% growth, i will tell you that it can be more than 5%, because if the mining and meteorological complex works, which in the structure of gdp was 20% before the war, that is, it is today may actually show somewhere there an indicator of 15-13-14%, this is exactly twice more than it worked in the 23rd year, that is, we can see, if the sea corridor will work, a large increase in production and gross domestic product. that is, the contribution of the mining and metallurgical complex to the gdp of the 24th year, but we may actually have some decreases production of agricultural products, because if you look at the 23rd year

, the harvest was good for ukraine, and this harvest helped the economy of ukraine to actually get such figures of growth of the gross domestic product. and tell me why the world bank is more pessimistic about this gdp growth than all these organizations, i consider. including the ukrainian government, of course, which one did you list? well, first of all, the world bank and the international monetary fund, they always so happened that they are very are conservative in their estimates of the gdp growth of any country, and that is, they are better after , let's say, 3x-4x5 months of the economy, they will make some changes in their forecasts, they will say, we expected 5%, in fact it happened... more so, so, so, so, and why does the government say 5%, because it is very simple math, if they wrote that they would have a growth of four percent, then the budget, that is,

the income to the state budget , would not meet at 4% would be smaller, and many things remained in the ukrainian budget of the 24th year simply not financed, because there would be no money for them, if there is more growth than 5%, then there will be extra money, additional money to the state budget, as i already told, a third. roughly, gdp is redistributed through the state budget, that is, if gdp is 6%, then an additional percentage of gdp 0/3, that is , a third of this percentage, will come in the form of various taxes to the state budget, and then the state budget will have more money, that is, the government had absolutely such, you know , a pragmatic, mathematical approach to how much money he needs for the budget, and it also calculated the percentage of economic growth. well, of course it had to be kept real, because if the government said that our economy would grow by 25%, as the prime minister's government said at the beginning of the 19th year, riding a scooter around

the cabinet, he said: that we will grow in 5 years there, i don't know, by three times, that is, everyone told him, well, how can this be, it is 40% per year, he says, well, we will grow, well, there is growth of 40%, there is that the prime minister on a scooter, a tell me how much economic development is affected by this story with the blockade of borders, because we already hear that the ukrainian government is in principle thinking about certain compromises with its neighbors in order to unblock these borders, but this in turn will lead to a decrease in the supply of certain species of ukrainian products in our... market, does it in general somehow affect the situation, or now, when the ports are already open, it is not such a significant part of economic growth and opportunities? well, actually it affects, vitaly, because it is always better to have more exports than less exports, but when the corridors were opened today, if we look at the statistics for the month of february, when agricultural products were exported as much as in the pre-war period in february of the 21st or 20th, it means that then

we... exported products, provided gross domestic products, the development of the agricultural sector and other sectors without export to poland, germany, any countries of western europe, they helped us a lot at the time when aggression began, when sea corridors and ports in general were closed, they they could have helped us vitally, but today we see that they themselves are having problems with the fact that the prices of agricultural products have fallen in the world, in fact they were sleeping. fell 10% in the last two months, not because of ukraine, they fell because of big crops in brazil, big crops in canada, big crops in australia, big crops expected in argentina, so it's a market, it's supply and demand , if there are more offers, then the demand, that is , it affects the prices accordingly, that is, he says that i will buy, but at a lower price prices, and that's why all these problems that

polish people... hungarian farmers, any other farmers there who translate to ukraine, that there are many ukrainian products, this is only partially, only partially true, in the main term and 80% of this problem that the prices of agricultural products fell in the world, and therefore today it is impossible to say that the ukrainians are to blame, but we must understand that if we have such political problems, and not economic ones at the borders, then we must look for a compromise, if today ukraine itself will refuse to... export to those countries and say: "let's export twice as much as we exported before the war, but it will still be three times less than what we export now, and i believe that all of will be happy to sit down at the negotiating table and simply agree and we will remove this problem that we have today in the relationship with poland, with hungary, slovakia, the czech republic, any other countries that we do not need politically, because in many of these countries populist governments, and they want their..."

problems to be solved, including at the expense of ukrainians. we don't need it. we must conduct an honest economic policy, an honest export policy, understanding that year after year, step by step, we will increase exports to europe, and everything will be fine, when we become part of europe, the european community, we will have free borders, but we will to do all this, forgive me, is somehow natural, we cannot do it revolutionary. well, this is what confuses me, by the way, what if... we get closer to the european union and we have different restrictions, won't these restrictions remain when we are part of the eu? well, actually, i want to say this, there is a solution to this, if even they stay and tell us that for the next 10 or 20 or 30 years we will have some restrictions there, it is not the end of the world, because if ukraine becomes a european country, how the baltic countries, we will have, i have talked about this a lot in my previous speeches, have a better

sovereign rating, if we have... a better sovereign rating, we will attract long-term capital investment, and when the investment capital will come, it will invest in the processing of these agricultural products, which we can export to any country in the world, it is not necessary for us to export them to the european union, because pasta is consumed everywhere in the world, bakery products are consumed everywhere in the world, meat, which we can process all our agricultural products into proteins and send either chicken or... or pork, or any other meat products of any kind of animal husbandry to produce after processing for border, it does not mean that it will be a disaster. look today, brazil is the largest exporter of meat, canada is the second largest exporter of meat. well, why can't ukraine, producing agricultural products, be the third today.