how is ukraine building fortifications and why did they start strengthening the defense line only now? at what stage is the construction and whether the ukrainian forces are ready to resist the russian offensive? 15 minutes on the bbc air live from london, in the dzaferov studio. after the offensive, which did not live up to expectations, the ukrainian army switched to strategic defense, namely the construction of large-scale defensive lines. the authorities have allocated uah 20 billion for this since the beginning of the year, but the ministry of defense emphasizes that this does not cover the general need for a full execution of construction works. president volodymyr zelenskyi said that ukraine is building fortifications. in three lanes with a length of 200 km, and

by the way, the day before zelenskyi visited the construction of fortifications in sumy oblast. this border region is constantly shelled by russian troops. but in general , significant problems were found with the construction of the fortification. after publicizing information about their deplorable condition, the process accelerated significantly. bbc correspondent oleg chernysh found out what defense lines are now and how they are being built. ukraine. started at a fast pace build your own defense line, work is underway right now, we see military and civilian contractors erecting defense lines in several directions, primarily trenches, trenches, which are reinforced with wood and concrete, these are firing points, these are special positions for placing armored vehicles and artillery , the main length of which is about 200 km, it is clear that all this is being built at the same time, the most dangerous ones are closed first. areas on the eastern front

- this is kharkiv region near kupyansk, kurakhovo, kramatorsk, novamykhaivka, look, this the main hot areas, on which fortifications are now being erected at an urgent pace, and in general they are built in a classic style, three-level, the first part is the so-called forecourt, it is a mined area, on which there are also the so-called dragon's teeth, concrete anti-tank. trenches, the next line are trenches with special dugouts, with firing points reinforced with concrete and wood, then the second line, which is connected by special trenches to the first line, which is actually a reserve, it should restrain the advance of the enemy who broke through the front line, and the third line of defense, this is actually the farthest, approximately 20-25 km from the front line, on it behind... most often

additional defensive structures are arranged, artillery is placed, which is supposed to deter the enemy's offensive, that is, in fact, such a classic three-armed system ukraine is currently building, i repeat, in an emergency mode on almost the entire length of the front, as well as on the northern corridor. we will talk more about this topic with oleksandr kovalenko, a military observer of the information resistance project. i congratulate you , oleksandr, here... why ukraine started building defense lines only now for the third year of a full-scale invasion? well, it cannot be said that we did not build defense lines at all, they were erected, for example, at the northern bridgehead on the border with belarus, as well as in some other locations, but mainly in the combat zone, the combat zone, the combat line in 2020.

we observed that the front line was changing very quickly, and despite the fact that after a rapid offensive by the russian occupiers, during a full-scale invasion, and no less rapid actions on already counteroffensive operations by the defense forces of ukraine began, and first the northern bridgehead was liberated, then kharkiv oblast, the right-bank kherson oblast were liberated, so the front line... it was constant, it was, well, let's say, constantly unstable , it was changing in our favor at that time, and we did not have any stationary line near which it would be possible to build this axis of this three -tiered classical line of defense, but in 2023, after the counteroffensive in the zaporizhzhia region, the summer counteroffensive and the transition to of defense, we got... this line more or less

stationary, around which the construction of the defense line began. thank you, oleksandr, please stay in touch with us. many viewers and even the ukrainian authorities admit that the russian troops can go on a bigger offensive, i suggest you listen to what president zelensky said about this in an interview with the american tv channel cbs. how would you describe the fighting at the front right now? today, the east of our country, where it was and is the most dangerous of all directions in ukraine. the situation in the east has been stabilized as far as it is perhaps, and looking at the fact that there is a shortage of appropriate weapons and ammunition, from this fact, and looking at the fact that we are starting to prepare the brigades for the relevant actions that are important to us,

we have stabilized the situation, it is better than two or three months ago, but it is important that we all... we share with our partners and say that russia will prepare counter-offensive actions, and it may be the end of may, it may be the month of june, and before that we must not only prepare, not only stabilize, because partners sometimes , they are very happy that we stabilized, they they hold their fists for us, as they say, and say, okay, you have the power, we say, no, we need... now help, now to train the appropriate brigades that will have to fight for our land, especially in the moment of counteroffensive actions that russia wants to start. that is, you expect a russian counteroffensive in may-june. well, we just heard president

zelensky talking about forecasts that a russian offensive is possible in may, the end of may. or june, do you think there will be enough time to prepare the defensive line? all depends not only on the line of defense, the line of defense is the location itself in one direction or another, along which the offensive of the russian occupiers can be carried out, but a lot depends on the tools available to the troops defending this line and occupying this line of defense, if there is no appropriate equipment, for example, the distribution of ammunition for artillery, with the necessary support, if there are no artillery systems in the necessary quantity, if there are no armored combat vehicles, tanks, aviation support, means of air defense and other entire nomenclature, then no line of defense, it will not

withstand the pressure from the enemy, so the line of defense is one element that we are currently focusing on, that we are currently focusing on. but no less important is how this line of defense will be unconditionally defended, but what is the difference between the lines of defense of ukraine that are currently being built and the lines of defense of the russians that they built earlier in the occupied ukrainian territories, and these were hypertrophied, let's say , according to their classic the main base a soviet-type line of defense, i call it... the surovykin line, although this is incorrect, because it is a classic soviet line of defense, also three-level, by the way, where some elements were hypertrophiedly used, for example, lane security is the first line, the first frontier, there

mining was hypertrophied, almost five mines of different types, anti-tank, anti-personnel per 1 km, that is, it is too much, as a general rule. and besides everything else, the number of trenches, pits, pits, i.e. fortifications, was exaggerated there also, as for the line of defense of the defense forces of ukraine, we use not only the territories on which we deploy them, because the russians have the zaporizhia region, they have an area of ​​work, they are pushing back from this, there was nowhere for them to retreat , that's why they used the relief that they had and that landscape. we try to use the landscape and the relay according to their advantages and disadvantages, both in defense and in attack against the opponent. and what exactly is the difficulty of building such fortifications for the ukrainian military

now? the fact is that construction, defense lines, there are many different points that make it difficult, there are not enough. equipment, technical components, there is not enough manpower, there is not enough material, there is not even enough funding, there are different points, but the most important problem is that... that these defense lines are in the zone of damage by russian, for example, artillery, it can be, or some zones are even in the zone of damage of barrel artillery, some locations are already jet artillery or aviation, so during the robots that are there are being conducted, the russians are trying to constantly strike both aviation and artillery, among other things, they often use drones, depending, again, which one on... it could be either an fpv drone used to strike those who

work above the line of defense, or use, for example, offensive ammunition of the lancet type. thank you, thank you, oleksandr kovalenko, was in touch with us. thank you. both the ministry of defense and other state departments are working on the construction of defense lines. however, there is criticism among military, who give examples of when local authorities do not cooperate with the army. so, my colleague oleh chernysh investigated how cooperation is going. what does it look like in practice? actually, the front edge of this line of defense is built by the military, the units that are responsible for this section of the front, actually they use the materials and means they have at hand, most often they are shovels for digging trenches, they also arrange mini-barricades. the farther from the front, the more actively civilian contractors are involved. for example, we know that the first ukraavtodor, which provides its equipment and

specialists, helps build the second line of defense. the last third line of defense is usually built by the local government, which also helps the military, but it invests most in the construction of this last third line of defense. however, as the military themselves tell us, it is precisely with the local authorities that certain misunderstandings or conflict situations often occur when this technique is used. they give the military without, let's say , without assistance, without special desire, saying that they say, why give you equipment if it will be destroyed or damaged anyway during the digging of these trenches, the preparation of these defensive lines, actually such a situation that somewhat slows down the construction of fortifications, but at the moment the ministry of defense says that there is an intensive work on the construction of defensive lines and it will... continue until the very end of these fortification works. and the pbc found out that

recently, after a wave of criticism, the ministry of defense made changes in the management of the processes of building defense buildings kyrylo tymoshenko, a non-public curator from the authorities, coordinated this process. since the beginning of march, he has been a full-time adviser to the minister of defense. he was a fairly well-known public figure in ukraine for a long time in the 19th year. deputy head of the office of the president of ukraine, where he was in particular responsible for such a program as great construction. let me remind you that in 20-21 years, this program was aimed at building an extensive road system in ukraine, a significant financial resource was allocated to it, and actually, this was one of the reasons for criticism, as mr. tymoshenko, who was the unofficial curator of this program, as well as president zelensky, said, why... allocate resources for roads, if it is necessary to build defensive lines from the enemy, although it should be

noted that officially kyrylo tymoshenko is not the curator of the process of building defensive lines, i sent a request to the ministry of defense, where they said that he deals only with media and communication policy and is in no way related to fortification, but i will repeat myself again, our sources say that this is not quite the case, and kyrylo tymoshenko revealed... undisguised interest in the topic of building large-scale defense lines along the entire corridor of ukraine. and you can read more about the preparation of defensive lines on our website bbc.ua. article by oleg chernysh. great defense construction, how ukraine urgently builds its fortifications and who manages them. and that's all for today, more history on our website, on our pages in social networks. and we will be on the air again tomorrow at 9 p.m. keep yourselves.

the president of ukraine volodymyr zelenskyy is not the first to talk about the potential. offensive of the russian federation in may or june of this year, but it is not the first time that he says that we are not ready for this, calling on our western partners to provide help right now, to supply us with weapons right now so that we can prepare for a worthy repulsion of russian aggression, which we are sure, it will definitely be, but nevertheless, now

there is a rather disturbing fog of war, today, this thursday, the project says velikiy lviv, we are going to... really analyze all the moments, all the details and try to predict what awaits us next months are not easy, but we must know what to prepare for. it is also important to evaluate what we can count on. congratulations to everyone who will join us on the espresso tv channel. those who stay with us in the youtube broadcast, on the youtube channel velikiy lviv speaks, we encourage you to be active, write comments, we will make them mandatory during television advertising. read it, we will be able to answer them. we present our guests, who will discuss, have a conversation, and share their thoughts with us today live on air. taras stetskiv is with us, people deputy of ukraine, five convocations. we welcome you. adrian mihalchy, i have a lot of your chess regalia in your description, but i want to say that

you are an expert in geopolitics, first of all for our viewers, and i think, today, they will appreciate yours. knowledge in this direction, yes, ukrainian chess player, grandmaster, legend of ukrainian and world chess, good evening. oleksandr yavchanka, also with us, commander of the first separate battalion of vovka damvinci. serhii tsehotskyi, an officer of the 59th yakov handziuk motorized infantry brigade. also with us senior combat medic in the assault special unit of the armed forces of ukraine. we welcome you. i congratulate you. mykola golomsha, the first deputy of the voluntary formation of the territorial community of kyiv patriot, the first deputy of the general prosecutor of 2003-10 years and 14-19 years, good evening, glory to ukraine, gentlemen, we will also have skype guests, they will join us during the broadcast, let's talk with a representative of the defense forces, pro-recruiting, about mobilization, important topics, there will also be military personnel from combat positions, and finally, the international

the topic, international politics, well, this will surely be such a cross-cutting line in our... air, so you can see now on the screen who will join us from among our guests also, mr. yamchanka, the first question for you, well, we will reflect and to respond to president zelenskyi's latest statement that it is obvious that the russians are preparing a major offensive, this is the first part of the question of what kind of offensive it could be, because it was about almost the entire front line from this interview with president zelenskyi, and the second part, we not ready yet. how not ready the fact is that nothing has changed since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. our enemy has set two goals: the first is demilitarization, and the second is denazification. i would stop at the first one, because they didn't come up with anything new. von

clausewitz considered the main task of the war to deprive. the opponent's ability to resist in order to impose his will on him. what is the will of the russians in relation to ukraine, i think we know, they want us to disappear from the political map of the world, and for them to be the masters here, what happens when the russians hosts on some part of ukrainian land, we saw in buch, in virpen, and unfortunately, in many occupied areas, convinced at the time. the occupied territories, where we de-occupied the territories, we saw that the russians were leaving behind, unfortunately, we still have a very unpleasant thing to see when we de-occupy the rest of the territories, i have no doubt about it, but to answer your question, nothing has changed in their plans, they will

try to deprive us of the ability to act. resistance as much as they can, our task - to resist them as long as it takes until they are finished and we can do it, we have shown in these two years that we can not just resist, we can win, but it is possible if many factors are fulfilled, one of the key factors - this is consolidation within society, that 's why... now we are actively engaged in recruiting, that's why i personally, as a unit commander, travel and communicate with those people, not necessarily with potential ones. soldiers, not necessarily with those who will potentially be shoulder to shoulder with me to fight, i talk to everyone who is willing to talk about what lies ahead, we

have years of hard fighting ahead of us, maybe decades, we have to prepare for it, of course i would be very happy if we won sooner, but i don't i allow another option than our victory, and we must all realize that... there can be no draw here, you ask about this year, but the question is that the war will not be limited to this year, the russians will try to destroy us, that's all , how much strength they will have for this, and we have the only one option to get out of this situation, to win? serhii tsakhochskyi, i have a question for you, what awaits us in the coming months, what ukrainians should know, what they should understand, hearing these statements , including those of president volodymyr zelenskyi, because that's how it is... as if it's nothing new that he says, but the fact that the president emphasizes this, he repeats again that their offensive may be in may, june, that we lack resources, well, it is probably important, i will say

this, you hear me, yes, uh, we are waiting mobilization, in any case, awaits us mobilization, and society should be ready for it, and it is better when it happens, as per... example, here is the third storm brigade of the da vinci battalion, which today is part of our brigade, we are very glad, why, that is why we started this work to do, and since january the first results have already been active, there are a lot of applicants, and i would like to say that the most interesting thing in this topic is that those applicants who themselves respond to our request, submit their applications, most of them, 65%, ask for in combat units, not in the rear somewhere and so further, in combat, i.e. in the infantry, in the streamers, in the pilots of the same drones and so on, so in

my opinion, in my opinion, in our society, these are the 30 years that were before this, before this war, you know, it was such, let's say , like baby steps to independence, it was on independence from the same soviet russia and there was no russia itself, that is, their money, their influence in the security structures there, the ministry of defense and so on, these gangster circles, which all worked in ukraine according to the principle of operation of their organized crime groups, and they communicated closely with each other, that's why now we need to avoid quarreling in the studios about all this, let's put it this way. not to quarrel somewhere in life and so on, maximum consolidation, then we will deal with everyone who, say, stole all these years, you know, there,

deceived society, covered up, excuse me, embroidered clothes and so on, so, aim for victory , for our victory, that there is no other, either our victory, or there will be no such word as independent ukraine, mrs. iryna klymenova, you... where is the word, i can name, tell where your unit is located? preferably no, preferably, no, then i will ask a more general question, where do you think the main goals of the russian offensive on our land can be directed? i'm more than confident that the russian forces will continue what they unsuccessfully tried to do at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, which is to say, i'm ... virtually certain from what we know, even from open sources, that they 'll try to take kharkiv again, and they somewhere not so long ago, they realized that kharkiv was not waiting for them with

flowers, they tried, they believed that this was it kharkiv will come, i'm so excited, finally russia, but kharkiv is fighting back, and kharkiv is fighting back under fire every day, so their only option, which they are doing very, very unfortunately, successfully now, is to demolish kharkiv face down... to destroy it as a great city capable, as my colleague rightly said, of resistance, and that is now happening. is there a chance in kyiv to feel that the russian troops will approach? is there a chance in other cities? they did not abandon any of their ideas, to take away more. kupinsk, as it was under fire, yes it remains, and the entire kharkiv region, the same in other cities of the donetsk region, and, that is, it is happening. everywhere the same with the dnipro, the same with the zaporizhia region, and what is happening in kherson, where they , in principle, get much less long-range

artillery than. in other cities, the same, they, as i say, as it has been emphasized more than once, will try to repeat their plan, our miscalculation that they will make mistakes, but we must take into account that, unfortunately, especially from us, russia very quickly learns and directs all their state potential, all their economic potential to outwit us, that's how they teach us to fly, like air reconnaissance or strike forces. using less of their meat, using, on the contrary , more of their meat in infantry assaults, and they are trying to surpass what we started, and so far in some directions they seem to have it, and as soon as we have the opportunity technologically, technologically to surpass them, and spit on our enemy, namely russia, then we will be able to talk about predominance and about stabilizing the situation on

front, because... now, now we are steadily defending, and they have been advancing since february 22, and are advancing, despite the fact that here and there they had to leave their positions, mr. holom, the next question for you is unfortunately, you know, we all wanted it, but it seems that we are all used to this idea , we all wanted the war to end in two or three weeks, two or three months, a year at the most, but that's what i said. it is obvious that we need to prepare for a long-term confrontation, perhaps even decades of this confrontation, how, in your opinion, what are the recipes in such a situation when, when we, well, it seems to me, we are already honest with the ukrainian society , almost all of us are talking about the fact that it will definitely not end quickly, the resources in the russian federation will definitely not run out quickly, and even the diligent predecessor of syrskyi, so in office

commander-in-chief, said that, well, we were wrong... when we hoped that we would kill several tens of thousands of russians, and that would stop them, they would count the losses, understand that there is nothing to lose these people for, now we understand that well, obviously russia can have hundreds of thousands calmly afford, and maybe even millions of dead for the sake of achieving such an already obviously crazy goal, but the goal with which their leadership lives, which for them is such, you know, well, in essence... with the city of existence now, the struggle with ukraine in individuals with a collective event, how do they personify ukraine? in order to create an appropriate system of defense and offensive, it is obviously necessary to understand the enemy, and the enemy does not know how to fight well, how well they know how to speak well and misinform the world, scare people,

spread... fakes, and psos, and one of the components of global hybrid terrorism that russia uses today is scaremongering, it is the preparation of society for the fact that they will allegedly attack very seriously, i am not saying that they will not attack, i agree with my colleagues, completely, if you want peace , prepare for war in peacetime, during military operations, first of all, you obviously need to... pay attention to innovations, iryna said correctly, you need to prepare your weapons, armaments for innovations, because you see , how our partners change their minds, they first agree that we have the right to strike at military points and on the territory of russia, and then they change their point of view, in order for us not to be dependent, we must orient ourselves very quickly, pay attention,

russia works, from morning to night on the 24th: 7, they work for the war, the entire resource, i would like to point out here that we need to take some organizational and legal measures, that is, we need urgent military justice, which will prevent theft from the troops, which will prevent theft from the ministry of defense , so that we do not react to the consequences, we need to eliminate the causes and conditions. therefore , the presence of military justice, i.e. military police, military prosecutor's office and court, will be the guarantee that corruption will fall, as far as our analysis is concerned, well, we must also understand that...