greetings, this is svoboda live, my name is vlasta. we start from the avdiiv direction, where the russian army does not stop its offensive attempts. our colleague, radio liberty correspondent maryan kushnir visited the stabilization point in the east of the country. watch and listen to the stories of the soldiers who are holding the defense in the avdiyiv direction, then the sensitive footage, and they can amaze you.

well, the work here is set up clearly, everything works like a swiss watch, everyone knows their workplace, who should do what, and the team is friendly, everyone has become efficient and busy everyone does their own thing, it's more about teamwork, in which you also feel some kind of belonging and a share of your efforts added there, and the feeling is special. there he was seriously wounded there, and we managed to stabilize him, and then in the future we have feedback there, there after a day we will find out that he is still alive, and well, these are feelings that even to some extent are there for a couple days you are taken away from it, a great sadness for home, for family, this is what inspires you, of course, this feeling is probably indescribable, it is not possible somehow...

not the family, not the grandchildren, they don't see me, they don't let me, it's better, they climb, yes, we, we are now very involved in the moshe, there is nothing, what are we fighting, with the trench method, well this these are not statements, in the 15th year we had more drones than theirs, now they have one of ours, and theirs is eight.

the russian army can launch an offensive and maintain its pace on no more than one operational direction. this is stated in the current report of the american institute for the study of war. analysts of the institute assume that such direction may become precisely the district of the city of avdiyivka, which recently came under the control of the russian military. evidence that the main efforts of the russian army can be concentrated here. analysts call it an unsuccessful attack by russian forces that took place on march 30. near tonenko, which is next to avdiivka. the village of tonenke, according to independent sources and analysts, is also captured, although the general staff did not officially announce this. so, as stated in the summary, in this area ukrainian troops managed to repel the attack of an entire mechanized battalion of russian troops, with reference to servicemen of the armed forces of ukraine. the authors of the report write that the thin russian army sent 36 tanks and 12 infantry fighting vehicles into battle. it was the largest tank assault in more than two years of full-scale war, he writes. how the 25th

brigade destroyed that record-breaking russian tank column is not entirely clear from the visual evidence of the consequences of the battle, but it is difficult to guess ... the standard defense tactic of the ukrainian forces is to detect the russian assault group with the help of drones and destroy it with accurate artillery fire . artillery scatters russian equipment, where organized in a cell, they become easy targets for fpv drones that attack individual soldiers and vehicles. geolocation images published the day after the attack, which was march 31, show a large amount of destruction and damage. of russian armored vehicles and tanks along the road northwest of thinenko, the institute's review states, and russia did not resort to similar attacks at the beginning of the offensive on avdiyivka, analysts say. and the scale of the attack also indicates the fact that the russian military leadership considers this direction a priority, and this is where

the future summer offensive can be concentrated, the authors of the summary assume. i will remind you that volodymyr zelenskyi said in an interview with cbs last week that the new offensive. russia may start in may-june this year, in fact in a month or two. yuriy butusov, editor-in-chief of the internet publication "cenzournet", military correspondent, joins our broadcast, yuriy, good day. good day. we are talking to you as if to a person who is very communicates a lot with the military, you go to the front lines, collect information, testimonies. what do they say, how probable is a big summer offensive for them, the one that volodymyr zelenskyi talked about in june. may, no one on the front is thinking that far, now there are constantly active combat operations, each direction has its own strike areas where it is constantly hot, in particular yes, hot and on, so everyone here lives for this day,

which must be won from the enemy, that is, no one is talking about any plans for may-june on the front line, i understand you correctly, people at the front absolutely do not have time, everyone who works here is applied as intensively as possible, and there is no time to think about the future there. yuriy, maybe you had to talk to the military about what kind of tank attack it was, which the media also write about, the institute of war took into account the largest tank attack in the avdiiv region during the full-scale war, do you know anything about it? strictly speaking, this is the largest tank attack. since the end of the storming of the battles for the city of avdiivka, during the battle for avdiyivka, there were attacks where the enemy also used a larger number of armored vehicles, much larger, but really now , after the russians suffered very heavy

losses, they attacked for a long time in very small groups, and they also have a large shortage of equipment, very often they attack without equipment, even on buggies. indicates, is it correct to believe that this tank attack indicates that a large-scale offensive will take place in this direction? and no, it actually shows that the russian command is trying at any cost

throw our troops away from and large, everything they have accumulated, all the reserves, tanks of people. in order to seize at least another piece of ukrainian land, well, to report on the advance, of course, such, i would say so, such attacks, such zergrash, it is most likely about, well, that's all, accompanied by very large losses of russians, and in fact , well , such an exchange for them is a very expensive exchange, for us, for us. troops, our soldiers of the 25th airborne assault brigade managed to inflict very heavy losses on this russian shock group, we just showed a video from the stabilization point and a military man there complained that the russian side has many times more drones, he says ours is one, theirs, they

have eight of them hanging around, and what do the military say about the lack of resources, how acute it is and critical, because, for example, volodymyr zelenskyi in his interviews... frankly says that without american help, ukraine is forced to go back step by step. it is necessary to separate, it is necessary to separate things, of course. we are very dependent on the help of our western allies, certainly without ammunition, weapons, and the effectiveness of hostilities will of course be significantly lower, but we must also note the other side, that ukraine can and should produce a significant number of weapons, primarily drones, and for this we have all the resources, production base, raw materials, accessories there is just no proper organization of this process,

so, unfortunately, until now, i recently wrote about it that 95% of the drones used at the front by our troops are volunteer drones, they are drones that are bought by the military themselves, it is not the state issues them, the vast majority of fv maviks, all of this is not supplied to the army by the state, so it is... a really big problem, because in our press conferences, the leadership of the country talks about a million drones, everyone is reassured, nothing has actually been done, and i am glad that after my publication there today the president for the tenth time, maybe it was the 12th time i forgot, gathered all the leadership of the security forces and again held a meeting on how to organize the release of the second, today there was an official announcement, this is very good, but already... the state still does not do this

does , the ammunition for the drones is also not supplied in the required quantity and is not supplied, for example, the initiation fee, and it does not depend on the western allies, it must be done by the ukrainian leadership , the state must do it, it cannot be done only by volunteers fighting russian armored vehicles like we now we see near avdiivka. are there any, are there any objective reasons why they don't do it? well, to be honest, it's even difficult for me to say what they can be objective, you can imagine, we have a paradox, we constantly have different managers every week talking about attention to of drone production, the deputy minister of strategic industry stated at the beginning of march that it was produced in the first two months of the year. 200,000 drones, the statements are all correct, but drones are not being delivered to the front

in the quantity that is announced, and not nearly as much, so obviously there is some inconsistency in this, and it needs to be put in order, because there is complete chaos and disorganization here in this matter, and these are talkative promises, behind which there are no deeds, and this worries me no less. and soldiers at the front, than the absence or insufficient presence there of western aid, yuriy heard, one more question, and today also independent osin analysts, state analysts, in particular , reported that russian troops have already entered the high city of yar, do you know anything about this, this is how the russians are advancing, they are, in principle, high, russians and were on the outskirts of chasova yara, they were in principle in the suburbs of chasova yara, there it’s just...

it’s impossible to stop there, it’s impossible to stop, the problem is a week, but it continues, and the enemy is the main one, well, the first problem that catches the eye, of course , is the absence of defensive lines of defense, it's like near avdiivka, now our troops are here in an open field, and there under the ravine of time, nothing is equipped. nothing has been done for a long time, so those positions that could allow the infantry to survive under fire corrected by heavy artillery , airstrikes, drops and strikes by enemy drones, which are no less than ours, of course there are no such positions, so the exchange is like this manpower, very fierce battles are going on, the enemy is also suffering very heavy losses, but... unfortunately, it is not possible to stop him there, and here they are they continue, this is this creeping offensive

, it continues, and i have one last question, you talked about the lack of a defense line near chasovoy yar and in the avdiiv direction, just a few days ago the head of the kharkiv region demonstrated defense lines in the kharkiv region, well, in this way, supposedly ukraine is preparing for an offensive if it takes place in the direction of kharkiv, meanwhile the mayor of the city reports that the city... there is no power, while he sees no reason for evacuation, the military with whom you spoke or they allow some kind of serious attack on kharkiv, eh... now there is no front for the enemy to attack kharkiv, the main efforts of the russian army are concentrated in donbas, and russia is concentrating its main means of destruction here, there is also constantly massive bombing and everything, everything, everything , and here the main forces of the enemy’s manpower and equipment , the main reserves, and if the russians were to concentrate

some sort of strike group near the border, then we would not notice it... we would not be able to concentrate it , the forces they have now are there, they they can wage battles on the border, they can carry out some local actions, but certainly not to threaten, to threaten kharkiv, these russian forces that are there now are incapable. yuriy, thank you very much for being able to join, yuriy butusov, editor-in-chief of online publications, war correspondent, we talked about the situation at the front, thank you very much. well, as a result of shelling in kharkiv , almost the entire energy infrastructure was destroyed, as i mentioned earlier, the mayor of the city, ihor terikhov, said about this , at the same time he claims that the reasons for there is no population evacuation. let me remind you that the heating season ended early in the city, as the lights are turned off for four hours or more. how kharkiv lives today,

watch an exclusive report by radio liberty. boiled pasta and boiled sausage, bread and wheelbarrow. we have such a specific feature of our neighborhood, people have electric stoves in their apartments, and not everyone has the opportunity to cook, some have purchased a gas stove, some have not, and those who do not have the opportunity to cook at home come here to get hot food,

it's unpleasant when the light... sit, charge gadgets, work on laptops, on the internet, there is a medical corner, in our point of ignorance there are places where you can measure blood pressure, for the first time there were a lot of people, well, somewhere around 400, 450 people for a day, for the first days, then. when they started to slowly turn on the lights, at least for a few hours, the number of people decreased, because our requests were mainly to charge gadgets or pick dill, but here they turned it off yesterday, probably for 6.5 hours, somewhere like that, i have 8 hours

working day, of them, well, i don't even work from home, all the time i'm so caught up that it's during working hours. they gave us tea, we drank it, there was such a thing with communication, because it was very , well, scary, the transport rarely runs, if it is a rush hour, then they are full, especially at

the beginning of the lockdown, there were a lot of buses, when the metro was not working, and now the metro is working ... it works, now it’s a little better, i ride buses if possible, if not possible, i take a taxi, sometimes it’s difficult, especially on weekends, because there are long delays, well, in in principle, it is possible if you adapt, if you know all these schedules, well, he walks, well , he walks, someone left, so he will go back now, well, how is everything on electricity , it’s fine, thanks, the old year broke, it doesn’t matter, there is a reference point, i i have already planted marigolds, from here to the end

, and that's all, it's also with our hands, we plant those who live here ourselves, we don't expect anything from anyone, this is our life, and i also watched a movie this morning, but now i do what i need to, i have free fitness. the season has begun in the office of the president of ukraine personnel rotations, as volodymyr zelenskyy himself says, the office is becoming more functional, they say, this is optimization, but, as political observers state, the head of the office andriy yarmak is strengthening his influence and position, jewelry, getting rid of his deputies who got to him. inherited from his predecessor andrii bohdan. so, last week , volodymyr zelenskyy fired yermak's deputies andrii smirnov and oleksiy dniprov. to be fair, the latter worked in

the office since the time of petro poroshenko. he also lost the position of first assistant to the president serhii shefir, an old friend of zelensky, his business partner. my task, in addition to the main work, is to ensure that volodymyr remains a human being in politics - said shefir in 2019, when he moved from the 95th quarter to... the government quarter. in a comment to babel, shefir said that, despite his dismissal, he remains in the president's team, but did not specify what he would do. and zelensky also dismissed a number of advisers, the most famous among them being serhiy trofimov, a producer of the quarter in the past, who in the 19th year became the deputy head of the office, managed regional politics. at the end of the 20th, he was fired and appointed as a freelance adviser to zelenskyi. and trofimov was remembered for the fact that he actively defended the uoc of the moscow patriarchate, and yes... he also cooperated with the superior of the uoc propolit onufriy. despite such large-scale personnel changes, the people most criticized by society, including anti-corruption organizations, for

corruption, respectively, kept their positions, i mean oleg tatarov and rostislav shurma. there is such an opinion, voiced by some political scientists, that now both shurma and tatarov will only strengthen his position. is there any reason to think so, and who else could be affected by optimization in the office of the president? this is what we are talking about next. volodymyr fasenko, a political scientist, joins our broadcast. volodymyr, good evening. good evening. simple first question. is andrii yarmak strengthening his influence after these resignations? and he had it big enough anyway. is there no place to go? i think that no significant changes have taken place. what must be understood, because many commentators and journalists have such, i would say, fair paranoia. in everything. they they see yermak's hand, even where the decision comes from zelensky, they see yermak's hand, they see yermak's strengthening in everything, i

understand, many people think that it is yermak who runs the country, in fact, people are knowledgeable, who know the real situation, well, read it, i i advise you to read there, not everyone likes it, simon shuster is treated differently there, yes, he mentions yermak much less than our commentators, yes. what must be understood is that the current personnel changes, in particular in the office of the president, are a reaction to the current period of war, most of the decisions, i would say, are just a statement of fact, that is, they had no influence and no, well, look, no, well, not at all, i can’t say that no one there had any influence, two deputies, well , there was purely hardware work at the prodnipro he is exactly here is what is important, he himself follows the reports of informed sources , regarding smirnov, i will tell you, i myself am surprised that he lasted so long, because he was

bohdan's appointee, he was also a representative of andriy bohdan's team, he is the only one, apparently, exactly from bohdan's team, because, oh well jovkva has been working for a long time, jovkva also worked during poroshenko's time, and during yushchenko's time, the situation is different, here smirnov was bohdan's appointee, but he held out, i think... because zelensky himself was probably against it, well, against his dismissal, but now the important nuance is, who is coming instead? iryna mudra, the deputy minister of justice before the appointment, she headed the working group on russian assets abroad, and now i think that her status is being strengthened, the priority will be the same, she will deal with exactly that directly, preferably, it is necessary to activate now. work, so that these assets eventually start working for ukraine, this is an example of the logic that exists now. schaefer left on his own, largely before... the war, and

his contacts with the president, according to various reports, were much less than there were in the 19th or 20th years, he remained an assistant to the president, but more formally, and that's it it is important, the war had a very strong impact, you talk about tatarov and shurma, well , right away, a number of anti-corruption activists began to rhetorically ask why they didn't release shurma and tatarov, well , they really had questions from, so they had questions from. law enforcement agencies and the case was about that and about and about that, in principle, the logical question is not to look at the cases, but here let's be careful, yes, there was a case about the tatar at one time even before the war, i don't evaluate here, here there is, here the situation is not simple, this case was not related, what is important, this case was not related to his work in the office of the president, there is no case related to his work in the office of the president, as far as i know , but the case was related to his work.

construction company, there were problems , questions, i won't comment here, let the lawyers give an assessment, it's not just that i don't have enough material and it's not my fag, but it's a joke, here 's an important point, it's a conflict of interests, in fact, in my opinion it is important, this is not corruption in the classic form, but when you go to the public service, you have to close all your businesses, at one time such issues were out of the question under poroshenko, there was a lot of criticism that... not all assets, let's say so, let's say so that he did not get rid of all assets, but some the assets are formally, let's say, he left them, but they can work for him, something similar, here and shurme, some assets actually remained under his control, so i think that yes, we must be principled, if there are any assets, yes, here it is necessary to legally and correctly close all these issues so that this conflict

of interest does not exist, but this is not... classic corruption, when you know, people profit from a public position, well, you know that it is very difficult to prove corruption, but a conflict of interest - i'm just clarifying, now the answer to the question about tatarov, about the shurma, well , the situation is more complicated here, i just don't know, well , many people say that the shurma are very close to the president, but this circle includes the five or six people that the president mentioned, well, probably the main one adviser on economic policy, two people actually influence economic policy now, they are yuliya sviridenko, the first vice-premier and rostyslav shurma, although, yes, by the way, oleg khustenko was dismissed, he was an adviser on economic policy, this is a show dismissal, i don't know if i went myself or there were some there were other questions, but i think it was a statement of the fact that now he does not have

the same influence as these two people, there is a third person. dismissals and shurma and tatarov are even more right, those who say that after these they are strengthening their influence, for example, if before that tatarov managed only... the law enforcement direction, now he will also supervise the judicial one, no, he is the same supervised by the judicial branch, and so supervised, here in this case, look, look, there is an important nuance here, there is a purely formal division, but in yanukovych’s time there were three of the deputy head of the presidential administration, who were professional lawyers, responsible for different areas of legal work, there had never been such a thing, as many as three, now.

there were two, well, i’m not talking about some others there who deal with other issues, formally yes tatarov dealt with purely law enforcement issues, he was the curator of law enforcement agencies, but well, as they say , in reality, since he is a former lawyer and law enforcement officer, he knows a lot about issues works of our judicial system, knows how these people work, how to influence them, therefore informally, i think, i exerted influence, because... it was always weak in the presidential team, i will tell you this, in poroshenko's time, there granovsky decided the issue, by the way, at that time he was the best friend of gennady kernes, the mayor of kharkiv, but he decided question, and everyone knew how, but zelenskyi did not have such a person for a long time, because they actually came without a team, smirnov was busy, but rather...