six deputies from the majority, who were elected by more than 250, they simply do not go and vote, recently 170 vote, and that one is even less, and they cannot pass laws without us, without opposition votes, and sometimes our votes are not enough, so that we take part in meetings, but they simply do not come, this is a crisis of power, it is not that a parliamentary crisis, it is generally a crisis of power, since the parliament can be said to have a one- party majority, and it is, it is a one-party coalition , and they definitely have a crisis, and it turns into a general parliamentary thank you, mr. mykola, for the conversation, it was mykola knyazhytskyi, people's deputy of ukraine. friends, after a short break, we will return to the studio, to our studio already in the office, not in the shelter. greetings, my name is yuriy fizar, this is an espresso exclusive. today i will talk with my interlocutor about the urgent ukrainian-american issues. relations,

what to expect from washington, i mean the aid that is currently stuck in the house of representatives and many other things, so today the ambassador of the united states of america to ukraine, mrs. bridget brink. madam ambassador, i welcome you and thank you for joining me today. nice to be with you. so, you arrived in ukraine at the end of may 2022. how is the situation in our country different from the current one? the current situation is radically different. when i came to ukraine in may 2022, the streets were practically empty and there were roadblocks everywhere. when i was driving then, i saw a lot of destruction. now, despite two years of russia's brutal war against ukraine, i see incredible progress. 50% the occupied territory was recaptured by the brave defenders of ukraine. ukraine was able to. to export food through

the black sea ports, sending more than a thousand ships, that is, more than 33 million metric tons of grain and other cargoes, and during two very harsh, but incredible winters, ukrainians were able to save energy and electricity for the whole country. these are really great achievements, and despite russia's military efforts, we see that the economy is not only... "it is growing, it is talking about 5% in 2023 and projected growth in 2024. it is obvious that this is a difficult moment and a difficult situation for ukraine, but we undertake to be with you in the future. right now, i see the incredible resilience of every person in the country who is determined to win this fight with russia." thank you very much for that, and thank you to all

the american people for the help you are giving us. let's talk about that help. we are now very dependent on external funding, and unfortunately, the bill from the white house, which provides ukraine with about 60 billion dollars , is stuck in the house of representatives. it is known that the speaker of the house of representatives, mike johnson, is going to put this package to a vote. assistance after representatives return from the easter break, around april 9. what do you personally think about it, will they vote for it, and if so, will it have the innovations that speaker johnson is talking about. i am sure that the us congress will support an additional bill regarding ukraine. of course, it is the congress. to decide when that

will happen, but my confidence is based on the fact that apart from the president of the united states and all administration, ukraine has bipartisan support in congress. many of its representatives visited ukraine, including senator schumer. he was here in lviv with a delegation just a few weeks ago. such visits further reflect the support of the american people. we know well. that now in kona, the fight for freedom is being waged, so that russia and putin cannot repeat something similar in other places. we support ukraine in its struggle for its existence. what about innovations? as for innovations, it will be up to congress to decide. we prepared arguments based on the president's proposals. that's what we stand for, as jake sullivan said. a few days ago

, plan b did not exist in kyiv. there is no plan b, because many american politicians talk about plan b. they say, yes, we are talking about plan a because that is the master plan, but how? regarding plan b. there is no so we only have plan a, yes, and we support it. thank you very much. at the beginning of march, in an interview with cnn , you said that the united states of america had reached a decisive moment in its support for ukraine and that people in your country should redouble their efforts to help ukraine. did they listen to you on the capital hill? i will say that not yet, but i am sure that our congress. will reflect the will of the american people and the strategic interests of the united states, the essence of which is to help ukraine. i propose to talk about russia. only a few weeks ago, they held what the russians call presidential

elections. we in ukraine call it a farce. so putin reappointed himself again. but what about people in... in the united states of america think about what happened. we unequivocally believe that these elections are undemocratic, and i have nothing more to say about it. we do not recognize any elections on the sovereign territory of ukraine. let's talk about support from the western world. in february , french president emmanuel macron said that he did not rule out the possibility that once western troops will be on the territory of ukraine. i understand that most western leaders disagreed with him, but what about the united states of america? we understand that american troops in it won't happen to ukraine, but can we at least

hope to sign some kind of agreement with the usa like the ones we have already signed with great britain and france. yes, definitely. ok can you tell me what will be included in this deal? not yet, it's still being discussed, but it looks like we're close to that point. i cannot name specific terms, but i can say that there are active negotiations with representatives of your government about this. let's move on to the issue of corruption in ukraine. you once said that in order for western investment to come in ukraine, we need to have an independent judicial system, free resources. mass media and the absence of corruption, is there any progress in these areas? i will say that your president, who represents your people and your democracy, has set an ambitious goal to integrate into the eu and nato. a strong democracy is especially important on this path. its important components

are dynamic and free media, an active civil society, strong institutions, and a system. this is the vision of your president, who reflects the interests of your population and us we strongly support you in this. in this vein , we supported and continue to support all the steps that were taken to solve some of the problems that exist in ukraine, this is the fight against corruption, and raising the level of corporate governance. international standards and justice system reform. all this is very important for achieving our main goal. it's also critical for business, as we heard from special representative pena pritzker as part of president biden's initiative to accelerate your

economic recovery. having standards and the rule of law in place so that businesses can be confident that their investments will be protected under... that's what's critical . we hear this all the time, so it is extremely important to achieve this goal. as far as i understand, this corresponds to the aspirations of the people of ukraine. madam ambassador, and my last question for today. republican senator lynsey graham visited ukraine a few weeks ago. and he said that he changed his opinion about the expediency of holding elections, namely presidential elections. in ukraine now. he claims that elections can still take place. what is the official position of the american authorities on this matter. ukraine is a sovereign, democratic country, and only it can decide such issues. thank you very much, madam ambassador,

for your answers, and thank you for all the help we receive from the united states of america. it was an exclusive espresso with my interlocutor, ms. brigitte brinke, ambassador of the united states of america to ukraine. they talked about ukrainian-american relations, about the help we received, are receiving and will continue to receive and much more. my name is yuri fizer, see you soon. this is the verdyk program, my name is serhiy rudenko, once again i congratulate you all and wish you all good health, in the course of this program, i remind you, we are conducting a survey and we are asking you about the following: do you approve of the activities of the verkhovna rada of ukraine, yes, no, whatever please vote on youtube either yes or no if you watch us on tv please vote. go by phone numbers if you approve of the activities of the verkhovna rada of ukraine (0800-211-381), no 0800-211382, all calls

these numbers are free, vote, at the end of the program we will sum up the results of this vote. next, we have valentyn badrak, director of the army conversion and disarmament research center. mr. valentin, i congratulate you, thank you for joining our broadcast. mr. serhiy, i congratulate you and i am very glad for the invitation. first of all, mr. valentin, a fairly simple question, it would seem, but at the same time a difficult one: zelensky said that the russian federation is planning an offensive from may to june, or in may, june, and the prospects the deployment of the front, how likely it is now under the current conditions, do the russians have enough forces for this, and in which areas of the front is this possible? very interesting question and... my center, the army conversion and disarmament research center has already made a statement this morning regarding

this, and that this is part of another special operation, or rather, this special operation, it 's been going on for a long time, and it's actually about we are observing a peak, such a peak part, an ipson, yes, of an informational and psychological operation, which is aimed first of all, well, of course , against. country, but primarily against the west, why such a belief appeared, let's compare, let's not say detached from something, but let's say, well, so to speak, let's try to analyze, the first moment, as soon as during the negotiations with sergei shoigu, this, i will remind you, is the minister of the criminal putin regime. sébastien lecorneau, with the minister of defense of france, as soon as

the issue of the introduction of french troops began to be discussed, shuigu spoke about what would suit, well, the istanbul, istanbul, istanbul peace initiative, let's say that it is means that it's quite possible that the kremlin... is bluffing and playing this rather interesting game of raising rates, on the one hand, it's going, it's about increasing pressure, we remember that it was announced that there would be 300,000 at the beginning of june mobilized, one more time, it is interesting that the ministry of defense for... stated the russian ministry of defense stated that after the terrorist attack, which was terrible, which was, as we can see,

now we see that the results of the terrorist attack were very necessary for the putin regime and all this organized criminal criminal group criminal group, and it turns out that, according to the statement, it has increased dramatically. the number of people who want to sign a contract and go, go to the army, and this is one, one side of the issue, the other side of the issue, and there is no time and no opportunity in the putin regime to prepare the mobilization contingent that they expect to attract. let's remember that these are 150,000 recruits, and putin has already signed the draft, put his signature, and

now the recruits, and by the way, it is very important that there is no such clear understanding, whether the recruits will be included in these 300,000, but one way or another, even under the conditions of the involvement of educational centers in belarus, even under the conditions of the involvement of 16 training centers on the basis of higher educational institutions, which have been done since the 22nd year, in the kremlin there are none. chances to prepare a shock fist, well, at least until september, in fact, although we say that of course the offensive may well be, absolutely without problems for the putin authorities, it may take place before the july nato summit, and putin really needs to speed it up, so the game is on

speeding up, now the question is why the game goes on acceleration, very simple. extremely important negotiations are currently being conducted by china, and china, i want to draw special attention to the negotiations between xi jinping and mark rutte, this is the interim, but the prime minister of the dutch government, with whom they were very, well, normal, probably, because we don't know which there was a degree of negotiation, but there was a very strict statement, the statement was about that. that global cooperation is better than global confrontation, and it was even mentioned that the largest european company, which is a dutch company that prints equipment for the production of, shall we say , chips, 14 nanometer and cooler, yes,

cooler, and it went from china, together with... by the way, with two british companies that are very powerful in microelectronics, in addition, in addition, the eu applied sanctions against china, and for china it became a very, well, urgent question to support putin and return europe, the european union, return to economic cooperation, because the economic decline that is currently observed in principle is being observed in china, it provides all the reasons to say that as long as it exists, china will not be able to realize its ambitions, in particular regarding taiwan, why taiwan, let's remind you, taiwan is needed, because 90% of microelectronics, including chips, that is 14 nanometers and more

cool - this is taiwan, 90% of the world product and that is why it is extremely important for china to return it, and that is why china is holding a series of negotiations, with mark rut, let me remind you about the held, now it is the turn of olaf scholz, who is supposed to go to beijing in april at the end of april, and then zintpin himself is supposed to come to paris to macron . here what it's really about is that negotiations are actually very powerful. and very serious ones continue, and they continue, they are not that behind the back of ukraine, no, this is not how the question should be asked, the question is asked in such a way that china is playing russia as much as possible now and is trying as much as possible to solve its problems together with russian ones, promising, well large-scale cooperation, i am not talking about, well, very

shameful things, well, for example, france is conducting secret negotiations with rosatom about... the production of nuclear fuel, and at the peak of what macron is now, well, actually on himself takes over the leadership in europe and tries to displace, well not displace, get rid of too much influence of the united states and dreams that not american nuclear fuel, but french-russian fuel will be under... after the war, they are already thinking about what will happen after war, which means that we are negotiating, the so-called peace negotiations in quotation marks, of course, because for us these are deadly negotiations, deadly dangerous, because just give putin a breather, and in the 26th year, a maximum-

scale offensive strategic operation will be ready , will absorb ukraine and, well, probably a part of the countries of central and eastern europe, this is how the situation looks, so mr. valentin, look, but on the sidelines of this, a meeting of the ukraine-nato council was held these days, and jen stoltenberg, secretary general of the north atlantic alliance, said that nato allies need to do a lot more in order to support ukraine, he also mentioned this by the way. a possible offensive by the russians in may-june , let's hear what stoltenberg said. we see a constant military build-up in russia, we we see how they... shells and weapons from north korea and iran, a significant amount of weapons and shells. we see how russia was able to put its economy on a war footing. and

we see how moscow is willing to pay a very high price in terms of personnel and equipment for minimal gains on the battlefield in ukraine with little or no respect for human life. this is why the situation on the front line is so difficult, and this is exactly the reason. therefore, we must do more from nato allies. mr. valentine, when it comes the moment when the moment will come when the north atlantic alliance and our western allies will say: "listen, well, russia must be defeated, there is no need, as they say, there is no need to support ukraine so that it does not suffer defeat, that is, not to talk about that ukraine can or cannot be defeated, and that we must... destroy putin's russia, because it threatens not only ukraine, but the whole world. mr. serhiy, let's decipher stoltenberg's words. in fact, the nato secretary general

says absolutely in ten, yes? the only thing is behind it, yes, well, let's go in order, yes, in order, first, he says about a possible quick offensive, this quick offensive, which can really take place at the end of may, at the beginning of che. it depends on the results of china's negotiations with the french, with the germans, that's the situation, but maybe, but it won't be ready. i am absolutely convinced that the personnel and equipment will be completely inadequate, or rather, will not be fully prepared for a successful strategic offensive operation, but russia is bluffing, why is it bluffing, because... we we are not mentioning one nuance that stoltenberg is silent about, the politiko publication said about it yesterday, well today we read it,

it is about the internal ukrainian crisis, it is about putin's use of the political crisis in the united states, everything is clear about the united states, we will not comment here , because there they will delay as much as possible in order to limit opportunities and play along with russia. but i must say about the internal one, because what is happening around the authorities of ukraine today is very much being used by the enemy, and this is the case of artem shill and a case that requires clear answers from the head of the president's office and everything, the entire bank, regarding what was happening in ukrzaliznytsia at the time when the current... minister for strategic industries and industry oleksandr kamyshyn was in charge of ukrzaliznytsia, that's what we need to know , and further trust

in zelenskyi will depend on this, unfortunately, i have to state that in expert circles, i will not be for everyone here, in expert circles, now zelenskyi's figure, unfortunately, has equaled that of petro poroshenko, let me remind you that peter... poroshenko, in the imagination of people who are able to think, is a person who failed to fulfill the mission of the president, completely failed and exchanged it for something else, and today, well, we know, here there is some center of analysis of social studies, i will not even quote , they write that the rating of zelensky has decreased by 20%, it is possible that this is also an internal operation, because... when there is such an incomprehensible name and some new name of an expert organization that no one has heard of in the last 10 years, and suddenly it reveals something , it could be anything, yeah

there will be manipulations, there can be any, but panetin, corruption is not going anywhere and under zelensky, no matter how you say it, there, obviously, this is it, the numbers also indicate that the level of trust in zelensky is also falling, we must put a full stop in our conversation, thank you... badrak for the conversation, it was valentyn badrak, director of the center for army, conversion and disarmament research. friends, we work live on the tv channel, as well as on our youtube and facebook platforms. for those who are currently watching us live on youtube and facebook please subscribe to our platforms and take part in our survey. today we ask you the following: do you approve of the activities of the verkhovna rada of ukraine? yes no. if you watch us on youtube, then the yes or no button. write your comment under this video. if you watch us on tv, pick up your smartphone or phone and vote if you approve of the activities of the verkhovna rada of ukraine, 0800 211 381, not 0800 211. this is 382, ​​all calls to these

numbers are free, vote, at the end program, we will sum up the results of this vote. next, we have viktor shlinchak, chairman of the board of the institute of world politics. mr. viktor, i congratulate you, thank you for being with us today. thanks to serhiy for the invitation. good evening. today, mr. viktor, there is a lot of foreign policy news, i hope that we will go through all of them, unfortunately, the air anxiety prevented us a little. it's time to start our conversation, look, today there was a meeting of the ukraine-nato council, and jen stoltenberg said that now there are two development scenarios russian-ukrainian war, the first, according to him , is that nato allies will be able to mobilize enough support, ukraine will be able to recapture more territories. the second scenario, we will not be able to do this, there is a real risk that russia will seize more territories, we will be in an even more dangerous situation, the only way to achieve a just

and... peace for ukraine is the presence of strong ukrainian armed forces, how do you assess the activity and the actions of the north atlantic alliance, are they following what scenario now? well, i have a feeling that mr. stoltenberg says goodbye to his post and tries to do something in the last months or last weeks of his tenure as the head of nato. in order to write himself down in history as a person who achieved some fundamental solutions, unfortunately, with his nato leadership , nothing global for ukraine was able to be done, this can already be stated, and even the fact that he speaks of two scenarios, this means , that nato has been sitting at such a crossroads until now, and less... thinking about

how to achieve victory for ukraine, and more he is thinking about how to prevent further escalation, that is exactly what he was talking about today. dmytro kuleba, who participated in the meeting of the ukraine-nato council, said that the partners provided ukraine with an insufficient air defense system, in particular the patriots, given the scale of the russian war, this interview was carried out by the agency. and according to kuleba, this is only a matter of political will, the provision of these air defense systems is meant, let's listen to what kuleba said. if you look at the total number of patriots that the countries in the group have at their disposal ramstein, for example, or let's call them friends and partners of ukraine. i see more than 100. so the question is, with all due

respect, is this... such a big problem, is it impossible to provide ukraine with the minimum request that it has, five to seven patriots, depending on how our friends will be generous. well, later there was information that germany started searching for these air defense systems for ukraine. do you think our western partners will find enough air defenses, well at least at least to cover the cities millionaires well. i have, you know, today is probably such a day, after i read all these information messages, a day of such unjustified, perhaps anger, because it seems that there was no war for two years, you remember, in the first months of the war we wrote posters, everywhere we wrote letters to all international organizations, wherever possible we knocked on doors in order to ask

our western partners to close the sky. do you remember this big promotion, so it has passed, two years have passed, and now they want somewhere, how to say in russian, go through the cracks, look under the table to see if there are any patriots left somewhere that they don't need now, well, it looks very strange and looks, i'm sorry, even too cynical, because these systems should have long ago to be in ukraine, it's about political will, it's about the fact that... that a lot of countries, unfortunately, and this is especially true, now we have to state the united states of america, did not show enough political will to do everything to , to help ukraine fully. yes, we are grateful for the help that was provided and is provided, but this help, unfortunately, is not enough, it was talked about a lot.