while ukraine is waiting for military aid from the united states, the russians are trying to expand their offensive on the front. how great is the threat of a breakthrough, how far can the russian army go. find out in today's edition of the bbc. i am olga palomaryuk. russia is rapidly advancing in donbas, trying to seize the strategic initiative and break through the front line. this was announced the other day by the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of ukraine oleksandr syrskyi. after capture.

avdiivki two months ago, the russians tried in every possible way to use the window of opportunity and attacked along the entire front line. additional reserves were brought in and guided aerial bombs were actively used. therefore, they managed to capture several settlements in the donetsk region, and this is clearly visible on the map. here is the progress of russian troops over the last month. the russians managed to break through the defenses and capture the village of ocheretine. before the war , only 3,000 people lived there, and... the loss of the ucheretin can create serious problems for the armed forces of ukraine. and why is this settlement so important? firstly, due to the location of reeds on heights and control of the city allows you to keep under control a large area around. there is also a road that leads directly to pokrovsk through ocheretyn, and it is only 30 km to get there. pokrovsk is the head of ukrainian military intelligence. kyrylo budanov determined the direction

of the main attack of the russian troops in the spring and summer of this year. so how will such dynamics affect the course of hostilities? let's talk about it with bbc correspondent oleg chernysh. my friend, i congratulate you. this is how the breakthrough of the russians in ocheretino will affect the defense of the armed forces of ukraine in general in donbas? congratulations. indeed, this breakthrough was quite unexpected and quite... unpleasant for the ukrainian military, the fact is, as you correctly noted, after the withdrawal from avdiyivka, the armed forces of ukraine were able to build a new line of defense, approximately 5-7 km to the west, it was a line defense from the villages of ocheretyna, bedyshchi, semenivka, toneyki, they were in such a convenient position, there was a water barrier, such a small river and ponds, that is, it was in principle. it is quite convenient to defend yourself, and actually

a breakthrough in one of these settlements, ocheredeni, in particular, endangered this entire line of defense, and in fact , sirskyi himself, as the head, admitted that the ukrainian armed forces were forced to withdraw in order not to be encircled by neighboring villages with a row of villages, such as berdychi and semenivka, however, despite all the alarmingness of this situation, it should be noted that according to the latest... data, the ukrainian military, in principle, manages to stabilize the situation on this part of the front with extremely difficult efforts, but it still succeeds, that is, the russians could not continue to move rapidly in turn, they were stopped and in principle slowed down a little, but the situation remains very unstable and very dynamic. yes, but if we talk about the breakthrough, how about the russian army, at the expense of which it succeeded over the last month, as we have seen. is it just on the map to advance like this?

well, there are several answers to this question, the main one is, of course, a large shortage of artillery ammunition in the armed forces of ukraine, in fact, if you cannot restrain the artillery of the advancing troops, then any number of drones, unfortunately, no will help another reason is the exhaustion of the ukrainian military, it must be understood that they endured heavy battles for avdiivka. they endured a difficult, extremely unpleasant withdrawal from this city, and then they were forced without rest to receive new lines, which were again stormed by more or less, but fresh forces of the russians, who led the reserves, that is, these two main reasons are the shortage of ammunition and the exhaustion of the ukrainian military were the main ones, and one can also add such an unfortunately common reason as russia's dominance in the air, namely very...

active use of guided aerial bombs in this direction, here it can be mentioned that, for example, the same ocheretine was actually destroyed by aerial bombs before the russians could capture it. small town. oleg, well, you spoke abroad, i would like to talk to you about one more area, i can't help but ask you about the times of yar, but the analysts of the american institute for the study of war say that the russians have the opportunity to succeed there, so explain what this city is about important? here, if there is no secret, time will be the highest point on the western side donetsk region, i.e. this city from which... actually opens access, a view of the large agglomeration of the cities of kramatorsk, sloviansk, druzhkivka, kostiantynivka, in fact this is the main logistics hub of the ukrainian troops in donbas, i.e. whoever owns the time egg, he can to keep these

large cities under control. uh, and the russians are now very persistently trying to storm yai times, bypass it from the flanks, but so far they are not succeeding, there is such information. it was already voiced by both the president and head siysky, that they they will try to take time until may 9, i don’t know, i doubt that they will succeed, because, i repeat, this is a height that, in principle, is quite difficult to capture, but i remind you again about the problem with ammunition and the exhaustion of the ukrainian troops, as well as the extremely large air superiority of the russians, let's see which of these factors will be decisive in this battle during the war, and by that time, hopefully, american help can come. colleague, thank you, oleg chernysh, a bbc correspondent was on our air, we talked about the situation at the front. at the same time, analysts assume that if military aid arrives in ukraine in the near future,

it will be possible to stop the russian offensive. but when will the weapons arrive? the day before, volodymyr zelenskyi said that military aid from the usa has already started arriving, but the process needs to be sped up, he said this during a meeting with nato secretary general yest stoltenberg, at the same time he admitted that a difficult situation at the front has arisen because ukraine was forced to save ammunition. ukraine for months was inferior to the possibilities of introduction of fire and was forced to save ammunition. this means that fewer russian missiles and drones were shot down, and russia was able to advance on the front. however, ukraine can still win. new support is on the way. yes, the other day the russians visited during the capture of several more villages in the donetsk region, and the fact that the reason for the advance of the front line to the west is the lack of ammunition, the help of the west was late, nato secretary general admitted in kyiv. but now that help is

coming, will it be possible to stop the russians and where? about this is a western expert's assessment per minute, firstly, how have these delays already affected the front line? when you are picked up, speak. it is hard to believe, but civilians lived in reeds, even when the front line was very close. in the basements of the destroyed houses of this village, ukrainian rescuers were looking for people until the last in order to take them to a safe place. well, as far as the events, hostilities, and offensive actions of the russian federation are concerned, the situation is extremely difficult in the settlements located on the front line. very, very limited. this war is not going on as it was wanted in ukraine. a long-awaited counteroffensive last year failed to produce results, and since then russia has been moving forward, slowly but steadily. most of them are in

the area of ​​the city of avdiyivka. the ukrainian armed forces have been holding the city since hostilities broke out in 2014 , but the russians eventually captured it earlier this year. are moving forward, but not only the cities on the front line are suffering, kharkiv is also under the merciless attack of drone missiles. last week , the russians struck a tv tower there, many blaming a shortage of ammunition, especially air defense missiles. this is why us aid is so important. thank you mr. president, thank you congress, thank you america. american aid to ukraine in the amount of more than 60 billion dollars was delayed for eight months due to political differences. great britain also announced the allocation of another half a billion pounds. other european countries are also gradually becoming more active. it is reported that aid worth a billion dollars is already ready to be sent. we are talking about amounts very similar to

those that ukraine received in the second half of 2022 and during the past year. therefore, if this will be followed by the same amount of supplies, munitions, weapons, etc., so we... can see a stabilization at the front. in fact, the impact will be very significant. the russians will be effectively deprived of the opportunity to move forward. we assume that the us and the uk have this aid in stock right now, which means they can start shipping at any time, meaning these items will arrive within days or possibly weeks. but experts welcome not only the amount of aid. in the draft law adopted by the chamber representatives of the united states, there are two provisions that are slightly different from what the senate passed. the first is the requirement to send atakams, and that's brilliant, that's great. atakams are long-range missiles that the white house has so far refused to send. the second thing this bill requires

is a plan to win, and here again the criticism is that the biden administration only provided enough weapons to keep ukraine from losing, but not enough to win, so i think that's good, it will force the biden administration to detail their plans . it is important to remember that ukraine faces problems other than ammunition. the army lacks new soldiers, or... the morale is falling because of the lag on the battlefield, so it is, let's go back to the reeds, in the breaks between shelling, there you could hear fellow birds, now the village has been captured by the russians. it is important to note that while ukraine's western allies are supplying huge amounts of ammunition, no one can send the silver bullets that would guarantee victory. but how western experts assess the situation at the front, my colleagues asked a former bbc defense commentator about it. on now military commentator jonathan marcus. in my opinion, this year the ukrainian

army should take a kind of deterrence position, so this year should be a year of deterrence, strengthening and recovery. at the same time, the ukrainian army needs to develop its offensive capabilities, and for this they need a number of things: constant western training and serious decisions about mobilization, because ukraine has done a pretty bad job of mobilizing citizens for military service. power. and almost did not rely on young citizens, who on mine view should be involved in the army. the country relies on older and already very, very tired people. the ukrainians also have serious problems with command and control. this conflict is very strange, because although it is a long front line, the fighting is quite localized. as a general rule, the sides deploy relatively small units, in part because of the high visibility on the battlefield, because the drones can immediately see everything that... moves, and then artillery or other drones can hit them. however , i believe both sides had issues with

organization of a large offensive, larger groups of units, but this is more problematic for the ukrainians. i think that this is due to the fact that the ukrainians do not have a sufficient level of training, staff officers and commanders of the entire infrastructure and apparatus necessary for the introduction of this kind of war. it should also be added, and this is very important from the point of view of the formation of an offensive... ukraine in the future. the party that trains and advises ukraine must understand what it is doing. for example, the preparation for last year's summer offensive of ukraine, which, frankly speaking, it was not successful, it did not correspond to the love for which ukrainians are fighting. western armies learn a lot of lessons from fighting in ukraine, but there are many things ukrainians could teach western armies, not the other way around. so i believe that there should be a kind of unification of both sides. understanding how to train, equip and organize forces to fight this

relatively new kind of war, which is, of course, to some extent an artillery war and in some ways reminiscent of the first world war, but also in other ways, it is something very, very new, especially given the extreme visibility of what is happening on the battlefield, and therefore the extreme vulnerability of forces when they try to gain some localized advantage on the offensive. the plan in addition, i do not think that the russians will be able to sufficiently take advantage of the so-called window of opportunity. it will slowly close as soon as the ammunition reaches the front line in ukraine. because the ukrainians will be able to repel the russians or stabilize their positions. so that window of opportunity for the russians will close, and then we'll be in a bit of a dead end, or something like that until the end of this year, until one of the sides manages to build up its offensive potential. well, that's all for today, we're back on the air tomorrow at 9pm,

good luck and take care. greetings, friends, this is the verdyk program, the second part. in today's issue, we will tell you about that. mr. nobody, the european parliament follows the council of europe. recognized the illegitimacy of putin as the president of russia. what does the decision of european parliamentarians mean? unreasonable blocking. chat-bots of ukrainian intelligence, security services and min-digits in telegram did not work for almost half a day. how to streamline the work of a popular platform? social tax.

the media community calls on the authorities to stop the pressure on the independent broadcaster. is there a need for a balance of political opinion during war? that's all we'll talk about in the next 45 minutes. we remind you that we work not only live on the tv channel, but also on our youtube and facebook platforms, for those who are currently watching us live there, please subscribe to our pages on these platforms and participate in our survey, on youtube we conduct a survey and on tv, which sounds like this today, or? you support the activities of a public broadcaster independent of the authorities. yes, no, everything is quite simple in youtube, if you have any wishes or ideas, or your own opinion, please write in the comments. if you are sitting on tv, watch us on tv in front of your tv, pick up

your smartphone and vote. if yes then 0800 211 381 no 0800. 211 382 all calls to these numbers are free please vote at the end program, we will sum up the results of this vote, and we have people's deputies of ukraine in touch, today we have as a guest vadym galaychuk, a people's deputy of ukraine from the servant of the people, the first deputy chairman of the parliamentary committee on the integration of ukraine with the european union. mr. vadim, i congratulate you, thank you for being with us today. good evening, thank you for the invitation. victoria syumar, people's deputy of ukraine from european solidarity, head of the parliamentary committee on anti-corruption policy. mrs. victoria, i congratulate you, thank you for joining to our broadcast. the chairman of the subcommittee, only the chairman of the committee. radzina. i am the chairman of the subcommittee. fine. and well, i will hope

that you will become the head of the committee. in advance. and yaroslav yurchyshyn, popular. mp of ukraine from the voice faction, chairman of the verkhovna rada committee on freedom of speech. mr. yaroslav, i congratulate you, thank you for being with us today. good evening. ladies and gentlemen, since we are asking our tv viewers whether they support the activities of a public broadcaster independent of the government, i will ask you and me about it, but in the format flash poll, because we have a whole topic ahead of us, about the public broadcaster and what... is happening right now around the public broadcaster, so let's start with ms. victoria, do you support the activity regardless of the power of the public broadcaster. you know, maybe you didn't quite get it right at the beginning of the program, because i actually chaired a committee last term, which was the committee on information policy and freedom of speech, and

frankly, i was the author of the law that created the ukraine is an independent public language. and that's why, well, i know the nuances of what i 'm putting into it, i believe that public broadcasting in ukraine not only has great potential, it's a critically important tool for media independence, for a normal pluralistic information space and for an educated society. i think that in the process of the program we will be able to reveal it, obviously, any threats to its existence. these are threats to the existence of the entire democratic ukraine. thank you, ms. victoria. mr. vadim, what do you think, as in your vision, regarding the activities of the independent from authorities of the public broadcaster, do you support this activity, or do you have any questions, reservations, maybe it is related to this, in particular, that some of your fellow faction members

are in favor of... uh, reformatting public or making something wrong with him, or is this the position of an individual deputy, and it does not concern the vision of the general vision of the servant of the people of information policy? the independence of the public broadcaster is also a part of our obligations, which we took within the framework of european integration, generally speaking, to the council of europe, and it is enough successfully. we fulfill them, the situation today, primarily related, of course, to russian aggression, requires certain changes in the approaches used in information. politics, but this in no way, in any way, does not mean that the policy regarding whether it should be

independent or not has changed in principle, and this is how the question of public broadcaster sounded, of course, public broadcaster must be independent. thank you, mr. vadim, and mr. yaroslav, although this is probably a rhetorical question for you, and you, as the head of the specialized committee, obviously. you will say so, but still, i will say so, it is critical for the existence of freedom of speech, therefore for democracy in ukraine, for the existence of ukraine itself. yes, but mr. yaroslav, mr. vadim, and mr. and mrs. victoria, there is a people's deputy of ukraine marijana bezugla, no matter who says that she writes what she thinks and says that we should comment, we must not forget that she is the deputy head. of the parliamentary committee on national security, defense and intelligence, remains the deputy chairman of the parliamentary committee and remains a member of the presidential faction of the servant of the people,

although she left the party, that she writes about public broadcasting, and how she does it, a number of posts appeared in which she criticized the work of the public broadcaster and public broadcasting, accusing it of being ineffective. the state of budget funds and the creation of schemes for evaders. the question arises whether public broadcasting is worth uah 2 billion per year, what is its role as a state broadcaster, why do we have a separate public broadcaster, a separate telethon, what is their mission and who watches it, bezugla wrote. in the following added to the post: "i believe that one of the six state broadcasters should be made, and the funds should be redirected to the creation of information and cyber forces of ukraine." later, bezugla announced about... a public scheme, according to which men are arranged half-term for the sake of armor, in particular, she accused the head of the supervisory board of the national nstu, svitlana ostapa,

that she arranged her son in this way. mariana bezvugla wrote a lot. we remember the people's deputy who did her best to bring down the public the opinion that the industrious has. to resign and did it quite methodically, well, in principle, such a political torpedo that tries to make some kind of weather or, let's say, a preview of what could be, can this be considered a preview of the government before what will arise questions about the future of public broadcasting and the fact that it is necessary to reformat and redirect the money of six broadcasters to one separate one, or to create... to host one broadcaster and it will be a single telethon only on a single channel at the expense of state funds, i understand that that's exactly what it's all about

that is to say, mr. yaroslav, each of the aspects of ms. maryana's statements deserves to be evaluated, let's say, by specialized committees, and a number of them, in principle, fall under a... at least an evaluation by our judicial system of spreading disinformation and actual slander, because the son of ms. svetlana has nothing to do with the public broadcaster, there is no scheme, in fact, it is very clear. that of those people who are reserved, and the vast majority have been working for years and actually work for the formation of information security, a number of fantasies are in

principle not amenable to assessment, but what actually already done by the public broadcaster and at what level these words will be evaluated, is an appeal to the regulatory committee to assess how ethical, ethical is the spread of , well... outright lies, such as a person who is actually from an official facebook account, a person who represents actual political structures, including addressed appeals to the committee on freedom of speech and the committee on humanitarian and information policy, the committee on humanitarian and information policy with the participation and invitation, and the european integration committee of our committee will is holding... a meeting already this thursday, to consider the situation, but not maryana's words, but more information that carries a more significant

threat, this is about... alleged attempts, in fact, according to ms. svitlana, such a conversation took place at the meeting representatives of the channels that are included in the single marathon, to throw out the public from the evening slots, i.e. from primetime, and thereby reduce the actual presence of the public, and here may be a far-reaching plan, and reduce funding, and so, accordingly, the question of independence, the question of fulfilling our conditions . ah, european integration, i really hope that all these informational torpedoes will not continue, but you and i will find out soon enough, because the next meeting of the editors is planned, according to svitlana postapa, again on wednesday, and we know about the constructive role olha gresimyuk of the national council for radio broadcasting and television, let's say, spoke. not only from

the position of preventing redistribution, which of course will further reduce trust in the single marathon, but also actively now looking for mechanisms to explain that such steps should not to be carried out, now it's all at the level of, let's say, meetings, negotiations, chats and the like, but this threat is much more than... the actual informational messages from maryana, although of course they also deserve and definitely receive an assessment. the aforementioned svitlana astapa, mentioned by you , commented on the espresso broadcast precisely about the initiative to remove social media from the evening slot of the telethon. according to her, such a decision may be caused by the authorities' desire to influence the editorial policy or by a commercial component. let's listen to what svitlana ostapa said.

maybe there are some stop lists for other channels or something else, as the opposition says, they are often forwarded and installed, they agree on specific speakers in the marathon, we don’t have that, and maybe this worries the authorities, that they can’t interfere in our editorial policy. and that is why our slot is not more politically balanced, we have representatives of all parliamentary and opposition political forces. and right-wing powerful ones, that is, it's not no longer, it's not just one month, it's our constant practice. mr. vadim, it is clear that what is what happens around the public, how it all happens, is monitored by our western partners, and what happened before got into the news, now it became known about what

got into the report of the state department. of the united states of america, just as they are talking about the problems that we have with access to channels, to a single telethon of different political forces and different political positions, we are all witnesses of the fact that for the third year now three tv channels have been deprived of air in t2, espresso the fifth and straight, ot otsi ot otsi here is an attempt to redistribute something, something... to reformat the public, to make what is public, what is behind it, well, it's not just that there's a corner, she just writes from day to day, she's a small specialist in that, public and information broadcasting, or we should really expect some decisions or initiatives regarding social issues, and how this will affect our contacts with western

partners, from whom... we are constantly waiting for help, in the absence of mrs. maryana, i think it would be wrong to discuss what exactly she meant mrs. maryana, she of course, i should probably explain, clarify, and i can only say that no such discussions were held in the faction of the servants of the people party, and these issues were not discussed, so... that's why here it is, let's go, let's go proceed from the fact that, well, each deputy has his own point of view, has the right to express it, which concerns the situation in general, well, again, we have an extremely difficult situation in the information space, and it is obvious the need to regulate the information space and information policy, as far as they are effective those methods...