they were released by ukrainian troops, the ministry of defense claims that for now all russian attacks in the vovchan direction have been repelled and that reserve units have been sent to strengthen the defense on this part of the front, at the same time several pro-war russian telegram channels claim a breakthrough by the russian military and capture them of some populated ukrainian places. radio liberty cannot quickly verify this information from independent sources. russian troops are trying... to enter and establish themselves in the ranks settlements along the border, in particular strelecha, krasne, pylna borysivka, analysts of the deep state project note this. the resources that russia has used in this direction will not be enough for a deep advance, but it is not known how many more forces russia will be ready to use here in the future, deep state analysts state. well, just the day before, zaeconomist reported that the russian military was collecting manpower and equipment to go to... kharkiv.

given the fact that about 50 thousand fresh russian servicemen are gathering across the border about 40 km away, kharkiv commanders know they could be the target of russia's next offensive. one of the scenarios is the isolation of the city by cutting the main road to kyiv. another option would be to move about 10 km closer , putting the eastern outskirts of the city in the artillery range and creating a buffer. to protect belgorod, a russian city under attack by ukrainian drones. i will also remind you that last week the deputy chief of ukrainian intelligence, vadim skibitskyi said that russia is preparing for an offensive around the kharkiv and sumy regions, how the offensive in the vovchansk region, which began today, can end, how far russian troops can go into the kharkiv region, we will talk about this in just a minute, but now listen to what here in april. we were told, our

colleagues, radio liberty correspondents were told by ukrainian military personnel in the kharkiv direction, come on, come on, we are waiting for the command, yes, yes, come on. we shoot at the artillery often, and accordingly yes, it means a lot, they said that they have a decrease in the number of shells, it is not felt, to be honest, to say that we are being shot at less, no, the intensity for you also means the same, yes, not to say that it has changed , unfortunately, what did you do before the service, you had a coffee shop, it is no longer there, it is buried somewhere. no, no, no, there is simply

no one to do it, they sold the business, that ’s all, less, i understand your question, yes, everywhere now it sounds like a little more shells would be needed, well, not a little, i would like a lot more shells, so, because, well, everything in waves, we are at the beginning, so you better listen. at the beginning of the war, we shot a lot, and there were old stocks, but they ran out very quickly and i don’t know how much shooting there was, but there were already very few shells, but then there was the kharkiv counteroffensive, and again i thank the muscovites, a huge landlis, and again very active work began, but with the appearance of the 155th hummingbird, it also worked very powerfully, very actively, well, but of course a little...

the supply decreases, accordingly, the work is a little less active, and the whole thing becomes less for you, no, of course, work it doesn't get any less, that is there are fewer means, you can stop the column with one fp, but what to do with it next, it will be more likely to dismantle the artillery after it anyway, because sending such a number of drones, well, it is unrealistic, there are not so many of them. they said that the target was engaged, well, that is, it caught fire, well, then it will be there or until the reconnaissance and they will inform us about the hit and what kind of target it was, well, they, that is, they already know, while it was a moment we had 24 hours, we did not specify, everyone will say that it is better to work, time is running out. and we know what we are aiming for

we do it in order to be here less later, that is, to destroy as much of the enemy as possible in order to return home as soon as possible. because what's the point of just sitting here waiting, waiting for what? i think that such a question is more rhetorical, well , the latest news about the kharkiv region, in particular , the publication ukrainska pravda, with reference to interlocutors in military circles , reports that in the kharkiv region, where the russian occupying forces have moved to active actions, to three border... battles , in particular in the area of ​​krasne, continue active shooting battles, and in this area, as ukrainian pravda writes, the defense forces are inflicting fire damage on the enemy, this is a quote, and also, i will repeat once again that the head of the kharkiv region oleg synegubov

stated today that allegedly all offensive attacks of the russian army in the north of kharkiv oblast, kharkiv oblast has been recaptured, we will talk about it later, what may end today. attack, i will only remind you that against the background of the news about the attack on the kharkiv region, russia is also intensifying attacks on kharkiv itself, in particular, during last night, three private houses were destroyed by an s-400 missile, they were left with a fire, you can now see these shots, in more than two dozen houses in the kyiv district of the city, severe destruction, two people were injured, these are the shots that we now have we show, our colleagues filmed in kharkiv today, the nsdc claims that russia does not have... the resources to attack kharkiv, in principle, most of the military observers we spoke with agree with this assessment that it is unlikely that russia will forces to capture the city or approach it close, but it is already obvious that russia will destroy kharkiv as much as it can, almost all of the critical

energy infrastructure has already been destroyed, both private and state-owned, as well as private and state, the mayor of the city igor terekhov states this, and at the same time he actually reassures, they say everything is under... control, which means under control, what kharkiv hopes for and whether the city is preparing for evacuation, we will talk about this soon, but first , look at the consequences of the current attack on the city, for the first time, there on the first day , there they beat us with splinters, yesterday i only saw a bird in the cave, at night it is no longer there. not much good, now my heart, the night did not save you, you can say that yes, i have a sewer hatch, a push, yes, as you think, normal, strong, i have in my hands

debris from a s400 missile, this very missile, today the enemy with territory of the belgorod region, a missile attack was carried out on... a district of the city of kharkiv around 3 o'clock in the morning, it hit a residential area, as a result of this missile attack, three private houses were completely destroyed house, in addition to 12 private houses that were damaged. natalia zubar, head of the board of the maidan monitoring information center, has already joined our broadcast. natalia, good evening. good evening. natalya, how did you perceive today's news about the intensification of the offensive in the kharkiv region, in principle, about the intensification of the offensive, they said that it could happen in the middle of may, but did you expect that today it would be in the direction of vovchan, no, well, today, well firstly, when this could happen today,

yesterday, the day after tomorrow, well , it was impossible to specifically predict this, i was expecting some actions, which many experts warned about, for example, oleksandr kovalenko, aka the evil odesit, about the fact that there will be attempts, he wrote and spoke many times about the fact that there will be attempts to break through, to do something, ah, so provocations or at the border, and it was clear, absolutely, well, this is happening now, as far as i understand, our army was preparing for this, huh, and what are you planning to do, well, i i ask you, including the resident of kharkiv, whether you are planning leave the city in the background? of course, i did not leave from the very beginning, nothing like this is happening now, whatever happened before, but please tell us for our audience, including people from all over ukraine and abroad, in what conditions are you and kharkiv in particular have lived the last couple of months, well, i'm one of the same people as before,

the only change we have is as a result of serious damage to the energy-generating infrastructure. unplanned electricity, that is, when there is no scheduled power outage in a certain area, then there is a lot noise generators, it has a very strong effect on the nerves, and well, when there is no light, well, i was somehow ready for this, because we had the first blackout as far back as september 22, and the fact that there is a lot of panic, information , special psychological operations, this is definitely the case, was and will continue. as long as russia exists, i believe that those people who consciously decided

to stay in kharkiv, like me, should simply accept this fact and adjust their life plans taking into account such situations. natalya, i ask you to stay in touch, yuriy butusov, editor-in-chief of the internet publication "cenzournet", war correspondent yuriy, good evening, i congratulate you, joins our broadcast. i understand that what started today, you also wrote a lot about it, what started today in the direction of kharkiv is already the same announced russian offensive, yes, it is exactly him, but look, what about you today, in particular the analysts of deep state reported, and not only them, that russian troops are trying to enter and gain a foothold in settlements along border, strelecha, krasne, pylna, borysivka, later a number of media, and you also reported that these villages, if i understood correctly, would be lost. vova says that there are no territorial losses in kharkiv region, do you or your sources know,

you work a lot on the front line, what is actually happening there and are the villages captured? of course, the enemy captured six settlements along the border today. what are these settlements? are these the ones i listed? yes, these are four villages in the direction of streleche, krasne. borisovka and more one thing, i will tell you for sure right now, yes, both the patrol and two settlements on the border in the vovchanchan direction have been captured, all these points are practically the entire border, so it was as convenient as possible for the enemy to attack them, inflict damage and enter, but is it possible ... from your point of view, is it possible to break through directly to vovchansk, i do not

think that it is possible to talk about any kind of breakthrough there now, because the nature of the enemy's actions is not the actions of any large forces, there are no armored columns there, these are the actions of small groups of infantry, by the forces of several battalions, and the enemy tries first of all to find weak points in our... their formations, to stretch the front as much as possible, conduct reconnaissance, inflict fire damage in the first place, that is, this offensive, as they said, i wrote about it, it is an offensive, it is an offensive with limited goals, now the enemy's main goal is to create a buffer zone, to gain a foothold, and then possibly use it as a springboard for a further offensive, in order to disperse our troops. and realize our superiority in numbers in those directions where we do not have a dense

defense, but look, we can listen now, because just today journalists asked questions to volodymyr zelensky zelensky about the offensive in the kharkiv region, and he confirmed that the offensive really happened, let's listen to how he assessed it, and then continue. russia began a new wave of counteroffensive actions in this direction. ukraine met them there. by our troops, brigades and artillery, it is important that they can increase and raise more forces in this direction, this is a fact, but our military, the military command, knew about this and calculated their forces in order to meet the enemy with fire, now a fierce battle is going on in this direction. artillery fire from what i know on the 7th, on the 7th in the morning,

somewhere on the 7th, 7th, 8th in the morning, and we met them with fire, and i believe that at that time the enemy was stopped by artillery fire, but in fact volodymyr zelenskyi, well, okay, he talks about this morning, he says that the ukrainian side stopped the russians. offensive, but if it was possible to capture several settlements, then it did not stop, or how should this be understood? well, it is definitely necessary to understand that the enemy realized his advantage. on the enemy's side , the terrain works, since all the settlements, such as the shooters, are in principle on the very border, and it is convenient for the enemy to enter there from the dominant heights, that is, in general, the ledge, as we see, where four villages were captured, is such a ledge, which goes into the territory

of russia, is covered from two flanks, so the enemy... it was convenient to conduct reconnaissance there, we just have to honestly admit that the enemy in this direction along the border has advantage in numbers, in means of destruction, in aviation, in means of reconnaissance, and the enemy used his advantage in order to improve his tactical position and strike at us, so it was extremely difficult to defend these positions, indeed there are objective difficulties of tactical character from the side, the terrain makes it difficult, so the enemy used the opportunities he had. yuri, look, the day before the publication of the economist wrote about possible scenarios, scenarios of the development of events around kharkiv and in the kharkiv region, and they in particular, two different scenarios were given, one of them was even later confirmed by reuters that the first goal of the russian side would be

to create such a certain buffer zone in the direction of kharkiv and prevent attacks. belgorod, and the second scenario described by the economist is to cut the main road, cutting the main road to kyiv. i don't know how realistic this scenario is, but how would you rate both of these scenarios and which one is possible which one is possible russian army implements? now the scenario of the buffer zone is being implemented, in principle a lot was said about it, it is obvious from the outside. the forces the enemy has concentrated there are quite limited, and this is obvious from the point of view of what happened, in principle, the russian federation itself, the leaders themselves have repeatedly stated that they are going to create such a buffer zone along the border, so these are obvious actions, well, the enemy is doing it, in relation to

crossing the highway to kyiv, this is already such a distant and completely unrelated story, actually the enemy. and in february 22nd failed to complete this task, and then they had large forces in this direction, and ukraine was not completely ready, and the enemy just prepared, they did not do it, so i think that it is absolutely necessary to discuss it now, it is not tied to reality, and there is no point in talking about it, but what they will do with the buffer zone, i think that this is how they will try to... expand this buffer zone and in, well, in the kharkiv region at least, or am i just saying once i want to clarify whether i understood correctly, in vovchansk now there are no battles, there are battles near vovchansk, there are battles and two settlements, which on the very border, in the direction of vovchansk, the enemy also managed to capture today, how do you assess

the quality of defense fortifications in kharkiv region, because i will remind you that at the beginning of the year the government reported. .. that allocated uah 20 billion for fortifications, of course, not all of them went to kharkiv region, but it seems that about four, about four said that they went specifically to kharkiv region, because of the organization of engineering works, in principle, we have in all directions serious problems, regarding how exactly these works should be carried out, regarding what has been done in kharkiv oblast, i do not think that it is somehow different there for the better , the better... side, but in this case, when i i am talking about problems with the organization of defense there in the border zone, it is not the case that we could build some kind of powerful defense line under the very border with russia, at such a short distance, especially in the lowlands, of course it makes no sense to build some powerful fortifications, where the enemy is we would like that did not provide the opportunity and opportunity, it was possible

to carry out mine-mining there, it is possible to... make positions in order to carry out convenient ambush actions against the russian infantry, against sabotage groups, it could be primarily about such actions that would complicate the actions of small groups of enemy infantry. well, as we can see, far from everything has been done in this regard, but i would like to note that the enemy's offensive is not deep and to say that something has broken through, well, we cannot. by our weak combat formations in this direction, by our numerical strength an advantage, an advantage in means of defeat, he tries to realize this advantage. yuriy, and natalia zubar is also in touch with us now. the head of the board of the maidan monitoring information center, she is from kharkiv, i want to ask you one last question, you say that it is possible that russia will try to implement the scenario

of creating a buffer zone, please tell me, and how can this affect kharkiv directly? well, we remember that such a buffer zone already existed, after the counteroffensive near kharkiv in march, may 22, the enemy was knocked out and... and entrenched on the heights along the border, there is a convenient ridge of heights, and they held it for a long enough time, until , in connection with the counteroffensive in september 22nd in the balaklia region, the enemy himself withdrew all the troops for in order to save their front, which was disintegrating, that's why it already happened, the enemy uses such bridgeheads, of course, to increase their firepower, in order to... inflict more damage and disperse our forces, constrain our actions, they already used such script, and these the bridgeheads in the kharkiv direction existed

precisely for this purpose, for six months in the 22nd year. yuriy, thank you very much, yuriy butusov, editor-in-chief of the internet publication "cenzournet", military correspondent natalya zubar is in touch with us. natalya, well, you could have heard yuriy butusov, who told us about the history, about the situation in the kharkiv direction in the kharkiv region. you said that you survived there, did not leave the city in the 22nd year and now you are not going to, but now the situation is probably a little different, because kharkiv is already destroyed, well, if to listen to official statements, almost all critical energy infrastructure is destroyed and private as well, that is, the heating season may not start at all, or am i wrong? i don't know what will happen before autumn, let's see. to start or not, it very much depends on the help that our allies will give us, both military and

humanitarian, and whether our local government can start the decentralized heating, which has been talked about for a million years, and this is absolutely what happened a long time ago, well, what to do i agree with yuri that everything has already happened, but what was at the beginning. at the beginning of the 22nd year, and also i remind you that we had the first blows, the first blackout, it seems, on september 10, 22nd year, and the people of kharkiv have prepared for a lot, and the city will not freeze, even if there are more some impressions, the city will work, another thing is at what price, and what will be the load on logistics, in connection with this ... of course, that a lot of people will have to make a decision before the winter to stay or leave, and that, but it is not today's decision in my opinion, and

so the most important thing is that those of us who are left are going to stay in the city, we just need to work on mental stability, to calmly accept the news, including such obvious ones as what we are discussing today, so... what it is impossible to strengthen the border in its current form, to what yuriy said, i will also add that if the species looked at that map, there was a ledge, in principle, even from the point of view of the heights there, but simply to align the front line, it is more profitable keep it equal to any side, it's fine, and i want to to remind that not only we are being visited, well , certain military actions are being carried out and... in what we call the bnr, the belgorod people's republic, these are non-unilateral actions, so i simply call on the people of kharkiv, others, as well as

those who it listens, well, look at the information as a whole, and not only at the terrible footage that you are showing now, we have been seeing such footage for more than two years, it is almost a daily story, and the weapons are changing, for example, what you are showing now is seems to be an impression. or guided air bombs, this is in a way a new weapon for kharkiv, she has only been here for a month and a half, but we will learn to live with it, i have no doubts about it either. natalya, thank you very much, i wish you stability and kharkiv as well. natalia zubar, head of the board of the maidan monitoring information center, we talked about the situation in kharkiv, against the background of the offensive that began today in the direction of vovchansk. thank you very much. c's european tour ends. chinese leader sidzipi, prime minister of hungary viktor orban held talks in budapest. hungarian capital.

was the last stop in the five-day tour european tour si. before that, he visited serbia and france. beijing has signed up to two dozen business agreements with budapest. xi called hungary an example of the development of relations between the eu and china and praised the so-called independent foreign policy of viktor orbán. how the chinese leader was met in the european union and not only, and what he said about the war in ukraine, was monitored by our colleague in the eu, zoryana stepanenko. listen. the chinese leader was warmly welcomed by all three european capitals he visited. there were honors, a military band, banquets, local delicacies, a cultural program, and there were no awkward topics for conversation in belgrade and budapest, unlike in paris, where the visit began. viktor orban reproached everyone for unfair trade practices and support for russia, which is fighting against ukraine. hungary is deepening its partnership with china at a time when some eu countries are considering how to reduce dependence.

from the world's second largest economy. during the visit, all parties signed almost two dozen cooperation agreements. according to media reports in hungary, whose economy is currently in need investments, can, for example, build a new factory for the production of chinese electric cars. xi put this country in europe as an example of what its relations with china could look like, emphasizing also the similarities of approaches in foreign policy. china and hungary share. views and positions on the international and regional situation, are ready to strengthen ties and coordination in the multilateral arena, actively advocate for equal and orderly multipolarity in the world. the hungarian prime minister, in turn, called china one of the pillars of the new world order and supported his peace plan regarding the war in ukraine. the chinese foreign ministry presented the initiative last year. it provided for the cessation of hostilities and

the resumption of direct negotiations between russia and ukraine as soon as possible. at the same time , there is no mention of the withdrawal of russian troops in the chinese proposal. orban once again criticized europe, which supports ukraine's peace plan, saying that it is on the side of war. the only exception is hungary, which is calling for an immediate ceasefire and peace talks. we support all international efforts to achieve peace, and therefore, we support the chinese peace initiative presented by president xi jinping. today, china's... the leader heads home to host the russian president next week, which will show whether emmanuel macron's efforts to persuade xi jinping to influence vladimir putin to end the war have been successful. the head of the people's republic of china traditionally called it a crisis in europe, insisted that china did not start it and denied that, quote: "the crisis was used to blame a third country and ignite a new cold war." also spoke in favor of holding a peace conference,

when it will be supported by both russia and ukraine. and for considering all settlement options, from brussels, zoryan stepanenko, radio liberty. well, the european tour c, we will discuss further. serhii harasymchuk, deputy executive director of the ukrainian prism foreign policy council, joined our broadcast. good evening. yes, good evening. i congratulate you. please tell me where xi's warm affection for orbán, or for hungary in general, comes from. here it is only about money, about the economy. about trade or something else? well, i wouldn't say that there is any chemistry between them, rather pragmatic approaches to each other, why does the people's republic of china need hungary now, why does this particular country in the region need it? because for a long time china tried to build relations with central and eastern europe through its initiative, which was called 16+1, which included the baltic states, the balkan states,

the visegrad four, and it was... quite at first glance a successful project, because at some point it even became an initiative 17+1, because greece also joined it, but over the past two years, 17+ 1 has turned into 14+1, because latvia, lithuania and estonia took the initiative, moreover , a similar decision is currently being discussed in the czech republic , and there is a possibility that that the czech republic will also leave the initiative, in 2022, 16 one was supposed to hold another summit, and it would be symbolic, because it would be the tenth anniversary of the initiative. it became known that on the eve of this date, when they wanted to hold the summit, the chinese special representative visited eight countries from 16+1 from request to gather at this summit, but all of them refused, primarily because of china's position.