greetings, this is svoboda live, my name is vlasta lazur, and we are starting from kharkiv oblast, where the offensive of russian troops continues. the american institute for the study of war states in its current report that the russian army is trying to surround vovchansk. russian troops are approaching the city through a hillock. rytsia and izbytske from the east and through vovchan villages from the west and more precisely from the west and through vovchan villages from the east, these are populated areas, analysts of the institute say that the capture of any of these settlements by russia would cut off the paths connection with vovchansk. russian troops are also increasingly shelling bridges across nearby reservoirs in order to isolate the ukrainian defenses of vovchansk from other districts. the institute for the study of war believes that the russian attack on vovchansk is largely a consequence of flight. the agreement, according to which

the ukrainian forces cannot use the systems provided by the allies to strike military targets in russia, and russia was therefore able to form offensive groups near the ukrainian borders with impunity. i will remind you that on the morning of may 10, the russian army began a new offensive in the border areas of the kharkiv region, its possible goal is called by military observers the creation of a so -called buffer zone. as of monday morning. that is, on the morning of this day , russian units entered the outskirts of vovchansk and the vovchan meat processing plant, this was reported by journalist yury butusov, while the general staff of the armed forces of ukraine simply announced the tactical successes of russian troops in the battles for vovchansk. if the russian army is able to capture the city, it will be its repeated occupation from february 22nd. as the same butusov claims, vovchansk is not prepared for defense, and this was no secret for russia. against the background of the battles for vovchansk from the city and the surrounding people,

this was announced by the head of the military administration of the kharkiv region, oleg synigubov. according to the official , 1,695 local residents were deported from chuguyiv district, and 2,589 people from kharkiv district. well, during the weekend , radio liberty correspondent maryan kushnir was in vovchansk. see what he filmed. we drive into ovchanskyi, but already on the way you can hear very well how the artillery works, after all, and you can hear how come and go.

i don't know if i wrote it down, it was just tight, well, three or four shells landed near us in the district positions.

and the second street is also nearby, i’ll try now, right now there is fighting on the front line, even a shooting battle was heard just now, i don’t know how much the camera will convey it, it’s vovchansky, literally a few meters here and that’s all, we’re moving on after the civilian, exit, now there will be another coming, here is another coming. volunteers take risks, they have to go to this street, and they go to this street, shelling, so what well, you have to, civilians live there and they go and pick up everyone, it's literally a few kilometers away. asserts that the situation in

the region is difficult, but under control, but instead, according to the ukrainian synproject deep state, the russian army captured three more villages in the kharkiv region, namely morokhovets, oliynikove and zelene and... continue their movement in the direction of the village of liptsi, ongoing active fighting for lukyantsi, which was almost completely occupied by russia - analysts report. how the russian army managed to capture the villages near vovchansk in the kharkiv region and advance to of the city itself, why did the fortifications not work and were they there, in what condition, if they were? for example, the head of the vovchan city military administration assures that there were fortifications all around the city, but, as he said, maybe the construction was not so dense. listen. tification buildings were built and are currently being built, it is being strengthened, but the situation was and is extremely difficult, i will repeat once again that the city itself is very close to the border, and it is very difficult to carry out any construction work right now right on the border, that's all

was built, but perhaps not so densely, because after the deoccupation, vovchansk was under constant shelling from mortars and artillery for a year and a half, so i will repeat once again that... from vovchansk to the border, it was 4 km difficult to build fortifications , our broadcast was joined by dmytro chubenko, the spokesman of the kharkiv regional prosecutor's office, good evening, good, look, the leadership of the kharkiv region, in particular oleg synygubov, the head of the state administration, claims that the situation in the region is difficult, but under control, translating conspiracies officials in ordinary human language, what does it mean under these conditions that the situation is under control? well, the situation means that now there are battles, there are battles in those positions where these battles are now tactically more convenient for our military, and the battles are being fought in the suburbs of vovchansk, and as you

said before, the real problem is the construction and construction of fortification measures in border settlements very difficult. implemented due to the fact that this 3.5 km territory is under direct surveillance and 24-hour surveillance by the russian federation and border guards from on their side, the military, and drones, and video cameras, that is why the main lines of defense in our region, they are located further than 3.5 km, this is due to the fact that there is... at least the possibility, there was an opportunity to build them, as far as offensive actions are concerned , they have been there all this time, they are being carried out plus or minus at the same pace, because of offensive actions , a large number of war crimes are committed

in the kharkiv region, today we already have at least six injured people, five of these people are local residents of the city vovchansk, which were... injured by previously hit by artillery, and today, fortunately, there were no casualties, a very large number of shelling of vovchansk, dozens, dozens of hits on the city, on the outskirts of the city, by cabs and artillery, due to the fact that many people left, from there, we have a minimal number injured now, if there remained the same number... of the population as there was a week ago, then there were dozens of dead and hundreds of injured, when, when the general staff reports that russia in vovchansk or near vovchansk has tactical good luck, am i understanding that correctly russian troops are already present on the outskirts

of vovchansk and they are trying to capture the city or surround it? well, of course, if there are offensive actions of the enemy, then the enemy plans to go somewhere to drink and capture something, how do you assess, how do you assess the prospect of russian troops capturing vovchansk as of now, taking into account that there are no defensive structures there, such prospects, about i will not say such prospects, i can why you can now with your statement, on the contrary, maybe you will encourage people to leave, those who do not leave, well, those who local people, they see these threats, they see the number of shellings, it is every where... an explosion is heard every few minutes and not far from where people are, that is, the explosion is very loud there, and everyone understands that it is dangerous there, who wants to leave, they have been actively doing it for the last few days, and

as for the attack on the city, it is being conducted and it is being conducted quite actively, these settlements where the russians are attacking, they are under great threat. it is not a secret, the ukrainian military is on the defensive, why are you asking what is the matter with, according to the head of hov, situation. the situation is under control, it is understood that now the defense is being maintained at the positions at which, in principle, it began, since those settlements that were captured by the russian federation, in fact, there were no lines of defense, fortification measures, again, as i said at the beginning, due to the impossibility of their construction for 3.5 km in this area, this is direct shelling from and... with direct fire, from mortars, which was also done there every other day, that is, shelling from tanks

- these are the realities of border settlements , that is, ukraine is still early was preparing late that the offensive would take place there, knowing that there were no fortifications, ukraine was preparing for the offensive, it was known before the offensive, it was replicated both in zmi and in... the departments were instructed about the possibility of offensive actions by the russian federation, instructed about possible actions, and so on and so forth, what was done by the military in this territory, it is more correct, and how they carried out the measures regarding defense and what actions they took, it is more correct already... to the military , let me i will clarify, you said that it was impossible to build

fortifications, because it is close to the border, if i understand correctly, it was also impossible to mine, or why the approach to vovchansk, for example, is not mined, well, you say that it is not mined, i do not know that and i'm not saying, and i'm not denying or confirming your position, no, you're saying that you're saying that the russian troops are on the outskirts of the city, if they're on the outskirts of the city, then... they somehow got there or what? well, this does not mean that they bypassed or neutralized or did not explode on these mine barriers, that is, i do not have information about the presence or absence of these mine barriers on this section of the territory, to what extent it was possible to do it and how far it was done, i do not have such information, the question is logical, but before that, you already have this question, you do not own it information, i understood the information. then on your topic, i think, the kharkiv prosecutor's office announced today that it has started an investigation into the fact of the capture

of civilians in border communities, as far as i understand, it is about the vovchansk community, which is russian there, russian servicemen forcibly kept people in the basement, you can tell about it in detail, of course, in addition to the war crimes that are being committed there, which are understandable to everyone, this is the shelling of civilian infrastructure, their houses, there was a high-profile situation yesterday, where a man's finger was shot off, he is a local resident of vovchanskyi, russian troops entered the outskirts of the city in small groups, entered this man's home and shot him with sticks because he might have been talking in the ukrainian language, they don't even realize that it's not some kind of thing, he's not from bendery, it's not his place... the situation in the countryside is that many people speak ukrainian, they don't know russian, that is, they went to fire

russian speakers, they thought for sure that he benderovyts, because he speaks ukrainian, was shot, they left, he was released, he then went to the volunteers and this video was caught on the cameras, the second high-profile situation already today was that people were in fact in captivity for two days, and... in vovchanchansk in the village in the basement of by the russian military, who forced them to provide medical aid, by the russian servicemen, they were actually blocked in this basement, after they retreated from this territory, because of the order or because of the incapacity of this unit, people left the basement, went straight to vovchanska, again , got to the volunteers and law enforcement officers, and told... this situation, and there, according to them, there are still people who are

also in the basement with other military personnel of the russian federation, actually blocked, and these situations with restrictions on the freedom of local residents, in fact, they are war crimes, since according to the geneva convention, the aggressor country does not have the right to force local residents to take certain actions, to limit their right to move. force them to provide medical care or influence them in any other way. dmitry, we just have this video, i understand, you are talking about these people, who we will ... now we will show, just as people are telling how they visited the basement, it was filmed by the public, let's look there very briefly, they took you in captivity or something, well, yes, it turns out that way, they came down from russia from above, and that’s when you were sitting with them for three days, since the 11th, since the 11th, they beat you, somehow tortured you, no, they didn’t beat us, we escaped

from for the fact that today we retreated a little, but we broke away, and what do you think? it happened, well, he recognized her for me, she just knows in russian that i had their legs wrapped up, i don’t know, maybe they regretted it , i don’t know, but you were in the basement when their legs were wrapped up, you were in the basement with them , they didn’t let you out of the basement, and this morning a soldier came in and said we are leaving as they came and they took away the wounded and we are at this moment running and running away, there are still people left there, there are still people, so they didn't just take you? dmitry, well, we see that people are telling how they got into the basement, you just said that you were preparing for a possible offensive in the direction of kharkiv, the intelligence representative andriy yusov said the day before that in kyiv, they say, they knew in advance about the plans of the russian, russian of the army about the offensive, but we see that the civilians who were in vovchansk, well,

it seems that this offensive caught znenatsk, first the evacuation is ongoing, but it is literally already under fire, and it already... started after the offensive, and secondly, this is some kind of flashback from the 22nd year, people fall into the basements, and it seems that before this situation, well, you can was to be ready, but to what extent did the ukrainian side prepare in advance for this offensive and at least secure the civilian population, and those who remained in vovchansk, well, they stayed until this, these offensive actions in vovchansk, these are people... who wanted to stay there , forced evacuation in vovchansk was not announced, these are thousands of people who need to be accommodated somewhere, and they did not have such a desire, that is, there are certain settlements where there was a forced, forced removal

of people, again, these are precisely those settlements that were adjacent to the border from the russian federation, vovchan to... we do not belong to such a settlement, 10-20% of the population remained there from, compared to the full-scale tuesday , they lived there, now a few percent of the population remains there, that is, people, people were informed, people were known, the program with evacuation, she worked from the moment de-occupation, there was a plan for a year and a half... there was an evacuation of everyone who wanted it, but there was no demand for it, since people wanted to live there under shelling, everyone remembered vovchansk, three days ago, when offensive actions by the russian federation began, and vovchansk has been shelled for the past year and a half, every other day, every day, and

every time, after every, almost after every shelling there were injured victims, people there heard these explosions very often and they were ready to live in such realities, but with the intensification of offensive actions, of course, these threats are even greater increased and already under such threats they could not live and already began to evacuate, still hundreds of local people remain there and continue. to live there, thank you, dmytro chubenko, the spokesman of the kharkiv regional prosecutor's office, was on radio liberty, we talked about the situation, on the approaches to vovchansk and in the kharkiv region, in general, and roman kostenko, a people's deputy from the voices faction, secretary of the committee on issues of national security, defense and intelligence. roman, good evening. yes, i see, judging, roman, judging by the map, at least the one published,

they occupied a number of settlements, strelecha, dust, dust on the village, krasne. borysivka, today morokhovets, oliynikove, zelene. how would you rate the speed of advancement of the russian army? the russians are just advancing through the zone where we do not have solid defense, where we had our own support units. yes, there are questions in general, which were voiced in relation to the fact that some units there turned out to be unstable, but in general , strategically, defense, let’s say so, well, our strength the defenses persevered in such a way that there was no deep breakthrough by the russians of the front line, now the situation there is difficult, because the enemy, with the help of infantry, is starting, let's say, to enter these villages, which are mostly close to the border, in the gray zone, where well, in fact, it was very difficult to organize such a solid defense near the border with the russian federation, there is a lot

of information there now, i see hate there, they were not able, not unable, but now it is important to first of all hold the enemy at the borders where he entered , then discard it, now some personnel changes have already taken place there , general mykhailo vasyliovych drapatiy, who previously commanded the odesa area, and kherson before that, was appointed as the head of the kharkiv group, and he has already been reassigned right now, when they have already started, they have started offensive, yes, yes, he he he was in odesa before that, then he was appointed already with the change of commander-in-chief, he was appointed deputy chief of the general staff, now appointed, appointed to the kharkiv direction? see i think because it's very an experienced general, he is really very experienced in many battles, starting from

the 14th year he took part in the kryvyi rih operation, when the offensive was on khersonshchenka , he also attacked from the kryvyi rih side when the enemy was knocked out from the kherson right bank, then kherson otu, then odesa , and i think that due to his experience, due to the fact that there really was a serious situation there, because before that... there were hostilities there, now they have resumed there, let's say, on such a large scale, he was appointed there to , so that this situation, let's say, stop, and i even know several serious commanders who worked with him at the kherson atu, including in management, fire support of the battle, who were also sent as a command to him from the combat directions to buy this direction, therefore... i believe that this is the right appointment, i think that general dropati, given the normal provision of forces and means, will cope with this situation. roman, how do you

assess the probability of the capture of vovchansk and the re-occupation of the city. now the russian military, as i understand it, are already on the outskirts of the city, and military correspondents and observers say that they have occupied, in particular, the vovchan meat processing plant. look, here you need to have 100% information about the powers that be. we have and what forces and means the enemy has, we must understand, i have already said more than once, that we must proceed from the strategic situation and from the extent to which we, the forces and means that we have, allow us to hold a specific place and how far its retention will affect the entire strategic situation in general in that direction, once again we have the strength and means to support the city or go to more detailed frontiers, it will make decisions, i think. directly, general dropaty is the commander-in-chief there, it is difficult for me to say how much the situation will allow us to hold this city, it is very close to the border, and

we can see the enemy, and before that they were shelling it, and now, i hope that after all we will not surrender it , and we will be entrenched in it, and the enemy will not be able to enter there, but once again decisions, military decisions, they often differ from political decisions, and from those decisions that we civilians can see on maps. and i have said many times that very often people who look at the map criticize the fact that the enemy has gone 3-5 km there, and say where our defense lines are mined, not always in military art the front line, i repeat, coincides with line of defense, this is a fact, because the line of defense is tied to the composition of the terrain, first of all to the advantageous ones, and well, the borders are the way they are, so the military decides where it is better for them to defend, what positions, we will to hope that... those reserves and those logistical and technical assistance, as we received, will be enough to settle this situation now and prevent the enemy from advancing further, we must now

put maximum effort into this. well, look, you probably read social networks and write not only civilians, but also military, many complain about the quality or in general about the lack of defensive fortifications. in front of you was speaker dmytro chubenko, the spokesman of the kharkiv regional prosecutor's office, i asked him, he also said about... the fact that it is very close to the border and it was not possible to build defensive fortifications, but i asked him if it was possible to mine and why, for example, the approaches to vovchansk were not mined, he said that the question is very logical, but he does not have an answer to it, do you have one answer? i have a question, what does mined or not mined mean, if we take er how many 3,000 km of the border we have with the russian federation, then i don't know if there are such a number of mines in order to completely mine, to build exactly... the fields are continuous, as it should be, of course, there are separate tank-dangerous mines directions that are there where it can pass, we don't have anti-personnel mines at all,

because we signed the convention at the time and didn't. yes, we can replace the tank lines there, but they won’t do anything against the infantry, so this question is certainly necessary, let’s put it this way, it should be explained by the engineers and those who were in charge, could we completely replace it, i think no more, why yes , because we don't even have the means to replace it, we have to understand that, regarding what the military says, well, we understand that we have a lot even now, the military, who say this there and there two years ago, they... also civilians, and now our army generally consists of 80% of civilians, who in a form also comment on that, well, including various things that there is, so it is necessary to understand whether they could mine - at the expense of the infantry, it is very difficult to say, because we do not have such powerful means, we also have information, even when the enemy just passed, there was information that the enemy was carrying out demining of the directions through which he eh...

passed, he has such opportunities, therefore, look, if we say even this direction, then our rdk, well, our rdk, which, the russian rdk, yes, the volunteer corps, which entered the territory of the enemy, also somewhere through these directions and also entered the depths of russia, the russians took advantage, i think the same, with the same model, and also came to the border area, which is less protected than, for example, the areas that are protected, well , in the east of our country. what a threat they always are, and in general, i think our concept should have been after the invasion of the russian federation, that there, i don't know, on a depth of 10 km, all populated areas had to be evacuated, realistically, and in the future in the neighborhood of the russian federation, i don't know 5-10 km of the border there, these should be continuous lines of defense and

there is not a single populated area there. to be, as it was left there after the collapse of the soviet union, when we know that half of the village, or even a house, is in the russian federation, and there i don’t know, the backyard is on ukrainian territory, when the border line was drawn, so it is necessary leave and make a solid line from the russian federation, and it should be solid defensive fortifications. roman, look, we, well, at least according to the statement of the ukrainian military, russia has now used up to five battalions in the offensive against kharkiv region, that's a large number of people, one. the battalion is there, how many 400 people, 500 people, or even, on the scale, on the scale of the offensive, it is not about anything at all, they could not be detected, they could not be detected, their training, the beginning of the onset, it was already, it was already the right question, it's already right, well, look, what it is said that they went to such a shallow depth, and to the military, if we talk about the fact that we had an inactive front line there, they went in, it says that after all

we discovered them and...we could restrain them they reached vovchansk, roman, they reached vovchansk, it’s already, it’s already more than 5 km from the border, kilometers to vovchansk, yes, look, it’s definitely necessary to expand the question and ask how it happened, at the moment, i see that in the mass media sometimes unfolds a lot of betrayal, that there is no line of defense, that they could not missed, some military people tell, i will say this, that our main task. now to restrain the enemy and not give the opportunity to panic there, because three five battalions are small forces, and we have enough forces to restrain them, then liberate our villages, our settlements, but sometimes the russians also do all in order to develop this panic, so that people think that there is something terrible with us there, look again, it is bad that they entered our territory, there is nothing terrible, the battles are going on, general dropatiy has been appointed, i think that this the situation will now be bought there on this.

direction there some someone says that...