today in the verdict program with serhii rudenko. hundreds of occupiers were killed and dozens of units of burned equipment. the invaders near vovchansk suffer huge losses. will borona's forces succeed in thwarting putin's plans to attack kharkiv oblast. rock and roll in the free world. anthony blinken promised ukraine a lighted bridge to nato to the accompaniment. electric guitars, does the us make its support for ukraine dependent on the fight against corruption? undermining georgian democracy: the country is threatened by us financial sanctions due to the so-called law on foreign agents, can street rallies in tbilisi turn into a new georgian revolution? glory to ukraine, this is the

verdict program, my name is serhiy rudenko, i congratulate everyone and wish everyone good health. for the next two hours, we will talk about ukraine, the world, the war, and our victory. in particular, we are talking about what is happening today in the direction of kharkiv, we are talking about the attempt on the life of the prime minister of slovakia, robert fitz, and about the results of the visit of antony blinken, the secretary of state of the united states of america to... the country about this and about other things during the next hour, we will talk with our guests, veteran of the russian-ukrainian war yevhen dyky, political expert maksym rozumny, and head of the board of the institute of world politics viktor shlinchak. the second part of our program will feature political experts volodymyr fisenko and viktor boberenko. however, before starting our big conversation, i suggest you watch a video of how ukrainian fighters destroyed 11. units of equipment near

novomykhaivka, in donetsk region. coordinated work was carried out by the fighters of the 79th separate unit of the taurian assault brigade, four tanks, six infantry fighting vehicles and an armored repair and evacuation vehicle of the attackers were eliminated. let's watch this enchanting video. glory to the armed forces of ukraine, death to the russian occupiers. friends, we are working live on the espresso tv channel, as well as on our youtube and facebook platforms for those.

who is currently watching us on these platforms, please subscribe to our pages and also vote in our poll, today we ask you this, do you have eu countries to return conscripts to ukraine? it means men who went abroad and who are conscripted, if you think so, please vote by phone 0800-211-381, no 0800-211-380. all calls to these numbers are free, vote, at the end of the program we will sum up the results of this vote, if you watch us on youtube, take your smartphone, donate, if everything is quite simple on youtube, or yes or no, write your comment under this video, and we should be in touch with yevhen dyky, a veteran of the russian-ukrainian war, the former platoon commander of the aydar battalion, for now we are contacting mr. dyky and hope that

he will get in touch, we are talking today about the situation in the kharkiv direction, the battles near vovchansk and lukyantsi , president zelenskyy announced this evening that it was possible to partially mobilize and stabilize the situation in kharkiv oblast, the occupier who entered is being destroyed by all means, while the general staff of the armed forces of ukraine reports that the defense forces are partially hatched occupiers from vovchansk, defensive operations continue in the northern and northwestern outskirts of the city. on the air of the united telethon, the spokesman of the general staff of the ukrainian armed forces, dmytro dmytro lykhovii , stated that in the kharkiv direction, in the lukyantsiv and vovchansk districts, ukrainian defenders withdrew in order to save the lives of servicemen and avoid casualties. let's listen to what dmytro lykhova said. in

the direction of kharkiv, units of our troops repelled 18 enemy attacks, in particular in the direction of hlyboke liptsi, lukyantsi. lips, borysivka - neskuchne, shebekino, russian territory, vovchansk. in some areas in the lukyantsi and vovchansk districts, as a result of the enemy's fire and assault actions, in order to save the lives of our servicemen and avoid losses, our units made a maneuver and moved to more advantageous positions, the fighting continues. this is the information from the general staff of the armed forces of ukraine. we are monitoring this... situation, of course, and especially in the context of general budanov's statements that the russian occupiers are now trying to enter the territory of kharkiv oblast in order to then carry out a maneuver in the sumy region or in

sumy oblast, it is so or not, so far it is very difficult to say, because the situation is developing and changing quite actively, but, but, for him... the most important question is which was and remains, this is why the army of the russian federation managed to break through in this direction, meaning in kharkiv, and whether there is a threat to kharkiv, we will talk about this now with yevhen dyky, a veteran of the russian-ukrainian war, former platoon commander of the aidar battalion, mr. yevgeny, i congratulate you, thank you for being with us today, glory to ukraine, glory to the heroes, well, we have already started talking about the situation that is developing in our country. in the kharkiv region, and the question remains open, why did the russian army manage to break through in this direction and do you think there is a threat to kharkiv? well, let's start from the end, looking at what

exactly is the threat to kharkiv, if you mean a real attack on a city of two million people, an assault on the city, etc., then the russian forces . in this direction, to put it mildly, they are not sufficient for this, they are, well, that's it they are not enough there a little bit, they are not enough by an order of magnitude, well , let's remember, let's remember that bahmud has a military population of 70,000, so it took nine months for a group of approximately 120,000 russian troops, avdiivka was taken in just four months . the pre-war population of the city was 16,000, the group that took it was more than 4,000, and now we take kharkiv with a population of two million and extrapolate it, we understand that those 50,000 people gathered there opposite the entire kharkiv region, well, for

such a campaign, it is absolutely in general an unreasonable amount, but what are they trying to achieve in this case, they have a minimum program and a maximum program, a minimum program, which, well, you have to give credit, they have already actually... fulfilled, it is to force us to transfer there, and without that, they are very acutely deficient our reserves, they have actually identified our weak point, they see that their only advantage is that they now have many more soldiers, and they are trying to realize this advantage to the maximum, that is, they are opening, let's say, a new section of the front, they force us transfer some reserves, some combat-capable units there, accordingly, these units will not arrive. at the time of yar, they will not reach pokrovsk or kurakhove there, that is where their main offensive is going, but they also have the maximum program. they have a maximum program, which fortunately they have not yet come close to, but given the distances there, i would consider this

threat to be serious. so , their maximum program is to go to kharkiv at such a distance and occupy stationary positions there, from which artillery can be delivered to the city. in general, it's like this... i'm sorry, in my opinion, this is such a sad, but very instructive story for us, it is very important that we draw the right conclusions from it now, because yes, let's rewind for a second, well, a little bit back, the fall of 22 , september , our armed forces receive an order for a fairly limited, in fact , operation, that is, to push the orcs away from kharkiv, so that they finally stop terrorizing residential areas with their bodies. this operation develops into the collapse of the russian front, the operation develops into the liberation of vast territories of slobozhanshchyna all the way to the svatovo krymen line, and it becomes in general one of the turning points in this war, and unfortunately, from this, from this operation, we and

the russians drew very different conclusions, they made the right ones, and we did not, but they just after our kharkiv that operation, they realized that... there is no self-defense, that they underestimated the enemy, that they began to respect us, even fear us, and after that they began to fight with us as they fight with a serious worthy one. an enemy whom they respect and fear, and switched their entire country to such a big, serious war, while we, on the contrary, and we were so inspired and so euphoric after that that we decided for some reason that if we had already chased them so well near kharkov, then it would somehow roll off, then we just have to wait for the winners, and now a year and a half passes and the circle closes, we now have the task again to prevent them from being in a position from which they can be shot. residential quarters of kharkiv with body artillery, this is an absolutely natural result of how we and how they

lived these one and a half years, here they are in the mode of a great war, and we are in the mode of waiting of a supposedly guaranteed victory, it is very important that we now draw the right conclusions from this, it is late anyway, but it is not too late, and in general, yet another deja vu, we have repeated 20 on such a micro scale. february 4, 22nd year, at that time we were all warned, it was known how the war would start, where they would come from, and still no one was preparing, now it is a micro scale, but exactly the same, for at least a week gur warned about enemy activity in this direction , about the formation of a strike group, that's all jumped in unexpectedly, no one was prepared for anything anyway, yes, we learned to react quickly, the reaction was swift, we repel them, we repel tu-tu-tu, relatively successfully,

but in principle this should not have happened, this should not have happened at all, they had to meet in a completely different way, but for some reason they did not meet, but now the situation that is developing in the kharkiv direction has forced president zelensky to cancel his visits to spain and portugal, which were supposed to take place the other day, precisely because of the russian offensive, and how to specify. is pouring in the press, zelensky had in madrid to meet with prime minister pedro sánchez to sign the security agreement, but now this signing is being postponed, but regarding the forecasts themselves, mr. yevhen, regarding whether and how and who and what method predicted there, there will be an offensive in kharkiv oblast, there will be no offensive, the head of the gur kyrylo budanov generally says that russian attacks in the kharkiv region will last 3-4 days, and after that russian troops will make a decisive offensive in the direction of sumy. later, general budanov questioned, said

that he was misunderstood. and on the air during the only telethon, he clarified his words regarding the russian federation's oil well in the sumy region. from the very beginning, the russians planned an operation in the sumy region, as of now , they are keeping small groups of forces at the border. for them it is the city of sudja, from our side it is the sumy direction. when the situation before... did not allow them to take active actions and begin the implementation of their plan, how do you assess the prospects that sumyshchyna can be another point or line where the russians force us to withdraw troops to to donetsk region, is the entire strike actually directed at donbas? i believe that budanov is right, especially in his very first forecast, that sumyshchyna may well start literally overnight, which, by the way, even this is the second clarification. it doesn't change anything that the situation hasn't allowed them to start yet, it doesn't mean that they won't start tomorrow, but here the very fact

of budanov coming out with this in the public space, it seems to me, is the result of the fact that the warnings of the gur in kharkiv region were not heard, now it's just a warning about sumy region, it's already public, and no one will be able to say later that they didn't warn, well, i really hope that those who are responsible for security in sumy oblast, that they... they are now taking urgent measures and that such a thing will not happen again there happened in the kharkiv region, that is, the russians may very well go there, it is very likely, but i hope that we will meet them there in a different way, because what happened in the kharkiv region, yes, it is a very big blow, in fact. against this background, the state secretary of the united states of america, anthony blinken, visited kyiv spoke about the fact that... er, the united states of america does not encourage strikes on russian territory, but in the end ukraine must

decide for itself how to conduct this war, and this is what he stated today at a press conference with dmytro kuleba. i want to say clearly that the united states of america will, they have undertaken to help ukraine in order for it to win. therefore, i am sure that we have not shown by our deeds, and we will continue to help ukraine, of course, we would never want and would not... that ukraine did it for outside the borders of the territory, but in the end ukraine decides for itself how they conduct this struggle, because they are defending their freedom and sovereignty, their territorial integrity, in the context of what... antony blinken said, mr. yevgeny, i wanted to ask you, in the kharkiv region, that is, on that side, in the belhor region, we saw this concentration, did intelligence see a concentration of russian troops, there is not such a large group, but still, several tens of thousands of russian troops were stationed there, and it is obvious that the ukrainian armed

forces did not strike on this territory, indicates that the americans... however they did not advise or as he said there, did not encourage strikes on russian territory, could it be that after this statement by blinkin that the ukrainians themselves decide where to hit, and the americans do not encourage them, or could it be that here, there, there are troops standing near suzha, this is literally behind sumy, sumy oblast, this place is located, the city is further to kursk, could it be so that the ukrainians will... use these western weapons for in order to prevent them from entering sumy region, well, pay attention, blinkin did not say that they allow their weapons to be used for this. so he completely avoided this question, he said that they do not encourage strikes on russia, but that is our business, but he did not say that this our business can be done with their weapons. as far as i

know, there is no lifting of the ban on the use of american weapons on the territory of russia, yet. it did not happen, besides, again, the concept of strikes on the territory of russia is one story, but all this time there was a strict ban on our troops not crossing the russian border, and again, nothing in blinken's words for me is a lifting of this ban, but i will remind you why, for example , the raid of russian volunteers was not so successful, because actually three battalions of russian volunteers went for the orderly. all our mechanized units the most they could do was cover them with some artillery from our territory, none of our soldiers could cross the barrier because it immediately caused huge problems with the allies, i did not really hear a change in position in this statement, the fact that they are tolerating our strikes there on military airfields, on oil refineries, for example, russian ones, which we make

our homemade weapons, well, they have been tolerating it for a long time, that is, i did not hear here nothing new, to be honest. another event that happened on the night of may 15, explosions rang out in the temporarily occupied sevastopol, russian propagandists announced a massive missile attack and a hit in the area of ​​the belbek military airfield, they say that one of the 31k migs was apparently hit there, until now there is no clear confirmation, but we can see that ukraine is trying to deploy its actions on the temporarily occupied territory in crimea, how this will affect the course of the ukrainian, russian-ukrainian war, and whether this practice will affect the gradual elimination of russian capabilities on peninsula, it's not only about the possibilities on the peninsula, they actually fly and bomb from the peninsula

and shoot at our currently controlled territory, so this is just a very important component of... this general war and this blow to belbek is extremely effective, the s300 complex is completely destroyed, and this is very important, we are now systematically knocking out their air defense, because again, we are on, each side is always trying to feel the weaknesses of the other, and our weakness at the moment is the lack of fighters , their weakness is not cannon fodder, they have plenty of it, but their iron is weak. fault, and the more technological the iron, the less of it they have and the less opportunities to renew it. in particular, air defense turned out to be their weakest link, unexpectedly for everyone. ot. and now we are very systematically knocking it out. a blow to the bellback completely destroyed the s300 complex. one mig-31 was destroyed and three aircraft were damaged. well, damage in this war is the same as destruction.

they do not currently have the ability to quickly repair. well, and a plus, in fact, well, it can be assumed that this airfield will continue to be actively used, because it is shown that it is now in the zone of our impression, this, this is what it is called, this is what life-creating atakamtsi are doing, this is exactly , these are the relatives we have been waiting for so long, here at last wait, these are 300-kilometer assault rifles, and yes, they will really change a lot now, of course, mr. yevgeny, with the arrival of a larger batch of weapons from the united states of america to ukraine, the situation will obviously stabilize somehow, including on the eastern and southern fronts, but will we have enough weapons to... deter the russians and to create this parity that we keep talking about, we now have the task of containing, we have the task of containing and

parity is not our task at all to turn the tide of the war in our favor, to defeat the russian army, to go on the offensive, we categorically refuse this altogether, and you have heard such statements over the last month that we will go to... i only read in the western press that that in the 25th year in washington they expect us to go on a counteroffensive, but we could go on the 24th, the problem is that who are we, we plowed, i and the tractor, but there is no one to actually go on this offensive, and that's the key issue, just answering your question, the weapons and bcs that are now arriving, in full will be enough not only to deter the russians, but it would also be enough for a counteroffensive. but for all of this , after it was unblocked, after seven months of the terrible ammunition shortage created by trump, from the moment when trump was indeed

defeated and congress unblocked it, for the next year, and that means not until the end of this current year , for a year from the moment it was unlocked, that is actually sufficient provision, yes, i want much more, and i need much more, but the necessary minimum for a very serious war per year is now guaranteed to us. and now we are facing a completely different limitation. all these miraculous weapons, unfortunately, have one characteristic: they do not shoot by themselves, they do not fight by themselves, but only in someone's hands. and if in the previous six months we had a critical situation at all, because we had two, two such very acute problems at the same time, it was a lack of bc and a lack of personnel. the lack of a bull is finally ending, the lack of personnel is only for now... and of course, if we don't recruit people, if we do not change the situation with mobilization, then none of these weapons will save us. we were given a chance, a very powerful chance,

a chance not just to restrain the russians, a chance to turn the tide of the war and win again, but whether we will use this chance now depends entirely on us, and precisely on you and me, on the ukrainian people, because mobilization it is not the army that is involved, mobilization is a matter of the rear, but the army has... what to fight, but the army has no one to fight, and we, the ukrainian rear, have to put these people, depending on what we do whether we do it or not, we will use this chance, or, on the contrary, we will blow it. thank you, mr. yevgeny, for the inclusion, it was yevhen dyky, a veteran of the russian-ukrainian war. friends, we are working live on the espresso tv channel, as well as on our youtube and facebook platforms, for those who are currently watching us live there. please subscribe to our pages, participate. in our survey, today we ask you about whether eu countries should return conscripts to ukraine, yes, no, on youtube is quite simple, isn’t it, or

write your own opinion under this comment, if you don’t have a clear answer to this poll, and if you watch us on tv, pick up your smartphone or phone and vote if you support, if you do you think that the countries of the european union should return their military personnel? to ukraine 0800-211-381 no 0800-211-382 all calls to these numbers are free of charge vote at the end of the program we will sum up the results of this vote. next, we are in touch with maksym rozumny, political expert, doctor of political sciences. mr. maxim, i congratulate you, thank you for being with us today. congratulations. let's start our conversation with the events that happened just a few hours ago, in the life of the prime minister of slovakia. an attempt was made on robert fitso, they previously said that he was tried to be killed

by a 71-year-old writer, a famous slovak writer, juraj chantula, the suspect in the attempt on fitso is an activist of the liberal party progressive slovakia, he had an officially registered weapon, by the way, in slovakia, a son yuri yurai. chantula says about the fact that what happened is a shock at all, he does not completely understand how it all happened, but fico's official facebook page reports that there is a threat to the life of the prime minister of slovakia as a result of the attempt, he was shot several times, he is in a life-threatening condition, he is currently being transported by helicopter to banska bystrica, as the journey to bratislava would take too much time, given the need for urgent intervention as close as possible. a few hours will solve everything, already their condolences and support president zelenskyi expressed his opinion, but

russian propagandists are already starting to push the story that it is the ukrainian special services or representatives of the ukrainian special services involved in the event, because the event has always been a pro-russian position, we remember that the event always said that , which says that ukraine and russia must necessarily sit down at the negotiating table, even in the situation when russia is an aggressor country, well, that's what i 'm talking about, of course, fizo doesn't say anything about it, what do you think? this fact:... can it become one of such factors in russia in the ukrainian war, and it is possible that the russian special services are actually involved in all this. how do you look at this story, are there any analogies with the first world war, because everything started in europe with shots, with pistols. yes, today many have already made this analogy, but to me.

it seems that this analogy is not very appropriate now, especially in light of the facts that are known today, that is, er, i mean the identity of the shooter, which seems to have already been clarified and about which there are no big doubts, i i think we will soon be away from him we will hear about the motives, but it is clear that everyone who comments, everyone... who puts this event into a political context, will, so to speak, do it their way, and there is no doubt that russia will tie all this to ukraine, well, if they tied some tajik activists of the islamic state, who committed murders in the crocus center, to ukraine, then slovakia is much closer, and this

will not pose any problem for them either, that is, everything is clear here, but for us , to fit this event into the context of the russian-ukrainian war, probably not either very appropriate, we are obviously most concerned about this, we have more reasons, so to speak, to be, in fact, to keep this context in focus, but than in... rostian, for example, but it is obvious that not everything in the world revolves around russian - ukrainian war, and for me this shot is rather a sign of the aggravation of ideological and worldview contradictions in modern europe , including, and actually in such a wider civilizational context, it should probably be considered when there

is already such hatred between the right and... the left again formed, which is already goes beyond non-violence, already becomes violent, although, of course, this should also be considered as a separate incident, er, we remember, for example, breivik's shots, after which nothing special started, just the excess of one person, er ... although the existing problem was there and here, it, so to speak, does not disappear anywhere, and appears from time to time. to that end, we are now talking about two summits to be held in june and july, the swiss global peace summit in june, and in july in washington jubilee summit of nato. on the eve of this anniversary summit of the north atlantic

alliance, yarmak rasmusin's group. in her report suggested that nato invite ukraine to join the alliance at this anniversary summit. this was reported by the head of the office of the president of ukraine andriy yermak on social networks after the presentation of the report at the copenhagen democracy summit. what does mr. yarmak write? we propose a clear time frame for ukraine's accession to nato no later than july 28, subject to the fulfillment of specific conditions. it is also necessary to strengthen the military efforts. aid to ukraine, including the lifting of all restrictions on the supply of conventional weapons. it is important that allies spend 0.25% of their gdp on military aid to ukraine and unlock $300 billion in frozen russian assets to support our country. mr. maksym, how do you assess the prospect of ukraine becoming a member of the north atlantic alliance?