a special look at events in ukraine and beyond, which the world dreams of, all this in an informational marathon with mykola veresny, saturday 5:10 p.m., sunday 6:15 p.m. at espresso. the situation in kharkiv oblast has stabilized, but the direction continues to be difficult. will the second and third lines of defense withstand the russian offensive if the russian army breaks through further? the prime minister of slovakia, robert fico, seems to have survived an attempt on his life. is there really a russian trace in the attack on him? well, vladimir putin met with chinese leader xi jinping for the 43rd time. why? expect in

country, svoboda live is not the only thing we talk about, my name is sashko shevchenko, we are starting. against the background of the aggravation of the military situation in the kharkiv region, the president of ukraine volodymyr zelenskyi held an outing of the supreme commander in kharkiv. according to the president, in general, the situation in kharkiv region is under control, but this direction remains extremely difficult. zelenskyi said that threats were analyzed at the pond, in particular. days and weeks, as well as ukrainian opportunities to resist the offensive plans of the russian federation. next, a quote. they analyzed in detail the prospects of the combat situation, the threats in the coming days and weeks, and our ukrainian capabilities to counter russian offensive plans. as of today, the situation in the kharkiv region is generally under control, our soldiers are inflicting significant losses on the occupier, but the direction remains extremely difficult, we are strengthening our units. according to the institute for the study of war. the russian army managed to advance no more

than 8 km deep into the territory of ukraine and now they intend to create a buffer zone, not advance deep into kharkiv region. the fact that the russian military was able to capture more than 10 settlements on the border with russia too quickly, without encountering serious obstacles on their way, has been reported since may 10. in an interview with the bbc, the head of the kharkiv regional state administration oleg synygubov explained why this happened. of'. apparently, there are several lines of defense. they are divided among themselves by their proximity either to the state border or to the contact line. we were building a third line of defense, sometimes a second. it all depends on the mileage to the contact line or border. the first line and the main part of the second is the direct responsibility of the armed forces and those military units that enter these positions. when we actually built the second or third line, which is 10, 15, 20 and even 30 km away from the border or front line, then the enemy. beat and destroyed our equipment. well

, analysts from deep state write that the ukrainian defense forces may have problems with fortifications even at a distance of 10 km from the border of the russian federation. the monitoring group published a photo of what they claim were poorly prepared engineering and fortification structures. a quote follows. it seems very strange that 10 km from the state border during 2023 and 2024, they were able to carry out only the first one there. construction stage. such a negligent approach to the work process played an evil joke in the ochereteny district. end of quote. i would like to add that the deep state did not specify on which part of the front these photos were taken. and about the general situation on the fronts, as well as the reasons for such a rapid advance of the russian army, in particular in the kharkiv region, reuters asked the people's deputy from the voice serhiy rehmanin, who was in the donetsk region. let's listen. i think that

the next three months will be the most critical for ukraine, for the russians now is actually a window of opportunity. the capabilities of the ukrainian armed forces have decreased. the russians feel it, they have accumulated a sufficiently large amount of resources. and in the form of weapons, and in the form of ammunition and in the form of manpower. and they are now trying to use the maximum number of reserves. and what they 're doing now, they're trying to stretch our forces across the front line. help of the united states is critical, so... the pause, which unfortunately was in supplies, it had a substantial impact on the situation at the front, and we are all obvious, eyewitnesses to that, it's absolutely obvious that it had an effect, so the pause was critical, and that , that the front line is moving faster than we would like, this is also a direct consequence of the fact that the supply system has been put on hold.

as far as i understand, the process of receiving weapons and armaments is complete, it will start in the summer, unfortunately, not now. the united states is not yet... able to satisfy ours needs and because of its own problems, because of the limited opportunity, the capacity of the american military-industrial complex is limited in order for it to reach the numbers we need, it needs time, time and money, money is available, even officially and ukraine recognizes it, and western analysts, this proves that the percentage of interception of russian missiles at the front has significantly decreased... this means that the russian aviation can afford to work much more defiantly, and with the help of guided air bombs, it simply demolishes our positions, and after this infantry is squeezing us, after there is nothing left there, this also applies to the direction of the temporary ravine and, for the first time

, to the direction of vivcha, where the russians quickly passed the first line of our defense, it is clear that the distance from the border is small enough, it is clear that the russians have absolutely... an advantage in artillery and aviation, this simplified their advance, but there is a lack of ammunition, a lack of reserves, so far today there are no real threats, for example, to the encirclement, or even more so the capture of kharkov, objectively such a threat no, but the situation is difficult enough, if the russians are not able to create a significant threat now, to lead to the collapse of the front line somewhere, it is not... incredible, but it is possible, unfortunately, if this does not succeed, then there will be a certain stabilization of the front line, i think that somewhere inside, at the end of summer. the professor of the department of humanities of the national academy of land forces named after hetman peter

sagaidachny, andriy kharuk, joins our broadcast, congratulations, glory to ukraine, glory to the heroes, let's start our conversation with the situation in kharkiv oblast, today again this volodymyr zelenskyi, who is currently in kharkiv himself, commented on the situation. he says that the units in the kharkiv region will strengthen, obviously, in preparation for the intensified continuation of the offensive of the russian army. in your opinion, what is the worst scenario that should be prepared for in the kharkiv direction itself, so in my opinion opinion, er, we have to prepare for the scenario of what kyiv sometimes presented in three days, and what it poured into. and now we have vovchansk in two days, and their scenario, we see that from may 10 the russians are actually on the offensive, and in in conclusion, two bridgeheads, up to eight, well, 10 km deep, are all they have managed to achieve at the moment, for almost

a week of fighting, so there are unpleasant moments, there are questions about the same fortification, there are questions about e organizations and the management of the troops was not in vain replaced by the head commander in the kharkiv direction, but whether the russians will be able to break through to kharkiv, it is very unlikely, they will be able to get to a distance from where they can, well, theoretically it will be possible to shell kharkiv with ground artillery, this it is unpleasant, this should not be allowed, will they be able to significantly expand... their bridgeheads, i think not, given that now the main attention of our command is still focused on this direction, because this is a question, well, not only a military-strategic one , but the question is also largely political, gaining a position and repelling

the enemy along the state border on this, in this direction i am running a little ahead, maybe it is not worth talking about any prospects of an offensive yet. actions or counteroffensive, but it will be necessary to do to restore the status quo, but it is another matter that there may be workers there in the areas of the temporary ravine, now the russians can take advantage of the fact that the ukrainian command will be forced to throw reserves to the north, that is, to summarize briefly, the main danger, after all from these actions of the russians, it is not in the kharkiv direction, but in other... directions for which we may at one moment have insufficient reserves, well , it turns out that with this advance in the north of kharkiv region, the russian army is trying to stretch what actually spoke serhii rakhmanin in our story, to stretch the forces of the armed forces of ukraine in order to try to push through the defense in

other places, thus undoubtedly to expand the line on which active combat operations and torture are conducted. accordingly, it is possible to expose other areas. i wanted to ask you about the potential of a russian offensive in the north of kharkiv region, we have been talking about this since the 10th. of may and here i would like to recall the words of the secretary of the rbo lytvynenko that 30,000 out of 50, which were formed for a possible such offensive, have so far been involved in the offensive, and will they be able to, or can they now the military of the russian federation to draw up more reserves and increase, to increase this shock fist, at least quantitatively, quantitatively, so far qualitatively there is nothing, why, because they have parts that are either newly formed, or... which have already been sufficiently worn, the same ones, well, there are two airborne divisions that they

transferred, they, they without a recovery period, they went from one battle to another, and they are not the elite winged infantry, yes, as they said on the eve of 2022, they are a significant somewhat shabby, filled with far from the best personnel, that is, no in... they will succeed in strengthening their grouping here to the extent that they can set themselves strategic tasks like, well, if not capturing, then at least the encirclement of kharkiv, well, no, no, i don’t see where they can get such forces, but here to try to push by expanding the bridgeheads and, so to speak, further push our troops away from the border, yes, it is possible, let's talk about fortifications. they have also been talked about for a week, as a matter of fact, this is what serhii rakhmanin,

people's deputy and member of the verkhovna rada committee on defense, mentioned about the fact that, although it is unlikely, there is still a possibility that the russian army may succeed in breaking through the first line of defense, and here it makes sense to talk about the second and third, in this context it is also worth mentioning that a certain part of these fortifications was the responsibility of civil authorities, in particular, in response. activities of the kharkiv regional state administration and i would like to ask you to comment on these very pictures published by the deep state monitoring group, they say, they claim that in these photos, which they say are in 10 km from the border of the russian federation, poorly prepared fortifications, i wanted to ask you, if we are talking about such a distance of 10 km from the border, then whose responsibility it is to build these fortifications, and whether it is really possible to say from these photos that they were poorly prepared, i have it. .. and these photos, well, they raise more questions than than answers, but i’m not

ready to evaluate in any way, because what was taken from the air does not mean, well, you should look, so to speak, closer, 10 km is the second line of defense, which actually is small would be built already, as they say, by civilian organizations, but we, remember, we repeatedly had such reports about how our drones were destroyed there by russian excavators in the belgorod people's republic , so the russians worked in the same way, and that, well , i said enough about it actually, oleg syniguba is in charge, yes, so really, when it was built here , here, here, i have a different question, if it was reported there that the plan for the construction of defense structures was 100% completed in 2023, then either it is not completely true or this plan was such that he, let's say so. little related to the realities of defense, here i emphasize again, there are many more questions than

than i can give answers. yes, these questions are really asked by both the military and journalists, and those who answer them, in particular, say, well, i'm talking now about the representatives of the authorities, they say that these are any such doubts about what was carried out, carried out all fortifications are on time, this may be part of a russian and... informational and psychological operation, well, we as radio liberty are continuing on this issue to follow and because this is a really important issue. another reason, which is called, which became, well, actually, which led to the fact that the russian troops managed to advance quickly, both in the kharkiv region and in the eastern direction, ah, it is a lack of shells, the ukrainian military, the ukrainian analysts, representatives of the ukrainian authorities and us secretary of state antony blinken are talking about it, so really. can we agree that until the need for shells is closed, the russian troops

will be able to advance just as rapidly in the future, no, well how are we going to kill them without shells? and exits, how to predict what will happen in the months, so i do not yet know another way to destroy the russians, how to inflict significant physical damage on them, which would be accompanied by blood loss and so on, but what else... would inflict such a degree, except how to hit them with powerful, long-range, artillery shells, well, so far, there are no phividrons, they are unable to er... completely completely replace artillery, and artillery must play its role, and it makes no sense at all, i.e we are waiting, we are waiting for these deliveries, and actually it is about a period of 2-3 months, as serhiy arkhmanchy said, i understand correctly, and until then the armed forces must hold out, so to speak, well , there is one more nuance here, because you know, i don't

know there is no military that does not have... excuse me for the vulgarity, a small stock, and such stocks are obviously intact stocks somewhere of the same projectiles at different levels, and the very signal of the decision to supply new batches of ammunition could serve as an incentive for that , to unlock these reserves and allow them to be used, that is , two or three months should not pass. for these projectiles to arrive, because at least a few days ago, maybe two weeks ago, there was a message from the 43rd separate artillery brigade on twitter or whatever it is called now, on other networks, which said that we actually started firing en masse, because shells appeared, it is not clear where they came from, mr. andriy, i want

to ask you at the very end, volodymyr zelenskyi said in an interview with abc that in ukraine for more effective defense. kharkiv two are needed, more precisely, two patriot systems will be enough, and what are the features of placing such an expensive, and as we can see, a rare system, so close to the front, and how their placement, if it happens, will be able to free up resources for the armed forces, in any case , well , a typical example is the japanese anti-aircraft harrow organization, now the poles are going the same way, the patriots have to cover themselves with close-range anti-aircraft defense. and which would allow to shoot down even the same cruise missiles, guided air bombs, well, of course, the maneuver, the maneuver is not to be in the same position and move, because, well, this is a very vulnerable area. thank you very much for joining our broadcast and commenting on what is happening in kharkiv oblast and what we should expect in

this part of the front, andriy kharuk, professor, was in touch with us. department of humanities of the national academy of land forces named after hetman petro sakhaydachny. the condition of slovak prime minister robert fico, who was shot yesterday, has stabilized, but remains very serious. it was reported in the hospital, where fizo underwent a five-hour operation. slovakia's defense minister robert kaliniak said that doctors managed to stabilize fitso overnight and are currently undergoing treatment. procedures are aimed at its further improvement. let me remind you that yurai centul confessed to the attempt to kill robert fitzo. he joked and threw the firecracker on the ground. that was my first reaction. how many shots did you hear? i heard three shots. it was quick, one after the other, like throwing a firecracker on the ground. did you see the injury? yes, i saw a scratch on the head, and then he fell near

the barrier it's like a nightmare. i think i won't wake up from it. this is impossible in slovakia. after. this physio was taken to the hospital in the operational center of the emergency medical service of slovakia. they noted that they received a report about a man who had been shot after 2:30 p.m. a rescue helicopter was sent to him. later , a message appeared on facebook that he was in a life-threatening condition, and the next few hours would be decisive. meanwhile, the slovak media wrote about fitso's wounds in the chest and abdomen. they operated on the prime minister around five hours, this was announced the next day by the director of the hospital miriam leponyukova, where the prime minister was brought. as of the morning of may 16, fico's condition has stabilized, but he is still serious. during the night, doctors managed to stabilize the patient's condition and further measures are currently underway, which should be aimed at improving his condition. the situation is really serious. we are now on our way to bratislava, where

the extraordinary security council is meeting together with an extraordinary meeting of the government, after which we will... we will also brief you in detail about everything that happened officially, the slovak authorities have not announced the name of the detained man who shot fico, but local media say that he may be the 71-year-old writer juraj chintula. he seems to be an activist of the liberal progressive slovakia party, and was previously an activist of a paramilitary pro-russian organization. the man had an officially registered weapon, local media added. meanwhile, the president of slovakia condemned the attack on the prime minister. minister robert fizo, she was joined by other world leaders, in particular, the president of the european commission, ursula funderlajen, the leaders of germany, france, the usa, the czech republic, ukraine and others commented on the attack and the president of russia and the prime minister of hungary, viktor orban. the latter stated that, i quote, he was deeply shocked by the brutal attack on his

friend. with viktor orban, fice shares a loyal attitude towards moscow. so, last fall, when fitzzu became prime minister for the fourth time, he promised not to give ukraine a single cartridge again. in this way , fico turned slovakia's foreign policy in a pro-russian direction. since then, the country no longer... provides free military service to ukraine aid, fico himself said that the supply of weapons only continues the bloodshed, and ukraine should cede territory to russia for the sake of peace. in addition, fico's government officially refused to join the czech initiative to purchase shells for ukraine outside of europe. anastasia potapenko, radio liberty. did the attacker act independently or in an attempt on fitza's life? there may indeed be a russian trail, as the political situation in slovakia, whose government opposes aid to ukraine, may now change. we will talk about this later.

dmytro tuzhanskyi, director of the institute of central european strategy, is with us live. good evening. good evening. therefore, the ministry of internal affairs of slovakia stated that the attacker acted independently. how appropriate is it to look for a russian trace in the attempt on robert fitz? look, well, from russian. it's obvious because in, by the way, our slovak language team tracked that the russians engaged in a disinformation campaign, using this tragedy literally there 5, 7, 10 minutes, as it was reported by the key media, there two media slovak, that's the mark, the mark is that precisely russian disinformation is trying to show this, this tragedy, as a result, well, not even so much of a political struggle with... only about this civil, so-called conflict that exists in slovakia, and they are trying to exacerbate it further, but you mentioned in the story that juraj tsintula is said to be an activist

of progressive slovakia, progressive slovakia has already denied this, so how is it possible that juraj tsintula voted for progressive slovakia, maybe he, for example, went to protests against the activities of robert fico, but you know, not only progressive slovakia organizes these protests. actually, and that's why, you know, well, i understand why russia replicates this attachment to progressive slovakia, because it is the most pro-western, liberal, pro-ukrainian political force, the key competitor, in fact, of robert fitz, that's exactly what polarizes politically slavic society, well, again, you also mentioned that mr. juraj tsintula, there as of 2016, are right-handed researchers. in europe, they found evidence that he was right indirectly sympathized with the right-wing paramilitary movement in slovakia, which ceased to exist in 22, yes, that is, you understand, this is already

an ambivalence, so in the views of this mr. juraj, well, and again, you understand that of course we have when we talk about political debates and the polarization of society, then of course we have to talk first of all with politicians, yes, who are the drivers of these debates and they articulate them. these are all things, and actually with political parties, that when you say something, feel responsible for his words and that it is possible that, you know, it will affect someone in such a way that a person will pick up a weapon, drive less than 100 km in his car, and meet a political leader and start firing five shots, at the same time, you know, translate the political i don't know who is responsible for the protests themselves as an element of the democrats. the element of civil society necessarily leads to the use of force and shots, well , excuse me, here if, you know, this is a very

complex logic, and here it is important for us to clarify everything, here, because this is exactly what he wants put russian disinformation into one package, that’s what it does, and you know what else russian disinformation is adding to this package now, ukraine, it, yes, it’s not through it goes directly through yarosh’s business card or some, you know, er... no i know ukrainian right-wing radicals who suddenly went to slovakia and recruited there maybe this yuray, well, this version, well, maybe there is somewhere, to be honest, i don't have time to work out all these russian goals, but to tie ukraine to this tragedy , which shocked all of slovakia, which causes well, well, shock, yes, negativity, that's exactly what the russians are trying to do, so that ukraine becomes one of those topics that polarizes slovak society. the maximum and the consequence of this seems to be an assassination attempt on the prime minister, for such a really comprehensive and actually answer with all

the context of what is happening and... russian propaganda can use an assassination attempt on robert fitso, i wanted to ask you, what is he can change politically in slovakia, how can the political process change in slovakia now, or will it, on the contrary, lead to strengthening the power of fico, who will probably use it in some of his, i don't know, in his politics, or what to expect, look, it's a black lepid and it's... a big test for slovakia, because, well , everything you described , everything is possible, here you know, everything is very simple, any crisis, of this type, a shocking crisis, relatively speaking, this, if you simplify everything like this, then you know it, like in the matrix, here are two pills, yes, you can take one, and it can go to the consolidation of society, to the rethinking of these political debates, to the rethinking of this polarization towards growth, perhaps critical thinking, you will understand, in slovakia, people

there, i don’t know how many percent 20, 20. sleep believe in the biolaboratories of the united states, you understand, or in foreign management, i.e. all those crazy narratives that russia pumped in ukraine , they also live there, the slovaks still believe in slavic brotherhood with the russians, and for them there is roughly the same polarization as for society in general, which is roughly the same number who say that russia is our brothers, russians are our brothers, fraternal state also says that, relatively speaking, the united states is our enemy, imagine, this is a country. a member of the eu and nato , that's why, again, this is a test of responsibility , a good signal is that literally today , the current president zruzana chaputova and the elected president peter pellegrini, who will take office, made a joint statement calling not to polarize, not to provoke, not to use this tragedy for political reasons, well, let's see how long the politicians hold out, some slovak politicians have already stated, speculating that the blood

on... the independent media, here is such a context that they say they drove this mr. yuray to such and such actions, or the opposition, which also drove him to such and such actions, well, i say, this is a terrible manipulation, i will tell you the same, that this is a test for europe in general, because there is an election campaign for the european parliament, the finish line, and you know, polarization and this kind of search for enemies, this is one of today's key methods of gaining supporters, mobilizing supporters. and you know, you see, they are already saying that there leaders are receiving threats, i read there donald tusk did it, so you see, it's a test for everyone, and it's such a black lion, i apologize for this comparison, but it's actually here, if appropriate, correct, although it will sound very ukrainian-centric, remember the first days of the russian invasion, for everyone there was a shock, everyone condemned it, but you look over the last 22 years, well, over the last two years, how cynical individual western or world

politicians in general are. exploit the war in ukraine, russian aggression, and in very such, well, simply amazing contexts that seem to us just crazy, and when we draw attention to this from ukraine, everyone tells us that you use some kind of moral judgment, i don’t know, or you are very emotional, well, very emotional, of course, because in our country, time is measured by human lives , you understand, well, this tragedy happened in slovakia, i hope that this is a rethinking - the slovaks would be able to, would be able to pass, mr. dmytro, and how should the state of ukraine act now, we know that volodymyr zelenskyi quite promptly and quite clearly condemned attack on fitso, however, how, can and should ukraine now act in some way, so as not to allow manipulation, and well, so that this situation is not used against ukraine? yes, you absolutely are.