will the united states allow its weapons to be used on russian territory, ukraine has been asking for it for a long time, but washington's position has so far been adamant, what can change it, about this... we are talking on the bbc live from london, i'm yevgenia shedlovska. this issue has already divided nato countries. the united states is against, some european states are in favor, and nato secretary general jens stoltenberg is calling for a review of restrictions on the use of weapons that ukraine receives. the time has come to do it, he said in an interview with an economist, he repeated it in brussels, in prague, such his the statements angered certain allies of the alliance. in general, each country that transfers weapons to ukraine determines the conditions. on which it will

be used, but russia's offensive in the kharkiv region showed that it is difficult for ukraine to defend itself with such restrictions, so whether to allow ukraine to strike russia with the weapons it received was discussed at the eu level at the beginning of the week, when the defense ministers of the european countries met in brussels union, and now the same issue is being discussed at the nato level. the ministers of foreign affairs of the alliance countries gathered in prague for such an informal two-day meeting meetings as they began. this was seen by the bbc's rob cameron. nato secretary general jen stoltenberg supported this extremely divisive and irritating issue, as did french president macron. but there are many countries that are strongly opposed to the fact that their weapons, which they supply to kyiv, are used to hit targets on the territory of russia. in particular, italy is the last country that acted extremely decisively. and they said they were very ... stoltenburg's comments

about the policy that they think should be adopted unanimously by all nato partners. so they certainly do not welcome it, and they are not the only ones, france for, germany against and so on and so forth. so, this is a controversial issue, but by no means the only controversial issue that will be discussed in the corridors of this informal summit in prague at the ministry of foreign affairs, which i believe. you know what russia's reaction was to stoltenberg's calls, threats again. putin said, i quote: small countries with a small densely populated area should take this into account before talking about strikes deep into the russian territory, this is putin's rhetoric, but more and more european countries are in favor of allowing ukraine to use western weapons on russian territory. if a plane with missiles is flying, it is better to shoot down the plane, and not to try to shoot down the launched missiles, this is the position of the czech republic to journalists, the minister of foreign affairs of the country voiced, the bbc correspondent told about this, in addition to the czech republic, france, sweden, lithuania, latvia, estonia, the netherlands ,

representatives of these countries declare that ukraine has the right to defend itself, if necessary, strikes on enemy territory. but still, britain was the first to break the taboo on strikes against russia, which, among other things, provides ukraine with stormshed missiles. remember, the british foreign minister, david cameron, during a visit to kyiv in early may, said that ukraine could use british weapons against russia, thus, at the same time, the united states assures european nato allies of unwavering support. listen to what us secretary of state anthony blinken said about it in prague. the great strength of nato, the reason for its existence - collective self-defense. collective defense means that we are all a group. an attack on one is an attack on all. and this is what makes conflicts less likely. this strengthens the deterrence factor. it speaks to a potential aggressor or adversary if you attack one nato member. then you will have to fight

everyone, and we have seen that this is the most powerful way to prevent wars, to prevent them from spreading, but it is already the third year of a full-scale war between russia and ukraine, so will the united states lift the ban on striking russia with their weapons, even sooner the new york times wrote that us secretary of state anthony blinken, after a recent trip to kyiv, believes that the ban should be lifted, and discussions in washington continue, that's what the publication wrote, referring to its... sources, so what about supporting ukraine , radio liberty correspondent rostislav khotyn is in touch with us from prague, i welcome you on the air, so how can the europeans convince the americans to lift the taboo on strikes by western weapons against russia? congratulations yevgeny, so the european allies in the alliance are putting pressure on washington to change its position, and there are already the first signs that the american position may change. it seems that the new york times

wrote, citing its own sources, that joe biden is inclined to change his position and allow the ukrainians to hit russian territory with american, albeit western , weapons. there are several points here, there are several, but there will be: first, it will not be possible to strike at the civilian infrastructure, it will not be possible to strike at the energy infrastructure in russia, it will be possible to strike only at military facilities, at those facilities where the threat comes from for ukraine, from where russia releases missiles, from where releases long-range projectiles, from airfields from which aircraft take off for dropping guided bombs, from which drones and so on take off, and it will also be possible to strike russia, which is next to ukraine, and not far into the depths of russia, so that the american position is also changing, and very this prague meeting, when the european nato allies are putting very, very strong pressure on america, will be of great importance for this. but with regard to germany, germany is the main european opponent of the use of

western weapons on the territory of russia, so germany does not provide ukraine with taurus, because they can reach moscow, but its position can change? yes, and it changes, indeed. america and germany were two countries that were against that, categorically against that, well, italy is there and some other smaller ones, but in principle, germany and america are two countries that were categorically against strikes on russian territory by western weapons, but the german position is also changing, although chancellor olaf scholl has not yet matured to this decision, but in principle there is very serious pressure from the ministry of foreign affairs of germany, that is, from the german politician bundestag that this position can change and kharkiv is changing this position, because russia is attacking kharkiv, which is 35 km. from the border with russia, and in fact kharkiv is defenseless, and russia is hitting kharkiv precisely from russian territory, and that is why the situation in kharkiv is tension, it is an invasion of the kharkiv region, it is, so to speak, a game changer, it is a situation that completely affects a different vision now,

including in germany. please stay with us, because there is another important issue, this is ammunition for ukraine, because the czech republic wants to transfer to ukraine 1.5 million artillery shells purchased all over the world, and the first batch of up to 100,000 shells has already been promised in june. at the same time , the financial times writes that there were problems with the shells, some of them turned out to be of poor quality, and czech government officials say that although many countries supported the initiative, not all of them transferred the money. so, returning to our conversation, it turned out to be not so easy to collect shells for ukraine around the world, but how much ammunition can ukraine really get in the near future? see already has in june. the first batch of the czech initiative is to arrive, it is 50 - 100,000 shells for ukraine, for the ukrainian armed forces, it is very, very important, because the armed forces are starving for shells, for one russian, for one ukrainian shell, russia produces six, even the proportion reaches and ten, i.e. one

to 10, the ratio is this, i.e. ukrainians are saving, saving shells, the czech initiative envisages collecting somewhere around a million, one and a half, they even say that up to 2 million can be collected and are being collected literally all over the world ... around the world, there were publications in the press that even south africa, turkey, south korea, but here there is a very serious competition with russia, russia is sabotaging this initiative, putting pressure on other partners, especially in the third world in the global south, and the czech representatives say that if we are delayed, then russia will already buy these shells for itself, so we must hurry, indeed, when the initiative was judged, 15 countries raised their hands, so we will give money, but six countries actually gave, this canada, germany. denmark, the netherlands, portugal, and the czech republic, and the rest have not yet come down with money. well, and this meeting of nato foreign ministers in prague, which has been going on for the past two days, is actually a preparatory meeting for the washington nato summit. so, does it become clear what ukraine

should expect there? well, first of all, we should expect a meeting of the ukraine-nato council at the highest level, which means that we should wait for president zelensky at the july nato summit in washington, this is the first moment. the second will be a serious aid package, nato will take over all coordination, all leadership aid to ukraine from the west, from renstein, from america, nato will coordinate it. one more point, very serious signals are being sent to kyiv, now to reduce ambitions a little, to lower the bar of expectations regarding some kind of invitation to the alliance or quick membership, there will be a political decision that ukraine will be a member of nato, and this is not a moment, but now the invitation is not yet will be thank you, rostyslav khotyn, correspondent. radio svoboda from prague. so, with regard to strikes on russian territory with western weapons, the united states from the beginning of the war stated that this cannot be done in order not to escalate. but to what extent does this ban limit ukrainian defense capabilities? this is what the former ambassador of the united states

to ukraine, john herbst, said earlier. ukraine is absolutely right. the us administration was too cautious, even timid. since moscow launched the great invasion. the us is sending ukraine the weapons it needs to succeed, and these are the weapons ukraine needs to protect american interests as well. one aspect of this timidity was rejection. allow ukraine to use american weapons to attack military targets in russia. the absurdity of this position: the geopolitical absurdity of the us, especially visible now, when russian troops are 40 km from kharkiv on russian territory and the border is only 30 km from kharkiv, and we know that across the border ukraine will be much more effective in defending kharkiv if it can to use american weapons to attack those troops stationed in russia. if... can use american weapons to attack russian planes, which are from russia

airspace sends winged bombs that devastate kharkiv, but the us administration says no. i hope that belief changes soon, but then again, the timidity of the administration has been a problem since the beginning of the great russian invasion. and in addition to the fact that there was a delay in considering a large package of american aid, the american congress could not vote on it for six months... and some observers believe that this opened a window of opportunity for the russian military to intensify its offensive, while ukraine was expecting a military aid kharkiv region, kharkiv itself was under russian attack. the following is a fragment of material by the bbc's jeremy boben. these destructions are the result of shortages and delays in military aid, especially the $60 billion package that the us has been delaying for months. ukraine needs an uninterrupted supply of weapons to stop

russia. the ukrainians were unable to intercept the missiles that were flying here and were unable to attack the russian drone that was patrolling the sky before, during and after the strike. ukrainians are forced to choose between which objects to protect and more fight an enemy who has adapted to exploit their weakness. ukrainians feel... the painful consequences of russian troops learning from their own mistakes. kharkiv paramedics retrieved another body from under the rubble. tension is growing, not only among kharkiv residents, in front of whom their colleagues were killed, but also throughout the country. another missile alert: there was almost panic. constant shelling, which has been going on for months and even years, undermines morale. ukraine is not defeated, but it... will not stop the russians without additional troops, better defense and more weapons from

allies. recently, russia shelled a hypermarket, killing nineteen people. ukraine wants joe biden to give it permission to strike russia with powerful american weapons systems. and regarding the situation at the front, the ukrainian military stated that after the russian border breakthrough, the situation in kharkiv oblast was stabilized. but back to the first question: will the united states allow its weapons to be used to strike military targets in russia? why did they already have it? done a long time ago - explains bengodges, the former commander of the american army in europe. it's a shame that this question came up at all, but it reflects the fact that my government, the government of germany and frankly, some other european countries have never clearly stated that they want ukraine to win. in fact, we haven't even tried yet. so we provided billions of dollars in aid, but we did not explain to our own population that

ukraine's victory over russia is in our strategic interests. instead, we made empty statements like: we are so much with you, how much is needed so if we were to enforce the sanctions, continuously deliver what is needed, without these silly restrictions like that. they have to target the russian oil and gas infrastructure, or you shouldn't be shooting at such a large concentration of troops inside. russia, it would be a completely different story. i think that the situation will change as more and more ammunition begins to arrive, but we should not have put ukraine in such a position. this is the opinion of american viewer ben godges. well, that concludes ours output. read more news on our website bbc.ua and subscribe to our pages on social networks, so as not to miss the most important things , we are on facebook, instagram, tiktok, you can view ours on youtube. if you suddenly missed it live, well, i'll say goodbye to you until tomorrow, see you,

we'll join espresso viewers, literally after the cap we'll continue our conversation. this project speaks for greater lviv, traditionally, from lviv, from the largest discussion platform of our country, we speak for the whole of ukraine and involve viewers in our broadcast espresso tv channel. glory to ukraine. glory to the hero, we have been working on our youtube channel for some time, says velikiy lviv, the broadcast is ongoing there, the beginning of the interview with

vitaly portnikov, who is with us on skype, you can watch it, listen to it again, because the important theses were sounded. opinions spoke about the prospects of ukraine in nato, in particular, so we encourage you to join us also on youtube, where you can actively communicate and write comments. mr. vitaly, he remains with us, and we wanted to touch on the topic of your such a resonant, well, this is not an interview, it there was a conversation with a russian oppositionist, journalist, latynina, and i want to ask you, what do you think, such a stir and such a wave, well, many ukrainians from... actually in social networks reposted this interview, talked about it, expressed their opinion , and what caused such a wave of indignation, because usually ukrainians were indignant? i think that what people heard in terms of narratives, they did not like, and by the way, i tried

to explain this to ms. latinino even before this meeting on the air, when i was actually... preparing about her statement. we don't want to hear what we have civil war. that, that which we continue to be persuaded from different sides. and, by the way, since 2014 they are convinced that we have a civil war, a civil war between russians and ukrainians, because we are one people and partners in the empire, a civil war in ukraine itself. i believe that this is a very dangerous narrative, because it largely continues to create the image of ukraine as such a second russia. which just might be more democratic than the first, and is now in such a situation of fighting for its sovereignty, not because ukrainians are different people, and because they want to live in a different social system, relatively speaking, we are such a taiwan, and we are not taiwan in relation to

china, but we are korea, you understand, this is a different nation, we were not.' we are part of this empire, well, there were some ukrainians who were partners, but these ukrainians, as i have already explained many times, renounced their identity, this was the main condition of partnership, i do not know at all whether it is possible to consider self-rape as a condition of partnership, you understand, i saw an amazing thing, colleagues, this is when ms julia named her version of ours. in the words of napoleon, the traitor of corsica, and this makes many people, i would say, of this russian-soviet historical upbringing wildly laugh, although we are talking about a person who never mastered the french language in his entire life, we are talking about a person who was bullied in france , when she moved there as a young person, because she did not know french, could not speak normally, this person grew up in loneliness, in

harassment, in absolute disrespect, and became an empire. french, because she wanted revenge all those who treated her like that behaved, as the russians say, like some kind of natsmen, they have words, you know such a natsmen, this is napoleon bonaparte, but in order to become the emperor of france, he had to betray his own homeland, and this happened to several of our compatriots, you remember, and i and the russians do not have any empathy, you see, i hoped that even napoleon bonaparte evoked empathy, they would understand what it was like, i would say lonely ... the black soul of this world-famous man, but napoleon banapar also does not have empathy for them, because even this success, that a person can kill people by the hundreds of thousands, covers their own experiences. mr. vitaly, it seems to me that one of the no less important consequences of this conversation, you spoke about it in part and quite extensively in one of your interviews later on the youtube channel rashkin report, i

carefully praised him and there i drew this conclusion for myself , i want to hear from you, actually. why does this russian peace continue to remain in our heads and it does not disappear anywhere, in fact, in an ideal ukraine, probably no one shouldn't understand who yulia latynina is, and why we all have to discuss as a whole country how portnikov put her in her place, we simply shouldn't not know who she is, but we know all these russian-speaking speakers, they all appear on all youtubes anyway, and once they appear, they are listened to, well, that is , the audience still needs them for some reason, i... think that we simply continue to have one foot in the russian or russian-language information space, the question is not even therefore, whether they knew us or not, yulia latymina. it is obvious that some russian oppositionists can be watched or listened to in poland or the czech republic when it comes to russian events, but these are definitely not the people who tell

poles and czechs how to live, and when they try, remember how there was the dosh tv channel, which began to tell about the political situation in latvia, and the national council for electronic media of the republic of latvia said: "you are telling us how to live in latvia, let's meet." and this is the question, it is very... simple, because there is another space information, even the russian-speaking space of latvia, believe me, as a person who has been published in the latvian press since childhood, well, from school years, even the russian-speaking space of latvia is different from the russian-speaking space of russia, all russian-speaking viewers or readers of latvia have their own authorities, well-known journalists, let's say there are meters of journalism, but these are not meters of russian journalism, here is my colleague, anafast, who is the meter of latvian russian-language journalism, publishes newspapers and magazines there, has a huge authority, it is not known to anyone in russia, but it is known to all those in latvia who are interested

in the life of their own country, you understand, this is a hermetically sealed information space, and in ours this space is not hermetically sealed, because we still need either the approval or the condemnation of people from russia itself, and that's what hocus-pocus is, and this is what i tried to explain to them, they themselves too... perceive ukraine through the russian-speaking space, so they also have a distorted idea of ​​what we think and what we don't think, and in this regard, i am one of the few, it seems to me, who speaks both in ukrainian and russian, because in fact i take a step there with one foot from time to time from the ukrainian-speaking information space, and there are speakers who have both feet in the russian-speaking space, they are not so interesting to us, but they have always interested russians, are people really like that? i think that this interview of yours should be a very important step, an interview, a debate with

latinina, an important step for sealing the ukrainian information space, at least from the russian federation. i would say so, the russians are in our space information should be guests, not hosts. i don't see any tragedy in talking to a russian about russia. i often talk to ilya ponomarov on the air. although he is in fact a person fully integrated into our world, but i always talk to him first of all about russia, and what about russia, and how russian these guys from the rdk see their future, and what about the peoples of russia, well, this is logical, he is an expert, he a former deputy of the state duma, but other people, they are constantly trying to tell, not how to live for them, but how to live for us, what kind of war we have, what we have to decide who should give us weapons, not give them, how we should behave in relation to the occupied... territories, how not to behave, and all the time you say: listen, maybe you will tell us how things are with you, and not how do we have we ourselves will somehow be able to formulate the agenda ourselves, in any

languages, in any languages, and they do not understand this, because for them we are still the kyiv province, absolutely, that is strange, and many, perhaps, precisely for that reason reacted so to this interview, because they saw this huge gulf between us and them, between our argumentation. from your lips and who hasn't heard it yet, we recommend you listen because it's important and really sets us apart a lot from this country and that's why they're our enemy. mr. vitaly, thank you for this conversation, we are going to the studio to our guests who are already there, we will continue, good evening to everyone who joined us, who is there with us? studio, we are ready to introduce the guests, we have andriy hnatush, captain, serviceman of the armed forces of ukraine, andriy libych, veteran of the russian-ukrainian war, good evening, good evening, yaroslav gerasym, with us,

doctor of philological sciences, professor of ivan franko lviv national university, good evening, mykola knyazhytskyi, people's deputy of ukraine, european solidarity, co-chairman of the group of inter-parliamentary relations with the republic of poland, good evening, good evening, mykola buchyn is with us, political scientist, professor of the lviv polytechnic national university. ulyana kuzyk, authorized person from the 67th ombr regarding work with philanthropists, head of the ulyana kuzyk foundation. i am a politician military, there are scientists, we will also skype the fighters from the east, they will tell us about the operational situation there, there will be people's deputies and former people's deputies. we will talk, in particular on this broadcast, why, this is in continuation of the conversation with portnik, why this russian peace still exists in our country. state and we cannot eradicate it in any way, perhaps it is felt much less here in lviv, but in other regions it is, but let's start with the military

situation, mr. hnatosh, i have a question for you. very there was a lot of talk this week about the importance of the ee radar plane that the swedes are giving us, that's the first part of the question, the second part of the question is how it might affect the context, we're waiting for the f16, they should be there at some point, and the second part, judging by there is a concrete hope that the missiles of the united states of america will allow us to hit russian territory, could this become a turning point in this war? intelligence is always good, and advanced means that will contribute to the improvement of this indicator are exactly in our hands, now and in time, that is, somehow always it happens that weapons are given to us somewhat late, which we would like to avoid, but we are waiting for these planes, probably like manna from heaven, and in the presentation of happiness, such and such

a story, yes... such a gift of fate, this is the next step, it will be airplanes, but we will talk with the airplanes in a grown-up way, we will then eliminate the danger of their use of missiles, which they drop ungodly, lowering, well, that is, our defense redoubts, destroying our personnel, then the conversation will be completely different, help us with the sky, the quality of our personnel is an order of magnitude higher than that of our opponent and with the latest systems. intelligence, we will be able to repel their attacks more effectively, all the guys who cross the border from their side, they will die here and approve our land, to mr. libych, the question is traditionally for the military, we start with the military in all our broadcasts, what is important to highlight about the situation now at the front, we are told by the headquarters and the general staff that the situation in kharkiv oblast has been

stabilized, this is... on the one hand, it is possible to push the occupiers in the kharkiv region to the border, but on the other hand, there is information that they continue to accumulate new forces and new reserves in the kharkiv direction, so it is definitely impossible to calm down there, unfortunately, well, you can’t calm down, besides, today the commander-in-chief oleksandr syrsky of the armed forces of ukraine himself confirmed that they are increasing the number of groups in the north of kharkiv oblast, raising new units, well, in this way, they are probably trying to expand this bridgehead, yes, which they captured there, the fighting is going on vovchansk, difficult, difficult, and maybe they will try to enter in other places, there are intelligence data from our military, and that is northwest of kharkiv, maybe there is the sumy direction and so on, the president also said about this, that is, it is possible ,

they can... enter such strips and occupy the territories, well, as we can see now in terms of width, it is quite significantly occupied there somewhere, well , how many kilometers are there, 40, if i’m not mistaken, maybe more, i don’t know, in depth they are somewhere around 8- 9 left, that is, they can now there is not enough grouping, let's say, to to break through the defense line, as the commander-in-chief says, but over time they can withdraw there, withdraw their forces and continue, well... at least try to stretch our forces, then see where we can strike, well, there is logic in this, that's why it's really here help from the west is very important right now in the face of the destruction of the aviation and these cabs, which are mercilessly destroyed there, they attack kharkiv itself, in particular, the civilian infrastructure, what is more terrible in this

situation? therefore, let's hope that it will be possible to stabilize the situation and push them out them from the territory of ukraine, but we must be prepared that they can land in other directions nearby, let's say to the northwest of kharkiv, somewhere in the direction of sumy, it is quite possible, and we will also talk about help, what can we expect from the world, from the west , how decisive they will be in their actions, but we still want to remember at the beginning of this broadcast in... it is already going on with us, of course, but we cannot help but remember those who give their lives every day for us and you, who die in this war, and literally today it became known about the girl, iryna tsyboh, 25 years old, she served in the hospital battalion, iryna is a journalist by education, and today it became known that she died yesterday in the kharkiv direction during the rotation.