against the brigade of the armed forces of ukraine, and now let's remember a moment of silence for those ukrainians whose lives, unfortunately, were cut short by russian aggression. we will honor their memory with a moment of silence. let's observe a moment of silence in memory of the ukrainian military and civilian citizens of ukraine who died in the war started by russia.

in ukraine, people are worried about the growing influence of the head of the president's office, andriy yarmak, on volodymyr zelenskyi. the british newspaper times writes about it. the other day, an article was published there, in which it is said that... that higher government, military, law enforcement and diplomatic sources are concerned about the increasing dependence of the head of state on the head of his office. yermak's authority with the start of a full-scale invasion of ukraine in 2022 by russia and the introduction of martial law there exceeded the authority of all elected officials of ukraine, the times writes. he is unofficially called the de facto head of state and vice president. more about that, about the recovery summit, which is starting now. in germany, we

talk further on this broadcast. my name is kateryna nekrecha, and this is svoboda ranok. so, unnamed diplomatic sources claim that yermak fully controls access to zelenskyi, and the military allegedly accuses him of organizing the dismissal of valery zaluzhnyi from the position of commander-in-chief of the armed forces. for example, due to his high authority, the hard-working man became a rival for yermak. in the same way, yermak allegedly eliminated. from the position of vice prime minister oleksandr kubrakov, who is also responsible for infrastructure, and this has already been reported by anonymous sources in the government. kubrakov, as the times writes, was respected for his honesty, competence and independence, and we talk more about this later. so, yermak is also being thrown a cover from justice by his deputy oleg tatarov. after being accused of bribery in the office of the president, he was not fired. on the contrary

, the prosecutors were instructed to take over this case, and they closed it, and according to a high-ranking representative of law enforcement agencies, yermak is using tatarov to ensure the loyalty of officers of the criminal justice system, and his former deputy kyril tymoshenko, who had to leave the president's office after the scandal , fair allegedly placed him in the ministry of defense, and now he is responsible for the construction of a fortification worth almost 650. in the president's office, these accusations were called propaganda attacks, they say that yermak is criticized for his direct but effective management style, there they also note his success in attracting international partners to of the peace summit in switzerland, which is to be held this week. in this job, it is difficult to remain friends with everyone - the publication quotes the answer of the spokeswoman of the president's office and another quote, but president zelenskyi is the one who approves everything. key decisions. in response to the accusations of

yermak's involvement in the release of the servant, they said that people in uniform are rarely satisfied with a political decision, and in general, the servant was not dismissed, but sent as an ambassador to britain, which indicates a high level of trust in him. a spokeswoman for the president's office also explained to the newspaper that the operations of the president's office during martial law are subject to special security protocols, and therefore yarmak has a legitimate role in the chief's headquarters. and in the nsdc, in accordance with their constitutional powers. we will talk about this material and the influence of andrii yarmak later. kristina berdynskikh, an independent journalist and investigator who follows the political life of ukrainian officials, joins our broadcast. welcome to our broadcast, thank you for joining. congratulations. in your opinion, how accurate is this material of western journalists, and there was some, well, news, maybe for ukrainian. society or for you as

a ukrainian journalist who closely follows the activities of the authorities? i think that we did not read anything new there, that is, all this is known, but i am against ... to speak in the style of accusations, but i can speak about some trends, the fact is that the head of the president's office really performs functions that are not typical for him, this is essentially , let's say it directly and frankly, the vice president is not just the head of the administration, yes, and very often we see that he replaces some key officials, for example, when it is not the minister of foreign affairs, but andriy yarmak, who conducts negotiations with western partners. it's completely does not correspond to its functionality, and from the side i’m just saying, i don’t want to say who is there, what influenced what, what decisions, because i wasn’t

present when these decisions were made, but i can say with certainty how it looks from the side in the last sometimes in the eyes of western partners, even if... that they don't say it directly, because you also have to understand that we are at war now, they will still support us so that the president's office does not do it, but it will be like this forever, it looks like that the management style that exists now still looks like even more monopolization of power and manual management, when the president's office tries to control absolutely all branches of government and create its own format of state management. but we must remember that now we are not only fighting at the front, defending our freedom and so on, we will win someday, and at the same time, we are conducting the process of joining the european union, they are happening right now in parallel, and this

is the style of the state, which is currently being introduced by the office of the president and bankov, with such power of the state, i very much doubt that we will get into a large european family. well , there are many internal problems, but the criteria for us will be quite high, and one of them is democratic institutions, we must develop democratic institutions, and not destroy them or subject them to manual control, but manual control is what what's happening now, we know it's at the level of micromanagement in the... the government, in other institutions, and the office of the president, i think their logic, it's explained by, you mentioned a little bit, that first of the full-scale invasion, they invented unconventional there the ways of conducting diplomacy that gave ukraine

the support of western partners, mobilized our partners around ukraine, it gave us weapons, and everything, but - this is not appropriate when we talk about the development of the state and the way forward, and if the western partners are not vocal about it now they say, this does not mean that they do not see, they see everything, they record everything, and so and so, such silence will be endless when we say, why are we not accepted into the european union, why so slowly, that's why, because it's necessary i will repeat again, to strengthen... and develop institutions, preserve their independence, and develop it, not the other way around. krystyna, well, that is the main claim or remark from ukrainian society, from ukrainian journalists, and indeed in the ukrainian media environment there is a lot of criticism of andriy

yarmak’s activities as well, it should be noted, and what is in the western columns, this it is true that it is not the first time, but it is being discussed, it probably indicates that there, too, western journalists, western media, western...politicians are already paying attention to this, and perhaps during a great war this is manual management, it is somewhat necessary, because president zelenskyi, he speaks of yermak as one of his top managers there, who effectively cope with their tasks, then maybe it should still be like that in such conditions, and yes and no, i said about diplomacy invented new formats, maybe it really had a place, because... it was still necessary to cheer up the world and to demand from him, from our partners as well more support for ukraine, but if at this stage of the war our democratic institutions are destroyed, yes, then after a full-scale

invasion, sooner or later in the future we will have elections there and it is very important that we preserve the system. of the state, yes, a system of checks and balances, because it is not known who will get the power later, and when there are no powerful institutions in the state, there is a great risk that some kind of chaos will begin just then, and there must be a system of checks and balances to prevent this from happening, there must be a strong civic society also, which controls the government, it is still there, we just see that the government does not pay much attention to this reaction, but we still have it, and this is exactly the strength of ukraine, it is what we show the world that even during our journalists make wars there... investigations reveal corruption, this is about, this is about the future

of ukraine, this is what makes our state stronger, not weaker. i will note that while preparing this broadcast, we already asked for comments and invited to an interview, for example, mr. podolyak, he refused to comment on this topic, we wrote and to the press secretary of the president, he did not answer, and the lady did not answer either, that is, it would be interesting to discuss it with them, there is such a story... the offrek where ukrainian journalists are invited, there are the offreks of yermak, there are the ofreks of president zelenskyi. kristina, how can you, as a journalist, evaluate this dialogue in general, especially in such issues, which are quite loud, especially when they are spread to the western audience, is this dialogue between ukrainian journalists and the authorities, or does the ukrainian manage to answer all the questions journalists to receive, v including questions like that, what influence does yeremak have today? i think that, sorry,

we will answer a little on this question, but i think it is important to mention it, it seems to me that andriy yermak is too concerned about his own image, that is, it is obvious that he wants to create some image in the eyes of ukrainian society, but this image is being shattered again, about some specific actions that the ukrainian society notices there, and hardly. he will succeed, and in principle, and he should not worry that to become a favorite of ukrainian society, yes, he is only performing the tasks of the president, he is not the vice president, yes, he is the head of his office, and this is what seems very wrong to me, that the head of the president's office creates very little around pr itself, instead of... worrying about, i don't know, what our state will be like in

the future, and it doesn't work at all in the middle of the country, because people just don't perceive yermak as a favorite politician there, yes, that's all those who support the team are the same zelensky, for them zelensky is a favorite, not yermak, and in the west, i want to tell you that western societies do not know who andriy yarmak is, so if you... can't name the name of the ukrainian prime minister, that's well, and that’s not a fact, maybe they also only know zelensky , of course, diplomats, people who make decisions, make decisions about him, because he directly negotiates with them, and they all clearly understand that he is a person, which has direct influence on the president and makes decisions, that's why he himself needs to think about changing his public... image, he won't become a popular politician, no matter how much he wants it,

it's just not imposed on the mood of ukrainian society, and therefore, if the question is about communication and the like, then it's better more communications, and less of some kind of visual pr, well, plus one person who already knows about irmak, this is the pope of rome, recently they had a meeting, which also circulated there... news and this photo. thank you christina for joining our broadcast. of course, we will continue to be on the air talk with other guests on this topic and more broadly. kristina berdynskikh, an independent journalist, joined our broadcast. thank you. and let me remind you, perhaps you have forgotten, that back in april of this year, the head of the president's office , andriy yermak, was included in the list of the top-100 most influential people of 2024, according to the magazine's version. he was the only representative from ukraine in this. listed in the leaders category. former nato secretary general anders fogh rasmussen wrote about yermak in the magazine, who

works together with yermak in the international working group on security guarantees for of ukraine and questioning ukraine's accession to nato. and so he wrote: "a person who played a central role in ensuring the government's work." such is the characteristic. but how the western world now sees yermak and whether this perception has changed, how exactly he is evaluated, will tell. to my colleague rostyslav khotyn, an international columnist for radio liberty. rostyslav, congratulations, thank you for joining. tell me, something has changed in yermak's perception. kristina berdynskikh says that diplomats know the field. who know him, people do not know, as now the media and diplomats there, western politicians perceive this person, well, western politicians and western diplomats consider it an honor and a great achievement when, during a visit to ukraine , they see andriy yaermakomche somewhere during his trips abroad, they have the opportunity to talk with him , to meet, this is considered the success of some of her diplomatic

rendezvous, regarding publications in the western press, the international press, it is clear that... there are various publications, there is a publication of time magazine, there is an article that has just been published in the times newspaper, the british london times, even there says that andriy yermak is a cold vice-president of ukraine, that's what he says about him, that he usurps power, that president zelensky's dependence on him is growing, that andriy yermak has a strong influence on president zelensky, andriy yermak cast aside, so to speak, participation in the dismissal of the head commissar, the commander-in-chief. valery zaluzhny, the vice-prime minister, the reformer kubrakov, says that the office of the president has concentrated enormous powers simply in his hands, in particular, controls the powerful structures of ukraine through andriy yermak's deputy, oleh tatarov, that is, all these publications in the times, they were, but it was not always like that, literally, as you already said, in

april, the american magazine time included andriy yermak among the 100 most influential people in the world this year in the world. he was the only one from ukraine, there, by the way, i can quote, it is written about the fact that he spread zelenskyi’s signals to the world during the war, that he created a network of friends of ukraine, the former secretary general of nato, andres fok rasmussen, writes about him , it is written about , that during the war, at the beginning during the war, he was indispensable for the effective functioning of the ukrainian government and the ukrainian government as a whole, and it is also written that rasmussen writes that irmak does not only serve zelensky. here is the decisive leader of ukraine, but he himself is the decisive leader of ukraine, literally a quote for you. it must be said that andriy yermak has already set one record that no one is talking about. he has been in office the longest of all heads of the presidential administration in independent ukraine. he was appointed in february 2020, that is, he

already in office for four years and four months, this is an absolute record. and in terms of influence, it is one of the records. by the greatest influence, and definitely already the record holder for the number of months and years in office, did you remember this recent photo during the visit to the vatican of andriy yermak and the meeting with the pope, someone says that it is andriy yermak, so to speak, promoting the ukrainian peace formula , that andriy yermak was explaining about the upcoming peace summit, where the vatican is supposed to participate, someone began to ironize that it was the pope. who meets with the cardinal, with the gray cardinal of ukraine, that is, the meeting of the pontiff and the cardinal of the gray cardinal of ukraine. it must be said that andriy yermak in the president's office focused on himself, for example, the entire american track, that is, all relations with the united states, the key partner that provides the most assistance during the war, is actually focused on andriy yermak, the head

of the president's office. here, of course, there are not only positives, but also negatives, if she was there for six months. withheld american aid and it affected the situation on the fronts, so who takes responsibility? there is also obviously some kind of competition between andriy yermak, the office of the president and the ministry of foreign affairs of ukraine, in particular on such problematic tracks with hungary, this famous photo earlier this year of a meeting with the hungarian head of diplomacy peter siyart in uzhgorod, where andriy yermak was sitting in the center, and dmytro kuleba, the minister of foreign affairs , is on the side, so to speak, yermak pis... from this , the syyar calls himself, he decides the issue there, that is, there is already some kind of competition with the ministry of foreign affairs, who has more influence on ukrainian diplomacy, on foreign policy, andriy yermak, the office of the president or the ministry of foreign affairs of ukraine, that is, there is already a question there. also earlier, when andriy yeermak was just appointed, i remember when he was in london, then he spoke in chotam

chaos at the royal institute of international relations, then some journalists wrote in the comments that... he was still at the beginning during his cadetship, he spoke english very poorly, but his ukrainian was also weak, that is, in fact, he in fact, he left this russian-speaking world, but now the situation has changed, comparing andrii yermak with viktor medvedchuk, and with volodymyr lytvyn, who were under kuchma, and with serhiy lovychk under yanukovych, and with viktor bologa there or vira ulyanchenko under viktor yushchenko, you can to say that andriy yermak is the most influential head of the president's office. that is, here, rostislav, you actually confirm the theses that western publications write about, and there have been several publications there in recent months. i can talk about it later in the comments to call only our audience to write your thoughts on the influence of andrii yermak, how

effective do you think his work is, for example, where it is possible that something has been done too much, as kristina berdynskyi mentioned earlier here on the air, and we will of course continue this topic, rostislav, thank you for participating, rostislav khotyn, an international columnist for radio liberty, spoke about how this figure is perceived in the west. well, the conference on the restoration of ukraine starts today in germany, president volodymyr zelenskyi has already arrived there, he wrote about this in your telegram. in addition, he intends to meet with german chancellor olaf scholz. this reconstruction conference is the third since the start of full-scale war. according to the results, the amount of assistance for the recovery of ukraine should increase to 75 million euros. during the conference, donors must commit to at least five years of financial and military aid. as well as aid for reconstruction, and the ukrainian government must determine the priorities of the nearest reforms, and the day before zelensky approved the composition of the delegation, ukraine will participate

the ministers of energy, social policy, health care, finance and the minister for strategic industries of ukraine, as well as the vice-prime minister for european and euro-atlantic integration, this is olga stefanishyna and the deputy head of the president's office, rostislav shurman, will lead this delegation . yulia svyredenko, deputy prime minister. first deputy minister vasylya shkurakov will leave the ministry of infrastructure, because after the resignation of minister kubrakov since the beginning of may , no replacement has been found for him, he will not go to this the conference and mustafa nayem, head of the state agency for reconstruction and development of infrastructure. he resigned literally on the eve of the meeting. in particular, due to the fact that ukrainian prime minister shmyhal did not agree to his trip to germany to... participate in the same conference, he wrote on his own facebook that he was resigning from his post, wrote that he and his team were prevented from working,

the government and even the prime minister denys shmyhal personally blames the hire for this. in his post on facebook, nayem writes that with the state agency began to face systemic obstacles in its work since november last year, the agencies canceled the budget for projects for the restoration and maintenance of dock roads. budgets for the payment of defense structures, fortification or restoration were negotiated in the government for months, and wages were also significantly cut. nayem also wrote that prime minister shmyhal blocked his participation in the reconstruction conference in berlin, and a document signed by shmyhal disapproving of the trip, where the part is not written by hand, was published by the head of the center anti-corruption measures by daria kalyniuk, edition of business news and others. that is, it looks like this business trip was initially agreed upon, the document mentions the need to report on it. but at the last moment someone changed their mind. western media also reacted to the dismissal of nayem, as another official in the field of reconstruction. the financial times wrote about

nayem's dismissal as the latest personnel decision that shook the confidence of western partners in the zelenskyi government. and with reference to experts, they write that there is a lack of top managers who are responsible for restoration at the conference in berlin, quote: ukraine's western partners are unlikely to like it. edition bloomberg wrote. that the head of the state recovery agency will miss the berlin conference, i quote: due to internal political disputes, risking creating the impression that recovery is not a priority for kyiv. nayem's dismissal was preceded by the formal resignation of oleksandr kubrakov, minister of community development, territories and infrastructure, at the beginning of may, and the vice-prime minister for reconstruction formally cited the necessity separation of the ministry of reconstruction into two separate departments. the informal reason, about which ukrainian pravda writes, they wanted to get rid of him in the president's office, and this dismissal was not planned in advance, because a new minister

was never appointed; , political scientist igor reiterovich joins our broadcast, mr. igor, congratulations, thank you for joining, congratulations, let's start with the conference, recovery, in your opinion, or will affect the course of this conference? which was obviously prepared for months, and the absence not only of specific people, such as kubrakova and nyema, but also in principle the absence of the head of the department, there is no new person there, for example, who is responsible for restoration, what can this affect and can it have a negative effect, or, after all , the ukrainian side is sufficiently well represented in order to conduct negotiations there and make some plans, well , it will definitely have a certain influence and not necessarily positive. look, on the one hand really a large representative delegation went, on the other hand, well, there are certain persons who worked on certain projects, and their absence, even if there will be

well... representatives of the departments there, well, it will affect the quality of the effectiveness of those, well agreements that may have been previously reached, which should have been announced at this conference, if we were to talk about what you know, we have such a well-developed system of decision-making there, and let's say, in each ministry or department there are teams working there that complete work regardless of the change of manager, well, it would be one story, but unfortunately, our situation is not like that, we have enough personalized anyway. to this day, there remains a system primarily of executive authorities, and there, for example, a lot depends on the position of the minister or his deputy, or rather the minister or his deputy, and when these people are not there and only representatives of their ministries go, they often they do not know the details of any previous negotiations and are forced, as they say to learn about something new from the wheels, and to solve any problems or issues that will arise, so there will definitely be an impact,

well, it is not a cadastre. it really should be noted that, in principle, those people who went there, many of them understand the issues that will be considered there, but it is clear that some agreements that were there more on a personal level will have to be adjusted anew, well, and delved into certain details, but already to those people who, judging by everything, should be appointed both instead of kubarkov, and actually instead hiring well, this may affect the amounts, for example, that will be promised to ukraine for contracts that may be for... after all , the main work has been carried out there for a long time during the last year or six months, and in principle, the main agreement is the dismissal of the minister. who was in charge and the deputy prime minister who was responsible for it, which took place a month ago, it cannot in principle have any significant effect on the whole situation, it will not affect, for example, the amounts or the projects that were considered, but it it will definitely affect, i hope not much, but it will affect the timing of the implementation of these projects, well

, you know... you understand, a new person will come, well, at least it will be a couple of weeks, maybe a month, for him to figure it out, that is, the project will be implemented somewhere, but you know, when there is political will, there are certain personal connections, this is a completely normal story, which is typical for any democratic countries in the world, there they work, including on such bases, then everything would simply happen faster, and now i think we are we will get everything we agreed on, but the only thing is that it may stretch a little in time, but look, it's a little optimistic scenario, if we still get people who will come to positions, and they, well, actually will already assume a certain political responsibility, because our partners need, well, roughly speaking, a person with whom they can communicate, who they can ask questions, and you know, this mass of articles that we discussed on the air, including you have, yes there and generally now we discuss a lot, which is related to a certain, well, not that dissatisfaction, it is more surprise on the part of our partners of the

system that they see now, the system. people, various advisors and so on, who do not have formal powers, but nevertheless they have serious powers, this is not clear to our partners, they want certain official things to clearly know that there is a minister, or there is, for example, the head of the recovery agency there, and we actually work with these people we will communicate and implement some projects together, there is a problem, and this problem will have to be solved, and you are probably talking about the publication about andrii yarmak for... we will talk about it, i also want to clarify, about mustafa nayem, a month ago, if the google archives do not lie, after the dismissal of the vice-premier and kubrakov, you said that if nayem was fired, it could lead to a deterioration of relations with some partners, and now, when what happened the day before the conference nayem wrote about the fact that, well, the resignation letter, he wrote about the fact that he was not allowed to go abroad for this meeting, well, what kind of impression

does this make on... or, relatively speaking, they might not notice this nuance there? no, well, they will notice this nuance, you understand, they ask questions, let them not do it publicly now, but not publicly, well, let's put it this way, the tension is growing, because you understand, both kubrakov and naim, well, they had one such specificity, there are actually not many such people in power, they had direct exits somewhere including our partners, and they could discuss with them many issues that related to their field of activity. the fact is that they had such departments for which they were responsible, which received significant and financial assistance from our partners, and therefore they had to discuss all these issues in some way, and they were aware of these issues , by the way, i saw mr. mustafa just a couple of days ago, well, last week at a conference, and he just said there that the key the key for ukraine today is including reliance on those funds