the houthis in yemen, how do you assess this situation, this may lead to further escalation between the yemeni houthis and israel, is this a one-time action, so to speak, and can this include, well, in principle, they already included, israel's allies, there, at least the united states of america, great britain, more. perhaps, well, i want to point out that the international coalition, which is designed to ensure the freedom of navigation in the red sea, refused to do so at the port of alcudia, precisely because it is the only port in in yemen, which receives humanitarian cargo, what israel has done, of course, it endangers the very existence, well, or on...

the provision of humanitarian aid to yemen, and obviously, there will be quite a lot of criticism of this decision. as for the strike itself, it is without a doubt, israel is demonstrating new capabilities in the middle east, it is, of course, a strike on yemen, which does not have such air defense, serious, it was an obviously safe thing from israel's point of view. for his planes, and of course this is a kind of hint to iran that the israelis can conduct operations at a depth of 1500 km, and will yemen respond, it will be so, and obviously the responses will be both strikes from yemen and strikes from other friendly groups, it should be noted that the vast

majority of locators that tracked drones, they are concentrated all - yes, in the direction of, let's say, the east, yes, that is, not without a direction in the direction of the south, here it turns out that the drone flew from the territory of egypt, we do not know how it flew, the israelis, israeli sources claim that it was spotted, but not identified as an enemy, well, here is the question, in any case... it is clear that there will be a continuation of this story, and this, well, a systemic escalation, you can say so. but is the possibility being considered that, for example, russia will arm the yemeni houthis, well, at least there were such rumors, of course, i don’t quite believe in them, but you, more professionally, may be able to assess such a possibility of providing, for example, missiles to the yemeni houthis, well they still need

to be launched from something, well, that is, i don’t think that in principle, well, russia used this thesis to put pressure on saudi arabia, yeah, but it was more pressure and it was more blackmail, and than you can imagine now direct supplies, if there will be something, it will still be supplies from iran, and accordingly ... russia can here to work directly, rather with tehran, yes, already iran can be an intermediary in the transfer of some weapons, and it is doubtful that they will be russian, because, as you understand, such a missile will fly over israel and it will be identified as russian, then the whole strategy moscow, and the strategy of tel aviv, including, an attempt to run between the dots in relations with israel, and accordingly on... with moscow, it

will be destroyed, so they will not risk doing it, but obviously iran will supply weapons, and here it can be assumed that we houthis can get really new samples arms with iran. and you know, the last question, if i may briefly, is about iran, here you are, you and i have already started talking about iran, anthony blin. the secretary of state of the united states of america stated that iran is close to creating nuclear weapons and even called the time frame 1-2 weeks. that is, that they can technologically do it during this period. how real is this, and why is the entire secretary of state of the united states of america coming out and voicing all the information now? well, obviously, i don't think that antony blinken is here... misinforming

the public and obviously technologically the iranians have the ability, well the question is whether they will do it or not, so basically this... this option has been around for a long time time, that is, one, one or two weeks, well, a month or a half, that is, nothing has changed here. why is he saying this? well, perhaps he is saying this in order to use this fact in negotiations with the israelis, because the israelis, since they constantly emphasize iran as a key threat, so, accordingly, the united states of america is ready to stand in solidarity with israel. on this matter, but instead they expect the israelis to step forward on the palestinian issue, well, at least not the tough position that i have taken now the government, well, that is, i consider it rather as an argument in the future negotiations with the israelis. mr.

igor, thank you very much for your thoughts, thank you, ihor simivolos, director of the center for middle eastern studies, was on the live broadcast of the political club on... on the espresso tv channel, we are moving on with you and we have the next trip ihor lytvyn, ambassador of ukraine to the prc from 1999 to 2001 year, co-chairman of the ukrainian-chinese business council. mr. igor, we are pleased to welcome you, good evening, good evening, i greet all our viewers, and here... great britain, the head of great britain said that china is a mortal threat to great britain itself, so we saw some radicalization opinions, statements on the part of great britain, regarding the people's republic of china, how do you assess such, such things,

such statements, and are they possibly related to the fact that in great britain, the other day... volodymyr zelenskyi was the president of ukraine? i believe that the usual visit of president zelensky to britain, his talks with the leaders of this country, they certainly added, let's say, to the mood of, er, british officials, including the minister of defense, but i want to note at the same time that ... here it is necessary to understand whether britain really considers china to be deadly a threat, because we can rely on, let's say, the declaration of the recent nato summit, where, as i write in these newspapers, it was

stated that china is a decisive factor, a threat, it doesn't say that it... the threat is actually said there, what he creates is a challenge, and these are different things, well, let's say that the defense minister called china a mortal threat, ah, i think it's about whether it will work out, so the axis of evil, ah, moscow. tehran, hengyang, and beijing will be added to them, of course, this will be a mortal threat to all humanity, and this goes to the point where there is a complete understanding, and certain people may view it that way, i don't

think that china is a mortal threat because china is very much connected to the west. more than with moscow, more than with iran, more than with north korea, with regard to korea, by the way, recently china has expressed its, shall we say, dissatisfaction with the current policy of north korea, in such a way that it is clear in north korea, it is about the corresponding, so there is a correction... of the supply of the corresponding goods that need the northern korea, so i wouldn't think that china is a mortal threat, let's count how many billions of dollars

china's foreign trade is in a year, it's about 6 trillion, how much of it is russia, it's 200... 40 billion, it's literally 2%, and how much is accounted for by trade with the countries of the european union and the united states, it is about one. last year was more than 1.6, so pragmatic china is unlikely to play with its fate, so to speak, losing such huge prospects that they have now there is, especially since now the european union has started a whole series of different, that is, investigations, the first of which concerns the import

of electric cars from china, uh, expert estimates say that next year china can supply all the countries of the world with about 70 million cars, the world's need now is about 40 million this year, and... here we also talk about the fact that china heavily subsidizes the state, this all means production and supplies, and experts have calculated that china spends, note, 5% of gdp annually on state subsidies, it is 10 times more than the united states, great britain, france, germany and so on do the same, ie. there is a specific threat and it is the essence of this,

so the investigation that is being conducted by the european union, whether china wants to argue with the european union and lose such a huge market, i have a lot of sou, so it is rather, i think, an emotional assessment of a british official in relation to a mortal threat . although we know that the united states sees china as a rival and number one, not russia, but china, and we all know that yes, china, too, is very particular about whether it will be able to, shall we say, break the global hegemony of the united states. well, on the other hand, we see really slightly different approaches or approaches that differ from the us

and great britain, because these are still, we understand, the number one partners, yes, but at the expense of the european union and china, that 's not all unequivocally, we see that china, representatives of china, representatives of the european union actively communicate with each other, let's even list those meetings which were, so macron. orbán, scholz, meloni, yes, where, somewhere should meet, yes, that is , in fact, the contacts there are at the highest level, so we see that china and the european union are trying, trying to establish this cooperation, on the other hand, we are watching , that the european union, of course, is also trying to convince china not to support russia. in the war with ukraine, at least informally, in this case, can a black

cat run here between the countries of the european union and china? i think it's about the pursuit of self-interest, both on the part of china and the european union, and you just mentioned the visits of the same scholz to china, the same, so, uh, uh, like his, orban, here we have, you know, there is such a saying, a chinese europe. china is building its allies in europe, including hungary and serbia, where xi jinping recently visited. and, er, here especially, so. and the feature is that these two countries are very strongly in solidarity with the russian

federation. and this unites both china and these two countries covered by the chinese europe project. as for the black intestine, ah, when scholz was in beijing, he mostly talked about... the economy, because the billions and billions of invested money, investments from the german side in the chinese economy, of course need to be implemented. at the level of projects and so on, and they need to be protected, and they need to be promoted, they need to be implemented, so no one here will argue very much, of course, that scholz, who seeks an end to the war on fair terms in kyiv, ah, at least that

what he's talking about, he's certainly tried... some sort of influence on the leadership of the people's republic of china is going to influence moscow in china to end hostilities, but if china wanted to influence, it would influence, because all this talk of well, let's join hands, friends, let's sit down at the negotiating table, cease fire, they on the chinese side do not envisage absolutely a... nothing, that is, the withdrawal of russian troops from the territory of ukraine and the cessation of shelling of our territory, where we lose people every day. mr. igor, how do you assess these rumors that appeared in the mass media during the current week about a possible stroke

at xi jinping, and where. which mass media have already begun, relatively speaking, to consider various options, what will happen if he dies, or retires, so to speak, how true these rumors can be, how much this information in general can be valid, and if so or no, why is it so ramped up in the mass media, and all over the world? well... the purpose of this information, or even better to name it disinformation at this stage, because there is no official confirmation, so we believe that this is disinformation, it is usually dispersed by those forces, those means that aim to shake the power in

china, of course, if we see after the end of the third third plenum. from the 20th congress of the communist party of china, when xi jinping goes out together with his, that is, partners in the politburo, and we see this broadcast to the whole of china, then there are no doubts here, he does not have a stroke and so on, because if something were to happen, here are some unofficial ones markers in chinese society, well , the main one... for example, the stamp is the raising of the troops of the central military district of china or at least the picketing garrison , nothing like that happened and it is fresh in our memory, which means the only recent death,

let's note the former prime minister minister, i mean that lately no such... that means things have not happened to any high officials of the people's republic of china, there was only the death of liketsyan, but he was already a former one, and there are many other markers that we don't see, well and the main thing is that he, i mean imbina, after the plenum ended calmly, that is, he was shown on television screens. mr. igor, we sincerely thank you for your thoughts, for joining the air of the political club, the espresso tv channel, igor lytvyn, ambassador of ukraine to the people's republic of china in 1999-2001, co-chairman of the ukrainian-chinese business council and, by the way, ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of ukraine in the dprk part-time in 2000, 2000

and 2001. we have one more guest, an expert, this is vladyslav kulmynskyi, former deputy prime minister for reintegration moldova, the director of the institute of strategic initiatives, is already in touch, as far as i understand, yes, mr. vladyslav, we are glad to welcome you, good evening, good evening, thank you for the invitation, mr. vladyslav, here... let's talk about moldova, i understand , our partner, also, the country, a friend, and we see that... there is a new defense strategy of the country, we see that it actually defines the russian federation, the occupying state in our country as an existential

threat. how effective do you think this new defense strategy of moldova is? to what extent does it really correspond to reality, at least i see that it does, but maybe you... still tell more expertly about this position? well, it is so and it is obvious, because if russia did this to ukraine, to the ukrainian people, whom they consider fraternal, then what can they do with other nations that they do not consider fraternal? eh, well, they don’t consider the moldovan people to be a nation that deserves attention, now it’s obvious that there are no rules in the region, there are no red lines, russia has decided to redraw the political map of europe, to change the world order,

russia is ready to fight to achieve its goal, and after what happened with ukraine, russia is the main danger, the main threat to moldova, and even more for many and... other reasons, russia is a threat to all the countries of the post-soviet space, without exception, which would like to independently choose the path of their development, that is, russia is practically saying to moldova, do you voluntarily enter our geopolitical space, sphere of influence or war? of course, this is a threat, but he thinks so the leadership, and the main question here is different, but how about... the majority of the country's population thinks, they think the same way, they also believe that the main threat to moldova is russia? and here the answer to this question is no,

because public opinion polls show that the majority of the country's population adheres to an unrealistic point of view, that it is possible to negotiate with russia, that russia will give us peace, that we need to be with... the west and the east , that is, being a gray area, a buffer that can milk two cows, is, well, a string people who believe that it is possible to remain in the russian sphere of influence, and this is after the war in ukraine, this is after all the sacrifices and suffering that russia has brought. and now there is no clear answer to all these questions, and it seems to me that the answer to this question will be of key importance in the parliamentary ones. elections in the middle of next year, and these elections will be very important for moldova and for the european path. mr. vladyslav,

now there are questions about transnistria, sociological surveys were conducted, and the citizens of moldova were, of course, asked what to do with transnistria, how to settle this issue. including, one of the points was about resolving the issue by force. the return of the unrecognized transnistria under the control of moldova by force, 75% of respondents stated that they are against the force option, still more than the political-diplomatic option, but in this case, after all, we see that the absolute majority of moldovans, they understand that they do not want a forceful solution to this issue, after all, it is an issue sooner or later. must be resolved, we understand it logically, your opinion expert, to what extent will moldova have to take certain risks, or forceful

confrontation, or, however, maybe there will be some methods to do it politically, and again, in your opinion, when that might happen , because we understand you well, we understand moldova well. because we have, conditionally speaking, also occupied territories, although you are a little bit different , in a different status, so to speak, yes, but i will remind you that this has been happening in moldova since 1992, this is no longer an issue of today if not yesterday, that's already 20 years, and here it is... such an attitude towards the settlement of the transnistrian conflict, it has always been there, it has not changed, including many closed polls in

moldova and ukraine. and the society is against the resolution of the transnistrian conflict by force, and the only way that the government and the society consider pleasant, that is supported by the society, is an exclusively peaceful diplomatic settlement of the conflict, well, practically everyone in moldova will understand that an attempt to resolve the conflict by force will mean drawing moldova into war, and no one is ready for it. but you are right that this issue, it, it is already practically, there is practically no frozen conflict there anymore, it is 100%, and here is my forecast that in the next two years it should be resolved, exclusively by peaceful diplomatic means, because for... now

this status quo, which existed there for 24 years, 22 years, it no longer exists, it is no longer there, because the geopolitical situation in the region is already different, and attempts to maintain this status quo have no future , and how it will be, settlement the transnistrian conflict, this is a very big issue, but... i am sure that this will go as a package to the settlement of the regional situation, to the construction of some new security system in the region, and this will be on the daily agenda 100%. on the other hand, society is also not ready for any concessions, because any political party that makes the settlement of the transnistrian conflict its priority will seriously lose. in

the rating, that is, we have a situation where, on the one hand, the status quo no longer exists, it no longer exists, and on the other hand, society is not ready to the settlement of the conflict through peaceful diplomatic means. by the way, according to the latest information, joe biden announced that he is withdrawing from the presidential race, 10 minutes ago this information appeared on his... official facebook page, well, we will follow, maybe we will sort it out a little later, well, that too was expected, and this will have very serious consequences for both moldova and ukraine, because it seems that if donald trump wins these elections, then we will probably return to the politics of agreement, and if we look at how

it was happening, come on. there, let's take the year 1814-15, the congress of vienna, where four states, five states agreed to agree on what the political map of europe would look like, whether we will take there, i don't know, for example, 1917-18 after the first world war, when there , so 27 countries took part in the versailles congress, but there was a big one... which practically resolved all the issues regarding the political map of europe and the only country that did not agree with it, it was turkey, whether it was yalta, or potsdam or something else , because after, because almost all of them are so big big wars, they ended with agreements, and president biden for moldova and for ukraine, he was a very important figure, because he said that no...

there should be no agreements without ukraine or without moldova, if this is the position, well, possible president trump, this is a very big issue that will have very big implications for us. another issue related to the elections in moldova, the presidential elections should actually be held, later it is clear that the parliamentary elections have to be held. the president of moldova is actually now according to the rating takes the first position. well , it is clear that russian or pro-russian forces will try to mold some new candidate or a new old candidate, right? that's how much now in general during the upcoming election campaign.