well, except for volunteers, but in reality it is not . rfe/rl has received dozens of letters from readers and viewers asking them to look into the situation, and we are starting to investigate. my name is vlasta lazur, this is svoboda life. there are a lot of stories in social networks about how the tsc not only checks documents, but sends boys under 25 to the vlk, and later to the training ground. this story of ukrainian nina tronenko, who described the situation, gained great publicity in june. what happened to her 22-year-old son. according to the woman, the son is unfit, has an incurable disease the disease employees of tsk took him from the station in uzhgorod, and in a few days he ended up at the landfill. the state security service says they did not violate the law, and as it turned out, they really did not. then what happened? lawyers with whom rfe/rl spoke say that guys under 25 years of age who have not served before, had the status of limited fitness, and were exempted from military service are turning to them en masse.

services, and now some of them are undergoing training at the training ground. as it turned out, there is a conflict in ukrainian legislation arose after the adoption of the law on mobilization. this is a word about the quality of the law itself. so, what is the collision? from april 24, ukraine canceled the status of limited-fitness. thus, citizens who until april had the status of unfit in peacetime, but limited fit in wartime, automatically, so to speak, fell into the category of conscripts. that is, even if a man is younger than 25 years, but was of limited fitness, he is formally conscripted, not a conscript, and despite everything, he can be mobilized. in principle, this conflict should be resolved by the parliament, which, by the way, is currently on vacation or has simply taken a break from sittings, nevertheless, the deputies have indeed prepared several relevant bills that are able to resolve this issue, but the general staff stated , that there is against this settlement, about this, in particular in response to... rfe/rl informed

the main communications department of the general staff of the armed forces of ukraine, and they explained the reason. listen. in the conditions of a decrease in the number and quality of human mobilization capital, during the long-term armed aggression of the russian federation against ukraine, the adoption of the proposed changes will create a threat to the implementation of measures to supplement the armed forces of ukraine with personnel and their performance of tasks to protect the state and restore its territorial integrity. oleksiy goncharenko, people's deputy, joins our broadcast. solidarity, i congratulate you, i congratulate you, so, look, oleksiy, according to the general staff, the resolution of this conflict, no matter how strange it may sound now, will reduce the mobilization resource troops, here then i have a question for you, as a deputy, to what extent this collision corresponds to the principles of fair mobilization, it absolutely does not correspond to them, it is completely crazy, just the first draft law that will allow to solve this, number 11379, is his. . by the author, i actually

raised this topic in the ukrainian parliament, and i am trying to get it resolved now, it is completely unfair, because in fact it turns out that guys who are healthy under the age of 25 are not subject to mobilization, guys who are sick, that is, they are of limited use , it means there is serious health problems, they are taken away simply by using this collision, and indeed the general staff of the ministry of defense gave a negative opinion on my bill precisely... absolutely, but there are just three bills, but two of them are broader, they are included, well that is , they are not only talking about this group, but more broadly, and it is precisely in these two that you can understand this conclusion, because there we are talking about both those who completed military service and those who are reserve officers, and these people were always called up , despite the age, and because von voluntarily a reserve officer, that means a person to... freely took it upon himself and is ready

to serve, and these guys have never served a term of service, are not reserve officers, it is precisely their problem that must be solved, solved urgently, last week there was a meeting of the committee with of national security and defense issues, which considered these draft laws, i reported there, the general staff and the ministry of defense were against it again, the same reasoning, a resource, well, people are not a resource, there must be justice, so in principle, after two hours of debate, i managed to convince my colleagues from the committee . national security that this is a real problem, and they decided to prepare a so-called de, well, this is parliamentary slang, it means, on the basis of these bills that have been submitted, primarily mine, as the main one, to submit a bill that would allow this to be solved, this week i am waiting for a relevant decision, we are today, i will say right away that we will return to this topic, something happened with oleksiy honcharenko with the video, i think that... now

the second is a second and will rejoin again, i will only say , which we will repeatedly to return to this topic, we really made a big article about it, you can read it on the rfe/rl website, we spoke with lawyers state that such cases are massive, that boys there or their families turn to them, boys who are under 25 years old, who were of limited fitness before the adoption of the law on mobilization, and even now many of them are actually already and even on training grounds , but what i wanted to say, i wanted to remind you that we actually addressed a number of deputies today, to absolutely almost all deputies who represent the specialized committee of defense and intelligence, and we asked them to investigate this story, to comment, in particular, that this is the main question, how did it happen, when this collision was not taken into account during the preparation of the draft law on mobilization, did it happen by accident, or is it it didn't happen by accident, and what will they do next, they tell me that oleksiy goncharenko

is rejoining us, but already on the phone, oleksiy, and what do you think, this collision, it was allowed by accident or on purpose, honestly saying, from the very beginning. i i thought it was a coincidence, but after seeing the absolutely insane position of the general staff and the ministry of defense, who insist that this is a resource, give it to us, i have already begun to doubt whether it was really accidental or whether it was a completely deliberate action simply to find another loophole, even if it is unfair, that will allow more people to be selected, but as for justice, i am the only one for you, you have already given examples, i will give you one more example, so two 19-year-old boys.

and did you communicate directly with the general staff or with representatives? defense, they do they also explain to the deputies that the problem is that it is not necessary to reduce the mobilization resource? of course, i talked personally and during question time to the government i raised this issue with the deputy minister of defense, ms. kolmykova, and she generally explained that no, we will not take it, they didn’t even understand, well, either they deliberately lied, or they really didn’t understand problem, then at a meeting of the security and defense committee, the same was theirs there. who is interested in listening, i posted the audio recording of this meeting on my phone, oleksii, oleksii, me i am forced to take a short break in our conversation, because the connection has gone bad, maybe we will try to dial you again,

i will voice my question once again, after all, as the representatives of the ministry of defense explain to the deputies themselves, oleksiy goncharenko is talking about what he thought at first that it was deliberate, that it happened by chance. such a collision, and now, as far as i understand, he is more inclined to think that it was deliberately allowed, well, in any case, i want to return once again to the statement, to the thesis that i have voiced more than once volodymyr zelenskyi, he repeatedly spoke about the fact that, as the supreme commander, he spoke about the fact that the mobilization should take place on the principles of justice, that the mobilization should be fair, of course, if in april in ukraine a law was signed by the president, which provides... . changing the conscription age there from 27 to 25 years old, well, it is from 25 years old, of course, volunteers remain outside these rules, if volunteers want to join the army, they can do it earlier, but now it looks like for a certain category people, this law, to join the army from

the age of 25 does not work, they can be joined from 19, and from 20, and from 22, and the most interesting thing is that the tsk turns out to be in effect here. completely in accordance with the law without violating anything, well, i will remind you once again that the lawyers with whom we spoke, they say that there are really a lot of appeals to them now, there are three or three draft laws that people's deputies are currently proposing to change this collision, but as i quoted, we quoted at the beginning the position of the general staff of the armed forces of ukraine, the general staff opposes it, i do i understand, oleksiy, are you on the phone with us again, or can you hear me, oleksiy goncharenko, people's deputy? i hear you well, and i am answering your question, did i talk to them personally, i also talked to them during question time to the government, i raised this issue, and the deputy minister of defense , ms. does not understand what is really happening, well, i hope that

he just does not understand, at the meeting of the security and defense committee, they speak directly, and we will not say that it is fair, but for us this is... a resource we can call on and we call on and will call on, i have their answers on this topic, they are the same, before selling the draft law, i tried to solve it in another way, turning to... defense and the government , all this has done nothing, and therefore the only option i have seen is to urgently change the law to remove this blatant absolute injustice, i have one last question, if i may, if i understand correctly that until the verkhovna rada returns for the meeting, which will happen at the end of august, this issue will not be resolved, absolutely, until the council meets, there will be no votes, and now it's time for the next meeting. until august 20 comes, i absolutely do not understand why there is such a thing at all, it shows how much the parliament does not meet and does not work, and this

bill, of which i am the first author, and the meeting of the parliament is important, as it is necessary for the parliament to work, and will not be absent. thank you very much, unfortunately, the connection is going bad, oleksiy goncharenko, people's deputy from european solidarity, was on radio svoboda, we talked about the mobilization of ukrainians under the age of 25, now it has arisen. this is a question and we will definitely return to it, i suggest you watch an exclusive report from chasovoy yar, a city in donetsk region that is constantly under shelling, half a thousand people remain there, despite the fact that our correspondents who work there, they say , which does not work, for example, no social service, it is very difficult to provide, and nevertheless people stay there, look at the conditions in which they live, what else to do during the lunch break, evgeny is a pure guest of our materials, volunteer. therefore, it is often his

special city, he was born there, lived a long time, the ideas border on logic, but are very symbolic, it was he who installed the christmas tree near the front line there, and a few days ago from the holiday... the day of the city in the broken center of the time ravine, i understand, that's complete stupidity, but i can't do anything about it, happy city day chasivyar, well, i decided to take a chance to greet the city in this way, to cheer people up, today in his pickup truck he is taking water and bread to the city, chasivyar continues to have about five hundred civilians, and it it's not true that people don't leave because i remember about two months ago... there were twice as many people living here, but

as the front gets closer and the number and density of the main shelling increases, people still try at least somehow evacuate, wake up the population, let them get out of their holes, and as usual bread and food is brought or not or only like this? you didn't hear, graves in the garden are the only way to bury a person in the abyss of time, a person died here, from old age, no, he was very ill, he was in the hospital, romchyk knows, the mayor the city knows everything, it's you... and what to do? everyone is buried like this? seriously, not in the cemetery? and

how to deliver it there? no transport? there is no transport. the process is managed by this woman, and if you believe that danger and difficulties make a person love life and believe in humanity, then here is a vivid example. and i'm a grandmother, grandmother? yes, i am the boss everywhere, bunny, on all the streets. and what is your name? tanya, grandmother, tanya, how is the situation here? ok, fine. despite the cheerful, okay, grandmother, tanya walks quickly to yevgeny's pickup truck, it is problematic to get water in the city. soon 70 years well, are you walking so briskly? yes, give us another stick, i still have a machine gun in my hands. i am not afraid, i was born here, i will die here. it's okay, let's go, grandmother, tanya, we'll talk to you later. yeah, so they'll show me.

there were two dressings, injured? yes, someone has to go to work, today it is already bleeding, one has a burn, the entire surface. on her bench. across from a broken house and broken windows - victor hugo's book, notre dame cathedral. well, it's just very sad, sad, and that's why, even if you read, you'll be distracted. locals are very careful in their statements, no one does not know with whom they will wake up tomorrow. now there is a lot of talk about peace talks. so. how

do you feel about it? well, as a pacifist baptist, i've been a pacifist since day one. negotiations, the sooner the better, because you see, military aid is coming, but we are retreating, i am not measuring in the territory, not there in cities or villages, i am measuring in human lives, the time of his fury yevgeny leaves with safe decoys, with hope in a few days to visit his hometown again. peresychalko, serhiy dekun for radio liberty. well, next we will talk about taxes in ukraine, they want to increase them, and very significantly. once upon a time, the chairman of the tax committee of the verkhovna rada, danylo hetmantsev, compared competent taxation to the art of plucking a goose. like, you have to pinch so that the goose doesn't scream. well, if we continue this analogy, then the goose began to scream, and

very loudly. absolutely all business communities and entrepreneurs opposed the increase. taxes: the american chamber of commerce, the chamber of commerce and industry, the union action unite united, their arguments are as follows: increase taxes will only increase the shadow economy, honest taxpayers simply will not bear such a burden, they will close their businesses and leave the country. in the language of danylo hetmantsev, well, there will be no one to pinch. proponents of tax increases present their arguments. there is a 500 billion dollar hole in the budget, if it is not closed, there will be nothing to pay for in the fall. salary for the military. well, now about what exactly the government is proposing. well, for example, to increase the rate of military levy on the income of individuals to 5%. i will remind you that the military levy is 1.5% of ukrainians have been paying since 2014. the government proposes not only to raise the current rate to 5%, but also to introduce a military tax where it does not exist, for example, from the income of fops and legal

entities. in addition, it is proposed to collect a military levy on the sale of goods and services, for example, 30% on the sale of jewelry, 5% on the sale of real estate, 15% on the sale of new passenger cars, here, by the way, market experts have already calculated that in the event of the implementation of this buyers of new cars will have to pay an additional 180-280 00 uah (well, these are preliminary estimates), minister of finance serhii marchenko has already answered these objections, a car, he said, is not an urgent need. we have a safety problem, there is a fire... and you say that there is no need to buy fire extinguishers, it is better to buy a car. you can buy a new car without any problems, but you will also support the armed forces. buying a car is not an urgent and critical need now. secondly, for the security and defense sector, cars are driven without duty and without payment of vat. well, by the way, about cars, economists say that if you already tax the sale of cars, then it is more appropriate

do in relation to expensive cars, and not to all in a row. this, in particular, is stated in the appeal of the analysts. centers to the government, where , among other things, it is said that the government bill contains a number of extremely negative norms that cause or will cause significant damage to the economy, this is literally the conclusion of the country's leading economic experts, i will remind you, and that's all still returning to the reasons for the tax increase, the government says that already in september there will be nothing to pay the salaries of the military, so where to take money, well, disgruntled businessmen openly advise government officials to start fighting corruption with... oppose the state apparatus, and then, they say, money will be found. but, for example, the us special representative for the economic recovery of ukraine, penny pritzker, who visited kyiv the other day, believes that to increase revenues in ukraine, it is necessary to focus primarily on customs reform and the fight against gray markets. in her opinion, it is precisely in these areas that ukraine could receive revenues for the state budget, but does not do so. you have

income that you are not receiving and that you should be receiving. today let's focus on this first: there is also a huge source of profit in the gray markets of cigarettes, alcohol or electronics that can be sold on the big market, and that's why we encouraged the ukrainian government to focus on this first. olga vasylevska smaglyuk, people's deputy, servant of the people and deputy head of the committee on finance , tax and customs policy, joined our broadcast. i congratulate you, i congratulate the studio, ms. olga, can you listen? to ms. pritzker's advice is to cover up gray schemes, deal with corruption, put things in order at the customs office, and maybe you won't have to raise taxes, what do you think, i think you are... 100% right, just like ms. pritzker, what does she actually do the verkhovna rada, i can say, even since the 19th year, who is its author, the person

who implemented the law on combating money laundering and the law on the economic security bureau, the question is that i am always an excess performer, and that the legislator i did not invent this so that it would not be possible to engage in gray ... schemes, laundering and so on, there will always be craftsmen who can destroy any idea, so why do we have to raise taxes or what? customs reform is now starting, starting and declaring that it will be transparent, the bureau of economic security, you know, we are restarting, as far as what ms. pritzker is talking about, as far as possible right now. is being done, but this is the story of not one day and not two or three years, and if you remember, on february 24, 2022, the verkhovna rada

introduced as many benefits as it could, including the duty-free import of fuel and lubricants into ukraine materials, everything else, and there were even benefits for business and surcharges for business, in order to keep the population in ukraine, so that people do not... leave, i think it was the right step then, but if we had raised taxes then, maybe , this would be perceived by business in a different and more understandable way, although now it is difficult to talk about it in hindsight, but let's be specific then, do i understand correctly that taxes, as soon as the verkhovna rada convenes, this will happen sometime at the end of august , we will return to this question, and is there any consensus in the government? that taxes will be increased? there is a consensus in the government, and they put us in front of the fact, i can tell you some behind-the-scenes information, that just in

the middle of july, the minister of finance came to us for a faction, where he just put in the face of the fact that let's raise taxes, because when we were waiting for the american aid in the first half of the current year, it did not come, we borrowed for the army, for the purchase of weapons. food and payment from those expenses of the future that have not yet arrived since october, november and december of the current year, and we had a hole of about 500 billion, including on the fractionation and on the anticipated expenses, you know, they also bombed the hydroelectric plant and so on, well, that also had to be paid for from the reserve fund, which is now is empty, so of course it is impossible to talk about... that we will raise taxes tomorrow, and we in the verkhovna rada, including our faction, do not have a consensus on such an increase, now we are talking about the fact that we

agree on the luxury tax , i.e. for expensive cars, let's increase it to wait, wait, wait, wait, it's not about expensive cars, it's about 15% for all cars, and i'm telling you what the consensus is exactly, uh, yes, of course. there is a huge debate that taxes on all cars cannot be increased, that the tax levy cannot be increased and so on, that is, we have just agreed in the faction only to introduce taxes on expensive purchases, however, this will not allow us to collect uah 120 billion, which should be provided by the bill we are talking about, so let's look somewhere i'll just remind you that... this was really a statement from the leading economists of the country, and they said that this government bill, it contains negative norms that will further drive the economy into the shadows, and you will do nothing, you will not

do anything about it. yes, i can agree with this, that first it is necessary to overcome the shadow, and then move on to possible tax increases, but we cannot overcome the shadow for today and tomorrow. we are doing it. and i can regularly say that we enter into disputes with the tax office, for what the chairman of our committee is offended by me, because i criticize the smkor system, which unfairly blocks tax invoices for businesses, and with customs and so on, there are constant disputes with this, especially in our committee , they are open, and we openly criticize their activities, we will overcome the shadow we can't for tomorrow, but we need to figure out how to pay the army salaries tomorrow. therefore, as a military wife, i can tell you that for some taxes i will vote for their increase, you cannot, but but but but you cannot vote for each tax separately, if

the law is put to the vote, you will have to... vote for the whole law, that's right, this bill will be considered in our committee and i will put certain amendments to the vote, i will introduce them, so i can vote , if globally, i understand that we cannot provide the army with salaries in any other way in october, but we have expenses that are completely unnecessary during the war, which must be canceled and redirected to the army. we have expenses that are unnecessary, i offered and served bill on cancellation of current salaries for members of supervisory boards. we have uncultivated land, which is used and economic activities are conducted there, this is precisely about the fight against the shadow. 2,000 hectares in the ivankiv district are not accounted for, they are using it, where is the money from this, if every community conducted an inventory of its land, was interested in it, we would

find a couple of billion dollars there. therefore, there are things that can be cashed out, there are, for example, expenses that were foreseen but were not used, for example, for shelter in schools and kindergartens, the ministry of education for some reason it was not possible to use a significant amount of funds, so if you search, there are funds in the accounts of deposit communities, so you can first, so wait olga, you can search first, and then you will put before the facts the business that you are raising taxes. i will argue with you, because it was not us who put it in front of the fact, it was put up by the ministry of finance, you are now, i apologize, but you are not agreeing with our audiences a little now, you are the one who appoints government officials, you control their work, you demand results from them , and now you say, it is not us, it is the ministry of finance, so who did the ministry of finance hire, you know, this is a government bill, and the minister of finance was during the vote on other

bills in the room that relate to the budget, so we will be looking at the text that you are asking about, that is what i am trying to to report to you now, this text will be revised, and it will not be adopted in this form, as proposed by the government, that is why the verkhovna rada does not put anyone in front of the fact, there is a discussion, and here we have to choose during the war between bad and very bad , no one wants to pay taxes, it's natural, few people want to... serve, it's natural, but we have to understand how to survive, and society has to decide, wants to fight, let's fight, wants not to pay taxes and sit at home, not go to fight - that's too choice, you look at the poll that was held, you know it perfectly well, no one wants such painful decisions, but they must be partial, but it must be a general public consensus, so just for...

i have one last question, i just also talked there with various business representatives, and me i had to hear such an idea: why don’t government officials and deputies determine clear tax terms, for example, we raise the military levy there for six months, i don’t know from fops or from individuals to 5%, and then we go back to the way it was, what do you thinking of such ideas? well, if it is very difficult now, then let's raise it now, and then return it to the way it was. the idea is interesting, i can say. you that we lack a significant amount by the end of the year, next year will be even more difficult because we need to pay for the foreign debt, etc. of the past and past convocations of the verkhovna rada, if today the president signed the law on the restructuring of the ukrainian external debt, we can say that we can reserve more for next year, and therefore we can decide on

this periodicity, but if... business is the same goes into the shadows, will it come out of the shadows after the taxes are back in place? i have a question about this. olga, thank you very much, olga vasylevska smaglyuk, people's deputy, servant of the people and deputy chairman of the committee on finances of the tax and customs policy, we talked about the prospect of tax increases for ukrainians, which may happen in the near future. thank you very much. well, we continue to discuss this topic, but now with business representatives. joins our broadcast. roman vashchuk, business ombudsman in ukraine. congratulations. good day. good day. hypothetical question. if the verkhovna rada meets soon and they accept all the government's proposals. taxes are now being raised, military fees are being raised for buying and selling cars real estate there and so on. what will happen?