more than 1000 km of territory, prisoners of war and captured equipment. ukrainian forces continue to advance in the kursk region, what russia will do, whether it will be able to restrain the ukrainian offensive and what about this special operation, they say in the west. we analyze in today's issue of the bbc, i am olga polomaryuk. the ninth day is going on in the lyvir region, russia. according to western analysts, thousands of ukrainian troops and as many armored vehicles were involved in the special operation there than there were at other points of the front in 2.5 years of full-scale war but what do we know about the situation there? over

the last day, ukrainian troops advanced another 1-2 km, captured more than a hundred russian soldiers. this was said by the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of ukraine oleksandr syrskyi during his report. in the meantime, a state of emergency at the regional level has been introduced in the belgorod region, and the local governor is calling on the government to extend it to the federal level. the federal state of emergency has been in force in kurshchyna since yesterday. how the ukrainian offensive developed can be seen on this map. since august 6, when ukrainian forces entered the territory of the kursk region, according to oleksandr syrskyi, the armed forces of ukraine captured about 100 km of russian territory, that is 74 settlements. military experts, however, consider these data somewhat exaggerated, and the russian side says about 28 settlements that are currently under the control of ukraine. ukrainian forces are entrenched on

russian territory, the kremlin transfers reserves there from other areas, and more than a week later a stable front line in kursk there is still no region. a bbc camera crew is currently working in sumy oblast, near the russian border, how are they reacting to the advance of ukrainian forces there? james waterhouse narrates. these ukrainian soldiers are going to russia on western equipment, a sight that few expected. they quickly crushed. russian defense, this border point has not been working for a long time, and the ukrainians did not stop here. if z has become a symbol of the russian invasion of ukraine, the triangle represents ukraine's most daring attempt to overcome it. and in these shots, a ukrainian armored car without obstacle passes through a russian city. this offensive overturned the military situation and restored the morale of ukrainians, and moscow is forced to respond to surprises at home. ukrainian troops are advancing

further in the kursk region in the most dramatic development of events on the battlefield. he drove into the five-year-old, he drove into the five-year-old, i will tell you, the choice is not very good, the choice is not very good, atb is better, glory to ukraine, the five-year-old, no, you will be here soon. it is difficult for russia to contain this powerful offensive, but it is trying. on the other side of the sumy border. region, it is noticeable that ukraine is deploying some of its best troops, but the purpose of this offensive is still unclear. the triangle marking the military equipment is a symbol of this operation. ukraine is serious about this risky game, but the result may not be the capture of territory on the other side of the border, but the fact that russian troops can redeploy to another place, however, if this operation fails, it ...

could have catastrophic consequences for ukraine on battlefield in the border villages, which regularly come under russian strikes , the kabam are not afraid of moscow's response to this offensive. i want you to take it and take it like this. they attack. russia attacks everywhere russia first. well, we don't attack. and russia is attacking everywhere, so far and ours, but now they gave a report to show that we are also people, if they had given us permission earlier, so that ours would have already taken russia long ago, in sumy the evacuees from the border register for receiving aid and resettlement, here , as well as on the russian side of the border, tens of thousands of people are forced to leave...

their homes due to increased airstrikes. in the secrecy of the operation benefited the country, but less so for civilians. at a staged briefing, which can usually be seen in the kremlin. oleksandr syrsky reports to president zelensky that they are moving forward. i also wanted to ask you not to forget and continue training and developing the next important, key steps. now it is critically important what ukraine does next, especially given that the moment of surprise is over. and what about the situation in the kursk region, not the rulers or the military, say in moscow? population, let's listen together. what is happening in kursk region? there is an attack from ukraine on the kursk region, russian lands from time immemorial, it is all happening with the help of western weapons, this operation was developed, i believe, with the help of nato. in principle, this is

a direct attack on russia, too, and what will happen, there are small groups of the drg, ours will knock them out there and that's it. this is some incredible anxiety. it's very exciting, it's very disturbing and unsettling. the offensive in the gursk region is closely monitored in the west. analysts consider what the kremlin will do, how they will deter pressure, whether they will strengthen positions with the help of reserves, for example from the eastern front. and here is the analysis of the bbc correspondent frank

harbner. in the past, when ukrainians tried to break into russia, they essentially used pro-ukrainian russian mercenaries to infiltrate. tore down the flag, took a few selfies, caused a little destruction, and then headed back across the border. it's not like that now, it's something much bigger, planned over a period of time, really skillfully executed and well organized using, so to speak, maneuvers with the joint action of different types of troops, in other words, using not only tanks and infantry, all components of modern warfare, air defense, electronic warfare, communications, artillery, and also, in fact, they blinded the russian defense. russia did not expect this, and if it did, it could not react in time. so the ukrainians chose a weak point, used probably about 10,000 troops. in terms of number, this is approximately an easy division. in order to break through, using at the same time part of the western technique for example

armor of marder or stryker cars. coupled with the drones and rap tools, and they look like they plan to stay there, at least for now. ukraine declared. we are not interested in the permanent occupation of russian territory, this is not a land grab, this is about better positioning when it comes to serious negotiations on a peace agreement. also, ukraine has a hope, so far it has not been realized, that this will force russia to withdraw part of its combat troops from donbas, where they are slowly advancing and ukraine is retreating, this has not happened so far. putin never looks ashamed. he's annoyed, he's angry, and you could see that it showed during. the emergency meeting he chaired a few days ago, where he interrupted the governor of the kursk region and said: "don't tell me the details, the ministry of defense should deal with this." i want to know about answers to humanitarian issues, so he will do everything to drive ukrainians out of russia. he appointed a certain oleksii

dyumin to manage this process. and it's a rather complex, confusing picture of the forces that are here deployed by russia. that is, there is the army, there is the fsb, the internal service. security of russia, which calls it an anti-terrorist operation, although it is not, it is a military operation, a russian guard operation, there is a rosguard, so their control is a little confused, and obviously the russians were taken by surprise, but they have a large army, not a very good army, but a large , they have much more people and resources than the ukrainians, so in the end the ukrainians will not be able to hold out for so long, in the end they will have to return across the border. military analysts along with that are wondering what the russian military leadership will do, and this is the opinion of british viewer patrick bury. as this operation progresses, challenges may arise in terms of ensuring how to maintain effective command and control structures over

the long term. there's also the risk of being overstretched, especially if you're pushing roads at speed into populated areas, so over time i'd expect if you look at the... note that the russians will change the distribution of forces in that area, especially if they manage to mobilize and stabilize the front line and then they start pushing out the ukrainian forces and potentially out of the... area under the control of the ukrainians, but it will take time, i think that's the most likely course of events at the moment, but if the ukrainians , let them now say that they do not want to seize russian territories, but they sent there a large number of elite forces, well-equipped ukrainian brigades, trying to retreat in the conditions of fighting is quite difficult from a military point of view, this is one of the most difficult things, a retreat with fighting, then it would amount to a massive raid followed by a retreat, that would make sense. after all, they would keep their elite units and limit themselves to shocking the enemy, but this is

very difficult. i think one of the expected things is that the russians can fire at ukrainian civilian infrastructure. it's expected, and the second thing is the shift of power to deal with it. they've already merged the fsb with the military to get better command control in the area, and put a bunch of restrictions in place to effectively cut off this district and have freedom of action there. but one of the conclusions is this. ukraine has proven in areas far from the front line, where russia has intelligence and surveillance, and where it is very difficult to do anything unnoticed, they have been able to group up, concentrate forces and break through easily, and they can do it again. i 'm not saying they have inexhaustible power, but they've definitely proven the ability to pick a spot and break through. and now the kremlin will have this in mind in the future, because it means that it will have to strengthen its defenses along the entire border so that this does not happen again in the near future. the operation in kursk region has every chance to become one of the turning points of this

war. former us ambassador to nato, kurt walker, thinks so. he said this in his interview for the bbc. i wouldn't call it a risk. no, it was a conscious choice, a decision to show the world that russia is more vulnerable than it appears at first glance, to show the russian people that this is a real war, and that it can come to... it was a move that was meant to make a tangible difference narratives, well, to compare with the slow advance of the front russians in the east of ukraine, they very confidently advanced over 1000 square km, conquered additional settlements. as far as i know, they plan to hold these areas for a long time. they dig in. i do not think that they want to keep these territories, because this cannot

be compared with the intentions of putin, who seeks the territorial expansion of russia. i think this is rather done to strengthen the position of ukraine in the future, because after all, this war must end, there must be some negotiations, and the ukrainians show the falsity of the assumptions, that russia simply seizes territories as it pleases. she will have to give the territory. if she wants hers back. now there are a lot of people in the west who just held their breath, not so many comments from western capitals, washington in particular, because they don't want to hurt the ukrainian side, but they also don't want to give the impression that they are encouraging ukrainians, so as not to play along with putin's narrative. about the fact that a collective action is fighting against him. so everyone is silent for now. i suspect that with ukrainians every day partners worked. from intelligence, the military, who might have had some idea of ​​what was being planned, but i would be surprised if it

was discussed at the highest level. as for putin's reaction, it is very strange for him to call the ukrainian operation a provocation, when russia has been occupying parts of ukraine for more than 10 years, and has been waging a daily war against ukrainian cities, civilians and infrastructure for more than two years, so to say that an attack on russia is a provocation ... this is something incredible, i think, national security council spokesman john kirby said very pointedly the other day: if russia is worried about the appearance of ukrainian troops on russian territory, then let them get out of ukraine first. and that's all we have time to talk about today, subscribe to our pages in social networks so as not to miss the most important news, mine is on facebook, instagram, tiktok, youtube, you can watch our issue if you missed it. it's on the air, if you're interested in more, read the analytics from our correspondents, bbc.ua, our website, we're

on the air again tomorrow at 9 p.m., all is well. greetings, friends, live on the espresso tv channel, the second part of the verdict program, my name is serhii rudenko. throughout the program, which will last 45 minutes, we will talk about the following. kursk slaps putin. the authority of the kremlin dictator was severely shaken by the unexpected operation of the armed forces. what and how can actually lead to the collapse of putin's regime. corruption scandals during the war. almost every day, law enforcement officers report

on the exposure of officials for bribes and illegal enrichment. what else? internal challenges are facing the authorities today. spiritual independence from russia. next week , the verkhovna rada is to consider a draft law banning the activities of the russian church in ukraine. will zelenskyi be able to facilitate the adoption? friends, we work live on the espresso tv channel, as well as on our youtube and facebook platforms. for those who are currently watching us live there, please subscribe to our. pages on these platforms and take part in our survey, today we ask you the following: will the servant of the people party support the banning of the russian orthodox church in ukraine? yes, not if you're on youtube vote yes or no, write your comment if you have a different opinion about it. if you watch us on tv, take your smartphone or phone and vote with the appropriate numbers 0800 211

381, if yes, if no - 0800 211 382. i want. to introduce the guests of today's studio, this is volodymyr fisenko, political scientist, chairman of the board of the center for applied political research penta, mr. volodymyr, i congratulate you, thank you for being with us today, good evening, i congratulate you, and oleksiy koshel, doctor of historical sciences, political scientist , chairman of the committee voters of ukraine, mr. oleksiy, i congratulate you, thank you for joining the broadcast. good evening. so, gentlemen, let's start our conversation with an event, which is already more. for 10 days, well almost 10 days, the world media, ukrainian media, and the community in social networks, politicians and world politicians have been commenting on the kursk breakthrough of the armed forces of ukraine, and what will be the consequence of this kursk breakthrough, zelenskyi said that kursk is

a disaster for putin, for putin's russia, no matter what, in fact it can. lead to collapse putin's regime, or only kurshchyna, or is this the first black swan for putin's regime, mr. oleksiy, please? you know, if you analyze some of the slogans, enthusiasm, and some of the headlines of the last week, i get the impression that i have already seen and read all this somewhere, namely about a year ago, during the uprising of adventures. which at first was even called a revolution, well, in fact, there were reasons to talk even about the beginning of revolutionary events, but the same was said about the collapse of the putin regime, about the split in russia, i see that a new wave has started now, i think that it would be best for us to be realistic now, to be strict pragmatists so that we could not

fall into euphoria, but clearly plan the possible consequences, well, let's look objectively , the results of sociology show that putin's regime is strong enough today, i don't want to overestimate there, but today there is no infiltration of the opposition, the opposition is decapitated, and it is unlikely that the new leaders, who are now the leaders of the opposition, who are currently abroad, are there from the quiet , calm germany, they will be able to influence the political process in russia there, just as there are no influential russian media, independent media, no... there are influential leaders of local self-government and many other things, that is, in my opinion, it is premature to talk about that , that we will be able to sway russia, we will be able to lead to opposition to putin, we will be able to lead there to the format of a palace coup, anything else, er, let's see, there are really no prospects for this, but, but what you are talking about

black swan, there is an element of chance, but you have to look honestly, the probability... of this remains extremely, extremely low, that is, to sum up, the kursk operation, or the kursk special operation, is an extremely great success of the ukrainian military, which i am convinced will be studied in tens of years in all textbooks on military affairs. the military sets clear tasks for itself, and we can only guess about them now, even if we guess, we will not talk about it publicly, that is, different scenarios are possible, and this scenario. very difficult and very unpleasant for russia, but to talk about tectonic events there, about forcing putin to negotiate about revolutionary events in russia, well, i'm sorry, it's... we often look pragmatically, thank you, mr. oleksiy, mr. volodymyr, what will be the political consequences for putin, because if inside the russian federation, as mr.

oleksiy says, one cannot hope for a revolution or a riot or some certain actions by it against the leader of russia himself, then it is obvious, it is obvious that what is happening in kurshchyna is a loud a slap to putin on the world stage. that is, he learned a rather serious lesson, and the whole world saw that putin is actually a person who is not able to keep the situation in russia under control, and even more so is not able to continue this image of the second army of the world, which is strong and not tyrannical, no, actually, about the second army of the world for a long time already... no one in particular talks about it, another thing is that , unfortunately, in the last year and a half of the war, well, somewhere, well, a year for sure, but in the last year of the war, it will be more accurate , among the russian

elites, i'm not talking about the average people there russians and even some of the western elites had the feeling that putin is invincible again, that the war will be long, and putin will win it, and if the russian elites... happened in the 22nd year, there were problems at the beginning of the 23rd year, by the way , i do not agree with the assessment that someone there saw in the beauty of a revolutionary, i do not know who there saw in the beauty of a revolutionary, he was more of a counter-revolutionary, and he is more of a, you know, a character in the style of the civil war, such a sexual commander , who tries to fight there against one of the leaders, he never... spoke out against putin, so there was no talk of any revolution at all, now, too, that the ukrainian authorities are talking about the beginning of a revolution in russia, no, i have not seen a single

word, in general they are very careful assessments, very restrained assessments, even about the fact that our troops, precisely our troops are fighting now in the kursk region, started talking only in the last two days, and so the assessments are very restrained, that is very correct, the statement about the catastrophe, well, it is said in... rather about a local disaster and a disaster in the military dimension, for us it is important that there was an effect that putin is not so invincible, one should not bow down to the fact that russia is big, has endless resources, it is impossible to win, non-standard actions are needed, actions are needed that in one way or another can indicate that it is possible to put pressure on russia , you can fight on russian territory, add various red lines that were not even drawn by russia itself, but rather red lines that arose in the minds of some western politicians, this is important, and for us,

of course, in this military operation, political goals are important , the first, the first political the effect - the fact that we can conduct successful military operations on russian territory has become absolute. ness for the russians, especially for the inhabitants of the border regions, and certainly, at the very least, it caused an increase in anxiety in russia and uncertainty that it would be possible to win this war, because they had already thought almost everything, let's wait a little longer, we will win the war, and now the situation is completely otherwise, therefore, let the tactical temporary effect be achieved, then you need to think about how to transfer it to another plane. the second important effect: our partners recognized that we have a full right, publicly, officially recognized that we have a full right to defend our interests,

conduct our defense on the enemy's territory. there was nothing like this before. earlier, i know, this is from various sources, we were unofficially, informally ordered, not even just asked, ordered, not to take a single step into russian territory. therefore, when in ... there were incidents in the belgorod region, they were russian volunteers, but not the ukrainian armed forces, and now we have proven that we have every right to defend ourselves, in particular, in such way on russian territory, and our partners have recognized it, but the truth remains , now, i think, it is the main thing in order to make the current operations in the kursk region more effective, in order to push putin to real negotiations, and this ... will certainly not happen by itself and quickly, we need the use of western weapons, long-range weapons on russian territory, we need to remove at least partially these restrictions.

that exist, only non-standard actions and actions in russian can guarantee success territory, and the breakthrough to kurshchyna proved this, so in this case a lot depends on the further actions of our western partners, and i think that at the moment they are considering what to do next, how to proceed, in this sense, caution, unfortunately, everything still exists, but even a message that they are assessing the situation and considering. the possibility to remove at least part of the restrictions on the use of our long-range weapons, this is important, so there are political effects, i think it is very important for the ukrainians, after almost nine months, when we were just retreating, now we see that our troops are advancing, well, this is, you know, an important impulse of positivity for the whole society to

restore faith. in our ability, that we endure this war, that we do not lose this war, this is very, very important, because, therefore , i believe that the political effects of this military operation are even greater at this point than the military effects, head of diplomacy of the european union, josep borel , during a conversation with the minister of foreign affairs of ukraine, dmytro kuleba, said that which the eu fully supports. the struggle of the ukrainian people, and in this way he commented on the events in kurshchyna. borel wrote on the social network x, discussed with dmytro kuleba the latest events on the front line, the kurdish offensive, i confirmed the full support of the european union, the struggle of the ukrainian people. putin failed to break ukraine's resistance to his unjustified invasion and is now forced to retreat deep into russian territory. mr. oleksiy, why do our

western partners not want to... say more sharply that, in principle, this is a special operation on kurtshchyni indicates that perhaps we should already put the dots of hope in the russo-ukrainian war, putin must be defeated, and russia must be defeated, because they all support ukraine, but here is a clear articulation of what we see that putin will lose in given specific situation, and putin must answer for it. well, the western rhetoric of the last week has been extremely favorable for us, including direct support from borel, the german foreign ministry, white house spokespeople, and many others. this is an extremely big plus, but not important to us only rhetoric, principled decisions are important to us. the first solution that mr. volodymyr talked about is the permission to use western weapons on the territory of russia, i mean, long-range

weapons that really can. mother can break the course of the war quite seriously. and the second question, a fundamental one, which was voiced by volodymyr zelenskyi. i believe that this kind of rhetoric should be present in the daily format. this is a direct demand from the west to close the ukrainian sky from the polish air defense, romanian, and slovak air defense there. well, that's true, we got it too the answer from washington that it has a solution that... should be adopted by consensus by all nato member countries. but again , the situation can be overcome, because a number of countries are direct supporters of ukraine. now regarding the mood in the european union. well, of course, let's look only in the language of numbers, poland announces that it will buy 96 apache helicopters, american for the amount of 10 billion. well, it is

talking about helicopters and... it is about a whole complex of production enterprises spare parts, maintenance, logistics, everything else. 10 billion us dollars, this is the price that poland is currently paying only once for the supply of russian helicopters, plus they buy a bunch of f-16s, plus they buy a huge amount of weapons there, europe is paying a huge price for a possible attack from russia. europe does not want this war. business does not want this war, and that is why even now, in the 11th year of the war, european politicians are dominated by such a very easy compromise opinion that the war can be resolved in a diplomatic format, you can get guarantees that russia will not attack, or come on, let's wait, literally a decade will pass and russia will change, that is , physiologically, putin cannot be eternal, he is now over 70, in 10-15 years. this will already be

a person who is unlikely to...