exchanges rocket fire, 5 days ago lebanon announced 30 rockets from the side, or rather, lebanon launched 30 rockets on the territory of israel, today it claims that civilians are being killed as a result of israeli rocket fire, should we hope for de-escalation, at least on this direction, in the northern direction from the side, well, i think so, i think a large percentage that in case of... the signing of the agreement on gaza, the cessation of the war in gaza, there will be a de-escalation of the conflict in the north of israel, or at least, well, from this you can push back when we talk about the beginning of this escalation, yes, it started just after the start of the war in gaza. thank you for the meaningful analysis, ihor simivolos, the director of the center of middle eastern studies, joined the saturday political club and already from... in a minute

, the one without whom it is impossible to imagine will appear in our program. vitaly portnikov, wait. a new week on espresso, a weekly summary information and analytical program, a clear understanding of the key events of the past week, analysis of the causes and consequences of these events from experts, forecasts of the development of the situation for the current week, the opportunity to ask your own questions and contribute. to the discussion, spend the final monday evening with us and confidently step into the new week. the new week project with khrystyna yatskiv and andrii smoly, every monday at 8:00 p.m. on espresso. journalist who joined the armed forces, political expert who became a special agent, taras berezovyts in a new project on espresso. the real front is a thorough analysis of the main events. reports, comments of the presenters specialists and experts. analytics from major of

the armed forces. how to make sense of disturbing news and distinguish truth from hostile propaganda. the real front program with taras berezovets every saturday at 21:30 on espresso. the saturday political club at espresso continues. my name is khrystyna yatskiv, and i greet vitaly portnikov. greetings, khrystyna, greetings, dear viewers. well, since our last meeting with you, several important events have happened, if we talk about the ukrainian offensive in kurshchyna. first, we can now confidently to say that this is a ukrainian offensive. the ukrainian state recognized its military presence on these sovereign russian territories. and we still do not understand what the final, military goal is, but less so, successes are actually daily in this direction. also, in... the country announced

the creation of administrations in the currently managed, currently controlled territories, which means that we will be there for a certain time, and we need to deal with, in particular, the population that remains there, ukrainians are discussing what to do with the kuryans , is it possible to evacuate them to ukraine and similar things, mr. vitaly, how do you see the situation in kurshchyna now? well , i think that we can talk about the fact that the armed forces of ukraine are trying to gain a foothold in this territory and expand the zone of their control. and it is also obvious that russia will now try to gather troops in order to knock out ukrainian forces from this territory, there is already a lot of evidence that this is happening, but the question arises again, to what extent the russians will be able to implement this in the coming weeks and even months, because given these... resources,

that the russian federation has, in order to knock out ukrainian troops from the controlled territories, it is necessary to redeploy its own armed forces from other directions, which are now in the focus of the russian military command, and this is not only the donetsk direction, we must remember with you, that the troops of the russian federation are located in several directions in ukraine, this is the donetsk direction, where the most intense fighting is going on, and there russia... expects to gain control over key positions and continue to develop the offensive to occupy the entire territory of the donetsk region, this is an important task for them, because vladimir putin set before his army to take control of the administrative borders of donetsk region and luhansk region as early as february 2022, let's not forget that the so -called special operation began with this, but apart from this direction, where we are now with we are watching with great anxiety the fate of pokrovsk, as a strategic point in donetsk region, there is kharkiv... in the direction, where

quite heavy battles also continue, where the russians, one way or another, after entering vovchansk, do not hide their desire to expand this zone of control in the kharkiv region, there is a zaporizhia direction. and we should not forget about him either, and there are kherson directions, that is, in fact, in ukraine there are four active directions of military clashes between two enemy armies, and now they are talking about the zaporizhia, kherson and kharkiv directions, these are the directions from where russia is trying to redeploy part of its forces to the territory of the kurt region, of course, so as not to reduce its ability to hold these territories or develop initiatives in these territories, if we are talking about kharkiv. of course, the ukrainian military commanders could hope that russia would first of all transfer troops from the donetsk region to kursk and thus make it easier for the ukrainian armed forces to resist the russian military offensive. according to most military experts, this does not happen, but other

areas are also no less important. we are primarily dealing with stretching the front. frontline stretching is a problem for both sides, and of course it remains. according to our understanding, how many ukrainian military personnel involved in the kurdish operation, and how many russian troops moscow will be gathering to try to drive our troops out of that zone. well, i don't want to act as a military expert now, but even people who are not very well versed in military matters understand very well that if a foreign army goes somewhere, if it strengthens in certain positions, creates engineering, uh, uh ,... fortifications that need to be overcome, then this army may have a smaller number of soldiers behind these fortifications than the army, which will advance on other people's positions, and the delay of the russian army in the offensive, the fact that they are forced to gather troops there, and this is already happening for the 11th day, of course makes

our task easier in the kurt region, that is , we can have a not so large the number of servicemen, these servicemen can expand the zone of their own response. range, and at the same time, the russians will not be able to knock them out of their occupied positions, because these positions can be reliably fortified, and another important point is that there are objects, let's say, that do not allow russia to carry out any active bombing of territories, i mean, first of all , the gas measuring station in sochi. russia, of course , is interested in ensuring that its transit obligations to european countries are fully fulfilled, and by and large, when they say, we could stop supplying russian gas now, i apologize, this russian gas is supplied through ukrainian territory . in order to stop the supply of russian gas and freeze europe, we absolutely do not need judge, we can do it ourselves,

but the paradox of the current situation is that both russia and ukraine, both countries are interested in being conscientious executors of the already reached agreement. for... this is also the question of money for transit, this is huge money, in a few months, practically, ukraine will stop receiving it, because the contract between gazprom and naftogaz of ukraine will expire. i understand that both sides are not going to continue it, although there may be some kind of intermediate agreements, but ukraine will also get rid of this money, which was a certain support for our actually already destroyed economy today. and this is also such an important point, regarding how to act there, how we should treat the population, here the answer is very simple: according to the laws of international law, because all these discussions of the ukrainian population seem quite strange to me, because the citizens of ukraine forget

that ukraine is a safe protectorate of the civilized world, and the fact that the ukrainian state exists at all on the political map of the world is the result of the active support of our efforts by the united states. countries of the european union, if it weren't for these efforts, almost the entire territory of ukraine would now be occupied by russia, it would have been under the russian federation for two years in a row, it just needs to be clearly understood so that no one has any impression that ukraine is capable of defending itself from russia, and by the way, there is no need to be ashamed of this, ukraine is facing the greatest nuclear power of the modern world, a country with an arsenal of nuclear weapons, which can be used to destroy humanity in the course of time. koh hours to a country that has approx 140 million population, which during the last years, the putin years, was preparing its army for active military operations on the territory of foreign countries, because the restoration of the soviet union within the borders of 1991 was, is and will be the main geopolitical goal of the russian state and

the russian people. ukraine was not involved in any of this. ukraine has been destroying its own armed forces for decades. ukraine did not prepare for the danger from the east. ukraine. we elected pro-russian politicians who actually destroyed the entire russian and ukrainian infrastructure in the east of our country, let's remember these subversive actions that the former president engaged in. yanukovych, even after 2014, in 2019, ukrainian voters adopted a decision that practically meant a certain stabilization of our military positions in the east of the country, where there were already russian occupiers, namely the withdrawal of troops, that is, in fact, in fact, the ukrainian state and the ukrainian people did everything, to destroy them, and what we are fighting for is, i would say, such a small political and security miracle of the 21st century. century, but this miracle is guaranteed precisely by western support, and it is still small a country with a destroyed economy, frustrated,

already occupied on 20% of the territory, 2.5 years, and i hope it will be another 2.5 years and another 2.5 years, does not allow itself to be destroyed by a large country of eurasia, which occupies the territory from now don't judge, a little further on he already has his own control and all the way to vladivostok. so the fact that the west helps us in our confrontation with this state, the largest state in terms of territory in the world, is great, yes, and there is nothing to be ashamed of, but it means that if we are in an alliance with states that respect international law, and not with states that don't care about international law, then we have to respect international law in our protective actions, that's all, as international conventions provide... the attitude towards the local population, that's how we

should behave, this is an absolutely real thing, if citizens of the russian federation, which is located on the sovereign territory of the russian federation, i would like to remind you that this is not ukrainian territory from the point of view of international law, it is russian territory, it is not donetsk region, not luhansk, not crimea, we have a completely different legal regime there for citizens of the russian federation can be if we liberate this territory, but if they want to... leave this territory, we must provide them with the opportunity to move to the territory where hostilities are not taking place . of course, in this situation, the best solution would be to open the corridors on the territory of the country whose citizens have them. if there is no such possibility, of course we have to open corridors to them on the territory of ukraine, then this is another matter. ukraine can ensure through the territory of ukraine that these people are able to enter. to the territory of the russian federation, which is not in the war zone, this is a matter of russian-ukrainian agreements, by the way,

i will remind you that such agreements were reached even by us and the russians, when citizens from the territories of ukraine occupied by russia went there, for example, from mariupol, from other settlements of ukraine. even the russians allowed it with their disrespect for international law. the other thing is, they arranged some kind of filtering there, it was all shameful, the way they behaved, we behaved like that. we do not have, although of course, certain work on detection possible agents of the russian special services, among the population that, let's say, will be transported to ukrainian territory, there should also be and there will be, this is also absolutely obvious, but when it comes to women, children, elderly people, for the population in the occupied territory the occupier is responsible, ukraine is the occupier of the territory of the kurt region, from here i ask to stop, can we, that is, i have thought about it for a long time. how in what status are we now? purely technically, it turns out that if so, we occupied

this territory, but, security experts say, no, we effectively control these territories now at this stage, is that different from occupation? mr. vitaly, we have lost sound with you, i can see what you are saying, but i can't hear you, if we can hear now, yes, if you, if we... control a certain territory, create our own command post there, it is an occupied territory, there is nothing special about this, again, why should we call things by other people's names, like the russians, but the russians are occupying our region, donetsk, luhansk, kherson, zaporizhzhia region, crimea, sevastopol are territories occupied by russia, they can hold meetings of the state duma of the russian federation, the federation council, send letters to the constitutional court. perform some russian folk dances on the ivanivka square of the kremlin,

do whatever you want, annex these territories, write them in the russian constitution, write them in school textbooks, these are still occupied territories, you understand, occupied from the point of view of international law, the kurt region with from the point of view of international law, it is a territory the russian federation does not exist, we can exercise effective control over it. however, the very word occupation does not change it, there are different motives for the occupation, the russians occupied our territory because their task is to eliminate the ukrainian state and join the ukrainian territories to... steps towards annexation, we occupied the territory of the kurdish region in order to reduce the military potential of the army, which carried out aggression against our state, and to allow ourselves to reduce

the resources and capabilities of the russians on our front, that is, it is an occupation. in response, by the way, i wanted to ask you, but when the allies occupied the territory of germany in 1900-44, it was an occupation, they were called occupation zones, no security experts called it anything else, they were called soviet, french, british , the american zone of occupation, and no one said that it should be called effective control otherwise, when people start to engage in some euphemism. with you because we are good, good are not occupiers, no, good are occupiers, the question is simply from which the reason you occupy, if you even occupy the entire territory of the aggressor's country, if you have such an opportunity, it is an occupation for the sake of peace, for the sake of forcing the aggressor's country to stop its aggressive actions against your state, the result of this occupation may

even be the destruction of state institutions in the aggressor's country , replacing them with their occupation ones. commandant offices, as was the case in germany, and the conditions created in the future for holding free elections in the former country , the aggressors, without the participation of those forces that you consider guilty of aggression, may once again be quite serious discussions about what legal norms this corresponds to. here, the nurber trial does not correspond to any legal norms at all, ugh, there the winners judged the losers, these are absolutely specific legal norms. were specifically for this adoption process, however , the occupying countries of germany felt that the german courts, which were then created, by the way, to try other lower-level war criminals, could not have jurisdiction to try their own country's leadership, why? because from the point of view of german law, how can

to judge people for the leaders of the country, who are immune from legal prosecution, actual? who do not violate the laws of this country, but act in accordance with the laws of this country, and the laws themselves are criminal, well, that is why such an idea as the nuremberg tribunal was created in occupied germany, it was in occupied germany, in the occupied city of nuremberg, you know how in a black room, a black cat with a black man, and here too, we are not in the occupied territories of the kurdish region, we are creating occupation control bodies, commandant offices, which... will actually be their existence will be provided by the occupying forces, whatever you want to call it, well, call it effective control, whatever, well, it doesn’t matter whether you are the one or the other, and why i am trying so hard to prove it, because in this situation, our actions must comply with the norms of international rights, and they will comply with the norms of international law, this has already

been announced in the ukrainian states and state institutions, what people write in the social... just speaks of their, i would say, deep legal infantilism, that they just think that we we can allow what russia allows itself, first of all, we cannot, because we are a different country, a different civilization, because we have a different attitude towards ordinary people, towards human life, because we understand very well that some grandmother has a judge to she did not think about the war there, she is not responsible for the aggressive actions herself. government and its own army, the political leadership and military leadership of the russian federation are responsible for their own actions of the army and government, we can have moral claims against ordinary russians, moral ones, just as people had moral claims against ordinary germans, and so on i would say that no citizen of the russian federation bears any legal responsibility, it is the people who directly

make decisions and commit criminal acts, then a little clarification, do we have the right. god forbid, god forbid, to catch this moment after the end of the war, to talk about some kind of compensation from the russian federation, where maybe there will be no longer an effective regime, but those russians will end, but there will remain, excuse me, those russians who brought this regime to power, what you say may not be responsible for his actions, well that's absolutely it's another thing if you have control over some country on which you can impose a reparations regime. then in this situation, of course, you can talk about it, because these are not the actions of ordinary people, you are again, these are the results of the actions of the state, the state made a decision because the president of russia, vladimir putin. the leadership of the russian federation, they made a criminal decision about aggression against ukraine, about the destruction of ukrainian infrastructure, about the destruction of ukrainian residential quarters, what, this is a state, if

you have the opportunity, i don't think that in our such an opportunity will appear someday, to have control over the resources of such a state, then of course you can demand from this state within the framework of international responsibility, reparations, reparations are not paid by a grandmother from suja or a grandmother from kursk. reparation is paid by the state at the expense of its taxpayers, of course, in such a situation, people are responsible for the crimes of their state because their taxes are not used for their social needs, not for the construction of sports centers, not even for the creation of new tanks, planes and missiles , which can be destroyed ukrainian territory, for the payment of reparations. after the first world war, apportionments were imposed on germany by the allies who won the war, the expiration of which, it seems to me, should have been... only in the 80s and 90s of the 20th century, that is, if there had been no second world war war, the germans would pay reparations for many more years without even in

peacetime, but as you know, the second world war changed this situation, in fact it was already the case, the allies took from germany such, i would say one-time donations, reparations, but then understood what it is imposing a lot of... reparations on any country turns it into a potential future aggressor, and that practice was abandoned, as you know, the united states even helped revive the german economy, according to the marshall plan, instead of trying to take any money from germany. regarding the extent to which ukraine will be able to force the russian federation to pay it some reparations, i think that the russian state will not be controlled either by ukraine or by any other country in the world, i repeat, it is a nuclear state, impose some such arrangements that will be super'. in the interest of national security, in any case, it is not possible. the russian federation can pay some money to ukraine solely out of goodwill, as a state with which

good neighborly, good relations will be restored. as a state, which the new russian government, if it appears at all, will want to help restore economic power and social potential. however, i do not think that it is necessary to wait for about a decade. the only thing that can realistically happen is that russia will lose control over the money that is not found. on its territory, and this will also harm the interests of ordinary russians, because if the west decides, in the end , that ukraine can dispose of those russian assets that are currently in the banks of western countries, then this means that russia of these there is no amount of money that will be at the disposal of ukraine, and this is also the money of russian taxpayers by and large, and they could use this money again for the construction of stadiums, and for the construction of hospitals, and for the creation of tanks, airplanes and... and missiles, which could be used to further fight against ukraine and other states hostile to russia, but this will not happen, and this money will go to ukraine to rebuild

stadiums, built hospitals and created new planes, missiles and tanks, with which it will fight with the russian federation in the future, so it can be, absolutely, this is a reality, uh, the question is not for moscow, but it is a question for washington and brussels, and it's... a question about the fact that moscow can't control now, of course, it's okay, but the news has appeared, and i think it's quite interesting, especially in the context of our previous conversations with you, when you noted that the russians and putin, personally, are not interested in no way in negotiations about the state of the conflict in ukraine, yes, nevertheless, he shares information with the washington post, refers to diplomats familiar with the situation. of events that ukraine and russia were to send delegations to where, interestingly, yes, to qatar, to doha, for negotiations on the conclusion of a historic agreement,

which would have stopped, at least the strikes on energy infrastructure facilities from both sides, er, whether, in your opinion, had taken place at all, i do not know whether the plan of such a meeting of ours had taken place. side, and from the side of the russian federation. it seems to me that this publication, in principle, even refers to ukrainian sources, who say that such consultations were indeed conducted, but the russians deny it, there is no such clear refutation from the ukrainian side, well, maybe we will wait for it, but, again, khrystyna , i would like to clarify, i always i said that i will repeat it now, that i do not believe in any russian-ukrainian negotiations that could lead to the end of the war between russia and ukraine, but i said that... from the negotiations on the ceasefire, yes, on the ceasefire , can happen at any moment, and in the 24th year, in the 25th and 26th, i do not believe in the possibility of the end of

the war. between russia and ukraine for one simple reason: this is an existential conflict, two peoples claim the same territory, for russians the territory of ukraine is russia, for ukrainians the territory of ukraine is ukraine, there is no political solution to this conflict, and there may not be one in history at all, this is how reality looks, therefore, under the conditions of the current russian regime, to imagine the end of the war as such, i do not know how to imagine it, and that is why i always advised ukrainians to prepare for a long war and not have any illusions that they will live in peace. but at the same time i am absolutely sure that there can be an agreement on a cease-fire, without any other arrangements, on the withdrawal of troops, as you understand, in the configuration proposed by the publication washington post, there is no question, however, the troops remain in the territory they currently control, in donetsk and kursk regions, about any security guarantees

for... the country, in such agreements there is no question. in general, russia continues to insist that the war can end only with known security guarantees, that is, for ukraine to allow itself to recognize its neutral status and begin the process of its demilitarization, which ukraine, of course, will not do, or that is also out of the question, what it could be about, if i understand the framework of this idea of ​​the washington post edition of these agreements in... what could be a partial ceasefire when it comes to shelling energy facilities, that's a story in which both countries are really interested, so i imagine that such negotiations will still take place, why? russia has already lost up to 15% of its oil and gas complex, this is a serious problem for the russian economy if the russian ukrainian strikes on russian oil refineries continue,

and... more if these strikes begin if not only drones, but also western missiles are used, then russia may lose 15-30 percent of the capabilities of its oil refining complex, if missiles are used for this, russia may lose up to 60 and up to 70% of its oil refining, which may lead to to the catastrophic and critical consequences for the economy of the russian federation, should russia take any measures to... put it this way, i would if i were president vladimir putin, but you have to remember that president putin is paranoid, i'm not, i would in place president vladimir putin did it, now ukraine, if the destruction of the ukrainian energy infrastructure continues, the question of ukraine's survival during the winter will remain under a very big question mark, that is, there may be a situation when there will be problems not only with lights and ignition, with the introduction of war, in the water, in a number of

settlements for what? this may lead to a new wave of departure of the ukrainian population abroad. we cannot now estimate the number of people who will leave, but they will and it will again be about hundreds of thousands of people. we already understand that if people go abroad in the conditions that ukraine is in, the greater part of the people who went abroad, according to various sociological estimates, as people answer, up to 50-60%, they no longer will return, even more so, after the end of hostilities, men who now... can go to their families and reunite, let's say, with their families, they will most likely reunite with them not on the territory of ukraine, which will feel obvious economic frustration after the war, but will be reunited with their families in prosperous western countries, and we will have another wave of emigration, so to speak, the final end of this migration process, when their husbands will return to their families, but not in ukraine,

in the united states, canada, european countries, great britain, etc. so, it will most likely be like that. so, if some more people leave, it will mean that at the end of the war, ukraine will turn out to be a country devastated by demographics. if to remember that even before the start of this war, ukraine's demographic prospects were , to put it mildly, catastrophic, then one catastrophe after another will simply turn ukraine into a territory without any real demographic prospects. this does not mean that there will be no population on the territory of ukraine, it will be, it just will be. it will not be ukrainians, it will be a state of other people, in accordance with what migration waves will sweep through ukraine in the next decades. i would certainly like it not to be so, and i think that the people who are currently working in the ukrainian leadership they are also thinking about how to preserve the population here. so, these are the principles of mutual interest of the parties, and these negotiations, as far as i understand, are taking place for these.