at 21:15, we will come back to you, do not switch. destroyed bridges and creating a buffer zone along the border. what is happening in the kursk region in the second week of the ukrainian operation? we are talking about this on the bbc from london. i am inna kosa. the course operation lasts almost two weeks. during this time, the defense forces of ukraine took control of more than 80 settlements in the kursk region. in recent days, the ukrainian military bombed key bridges in the kursk region, depriving the russians of supply routes. bridges over the seym river were important logistically an artery for russian forces. they supplied troops and moved weapons through these bridges. but today the russian media reported the destruction of the latter.

there has been no official confirmation from the ukrainian side yet, but if the destruction of the last bridge over the seine is confirmed, it will mean that thousands of russian troops will be cut off, and they will be able to supply them only by boats and pontoon crossings. bbc verifi journalists analyzed photos and videos from social networks and found out this. here at bbc verifi, we analyzed the satellite images and videos from social networks to understand where and why ukraine targeted... stakh in the border kursk region of russia. it was in this region, almost two weeks ago, that ukraine launched an unexpected offensive. and since then, as you can see on this map from the american think tank the institute for the study of war, ukrainian troops have advanced 30 km deep into russian territory. and in recent days, ukrainian forces have repeatedly shelled the bridges on the seim river. the first was a bridge in the village. glushkovo we

checked this video for august 15. on it shows large holes in the bridge after the reported ukrainian strike. holes can be seen here. a day later, the bridge collapsed. you can see the same holes in this image, which was later distributed in the russian telegram. and this is a satellite image from saturday, which clearly shows the degree of damage to the bridge. on sunday , the command of the air force of ukraine released this video, which shows the destruction of the second bridge, this time in the village of zvannomu. we know it's that bridge because the terrain seen in these shots matches previous social media videos of the area, but the extent of the damage is still unknown. and today this video appeared on russian social networks. a representative of the investigative committee of russia reports that on sunday ukraine.

damaged a third bridge, this time in the village of karizh, this is the last bridge through which the russian forces in the area could receive supplies, but we do not yet have visual confirmation of this attack, but since three bridges on the seim river have been destroyed or damaged, the russians obviously tried to find alternatives routes across this river. this satellite image was taken on saturday, the image shows a new construction across the river, 2 km east of the bridge in the village of glushkovo. we are sure that this is a new structure, because if you compare this picture with the picture from last week, this structure did not exist then. the fact that the ukrainians attacked three bridges is important. samuel craney evans of the british think tank russia says that if ukraine manages to establish its own defense lines on the banks of the seym river, the russians will have a hard time with them. but still, what is the purpose

ukrainian strikes on bridges in the kursk region of russia? here is the assessment of the british military expert, who was a nato analyst in the past, patrick bury, when he was asked about this operation, that there were no reports of the destruction of the third bridge over the seim. let's listen. when it comes to disabling the bridges over the seym river, the ukrainians have already... destroyed two of the three main bridges, this accomplishes two tasks: on the one hand, it prevents the russians from transferring reinforcements across the river, slows down or even stops their rear support, and second, and this is already for a longer perspective, if we look at how the forces are placed in that area, we see that they have created a pocket in the direction to the northwest, and the seim river will create an important natural obstacle to the attack, as the ukrainians will manage or you'. to defeat the russians or

capture them, given the fact that they have no way of retreat left, so this arrangement can be used to reinforce their left. flank, and it will be a line that will be easier to defend. here's what 's really going on there. taking into account that given the pressure ukraine is under, keeping such a large number of troops on the border is an ambitious task. but if we take a broader look, then from 2022, when the course of the war began to stabilize, military strategists probably began to look closely at belarus and think, but what if we rushed to the left, for example, if we went through the city of gomel, which is a little north of the border line, and from there hit russia from the left flank, it would make sense from a military point of view. of course, it would have great difficulties, both military and political, but the benefits would be obvious. i think putin and lukashenko understood this when

they deployed tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of belarus last year, and now when the ukrainians launched their offensive in kursk oblast and showed their readiness to enter the territory of another country. belarus got a little scared and began to react accordingly, but i did not see any signs that the ukrainians were gathering forces near the belarusian border. the president of ukraine volodymyr zelenskyy revealed the purpose of the operation in the kursk region for the first time in a televised address the day before of russia, this is the creation of a so-called buffer zone to prevent shelling of ukrainian cities. dmytro lubinets, the human rights commissioner of the verkhovna rada of ukraine, said that such a zone is needed by the ukrainian military for self-defense. ukraine plans to open humanitarian corridors there for the evacuation of civilians, to establish the supply of food and medicine. and according to the minister of internal affairs ihor klymenko, the creation of a buffer zone in kurshchyna should protect the border communities of ukraine from daily

russian shelling. and here is more detail about the meaning of the buffer zone and that the latest statement of the president of ukraine testifies to the goals of the operation in kurshchyna? the bbc's james waterhouse continues. president zelenskyi hints that this is about a medium-term perspective. he has previously stated that he does not want to permanently occupy this now-captured russian territory, but he clearly wants to have this trump card up his sleeve as long as the war lasts, because when he talks about a buffer zone, he means a defensive measure against pushing russian troops away from the ukrainian territory, which the russians regularly strike, but in time this land will have a political. significance for any future peace negotiations. suppose it can be exchanged for a part of the land that russia seized inside ukraine. we see how ukrainian forces continue to advance from village to village on small armored vehicles. they had just destroyed the second major bridge on the seym river, further north,

severing russian supply lines. however, the great war continues. while ukraine is pressing here, russia is advancing in the donetsk region to... populated areas, they are advancing the front line in a kind of wedge, where people and equipment are concentrated, in the direction of the city of pokrovsk, and indeed russia had to redeploy thousands of troops from ukraine, as well as russia itself, but this is not enough to slow down the advance in the east . nevertheless, i am currently in sumy oblast, and from here it looks like ukraine will not back down, they will try to advance as long as they can and, i think, will try to hold on. this territory, and therefore the position of the armed forces of ukraine today completely different, compared to this sudden attack two weeks ago. and we talk about the situation in more detail with oleksandr mosienko, head of the center for military legal research. alexander, i congratulate you. the operation in the kursk

region has been going on for almost two weeks now, and different opinions about its purpose have been heard on our airwaves. nevertheless, what do you think is the key goal of the ukrainian military in kursk oblast right now? i think what we can at least for now say about the intermediate goals that have already been achieved and achieved is that ukraine continues to conduct an offensive operation, the purpose of this offensive operation, as the president noted, is to create a buffer zone, advance further and force the enemy to transfer, forcing russian troops to transfer forces from the donetsk region directly to the region of the kurdish region in order to reduce the pressure and offensive of the russian troops in exactly this way, that is, by ... to improve our positions within the framework of conducting a defensive operation on the eastern front, and from the point of view of the achieved goals, it is also a large number of russian prisoners, the fact that ukraine does not stop, and the fact that on today, russian units there are being destroyed and the

ability of the russian army to shell the border territory of sumy oblast, which russian troops did before that, where subversive groups were operating and they shelled sumy oblast, is decreasing. changing targets from artillery, at least now they will not have such an opportunity, but the operation continues, it has certainly slowed down, today the resistance of the russian troops has become... more so fierce, probably due to the fact that they are cut off today due to river tseimi and in in principle, they ended up in a dead end just to the west of suja, where the ukrainian troops are now advancing, but at the same time the operation continues, and about the final goals and in general to sum up, sum up, for today, i think, it is still premature, but certain successes there is already, unfortunately, not yet, shall we say, a significant... throwing of russian troops from the east, directly from donetsk, which we would like, but since

the hostilities continue and the offensive continues, in principle, time will tell to what extent russia will go to this step, or it will not work. and if you say exactly about the destruction of bridges in the kursk region, how much will it help the ukrainian army to advance? this, this will help, this is the right move, because if we look geographically, as of today, the russian forces in this direction, as i mentioned west of sudja, they may be pinned down. ukrainian forces are now conducting an offensive from two sides: from the west, directly from the side of suja towards the settlement of korinive of the iglushkiv district, and directly from the south from the territory of ukraine, from the sumy region towards the settlement of teotkyne. there there are already certain successes of ukrainian fighters, they are advancing. to the north, in front of russia, a river. kaseim, there are three large bridges there, to be more precise, because they

were damaged, they were damaged, attempts were made by russian units today, ah, to ask for help, and they tried to provide a pontoon crossing across the river, but these attempts were thwarted by ukrainian forces defense, and therefore from the point of view of cutting off and cutting logistics for the russian troops, in order to pin them down, to encircle them, which... now the ukrainian troops are trying to do, the destruction of these bridges opens up immediate additional prospects, as the enemy is cut off from logistics, reinforcements and supplies. well, you already mentioned it a little, but what could be the further response of the russians to the destruction of their logistics infrastructure? and i can say that the answer may be that russia will try to transfer certain forces, that is, to build pontoon crossings, it is unlikely that it can be provided by boats,

because the level is not the same, you understand, the intensity of hostilities high, and just provide there the transportation of something on boats, in significant volumes, is difficult, it still requires pontoons, requires the movement of trucks, perhaps some heavy weapons, accordingly, to this day , the river and the banks of this river are closely monitored. intelligence and ukrainian units so that if, as soon as russia tries to drop these pontoons and cross over, strike them, so i think there is only one answer here, which is to try to transfer reinforcements, but for this you need a pontoon, and this do now for given the current conditions, it will be quite difficult, well, and the second point, and at the expense of whom, that is, with what forces, to carry it out, since currently russia is using various combined units. they transferred small quantities from the south and east of ukraine from the occupied parts, they are looking for a solution

in conscript soldiers, but so far these are not the large quantities that are capable, well, let's say this, of finally stopping the ukrainian offensive, and even more so to talk about to push the ukrainian troops back towards ukraine, towards sumy oblast. thank you, oleksandr, for your answers. the head of the center was with us of military and legal studies oleksandr musienko. so, that's all we have time to say at the moment, subscribe to our pages in social networks, we are on facebook, on tiktok, on instagram, and if you want to know more news, then go to our website pbc.ua, and we see you on the air tomorrow at 21:00 kyiv time. take care and see you soon.

a new week, the second hour of our program starts, here we... traditionally, with khrystyna yatskiv, we discuss, discuss, make plans regarding the situation in our country for... next week, i.e. for the new week, for the current week, andrii smolii is in the studio today, that is me, and khrystyna yatskiv has, yes, she is no longer there, she is already on the live air, and we already see her in half a week, khrystyna, hello, i am glad to see you, well, today we exchanged roles a little bit, yes, as far as i understand,

in relation to the previous weeks, yes completely. shki, i hope not for long, i hope that i can be heard now, because to be honest, the problems with electricity in the whole country do not add stability and communication either, i am not in the capital right now, i am in another ukrainian region, which i am getting to know for the first time, i confess, and once again i can say that our country is absolutely beautiful with these unique features, with the features of each individual region, i could not help but reflect, i will not say where i am now , i will collect all this in a pile, all my thoughts and will definitely share them on social networks, or well, not in the kursk region, no, you know, no, i do not consider it the territory of our state, and in fact,

it seems to me that we now have be very careful in defining these areas, and there is being conducted... a military operation of the defense forces, a defensive offensive, that is, an offensive in order to defend yourself, it looks like this to me, you are absolutely right, i asked this question for a reason, because i expected exactly such an answer, you see, what well, then we will start, well, first we will add some information, in general, today we will probably have... two main topics, as i already announced more than an hour ago, this is of course the topic of ahmadiyya, the topic of corruption, we will also talk about the ban of the russian orthodox church in ukraine, we talked about this with mrs. iryna iryna gerashchenko, about 20 minutes ago, yes, but let's start, probably with our

survey, after all, we ask you whether you hope that the authorities from... will ensure the transparency of reconstruction restoration of the ohmadit children's hospital, you can take your phones or your smartphones, absolutely free, dial, call 0800 211381, if you think yes and if you think no, 0800 211 382, ​​i emphasize again, all your calls are absolutely free we will catch up in 4 minutes the results of this vote and we will see an objective picture of how the viewers of our tv channel perceive it, and the first topic, it is difficult, it is difficult, because there is a war in the country, and this is the topic of corruption, corruption, unfortunately,

is still prominent places of perception in our country, our citizens, if we even take any polls, they clearly say that people identify in fact two main such problems, it is war, it is aggression, it is danger, and it is corruption, and it is corruption that seems to have started the great war, many people believed that there would be no more corruption, an end to corruption, that we would perceive our country differently, that... things would change, that the general approach to formation would change, especially issues of reconstruction, especially issues of allocation of funds for things, which are related to the war, related to the commemoration of our defenders, but unfortunately, not here as it was, not here it was,

the first issue is the reconstruction of ochmatite, loud scandals, it continues, in the near future the council for the restoration of the hospital ohmadite will approve repeated reconstruction plan, suffered as a result of the russian attack on the hospital, the minister of health viktor lyashko announced this on the air of the national marathon edyni novyvi. let's listen. the restoration council is currently being formed, on friday there was a meeting of internationalists and philanthropists who were selected, they select public organizations, on monday there will be an order and either on monday or tuesday the restoration council will approve the poet. a phased recovery plan, which also includes priority measures aimed specifically at

the general director of the hospital, okhmadyt, was removed from his duties by the minister of health, viktor lishko , on august 17, in particular, it was about the fact that he allegedly announced the decision... the company was accepted as the winner of the tender general director of okhmaditu volodymyr zhovnir, about which the public was informed, well, we see that the ministry made such a decision, many people took this information, many people took this information quite negatively, some blame the ministry, some say that well, it is unlikely that the director of the hospital could make such decisions, but in addition to this... in general, if we are talking about corruption, well, listen, the national military memorial cemetery, this is how the company that was actually created immediately

after the announcement of the tender won the tender for the construction of the first stage. i will remind you that the day before, i actually, that is, we are talking about 1.75 billion hryvnias, the deputy minister of energy, which last week. the name of this man is the former deputy minister of energy oleksandr heilo, his detained, actually, allegedly for the bribe he received, for promising the managers of the lviv-volyn state enterprise, the lviv-volyn coal basin , to transfer the equipment of the mines of the pokrovsky district of the donetsk oblast to use, there we are talking about a rather large sum, something. up to 500, if i, yes, there was talk of something up to 500 million hryvnias. in addition, the ex-head of the donetsk state administration, who is now the head of the antimonopoly

committee, pavlo kyrylenko, he was also informed of the suspicion of illegal enrichment of uah 50,6.2 million, this suspicion issued by nabu and sap. well, i already am. i am already silent there against the kyiv region, this is probably the last scandal, yes, when the heads of the boryspil and bucha tsk were exposed in bribery, in various schemes, and there, too, we are talking about tens and tens of thousands of dollars, but only, so to speak, it is for in the last weeks, in the last days , we have such a thing, khrystyna, your opinion on this, why are we... in the last weeks, the last months, we somehow get bogged down in these corruption scandals? andrei, i'm not sure what we

've been uploading to them in recent weeks, i'm thinking about this is in the context of the fact that there has simply become more, so to speak, direct air, there have been more investigations by journalists, it has become more simple. the view of the average ukrainian on these things, perhaps, despite the fact that it would seem that there is definitely something to do every day, work for victory, help the army, support the economy of our state, and so on and so on, but it seems to me that it is not scandals that have become more , i feel like it's just popping up, shall we say, a little bit more than it was literally a few months ago. why such an information shaft and what it can do be related? to be honest, i can assume that certain political

processes in the countries on which we depend prompt certain questions for us as a country, for us as a society and for our leadership, dear ones, and we understand all the gravity of your situation. but this does not mean that you can afford to remain as you are, so more exposures, and perhaps more intensive work, both in the informational field and in the field of purely, purely law enforcement, for example, this is how i see it now our special services work, the police, law enforcement officers in general and so on, so i believe that we need more such cases, more. such absolutely scandalous scandals, and on the one hand, to be honest , for the sake of a joke, i will probably say that i

am even happy about it, because... when i see her practice of stealing as if there is no war, somewhere in my soul appears the hope that these people know more than i do, and are probably absolutely confident in the future of our country, that we will win, that we will be prosperous, that there is no need to be afraid at all nothing, ukraine will be, and it will be possible to continue milking it the way it was done for decades before, but either steal as in the last or steal as in the last day, or i say steal as in the last day, well, that is, it is different in any in any case it's bad, and in any case it's good that journalists are talking about it, and that is, in any case, in any case it's good that it comes out, because it would be much worse if it didn't

come out . and if all these things were somewhere there, as they say, behind the cloth, and then in such a case, well, i'm sorry, then it would just this corruption would only multiply, multiply, multiply, if, if we didn't talk about it, but on the other hand, of course, it adds a certain disappointment to the society, that is, there are two sides of the coin, one side of the coin, yes, the journalists did a great job, yes , our task is to make it so that... those people who are doing these things today were punished, or at least, at least, were not in their positions. but there is another question, and why does it happen that until now, well, until now, even in 2024 , the month of august, today on the calendar, we still have everything basically the same as we had before the 24th of february 22, this, this is not...

my question, maybe i know the answer to this question, maybe i don't, maybe it's my sub objective point of view, but this is the opinion of the people, this is the opinion of the people, because i was not in kyiv for 2 and a half weeks, and i communicated with people outside kyiv, in several regions of our country, and people are worried about it, ordinary people, ordinary from cities forces of our country, people who, in which relatives are fighting, who cheer for ukraine, but they are worried about it, they are disappointed, they even say things, which you don't want to voice on the air, they are sad, many people say because of this, well, that's it, well , nothing changes in the country, well, even now, well, well, how can this be, and this is also a problem, this is a problem, and

the problem is not that there is no need to highlight it. and the problem is that something needs to be done so that it finally happens, at least less, less, less, less, i understand that it is impossible to overcome corruption 100%, it exists in any country, but when it comes down to it, i'm sorry, about ohmadit, when it comes to the national cemetery of our defenders, when about the memorial cemetery, when it comes to things that... is about the provision of the defense forces, is it about humanitarianism for our people, well, i think that at least some conclusions should be drawn here, but it seems that for many they are not made of people, have you now listed all these, let's say, areas in which these

scandals take place? but both the memory of our fallen soldiers and the hospitals destroyed by russian missiles, and i don't know the situation in the donetsk region, which was led by a person who is now suspected of enriching the situation, when the donetsk region is not in a very good condition, to put it mildly, and even the same geilo, and we are talking about energy in our country, all these things, everything... now in our country it is all about the war, this everything is a derivative of war, and it is all connected with war, therefore , every time when we , journalists and colleagues, track such scandals and let the public know and hear about it, every time we, at the same time, deliver into the hands of russian propaganda, which. ..