a burningly important decision for the european perspective of ukraine, it will have consequences for europe and, of course, directly for ukraine and its efforts, the state in the east of the european continent has long been heading west despite russia's attempts to hinder it with war, a full-scale attack only prompted ukraine to declare louder and more persistently where to the european union and brussels to reciprocate what was done not so long ago and to hope that ukraine is fighting for its freedom and, in my opinion, fully respects all european values ​​and ukrainians are fighting not only for themselves but for the freedom of the entire democratic world, they are very brave and effective in the fight against the aggressor, but they need political support to protect ukraine in the fight for it already within the european union, its entire eastern flank has been put up by those who are geographically closer to russia and know well it is better to be politically as far away from her as possible, it was necessary to convince them in western sweden

, denmark, the netherlands kept them in suspense until the last kyiv, demonstrating a purely business approach, the country did not seem to them sufficiently reformed, of course there is a war terrible and vile, we want it to stop, this is understandable, but i was worried that there might be some kind of rush to grant candidate status in ukraine, and this is not an emotional system, but the political psyche of politicians and lawyers of ukraine and skeptics, the european commission reconciled a week before the summit and proposed a solution that was carried out by all to say yes to the candidacy and put forward conditions for further steps, then the moment is a decisive moment for the european union, this is a geopolitical choice that we will make. i am sure that we will grant the status of a candidate to ukraine and moldova, with this statement, charles michel announces a symbolic summit for ukraine, it would seem that intrigues, no debate in the hall, closed to the press, start, and suddenly a public announcement of the will of which

rulers can be transferred and it is not known how long the leaders took a break and on the youth, with the course of discussions, explained, no one changed their mind nothing is canceled, just the responsibility for the adoption of a fateful decision for ukraine plunged into several topics at the same time, news for which ukrainians in the center of brussels were waiting with bated breath and already too much in kyiv, the trinity austria , croatia, slovenia, and this is not a stick in the wheels of the last , even before the war, in general, committed in writing to defend the future membership of ukraine, they simply discussed bosnia and herzegovina , their neighbor, which has long been a candidate for candidacy, in parallel with it. they wanted the declaration of the leaders and its the candidates mentioned and promised that in exchange for reforms , they volunteered to edit the draft decision, and together with this item, they unblocked the european future of ukraine as a package. we decided to grant

candidate status to ukraine and moldova. and we are ready to grant the candidate status of georgia, when will the priority tasks of claims to tbilisi be resolved due to the current democracy there to kyiv and chisinau there are no such conditions, but there are conditions for further rapprochement with the eu, reforms are needed, this is a compromise that the skeptics of the seven blocs went there, among other things, the fight against corruption and anti-poligraphic legislation countries need to do their homework before moving on to the next stage of the accession process but i am confident they will move as quickly as possible and work as hard as possible homework the task will be checked by the european commission at the end of the year, it is not a deadline here, they understand that there is a war in the country, so there will be assessments and then, but also in kyiv, they are determined to cope as quickly as possible with the news from brussels, they react instantly, they just received the candidacy, they waited for this victory for 120 days and 30 years, and then we

will defeat the enemy and we will rest or maybe we will first rebuild ukraine and then rest, this is a powerful message to moscow, says the french president, and adds a strong one to kyiv in another sense. i think that this is a very strong message from the first day of this conflict europe reacted quickly, historically and unitedly , first with sanctions, then with macroeconomic military and financial support. and now with this political gesture, in fact, everyone who walked down this red carpet the day before in unison recognized that the same decision is historic both for the capitals of the member states of the european union and for kyiv, ukraine is now a candidate officially begins its path to the eu and it will be a long one for kyiv and they promise to be demanding in brussels experienced

candidates balkan countries said welcome at the same time reminded how long they stay in this status for 17 years north macedonia - eight albania or the day before the prime minister advised ukrainians to be careful with illusions in the ukrainian government, they hope that the path to the eu will take from two to 10 years in european political circles before there were often speculations about decades however, the day before i told journalists about the terms of the diplomatic leaders entered well, today it became known that the european council, following the results of the two-day summit, decided to provide ukraine with macro-financial assistance in the amount of up to 9 billion euros, and the european council also calls the european commission to quickly present its proposals regarding the eu's support for the development of ukraine. this is stated in the final communique. we continue to talk about what the status of a candidate country means and how long it may take for ukraine to become

a full member . czech expert, internationalist, ex-spokesman of the eu representation in ukraine david good day good day, we already know that there are 7 clear requirements that ukraine must fulfill by the end of the year, this is the reform of the constitutional court reform in general, the fight against corruption, and many other things, including the legislation on national minorities, which hungary requires and as there is this desire and this political will in ukraine , it can be done very calmly by the end of the year, and if the offensive of russia intensifies and ukraine objectively cannot fulfill these conditions, are they ready to such a development of events in brussels, while there will be a

ukrainian democratic government in kyiv, and i am sure that it will be able to fulfill all these conditions. both the government, the president's office, and the parliament, that is, the russian offensive is not connected with these conditions and i think it’s even my own to such a degree that i’m a certain protection of ukraine from russia because in this way ukraine will show what it is ready to do as much as possible for its future membership in the eu and thus will move even faster in the bts and the eu then can’t just stand stand aside and watch how russia increases the pressure. but again, this is a very hypothetical situation and i do not believe that such a scenario exists. that is, there are no shots that such a scenario can happen. i think that, on the contrary, ukraine will be able to stop this russian offensive and at the same time can carry out these conditions from the european commission, you said at the beginning that these conditions are not difficult for ukraine, some of them can be

fulfilled there in a few days. to appoint the head of the anti-corruption prosecutor's office , it is indicated to approve the determined winner of the competition and it is known that the winner already exists, but his appointment is blocked and there is indirect evidence that the president's office is blocking it. and i understand that the eu has taken an unprecedented step when it demands to appoint a specific person to this position and experts with whom i said, they just say that this issue is real one day and it could be appointed even during those two days during the summit in brussels in order to demonstrate their intentions, but they did not do this, it is possible that only we inside ukraine notice this, but to what extent brussels notices and realizes that something is not carried out without objective reasons and how they will react to it, see here there are no objective reasons not to appoint the winner of this competition which was held

very transparently and was held in accordance with the recommendations of international experts. international experts also participated in this competition, who evaluated the quality and advantages of individual candidates. that is, this is the winner. he passed. tests, and there is really only one problem, the political will to appoint a person who does not depend on the political elite, but now there is space for ukrainian politicians to demonstrate their commitment and support to the european course, because now the ball is really in ukraine's court and it also applies to those other conditions, for example, an issue that has always been very close to me is the law on audiovisual services, which would reduce and limit the influence of oligarchs on the mass media market, on the television market, and again, everything is ready and written the eu even gave financial support to prepare the corresponding law, which has been

ready for a long time and is in the verkhovna rada, but there was no political will, and i would not say that it is only powerful politicians, but also those who are in the opposition were still in power e- he also did not want to adopt this law because they depended to a certain extent on the oligarchs themselves for access to these oligarchic channels. now there is a unique opportunity to break this old scheme and tie to the oligarchs on these various political interests of ukrainian ukrainian politics. well, you are here oligarchic media, but in reality, now in ukraine, most of the television channels are controlled by the government, well , because in wartime conditions, it is the same here, if it were clear, as in other european capitals, that in wartime conditions, there must be a single information policy, let's say, about national issues interests of china's national and security but at the same time, this cannot be a reason to turn off television channels

that are oppositional, because it really limited the democratic debate, limited the reality of opinions of course, there is an understanding of these reasons, but there are also certain caveats, you know, certain red lines that cannot be crossed, and i hope that as soon as the martial law ends, the situation in ukraine on the television market will return to the state it was in. until february 24, i will add to the context that this broadcast is now broadcast on the espresso tv channel in addition to the pages of radio liberty. this channel, well, it has also been turned off, actually, for now, there is another question, but as part of the acquisition of candidate status, ukraine expects that this will allow it to attract additional funding , in particular, for the development after the war. please tell me , does the eu have money at all, because it seems that you recently said that after covid the eu coffers have become somewhat thinner. this is true, even this

decision about 9 billion euros, which was adopted, mentions that financing can be provided in addition to the european budget by individual individual members of the eu or the eu can borrow these funds on international markets . that is, it will increase the public debt of the european union itself, if there is such a speed, and we we all understand very well that the damage caused by the russian federation will not be 9 billion, it will be hundreds of billions of euros and the eu will have such funds. well, it will be very difficult to find such funds, and therefore we will again have to borrow on the international financial markets, and then there will be a question between the eu member countries because there are different opinions and different groups of countries that have different attitudes towards public debt, southern countries are more inclined to take money, debt and are there countries in the south, or first of all germany, which

is very uh-uh, it’s because of the increase in common debt that is, this can also later cause certain such misunderstandings on the part of the eu. but i hope that this decision on candidate status has shown that the european leader perfectly understands the historical moment we are in and perfectly understands that we must now act decisively and really make big strategic decisions so, for these reasons, i think that the eu will find these funds from various sources and that indeed the reconstruction of ukraine will be a joint reconstruction both in europe and in ukraine. well, this is just my colleague zoryana stepanenko, who works in brussels, she reminded us that albania has been in candidate status for eight years. north macedonia 17 tell me when, objectively, from your point of view, negotiations on ukraine's accession to the eu can begin. well, as a full member of the eu."

but there are also examples of other countries that very quickly joined the european union, e.e. finland, e.e. austria and so on, that is, a lot depends on ukraine and how quickly it will change, but also here a very important factor and this fact is how quickly it will be done reform of the european union because now if accepting ukraine as a member of the eu would greatly complicate the decision-making process, because ukraine is one of the largest of these countries, and this would mean that it would have

the largest number of members of the european parliament, and would have one of the largest number of votes in the council of the eu and also the european commission cannot constantly grow from the 27th to the 29th-30th, that is, the eu itself must go through a certain reform to the instructional one in order to be able to accept new members. that is, it is all due to two factors on the part of the eu and on the part of ukraine, as they will be have an influence on the speed of ukraine's accession to the eu, thank you very much for your comment, where is the international expert, ex-spokesman of the eu mission in ukraine , we talked about the european prospects of ukraine, thank you very much radio svoboda journalists in kharkiv met with the soldiers of the international legion who are fighting on the side of ukraine on the question why do they in ukraine answer that they went to fight for democracy, listen, this is the most important event that

is happening in the world and this is the most important conflict in the last 50 years, what is happening here decides what will happen to democracy all over the world the russians will not stop at ukraine if they win here they continue in other european countries they can attack them that is why i am here i was a soldier in i was sent to iraq in 2004 i spent a year there i was a combatant an engineer in the cancer war, if you look at it after almost 20 years , there was a lot of gray, there was no clear division into good and evil. unfortunately, the war in ukraine is black and white, good against evil. it is quite obvious that the russian army is not shelling military objects, for example in average supermarket we also see that many russian units are very poorly trained, in my experience, of course, they also have well- trained soldiers, but for many, i do

n't even know what they are doing here, they are not trained, not disciplined - this can be seen from their behavior, the fighters of the so-called dpr took in several americans are captured and they may be sentenced to death are you ready for such a development i am here to protect democracy i would not be here if i were not ready to do everything necessary to protect democracy according to international law, we are ukrainian soldiers, therefore, in such a situation, we should be considered prisoners of war, which is a protected status under international law, such people can not be sentenced as ordinary prisoners, these negotiations are illegal today, i like ukraine very much. i want to invite my wife here to get to know her with my friends with many good people whom i met in ukraine i am looking forward to seeing ukraine after the victory when we drive out all the orcs from here i will

remind you that there were fighters of the international legion in kharkiv well, in the meantime, the kremlin cannot guarantee that the american soldiers who were captured in ukraine will not be sentenced to death. this was stated by the spokesman of the russian president dmytro piskov the other day. to the russian military during the battle near kharkiv. at first, this was reported by journalists. well, later the united states authorities confirmed the information about their disappearance, the russian agency interfax reported that the captives are in donetsk, and the russian media published a video with foreigners where they call the russian military, i quote, completely human guys . this was a quote from the americans. take part in hostilities on the territory of ukraine , are in the ranks of the armed forces, and that in case of capture, the legal status applies to them, well, actually

, just now, the soldiers in kharkiv were talking about this, but here the approval of the russian authorities will not apply to foreigners, the geneva convention, the kremlin simply calls them mercenaries, let me remind you that the so-called court in the so-called dnr has already sentenced two britons and also moroccans who fought on the side of ukraine to execution. well, now the kremlin is hinting, hinting , what about the two americans it may be the same. the white house called the kremlin's statements terrible, but if foreigners fighting on the side of ukraine continue to be captured, and if they are not exchanged, but on the contrary, sentenced to death punishments even let it be demonstrative how this can affect the course of the war, let's talk about it further with us on the link oleksandr kraev, director of the north american foreign policy council, ukrainian prism. in this way, they want to put pressure on the governments of these

countries, on the societies of these countries, so that they refuse to help ukraine. are really working, this is one of the politicians persecuted by the russian federation by taking prisoners and behaving in this way with foreign experts who are fighting on the side of ukraine, but so far, if we analyze the american and british media, if we look at the feedback of their experts, and so far, such an effect no, i.e. everyone understands that the truth is on ukraine's side. everyone understands that what the russian federation is doing to its posipakas from the ldr is illegal, and so far the hall effect is not actually working, as we can see reviews and even communication on american platforms of information. this rather simply adds to the scale of the dehumanization of russia. more and more, russia is really showing itself as a country

without any moral principles, a country without any vision and understanding of international law, its human rights obligations, that is, so far russia has achieved rather the opposite results are more and more driving themselves into a corner, but this does not solve the problem that boris johnson will somehow have to liberate his citizens and joe biden is the same, and the moroccan government seems to have made a corresponding statement. and how are they going to do it and what could be the conditions here, in fact, there are several options, it is obvious that the russians of this statement that i am mercenaries and they are ready to become and so on, they show that they don't want to exchange the foreigners whom they captured , they don't want to exchange them for ukrainians, they don't want them, more precisely, for their

ordinary soldiers and or for the so-called ldr soldiers, they don't want them to become part of the standard of the exchange process, let's not forget that, after all, both in britain and the usa, well, quite a large part of russians are mostly, well , little-known ordinary citizens, but still they are received there, and in recent years, especially in the usa, there have been quite a lot of high-profile court cases regarding this obviously, the russians want to try to sell freedom for them through the potential exchange of these persons, that is, foreigners who fought in the ranks of the armed forces against the russian aggressors, this is the first option. the second option is that if this story does take of publicity if the russians can make a certain information out of it, hello, let's call it that way, they can be traded, i'm already sorry for such wording to put sanction pressure or individual pressure on certain russians, their officials and one way or another, but it's obvious that all this is

done in order for them to become a tool tool of political bargaining is interesting because in britain too. by the way, there are apparently many citizens of russia, and perhaps there are some influential people among them who, er, have been arrested or against whom some kind of investigation is actually being conducted in britain right now the program went well, what johnson and his minister call the fight against london hail, we all remember that from the 90s to the 2000s, london hail is an unofficial formation of russian oligarchs and businessmen who laundered their funds, party funds and helped russia in every possible way in london to cover up their shadow incomes, it is obvious that a large part of the assets has already been seized , lawsuits are being conducted against a large part of the assets , i.e. how much were they purely obtained and accordingly, one way or another, but the accused verdicts will begin to be handed down against putin's wallets against wallets of the putin regime and that's why all these

threats, this attitude is again the creation of an exchange fund in case the british really start hunting for really big russian fish, i heard you . to recognize russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, this topic has been heard for a long time, in fact, in american politics, if the united states does it, what consequences will it have and why have they not done it yet well, let's start from the end, why haven't they done it yet, because in fact, this is quite a significant escalation, we see that the west, including the united states, is moving towards political escalation smoothly, they simply understand that it is a cream for them in this sense, this understanding is very helpful to him , let's say helpful that russia is still an unstable and unpredictable political player, russia uses asymmetric methods of response

, that is, those that in their scope and direction are not commensurate with the pressure exerted on it and that is, one way or another, but political escalation is just a test of what the west is in no hurry to do, although at the same time it does not at all prevent increasing the flow of weapons to ukraine with macro-financial support and so on, but what can actually give recognition to russia as a state sponsor of terrorism? of them has already been issued against the russian federation, but some of them may become the so-called patches and they will close for the russians those minor, er, those minor loopholes in the previous sanctions packages that allowed them these sanctions packages are to be circumvented, firstly , and secondly, this is still a new, new type of sanctions. it is more global, it is tougher, and

it is impossible to remove the sanctions related to the status of the state sponsor of terrorism by a simple executive decision , say, of the state department of the president or the ministry of defense for this a separate congressional vote will be required, and now we see that the american congress, even after the elections, already has such a prospect that it will be strictly anti-russian, that is, in essence, this will remove the possibility for russia to somehow talk about weakening sanctions, because now they will be a completely different jurisdiction, and they will not be so simple from the point of view of relaxation . terrorism, respectively, all state-owned companies, their funds, money and foreign assets, and so on, they are considered to be potentially used to sponsor terrorist activities, respectively, in the ministry

justice in the fbi has free hands in order to seize and expropriate the property of russian companies, the russian gold and currency reserves, and the property of russian oligarchs located in the usa. in fact, this will help the usa to create the project that you are not working on for long, namely the transfer to ukraine of a large part of the seized russian property. in fact this is a one-way street. after that, it will be very difficult to return to any negotiations. does this mean that washington still hopes for some negotiations? i think so. rather, it means that washington wants to see how the previous system of pressure works, that is, right now we are dealing with an absolutely i would say abnormal but in some ways unique situation when a nuclear state, a member of the nuclear club of fate, has been waging

an open full-scale war with another country for a long time and is trying to militarily and politically to push , that is, in fact, history is being created here now, and the americans understand everything perfectly and they also understand that they need to feel to what limit they can push russia so that, as lloyd austin said and the army was not able to repeat what it did in ukraine, as they said as the minister of forced labor, and its economy could not recover to the point that its army received financial support, but at the same time did not transmit the dispersion so much that it either completely flew off the rails, i apologize for the wording , well, that is it is a matter of nuclear weapons or so that russia does not become a junior vassal 15 told china, that is, now the united states measures its pressure on russia in such a way that it weakens as much as possible, that it loses this war and that it retreats, but that at the same time it did not become under the influence of china or that it does not

turn to the scenario of the apocalypse, and therefore the recognition of the state sponsoring terrorism is the next step, which the americans are currently measuring by the strength of its influence. prizma was on radio svoboda well, i will remind you that radio svoboda journalists work in almost every region of ukraine, we show what is happening in ukraine against the background of the war, how the world reacts to it and share with you with this information on all our platforms, radio svoboda is on instagram, telegram, twitter, facebook, viber, subscribe wherever you like. well, there are two channels on youtube: radio svoboda and radio svoboda ukraine, where we publish short videos and large programs, etc. svoboda life will traditionally return to broadcast already on monday, we are monitoring what is happening with the european integration path

of ukraine and we will also monitor it from monday and share this information with you until monday. my congratulations to everyone who is with us for 121 days of full-scale the invasion of the russian nazis into our country, so we begin with operational information from the general staff , based on the results of the successful offensive actions of our units, part of the enemy forces left the prepared defensive positions and fled to the area of ​​the settlement of olga of the berislav district of the kherson region, the general staff of the armed forces of ukraine reports that the russians launched an air strike in the area lysychanska ukrainian defenders successfully repelled the assault in the southern outskirts of the city