only every day they need a lot of things and that is why part of my life today is help to the armed forces of ukraine and i am very grateful to my colleagues for supporting me in this sport during the war, what is it empty stadiums without fans in the stands deserted sports halls and also our destroyed sports facilities the athletes lost the opportunity to train at home because of the war and had to flee abroad to prepare for future starts those who remained with weapons in their hands heroically defend ukraine in this war second place ukraine will not suit us, we need victory, each of you can help, even a small contribution to the support of the army saves the lives of our soldiers and brings our victory closer.

i congratulate on the air the program of the ukrainian service of the voice of america time and host ostap yarysh the united states exchanged the american basketball player britney imprisoned in russia greiner on viktor buta, a russian who was serving a term in the usa for arms trafficking, greiner was arrested at the moscow sheremetyevo airport on february 18, accused of illegal possession of drugs and later sentenced to 9 years in prison, while there are other us citizens in russian prisons, in particular paul villian, the us government is currently working to release them as well, let's talk more about the importance of this event with yulia yarmolenko, who is now joining our broadcast from the white home yulia i congratulate you i congratulate stepe yulia britney greiner could not be released for a long time, how was it possible to do it now and why, after all, the usa was not able to bring home

another prisoner, about whom there is a lot of talk, vilen ostap's field is a lot of attention today just before this news, as us president joe biden himself said, the negotiations were difficult and painful, and we know that they actually lasted months. as you said correctly, britney was arrested and detained on february 17 on charges of transporting less than one a gram of cannabio-ca-cannabis oil and as britney herself later said, she accidentally packed it in her suitcase, but still she was arrested before she was arrested and sentenced to nine years in prison, something the united states calls absolutely unjustified unjustified sentence and indeed as president biden said as the officials of the united states of the white house said that only in the past few weeks it became clear that there is a window of opportunity for the release of this particular american woman and in the past 48 hours it was possible to reach an agreement now as

the president of the united states joe biden reported, she has already on the plane home and from the very morning today the president of the united states joe biden, as well as the secretary of state anthony blinken and the wife of brittney greiner shireal were in the white house and here are the words of president biden commented on the release mom interesting i just spoke with britney rainer standing with her wife shell in the oval office she is safe she is on a plane she is coming home after months of unfair detention in russia in unbearable circumstances britney will soon be back in the arms of her loved ones with whom she was supposed to be all this time a day for which we have worked for a long time, we have never stopped insisting on her release, the negotiations have been painstaking and intense, but now there is a lot of worrying criticism about of what remains behind bars in russia, as well as other

citizens of the united states of america, whose name is wilen , who is a businessman and who was detained in russia in 2018 on charges of espionage, which the united states calls an absolutely fabricated and fictitious charge, today many questions were asked of president biden and to us secretary of state anthony blinky about why they didn't fire him, why brittney greiner was chosen, to which secretary of state kreblyunkin said that, in fact, the russians have a different attitude precisely to the issue of polovila on and they had to face a choice the united states should release one american or none come on listen even though we are happy to have britney home we continue to work tirelessly to also return villan field despite our efforts the russian government still refuses to end his illegal detention they continue to insist on trumped up espionage charges and

they treat paul's case differently you hear america it was not the choice of which american to bring home the choice was one or none i sincerely wish that we could take the field home today on the same plane that ibritni we will never back down until paul and every other us citizen held hostage or wrongfully detained abroad is free and returned home and you are reunited with their families britney plays on today they exchanged for viktor but, who was imprisoned well, in fact, due to very serious violations, some in the usa draw attention to the possible non -equality and problematic nature of such an exchange. the dangerous precedent of ostap, a lot of questions from journalists are being asked today precisely about this because, once again, the experts emphasize that there is no absolute equality between britney gray

, an american basketball player, and her friend victor , who was arrested and convicted on charges of trading weapons worth millions of dollars for the purpose of selling them this weapon was also to harm the americans themselves and therefore as it is claimed in the government of the united states and therefore, for example, a lot of critics are sounding at this address and in particular kevin mccarthy republican leaders in the house of representatives said that this is a gift to putin and that the release of such a dangerous criminal actually poses a threat to the americans themselves , but also some democrats say that this is a cause for concern, but also ask the administration to pay attention to this practice of capturing americans abroad and a number of regimes in order to exchange them or use them as currency, state department spokesmen advise americans to refrain from traveling to countries where such problems may arise yulia and is there concern that this exchange may

open the way to the normalization of us relations with russia? how do they comment on this? there is such concern today. white house spokeswoman karin janpira was asked about this. today also david kramer and the director of the george bushin institute announced that there is no way to normalize either the diplomatic or other relations of the united states with russia. let's listen to today to changele none of what happened today there is no way to change the us policy, namely the support of ukraine not only so that it can defend itself but also win the war that russia started completely unprovoked and unjustified, i cannot imagine and i certainly hope that today's exchange will in no way affect the support of the united states of ukraine. it must remain stable it should increase, in my opinion, no one should talk

about the fact that this is the beginning of a return to normal diplomatic or other affairs with russia well, of course, where will we open, he also commented that he considers it absolutely unnecessary for the president of the united states to communicate with the russian president and vladimir putin, as the president said, we remember that he would be ready to sit down and talk with putin if they see putin's readiness to end the war. this is david kremer's opinion about this, the president should have much higher criteria he should be ready to sit down and talk with putin only after putin withdraws his troops from ukraine i see no point in president biden meeting with putin to to discuss the possibility of withdrawing the troops, putin's words mean nothing, any meeting must be based on actions, and even then, i would not want the american president to sit down with

putin after what putin has done in ukraine, for which he is responsible, war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide against ukrainians, it is possible that this is your opinion , for your inclusion, for your information, i will remind you that yuliya yarmolenko was in touch with us, and representatives of four public organizations that collect donations in support of ukraine spoke before the commission on security and cooperation in europe, also known as the helsinki commission of the usa , the heads of public organizations were present at the hearings, in particular, the serhiy prytula foundation , the come back alive foundation, together 4 ukraine and the lithuanian blonierov foundation. at the congress, activists spoke about logistical and regulatory problems that create difficulties and it is possible that the delivery of the necessary equipment to the front is being slowed down, the volunteer emphasized that the help of the event is often not fast enough, and to speed up the purchase and the delivery of the necessary equipment, according to them , is possible due to the simplification of bureaucratic procedures

. my colleague , co-founder lyuba shipovych, was supposed to join us today, but she is in the hospital taking care of the seriously injured andriana susak. i don't want anyone else from my team and my colleagues or friends to end up in hospitals. i know that the american people support the ukrainian victory and all of us americans are working together to achieve this victory. the question is whether congress will approve the much-needed aid to ukraine and will the united states provide them with this help in time? we take great responsibility for people's money, because the entire ukrainian society donates to our funds. even small children in august of this year and until today, small children aged 5-8-10 years old, they brought about 200 to our fund thousands of dollars, so this is something

incredible and these children have many different stories behind them. for example, one little girl cut her hair in order to sell it and bring money to our fund to help the ukrainian army. and that's why we we live with this responsibility for the donations made by the people our work is closely coordinated with the commander-in-chief of the armed forces the dedicated command of the logistics forces who are directly responsible for providing the armed forces our task is not to replace the state our task is to strengthen it where it is needed or to give the state time until it finds resources united the states will provide support to ukrainian business in the west of the country, the process document was signed today by lviv bank and the us development finance corporation it is about an agreement for 15 million dollars of credit resources, this is the first similar us project to support small and medium-sized businesses in the region of the

united states. bridget brandy, who was present during the signing of the agreement, emphasized the voice of america. the us government is currently focused on supporting ukraine, in particular, on restoring the infrastructure damaged by russian attacks myroslava gongadze spoke with officials in lviv, this building at the catholic university in lviv was built at the expense of american loans, the ambassador is here today of the united states together with american government officials in order to provide additional credit resources both to the region and to the catholic university, the american government today focuses its attention on helping ukraine, both direct financial aid to the budget and additional resources for private business, as well as on helping to restore the infrastructure that is being destroyed daily by the russians attacks and attacks, you are here to support the ukrainian economy, support education , we provided a grant of 500,000 to the entire wonderful university

dollars to help the ukrainian catholic university increase its educational programs and enroll more students. we also today signed a document on providing a guarantee for a loan of 15 million dollars to the bank in lviv so that they could lend to small businesses so that they could hire people and support the economy so that the country would develop economically even in these conditions the united states is focused on all types of aid we are fully with you to help you win of course security aid nearly $20 billion rubber for displaced persons, one and a half billion dollars have already been allocated for this, and what is very important, we are looking for and providing all possible means to support the renewal of infrastructure, only last week , secretary blinken announced another 53 million dollars, and we are working around the clock to decide how to use this money for the point and other

of infrastructure that putin is trying to destroy myroslava vying for america's vote lviv ukraine on the next part of our program we will talk about anti-corruption efforts in ukraine during a full-scale war, we talk about it in oleksiy sobolev, the head of transparent sales, who has now arrived in the united states for an international anti-corruption conference in washington, oleksiy. i congratulate you. thank you for taking the time to join us. it is the largest anti-corruption conference in the world this year. it is held every two years. this year it is held in washington and we came here as part of coalition of rice ukraine, which advocates for the anti-corruption, completely transparent, digitized reconstruction of ukraine. that is, it is a coalition of more than 40 public and state organizations, such as

transparent sales. there will be no corruption and absolutely transparent reconstruction, you will all know where that dollar went and who received it and which school was built with it. anti-corruption efforts at the time of full-scale russian invasion, to what extent is this a serious challenge for ukrainian society , civil society in you, and is it even possible to effectively carry out these anti-corruption anti- corruption efforts when there is an invasion of russia? high-profile arrests, the anti-corruption court is working, i already have high-profile sentences, and these are not some small problems with corruption. well, there are some officials there, ministers and so on, that is, all this anti-corruption infrastructure that ukraine built

eight years she is now really showing super cool results, another story. for example, we as a completely transparent auction system continue to work, for example, we continue to carry out privatization even during the war and the fact that everything is super transparent allows businesses to come to auctions, we will see great competition, people are interested in giving money for objects that the state does not currently use, this money goes to the budget of the budget goes to the armed forces, that is, in this way we support the army, and i would also like to tell you that at this conference, yes, anti-corruption, how are we? we see ukraine constantly put as an example. everyone goes there through the panel and talks about uh, about the example of ukraine, about the example of transparent procurement and ours, what a great example when civil society and the government together built something that allows us to have the results of the people, of course, a full-scale war, this is a great tragedy does it open despite this, it is also possible, some new opportunities , we see how ukrainian society is based, how, despite the power cut, despite various challenges

, they still find some way out for that or harden, continue to work, continue to send a donation, continue to function effectively, so what possibilities are possible in terms of fighting corruption, anti-corruption efforts here, well , it seems to us that just the way everything is built now in ukraine, yes, the anti-corruption system that exists, it needs to be protected in order to no one has broken her and now it looks like it is possible and she continues to do her job, that is, there are already enough of those sentences so that people will not be as it used to be. yes, another case is that the influence of the oligarchs has significantly decreased no matter what it is. because they also have less resources now, because of the war, and the government is ready to take some more drastic steps. and we, from our side, civil society and the government, want to lay the foundation for this transparent reconstruction, i.e. what is necessary for this, i would like to ask

everyone to agree on how it will take place and that there should be one voice from the side of ukraine, and from the sound of civil society and the government. and secondly, we help the government to develop digital tools in order to be able to ensure this transparency to avoid accusations that some kind of aid went to the wrong place, you could simply go to the internet and everyone could look at where the dollar or euro that goes to ukraine went, for which project , who is leading it, who is currently building what, and see photos of something built there, etc. we will make and help the state and build it together with the government so that during the reconstruction there will be no questions to ukraine at all. you communicate a lot with international partners. conferences, do you feel that maybe something is changing, the attitude towards ukraine, uh, the former attitude, when it was perceived, maybe, and that ukraine is a corrupt country with a corrupt history, uh,

is it now somehow transformed in your conversations and by feelings, i would say that now there are two uh two, two, two such camps of people, the first are those who are familiar with ukraine. yes, they were engaged in it, they see all this progress after the revolution of dignity, that ukraine has really changed. she actually the result of how much ukraine has changed , and it is unlikely that it would have been possible to do it in 2014 now, and civil society is working, and the government is working because ukraine is new, now there is a very large part of people who did not know what ukraine is , and they found out for the first time and of course, this is the first time it seems to them that in the 90s, they didn't know anything and they don't know about it, and they have some outdated information, and that's why at the conference those people who have encountered ukraine. they know about these successful anti-corruption cases. how did we manage to give them people who did not encounter. they read, they ask, they need

to report. and here is one of those things that should be brought in is an objective rating of the perception of corruption, and ukraine is one of the 20 countries that have significantly reduced corruption in the last 10 years, the other 100 countries, they either have not changed, or have even become worse. ukraine has objectively become a less corrupt country in 10 years compared to the rest of the world. thank you very much for your information. for this conversation with you, i will remind you that oleksiy sobolev was the head of the state enterprise prozorro, the sale of 350 tons of medical aid over the past six months , the ukrainian medical society of north america, a non-governmental organization from chek gouman, has sent to ukraine, where fibrillators, antibiotics, ambulances and much more are sent to ukraine every week, how doctors have united to help ukrainians , see the story iryna matviychuk here is this anesthesia machine worth more than 100 thousand dollars has already passed the inspection of all

functions and is ready to be sent to ukraine, the volunteers of the umana illinois organization received six such almost new machines from a local hospital in chicago in general. the volunteers who gathered at this warehouse have to sort and pack medical equipment worth several million dollars to ukraine. fragile, these are things that are very important and preserve the basic functions and critical functions of life during the operation, all that we see today, we see help somewhere in the area of, i want to say two, about 2 million dollars olga maybugutyak, co-organizer of the umana project, illinois, after the start of the full-scale war, she, together with the doctor olena gordon, founded the umana medical aid project to help

ukrainian doctors, being in the medical field. we knew that we could get many vital e donations for ukraine in the combat zone when the alarm goes the surgical department must evacuate to the basement and perform operations there, for this you need a moving light that you can take with you and we also bought enough many of these luminaries from ukraine asked us to baribex. that is, these are the bags in which the bodies are taken and taken away. we were very impressed and alarmed and it was very painful to ask for such donations. and today we are sending 15 pallets of azithromycin. azithromycin - this is an antibiotic that is issued only with a doctor's prescription, so we have 15 going today, but in total, we received 45 wards

of only azithromycin, this is a very important and expensive also to the nation, a charitable organization. in my case, illinois is one of the many branches of the medical uman society of north america, which was founded after the second world war by ukrainian emigrants in the usa who had medical specialties in general on the territory of the united states, the society has 18 departments in different states . they came to america not knowing the language and not knowing how they could carry out their studies here in america and united as an organization to help themselves and to be with their fellow members

there are organizations of various medical professions, doctors, pharmacists, nurses, paramedics, before the full-scale invasion, the organization was mostly engaged in educational work, held joint conferences with ukrainian doctors, exchanged experience, sent american doctors to ukraine or brought ukrainian doctors to the usa. when the war broke out in february, our mission changed and we began to help not only scientifically, but also humanitarianly the society said we must help with medicine , medical equipment and hospitals, because we know that in the state of illinois, volunteers are delusional

, to concentrate work in three directions, expensive medical equipment that is sent by containers or specially ordered planes, critically needed medicines that are transported en masse in suitcases by volunteers, as well as cooperation with ukrainian manufacturers regarding the purchase of medical equipment, the third part of the project is the purchase of medical supplies in ukraine, we have a company with which we for example, we bought electrocoagulators , neurosurgical devices, we send funds and they are sent immediately to kramatorsk, kryvyi rih , dnipro-odesa, why do we buy it in ukraine, because number one is that we support the economy of ukraine and this is very important now, and number two is because in our there is a guarantee, if something does not work or breaks, we can count on our colleagues who

will come, look, and help the hospital staff, they have established a network of medical workers and volunteers in the usa, poland and ukraine who help with logistics, look for the necessary equipment in american hospitals and also regularly communicate with frontline hospitals and medics clash is there something i will find what for example , i know that it is very much needed there, for example, a stapler for suturing the lungs for such wounds, then, this is like christmas for me what i opened the package and found something that i know is very, very necessary. i even immediately write on whatsapp to the surgeons there and tell them to look at what i found. you will have it in two weeks, and this is such a moment that both they are happy and we are. happy and thank you to everyone who sends this, volunteers are mostly doctors who work full- time in chicago hospitals, they tell how after a shift and often sleepless nights they went straight to the warehouse for the so-called second job at

the beginning, of course, when the scale was very, very huge, what was coming a it was after the main work, everyone came here to the warehouse and started the second work and we sat here until midnight , that is, it could be 6-7 hours a day and several times a week, and because the scale is very huge came andriy brova, a dentist in chicago, in the organization he is responsible for the coordination of assistance to ukrainian dentist colleagues from the front-line zone, many dentists' offices were destroyed already as an aggressor, the aggressors took over kyiv region and sumy and kharkiv and then we collected dental supplies and equipment so that people to serve , the next project is yours to make such multiple new

veins that will go to the front where possible to take people from the front as part of the all-american uman organization, about 200 permanent members , people who were born in ukraine or have ukrainian origins, but here in vylinoys during the war, where everyone is involved in daily routine work, our volunteers are not only ukrainians or americans of ukrainian origin, they are indigenous americans who were confused by the news, confused by the situation that is happening in ukraine, and here they actually come here to help sort if they work in the medical field, they help it is very important for us to get to the nation. this is very important . the american company logistic plus has given volo

its warehouse for free use . this support means a lot with the help of charitable contributions. they have donors who make monthly contributions and also hold fundraisers . according to the volunteers, the largest charitable contribution was the financing of the shipment planes with 350 tons of medical equipment to ukraine, the benefactor wished to remain anonymous after 8 months of war, charitable aid is significantly reduced, the volunteers admit, however, they are not ready to fold their hands and remind everyone who hears them that the military is protecting the country. in the trenches for volunteers, this warehouse is their trench if it everything we

do or have done and will continue to do has saved at least one life, it was worth it and we will continue to do it after the war, i am preparing to resume scientific and educational work in all in the american states, they invite people from medical professions to volunteer. meanwhile, the work is boiling. several new containers are on their way to the front-line medics. iryna matviychuk oleksiy usyka. a week from monday to sunday seven different spheres of human activity sports culture politics eight presenters espresso journalists experts opinion leaders in real time about the most current events through the prism of war every day author's projects most express mykola veresen