for example, ukrainian, ordinary russian, because in this war there really is a turning point, maybe it is at this stage of the war, no one can say that the war will end in the spring or summer. from all sides in order to force the ukrainians to surrender or lose. and we have to win, that's why we stick to each other, we believe in reliable news, we watch the press, we take care of ourselves and ignore the enemy's tantrums, they will continue and even after our victory there is no doubt thank you for being with us goodbye now your attention bbc news ukraine good evening we are from ukraine on the air bbc new from ukraine my name is hryhoriy zhigalov today in the program semi- surrounding bahmut conflicting reports about the situation in the zaporizhzhia direction what

is happening on on the front, poland is preparing a request to berlin for the transfer of its leopard 2 tanks to ukraine, but promises to send them to kyiv in any case when the bolt receives the machines and the ministry of defense is forced to provide an explanation about contracts in which journalists saw signs of corruption, what is known, bbc journalists gathered the position of all parties and we are starting the situation at the front, the general staff of the armed forces of ukraine does not directly confirm the semi-encirclement of bakhmut in today's morning briefing, the military said that the russians are at least close to taking bakhmut into an operational encirclement, i.e. cut off the main roads to it among the settlements in the area of ​​which the ukrainian military in the

last day carried out attacks, the village of stupochka appeared. this village is located on the road what connects bakhmut with the contents of kostiantynivka. it is kostiantynivka for the garrison of bakhmut that was important in one supply. battles are going on in bakhmut itself. at the same time, the general staff writes in the lyman, ovid and zaporizhzhia directions that the russians, you quote, introduced unsuccessful offensive actions. and in the bakhmut direction, they continued offensive actions and so regarding the zaporizhia direction, contradictory and at the same time alarming reports are received about the situation there, ukrainian and russian-speaking valuable persons speak about the offensive actions of russia in this russian direction, however the data about him are very different, but the head of the ukrainian united president of the defense forces of the tauri direction, and yevgen yerin, who on sunday said that the report about the alleged breakthrough of the defense and the russian offensive in the zaporizhzhia direction is a

fake, according to yerin, there are no large-scale military operations that were talked about by the russian propaganda is not carried out there, and the day before , an employee of the occupation administration of the zaporizhia region, volodymyr rogov, stated that the first line of defense of the ukrainian army in certain areas of the zaporizhia front region in a slogan, according to his words, russian troops are conducting an offensive on urichov and gulyai field , military expert dmytro snyryov joins me. i congratulate you. thank you for taking the time. well, where shall we start? bakhmut or the zaporizhzhia direction. let's start from the zaporizhzhia direction. the zaporizhia direction of the advance of the russian occupiers takes place exclusively in the so-called series, that is, to take control of the population in points where there are no permanent garrisons of the armed forces of ukraine located. only the so-called in opel in

the same strongholds were not the ones that broke through the first line of defense for this not to mention, today the general staff of the armed forces of ukraine announced that during january 20-21, the enemy carried out offensive actions in the area of ​​the settlement of mali shcherbak, according to updated data, the total losses of the russian occupiers approx. 50 personnel and 9 units of armored vehicles therefore. the victories of the russian army in the zaporozhye direction are exclusively an element of the information operations of the russian side, in addition to carrying out point strikes on the bases of the russian occupiers of warehouses from bc and the concentration of military equipment in the occupied territories of the zaporizhia region testify to the catastrophic nature of the planning of the counteroffensive operation of the armed forces of ukraine, a similar algorithm of actions was used during the de-occupation of the

kherson and, accordingly, kharkiv regions. there was an idea er-er tell in more detail about this cascade er-er hmm cascade planning in russian operations of russian forces a-and it is divided into three stages the first stage is the striking of warehouses from bc in places of temporary deployment of personnel and places of accumulation of heavy armored vehicles, the second stage is currently taking place - this is the taking under fire control of the locations of the supply routes of the occupying army, and the third stage - that is, the direct de-occupation of the territory. currently, we are observing the active nature of the use of e-e weapons with the use of high-precision samples of weapons are also being prayed for by heimers and the use of excalibur shells and, accordingly

, as many as 2,000 napkins. i will remind you that the range of heimers damage is 84 km after the last package of military-technical assistance, which provides for the supply of weapons for a range of more than 150 km, we can say that the temporarily occupied territories of the region will be under full fire control by the armed forces of ukraine. ukraine, uh, let's have another look. let's take a look at what is happening under the bahmut and in the bahmut itself, from the reports of the general staff, we can draw conclusions about a certain kind of semi-encirclement, well, at least journalists some of the military experts make the following conclusions, what are the conclusions of your work, there is no semi-encirclement, let's explain to the tv

viewers and radio listeners, the actual operational environment is the taking under full fire control of the supply locations, at the moment, several routes of the bakhmut location are connected to bakhmut, e.e. solidar siverskyi and bakhmut kostyantynivka , therefore, it is not by chance that the russian oil pipeline of the occupiers in several directions at once in the area of ​​solidar and, accordingly, in the area of ​​the settlement of klichtivka, solidar gives the occupiers the opportunity to keep them under fire control of the bakhmut soledar siversk route and, accordingly, control over the settlement of klishchevka gives the possibility of fire control over the bakhmut kostyantynivka route, not a single table is under the fire control of the occupiers at the moment in the e-e soledar direction, they are afraid in the krasna gora area, moreover, according to reports from the russian side, the occupiers are still they cleaned the territory of the so -called salt tunnels, that is, solidar - this is a

city in the city, there is a solid surface, and there is solidar directly underground, the length of the salt shafts is several tens of kilometers in relation to klichivka, battles are taking place around the settlement, the armed forces of ukraine control the dominant heights that make it possible to keep underwater control of the positions of the occupiers, i will remind you that the ticks are located below, on the other hand, the armed forces of ukraine are at heights that make it possible to have full fire control regarding the situation in bakhmut, you are afraid to study along the street along the streets of ivan franko and mykhailo kotsyubynskyi, that is, the advance of the occupiers as a last resort - it is 150 to a maximum of 200 m, it is not critical for the state of ukrainian defense, how critical for the state of ukrainian defense now for continuing to receive bakhmut. moreover,

just a few days ago there was a report with reference to german intelligence that the losses of the ukrainian forces there amount to a three-digit number. you should not be critical of the information of german intelligence. in addition, it is worth talking about the information the so -called institute for the study of war, which is so actively quoted by the ukrainian mass media about the situation surrounding bakhmut, does not correspond to reality bakhmut is a key myrtle of ukrainian defense, control by bakhmut is impossible further the advance of the occupiers in the direction of kramatorsk slavyanska and, accordingly, does not give the occupiers the opportunity to gain full control over the fence, that is, the supply of technical drinking water in the occupied territory, plus control over the makh-bahmut gives the armed forces of ukraine the opportunity to keep under fire control the main location of the occupiers, which is the railway station the debaltse distance of about 50 km and, accordingly, fire control by the armed forces

makes it impossible to bring up the bc to carry out the rotation of heavy armored vehicles directly in the area of ​​the battles, it is worth saying that the losses of the anti-tank missile defense during the battles for soledar are approximately 20-25 thousand personnel, the russian side also admits this, and in addition, it is worth saying that during the battles in the bakhmut area, the analytical department of the pravos public initiative recorded the transfer of e-e means of fire support - this is a howitzer - it is d1, the year of production is 1943, that is, it is about the fact that the russians are deconserving howitzers, this is from the time of the second world war. at the front, now let's talk about what is happening, well, practically in the rear, the minister of defense oleksia reznikov rejected the

accusations that appeared in the press last week about the alleged procurement of food for the armed forces at inflated prices, he published his statement on facebook before the meeting of the specialized committee of the supreme councils with the participation of employees of the national security service of ukraine and the security service of ukraine, where they are to consider the latest investigation of journalists regarding food in the ukrainian army, the quote promised absolute transparency of the ministry of defense for law enforcement officers to remove all questions reznikov stated that all the accusations were unfounded and pointed to inaccuracies , which the journalists seemed to have missed in their conclusions. the minister stated that the journalists' comparisons were incorrect, in particular local ones, and that there are already known misunderstandings with eggs that are valuable, which, according to reznikov, were not specified out of hand. and for a kilogram of e-e, in addition, he stated that the transfer of such documents to journalists is an

official crime. reported that the ministry of defense buys food for servicemen twice, twice, and three times more expensive than in kyiv stores. the ministry of defense called this information, as i just said , manipulation and also promised to contact the security service of ukraine. at the same time, the scandal continues and my colleague halyna korba gathered the position of all parties. hello galya so we heard minister reznikov's explanation, did it satisfy the critics of independent commentators, maybe we managed to hear the opinion of the authors of the investigation or the editors of the publication "vitayu", in fact, the position of oleksiy reznikov not everyone was accommodated, including she did not convince the author of the journalistic investigation, yuriy nikolov, because he also reacted so critically on his facebook to the statement of the minister. he insists

that the prices of basic food items are significantly inflated uh, and he called uh, such arguments of the minister at times such manipulations , that is, he even partially ridiculed him , at the same time, the minister of defense really insists that uh, everything is very correct, that is, he admitted that there were certain uh mistakes that will be corrected in the final version of the contract. today , he presented his position and showed the contract at the meeting of the specialized committee of the verkhovna rada. the meeting of the committee was closed, so we cannot say exactly what happened there. we can talk only about what the deputies said at the end. in particular, the deputy head of the committee maryana bezugla made it clear that the committee quickly accepted the arguments of the minister and that

the ministry of the minister will continue to work. at the same time, the committee called on law enforcement agencies to seriously investigate all statements all the publications that have appeared in the media, so in the near future the committee also plans to introduce an initiative that will allow to somewhat reveal this mystery surrounding defense purchases and even despite the state of war, society will be able to partially get acquainted with certain purchases where it is possible for in order for there to be more publicity, more transparency, well, the ministry of defense actually explains the appearance of this publication by a meeting at rammstein, they say that someone wanted to disrupt the provision of international aid and they promised to contact the sbu as well what i have already said, so accordingly, i

understand that we are waiting for two investigations and the ministry of defense is proceeding, and i do not know who is under suspicion, the journalists or their sources, this reznikov made it very clear that he believes that the person who is involved in this leak of documents a he is already guilty of the wording official crime, that is, he made it clear that the ministry is counting on an investigation into who a-a published such a document in wartime and leaked it to journalists, but he also made it clear that if it is not just about some manipulations around the ministry itself, and the goal was precisely to disrupt the supply of weapons to ukraine from western countries, then it could all be about something much more serious, it seems that the minister hinted at such articles as them maybe even high treason well, without regard to this

investigation last week there was also a message that the state bureau of investigation has blocked a scheme of large-scale embezzlement of food for the military . the fact that in dnipropetrovsk region they also exposed such a large-scale scheme of a company, an enterprise, small contracts for the supply of food to 45 military units, there were contracts for almost uah 2 billion, and at the same time, according to the investigators, most of the food products supplied by this company were only on paper, that is, they actually supplied part of them to military units, and part of them was only according to documents, but in reality they sold them to third parties

, and they received large sums of money . we cannot know any significant details now. because the investigation is ongoing, i think we will be informed of the details later, well, i understand that the participants of the scheme will be investigated . halyny, come in, read, share, so that you don't have to get up twice, if you watch our program on youtube, don't forget to like it. so more people will see our broadcast, then another topic. poland has officially requested germany's permission to transfer leopard-2 tanks to ukraine. but i warn you that whatever berlin's answer will be, it will act at its own discretion. warsaw has long been asking berlin from the regional tank manufacturer to give its consent, as required by nato rules on the transfer of weapons, the polish authorities and other allies expected that the issue would be

resolved . friday, but berlin again did not give a positive answer, although this is the first officially formalized request of warsaw and it has a symbolic meaning, the country's prime minister, mateo shmarowecki, said, along with the fact that warsaw can act at its discretion based on any response from the german authorities, and last weekend gravetskyi also stated that poland intends to assemble a coalition of nato countries that also have leopard-2 tanks at their disposal and are ready to hand them over to kyiv without the approval of berlin, we will apply for with such an agreement . but this is secondary, even if in the end we do not receive this agreement as part of a small coalition, even if the germans are not in this coalition, we will still transfer our tanks together with others to ukraine, the head of the ministry of foreign affairs, the country updated berbug

said that the german government will not prevent the delivery of german leopard-2 tanks from poland to ukraine, according to reuters, during an interview with the french television company lci, and she was asked what would happen if poland sends its leopards to ukraine without germany's approval, the participants of the meeting ukraine's western allies at the ramstein base in germany could not agree on a decision to supply kyiv with leopard-2 tanks, which kyiv needs in order to begin liberating the territory, according to sources, i plan to the obstacle actually became the position of german chancellor olaf schultz, who shows caution according to some sources, he is ready to allow the supply of tanks in the event that the united states sends its abrams to ukraine, poland, finland and some other countries have already said that they are ready to give ukraine their leopards. but for this, germany 's consent is required as a producer country and the government of poland, the

usa and great britain have repeatedly directly called on berlin to give permission for the supply of their tanks to ukraine, we have certain rules , the rules for conducting inspections of the issue addressed to others, at the moment we have not been asked such questions, but if we were asked, we would not be against it. i take into account what mr. kuleba said, tanks are not needed to drive on the street, they are to defend themselves, i understand how important these tanks are, we are well aware of this we are consulting with all our partners and our goal is to liberate and save ukrainian territory, and many allies were disappointed by the reluctance of germany to send its tanks , the reaction of the united states was particularly stormy, the newspaper judo writes about it. referring to their sources, the united states expected that at the meeting in rammstein, again last friday , a decision would be made before the

rammstein meeting in the press, there was even information that scholz is ready to grant permission for the transfer of tanks only after the united states agrees to give ukraine its abrams, and in the us administration, berlin's decision to supply tanks to kyiv , as specified by the newspapers, was called a manifestation of a tough confrontation . according to the report, the german government has not yet received an official request from poland. the government spokesman here in berlin told us about this and what we can say with confidence is the leadership disagreements within the country within the parliament. well, as you know, the government includes three political parties, the social democrats, whose representative olaf scholl of the liberals and greens is the minister of foreign affairs, who as a representative of the green party said in an interview with french television that germany will not stand in the

way of the initiative of countries like poland to send tanks to ukraine, but chancellor olaf scholsch has not yet answered whether he agrees with this position. the spokesman of the german government was asked about it, and he gave a very vague answer, saying that all formal procedures must be taken into account. the position of chancellor scholsch is not known for sure, and his decision will be final the reason for such complex and contradictory positions lies in polls, the country is divided, insignificant. the majority of the population supports the transfer of battle tanks to ukraine, and germany has already transferred not a few. of military and financial aid after the united states arose precisely in connection with the supply of tanks, because a large part of society believes that this will lead to the escalation of the war in ukraine, they believe that it is too fast, too much, so some voters agree with chancellor scholz's position that it is necessary to think carefully and not rush to take

into account all details and i think most germans believe that he is too indecisive, and this is noticeable if you look at the other two parties of the government coalition, which openly criticize the chancellor or criticize him for procrastination or, on the other hand, they do not want to supply weapons to ukraine at all, like the extreme left or the extreme right, so frankly speaking , chancellor scholz is not enough. who likes him outside of germany and inside the country too. and in order to defeat russia in the war and liberate the occupied territories, ukraine meanwhile needs a fist of 30 - 400 tanks of armored vehicles and modern multi-purpose aircraft, this is what general valdemar shkibczak, who at one time commanded the ground forces of poland, thinks about a possible russian offensive . russia can attack from its own territory , belarus is using it to divert attention, the general told about all this in a conversation with

my colleague zhanna bezpyachuk and in general as a former tankist, he assessed the impact of western armored combat equipment on the course of this war, the only one of the most important machine guns for the ukrainians of the eu ukrainians, it is now very important to understand how likely the news is that russia will not attack precisely from the north at the end of winter or at the beginning of spring, or is it possible, in your opinion, that the probability really exists after russian troops lost battles in the spring and summer. they withdrew and accumulated their troops in the area of ​​bryansk, kursk, and voronezh. they were rebuilding their forces there. they are conducting a large mobilization for this purpose. are undergoing training and training accordingly, most of these forces are now concentrated in the voronezh region , kursk and bryansk, i believe that russia can

strike ukraine from this direction from there in the southern direction to the west of kharkiv along the vorskla river that flows into the dnieper, in this scenario, poltava and the dnieper will be under attack, they can try to join their forces from this direction with those who are currently fighting in the east in the area of ​​bakhmut and soledar, or can putin leave by a war outside of ukraine, you mean a confrontation with nato, surely not, and surely not to you, thanks to ukraine, and putin does not have the strength and resources to intervene in another military conflict , that is why the future of europe depends on ukraine today, the russian army is so wounded and beaten that they now have to make great efforts to rebuild it. and somehow win that war, but he has no chance of winning just like that. how can leopard-2 tanks affect the course of the war? what are they changing for the ukrainian army? i

myself am a tank operator by profession. i commanded a tank unit . division, which included a brigade of leopard 2 machines, we fired from them, i can say that this is an almost perfect weapon from the point of view of a tanker. these machines have a very effective fire system and are mobile in a collision with with these tanks, the russians, including their vaunted t-14s, have no chance except for poland . in europe, such tanks have, for example, ireland , switzerland, denmark, spain, germany, greece, hungary . the course of the war with the russian army has so far been officially confirmed to provide only 10 such tanks 10-30 tanks can really affect something tanks will not change anything it is very few even 30 tanks is not enough for ukraine in the future could free its territories in the luhansk,

donetsk, kherson regions, and it is necessary to create its own tank fist. it should consist of 350-400 tanks. all countries need to come together and provide the ukrainian with tanks . the usa has large reserves of such tanks, they could give them to poland . this is valery gerasimov appointed as the commander of the russian group in ukraine, the attack plan is practically ready, as is their army, when they will attack and where exactly they know for sure. army lectures russian led ukrainian army gave them a strong lesson they understood that they

are dealing with a powerful army that has real motivation and military spirit it is also well equipped and led by russians would have a lot to learn from the ukrainians for this year, about 100,000 lives of russian soldiers will be here this year. well, they didn’t want it themselves, if a new attack on ukraine from the territory of belarus became a reality, then it would be worth raising the question of closing the sky at least over western ukraine could polish fighter jets be involved in this from belarus, this scenario is excluded in principle, the belarusian army does not want to fight with ukraine, ordinary belarusians are now more friendly to ukrainians than russians if the belarusian army could be involved in this war, then it has already happened, well, lukashenko knows this well, the russians took away weapons and equipment that belonged to the belarusian army, but an auxiliary offensive from

the territory of belarus cannot be ruled out, could poland somehow join the defense then, i don’t think so, because its eastern borders are the eastern borders of nato . in this case, the air forces of the alliance would protect the skies over poland in order to prevent the possibility of any incidents in the air between them and russian forces on the territory nato and, accordingly, poland, what has changed in the world since ukraine decided to do something completely different from what was expected of it, russia terrorized the whole world, everyone thought that it had the second army in the world, it turned out that this was not true, ukraine was not afraid of the army that the whole west was afraid of, the entire north atlantic alliance felt in danger because of russia, on the contrary, ukraine is defeating it, it is making fun of it, this country has changed the way the west thinks about russia by its actions, it turned out that it is not the dream it pretended to be , this is an example of how to defend yourself

from russia, we learn how to defend the homeland today ukrainians of ukraine and this is literally the last update minister of foreign affairs of ukraine dmytro kuleba stated the issue of german tanks the letter lno remains to be done and that's all for today, search for more history on our website bbc.ua on our pages in social networks we again on the air tomorrow at 9:00 p.m. take care, join the community with a ukrainian view of the world, become a sponsor of the espresso youtube channel, and this is access to exclusive content, personal thanks, pinned comments special icons there are the possibility of personal communication with the espresso team