[000:00:00;00] or because when i volunteered last year, there was no training . therefore, even with the young fighter course , now i understand that two or three weeks is not enough to be active , even inactive, and some the understanding of new weapons to keep there, which becomes some kind of tactics to teach, but you know the people who are there, problems already arise in the psyche of the people who are constantly under fire , well, i think this is no secret to anyone , that's why people always need a break that well, we know what there is when we have our graduation, it will be the ninth year, and therefore people will have post-traumatic syndrome, and now, er, the last year is a more

active phase than it was in the last 5 years, so that's why, in short, we need to join the er defense of the country not only those who left at the beginning of this offensive by the russians, and somehow broader groups joined in. well, this is a machine, a deputy of the kharkiv regional council , an officer of the national guard of ukraine, ivan krychevskyi , a military expert, defect express, and now serhiy rudenko is coming to replace me with the verdict. congratulations serhiy well and we are waiting olga literally in a few seconds we start the verdict program glory to ukraine this is the verdict program my name is serhiy rudenko good day and good health to all today is february 8, the 350th day of the heroic resistance of the ukrainian people to the russian occupiers president zelenskyi will visit britain on wednesday it is expected that the official london

will announce about providing ukraine with longer -range weapons and training ukrainian pilots germany will provide ukraine with guided missiles and additional cheetah installations by the end of february , and joseph biden said that the united states the americans have built a global coalition and stand with the people of ukraine against putin's aggression. as biden emphasized in his speech before the congress of the united states of america, the americans will be with the ukrainian people until the victorious end. meanwhile, the russian army continues to lose manpower and equipment in ukraine, as of the morning of february 8, russia has already lost in ukraine, 134 people in the last day only, the armed forces of ukraine destroyed 910 orks, at the beginning of the great war, the russians already lost in ukraine 3253 tanks, 6458 armored

fighting vehicles, 2236 artillery systems 461 rocket salvo systems 228 anti-aircraft defenses 295 airplanes 285 helicopters 512 units of automotive equipment 18 ships of boats 796 cruise missiles - 1,961 drones 211 units of special equipment so let's talk today about the expected or probable resignation of oleksiy reznikov from the post of minister of defense about how and what weapons will arrive in ukraine already this month, the expected rammstein, which is scheduled for february 14, and about biden at the head of the anti-putin coalition well, of course, this is all in the context of the planned offensive by the russians ukraine for the next few weeks i want to introduce today's first guest - this is military expert

mykhailo samus mr. mykhailo good day good health to you and i'm glad you're with us on the air i congratulate you i'm very glad to see you thank you so let's start our conversation with the expected changes in the ministry of defense, the leader of the servant of the people faction in the verkhovna rada, david arkhamia, has already said that oleksiy reznikov will step down from the post of minister of defense, instead , it is planned that his position will be replaced by the budanov wing, the general who currently heads it main the intelligence department of the ministry of defense of ukraine, and indeed arkhamia said that all this will take place a little later because rammstein is ahead and this is a very important important meeting that is to be held on february 14 and before that there is no need to touch on different things. how do you evaluate reznikov's activity and is it necessary in the context of what is happening to the ministry of defense of ukraine to resort to personnel

changes now, well, it is obvious that there are two problems, one problem. i believe that the ministry of defense did not work effectively in terms of communication in a situation where there were accusations of corruption a-a i think that it was necessary to show less emotionality and more er-er still give the relevant structures the opportunity to deal with those processes that are corrupt, the second problem is that no preventive measures were really taken to prevent those corruptions - obviously corrupt in any case, there are accusations , of course, these accusations have not been brought to court and to court decisions , we can say that there are suspicions against you about the commission of such active existence of such schemes or processes, i think that in fact, the minister of defense reznikov conducted an excellent

on-plane formation of those weapons packages that are received by the armed forces of ukraine, in this the minister's functions are performed on a solid five or a solid 12, depending on e-e evaluation system, but it is obvious that there are problems with the internal kitchen, which is happening in the chichi- is it being cooked in the ministry of defense, that is, for example, now the situation is in such a way that of course, such a stand-bad e-e announced the adoption of personnel decisions it is obvious that the decision to resign the reznik was also under the influence of certain emotions, after that there was a reassessment of this decision , because we see the real situation now , president zelensky is in great britain, he just arrived, and tomorrow he will obviously be in brussels at the european union summit

these are simply absolutely important events that determine in fact the future of ukraine, the future of the armed forces of ukraine in relation to countermeasures because you said that biden is at the head of the anti-putin coalition, and now we see who is in it it is obvious that the united kingdom and the european union, which not only give signals, they are now taking these steps, and the decision-making regarding the various processes should also be considered in relation to these processes. now it is possible to change the minister . obviously, it will be a certain time for the new team to enter the situation if there really is, there is definitely information that , for example, raznikov did not have information about these corrupt devices, then it is possible to simply strengthen the anti-corruption capabilities within the ministry of defense a reznikov can continue to perform his functions, that is, i would, for example, do so, but of course it is up to the president to decide how he will see this situation. he has more information

, he knows who is responsible for this situation , for this situation, and whether he can really continue to perform his functions . there is a lot of doubt. there are many questions, if varshnikov did not see these corrupt instruments, then this is also a question for the head of the ministry of defense. why did he not see it, and if he did, why is he not against it? there are many questions, why, the answers to which we do not know, but we know that oleksii reznikov told ukrainian pravda in an interview that he is not ashamed of his work as a minister and that there were no conversations about his resignation. i will repeat my answer in the post. i believe that any official should know for sure that he is not in his position for life and should be ready to start a stage and

finish a stage, so i am ready to any i am still not ashamed of what i did, in any case, i will definitely have something to look at, what came out of tisanti. it is not a shame what kind of defense minister oleksiy reznikov was or what kind of defense minister oleksiy reznikov is, we all see and hear and know , we see his active participation in rammstein and see how he is perceived by his western colleagues in the anti-putin coalition. can you be the minister of defense, general budanov? well, because his job is, to paraphrase, or to quote the rhyme master, quietly left quietly came, that is, it is a conversation, it is the job of an intelligence officer, quiet and calm, and the position of the minister of defense is, after all, a political position and a public position that allows a person not

just to know about something and to speak and articulate your thoughts , budanov's previous experience of being an effective minister of defense won't hurt. i think it won't hurt. a professional intelligence officer, although of course it may have come as a surprise to many. that is, he was not seen at all in any areas that were open to ordinary citizens, and then general budanov showed himself as a very professional analyst , a very professional specialist in forecasting the situation, his forecasts are constantly wrong, it's not just that it's not tarot cards let's say this means that general budanov owns the situation and the main thing is that he tries to master this situation , he tries to figure it out and tries

predicting this is very important for the development of the ministry of defense. of course, this is a different kind of position. i am sure that general budanov will cope because it is obvious that this general is a person who is trying to grow in a constant sense and i am sure that he will cope. another question is what this position really is political here. absolutely different. let's put it this way. threats and challenges here are not always a fair game. you don't always know who is the enemy and who is the friend. in this way, it is a little different from the combat situation on the battlefield, which is what general bohdanov is used to, you know. political ones are better than me. let's say the jungle. it's a slightly different environment, and that's why there's another important thing here is the team , that is , each country has its own team that actually dealt with international issues. for example

, reznikov's team obviously did not work from the point of view of the anti-corruption fight step -control, i.e. there are, let me remind you, four four levels of anti-corruption control, for example, parliamentary control, democratic control is control, i.e. democratic civilian control is manifested through the media, well, it is journalistic. and in general, public organizations work, then there is departmental control at the level of the cabinet of ministers and there is corporate control, that is, actually everything belongs to the structure itself. that is, it is the ministry of defense, and it is obvious that corporate control has failed it was precisely the e level of civil civil democratic control that worked when journalists published this information and then parliamentary control worked, which had already started working for itself according to its functionality

calling e-e to e-e r- flight analysis let's say the same reznikov, representatives of the ministry of defense and demanding personnel changes, obviously understanding that there are problems that need to be solved, therefore, regarding the corporate level of anti-corruption , i think that it is necessary to improve here in any case maybe it doesn’t even depend on who it will be, whether it will be minister reznikov or minister bohdanov, but still, the anti-corruption component in the ministry of defense must now be radically improved or even created with zero, why is it extremely important, because people give their last hryvnias to buy drones, fairy tales, warm clothes, and so on, they give everything they have, often there is little or no business that they lost due to war or work, and at this moment someone is stealing millions is a very demoralizing factor - it is a very powerful weapon in the hands of russia. let me remind you that

corruption is one of the most effective tools in the hands of the kdb since, let's say, the soviet union , and of course putin uses it in europe as well, we know these cases of corruption and wanted to officials in the european union and in ukraine of course, it is absolutely normal when the russians carry out this corruption and when such things happen during the war in the ministry of defense, well, it is simply unacceptable , it is a very negative factor that can destroy all the positive gains that you can get 100 euros of fighters a at this moment, your ministry of defense will collapse and the stability of the vertical stability of the defense is due to the fact that you have corrupt officials who simply steal , unscrupulously steal from the soldiers it's simply unacceptable, well, they don't just steal, like the situation with body armor, they buy, uh, technical ones, in general

, this is already the highest degree of cynicism, for which , it seems to me, should already be shot according to the laws of wartime. vests because the cheap ones bought them there, see, personnel rotations were postponed and they said that now is not the time , rammstein is ahead, a big offensive is predicted, and the russians are not talking about what is currently happening on the eastern and southern fronts yesterday, president zelenskyi said that in his evening address to ukrainians

, we will hear from the supreme commander-in-chief of the armed forces of ukraine. the south sounds less often, although the strategic importance of these directions is no less, and we are strengthening the state along the entire perimeter, therefore, according to british intelligence data that were made public a few days ago, the russians are preparing the offensive in four directions, mr. mykhailo, according to you, does it correspond to your expectations and your forecast, what british intelligence predicts is the first and second, or more, options of the russians in order to launch an offensive not only in the south and east of ukraine, for example, in the north in the east, i mean the sumy region, because the russians have been shelling the sumy region quite actively for a long time, today the orlan drones were shot down in the konotop area, which were moving

towards nizhyn, well, that is, the russians are conducting some preliminary actions that usually precede the offensive so now we are talking about four directions, and as a result, in these directions there will be, for example, 8. well, i will immediately say that if you compare the readiness of russia , for example, on february 24 of last year and now , then these are different things. now russia is not ready to conduct a strategic operation similar to that mongoose jump that she tried to implement on february 24 of last year, although at that time all military analysts, well, most of them, including me, for example, said that they were ready to carry out a large-scale offensive, but it will a disaster for russia because the group that they have, and at that time there were 150-170,000 around ukraine, it will be a disaster , this group is not enough, but then they gathered enough air force, they had

enough artillery, new armored vehicles, a relatively well-prepared professional army, and so more now the components that i have named are actually absent in russia, that is , there is no longer a professional army , now they have a mobilized army. throws into the furnace of war in order to implement this political plan of putin regarding the immediate capture of donbass. because he needs to demonstrate something on the anniversary of the war. and if they do not capture donbass, then it will be necessary to erm again some nonsense about er some new tasks of this so the so-called special regional operation, just as important is the absence of air superiority on february 24 , russia could hope to achieve air superiority because they could launch massive missile strikes that destroy

ukrainian air defenses that will destroy ukrainian aviation that they tried to do it, but did not achieve it. and after that, having taken control of the air, they will launch massive air strikes on another critical military and state object and then provide the conditions for a ground offensive, so now they do not have these opportunities, in fact, they have largely spent their missile the potential of the aviation potential, they cannot use it in the conditions of the strengthening of the ukrainian air defense system and so on, because if you compare our air defense system now and last year, therefore, it is obvious that we have strengthened , we have advanced western models and there will be more and more, this means that there will be no dominance of the air , just a ground attack, just mobilized . buy donbass, donetsk

, luhansk region and try , you know, to provoke ukrainian troops. in other directions, for example, sumy region, kharkiv region . maybe try something somewhere in the zaporizhzhia direction, they have more shocks so far there are no groups, and in order to create them, you need some more intensive mobilization, we say that covert mobilization measures are underway, but this is clearly not enough if you compare what they did in september of last year, how violent it all was and now. maybe they are continuing something to recruit, but obviously not at such a pace, not in such volumes, and they thus cannot create, for example, another 300,500,000 groups, and even more so create a motorized rifle unit, for example, for this we need a few thousand tanks for that, a few thousand armored vehicles in combat condition, artillery, and so on, intelligence, i’m not talking about

aviation . this is a completely different level, and therefore it is extremely important that what is happening on the ukrainian side is the acquisition of state-of-the-art weapons that will be able to create a situation already in the spring . this massive army of the predominance of high-tech, but mr. mykhailo, there is obviously a threat from belarus , because there are canders and installations that can launch from 300 s400, well, that is, for this you do not need motorized rifle divisions or some brigades that can let's say repeat the path of those who february 24, 2022 entered the territory of ukraine from the republic of belarus. well, how likely is it that

together with the offensive, for example, in donetsk and luhansk regions and in zaporizhzhia, the russians can use the territories of belarus for the shelling of the northern regions of ukraine, and in particular the capital of ukraine, in order to distract the constant attention of the ukrainian army and strike at peaceful cities and in this way create problems in parallel and create problems for the ukrainian army . of course, belarus is ideal for russia from the point of view of distracting ukrainian forces in order to concentrate on donbas in the eastern direction, the armed forces of ukraine are forced to keep significant forces on the belarusian border, the belarusian border is about 1000 km and this is, of course, a huge challenge and the threat, and even more so even if we say that there is no russian ground component there, in fact, there are about 10-12 thousand of them, they rotate, but

the total number remains approximately the same, and the russians recently conducted aviation training on the territory of belarus, and so far it is interesting that the aviation russian , it remained on the territory of belarus , it cannot be ruled out that under the guise of training, it will remain there in general, one more squadron or two from the quadrille will remain on the territory of belarus, strengthening the aviation the components are absolutely right in order to create threats and constantly disturb the ukrainian forces, there is no need to keep ground troops, you can constantly raise the aviation component, we know that this is an immediate threat of air alarm, air strikes , there are also iskanders what 500 km can stretch 1,000 borders by 500 km this is actually half of ukraine, from this angle , it can be covered with blows and chants, this is a huge threat. there, we have to, that means

we have to keep the reinforced forces there against air defense and in general be ready for the fact that well, for example, russia can quickly transfer sando-assault components, create in a week, for example, 10,000 amphibious assault groups, then try to conduct an amphibious operation again under the cover of these missile strikes and an aviation component still on a-a from the territory of belarus in certain directions and the territory of ukraine , again pulling back the ukrainian forces, therefore, of course , belarus remains one of the most dangerous directions, although at the moment the threats there is no direct link, of course, ukrainian intelligence constantly monitors the situation and follows what is happening there, because of course it is potentially a very, very threatening direction, i already spoke at the beginning of the program about joseph biden's speech at the congress, he spoke that night, or rather, he was in

the united states that day of america with a report on the state of affairs in the country before the american congress, he emphasized the support of the united states of america to ukraine in resisting russian aggression and promised further support as long as we need to hear biden i spoke in this chamber about vladimir putin's brutal war against ukraine it was a test for america for the whole world whether we will stand up for the greatest basic principles or we will stand up for sovereignty or we will stand up for the right of people to live free from tyranny or we will stand up for the protection democracy in one year we know the answer yes we will and yes we did it we did it we united nato and built a global coalition we resisted

putin's aggression we stand with the people of ukraine we will to stand with you as long as it takes. during the last two months, we have seen mr. mykhailo as the united states of america quite actively began to talk about the need for the victory of the civilized world over putin 's russia, according to your opinion, can the current speech of baidin be perceived as a political decision or the announcement of a political slogan of the council to forever do away with by putin's russia, well, in any case, in order to solve this , a political decision is needed, a political decision of the united states of america is adopted by the president . i think that this is even a kind of political the manifesto, which again against the background of president zelenskyi's visit to great britain and the european union, demonstrates the real existence of the anti-putniv coalition, and not just declaratively, but realistically, and not only in words, but in deeds, because during

the same visit of zelensky to london already announced, in any case, the prime minister of great britain announced the training of pilots and this means nothing more and nothing less that great britain can provide us with its eurofighters. one of the countries for such aircraft will help us dominate the air in certain areas of the front. and this during the offensive simply cannot be overestimated and the summit of the european union will just as obviously proclaim the same thesis as the europeans will be with ukraine until victory, this means that everyone has already understood that putin will not be able to stop, he has driven himself into this corner, he obviously wanted an easy operation when ukraine will fall to his feet, and now he is in a situation where he himself

dragged himself into a war of attrition and now uh a lot depends, of course, on the unity of nato, the european union, the united states, our allies, and these statements by biden, zelenskyi's visit to brussels , london demonstrate that the western ukrainian coalition the western coalition is ready for war to the point of exhaustion and now we'll see how putin will react to this if he will react only with mobs, i think he has no chance , that is, he is of course known for his stubbornness, known for the fact that psychological complexes prevail over reason. he is obviously not yet ready for any concessions, he will try to drive russia further into this catastrophe economically, we know that in january, for example, the budget deficit in russia increased by 60%. and this is not yet the end, the oil and gas oil e-e sanctions have begun to work, as well as the nuclear sanctions, which will lead to obvious bigger economic problems. there is not

much time left when he can take some military steps. economic disaster will soon occur. i think that within the next six months i based on this, i think that putin may have been explained to putin that he has only one chance now to achieve military success in donbas and it is possible to record this situation after that to announce that it is a victory and to declare that he is ready for negotiations, otherwise, the coalition formed once is anti-putin, it will prove already this year, everything looks like everyone is ready not to drag out this process because after all, well, and if you imagine that the west will invest such money in this war with putin and such investments and in general concentrate so much on putin and on putin's adventure for a few more years, well, i think that this too much will be too high a price and too much attention to this putin will actually be decided. it seems to me to finish it this year

to suppress uh this hydra that has decided that it can rule europe rule the democratic world already this year and these statements these decisions are about it it seems to me. well, but the main accents . obviously, this year , february, march and april will be the three main months, during which the end of the russian-ukrainian war will be decided, what will it be and when will it be? i understand absolutely. for example, yesterday the minister of defense of germany was in ukraine and the decisions that germany is making now were simply unimaginable there even a month ago, that is, you can actually talk about hundreds of tanks. well, sorry, this is a great tank, it really has its flaws, which are inherent in the period when it was developed, but all this can be solved and this tank will be very useful, especially 100 such tanks, for example, will be very useful in

order to destroy russian soldiers