[000:00:00;00] do you understand something, the situation will change every hour i guess that's how we were surprised when we were already told everything that's it, well, let's say it like this, volunteers have more information, unlike the military a-a we thought that there is already everything in this area everything everything everything everything everything is already bad everything people they won't be able to leave, because i have only one goal: that people leave, but there were miracles, there were miracles, and the guys were standing there literally for five hours. well, there for three hours, and the guys were returning to their places and were taking place, and what's more, they evacuated us people, where are the people? well they were in such a very emotional state, they ordered that it is very lucky that they were saved, thank you very much for joining our broadcast and telling about everything

you know. olga danilova, a volunteer, was on radio freedom. the countries of the european union must give ukraine ammunition from their warehouses, primarily of 155 mm caliber, this is the statement made by thierry , the european commissioner for the internal market and services , he stated that eu countries have already accumulated ammunition in their warehouses, so it is time to give them to ukraine, which is the eu's response each individual country zoryan stepanenko will tell european ammunition , which they hope will turn the tide of the war in ukraine, divided the european union into several conditional camps of partners who ardently demonstrate their desire to help ukraine, the second, more moderate category, and the third, those who are not ready to drop their shells, but as the journalists found out, public intentions standing aside

may not reflect reality, ammunition is waiting on the battlefield in ukraine due to the fact that there is a lack of it, said volodymyr zelenskyi, who norway and 18 other eu member states are planning to restore ukrainian stocks at their own expense. express, the high-ranking representative made it clear that he wants to see the widest possible participation because it is for the benefit of europe, it is support for ukraine, as well as support for european security and stability outside the 10-country project eu, but if lithuania and poland in this camp regularly supply arms to ukraine on a bilateral basis, then hungary refuses or, according to its top diplomat, wants peace, and the president of bulgaria the other day, the prohibitionist even announced the re-export of bulgarian weapons in ukraine, we, together with the european commission, will work on increasing investments so that we can replenish our

stocks and help the eu member states and , on top of that, replenish theirs, but bulgaria does not participate in the joint supply of shells to ukraine, this statement is for many hundreds an additional reason to accuse radiva of being pro-russian , but the publication your active found out that bulgaria , which has soviet -style projectiles at its disposal, can sell them to ukraine through intermediaries under the cover of its own the rearmament will receive new ammunition, the older ones will be given to the state military plant, what will be done with them, the current minister of defense did not explain , but the former minister explained in an interview quoted by the publication this is the largest rearmament of the bulgarian ground forces in recent history, this is a huge amount of ammunition, hundreds of thousands, there is a huge increase in prices for ammunition and the navy will sell this ammunition through intermediaries to ukraine, this is the amount of ammunition that

can turn the tide of the war in some directions on the ukrainian front, the eu ukraine must receive a million 65 mm projectiles within the next 12 months, we are willing to give our compensations from the european peace fund, a kind of common piggy bank for these needs, in particular, which the eu countries fill proportionally with their gdp, spend these funds on ammunition for ukraine and then on general own procurement was proposed at one time by estonia vryezida - it is really happy that when the last time it made a proposal regarding ammunition and general procurement in 5 weeks we reached an agreement on this but the edition the politician learned about behind-the-scenes claims to estonia cites sources in eu diplomatic circles who claim that tallinn is among the capitals that abuse the joint fund , on the one hand, helps ukraine as much as possible, on the other hand, gives , as one of the diplomats said in a conversation with a politician, scrap metal modernizing at

the expense of the eu, thus another own army the unnamed diplomat is such an example estonia sends the soviet strela missile complex and asks for compensation based on the cost of a modern stinger, however, estonian the ministry of defense in a comment on radio freedom denied this information. estonia never owned arrows and did not send them to ukraine, nor did it own or buy stingas . estonia has always said that military aid to ukraine is calculated on the basis of the cost of restoration, since this is the amount of investments that estonia must make to restore donated capacities and the last but not least aid to ukraine - this is not a competition, the stakes are much higher, repulsed aggression in europe, the experts we spoke with have no doubt that the misunderstanding will be overcome they say that the most important thing is the fact that the eu as a block is capable of unprecedented decisions, the first

european peace fund really serves these goals , that we are actually reimbursing the supply to ukraine, which needs it, there are certain obstacles on the way, but i do not think that the process as such will be undermined. more about the administrative legal mechanism and coordination between the member states and the center here in brussels and the sanderiven's when according to a in order to increase their production in the perspective of long-term poland for example calls for them to be purchased outside the eu and from brussels zoryana stepanenko marik hayduk radio svoboda well, among all the countries that could help ukraine with ammunition, i would like to focus on bulgaria with its stockpiles of soviet-era weapons and a developed military industry, bulgaria could actually become a key ally of ukraine, but

this did not happen bulgaria is considered one of the most pro-russian eu countries due to its close historical, cultural and business ties with russia according to sociological surveys the majority of the population wants the country's authorities to maintain neutrality regarding the russian-ukrainian war. well, in may 2022, the far-right pro-russian renaissance party even removed the ukrainian flag from the mary building in sofia and held several rallies in support of the russian invasion of ukraine, and here it is also worth reminding that bulgaria is one of the three eu countries, together with hungary and austria, where the parliaments did not agree to the speech of volodymyr zelenskyi regarding russian aggression. well, certainly against the background of all this, today's announcement about that bulgaria can transfer old ammunition to ukraine, even through intermediaries, this message surprised many, i will remind you that the former minister of defense of the country boyokonoev stated that the ministry of defense of bulgaria will transfer old ammunition

worth almost 175 million euros to the state military plant e-e vmz in exchange for new ones and in turn in mzm will resell these munitions through intermediaries to ukraine well , he also stated that this amount of munitions can significantly affect the war in ukraine , how realistic is such a scheme, now we mykhailo drapak, director of the european studies program of the council of foreign policy, ukrainian prizma, good evening. so what do we have , the media are writing with reference to the former minister of defense that bulgaria, through intermediaries, can transfer old ammunition worth 175 million euros to ukraine, as i understand it that this is not yet a final decision, share what you think and how realistic such a decision can be in general , how it can happen in practice

, there are no official comments on this issue the ministry of defense of bulgaria did not make any statements about this. however, before the ministry of defense of bulgaria stated, they reported more precisely that the bulgarian armed forces need to update their weapons , they need to modernize in order to increase the defense capability of their country , primarily in bulgaria, but in in the context of aid to ukraine, whether these munitions can be transferred to ukraine, i would like to remind you that bulgaria has actually been supplying ammunition to ukraine since last spring year, the country does this through third countries, primarily through poland, but also through other european countries, selling its ammunition to them, and from there they get to ukraine. in this way, bulgaria joins the support of ukraine, but it is done in this way mechanism that actually these

orders are for bulgarian enterprises that produce weapons are paid for by third countries, primarily the united states of america , great britain, and there is also information that poland also purchases certain ammunition for ukraine and bulgaria have one of the most powerful military-industrial complexes in the black sea region, which can produce ammunition specifically for soviet-style weapons, so bulgaria still plays a key, if not important, role in the supply of weapons for the armed forces of ukraine. does it not quite openly, i remember even when the people's assembly , and it was the deputies of bulgaria who made this decision about the supply of weapons in this way, it seems to me, as far as i remember, that the president of bulgaria even accused them of inciting

that is, the war caused discontent inside the country, but nevertheless, returning to what you said, experts say that with its stockpiles of soviet weapons and soviet weapons and a developed military industry, bulgaria could become a key ally, but in practice everything is much more complicated and literally week that is why there was information that the usa offered financial assistance to bulgaria if it provided ukraine with a soviet-era weapon system , but bulgarian high-ranking officials are in no hurry to accept this offer, why if even the usa encourages them to do so, the situation is somewhat complicated in the case of bulgaria , first of all, we are dealing with political reasons for refusing direct supplies, were you from supporting ukraine because , according to sociological surveys, the majority of the population of bulgaria either does not approve of the supply of weapons to ukraine or approvals are only limited some er some supplies maybe not even lethal

some er he is somehow non-lethal aid and bulgarian politicians must er focus on this i can't say that er bulgarian the political community is completely pro-russian at the moment, it can even be said that the majority of those parties that well in bulgaria , by the way, this week's elections will be at the end of the week for the parliamentary majority of the parties that claim a mandate there, they are not pro-russian and do not advocate the renewal of ties with russia, but they must uh, to focus on what society wants in this matter, and they still , in order not to lose their own uh, not to lose support, they uh, very cautiously talk about the supply of weapons to ukraine however, in the fall of last year, the parliament of bulgaria still made a decision to provide weapons directly to ukraine, but

due to bureaucratic issues due to the opposition of the interim government, this decision was not actually implemented, but this did not prevent bulgaria from supplying weapons to ukraine through other states why does bulgaria refuse to provide weapons to ukraine, some other weapons, for example, there was talk of helicopters or air defense systems or armored vehicles, the answer is that the bulgarian armed forces actually despite that the country has a very developed air defense system, but still this air defense system produces soviet-style weapons. it is not modernized, and secondly, the bulgarian armed forces also need a large, significant modernization, and the bulgarian armed forces within nato are one of the most well if you judge eh by the eh samples of weapons the eh armed forces have, then within nato the bulgarian armed forces are

one, in particular, in matters of aviation in bulgaria there are only 18 planes, 13 mig and eh i apologize 15 mig and three eh su for all the country's armed forces in 2020, the united states of america ordered 16 new aircraft, but these planes have not been delivered to the country yet, although according to the terms of the contract they should have already arrived, so bulgaria is in such a shaky position regarding its defense capabilities, and the country must somehow take care and about its own defense against the background of all the threats that are growing in the region, at the same time, a country that has such a friendly military base, although it is of the soviet model, it cannot but take advantage of the market situation, that is the decision about which you are more precisely the decision of the news

which was voiced by the former minister of defense bulgaria, which you mentioned, he also noted that the bulgarian manufacturers should take advantage of the fact that the price of ammunition has become very high in the world, and in fact, the country's nuclear weapons can now sell them at a higher price, and the bulgarian army will thus get a chance for large-scale rearmament this is why this story is so complicated, but i will repeat myself and emphasize once again that bulgaria still helps ukraine in one way or another . less and at a certain point during the past year, for example, bulgarian bulgarian supplies, well, indirect, but through third countries , but still, uh, bulgarian supplies played a significant role, there was more than a third of all ammunition used

by the armed forces of ukraine that came to ukraine , they were precisely bulgarian, therefore bulgaria still played and continues to play a big role in the victories of ukraine, but you yourself mentioned that elections will be held there soon , as far as i remember. it already seems five and extraordinary elections for the past two years, parliamentary elections and i, if i understood you correctly, there is hope in kyiv that there will be , well, the majority will form some non-pro-russian influences, although the president of the country is known for his pro-kremlin views , that is, there is hope to establish closer ties with bulgaria what about the country that has the largest stockpile, including soviet ammunition, and here the situation is also quite complicated, if pro-european forces could form a pro-european pro-euro-atlantic force, they could form a majority, then the country

would find the fifth election in a row in three years, but does this miracle not happen here ? the fact is that the pro-european , euro-atlantic camp is also divided into two camps, not so-called new faces, although they were already quite briefly, but there are old faces in power, and there is a certain conflict between them, and the voters of one party are continuing the changes of the former minister of the prime minister, kyril petkov, who actually came to kyiv in the spring of 2022 and promised to help ukraine in the war against russia. represents the fact that the camp of new faces, yes, new politicians who challenged you with old letters. and this is another party whose coat of arms is headed by former prime minister boyko boryspil. although they have common views on foreign policy and on the general values ​​they have

to develop bulgaria, but they are still irreconcilable eh i wouldn't say enemies but such competitors and eh and they had a chance to form a majority even in the previous parliament, but they didn't do it exclusively because of personal conflicts and due to the fact that they do not want to be in the same team together, that is why the situation here is complicated, the good news is that after all , there is only one pro-russian force, openly pro-russian force - this is the revival party, this party is far-right and it er, it is anti-european, it is pro-russian, it is extremely nationalist and its support is growing, but the good news is that today its support reaches only 13-14 percent , respectively, they can become the third faction

in the parliament in terms of the number of mandates, however they are unlikely to form a coalition because, firstly, there are few people who are ready to cooperate with them, because this party is outside the system, and secondly, they do not represent any construct of any constructive agenda, accordingly, this is also the factor that other forces will not want to cooperate with them, and it is even more incredible if you can sum up what you said , 175 million worth of ammunition is still not official information yet. that's right. that is, it's still a rumor. we don't really know what the condition of these ammunition is if they are deconserved. after all, this is something that has been stored in warehouses for a long time, so this decision must be treated very carefully and we must wait for official announcements. thank you very much mykhailo drapak , director of the program of european studies of the council of foreign policy, ukrainian prisma was on radio svoboda, well, the iranian shahedis

attacked ukraine again this night, the general staff claims that 14 out of 15 drones were shot down by air defense forces, and the ukrainian military meanwhile showed what was inside the iranian shaheeds, as it turned out that there were a lot of components manufactured by the united states and japan's kamikaze drones development center was visited by the project correspondent andrii kuzakov. look odesa region border guard denys sharpens his skills of shooting with a machine gun as shown by practice against iranian drones kamikaze shahed, which the russian military actively uses for strikes on ukraine, it is possible to effectively fight with small arms fired in advance first of all, our observer a-a , using a laser pointer, indicated the direction of the target, as well as the height, we already followed the trajectory of

the laser pointer, we already indicated the trajectory was oriented and they fired at the elections in anticipation of the border guard denys managed to shoot down the shahed from the machine gun at a height of about 150 meters, he was flying in front of us , the range was about 200 meters, the emotions were well, very positive, they were happy, all the exclusive shots are the place where the fragments of the shahed and other drones that he uses fall russia after they are shot down, what do the shekhets look like now you can see up close this is the 131st shekher - this is the 136th she shot them down in different regions

of ukraine now the ukrainian military is studying what is inside them, ukrainian experts are studying how drones are made of what components, and how to fight them. all this is shown to us by a representative of ukrainian intelligence. it is used in our country - very few of them were used, and they did not cause damage to critical infrastructure objects, they use routes to 136 more often because they have a warhead of approximately 40-50 kg , the military says that inside everything is very simply but effectively, the most valuable thing in this drone is the so-called crp antenna, the task of which is to oppose ukrainian means of radio-electronic warfare

, we can buy all these electronic components on aliexpress . ukrainian experts came to the conclusion that most of the components were produced by western countries and due to sanctions these parts should not have reached iran , most of them are components in our country of foreign production, namely japan, china, the united states, and we transferred most of them to our foreign partners in order to be able to impose sanctions on them so that these electronic components would never get to iran again, so that they would never be used against us , that is why the us department of commerce introduced sanctions against seven iranian legal entities involved in the production of these drones, here is another mojang drone shot down in the ukrainian sky, this is an iranian version of a turkish

drone, the ukrainian military shows the bombs for this drone were made already after the beginning of the full-scale russian invasion of the qm5 production, if you can see the date of manufacture of this aerial bomb is 2022, despite the fact that iran has repeatedly rejected the accusation that it supplies its drones to russia for the war against ukraine ukrainian experts find such evidence, that is, if we can see on one warehouse there is an inscription in russia, this inscription means that this side is down that you need a patch to survive and fix the markings here everything is written in english but the specialists who came to us and know english to their knees said that there are some grammatical errors in the inscriptions , after studying what is inside the iranian drones , the ukrainian specialists found out how to fight against them more effectively, meanwhile, according to the ukrainian military, russia is changing the tactics

of using shaheeds if they were previously launched from from the south across the sea, now from the north , probably due to the fact that most of the kamikaze drones that they wanted from the south were always shot down , so the border guard denys drew attention to the fact that the shekhets have become not such a clean phenomenon in general as in the autumn of last year. at first, when the very first launches were held, it was a little unknown how to act correctly, how to correctly harvest targets and the like, but later, when they started to practice, they started to train , they started to distort perceptions. drones are no longer as effective as in the fall of 2022, russia still uses them and

tries to find vulnerable spots in ukrainian air defense border guard denys with his squad always on the lookout andriykuzakova andriy shurin oleksiy paly for radio liberty in exchange for not relatively cheap and effective drones, russia supplies iran with cyber weapons, in particular means for digital surveillance , the american publication the wall street journals writes about this with reference to own sources among american iranian officials, the publication writes that cooperation between russia and iran in the field of cyber technology has intensified after as tehran agreed to supply moscow with short-range missiles and tank artillery shells, in addition to drones, in response to the wounds it expects to receive not only cyber weapons, as well as russian helicopters, fighters and long-range missiles russia and tehran signed an agreement on cooperation in the cyber sphere two years ago, however, moscow

for a long time resisted the transfer of its electronic technologies to tigran, fearing that they would be put up for sale on the black market, but after a full-scale invasion of ukraine, russia has provided iran with its developments in the field of monitoring means of communication, what does this all mean, let's talk now , ihor samovolov, director of the center for middle eastern studies, joins of our broadcast, we congratulate you, this is how believable this news looks to you, what george island writes about, they began to exchange software for monitoring and conducting cyber warfare, the information, of course, needs at least confirmation from other sources, but judging by the contacts, judging by the intensity of those contacts it can be said that the military cooperation between these two countries is taking on such a state of character, and the further it goes, the

more the military-political alliance becomes a mystery, and simply based on this, it can be assumed that yes, such supplies, such supplies can have then the following question, if this is true, if this is true, it is plausible, then does such cooperation not bother anyone, and i am primarily referring to the usa or israel, in the future it may happen that iran will use this is all that russia is giving him against israel. are there no such fears? i think that these fears exist, and i think that in israel, too, and everything turned out. america is checking this information in detail - they are checking, checking, and obviously there will be some kind of answer . the question is that, most likely, the answer it will be after a certain time, that is, it is exactly like this. it is obvious in the historical answer that if

someone expects it, most likely , it will not happen now. but yes, yes , that is, they will be watching. now in israel. to be honest, not before that, there are internal and quite serious problems, as i analyze societies . it is clear that the relevant structures and services continue to monitor the situation, the same is happening in the united states of america. i think that they are closely monitored in saudi arabia and other countries of the persian gulf for whom this situation is critically important, and as soon as this information becomes obvious, that is, if you receive final confirmation and not just uh, newspapers, well , the reference to unknown sources is not named, then i think that decisions will be made, but

we know from other reactions of these countries that they are late, they are late, and the quotation marks are approximately there more than 1.5 e since when it becomes obvious that this information is getting out, which i ask you to answer, and is there still such an option or perspective in in the future, that russia will receive missiles from iran, which we previously , well, the media reported about this before, it is not excluded because ah, we remembered what the problem is, the problem is that they did not trust each other and each country would like to receive its package er, we put agreements first, now it seems to me that this issue has at least moved from its place, and therefore it is not excluded that russia can