[000:00:00;00] or collaborators, write to us at this address or simply on facebook, we will together send all the traitors in pursuit of the russian ship. see you next wednesday on the air with the press on the air from washington, the program of the ukrainian service of the voice of america, time i, maria prus , congratulations during the summit in vilnius, nato countries will send a clear message to ukraine about support and solidarity and the future of ukraine in nato, the secretary general of the alliance and jenn stoltenberg stated this during a press conference in brussels, but the best question now is he emphasized helping kyiv preserve its sovereignty and independence, because if ukraine

does not win and remains a democratic state in europe, the question of membership will not be discussed at all, we are meeting at the moment when ukraine is conducting a major counteroffensive , but for now this is the beginning and we do not know whether this will be a turning point in the war but we see that the ukrainians are moving forward and vacating more land, we know that the more ukraine achieves, the stronger their position will be at the next negotiating table the more ukraine will achieve, the more likely it is that president putin will understand that he cannot win the battle on the field. and he must agree on a just peace. the progress we see is a testament to the courage and intelligence of the ukrainian forces. it also demonstrates that the support provided by nato allies really affects the field. battle, the armed forces of ukraine are conducting offensives and at the same time are on the defensive in several directions, and given the activity of hostilities, ukraine urgently

needs to replenish its weapons . deputy minister of defense of ukraine, hanna malyar, according to her, despite western aid, the ukrainian military is forced to operate in the conditions of russia's advantages in armaments, among the main needs of kyiv now are long-range weapons , aviation, as well as ammunition, we have ongoing offensive actions in several directions in the east and in the south, at the same time, the enemy is itself carries out an offensive in several directions. therefore, now we are both in the offensive and in the defense, in all directions the advance was about 6.5 km, and

the area that was liberated was about 90 m²." russia's full-scale invasion of ukraine caused the fastest flow of refugees since world war ii and in total, a record 110 million people worldwide were forced to leave their homes due to wars of persecution and human rights violations

, according to the annual report of the office of the united nations high commissioner for refugees , russia against ukraine, the situation in afghanistan and hostilities in sudan contributed to the growth of the total number of refugees to an unprecedented level, the agency says according to un data from ukraine as of the end of 2022 more than 5.5 million people left this year more about ukrainians who fled the war to the usa let's talk with my colleague kateryna lisunova, who is in direct contact with the congress katya congratulates maria the so-called humanitarian password, stay in the usa . i know that you talked to the authors of the tripod , other legislators, what is the general position of american politicians regarding ukrainian forced migrants in the usa, a bill that should legalize ukrainians in the united states the united states of america was proposed and introduced by the members of the ukrainian military focus in the house of representatives, one of its co-authors is

democrat mike quigley, so according to him, this bill should help not only ukrainian immigrants, but also refugees from other countries. at the same time, i also talked to legislators who do not have relation to this draft law and asked what their attitude towards ukrainian immigrants is, so the republican, mr. makurnyk , claims that he supports ukrainian immigrants, but believes that ukrainians would now it is more appropriate to fight the war in neighboring european states closer to the homeland because the union and america are now in their own migration crisis suggests to listen to the opinions of both legislators right now we have refugees from afghanistan from north africa from many other war zones and we also have refugees who are waiting for the political and economic crisis in central america when i meet these people and what they tell me and it's not only our friends from

ukraine they all say i want to work i want to contribute i want to feed my family build a roof over my head and it's part of the american dream to come here but to be part of something bigger once a year i talk to people who are getting american citizenship refugees who suffered and came here they want to do their own contribution and we must approve all the necessary measures and give them work permits as soon as possible it is not only reasonable it is right you will find many places in europe where the labor market needs labor i think it is worth starting from these countries because we have a serious emigre problem in the united states today. and now their solution is not effective, but they are not against ukrainians coming here to the united states as well. i think they are good people, they intend to follow the law. and i think they can become good citizens but i also hope that they can return to the motherland where they

will be needed for the recovery process and it will be much easier to return from europe than from the united states on tuesday during during the hearings in the congress of the us treasury secretary janet haley what did the us and its partners freeze about 300 billion dollars of russian reserves after the full-scale invasion of russia ? what is the future fate of these funds and do they plan to transfer them to ukraine? until the end of the war that in the future these funds could be transferred to ukraine and ukraine could use them to restore the infrastructure and other needs, russia must pay for the damage it caused, emphasized the official during the committee hearing, but at the same time, jonathan ellen noted that the majority of these three hundred billion dollars of frozen russian assets are not located on the territory of the united states of america, so to keep these funds mobilized, that is, frozen,

requires constant cooperation with the partner countries, i propose to listen to the minister's comment in more detail right now, since the beginning of russia's illegal invasion of ukraine, we are taking decisive steps to freeze the reserves of the central bank of russia, we are working on this together with our allies and partners in such cooperation, we have already frozen about 300 billion dollars of russian reserves together with the countries of the group of seven, we have committed to guarantee that these assets will remain immobile until the end of the conflict , as a result of which russia will pay for the damage caused by them, we are working on it not only with allies and partners on j7, but with the working group of reporters that deals with russian elites, proxies and oligarchs, but the fact is that most of the russian of sovereign assets are not in the united states for the whole reason. it is extremely important that any subsequent steps

be taken through careful consultations with allies and partners. elom also stated that due to the price restrictions on russian oil introduced by western countries, the financial income of the russian budget from the sale of oil has halved. that they say even the russian authorities recognize this, maria tak katya, and even today it became known that republican senator jim ryzh blocked the sale of american weapons for hungary and why and can budapest somehow bypass the senator's decision by commenting on this situation, his own blocking of journalists , the washington post, senator jim ryz noted that he made such a decision in order to incline budapest to accept sweden as a nato member , that is, so that budapest finally sweden's membership in nato , according to journalists, washington is becoming a fairly important step ahead of the nato summit in lithuania, which

will take place next month, and as a number of other media have stated, one of the most important steps during this will be recognized the inclusion of sweden in the ranks of nato and i will note that the blocked weapons that the hungarians were supposed to buy from the united states of america cost 735 million dollars and, among other things, the hungarians planned to purchase 24 himars missile launchers. reconstruction of ukraine, its goal is to mobilize international support for one of the countries that can take the lead in helping kyiv to rebuild cities and infrastructure can become japan is convinced of this by the ukrainian ambassador in tokyo serhiy korsunsky, according to him this country has unique experience, resources

and the main desire to help ukraine, but how tokyo accepts ukrainian immigrants and why the japanese sincerely support ukraine, ambassador korsunsky told in an interview with my colleague yulia yarmolenko in tokyo that japan can help ukraine to rebuild and when this process can start or should it start now when the war is still going on japan has a unique experience if we look exactly 100 years ago 1923 is such an earthquake, which, as far as i understand, is the most powerful in general in the history of earthquake registration, which almost completely destroyed tokyo, yokohama, and that was exactly the moment when japan began to form its own experience of reconstruction, reconstruction, when everything was totally shifted, when hundreds of thousands of people died

when the cities were burned and how should it have been done in order to lay down certain e-e principles and certain steps for city planning 100 years ago that even today you find now in the metropolis the largest metropolis in the world with a population of 38 million people you do not feel you can move around the city , you breathe fresh air, everything works , the infrastructure functions almost perfectly underground, 245 sanctions, the subway, a giant collector for water drainage, and so on. after the war, the so-called east asian model of the economy was formed, which enabled japan to recover very quickly and move forward. all other countries in the region then recovered according to the model of japan and south korea and vietnam and china , and that is why japan really has accumulated fantastic experience. and we

are now trying to gain this experience, but in general, japan is ready to allocate financial resources on a bilateral basis through this platform that will be created for the reconstruction of ukraine. powerful infrastructure projects and i really dream that among these projects there will be a system of high-speed shinkan trains if you go to the machine surgery of the concern you will understand everything when you arrive you will leave and say i want to go to simferopol on this particular train i want that it is weak because it is incredibly comfortable, it is effective when you drive 300 km/h , you absolutely do not feel that you are moving at such a speed. this will change the face of ukraine . the japanese can do it. in each of these companies, groups have been created specifically for

ukraine, they are studying their capabilities very carefully. by the way, this is also important . they are going to do this . i know this for sure not only not so much european partners, and this is very important because the reconstruction that will be carried out must also have the goal of membership in the eu, it is not necessary to build twice in order to build , roughly speaking, according to the same standard and then convert it into a european one. they know this, they will do it, they coordinate with their european partners, and they all have offices in europe, and they are clearly aware that this is the immediate construction of a new ukraine, which will become a member of the european union, in a number of different ways that help japan is one of the ways japan accepts ukrainian evacuees and it is interesting because japan is a country that has very serious

restrictions on accepting refugees, saying that in 2021 there were statistics where it seems 74 people japan accepted 2,300 ukrainians in 2022, whom they call not refugees but evacuees tell us about why japan decided to change its practice of opening its doors to ukrainians and how ukrainians in japan accept it is a very good question and very important indeed because few people in our country realize that the status of refs of action, that is, the status of a refugee, he has a certain the legal basis is what they call people who are at home under the threat of persecution by their own government. that is, they are threatened by their own government, that is why , from the first days when the aggression began , it was clear that we needed to help ukrainians survive these times, we started to talk to the japanese, they immediately rejected this name of refugia in the house, ukrainians are not in danger, that is why such a formula was found and you call them

evacuees in english, it means evacuees, temporary relocation of a person, and they fall under a completely different legal category, and if you can wait uh, 8 years for the status of a refugee here, and not get this status , japan is very strict about this, as for ukrainians, the door was opened instantly, in fact, the idea was that ukrainians living in japan invite their relatives or later we expanded this program . it may not necessarily be ukrainians, it may even be japanese. and it may be institutions, schools , universities, companies that are ready to become such a guarantor for a certain period of time for ukrainians who come here and further. i literally had five or six meetings every day. these were the mayors and governors of the prefectures, who all came to this room and we talked with them about how much free

housing they could give, apartments that they could already create for these conditions and after many such iterations that happened very quickly, the model is roughly like this. when a ukrainian goes to japan for two weeks , they put him in a four-star hotel near tokyo in chibi . in fact, a card is given, well, it is not a permanent place of residence, but it is an opportunity to work. the main thing is an id and the opportunity to work. in addition, they are offered prefectures and cities throughout japan where you can go to live, and today you will find ukrainians everywhere from hokkaido to okinawa , and they choose, they go there in offices for helping ukraine have been created in each prefecture in the city halls, there are special people who deal with this, they accept these families, they settle them for free, and children go to school

, parents are given the opportunity to work medical insurance is given why do you think that japan opened the doors of its country to ukrainians because there were wars in a number of other countries and is there a limit to how many ukrainians japan can accept and how long they can stay and uh, so far the program has been extended for a year that's for sure we don't say anymore uh but i'm sure that there won't be such a decision that it stops you should go home this is not a japanese way of thinking why ukrainians this is a very good question i 'll reveal to you a little such uh secret eh it's very for me, you know, this kind of discovery was really uh, there are many countries, say, afghans, syrians, uh, who would also uh, like to come to japan to receive support here, and when this

large-scale support in ukraine was unfolding , human rights organizations began to criticize the japanese government, and the government responded and it is very simple, that is what the japanese people want, and there are survey data today, 80% of japanese absolutely support ukraine, ukrainians, and they very much support the policy of the government in relation to ukraine, and you will see it everywhere you are in in which city have you been, in the town halls, in the shops, in the restaurants, you will see ukrainian flags , and if they see that you are from ukraine, they will definitely come up, they will say, "gandbadku landing, you and i , it's so touching that it's just unreal, here you can see the piggy banks that small children brought." it was really a calling of the heart for the first few months . the entire entrance of the embassy was covered with flowers . people

brought us food and clothes . of humanitarian aid, which was collected continuously at the embassy. we do not have the opportunity to collect it here, we opened a whole warehouse where it was collected, and today there are already seven containers with the help of various we sent to ukraine with the help of our ukrainian organizations because we we do not have enough resources the reason for that the japanese reacted in this way. they are very emotional and very sensitive to injustice . see the full version of the interview with the ukrainian ambassador to japan on the youtube page of the ukrainian voice of america service . they protect ukraine on the same level as others, but

do not have full rights to marriage, family and non-discrimination partners of lgbt-plus soldiers cannot go to the intensive care unit to see the wounded identify the bodies of the dead receive state benefits on a par with heterosexual families at the same time 80-8% of ukrainians are not against giving same-sex couples those the very rights that all military personnel of the armed forces have on the first of june in the pride month dedicated to awareness of the protection of the rights of lgbt plus communities , the european court of human rights recognized that ukraine violates the rights of same-sex couples, but activists say that it is registered in the supreme to the council, the draft law can change the situation about what a civil partnership is and whether it is now about the legalization of same-sex marriages in ukraine in the story of maria ulyanovska hello my name is logo pavlo i am an anti-aircraft gunner of the 406th artillery brigade i support bill 9103 because i am gay i want the state to protect my rights as i protect

the state pavlu 21 he has been fighting in the ranks of the armed forces since the time of the full-scale invasion from the beginning of the war the guy defended the country near odesa mykolaiv kherson and in donetsk region and automatically, somehow, somehow, something flooded like this, but a wave of such and such well, let's say, i stood by the trench and began to pray that the lord would give me that person who , at least once, and someone at least during the war, i had those problems from all these fears not long ago after that, pavlo met vladyslav, also a military man, on social networks. the guys have been together for over a year, although they spent most of this time separately defending the country on different front lines, recently they got engaged , but legally, before the state, the couple is one alone, no one. i want that when

something happened to me, but god forbid, there was a close person near me, that is, my boyfriend, if my mother cannot be there for some reason, but since he is not a legal person to me, according to the law, and so on, he won't be able to visit me or take my body or just come to the intensive care unit to visit me pavlo's story is not alone in the ranks of the armed forces of ukraine , gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people serve side by side with heterosexual military personnel they have their own image unity ukrainian lgbt military for equal rights and a chevron with a unicorn same-sex couples in ukraine cannot officially seal their relationship before the state and to protect their rights people resort to tricks in november lida kosmachevska published a post on facebook where she announced her engagement but to marry she promised not to her to a real partner and a friend since childhood who serves

in the armed forces . we have known each other for many years. i have known about his orientation for many years. he is gay. they have been living with their partner for 15 years. i also knew that at the beginning of march , he joined the ranks of the armed forces and went to serve. he is serving. his partner is not. on november 30, he called me and at first jokingly asked if i was officially married, and then he said phase me you will leave and actually i understood that the whole proposal was only about the legal aspect, i understood that he needed such a record since i know that he has no relatives from the first degree and this, by the way , was illustrated by the moment when we discussed our marriage with a friend, he said we

they found out that we will go on a rotation and i have people there from my entourage. literally most of the men there have written reports for marriage and it turns out that they can do it quickly, but he can't and is forced to look for some kind of way out , and well, it's just short, i wouldn't like it i want to be gay throughout the country, at least for now. in march , the verkhovna rada registered a bill on civil partnerships, this is a format of civil marriage for same-sex and opposite-sex couples . will have similar rights and obligations, for example, they will be able to jointly own property , inherit it, visit each other in the hospital, make decisions in medical institutions and dispose of the body in case of death, the main difference between a civil partnership and marriage is that the registration procedure is simplified, and the partnership does not include any rights and obligations relations regarding children , i will tell you honestly, we started writing the bill in the summer of last year precisely as a reaction to

the appeal and to the stories of several lgbt people who had partners and were very worried that in case something happens to them, they will be conscious, it will be necessary to make medical decisions for them, for example , that their partner will not have the right to do this we must correct this discrimination we must show that we value people equally in a very in the banal simple sense, even payment in case of death and regardless of whom they love, sociological surveys show that ukrainians are becoming more and more tolerant of representatives of the lgbt community every year, this year's study as city ​​of the national democratic institute showed that 56% of respondents support civil partnerships for lgbt couples. this initiative was also publicly supported by the embassies of 15 countries and the eu representation in ukraine . the all-ukrainian council of churches and religious

organizations spoke out against it, which believes that same-sex marriages are being legalized in ukraine under the guise of registered partnerships. same-sex marriages are not mentioned, but there are several reasons for this. the first reason is formal, yes, it is that in order to allow marriage on it is necessary to change the constitution with a sexual couple. the constitution cannot be changed during martial law, therefore, this issue is even technically impossible to implement now, or can we talk about what will happen in the future? well, if we look at the experience of other countries, then yes, but in any case the tendency towards equality in rights is present, and i am sure that it is not mine ukraine, which also chose the european course of development, on june 1, the european court of human rights satisfied the lawsuit of a gay couple against ukraine and recognized that the impossibility of legalizing

the relationship of same-sex couples is discrimination and violates the european convention on human rights. now ukraine is on the way to european integration . why we raise this topic during the war because before the war we were seen but not heard and now we want us to be seen heard us understood that we are also people and we also we want to live freely in a free country, in principle, i can even just give an example, my mother, in the past, we had such a strained relationship, yes, we know, it was very difficult to communicate on this topic, she knew about it for me , but we know very little about this topic, we discussed it now, they are considering it we can talk all the time and she well, she reacts to this topic very calmly now because she had a period of priority before to raise me the way she wanted and now it is not a priority to give a sign if you

want the main thing to do is just come back alive maria ulyanovska oleksiatsika voice of america download the voice of america mobile application, the application allows you to automatically bypass blocking thanks to the built-in vpn service, read news, watch informational programs and videos, and also listen to podcasts of the voice of america ukrainian service on this we finish in the studio maria prus worked for you thank you for trusting us to meetings on the air we are looking for a 15-year-old illupolischuk from mariupol, imagine the fate of this boy for

more than a year, nothing is known, the child disappeared on at the very beginning of the full-scale war, the connection was cut off on february 24. the boy is leaving, no one knows where he is now, so i am appealing to everyone who sees me now , and especially to the residents of mariupol who may be watching this program on social networks , look carefully at the photo of the boy, he looks 14- he is 15 years old, he has light blond hair and dark eyes. if anyone has seen the boy or knows where he might be, do not delay now and call us on the magnolia child tracing service hotline at the short number 116,000 calls from any ukrainian free of charge from the mobile operator if we do not have the opportunity call write to the chatbot of the child tracing service in telegram any information is important this is only one story of a missing child in total for more than a year of war we have received more than 2000 requests for help in tracing luckily most of