[000:00:00;00] press secretary mykola veresen vitaly portnikov and the main topics of the week is if, god forbid, a truly tactical nuclear weapon is used against ukraine, it will definitely change the world. stories, problems, analysis and personalities await us. john gerbs is the former ambassador to the united states in ukraine. and espresso tv channel program studio event

will analyze the most important events of this of the week, our guest today is peter greenburgh, an american military pilot. a person who has worked more than a dozen hours on f-16 fighter jets will also work on our air. mark fagin, a member of the russian opposition , our current guest, peter greenburgh, an american military pilot, a volunteer and a military instructor. congratulations dear mr. peter, thank you for the invitation . they represent you as a person who spent not one hundred hours on f-16 aircraft, the good news is that the f-16 is a very successful system, they have been used for a long time, they are well assembled and many countries use them, it is important to understand that it is more than just an airplane, than just a physical shell, you know, the wings, the engine, these things are part of a larger system, it includes sensors, weapons, radars, and even more important, the entire system that supports the 16, including the intelligence and surveillance system, which itself includes a lot of things. i think that the main thing for

the f-16 - this is when they will work successfully in ukraine is that they will in some way add to the defense of ukraine will protect both the urban infrastructure and the civilian population and i think will help the ukrainian soldiers on the battlefield f16 is not magic it is a mechanical system an electronic system and it is a machine controlled by a person and although it has been well updated over the years and in some cases has very modern advanced technology it is still the same generation as russian planes and in fact even older generation than the newest russian surface-to-air missiles was it would be too optimistic to think that even a significant number of f-16s can simply swoop in and then clear everything of enemy missiles, ground, air, and clear the sky of enemy planes. so, this is a very complex and difficult problem to solve, on which the western troops of nato troops have spent huge sums of money, efforts, tactics, weapons and technologies, not all of these technologies will arrive in ukraine, the point is that it is quite

likely that a small number of f-16 pilots will arrive in ukraine to begin with, by definition , they will be novices on their planes, then i am in fact, you know the details of where the enemy systems are and what their capabilities are. i don't know these details, so i have very limited knowledge of the situation. what i can tell you is that it would be a mistake to assume that the f-16 will be used by the ukrainian military in the same way that the western military would use them, and i think that for many people this was one of the wrong assumptions of people

in the west and also here in ukraine. that's right f 16 will be an addition to the military effort that is already taking place so now ukrainian pilots are boldly flying the planes they have and doing an incredible job with them so giving them more advanced tools and more advanced weapons only increases the capabilities they have for example f16 can have a huge impact on the battlefield without even getting close to the battlefield because the west has invested heavily in long-range precision weapons and these weapons have been improved even after i stopped flying more than five years ago so the idea that the f-16s are just going to slip through and solve all the problems is nice but it is false what we know is that this is good news for ukraine and very bad news for russia the use of f16 will hinder the enemy in his work i agree the russians are not just going to war against ukraine they are killing our civilians they are hitting civilian objects this is another war crime by the russians because they know what coordinates they are working on the other side we understand if we are talking about f16

and we understand that this preparation should be complex and this is the training of not only pilots, not only our aviators, we understand this is one story, the second story is protected airfields, this is an air defense system, and the third is general communication, all these areas are important, the training of battlefield control, radar teams, intelligence analysts, search and identification of targets - this is a whole system. bars where any techniques are used, there are no rules. i am sure from what i know that many of the latest systems have already been integrated into the ukrainian defense and i am sure that the f16 will be successfully

used in the broader context of the defense of the nation, our pilots have demonstrated miracles in the literal sense very often at the cost of their lives, miracles not only of heroism but also of skill. it is necessary to properly prepare a ukrainian pilot who, for example, worked on the mig 29 before that, this is all that is worth seeing pilot training is difficult, first of all, it is necessary to understand that training pilots is only part of the problem, also the problems of supply logistics must be solved, also the technicians who repair aircraft must learn to do this, this is a completely different system of aircraft than the one with which they are now familiar for pilots, it is best to say that the training will last not weeks, but not years, but months

, training of ukrainians will take several months mig-29 pilots so that they can fly the f-16 and in order to master what i will tell them at 16, they will love this plane, it is easy to fly, it is extremely computerized, digitized, and we already know that the mig-29 uses a certain set of western weapons, for example, harm missiles to suppress the enemy's air defense systems, they drop guided gps munitions and other missiles of the storchadov type, other special weapons, and i will tell you, i do not know the details of how successful moose to integrate this weapon now but it is definitely much more difficult to use and was able to 29 smart weapons have

her requirements, first of all, she needs more information, because that's why she's smart almost the same as you and i, so to get such a weapon in the right city at the right time at the right speeds and in the right conditions and make all these things happen is very difficult on an aircraft that was not made for this, many, many of these problems have already been solved on the f-16 . and they are quite successful will do even more successfully with new modern equipment. what do you think would be necessary in ukraine to firmly say that we are now dominating the air in the south of ukraine or in the east of ukraine? i don't know the answers because i don't know the situation, i also don't know what weapons and equipment will arrive on those f16s in order to gain aerial planning despite the enormous resistance of the russian military, they have good equipment, their planes are not bad i mean that they use good technologies and they have been working for years over their

improvement, i believe that they still are lag behind western technologies, but still i don't know how much it takes to gain in the air, but i know that the defense of ukraine will seriously gain on the way to obtaining air supremacy, air superiority is extremely important for the american and nato countries , it 's just part of how we conduct operations. territories, there is still a lot that can be done, for example, f16 can work quite far behind, they can defend the airspace of cities, this will not have a direct effect on the front line, but will have an indirect effect, the more f16 can defend cities and infrastructure, the more other systems can be used closer to the front line, this effect is adaptive , having f16, ukrainians can successfully use other systems and will have the opportunity to move them to obtain a greater effect, we should also not forget about

long-range systems that have f16, this is a weapon which ukraine already has, not even on the front line, but being outside the range of enemy systems or aircraft, the latest fighters such as the f-16 have an intense impact on the battlefield. i am not a soldier and do not understand ground operations, but i can say that there will be opportunities to destroy the fortifications, the defense line of the troops buried in the ground, the weapons depots that are now being attacked with both ukrainian and western weapons , the enemy will not feel safe. when ukraine gets the opportunity to actually inflict long-range shots at least the occupiers will have to either retreat or die. they won’t be able to move forward, so they will most likely move back. i make promises and only say that the weapons that will become possible for use will destroy the army that is frozen in position. we understand that you can practice your skills for a very long time on simulator chairs or i don’t know on inflatable bmps, but still everything is decided by specific

training on a combat vehicle and then psychological readiness for battle. i am impressed by what your pilots are doing now based on very old information about how they acted ukrainian pilots years ago, in fact, now a lot of new tactics and weapons have appeared, based on old knowledge, i can say that the main thing is that western planes provide the pilot with much more information and opportunities for autonomous actions, give the opportunity to conduct operations more freely and make decisions already in the air in real time, which is not available now on those old planes simply because the pilot will have more information. western military planes for the last 20 or 30 years

, their production and design are extremely progress has been made in delivering information to the pilot, providing a complete picture of what is around him, as the best solution in real time, so the first problem may be a certain oversaturation of information. but i am sure that they will learn not only to fly and use the f16, but also to operate it in a way that will surprise western instructors. the ukrainian military shows every time that it is not only about accuracy and clarity, but about the possibilities of innovation and finding new ways of using new technologies and the use of old technologies in this case they will feel the difference as in 16 it is the quality of an old push-button phone switch to a modern smartphone it is computerized digitalized and made easy to use it is designed so that all the switches all the buttons you need in battle are located right under your fingers you are surrounded by two computer screens and also a display that can show everything that could potentially interest you allies and friendly aircraft enemy forces and means there is a lot

to learn but i am sure what ukrainian pilots will not be surprised by western tactics and the current path that nato uses in 16, but still there are many different ways to achieve the goal and i am sure that they will find them dear. well, if you were general eisenhower, how would you be able to turn to president biden, well, in historical parallels to president roosevelt, and you would have to voice your needs. this is how you would say dear mr. president , in order to make or achieve extremely specific results on the field fighting for - in particular, for example, in the south of our country states in the south of ukraine i don't need 50 or 100 f16 20 patriot batteries and 150 storm shadow or i don't know scalp missiles and so on, roughly how do you estimate the number of this complex that could significantly change i see on the battlefield this is a great

question to answer it i would need the level of information of details that only the ukrainian genstadt has i could fantasize but the ukrainian reality shows a number of factors how difficult it is for you to defend yourself ukraine is a large european country and you are from three bo kiv surrounded by enemy forces even in eastern moldova, plus the black sea, the east, the southeast, and belarus in the north. i mean that the defense problem is extremely complex, that we can sit here and discuss it for 500 plus days of a large-scale invasion. these are exactly the capabilities that the ukrainian military has shown. there is definitely such a list somewhere . and what are ukrainian

possibilities from the location and use of various systems, on the other hand, we hear a lot that infrastructure airports are needed and so on, but we should remember that western planes were already in ukraine in peacetime, military exercises were held in 2011 and 2009, and then f16 and f-15 were here and worked from ukrainian airbases, so this is a very complex issue . what do they ask if ukraine is ukrainian the government is asking for something, the basic answer should be yes and then investigate if there are any possible reasons why no, i don't know all the decisions that are being made but in february 2022, i thought that they would need it at 16 and i'm ready to go, it took a little time to come true, i could say, for example, what is needed on the table, such and so on, but i will also say that a lot is needed to get this plane into the air, support is needed, a lot of equipment is correct, that you need to make sure that there are

landing places and the location of systems before that how will they arrive in ukraine, but i am also disappointed, like many ukrainians, that it took so long to get really the best weapons to defend our country. we can imagine the front line and temporarily occupied cities that the russians turned into fortified areas. well, i don’t know, we take the same melitopol or mariupol or berdyanskyi. for example, it comes to this or that anonymous ukrainian pilot, or there, i don’t know, to the squadron commander, for example, to destroy the combat task there. go under the tank column melitopol yes, well. accordingly, we understand that on the one hand our radars are working, russian radars are working, the satellite tracking system is working, we understand that the air defense system is already heated to the red color well, accordingly, it is necessary to advance with a squadron when you say to do the job, then it is necessary to destroy all the russian ones and in ukraine, and there are many of them, the f16 may not be the best choice for this particular task, when you look at the tactical problems of such

an operation, the main thing is to force the enemy to retreat correctly and if use infantry forces without air supremacy, if there are such opportunities, i can say how nato allies use air support. if there is an opportunity and it is safe and not too close to their troops, then this also involves local control of the air space, because you need enough freedom of action to find such small mobile targets as tanks, it is not an easy and very difficult task, even for such weapons, the smaller and more mobile the target, the closer you need to get to it. if you use weapons from a long distance based on where the tanks were a few hours ago, they can simply be in another place, there are weapons that just hit and explode, there are other options, but we need to evaluate how to correctly solve these problems, this can be done in 16, but it may not be the best choice with

a specific location , that 's what they do. pilots based on the experience of participating in combat operations or on films of historical books, i am sure that ukraine will use the f-16 in such a way that it will definitely surprise us and this includes the correct use of aircraft and its way to the battlefield and appearing in the necessary place, but at the same time we understand that combat aviation is not only about attacks on the battlefield - it is also about the protection of civilian objects , so the russians regularly killed my fellow citizens with missiles with the help of their aviation

and took ten lviv residents were killed in one night took and killed several residents of odesa or mykolaiv, they use aviation to attack civilian objects and civilian cities. well, accordingly, we understand that their 16 could add a little emotion to the last in the life of russian pilots who would enter the combat zone with western combat aircraft in the role of air defenders. you will definitely create big problems for the russian aviation that attacks ukraine, many of these weapons are really used to hit civilian infrastructure and commit war crimes and they are long-range weapons in many cases are not so accurate, we could talk about the accuracy of their use next to civilian objects, which in itself is already a crime in many cases. it seems that because of this they can hit civilians who could not be the targets of the strike, we do not know this, it will become known later in the courts, but the f16 have the ability to destroy cruise missiles, which are difficult to defend against, the f-16 have the ability to destroy drones, which are very difficult to defend against, because they are small and

slow, it is difficult to detect them as and anything in this war, new equipment does not solve all problems immediately when petriv arrived, and many people said that well, all the patriots are here, so it won’t be like that anymore. and of course, the new attacks were f16 will be an addition to this, as i said, this will provide more opportunities for air defense, even if the f16 will operate, let’s say, only in the west of ukraine, where they will be able to feel freer, it will still give an opportunity to move the ground air defense systems somewhere else and protect other locations in general. what is happening in general? the so-called market

of combat pilots, are there any prohibitions in those or other countries, for example, there is one or the other, i don’t know, a veteran of the iraq war, a citizen of the united states or great britain, he is 50 years old, we understand how to fly, he can fly , he knows how, but the ukrainian state would say listen, dear john, we need you this is a difficult question, the f16 is very strong in the world, maybe 4,000 planes have been produced over the years, so of course there are many f16 pilots, we must not forget that the f-16 is a functioning system within the framework of a larger system is communication in terms of real-time decision-making together with commanders intelligence analysts all these things must work together and the simple presence of foreign pilots will not solve the problem, they can theoretically be from different countries and fly on different versions of f16, because there are many of them, they can know and use different tactics, even a group of f16 pilots still need training and preparation to use the plane accordingly in these conditions, another problem is that the training of pilots costs millions of dollars, as well as access to information, so if you imagine that nat piski

just got off the plane and would like to come there is simply no right to do this due to certain conditions, it will be illegal, so there are certain problems with the pilots, as well as problems with the legality of such actions, when you are an f-16 pilot, you have access to a huge combat power, you can be in another part of the country in a minute, and it is a great responsibility of the leadership of ukraine to transfer such weapons into the hands of foreign pilots. the pilot can also die, he can be shot down and he will be captured, this is a big threat, it does not solve any problems, so i think that ukraine will find there is a way to adopt the world experience, there will be instructors and experts, but it is most likely that these will be ukrainian pilots who will defend their country on the f16, peter, your first combat sortie, more precisely, here is your feeling during the first combat sortie, i don't want to disappoint you, but my combat experience is not very exciting, very rare is the close combat , the aircraft vs. took part in operations in iraq and

a little in afghanistan, i must say that in general, i felt safe, i was in such conditions that did not threaten my personal safety, on the other hand, this danger was with the guys on the ground, so of course i was worried, but probably more to successfully complete the task of helping and ensuring the survival of the guys on the ground and so that they could successfully complete their mission, so mothers-in-law have a much more difficult job, your pilots are in constant danger, i honestly have no doubts about their bravery thank you very much peter for this frankly and extremely

i want to have an interesting conversation with our viewers to remind that now on the espresso tv channel, peter greenburgh, an american military pilot, a volunteer, a person who knows about the f-16, if not everything, then almost everything, turn it on, it’s good when everything is as you want, click and you are in the world, the cartoon click and around the universe of cinema, and then what is necessary, we google, turn on hundreds of channels in thousands of movies and sports stress, there are discounts on glicized and glicized max tablets 15 % in pharmacies ukrainians thought that no matter what they talked about , war, war, and our victory is only on espresso from monday to sunday completely different spheres of human activity sports health politics of the return of crimea military analytics of the ninth host journalists experts opinion leaders in real time about the most current events through the prism of war in author's projects on espresso war has raised its head again in europe reminding

us of the darkest hours of our history franz 24 constantly covers events in ukraine our team on the ground and in the studio will inform you about the dynamics of events see on the latest from frantz 24 in ukrainian on espresso with you vitaly portnikov and we will discuss the main events of this week vitaly portnikov and top experts about the most striking events of the last seven days our guest will be the generator of accompanying forces the former national security adviser of the president of the united states donald trump herbert mcmaster we will check current topics hot questions authoritative comments and forecasts in the information marathon project with vitaly portnikov every sunday at 20:1 0 on

espresso, vasyl winter's big broadcast my name is vasyl winter two hours of air time 2 hours of your time we will talk about the most important things two hours to learn about the war serhiy zhoretska joins our broadcast military summaries of the day and what is the world ? or else, the presenters, who have become strange to many, maybe the weather will give us some optimism, mrs. natalka didenko is ready to tell us, as well as distinguished guests of the studio, we will have volodymyr grishko today, if everything goes well, events

of the day in two hours, vasyl's big broadcast, winter, a project for the intelligent and those who care, in the evening, the most pressing war in ukraine, the main topic for ukrainians, victories and losses , analysis and forecasts, politics and geopolitics , all this will be talked about by serhiy rudenko and the guests of his program, people having information and shape public opinion, the people who defend ukraine and create the future are already the main and interesting thing in the program: the verdict serhiy rudenko from monday to friday at 20:00, repeat at 12:10, now the espresso studio will work mark feagin, a figure of the russian opposition in emigration, a former member of the state duma, a famous video blogger, glory to ukraine, mark, i congratulate you, you are hailed as a hero , i salute you, anton well, marco putin has been struggling for a long time, but such people are in south africa and he does not go from the other side, we understand

that he seriously begins to raise the barbarians rates, in particular, we are talking about another raids, another attack on our civilian objects within the framework of what is called putin's attempt to disrupt the grain initiative, this is brics, this was predictable, it was not a trip, because even if the president of south africa, ramofoska, had declared that they would ignore the legal obligation in the international criminal court, he would not have suddenly traveled. and that's how he killed this plane, and by the way, he didn't

it is absolutely necessary that he has enough clearly clearly ill-wishers within the government. russian god knows how they would deal with this. so putin, it is predictable, did not go, primarily because of security issues. as for this situation itself, but he did not decide on a diplomatic task, it was important that he would not go as a poet, by the way, he will understand the participation of what was declared to be paid by lavrov. it was to get a statement from vasyl south africa that they will not carry out the warrant. this is important because for putin, the history of this is very painful. if one country doesn't execute it , then it will be one

country, don't look at the second and third. well, the logic here is that outside the borders of the main court, it is not purely it, it is some kind of semi-public structure that can be ignored. to the international court, everything else is happening in the background. out of bounds the grain deal is certainly related to the fact that moscow will demand the return of the deal, which putin said yesterday and additional conditions, as i see it, and in terms of the security of the kerch bridge, they will instruct that it be outside of you , the action of the ukrainian country