[000:00:00;00] of course, that's one aspect because i don't think that the military command, if just the military command would have planned these operations, then this war would not actually have started on february 24th, and it's clear that this whole adventure, it's a disastrous adventure that will definitely end in a complete disaster, the territory, which is now called the russian federation, the military was against such planning and generally carrying out this operation. against ukraine, but any operation in ukraine is now planned from the point of view of already higher goals, absolutely, i.e. the setting of tasks, by the kremlin and already based on this high setting of tasks, by the military and political leadership itself, the military can only implement it in practice, but it is obvious that if they could

make a decision whether to conduct an operation or not, they would not conduct such operation, it’s obvious, because with such losses, well, i don’t know, i can’t imagine a military man who could somehow effectively plan such an operation with such losses, this is absolutely not, it cannot be explained by any military tasks, that is, even taking audivics, even the alignment of the front and, as it were, depriving... ukraine of the opportunity to then approach donetsk, well, in principle , in modern conditions, in the modern, let’s say, understanding of hostilities, this, well, no, is not worth the resources that russia is currently losing , that is, in fact, of course, this is a political decision, maybe before the potin elections, maybe putin personally, by the new year, needs to show some success, because i will remind you

simply, well, the institute of study. says that this is the biggest operation, there were operations before it, for example, in kupyansko-limansk the direction where russia also tried to break through the ukrainian defenses failed, now the emphasis has been shifted to the avdiiv direction , maybe it will succeed here, but it is obvious that they have already lost a significant amount of their resources that were intended for this operation, and there is already evidence that they they are beginning to transfer certain reserves even from the southern front , which is enough... it is interesting, since in these conditions new opportunities are opening up for the ukrainian command, regarding the operation on the southern front and not only in the tokmok direction, to avdiyivka, if we go back, they justified the necessity of defending avdiyivka, they explained that it is the gateway to everything to donetsk, to the entire donetsk region, but from a military point of view, i want to ask you how much sense it makes

to continue the defense of avdiyivka. well, we understand the main reason, avdiyivka is ukrainian land and any piece of land, the military will say must be defended, but if we remember severodonetsk, lysichansk, later bakhmut, at some point defense became impossible, unjustified from a military point of view vision, do you see signs that this may soon happen with avdiivka, or is there a completely different situation here, but i cannot understand, but what happened wrong with bakhmut, that is, you think that bakhmud should have been left and wherever they are now ukrainian troops? yes, no, i mean that at some point the military-political leadership probably considered it inexpedient to continue defending these cities and retreated, well , i don’t know about bakhmut, that is, at the moment , ukrainian troops are advancing in this direction, and this means , that all actions that to this happened, they were absolutely calculated correctly, that is, a defensive operation was carried out, as a result, at the moment , the ukrainian troops destroyed a huge

number of troops, remember? where did such an organization, which was once called pmk wagner, die in general, it was destroyed, destroyed, completely erased from history, right near bakhmut, that is, the losses of 60,000 people are called there, should the ukrainian troops continue the defense there, of course it should, it would be possible just move away from bakhmut and as a result they would keep pmk wagner, pmk wagner would now be storming sloviansk or kramatorsk, that is, in principle, i can't answer the question. understand when i see where it is coming from, and in principle, i have seen the speeches of certain bloggers, let's say, or future politicians who use only the russian language, who say that this is another trap created by the russians for the ukrainians, i can only guess, maybe you mean vyrestovych, but i didn’t quote him, i just guessed from the signs, if you want to promote him, then it’s prorestovych, well you

you know, i think the most of his at one time was the office of the president, pr, of course i can quote him or not, but in this case i didn't quote him, that's for sure, he says, that is, i see today, he says that with seven traps in ukrainian, in ukrainian, and this is the seventh trap, and he says... that there is a possibility of the encirclement of avdiyka, so i don't know what he is leading to, probably to the point that avdiyka should be left, then this is another argument in favor of that , for us to ask about it, because aristovych has a very large audience, and probably a lot of people, if he really says so, can think the same, well, that's their right, we have a free country, that's why they can think so, but if you look logically, and remember the bakhmut situation again, then now i'll emphasize once again, the ukrainian troops, having withstood a huge onslaught there, the russians there are only 60,000 wagnerians, i am not telling you about regular troops, equipment, planes, helicopters and so on, now the ukrainian troops are advancing there, and sooner or later they will break through the defenses there, the same happens with

in avdiivka, let me remind you, they tried to break through the front in the kupyan-lyman direction, and now they continue in principle, and the ukrainian army maintains the defense there and, i am sure that sooner or later the ukrainian army will go on the offensive there, the same is happening with avdiivka, well the first argument, avdiyev'. in general, it was never occupied, that is, since the 14th year, the russians have not managed to repel the ukrainian troops from donetsk. and now, i do not think that this is the time, just when it is necessary to withdraw from donetsk and give the opportunity to the russian army to start a new the dynamics of the development of the offensive exactly where they plan, that is, they generally plan to occupy the entire donbas , every meter of the donetsk donbas land, this is important not only from a political point of view, but also from a military point of view, because , again, why now under avdiivka such fights? there are heights, including artificial ones, which the russians are trying to take, they are not succeeding, let's move away from them, let them take them and then we will

try to take these heights later, well, that is, i honestly do not understand the discussion about the expediency of the defense of such a fortified settlement, or let's say, the defense district, which is the avdiyivsky defense district, is clear, but from the point of view to what extent, do we have any idea, to what extent the russian troops have fortified, fortified themselves in the avdiyivka district, well, i mean, already beyond the border there, that territory that is controlled by the ukrainian authorities, well, not the authorities, the armed forces of ukraine are currently controlling this situation, the authorities do not sound very good, and the fact is that if you look at the maps and look at the efforts that the russians are trying... to carry out, then there it is more about the gray zone, and not about where the russians managed to gain a foothold. yes, they throw a lot of resources, ukrainian troops withdraw from some areas in order not to risk too much, because

there is no point in being in a place where russian artillery can simply destroy you, but we are talking more about gray zones, that is, there , where it makes no sense for ukrainian troops to be located directly, but russian troops cannot enter there, because they are immediately destroyed by ukrainian artillery, drones or by other means of fire, but do i understand correctly, do you agree with the fact that , after all, avdiyivka and the avdiyiv direction are one of the hottest spots, which will be there for the next weeks, months, and there this hot phase of the war may continue for a long time, i wanted to ask you this, but look, after all, it is calculated very simply, the russians simply do not have such reserves, well, that is, we can say that the russians, well, how can you say that about a country with a population of 140 million , of course, they have a huge mobilization resource, but they

refused to conduct an open mass mobilization, which they conducted, for example, a year ago, then they were able to recruit more than 3,000 people, plus they recruit 20,000 people every month, and they somehow managed to sustain such a pace, but if we talk about those resources , which they are dropping now at such rates, in the absence of mass mobilization, they simply will not be able to get the kupyan-lyman tension, the avdiiv direction, the marriin direction, the southern front, let's not forget about the left bank of the kherson region, if they manage to maneuver resources, reserves, for several months at such an intensity, well, i will be very surprised, it seems to me that now a very... difficult process is taking place, of course, that they are trying to break through the ukrainian defense in the avdian direction, but they will not be able to withstand such an intensity of combat, well, let's say, for more than a few weeks, otherwise they will need reserves

, well, that is, you cannot fight and take equipment, personnel, artillery and so on from the air, ammunition, they will have to remove these throw resources, for example, from the tokmak direction to the tokmak direction from the left bank of the kherson region, and suddenly somewhere will break through. that is, you can, of course, take the entire russian army and throw it in the avdiiv direction, but in this case, other directions will open up. this is not a tactical, let's say, not a tactical assessment of the situation, a little... more operational, i'm not talking about a strategic one, but even if an operational assessment is carried out, the russians will not be able to maintain such intensity on all directions of the front, because the tension is now and in tokmak the direction of the tension is on the left bank of the kherson region, there is on the kupyan lymanskyi, if we, in order for them to sustain such tension for several months, it takes huge resources, which they simply do not have , so take this and simply place them on the front line, mykhailo , the last question from... your point of view, what is the probability that by the end

of the year the front will radically change in any of these directions? everything, again, everything will depend on how the russians will behave, if they will really carry out this political for this political task, that is, for example, to take avdiivka as much as possible by the new year, that is, they will have to maximize reserves in this direction, take them as much as possible from other areas, including offensive ones, including defensive ones, for example, from toshta direction or other directions of the southern front and throw at avdiivka, they may achieve some success in the avdiivka direction, but i am sure that the ukrainian command will take advantage of this in other directions, and therefore the front may unexpectedly change in other directions, although now concentrated in avdiivka. thank you very much.

samus, the director of the network of new geopolitical research, we talked about the situation at the front, in particular in avdiivka, well, as it turned out , we even discussed some theses that oleksiy aristovych is spreading on the network, which i, for example , did not know, but i only found out now, thank you very much , the former leader of the faction of the party of regions in the verkhovna rada, ex-detat oleksandr efremov, who is accused of treason in ukraine, left the country after... the beginning of the full-scale invasion and from that time did not return. as the journalists of radio svoboda's schema program found out, efremov is currently in moscow. before the invasion, efremov traveled to russia several times, the last time, even in february 2022, well, after the invasion on march 18, 2022, he left ukraine by rail through the chop checkpoint on the border with slovakia, and from there he probably reached moscow well, in ukraine, the ex-deputy is accused of a number of crimes. in particular, according to the investigation, yefremov contributed to the creation of

the luhansk people's republic group, helped to seize the administrative buildings of the luhansk oda and the sbu in 2014, he is also accused of treason , the case against efremov is still at the stage of trial, radio svoboda actively covered all trials involving efremov, here you see one of the episodes, this is still back in 2016, the prosecutor's office then asked the pechersk district court of kyiv to choose... a preventive measure in the form of detention for former verkhovna rada deputy yefremov. efremov was convinced by these shots that he was not going anywhere flee. let's watch this fragment just to remember who efremov is. was i tempted to go? was it, was i scared? it was nevertheless, i got over myself and a few days later came to a briefing with journalists, some of whom are present in this hall, and withstood all this pressure. i have become the embodiment of this, for i have not run away, i do not need

to run away and there is no need to mislead the court about my running away, i will not run away anywhere. well, after that, efremov did spend three years in sizo starobilsk - this is the luhansk region, in the 19th year, efremov was released under house arrest , and then the preventive measure was changed to a personal commitment for two months, but later it was not extended, and after leaving sizo, efremov began to regularly travel abroad, in particular, as he discovered. and to russia, where he is now. next to me is georgy shabaev, an investigative journalist of the scheme program, georgy, i understand, is this the result of your investigation into yefremov? yes, indeed, today we published an investigation about yefremov, and the former head of the faction of the party of regions in the parliament, we can say that this is, relatively speaking, the right hand of the fugitive president, also viktor yanukovych, that is, he actually spent three years in starobilsky sizo, in the case of high treason, the

seizure of regional administrations there in luhansk, and so on, instead left sizo, and here it is key to note that he, that he, the prosecutor general's office did not file a motion for the extension of the preventive measure, regarding efremov, thus his personal obligation, he had a preventive measure, a personal obligation, he was not supposed to leave kyiv, he had to surrender his foreign passports, so it was not... extended and literally, as soon as this preventive measure ended, a month later he already went abroad, received all his russian passports, foreign and thus, we see that he traveled to russia several times right before the full-scale, just to understand, this is a person who was suspected of treason, not only a suspicion, he was already accused, the trials had already passed, and he could easily leave abroad,

in particular, to the same russia several times, well, he would have traveled further, if it were not for the war, and then the war, and he left for himself, and what is interesting, he left through the checkpoint in the west of the country, you answered the question for yourself, how could he be released and who, well, in principle, again, going back to the question of preventive measure, he did not have any preventive measure, that is , he was free in his movement, moreover, since he, as of march 22 , he was already 68 years old, accordingly, he could freely leave ukraine, so we we see that there are no restrictions, even if the border guard went to kupe or to st., which efremov left the country and saw efremov there and realized that he was a person accused of treason, he would not have any legal mechanisms for that , in order to prevent efremov from going abroad, despite the fact that this person, according to the investigation, helped to create lpr groups there, and georgiy, and who was supposed to continue the preventive

measure for efremov? well, according to the norms of the criminal procedure code, it is small to be done by the prosecutor's office, that is, the prosecutor's office, which... two months before that, applied to the court with a request to extend the terms of the preventive measure, yes, somewhere the court partially satisfied, that is, somewhere they, first they released him from custody, then they told him to house arrest , so that he would sit at home, later, if he was given a personal bond , that is, he had to come to the court on the summons of the prosecutor and so on, and in the end, the prosecutor's office, when this period ended again, the prosecutor's office... did not submit such a request, did you turned to the prosecutor's office and asked why didn't they submit such a request, as of now we have turned to the general prosecutor's office, before that we also asked the general prosecutor's office whether they know where yefremov actually is now, but they did not answer this question,

they only answered that that he was not declared wanted, the cases are not scheduled for consideration, because i will remind you that these cases are heard in starobilskyi, they were heard in the starobilskyi district court, which... this city in luhansk region, which has been occupied since february 24, the russians entered there troops, and this case was not transferred from the starobil district court to another court, as it should have happened, because this court was occupied, all cases remained in this starobil court, thus, well, these were the original cases, thus his case remained in the occupation, and he himself is now in russia in moscow. george, when did you work on this investigation. here you are as an author, to which version do you lean more, efremov still had such a powerful support and lobby that allowed him to escape, or is it just some kind of, you know, some kind of malfunction, they forgot there, they didn’t send it there, and there is a war and not efremov, well, such inaction is simple, well, i can only hypothetically assume some things,

in fact, really, well, we understood that efremov was still at the stage of trial, he had such serious lawyers and influences. including his lawyer in this case was the current deputy head of the president's office andriy smirnov. thus, well, we saw that this matter, it was, relatively speaking, efremov, was definitely very important for efremov, and what could have happened here, well, it's really surprising that it didn't the preventive measure was extended, that is, in fact, all the cards were given to regional officer efremov so that he could freely leave ukraine, that he actually went to russia, and then after the beginning of the invasion, maybe he realized that something could happen to him, and he left, so through slovakia, later he ended up, as we know, in moscow, just there since when he, the term of his personal commitment expired, he seems to have traveled to russia four times, being suspected of being accused of high treason, he

still went and returned four times, in principle was sure that he would return and that nothing would threaten him, well, it looks like that, yes , it is so and really, he... even his birthdays, if you look at the border crossings, then his birthdays, two of them he definitely celebrated in russia, because he was there, well, how is he feeling now in russia, what is he doing, have you investigated this issue, we tried to get any information about what yefremov is doing now, but as of now we we see only what, according to the leak databases, is private there of the hemet medical laboratory, he just settled in moscow in a two-story apartment, so the area of ​​several apartments there was listed as the address of his registration, one there is 466m, that is, it is on two floors of the triumphalatz residential complex built in the style of... stalin's empire, various stars live there, such , let's say, a russian boomer, there's a guy like

dima bilan, alsu and so on, that is, here and now the accused in the state council efremov lives next door to them, yes, but there are some public findings about the fact that he is somewhere now or there conditionally saying, like azarov, yes, he appears on russian television, that is, he establishes some funds there and so on, then yefremov seems to live in such, let's say, peace. not a retired life, that is, not applying for any possible positions in the state bodies of the russian federation, he has not yet received, as we found out, russian citizenship, that is, his individual tax number in russia, it is tied to his ukrainian foreign passport, that is, he somehow he is not in a hurry for all these years, he is not in a hurry to learn russian yet citizenship, maybe he is hoping for something, well, it’s not for nothing that he could still run away and get it in the 19th, yes, when he was released there, yes, but he felt quite normal, you were able to call him, yes, we

called yefremov, by the way, they called his russian number, and he said that he did not plan to give any interviews, and said goodbye, then he called me back, apparently by accident, i was missed by him, i called him again called twice, but he didn't want to talk anymore, unfortunately although it would be interesting to find out how he... feels in russia, whether he plans to return to ukraine, because he literally said that he has no plans, his case is about high treason, it is active in the courts, yes, yes, this case is active, but the question is what will happen to the materials of this case now, because if russia occupied starobilsk, then accordingly, well , they understand that the efremov case was heard there, what is now with the originals of this case is not known at all, and you are 100 %. are sure that the originals remained there, yes, because there was

a response from the court in which this case was filed to be transferred, and this court reported that only those cases that were there in appeal or in cassation were transferred, and accordingly this case is in the court itself, it was not transferred, that is , now the office of the general prosecutor is there, he can appeal to the defense , for example, yefremov, to provide at least those documents that remained with them or in the office of the general prosecutor, that is, if they are planning to, that is, the meeting has not been held for more than a year and a half, due to the fact that the old man is under occupation, that is there are no meetings in this case, there is no case itself, it is not clear what you as a journalist expect, what is the impact, what is called after this investigation, well , i hope that this investigation will draw attention to the problem of the fact that there are many cases that are currently in the occupation of these cases. people, relatively speaking, it exists there, yes, high treason is being investigated, efremov is a great person, i hope that the prosecutor's office and

the state will do everything necessary in order to collect this case, listen to it further and some sentence still carry out in in this case, hope, the only thing i can wish is success, thank you very much , georgy shabaev, journalist of the scheme program, the full material can be read on the radio liberty website with all the details that georgy was able to find out, thank you very much, and in the meantime last week , another case of treason, perhaps the most high-profile case since the beginning of the full-scale war, began in ukraine. oleg kulinich, the former head of the sbu in crimea, is on the dock . last wednesday, the court decided to keep him in custody until december 16, 2023. here now we will show the moment of his arrest, it is approximately. july 2022, all this time, kulinich was sitting in sizo, he is currently charged with crimes under five articles, in addition to treason of the criminal code,

among them, as i have already said, treason, participation in a criminal organization, leaving the place of military service in kherson, kulinich rejects all the accusations, well, in the context of the treason case, in short, kulinich is accused of being part of the group of volodymyr sivkovich, the curator of the yanukovych-era power bloc, who is currently in moscow, the investigation claims. that even before starting work in the sbu in june 2019, kulinich actually worked for russia, passed information about the work of the sbu to moscow and prevented personnel from various counterintelligence operations. that is, kulinich did not yet work in the sbu, but already influenced the security service. how is that possible? this is what we will discuss now. the only thing i will add is that it is already known that both sides, the defense and the prosecution , will ask the court to summon the head of the sbu, ivan bokanov, for questioning. he did not testify on condition actions of the investigation, but he will most likely be called for questioning in court, our colleagues from the bbc state, although this questioning can be closed due to state secrets,

the ukrainian service of the bbc suggests, the defense will also call for questioning the ex-head of the main department of internal security of the sbu, andrii naumov and the ex-head of the sbu in the kherson region, serhii kryvoruchka. in the spring of the 22nd, president zelensky stripped them of their general ranks and called them traitors. well, naumov is unlikely to appear in court, at least in the near future, because he is currently in a serbian prison for money laundering. this is such a complicated story, really. yaroslav antonyak, former adviser to the head of the security service of ukraine, an officer, joins our broadcast. of the armed forces of ukraine. yaroslav, good evening. good evening to you. in general, what do you think of this whole story with kulinich, or are you surprised that there is an accusation of treason against him? well, i 'm not at all surprised actually, because it's logical, in principle, logical, and it's

thanks to these materials, including, thanks to he became the head of the sbu, vasyl malyuk, so i am sure that the operatives there worked normally, correctly, collected a sufficient evidence base and handed it over to the investigators, who now, well, additionally collected the materials and handed them over to the court, i don’t see anything strange in this, eh, although in my opinion, there should definitely be more than one kulinich there, well, we only have one kulinich for now, okay, let's go about the case then, well, according to the conclusions of the investigators, as i already said...' kulinich said allegedly collected and passed on information to sivkovych, which was of some interest to the russian special services, while the case materials refer to the period when kulinich had not yet been appointed to a position in the sbu, 19-20, the beginning of the 20th year, and he was appointed already in october on the 20th, up to this position, but the investigators claim that it was during the 19th and 20th that kulinit exerted influence on

the acceptance of certain individuals, including the leadership of the sbu. decisions regarding various organizational and staffing structures, changes, personnel changes in the structure of the sbu, by which he helped russia to carry out some primitive activity in ukraine. the first question, under the leadership of the sbu, which was influenced by kulinich, who is meant, bakanov or not necessarily? well, you understand that bakanov, in fact, he, let 's say, managed the security service, as for me, only nominally, he had a back office there. it is not a secret for anyone, this back office included bilyaev, radchenko and naumov, who in fact managed the security service, ah, that is, respectively, influencing, kulinich influencing one of them, possibly bilyaev, he pushed the necessary personnel decisions to him, that is, to him or his

curators, his from moscow. accordingly, this is how the influence took place and those people who were needed by moscow were appointed, accordingly, it is impossible to consider it otherwise than the state council, because enemy elements were appointed to the special service, and kulinichmu could exert this influence even without working in the sbbu, that is, how from the position of someone, a friend, an associate, it is absolutely true, just a friend, just there, well , he had many advisers who were not officially in positions in the sbbu. you just know for people who may not be related to the sbu, it is just possible, it is strange to hear, that is, he does not work in the sbu, but he influences the personnel. that is , the leadership of the sbu consults with him about who to appoint to this position, who to that one, and he supposedly advises out of friendship. i understand correctly, that's right, well, look, belyaev was also not in a position in the security service of ukraine, but he was a friend of bakanov, so he influenced the processes, radchenko

was also not in a position in the security service of ukraine, but he influenced the processes of the council just as much. or giving advice to bakanov, well, naumov was in office, respectively, naumov was in office, but well, without him too, no personnel decision was made without him , so there is nothing surprising in the fact that they are called in principle as witnesses, they should have been there a long time ago, we will get to that now, but maybe you are such a source of valuable information in this case, and biyaev raradchenko, can you briefly explain what kind of people these are? well, these are friends, friends of ivan bakanov on business there, on by on faster on, well, on business issues that he had long before he entered the service, that is, bilyaev, he is with him in my opinion on some of these, about power plants, hydroelectric plants,