a former military man with considerable combat experience, he has to work a lot and without days off. leleka is the most massive complex in the arsenal of ukrainian defenders, so training is ongoing. now we have encountered a problem here. they say that the ministry of defense, which orders the most complexes, does not pay for the training of the military, because the ministry finances the training of operators exclusively by state institutions. at this stage, it comes from the net profit of the company. therefore, there are certain difficulties, because it is necessary to constantly update the complexes, repair them, more and more transport is needed, because people are not getting fewer, this problem, they say in the center, can be solved, because the issues with the training of border guards and national guardsmen are not avoided. the ministry of digital affairs also pays for the training of pilots, for whom the birds are purchased under the drone army program. therefore, experts are convinced, synergy is needed here. defense,

manufacturers and people's representatives. you are watching the program of the ukrainian voice of america time service. i am natalia leonova. congratulations. there is no feeling among the nato allies. when it comes to helping ukraine. about this in brussels after the meeting of the nato ukraine council, us secretary of state anthony blinken said. we must and will continue to support ukraine - he said, adding that the allies are united in this position. he also emphasized bipartisan support for ukraine in both houses of the us congress. i haven't heard of feeling tired or rolling back. on the contrary. push forward, and for

good reason. i believe that every ally realizes that this is not only about doing the right thing, but about doing the right thing also that it is in their own interests, including for the united states. and when it comes to the united states, what i continue to see, what i continue to hear, is strong bipartisan support for ukraine, in both houses of congress. i think you heard speaker johnson. who spoke about it recently, which is very, very encouraging. so we have a lot of work to do to advance the president's budget funding request. we are determined to do it, and again, we are determined to do it because it is clearly in our best interest. russia has amassed a large missile arsenal on the eve of winter with the aim of leaving ukraine in the dark and cold, said nato secretary general jen stoltenberg, speaking at a meeting of

nato foreign ministers in brussels. he emphasized that moscow is making new attempts to attack the energy grid and energy infrastructure of ukraine. the meetings of the ministers are monitored by our european correspondent bohdan tsyupin, he joins our ether from london. my greetings, bohdan. good evening. bohdan, how did the participants of the meeting react to these the secretary general's warning about russia's accumulation of missile stocks and the threat of strikes on ukrainian infrastructure. what were the main messages delivered in brussels today? well, probably the most important thing was that the american representative, as we just heard and others, emphasized that there is no place in supporting ukraine in helping ukraine. it is also very important in view of what we have heard, for example, from the leaders of hungary or slovakia, recently, probably strikingly, that support or intentions

to support and further help ukraine sounded unanimously from all allies, as was emphasized in brussels, and other topics, we will try to hear from other participants of the meetings. ukraine's future is in nato, and i think we need to start working now on concrete steps, to take as nato, to help ukraine actually prepare to join nato, because it's one thing to say ukraine should be in nato, but in order for it to in the end it happened, certain steps need to be taken, so maybe there are problems in legislation, of course in military operational procedures, equipped methods actions, i think that here, as in nato, we need to do a lot. two weeks ago i was in ukraine and said that we need to do everything possible to help.

from putin's side, and today in nato, i will do everything to reach a consensus on this point of view, if you look at the big picture, the ukrainians have recently pushed back the russian... fleet in the black sea, they have opened a shipping route for exports, their economy is growing , and of course they are knocking on the doors of both nato and the eu and getting a very warm response, these are huge achievements and our work today is to build on those achievements and work out what other concrete steps we can take to help the ukrainians in their struggle and to show that aggression does not have to benefit russia. yes, these are the steps that were discussed at the first meeting of the nato council of ukraine at the ministerial level. bohdan, the head of the ukrainian foreign policy department, dmytro kuleba, was present at this site. how did his colleagues receive him and what did they hear from him? the ukrainian minister was clearly

satisfied, and he openly spoke about it, showed in every way. he told reporters today in brussels that not everything that sounded during the...' during the talks with the partners behind closed doors he can say, that is , but i think from this meeting, he goes home with hopes, we increase our operational compatibility with nato, we practically become a de facto army of nato in terms of our technical capability, approaches, management and principles of army management. today, for the first time, we will sit down with the ministers of foreign affairs, as you once pointed out, as equals in the ukraine nato council, and this perhaps the biggest difference between then and now is when we compare the former ukraine commission and today's ukraine nato council.

bohdan, of course, the main attention was focused on ukraine today, however, the participants of the meeting also discussed other urgent issues. jen stoldenberg called sweden's full membership in the alliance the best christmas present for this year. what is the delay and how does it affect the issue of ukraine's membership? well, actually, this first of all shows how political is also the process of the country's accession to nato, to alliance, because when finland and sweden were invited to join nato last year, and when secretary general jens stoltenberg then said that he would make every effort to have sweden and finland join nato as soon as possible, everyone said as much as those countries

were ready, militarily, economically, they were compatible in many ways with the allies, then no one could have predicted that among the members of the alliance... there would be two countries, turkey and sweden, which would delay this issue, in fact, for almost a year, that is, the majority countries approved ratified the accession of both sweden and finland last year. in fact, we see how the governments of certain countries, in this case, primarily turkey, tried to take advantage of this situation to get their way in certain issues, that is, turkey, for example, rather unexpectedly for many, issued warnings that it does not want to see, first of all the claims were against sweden in the alliance, because there were reservations about

what was called in turkey the activities of terrorist, in particular, kurdish organizations or activists in sweden demanded the handover of certain people, sweden... actually made concessions, sweden signed agreements with turkey, several persons were even extradited that turkey demanded from sweden, many mechanisms of activity in sweden were changed when, when it comes to, in particular, issues related to arms trade with turkey and so on, that's why everyone...' has already been decided and now they believe that the time has come for concrete steps, and this is quite undiplomatic, the head of french diplomacy said today, the strength of our alliance in the unity of allies.

after the madrid summit, finland became member and that's good, we're happy to see her flag, but not sweden yet. 29 countries have ratified sweden's accession, so we expect turkey and hungary. ratify its membership without further delay, the strength of our alliance and trust in it depend on it, and we cannot lose a single day. thank you bohdan for your work, for. our european correspondent bohdan tsyupen followed the meetings of the ministers of foreign affairs of the nato countries and the meeting of the nato council of ukraine in brussels, and we are moving on. do not underestimate russia - urged nato secretary general yen stoltenberg at the meeting of nato ministers today, the secretary general of the alliance emphasized that the war weakened russia militarily, politically and economically. however, the kremlin's plans for ukraine have not changed, and the russian economy is on a war footing. senior economist. says: putin is ready to sacrifice a lot for the war, in addition to the funds he stole from russia.

kleptocracy is putin's weak point, says asland in an interview with oksana bedratenko. in the new budget, the kremlin increased military expenditures to a record. almost a third will go to war for the first time state funds of russia, but that's not all. analysts point out that putin also has a shadow budget, hiding from the public funds for the war in state-owned enterprises and individual funds. this is what the us government says. i think russia spends more, it's 30% of the public budget, and they have a secret budget that's even more. putin pumps up the war machine with money, and is ready to give up everything for the sake of war, the well-being of russians, and the economy, except one. the real red line for him is the money he and his entourage steal from russia - says economist anders aslum. putin's course is economic stagnation, lack

of modernization, which scares away talented youth, leads to a demographic crisis and complete isolation from the world. only he wins, strengthening his power and his friends, who can receive a lot of money and hide it abroad. the irony is that private russian funds abroad are estimated to be at least one. almost as much as russia's gdp, and most of these funds belong to putin and his cronies. do you think he will use these funds to war? absolutely not, it's for his power. we should not expect a revolt from the russians, says aslon, because their well-being has been deteriorating gradually for a long time, and putin continues to take his money abroad and will do so even if the ruble is threatened with collapse, the analyst is convinced. i don't think they

will do anything except very high interest rates, because who benefits from the outflow of capital, putin and his cronies, and they want to continue to withdraw money. the government in russia has imposed restrictions on the movement of capital for the 41st largest company, but these are real manufacturing companies. putin wants to continue stealing, and this is his weakness. at the beginning of the war, russia had an impressive 600 billion dollars in foreign currency. now - aslund says, there are no liquid currency reserves. this happened because of sanctions, and also because russia increasingly receives not dollars or euros for its oil, but indian rupees and chinese yuan, which are difficult to use. in russia. in fact, there are no liquid reserves left in hard currency. approximately 300 billion

dollars were frozen by the west. officially, the reserves fell by 70 billion. they used this. they have $103 billion in yuan, it is not convertible and illiquid. they also have a big plus in calculations with india: 20 billion dollars in rupees. also 130 billion dollars in gold. it is illiquid, it is difficult to use. if this is subtracted from the official reserves of 577 million dollars, then they have no liquid reserves left at all. russia is also gradually using its small welfare fund. the minister of finance of russia, anatoliy siluanov, says that there will be 40 billion dollars left in it at the end of the year, which is not much at all. if russia does not have currency reserves, to support the ruble, import technological goods. how does this affect her ability to wage war? this means that russia has less money

for war. over the past two years, russia has had two currency crises, the first immediately after the start of the war, then in july of this year. before russia started the war in 2014, the rate was 32 rubles to the dollar, now it is 100 rubles to the dollar, the ruble has fallen by 2/3. this is the price of war. aslen shared his optimism regarding ukraine, in particular, regarding the field of high technologies. also, the analyst says, ukraine was able to open up sea ​​transportation for grain, and the decision to start accession negotiations, which is expected in december, will allow ukraine to open european markets. this, aslud is convinced, will stimulate the development of mechanical engineering in the country. as it was with ukraine's neighbors who joined the eu. oksana bedratenko, dmytro savchuk, voice of america.

a delegation of british conservative politicians led by the former prime minister and minister came to washington to convince the american congressmen, support ukraine to its victory and oppose the new axis of evil. of foreign affairs lystras. listras and the deputy leader of the conservative party jack lopresti shared the details of their communication with their american colleagues with my colleague tetiana voroshko. china, russia and iran are working together to undermine free democracies around the world. free countries can oppose them only in the union, led by the usa. she came to washington with such a message. former british prime minister lis truss, at the head of a delegation of british politicians. we must see a strong america, we must see american leadership in the world, to oppose these totalitarian regimes. of course, britain has done a lot to support ukraine. we were the first european country to send weapons to ukraine. we continue to give ukraine our

full support, but what we need is to make sure that the rest of the free world does as well. until russia is ousted from all of ukraine. currently, the us congress is debating a new aid package for ukraine worth more than $61 billion. some congressmen say that in order to approve this aid, it is necessary to see a clear end goal in ukraine. tras has an answer for that. the ultimate goal is russia's defeat. the ultimate goal is to completely oust russia from ukraine. the ultimate goal is to. was brought to justice for the horrific war crimes that took place in ukraine, and that she could never again commit this kind of violence against her neighbors, that is the ultimate goal. tras supports the accelerated procedure for ukraine's accession to nato and warns his american colleagues about the danger of premature negotiations with russia. we saw what happened after that in 2008 and 2014

not enough has been done, and the idea of ​​what could be like a deal with vladimir putin is terrifying, we'll just see russia regroup and come back with renewed vigor. another member of the delegation, deputy chairman of the conservative party and chairman of the conservative friends of ukraine jack lo presti, says that they are trying to convey to their american colleagues the danger of what could happen if ukraine loses. if some terrible catastrophe eventually forces ukraine to lead. negotiations on freezing the conflict, or god forbid, ukraine will lose, this will have huge implications for the western world, taiwan, the middle east, etc. let's learn a lesson from what i consider a rather shameful withdrawal from afghanistan. it was a green light for people who, to put it mildly, do not act in our interests. we are talking about

the need to support ukrainians not only to defend themselves, but also to win the war and push back russia. another topic is the development of military production in ukraine. i also talk with them about increasing the industrial potential of ukraine. we, united kingdom, britain and all post-conflict allies will have the capacity to provide deterrence, because the best path to peace and security is deterrence and the ability to quickly respond to any aggression. this visit also happens during the race inside. of the republican party, in which former president donald trump leads with a large margin. the real sensation was caused by a column trust published on the eve of the visit in the all street journal, in which she wrote that she hoped that the republican would return to the white house in 2024. many british and american media have suggested that she supported donald

trump, we ask, is this true? i'm all for bringing back the republican. i'm a conservative, i want to see conservative leadership, and i'm concerned that we're seeing too much movement to the left in western societies, and i think that's undermining growth, and it hasn't been strong enough in terms of our foreign policy, and i i return to the era of ronald reagan, when reagan clearly called the ussr an evil empire. he said that the ussr was actively evil in what it did and that's the type of moral stance i want to see again from the united i think it's wrong, i want to see the us stand up to these authoritarian regimes. that as a british politician, she cannot interfere in american elections and support any candidate for priimaes, it is about principles. tatyana voroshko, vyacheslav

filyushkin, voice of america. us senator mark kelly, who was a former us navy pilot and astronaut, visited the air base where ukrainian f-16 pilots are trained. in ex-legislator published photos of the fighter on social networks and said that he had taken a ride on one of these planes. according to him , he was glad to be back on a high-speed plane. mark kelly, i quote: i really enjoyed riding the f-16s at morris national guard air force base, where american pilots are training ukrainian pilots to use these planes in the fight against putin's illegal invasion. end of quote. in the occupied territories of donetsk and luhansk regions. the occupation authorities destroyed almost all ukrainian literature. in return the russians brought in 2.5 million of their books, the ukrainian center of national

resistance reported. russians call ukrainian books extremist literature and have created a special list of banned books, which also includes publications by foreign authors, including a writer from the usa. some of the russian books are not only taken off the shelves, but thrown away as garbage and burned. voice of america told about it. mariupol library, about the mass destruction of ukrainian books and the emotions of the authors who were on the banned list, see iryna shynkarenko's story. garbage bags packed with books are displayed on the street. such photos were made public by the ukrainian city government of mariupol in september of this year. the director of the central library, who was evacuated from the city, recognized the institution where she worked in the photo. he says that he was cleared by the so-called young guards, the so-called members of the movement. dpr, i remember all my libraries very well, that is, this is the procurement department , where they then distributed them, well, i think that they

simply took them away, threw them away, because frankly, well, in such a state as they are there, they under the rain there, it seems that they were in bags, well, where, where are those books left, but there we looked around, there was a ukrainka fox, there was a kobzar, before the occupation there were 15 public libraries in mariupol, which had 380,000 books. of them in the ukrainian language, four libraries were completely destroyed, the publications that survived the shelling were already purposefully destroyed by the occupation authorities, the director of the central library told, acquaintances who live in the occupation, informed her about the deliberate burning of books, about 40 percent of the ukrainian books that were in libraries, they are all destroyed, they destroy everything that is in the ukrainian language, when the hostilities have already subsided and the occupiers in the yard from... from the library, it was not a co-worker who told me, but an acquaintance of mine, that she was passing a pose and a kobzar was burning, they

they threw kobzar on, on the bones of kostryka, she says, what did kobzar do to you, there is a monument to shevchenko there in your cities, in some cities, and they say, well, we didn't know that he extremist, in addition to the destruction of books in the ukrainian language, the occupation authorities are on the offensive after... a full-scale invasion of territories, made a separate list of so-called extremist literature, it contains 365 editions. according to the instructions, photos of which have appeared online, librarians in the so-called lnpr and dnpr are required to take these books off the shelves and put them in boxes and bags. as the general director of the ukrainian national museum of the revolution of dignity ihor poshivaylo said, the banned list includes many publications about the euromaidan, one of which is by an author from the usa. i have personally seen the list of those library editions that are recommended

by the occupying, russian occupying authorities until it was removed from the libraries, by the way, there is an edition of our museum, the maidan museum , in particular a book by daniel hryhorchuk , he is a ukrainian of american origin from chicago, who wrote the novel mift bozhevil, a novel that is about the maidan, and which is about the soviet one. system, destruction of dissent, this is one of those facts that in fact the rashists purposefully erase, protect our history and, in fact, fight with our printed word, with the last shepherd who fell to the ground. danil hryhorchuk himself was not surprised to be added to the banned list, although he grew up and lives in chicago, often visited ukraine during the soviet union and knows politics well. moscow, our book tells about the history of the maidan, and russia is trying to erase that history, because russia is a totalitarian state,

as you know, i think the writer george orwell said it best, as in his book 1984, it is a state where war - this is peace , slavery, freedom, and a lie is the truth, so, to tell the truth, i am even a little proud of the fact that they banned my book, for i was a plus, because i believe that there was... truth in the book that they wanted to ban. on the list of prohibited literature about the holodomor, reference books on the history of ukraine, fiction and even children's books, in particular the new zealand author katey onil's comic princess plus the princess, about the relationship between two girls, on the list of extremist publications by levko lukyanenko, maria matios, oksana zabushko, oleg sentsova, artemtem chech, oleksandr irvanets and many others, found her books on the prohibited list, and the writer of

i am terribly proud, when this list appeared on the internet, i started reading it and began to think, if i do not find my books there now, then i have done something wrong in this life, i have not completed something, and finally, when i reached them, my god, i was so proud, i printed out this piece for myself, and it is lying on my desk, i know that, i have something to tell about, my grandchildren will have a story about that , how the nazis destroyed soviet literature in the ukrainian territory now occupied by russia, which local residents tried to save it is interesting that i have one of the heroines from this stigma, she wrote an exculpatory letter about herself, saying that she is good and she did not cooperate, and she writes, and when the germans came to remove books from the library,

they invited me as a specialist in chemistry and of biology, so that i could appreciate, well, the quality of these books, and when i saw lenin's books , i carefully hid them in a corner, covering them with other books, that is, in fact, now they are repeating the same thing that is written about in the book that they took away, it's fine. deliberate destruction of ukrainian books can be interpreted as wartime theft. says ihor poshivaylo, co-coordinator of the heritage rescue headquarters. this can be seen as crimes of post-war crimes against culture, against humanity. this actually has a lot of facts. it is necessary to prove the intentionality of such actions, such that the nazis purposefully occupying our cities, towns and villages, they select, especially

letters... which relates to our identity, independence, which is patriotic literature for children, for adults, and like the nazis, such book collections are carefully selected, taken out to the courtyards and publicly burned, instead of seized books , russians bring their literature, whole trucks drive up there, read in russian , this is poshkin, this is agnia barto, this is marshak, this is chekhov, this is lermantov , that is, the classics are russian classics, they are karelin, they are replaced. experts say that it is currently impossible to estimate the scale of lost editions in the occupied territories, because in addition to those that suffered from shelling and targeted destruction, books often became a means of survival under cold weather iryna shynkarenko, iryna solomko,

iryna matviychuk, kostyantyn golubchyk, voice. america, at this we will say goodbye, you watched the program of the ukrainian voice of america service, chas taay, also join our daily briefings, from monday to friday at 18:00 kyiv time on youtube and facebook. you will be able to ask your questions to our presenters yulia yarmolenko and ostap yarysh live. thank you for trusting the voice of america ukrainian service. i'm natalya leonova, good night and good morning. we are looking for a 16-year-old girl karina kanivets from the kherson region. her mother told us about the girl's disappearance. imagine, a woman does not know anything about the fate of her daughter for six months.