in the sumy region , russian shelling has significantly increased and intensified, as a result of which the local population is being evacuated from the border settlements of the region. for the sixth day in a row, the evacuation of settlements in the okhtyr district continues, the national police reported , and all children were evacuated from velika piserivka, which is under almost continuous shelling by the russian military. this was reported by journalists of the local publication kordon media. it is not known for sure how many . people live in villages near the border, in particular in the five-kilometer border area smuzi, there is no connection with them, our colleagues local journalists report, and besides, there is no transport connection with these villages, several hundred guided aerial bombs were dropped on the region in a week. ukrainian ground defense forces link the increase in shelling of sumy oblast with raids by volunteer battalions on russian territory. we will talk about whether there will be a breakthrough of the border by russian troops from the sumy oblast. about it with the head of the regional state administration and with

the military expert, but for now, see how the civilian evacuation is going people from the sumy region, get in the car, we have to leave, get in, get in, get in, get in, get in, get in, go ahead , get in, go to the bus station, come on, run, i 'll go to the basement then. this is how kab's direct hit on the residential sector looks like, the house behind me is not there at all, people left there and they were not there, but there were neighbors opposite and in them.

completely destroyed, here you can see, the three of them were inside and left only after the house itself was destroyed, they don't want it, one of the owners, the other don't know where to go, this is what the center of the village of piserivki looks like now, a cultural center, a shop, that's actually how it is. the center of the village is open, dogs are running, there are a lot of dogs untied here , fortunately, those who stay in the village feed them, it is very loud, very tense here, due to the intensification of hostilities, we have large exchanges , extensive damage. infrastructure, both

municipal and private, well, fortunately, there were no casualties from the shelling, except that i cannot comment on how many and what kind of victims there are in the five-kilometer zone, where it's the hottest today, we won't be able to break through there, the military won't let us there, but we know that our population remains there, who goes out... even a woman from dmitrivka contacted me, her mother came in her 90s, came 12 km from lukashivka, well , because it is unrealistic, impossible to hold on there, very heavy shelling, today about two dozen are still there, let 's leave, we will take them out with our car, every day.

provide, take advantage of it, because well, every flight of this evacuation bus can be lastly, the neighboring country, it is not there that they provide help, as much as it can be stopped, volodymyr artyuk, the head of the sumy regional military administration, has already joined our broadcast, good evening. and good evening, i wish you good health, each other, you know, i have been for the last year, maybe even more, we have broadcasts every day, we talk a lot about the donetsk region, about the luhansk escalation, in zaporizhzhia, but here is sumyshchyna in the field sight has been affected so intensively in recent days, our colleagues who work there say that this has not happened since april 22 year, when the russian troops withdrew from there, or is that true? well, according to

statistical indicators regarding the number of shellings, the power of these shellings, certainly, in comparison with the 23rd year, a whole year has passed. in shelling, that is 3 months, well, 2.5 months, they show a significant increase, practically in these 2.5 months , the number of shellings has increased by two or three times, the main thing is that it is the most powerful, it is aviation means of destruction used by the enemy, these are cabs, and in the last week, these 111 cabs have been practically used, this is the most powerful weapon, why... and today these the settlements we are talking about now are velikopyseriv, they have destroyed 40 to 50% of the housing stock, the infrastructure has also been destroyed, damaged, so it is true, and what do you

connect this with, why suddenly now russian troops have taken over sumy region? well, these plans are probably complex, because they not only destroy infrastructure, hit populated areas, they hit populated areas in the depths of sumy oblast, but literally an hour ago, a missile strike took place in the city of kanotop and in the sumy district few populated areas were fired at in kanotop, now... the consequences are being eliminated, thank god, and our armed forces, there are no casualties, there are no civilian casualties, the heat network in kanotop, which was damaged, is now being eliminated and is now being restored, it is certain that in the near

future its utility services will be restored, that is , they also beat on the sixth, they also beat on the rear, in addition , they beat on our tv and radio. towers, in order to make the collapse informational, cyberattacks pass to the relevant administrative institutions, that is, it is a comprehensive approach to in order to somehow influence this region, as far as the impact of fire in these settlements is concerned, it is not only the large pyserivka e. we see, the whole sumyshchyna is now practically under fire, but i asked you what you associate this with, and there are such assumptions, again, this is from our colleagues who have been working there all this time, maybe it is connected with these raids of russian volunteer battalions on the territory of russia,

because there is such information that they were just moving to russia through sumy oblast, or you associate it with these raids, what is it a response to sumy oblast for the fact that these russian volunteer battalions fighting on the side of ukraine have come to... russian territory. well, actually, it can be related to that, but i know that they moved their air force, tactical army air force much earlier, before those events that happened with this russian volunteer corps, and the air force group, they created much earlier, and they began to use these... cabs, this weapon is quite powerful, but apparently in time it coincides with the actions of the volunteer corps russian, and the number of such shellings has increased significantly over the last week, it can be

related, but these are the plans of the enemy and we can only predict them, well, look, the last one is quite the same'. but russia used cabs in the direction of avdiivka, and then after some time avdiivka was occupied, or what do you see in the future, in the near future, do you expect any serious russian breakthrough on the border in the sumy region? this is an important question, because when to evaluate and give conclusions, it is necessary to be clear to know and understand what kind of enemy is standing in front of us, his... group, it should be either defensive or offensive, we know today, uh, data that allows us to say that there is a great advantage over our armed forces , which would allow

us to say that there are such er possible actions of the enemy, i would not make such an assessment, knowing both our forces and the forces of the enemy, then... therefore, today at this moment, such a danger does not exist, as far as the land is concerned , the biggest danger for our region is airstrikes. and rockets strikes, which began to occur much more intensively on our infrastructure. so, as of today, today is march 18, you, the head of the region, state that there are no risks of a border breach, i understood you correctly, quite correctly. our colleagues who work in sumy region say that it is currently unknown how many people are in the villages on the border, in particular in the five-kilometer zone, that... there is no contact with them, do you have contact with these people, do you know how many people are left there and whether

is there any transport connection with them , for example, do they have the opportunity to leave there, and there are definitely problems with communication, both road and communication, because her mobile communication was destroyed, bridges were destroyed in order to in order to be able to evacuate people, that is why, in part... today these evacuation measures, in addition to the police, in addition to the state emergency service and administrative structures that are deployed for this purpose today and work at these evacuation sites, we are helped by the armed forces, and in these most shelled communities, their there around five, there they help our armed forces, in accordance with the observance of measures without... sure, the time is right, this is straightforward, let's put it this way, operations are being carried out to release and withdraw from

the threatening territory, our units of the armed forces in our with our communication are carrying out such evacuation actions, for which i thank you very much to the command, especially the units that are stationed there, perform the tasks of protecting the borders of our land and evacuation measures from these settlements. i think that in the next day or two we will also evacuate them from there, from three to 10 people in each settlement approximately on the border, and there are up to five of them there, which suffer the most from shelling, where hostilities are taking place, and the rest, the rest there is a less threatening situation, velikopiseryvtsi itself has more. close to 300 people, who will have to be evacuated in

the coming days. velika piserivka is approximately 8 km from the border. yes, it is not, it is not included in the five-kilometer zone, but those, why are there so few, why are there so few, because we started evacuation operations in the five-kilometer zone back in the summer of 2023, and most of them from there, first of all, are the children are from there left, now there are no children there, according to our information, and the rest of the settlements. they were abandoned and left, respectively safe places. i have one last question: which part of sumy oblast is now, in principle, categorically dangerous for living. i understand that this is not only a five-kilometer zone, you, as the head of the region, from which part in principle do you advise people to leave, it is 10 km from the border, it is 15, well, taking into account what you say, the cabals attack the region almost every day , well , i made my decision in the summer of 2023. was announced regarding the evacuation in a five-kilometer area zone, these are 115 eu settlements, and now,

as of now, is the situation different? today, 22 settlements completely left the population and were transferred to the control of the armed forces of ukraine, that's why this process is taking place, practically we took it out in the first place, well, we ensured it. evacuation of children, about 820 children from this dangerous zone were taken to safe places, and regarding the communities, this is a large psikrivska, we have already talked about it, this is krasnopillya, this is yunakivska hromad, this is the middle of butska, shoskinskyi district, somewhere is suffering very, very much, and now let's make a decision at the defense council, regarding the evacuation of children from this community. that is why such a threat exists almost everywhere along the entire length of the border, and

we insist that the entire population be evacuated from the five-kilometer zone of the zone. well, i understand that it is dangerous not only in the five-kilometer zone, but also beyond. thank you very much, volodymyr artyukh, head of the sumy regional military administration, was on radio liberty. by the end of march, ukraine may exhaust its stock of missiles for the air defense of its cities, writes the british the telegraph newspaper. this means that instead of trying to shoot down four out of five russian ... missiles, as it is done now, ukraine will soon have to count on its air defense systems to shoot down only one missile out of five, the publication notes. oleksandr musienko, head of the center for military legal studies, joins our broadcast. good evening. can you hear me it seems to me that we have something with the connection, maybe we will try

to redial. oleksandr musienko, head of the center for military legal studies. we let's talk about that... what is the situation with missiles for air defense, the well-known british publication ztelegraf writes that the stockpile of missiles is rapidly decreasing and that by the end of march ukraine will be able to shoot down only one out of five missiles, and in addition, the publication also notes that in addition to the lack of missiles , ukraine also has a lack of ammunition, the truth is that the prospects are more joyful, as far as it can be said, because... the czech republic promises to help ukraine with ammunition, in particular it is about 800 thousand, and just today, for example, the edition of the the wall street journal reported that the czech republic is actually buying ammunition for ukraine all over the world, including from russian allies, but it is not specified which country is meant here, officially russia only has one ally, it is belarus, and

it helps the dprk , iran, but it is probably also about soviet ammunition. but as it is noted that the czech republic does not buy directly from these countries, but through intermediaries, so that in this way it is not clear from whom and in what quantity. oleksandr musienko, manager the center for military legal research is already in touch with us, can you hear me? yes, i hear you, congratulations. yes, great. i quoted from the telegraph, the publication indicates that the stockpile of missiles is rapidly decreasing in ukraine and that this will have a significant effect on ukrainian cities. here we can mention. on march 15, when russian troops launched a rocket attack on odesa with iskanders, 21 people died, and publications like the one that appeared in the telegraph today are a warning to all of us that rockets will attack more often ukrainian cities and there will be nothing to knock them down? well , first of all, in order

, i read very carefully what the telegraph or the washington post calculates, they refer to their sources. ukrainian troops, or not only , well, in general, according to their sources, they say that the ukrainian troops shot down four out of five missiles, and now they will shoot down one of the five missiles, soon, i have a question, if it is not a month and a half there were full-scale shellings, so there was no use of strategic aviation, where we missed what, where we missed 3:2 and immediately rolled down to one, that is, this question is actually, but you know, and recently i don’t now... i don’t remember which publication wrote it, but for sure some western or british or american publication reported that ukraine uses missiles for air defense in order to including shooting down russian planes , they are doing it right , they are doing it right, they are doing it absolutely right, i am talking about where they could, where the missiles could, yes no, no, no, no, no, this, this, this is not

so, i.e. look, it must be clearly indicated, by what is calculated, by which systems. to which systems, providing iris is one , providing nasams is the second, providing patriot is the third, different countries are manufacturers, different supplies, this is one, the second is that the pak-2 version of the patriot is used to shoot down planes , that's absolutely correct because we don't have that level of threat in the rear right now, and why keep missiles in the rear now if they are needed on the front to protect our fighters, but the pac-2, it doesn't shoot down ballistic missiles, or it's less effective , that is... you need more of them in order to shoot down ballistic missiles than shoot down other targets. this is the next point, then what should be said is that, well, i understand that there is a version that ukraine could have used all the anti-aircraft missiles, shelling and destroying the russian aircraft, most of them, i think

, were definitely used, but this well, only one version, and what about the other missiles, that is, when there were no shellings, and here there are certain ... questions, the second point, regarding the shellings, they will be, i think that the situation will be a little too aggravated, russia took a break to be to accumulate the necessary number of missiles, they have a problem with this issue, so it takes more time than they may have expected, and i think that the enemy will focus on the airfield infrastructure, that is , the airfield network in the context of disrupting our supply of f16, that is saying, yes, i think they have a plan, and they will try to strike precisely at the airports, precisely at the infrastructure of the airport, which is provided for actually receiving. these planes, well, maybe for other objects, that is, i think, these are the plans, to what the enemy is preparing, so certainly in that sense we need more missiles, and i'm not

going to say that they're finished, i'm not going to talk about it, i just don't know about it, at the end of the day, but i don't i don't think that all the missiles have been used exclusively for the purpose of shooting down russian planes and what is not foreseen, in particular, let's say this... for the future, that we will need them, besides, right away we need to prepare for the autumn-winter season, we need to purchase now, already now it is necessary to conclude contracts and deliver now, well, i think that the formula will be found, i am far from thinking that our western partners handed over so many complexes to us so that russia would simply destroy them here, i think not, that this is not part of their plans, i also quoted another well-known american publication today. writes that the czech republic buys ammunition, ammunition is also very scarce for ukraine, ammunition including from russia's allies, prague does not say

where exactly and from which russian allies the ammunition comes from, but which countries it may be about, well, look, prague is not says, well, of course, they don't say, because they are generally quite a serious network in prague. middlemen in the czech republic who work and who know how to get weapons, where to get them, there is such a system in the arms market, where without intermediary companies it is quite difficult, it is such a difficult procedure for purchasing weapons, as it may seem, that is why they really activated all their the contacts they have from partner countries are, well, at least one country that can supply is india, pakistan supplies us, i think, but pakistan cannot... to attribute even to such an ally of russia, although they also have good relations, maybe india can be attributed to india, of course, of course, in the arms market, india is not

the largest client of russia in terms of weapons purchases , but it was not about a client, but about an ally, and about the ally, well, they, well, actually, this is , in principle, an ally, because in the arms market, they are extremely powerful partners, i must say. they still want to buy the s-400 there, they have such a pretty good interaction and cooperation, the rest of the allies, well listen, we definitely need iran does not supply , as far as i know, north korea either, on the other hand, south korea can, which is not part of the allies, but can supply ukraine with ammunition, they produce a lot, there may be some african countries that russia has included in its list, which.. .. well, let's say, the most friendly thing is that she constantly says the global south behind russia and so on, or could it be belarus, that the czech republic buys soviet

ammunition from belarus? no, i don't think so, because russia has already washed everyone there, belarus will not physically be able to, belarus will not be able to, plus they are all there under the hood of the kgb, fsb, and no, i don't think so, in fact, plus don't forget that belarus actively provided and supplied. tanks and not only tanks of russia since 2022, they seem to have taken them for repairs, but whether they returned from repairs is a big question, so in the case of belarus, no, plus there are no such large production facilities there, in particular russia already has warehouses there , i will only note that according to the media, this is what the wall street journal wrote about today, which is possible in the coming weeks ukraine will already start receiving ammunition from the czech republic, about sumy. today we started with this , the situation is very hot there, the evacuation of the civilian population has been going on for the last week, is there a possibility of a border breakthrough from the russian side in the sumy oblast, as far as i understand, russia has been preparing

aviation there for the last week and including forces, but here we are included just before you the head of the region, he says that they don't see any prospects for a breakthrough, well , i'll tell you what actually... and there are breakthroughs from time to time, but subversive groups the russians come in, we have something with the connection again, which cover the borders, and directly where they cover the borders, there is a combat clash with the gerevushniks and so on, but i don't think that a large-scale breakthrough is worth it today to talk about it, well, that is, there is no such amount of strength. now the enemy has collected, well, if they try to leave with the forces they have, they can try, i think that, uh, let's say, the consequences of this operation

will be... very negative for them and very painful, because as of today, no it is possible, these are all diversionary actions, combat actions from there, our colleagues who work there, they assume, well, they refer to the local terror defense, that this may be connected with the raids of the russian rdk, or whether it may be connected, well theoretically, it can really be related to the fact that, well, how is it related , you know, to the fact that they are on... trying to strike, how does russia think to find the positions, where they are, where the rdk finds and so on, but i will tell you, in fact, i follow what is happening there, for example, in sumy oblast as well, on isolated occasions, there are shellings from time to time they happen from time to time, now there was an increase in the use of aviation weapons, but the enemy's artillery was constantly working there, constantly, mortars,

artillery, that was all. shot to the events of his own drg, therefore, if it is related to the rdk, then it is only so, well, one of the reasons, but far from decisive. thank you very much for your comment. oleksandr mysienko, head of the center for military legal studies, was on radio liberty. the european union condemned and did not recognize the russian presidential election in the occupied territories of ukraine. the eu statement refers to something the alliance strongly condemns. the holding of the so-called elections in crimea, as well as in the donetsk, luhansk, zaporizhia, kherson regions , the eu called the holding of elections in these areas a clear violation of international law by russia, the european union declares that it does not and does not recognize and will never recognize the holding of these elections on the territory of ukraine, nor their results, they have no legal force and cannot have any legal consequences, according to the eu statement. and what about the non-recognition of the elections in russia, how about the non-recognition of putin

legitimate president. will the west decide to take this step, as it happened with lukashenka, for example, when the european union, great britain, canada, and the united states did not recognize lukashenka as a legitimate president based on the results of the elections in belarus in 2020. then, by the way, ukraine did the same, although not immediately, but , so to speak, catching up with its own, the western world and its western partners. well, at least in this current statement, the european union did not call the presidential elections in russia illegitimate. according to the official results prezi' in their elections, vladimir putin scored more than 87%, with a turnout of more than 77%, this is a record for modern russia and for the number of votes for the winner and the application, and in the end , putin scored even more than he had ever scored, so to speak, alexander lukashenko scored . well, now about the voting itself: it was accompanied by songs, arson, masquerade costumes and green tea. the kremlin, however, tried to create a joyful and uplifting atmosphere around the presidential elections. did it

work? look, not new to any election, spoiled ballots, and this election the president of russia were no exception. those who did not see their candidate on the ballot voted for navalny, for kot, for mir, for prigozhin, but if in these cases people spoiled only their ballot, then there were also situations when the spoiling was massive. for example, in some regions of russia , cases were recorded when women poured a green solution into the ballot box, and several female citizens. even tried to set fire to the precincts, after they were detained by law enforcement officers, everyone told the same story that they did it because they were promised for such actions, write off loans the authorities tried to increase the turnout through the media. local newspapers published news about how russians came to the polling stations in costumes, a hero, a bear, a crested man and a horse. but, for example, the russian state tv channel showed konik's vote. the miniaturist artist made a ballot for an insect and an urn for...

a shaman singer who performs a song that has become a symbol of the war: i am russian, it was often performed at the precincts, but one of the precincts also heard the song of the band machine of time, the soloist of which andriy makarevych, opposed of the kremlin's policy regarding ukraine back in 2014, and now has the status of a foreign agent in russia,