we work not only live on the tv channel, but also on our youtube and facebook platforms. for those who are currently watching us on these platforms, please subscribe to our pages and also take part in our survey. today we ask you about whether telegram is a source of information for you, we mean the platform, the telegram information platform. yes, no, everything is quite simple on youtube, if you have your own opinion, please leave it in the comments below this video. if you watch us on tv, your smartphone or phone is expensive and vote for the numbers, if telegram is your source of information 0800 211 381, not 0800 211 382. all calls to these numbers are free, vote at the end of the program , we will sum up the results of this vote. i would like to introduce the guests of today's studio, this is victoria syumar, people's deputy of ukraine from european solidarity, member of the verkhovna rada committee on anti-corruption policy. mrs. victoria, i congratulate you. thank you for joining our broadcast.

oleksandr mereshko, people's deputy of ukraine from the servant of the people, head of the committee on foreign policy and interparliamentary, interparliamentary cooperation of the verkhovna rada of ukraine. mr. oleksandr, i congratulate you, thank you for joining the broadcast. thank you, good evening. and yaroslav yurchyshyn, people's deputy of ukraine from voice, chairman of the parliamentary committee on freedom of speech, mr. yaroslav, i congratulate you, thank you for being with us today. good evening. well, ladies and gentlemen. as we ask our viewers and viewers if there is a telegram for them a source of information, i will also ask you about this, is telegram a source of information for you, do you use telegram and is it important for you, well, i would say so, ms. victoria, you know, i use it in order for sure better understand this phenomenon, understand why telegram is so popular and... well, i understand very well how convenient

this messenger is, how fast it is, and how much, let's say, information that is of most interest to ukrainians, in particular, information about what is flying around , that's where that flew, well, the information they have to actually control the ukrainian security forces, the ukrainian special services, and this very information is in the telegram today, and this very moment seems to me to be extremely alarming and extraordinary. we will discuss it, ms. victoria, we will discuss it, please just answer briefly in blitz format now, mr. alexander, yes, of course, i use, i am subscribed to, for example, the new york times, the washington post, and by the way, the bbc as well, i think it is very convenient, and thanks to telegram i receive information from foreign sources. thank you, mr. yaroslav, i am subscribed to bbc, new york times and washington post, cnn. ah and other channels in

whatsapp, i removed from telegram everything that is in parallel in more secure networks, as well as threat monitoring is now in whatsapp, i have a channel left in telegram only so that a fake channel of my own, so as not to... spread any disinformation on my behalf, in fact, the most logical, most logical reaction of ukrainians to telegram is to view accounts from this network, which is totally is controlled by the federal security service of russia, well, that is, you have a verified channel, that's right, that's right, look, that's why we 're actually asking about this, because nikita poturaev, your colleague, the head of... the city's

information policy committee in an interview with rbc ukraine called the government's use of the telegram platform for public communication a mistake and spoke in favor of regulating the activities of this platform, which he says: i see no other option than to lose not only the information war, but the war in general, except to write a fairly simple bill, the essence of which will be that either the networks or platforms establish a dialogue with the ukrainian state, or the state simply closes them down, he says that these networks should be turned off in the same way as it was with vkontakte, with vkontakte and classmates. ms. viktoria, you have the experience of closing these two vkontakte platforms by your classmates, when you were the deputy secretary of the security council of ukraine, you dealt with this issue, as far as i remember, and it was at that time that these two platforms were closed, why can’t you do the same do with...

telegram, despite its popularity, and despite the fact that we all use it, or follow how they inform about shelling or how shaheds fly in ukraine, or we receive messages through this, through this information platform, it is not a messenger, an information platform, please, and it is possible, in fact, it is possible to do this, as it was actually done through such an instrument as the national security and defense council, since it is a russian messenger, there are no problems that would stand in the way of this, and the fact that what mykyta peturaev is speaking today, he is speaking, i would say, even a liberal opinion, he is speaking about the fact that, okay, let's at least establish a dialogue and allow verified telegram channels to work in ukraine, let's at least see the ownership structure of each telegram -channel, and there should be at least some minimal

transparency and minimal regulation, regulation is critical actually, you know facebook it regulates a lot of content, youtube regulates a lot of content, and that's absolutely normal if you... live in in the information world, where fakeness is total, it is impossible not to regulate, because you will simply suffocate, we live in an information dump, forgive me, i simply cannot call it any other way, when anyone can produce any lie, and well hundreds of thousands of people, or millions of people have access to it, and you just can't even challenge it, because this information is just... you don't know who to challenge, you don't know who's behind this telegram channel , this is an absolutely abnormal story, it says that it is ukrainian the state generally refuses subjectivity in the information sphere, and moreover, allows being subject to russian rules, because the rules of telegram,

which allow everything, violence, ornography, any content, and at the same time allow anonymity, well, forgive me ... to me, we will go very far with this approach, i understand very well why it is russia, and i absolutely do not understand why it is ukraine, well, regarding russia, there is information that russian propaganda has created a network of 800 telegram channels, and yes, for this purpose, this distracts from the telegram channels and from the air, ms. victoria, but it’s great, look... russian propaganda says, created a network, and a new newspaper writes about it, a network of 800 telegram channels to spread the influence of the kremlin abroad, but in this situation, here , mr. oleksandr, obviously those who are in favor of

telegram, or who for whom this tool in the phone is convenient, everything comes very quickly, communicates with relatives, relatives, you see the whole picture. or adjust this informative picture of the day and night, as you wish, eh, compared to what the united states of america is doing, they say that the united states of america closed the chinese tiktok there, and the russians are now closing youtube, or restricting access to google, that is, where is the line between what does not contradict democracy, and the border, where there are national interests, and where there is... national security and it must be protected? well, of course, it is necessary to solve this issue not only from a technical point of view. i, for example, do not know how technically possible it is, but, by the way, there are already such precedents yes, you mentioned it, and i think it was

done correctly, we should also, perhaps, borrow this example, in relation to the telegram channel, it seems to me that here, especially, during the war, it is necessary to ... give this question from an angle of national security, that is, it is not only about freedom of speech, about freedom of communication, but also, first of all, about national security, security, and if it is justified from this point of view, then an appropriate decision must be made. thank you, mr. oleksandr, mr. yaroslav, i know that your parliamentary committee has already discussed discussions about telegram, and this issue is not new at all, because during the last for six months, as far as i remember, we return to this topic in our broadcasts, including what prevents us from acting radically as you say, that is, to take and cut down, relatively speaking, this information platform

and put an end to its existence a large amount of content that the russian authorities throw into telegram for ukrainians. war is always a struggle between what is convenient and what is necessary, in fact many. military leaders parts simply forbade servicemen to use telegram, tiktok, transfer them to signal, whatsapp, as the most protected, relatively, of course, as far as we can tell, social networks or networks with exchanges, exchange of messages, at the same time, actually in our rear there is luxury, that is, we can choose the convenient. and safe, and unfortunately, the vast majority of ukrainians choose safe, why, because safe is dangerous,

and convenient, yes, now it is also used by the authorities, that is, in this case, the authorities give such a symbol, please use it, yes, maybe we have questions, but they are not critical, well, it sounds strange when you and i talk about the danger in the telegram... we read in the gur telegram or in the official telegram of the service security of ukraine, and when our special services find a mechanism to block the most active russian public, on the same day they disable the vast majority of bots that are built on the telegram network itself, and which are used by our state structures. this is a very clear symbol about that there is no compromise between. security and actually convenience in war, if we want to be

in war, protected, we need to choose what guarantees security, do we have examples when social networks contacted and opened a representative office in ukraine, opened a property system, implemented mechanisms actually monitoring, there is an example of choice, we have it at the beginning. full-scale intrusion, this network was the most controversial in terms of the actual penetration of russian disinformation, now there are questions about the security of the data that we transfer to of this network, but the network opened a representative office in kyiv as quickly as possible and responds to our requests, there is youtube, there is meta, that is, whatsapp, facebook, whatever... more quickly, even with certain questions, and from our side, yes, oh, but

they are responding, there is telegram, tiktok, which is trying to work in the gray zone, and we actually have either a response mechanism at the level of official authorities, and it should be quite prompt, or the so-called media literacy, when we just.. .explain and thank the espresso channel itself that explain to your listeners, your viewers that friends, it is very important to understand that telegram is a russian network, and therefore to transfer your own private data to it is to question the safety of everyone around you, and you in the first place, and why now we are not ready to make such decisions as at one time about... proposed by the national security council and taken during the times

when victoria syumar and i had the honor of working in the national security and defense council, and it seems to me that we very often try to live in the reality of a non-belligerent country, and what us are periodically shelled, all cities, well, there are no cities in ukraine, with the possible exception of uzhhorod, but still in... the zakarat region, they flew to the volovets region, yes, which would not be attacked, and at the same time tolerate the network, which most likely has relations and has a clear subordination to the russian special services, only because it is somehow more convenient, well, in principle, this is simply a matter of a lack of desire to survive, it is very popular in our country now. the rhetoric of recovery, the rhetoric about what we should think about is very popular in our country

will be after the war, friends, we have to survive the war, and in the information war, telegram, tiktok is a weapon that is used against us, if you are subscribed and do not block, in principle, sensitive, important material that you provide to these networks, rather for everything you help aggression. and, of course, more questions for the authorities, in fact, we encourage as much as possible to switch to more secure networks, and... all authorities, well, but we understand that in principle, until this is a personal example, until the first persons of the state switch to alternative platform, it will be very difficult for us to deal with this threat. thank you, mr. yaroslav, i will remind our tv viewers that during our broadcast we conduct a survey and ask you about telegram, is telegram a source of

information for you? yes, no, everything is quite simple on youtube and facebook, yes, no, or... please write your opinion in the comments under this video, if you watch us on tv, pick up your smartphone or phone and vote if you use telegram as a source of information 0800 211 381 not 0800 211 382 0800 211 382 all calls to these numbers are free, vote at the end of the program, we will sum up the results of this vote. another topic, ladies and gentlemen , is the big... exchange that took place between the russian federation and our western partners, last week putin exchanged killers, spies, and those caught in the west for illegal activities, for russian oppositionists and journalists , who were caught, foreign journalists who were recovered, caught on the territory of the russian

federation, and sentenced. valery chala, the ex-ambassador of ukraine to the united states of america, believes that... with such russians as, who came to the west, who were transported to the west and they declared that it is necessary to distinguish between putin and the russian federation, and all these sanctions, which were introduced against russia must be removed, because only putin is the initiator of this russian-ukrainian war, as chalyly says, there are no good and bad russians, there are criminals, there are also those who are not completely deceived by russian propaganda, they are either in prisons, or abroad, they never do will stick to ukrainian national interests, but in the joint struggle with the russian regime, we need to find arguments for finding common effective ways, this is the opinion of mr. valery chaly, ms. victoria, tell me, have you heard and seen

what the freed russian oppositionists are saying. and isn't this another information technology of the russian federation or a part of the russian federation regarding the fact that here we are so good, but there are bad ones, and this bad one is putin, and we are part of our good ones here, we are silent about the war, nothing they didn't say, or at least they said after the release, but lift the sanctions from us, but don't lift them from putin. it seems to me that there is actually a more complicated and deeper problem here, because it shows us that the west is betting on the so-called good, or, let's say, liberal russians, who should warm up to the russian people, and it seems to me that this is a deep misunderstanding of the essence of this russian imperialism, when the request is actually

for war, a request for a tough authoritarian one. forms the russian people, and it is interconnected things, and when we talk about the fact that the russian people should not bear any strict restrictions there in connection with sanctions, well, then we do not see the depth of the essence of the problem, and this russian imperialism, second thing, we then do not see the need , well, from my point of view, such a thing as collective repentance is very important, so eh... because without this, if you did not admit your guilt, guilt in inciting and introducing the most aggressive war since the second world war, in genocide, in fact, in genocide of the entire multi-million ukrainian people, if this guilt will not be recognized, it will be repeated, in relation to the ukrainians or in relation to

those peoples who simply will not be able to give the russian imperialists a hard time, as the ukrainians did, and when the west... allows it, and when the west tolerates it, and when in fact, conducting these negotiations, they were conducted with the fsb and putin, it is obvious, the event demonstrates that we are ready to negotiate with vladimir putin, and probably, regarding other topics as well, and what about a war criminal who is recognized by an international court as a military a criminal, it's generally, you know, to a certain extent, a step towards crossing out the international security system in general, and therefore, it seems to me, this is such a complex problem that it is necessary to talk about today, i am not talking about what putin actually took from the west from the west prisons, murderers and terrorists and spies, and to each of these spies and murderers, he gave a very clear signal, if you kill and spy on

russia, do it in western capitals, i got you out, you will not be punished, and that a very bad precedent indeed for west, because putin will continue to send murderers, terrorists and spies there. but mr. oleksandr, look... this whole story, which is unfolding before our eyes, shows that, despite everything, contacts between russia and our western partners are maintained, but ms. victoria says that there were behind-the-scenes stories, of course , they referred to the hostages that putin had there and those people who were convicted in the west for various crimes, but a completely logical question arises, our hundreds... of thousands of people in hostages now with putin, they are in terrible conditions, and well, we have an absolutely completely

logical question, well, wait, if you communicate so well with each other, what is the problem of great communication, regarding the release of our hostages, regarding the exchange of our hostages, regarding that there should be justice and... if you are already talking outside, not about us, but behind our backs, why not talk about what is happening to ukrainians who are in the russian federation? well, first of all the national security adviser, jake salevan, immediately very quickly, by the way, he responded to this question, he immediately stated that this is a separate case, and it cannot be confused or identified. with the issue of ukraine, that is, he said it very quickly, but those questions that you ask, they are really fair and legal, and we need to ask these questions

before our partners, our allies, we, we are friends, but this does not prevent us frankly to talk about difficult issues, including this one, and it is quite natural that ukraine now fears that some attempts to negotiate behind our backs, but... at the same time, i believe that what president biden actually said, that there will be no agreements without ukraine, although, if you look at the history of the foreign policy of the united states, there is such a certain tradition "backchannel". you can remember the administration of nixon and kissinger, yes, they used such a back-channel for communication with the soviet union, bypassing even the state one. department, that is, such a mechanism in diplomacy, in american, in particular, diplomacy really exists, the main thing is that it did not affect our interests, and it

seems to me that we must speak frankly with our friends. thank you, mr. oleksandr, mr. yaroslav, in your opinion, are there good russians in russia or not, and if, well, actually, for the west, they obviously are. can there be a principled position of the ukrainian government, the ukrainian state, that after the collapse of putin's regime, all of russia should undergo denazification, de-rasification, and de-putinization, and this affects literally everyone who lives in this state. here i agree with mr. oleksandr, who is specialist in international law. and helped us a lot in the preparation of the draft law on the basis of ukraine's interaction with enslaved peoples and ethnic groups in the russian

federation, there are a huge number of non -russians in russia, and they are mostly good, because they mostly strive for decentralization, they strive for russia not to be an empire, and that russia would never again be able, should not be able to, at all. to carry out imperial policy, and if the principle of the empire’s activity declines, when it does not start aggressive actions against its neighbors, and whether it leads or is led united states, a separate track of negotiations with some russian liberal position, most likely yes, but can ukraine conduct its own track from some negotiations with some russian. a position, most likely yes, only it will not be a liberal one, but one that helps us now to actually reduce russia's ability to actively ... carry out actions

on the territory of ukraine through the liberation of belgorod region, kursk region and other, actually russian territories, still russian territories, from putin's regime. and here, what is the biggest problem? because, in fact, if they continue to try to consider ukraine as a subject and not as an object of international politics, we should protest against it. not very active, and the fact that some ilya lyashins, other karamurzys and the like are trying to win the favor of sympathizers on the territory of the empire itself should at least interest us, we are the guarantors, actually not by choice, but by... actually the composition of the situation

of independence of the western world, and any, any discussions about how the region should interact, how the region should be organized, in fact, central europe, which is very often called eastern europe, our territory cannot exist without our participation, and russian society in... not only because it allowed the actual establishment of the putin regime, but also supported the svo, aggression against ukraine, and any - some of the so-called liberals, in principle, like any of the representatives of the nazi authorities in germany, should start their conversation with, sorry,

the ukrainian people. to the georgian people, to the moldavian people, to those in fact against whom the imperialism continues politics, and i will continue here, of the chechen people, the ingush people, just last week we had a meeting with the leader of the circassian community in turkey, why in turkey, because in fact the independent circassian adygei movement... a huge historical people, well, on the territory of russia cannot to be, we protect the rights of our indigenous peoples, the karaites, the kremlin, other peoples, at the same time russia actually destroys it, and destroys any opportunities for self-realization of the ethnic groups that are now, unfortunately, on

the territory of the russian federation. and therefore i , like anyone in the ukrainian political community, and here i think we do not have any political differences, it is incomprehensible when only russian political prisoners are included in the discussion on the release of political prisoners at a time when tens of thousands, at least more than 10 00 ukrainian civilian prisoners. which according to the geneva convention should not exist at all, more than 30 civilian journalists, who have additional protection from the point of view of international law, are still in prison, prisons in russia, and so, well, it looks at least two-faced, we understand that this is real politic, everyone there has their own national interests, of course, the democrats in the united states

need a trump card, and they are ready ... if only to use it, but remember, at one time, the exchange of spies during the caribbean crisis , on the eve of the korib crisis led to an escalation of the conflict, why? because fearing the gifts of the denai people, it is very likely that now the so- called good russians in the west are starting to talk about crazy plans and opportunities. putin, and of course, become the primary source. to us it is very important not to reduce the pressure on our western partners, and that is why it is great that more than one delegation is now in the united states, here in general one can only applaud standing, that there are a lot of opposition deputies as well.