greetings, you are watching the espresso tv channel, my name is lesya vakulyuk, and we are continuing the series of interviews with people who make ukraine better on the espresso tv channel, today i am a guest of a person who makes ukraine better in two ways, in the historical plane and in plane, when he himself writes the present history with a weapon in his hands. volodymyr birchak, volodya for me, because i have been with... a little longer, volodya, when i asked how to introduce you, volodya answered me: you can just be a sergeant of the armed forces of ukraine, but from civilian life, historian, archivist, head of academic programs of the liberation movement research center. you can also mention that the editor of historical truth, if it is not too much, i believe that it is not too much, and there are still many different pages from your life that we will remember today, and i also want to tell our viewers that i actually know volodya so closely from the summer of 2020. the first year

, there was a little more than six months left before the full-scale invasion, and we were just working with volodya on the same documentary project 10 days of independence, where i was one of screenwriters, and volodya was my consultant, and actually explained what and to what end, how everything happened over the last 100 years in the history of ukraine and why we chose these 10 days of independence, because these are the days when ukrainians gained independence over the centuries to ... statehood, well, but then something, something happened in our history, and the gaining of independence did not end in 91 years, and now you, my lord, are literally celebrating our 11th day of independence, did you, as a historian, foresee and know that will you have to go to war? well in fact, in fact, that is, for a full-scale conflict, i myself...

prepared myself and actually i prepared my family and friends that it is most likely inevitable, and that is, i am not the only one, i am not unique in this, i know a lot of my brothers who have analyzed the international situation, who have analyzed the things that the 404 country is doing, can we call it that today, so as not to sound like voldemort, and that all this leads to a full-scale conflict, in the end that... very aptly remembered this documentary the series we worked on for 10 days of independence and as far as i know the viewers of espress had the opportunity to watch it because it is still available to watch on youtube absolutely absolutely and simply if we analyze the history of the 20th century of the ukrainian 20th century struggle of ukrainians and ukraine for their independence, we will see that the one that is now full-scale, well, that is, the war that began...

from the 14th year, which we now call the modern russian-ukrainian war, it obviously began much earlier, even in the 20th century, and it is already such a full-scale stage or a full-scale cycle, it was inevitable, and maybe we will touch on this issue somewhere today in the conversation, this is a very important issue for understanding that you can never trust russia, you can never believe in any ephemeral peaces or truces 'i. in which russia offers you, and, at the same time, one cannot admire russia's democracy. why am i talking about this? actually, once again, i appeal to our series, when we were preparing a series, just about independence day and later about the referendum, there was once such a president in of the russian federation, whose name was boris yeltsin, and the world admired him. he is

a democrat, and so on, but if we look at the press of that time, the great democrat yeltsin at the beginning of 1992 already began to openly threaten the state. that if it does not get rid of its nuclear status, then he will make a pre-emptive nuclear strike on ukraine, and this is the year 1992, that is, the great democrat yeltsin is threatening the neighboring already independent state that he will strike with nuclear weapons if it does not comply with his safeguards, and that's all this is the history of russia, and the history of russia and its relations with ukraine, that is, this fail state that exists on... the northeastern border with us, they will never come to terms with our independence, they will never come to terms with our independence, so if to run a little ahead, you celebrated the 11th day of independence, this 11th day of independence, it will either happen in us, or,

in my opinion, in my personal opinion, or we will cease to exist as such, if... the orange revolution, or the revolution of dignity, these were our days of independence and ours victories, but we obviously could lose in them, well, in fact, there were various factors that contributed to the fact that we could lose, but then we still had some perspective, well, that is, we can only stay in ukraine where yure, and well, we will, i repeat another fail state like belarus, yes, which, unfortunately, its self-proclaimed... dictator is now who they are, but we won then, now there is no longer a question of whether we will remain ukraine somehow ephemeral, in fact the question is whether we will to exist or we will not exist as such, and therefore this day will either happen, it will really

be the day of independence and the day of our victory, or we will cease to exist, i very often analyze these things that happened in the 20th century. uh, i used to work a lot in the archive of the sbu, in various positions, for about six years, my last position there, i was the deputy director of the archive of the sbu, the branch state archive of the sbu, and now during my treatment, because i am on vacation and in terms of health due to a combat injury, and i i remembered that in my previous life, before the full-scale invasion, i was a historian and started working on a book, now and again... i distort the materials i wrote before, raise new ones, again raise the documents of the nkvd, mgb, kgb , and they are very illustrative, because they very clearly show what can happen to us if we lose, and this is conditionally, as, say, with the active

army of the onr or as the soviet special service called them with the petlyurites, and this is the vast majority of the personnel of the army , i mean of the armed forces of ukraine will be physically eliminated, even if not on the battlefield, then later tracked down and eliminated by special services. a large part of ukrainians who fought for independence in other armed ways, i mean ukrainians in the body, who help, who volunteer, who donate, who are hurting ukraine. they, respectively, as supporters of the ukrainian counter-revolution, as the soviets called it, and ugh. that is, as supporters of, let's say, the ukrainian people's republic there, they will be convicted, sent to siberia, and what will remain is actually that part of the collaborators and that part pochekuns or zhduns, who, unfortunately, still exist in ukraine and still exist, moreover, they exist in different parts of ukraine, like here in lviv,

where we are now having a conversation, or in odesa, or in kyiv, or in kharkiv, that is, i don't want to say that our prospects are sad, because we are now ... an independent country that has a fairly strong and professional army, and which is helped by the west, and we have a chance to win this war, only for for us to win this war, this war must become a people's war, it must not be a war of units, it must be a war to the majority, when i talk about the people's war, that is, it is not only that there is somewhere, you know, as it unfortunately happened somewhere in 2000. on the 16th, 17th, 18th, when the news from the ato zone, and then from the zone of operation of the united forces, well , there was already a decline, decline, decline, well, somewhere there are some guys and girls, somewhere they are going out with someone, they are fighting there, we are okay here,

we have life here, but i am nothing i am against a peaceful life, even though i am a military man, but a peaceful life, it is a peaceful life, it is good, because actually you can come on vacation to a peaceful city, where there is waiting for you... or your wife, or your lover, or your mother, and there to spend those 10 or 15 days of vacation, but this war must not go astray, and it should never be forgotten. in civilian life, in fact, when it will be popular, when the whole people will fight, then we will be able to win, and on february 24, 22, it looked like a popular one, everyone mobilized then, what kind of day was your february 24, oh, in i was very funny, well, i don't, i don't want to look like a clown, it was certainly someone, not a funny day at all, but he it started interestingly, that is, i had a premonition and... and we had a meeting there in the evening with the director of the center for the development of the

center for social and cultural affairs. from day to day it will start, and i will not be in this event, but we convinced that nothing will start, well, okay, and then i sat down in the middle of the night to finish the book, just then i and my colleague from the institute of the history of ukraine, the national academy of sciences , tatiana pastushenko, we worked on a book about the serets camp. of the security police of the first sd, well that is, this is a nazi camp on the territory, on the territory of kyiv, which existed from 1941 to 1943 and where a lot of people were actually murdered by the nazis, and we were working on a collection of documents on behalf of the university of jerusalem, that's why i mentioned it for a reason , because - putin came to us to denazify, and i was sitting, working on a collection of documents about the national camp, well, i don't know if he knew about... i guess he didn't know, so i was working somewhere, the truth is until 1:40 a.m. and

then i simply fell asleep on the computer, well, that is, the beginning of the full-scale i overslept, and i was woken up by my good friend from the states, this is bohdan gavraliuk, he is from the organization for the defense of the four freedoms of ukraine, and he called me, i am sad, picked up the phone, i say what happened, he says, in you are at war, i say, i am either asleep, or something seems to me, he says, the war is on the news, and then i went to... ukrpravda saw that a full-scale invasion had really begun, and then everything turned upside down. the military is not a military commander, the territorial center of recruitment and social support, tsk, known more, distribution. the first, the first month is the defense of the ternopil airport, i was calculating, anti-aircraft guns, banally speaking, not to call full full. the name, here, uh, after that, after that, it’s

a company of counter-subversive struggle, later a company of intelligence, well, and then since the summer of 22, it’s direct participation on the line of combat, it’s donbas, the north of donbas, the raisin direction, later the south of kharkiv oblast, then the kharkiv counteroffensive, then kupyansk, and now sumy oblast. a long way from ternopil, 1200 km, you are now on recovery, yes, recovery from a wound, combat injury, yes, well, it is called a combat injury, and somehow yes, well , we like to joke, the 72nd, but she hit the wall of the dugout above my head, well, there it was this one was there too, well, that's sara. they are like guys saying, uh, the guys who are with you, uh, did any of them

have a question for you, or a question with a claim, like a historian, they say, if you knew there was going to be a war, why didn't you warn , or what you historians did not warn all of us, no, well, we warned, well, it’s true, but i’m asking if people ask this, i even, i can even drop the articles where we warned about it, no, the guys didn’t ask such a question, well, here here , apparently... there is, well, i won’t open any now a big secret, there is, as i see it in ukrainian society, and among my brothers and sisters, there is such a certain question somewhere, apparently, to the authorities, that is, that for a certain period it went according to the principle, as this hollovic film with leo decaprio don' t look up, that is, not all the way up, but it was a dangerous tactic, indeed many did not believe that... would happen, well , but everything indicated that, and our western partners indicated that, the guys

do not have such questions, we are there, when someone has time and mood, then we talk about other historical issues , and what interests people who are with you in the trenches, who are shoulder to shoulder with you, but they do not have a historical education, what interests them, is it stories, is it from the history of ukraine? i apologize, well, it depends here, that is, someone is interested, well, actually with me... my brother is fighting in the same platoon, he is a historian and graduated from the faculty itself, as well as me, well, that is, he and i are sometimes at odds, we can talk for a long time, but not only about history, but also about international affairs. and about other things, it depends on who has what request, well, that is, i have my platoon, he is interested in history, and when it was more or less quiet in our positions there, well, near kupyansk, it is always comparatively more or less quietly, but when it was possible to talk to himself a little there at the sp,

he was forever asking himself, but tell me about that, and tell me about that, and tell me about that, well and then he even told this commander of the department ... in whom i was, now he is my brother, because we are two commanders of departments, and even then he was a brother, so he even told him, he says: yes, i did not understand, but why do i have a night shift is not together with the flap, he says, why did you move me, well, i have a callsign flap, yes, he says, why did you me, and we have already found out why he is like that, he says, why did you move me, we will hang out at night about we are talking about the story, and you moved me, he says, no, no, put me back on duty with him, well even this one, there are different, there are different stories, i.e. basically there is a request for this from... the guys, and here it is possible, i will even say more about the entire structure of the armed forces that there is a request, a request for this, a request for this , it's just that one of the boys is interested in history, asks to explain something more, and the second point is that in 2022,

you mentioned that there was a people's war, well, that is, really, when i came to the military camp. .. on the 24th, tsk, i passed there for a long time, the military medical commission, and so on, and the very next day, the 25th i arrived on the 25th, i was supposed to be assigned to a brigade, and i saw already on the 25th how simply the doors, the doors of the tsk were being broken by volunteers, and then i somehow felt a very, very great peace, that is, i saw , yes, if such a number. so let's hold on, i know from my other friends there who were also in kyiv, that is, when they saw the number of people who left, that is, from it people, businessmen, millionaires, to simple guys from borshchagivka or from troeshchyna, that is, everyone united and when they left then also some kind of calm came, well, although they were already coming quite close, we know they were coming quite

close, there and vorzel later, irpin, later bucha is close to you, well that is... is it moschun or others, but a certain there was peace because of this, and to what i am leading it, now then there were volunteers, ugh, that is, people who had a very clear argument, why, why and for what, having at the same time families, having three children each, three minors each children, i have several brothers who serve with me, who until now, having all the grounds for dismissal, they all have continued to serve for exactly 2.5 years, now they are being mobilized. is it necessary obviously so, or moral-willed such an argument in front of oneself, does it exceed the one that was in the 22nd, i think no, i think it is even a little lower, yes, that is why the question of history must be raised , need to be raised with the personnel , this should actually be carried out by moral

and psychological support, moral and psychological units. provision, we have very cool examples of this, we have for example the third assault brigade, which works also our colleague the historian oleksandr alforov, he is engaged in moral and psychological support, i know examples of brigades that are currently introducing such and such units into themselves, and that is, there are such units, but they are not developed, that is, they, they are according to the internal instructions of the armed forces, but they are not developed to... the scale to which they should be, that is, you need to talk with the personnel why this war did not start on february 24, that is, i always correct the interlocutor, well, you probably also had this happen, but when the war started , friends say this war began on february 20 , 2014, on the maidan, not this one with the shooting of the heavenly hundred, and not on february 24, 22, so if we

look deeper, then this war, as our colleague volodya vyatrovych says in... . this is our hundred-year war, it started at the beginning of the last century simply because such an entity as the ukrainian people's republic is already ours, our truly ukrainian state, if you look at it from a historical point of view, and we are talking about the cossacks, yes, this is the ukrainian national formation, but still they are considered proto-states, and onr this we already have the entire state with all its attributes, and. she just stood across the throat, both white and red, but she was just an orc, so an orc, well, she didn't last long. there were some disagreements in the leadership, some

were pulled there, others here, and secondly, the people themselves did not really want to go and fight, because they did not understand what they were fighting for, we still draw some historical parallels from time to time, you have the feeling that it somehow echoes what we are different now, maybe we've done... some bug work? i think so, well, that is, i am generally such an ardent optimist and i think and see and know and believe that we have done the work on mistakes. the first point, which the unr did not lack, we have, is the support of the west, the nr did not have this, that is, they, they were actually on their own, it was very difficult there, and if we take the same entente, that is, france and great britain, they supported the white guards and. if white, if denikin wanted to capture kyiv, because he explained to his allies that kyiv is a city of the russian empire, well, they said, okay, well,

like, well, it’s there and now we have the support of the west, two, we have a really strong army, that is, we have the armed forces of ukraine, no only the armed forces of ukraine, i do not want to offend my brothers and sisters of the defense forces of ukraine, that is, the national guard, this... the state border service, this is the security service of ukraine, the insovoon national police, and we have really strong, the defense forces of ukraine, really strong, well-armed, maybe there not all units to the end, but in the end work on it is going on, we have uh in the vast majority, i'm not i won't talk about 100% there, but we have the awareness of the population in the vast majority. about the fact that they are ukrainians, they have the state of ukraine, and as for these, the orks, and, well, okay, the russians, and the russians,

they don’t want them here, and they don’t want to see them, hear them, they don’t need them history, culture, well, we can still talk about it, because not everyone, unfortunately, is so convinced of it yet, but, that is, we have a lot of things won, we have a strong army, we have awareness of ukrainians. that they are ukrainians, they need this state, and we have the support of the west, unfortunately, all this did not exist in the ukrainian people's republic, that is , the propaganda of the bolsheviks worked very well there, er, the power was divided there, let's remember how we worked, like vynnychenko, sometimes he ran away, then he returned to kyiv, only later, when konovaltsy's snipers defended poltava there, he did stay in kyiv, well, but before that he wanted to run away several times and whether he was packing up the moidan, there were such things. now, well, now we have much more prospects and much more opportunities to defend our state and our right to exist. a little bit, our conversation is already coming to

an end, i will tell you one more such moment from your biography, if you google the name volodymyr birchak, it gives such information that he was born in 1881, i am very well preserved, but your picture, and it says, that you are ukrainian mennyk, a literary critic, a soldier of the ukrainian snipers, this is a relative, this is a relative, but he has, well, first of all, that this is a distant relative, that is, i researched his biography, i have an archival and investigative file, because he was once detained in was detained in prague, then imprisoned by the nkvd, but he and i, apart from the fact that we are relatives, we have several things in common, he is a soldier of the ukrainian armed forces, i am a soldier of the armed forces of ukraine. in principle two-two of the two formations fighting for the freedom and independence of ukraine, he, like me, was once an archaeologist, he is, it is true, a cooler archaeologist than i, although i

was also engaged in archeology, but i am not a writer, i am actually a historian , although he also historian, as he is, and we also have similarities, that we have the same ears, i really hope that his life is over after all. tragically, tragically, that is, here too the moscow boot trampled and shortened the life of a person who could do something for this country, i really want you to succeed in realizing all those plans you still have, i know that you want that you are now you are actually writing this book, and what it will be about, announce it, well, this is actually a book, these are stories from these stories. from the archives of the kgb, that is, this is the ukrainian 20th century, and it, this is what we do not know, and this is something that we know very poorly, maybe yes, maybe yes, that is, it is from the way ukrainian nationalists

cooperated with... with the british mi-6 special service, they went through special forces training and were dropped on landing planes on the territory of ukraine. perhaps someone knows little about this before the participation of jews in the ukrainian rebel army, so that one of them was actually a political consultant to the chief commander of the upa, and many such things about which we either do not know enough or little. can we already talk about any plans when this book will appear i think it's still... early days, it'll all depend on how quickly i work on leave with the health i'm in now, er, when the leave ends in september and beyond, the front, the front, my lord, thank you for this conversation, thank you for what you are doing both on the battlefield and on such an ideological battlefield, returning to people the historical truth,

of which you were the editor and... i participate in discussions , even god, how do you manage to do everything, it happens, dear friends, that you were our guest volodymyr birchak, sergeant of the armed forces of ukraine, historian, archivist, head of academic programs of the liberation movement research center and editor of historical truth , and we talked with him about history and about the war and about how history, how to make history come before... our losses have not been repeated, stay with espresso, thank you for being with us, my name is lesya vakulyuk, we are tired of the mess in the kitchen, we constantly have to sort through a pile of pans to find the right one, you need a set of savior pro, unpack tv, pans.

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