to a survey by the kyiv international institute of sociology of the kmis, and they asked ukrainians whether they would, in case of obtaining citizenship of the united states of america or the countries of the european union, whether they would remain in ukraine anyway? 79% of ukrainians said: yes, the absolute majority, we are interested to know what you think about it, and would you move to the states and the european union, to have such a ... opportunity, yes, no, everything is quite simple on youtube, if in you have a separate opinion, please leave it in the comments under this video, if you vote on the phone, watching tv, if you would move to the states and the european union, if there was such an opportunity 0800-211-381, no, 0800-211-382, all calls to these numbers are free, vote, at the end of the program we will match the results of this vote. i would like

to introduce the guests of today's studio, they are people's deputies of ukraine, oleksandr merezhko, chairman of the parliamentary committee on foreign policy and interparliamentary cooperation, member of the servant of the people. mr. oleksandr, i congratulate you. thank you for the invitation, it's nice to be back with you thank you for participating in our program. rostyslav pavlenko, people's deputy of ukraine for european solidarity, member of the parliamentary committee on education, science and innovation, former director of the national institute for strategic studies. mr. rodyslav, i also congratulate you, thank you for joining the broadcast. good evening, congratulations, thank you for oksana savchuk, people's deputy of ukraine, from the all-ukrainian freedom association, member of the parliamentary committee on transport and infrastructure. mrs. oksanina, i am you welcome, thank you for being with us. good evening to you and all our viewers. ladies and gentlemen, let's start our conversation with domestic policy, even i would say with domestic tax policy, because. today

, the verkhovna rada of ukraine adopted in the first reading a new version of the government bill on raising taxes and that the new version is expected: an increase in the military levy from 1.5% to 5%, an increase in taxes on the first and second groups of fops, advance payments on ez, 1% on all forms fop of the third group, 25% profit on financial institutions, monthly reporting of personal income tax, this is for economic reservation 50% - this is the bank profit tax in the 24th year. people's deputy of ukraine oleksiy goncharenko criticized the tax bill, which , in his opinion, will deal a blow to legal business. let's listen to what honcharenko said. this will mean a decrease in the income of ukrainians once. second, it will mean, when we talk about fops, price increases, two. this will mean possible closure. well, even

impossible, the closure of at least part of entrepreneurs, and already this year 100 thousand of new enterprises closed, a colossal figure in fact, and this must be understood that every small enterprise is not only the entrepreneur himself, but also his family. ms. oksano, did you vote for these tax changes and is it time to pass such a bill, given that it is indeed a tax increase for those businesses. and entrepreneurs who already pay taxes, that is, we are not talking about detinization, we are talking about raising taxes for those who are decent, as i understand it, taxpayers? look, i didn't vote, because i'm sure that's it will significantly affect some points of this draft law, will significantly affect ordinary people, who today do not have too high salaries anyway, and for them 5% military levy will be very strange, especially in those ... because a small salary, for

them it is really will be important and tangible and the same for fops, so i can only say in this situation that we were definitely not against the fact that taxes were raised where possible, but we were against the fact that those who honestly white work, they were once again taxed and they despaired of themselves, and where we still have not been finalized by fixed bodies, and this money is in... no, or it is crushed by certain different groups, that is, again, nothing has happened to them, it will not affect them so much, therefore, the situation is such that now many people with a tom, well, think, are already calculating how much it will be 5% of the same salary at 12:00 or 13:00 for a nurse or a teacher, and are starting to really think about how they will be in the fall, calculate your family budget for the winter and beyond. well, it

is absolutely obvious that the increase in taxes for entrepreneurs and fops will also lead to an increase or rise in prices, or to services, because entrepreneurs and enterprises for... want to transfer these expenses, or these taxes, tax increases to us, ordinary consumers, that is, we are not talking about the fact that only those who pay will suffer, in principle, this tax burden will be shared by all consumers, all ukrainians, and mr. oleksandr, here is a question for you, what do you think, was there any other option than raising taxes, it is clear that uah 500 billion or how much is needed... to collect for the budget, it is clear that there is a war, that the military levy must be higher, because the army must be maintained, and we must do our best so that we can provide for ourselves, because western aid will decrease sooner or later or

will it stop altogether, and we have to think about how to properly build financing within the state as well, was there any other option? well , in order to answer this professionally. a difficult question, you need to be an economist and have deep, thorough knowledge of economics and tax law. unfortunately, i don't am such an economist, i am a lawyer, an internationalist, essentially a scientist, but i know that raising taxes is an extremely unpopular thing for any party, the fact is that there is simply no other way out, economists and politicians will argue whether to raise or do not raise taxes, are there any alternatives, i don't know, i don't have an answer to this question, but i know that we are in extremely difficult economic conditions related to russian aggression, i know that the budget deficit is huge on next year, how we will solve this

issue, i don't know either, and unfortunately, in my opinion, there is simply no other way, no matter how popular it is, every politician wants to be popular, well, every politician... wants not to increase, but to reduce taxes, but unfortunately, we have to deal with reality, and it is very difficult. thank you, mr. oleksandr, and it is clear that even rostislav pavlenko is not an economist, but there are some things that experts usually talk about when raising taxes, well, for example, a large shadow economy, a large scheme customs, big kickbacks, which are taken by high-ranking officials, every time it gets into the information sphere, the ordinary taxpayer always thinks: well , they want to take additional tax deductions from my small salary to the budget, and they they take a million, 2 million

in bribes there, they don't have any taxes and it's not clear where this money comes from, and if it's like that, it's at the level of some boryspol military commissar? anyway, it is not clear what is going on there in the upper echelons at all, is it necessary, mr. rostislav, in the current situation to consider this increase in taxes together with other sources of filling the budget, which, unfortunately, do not fill the budget, but pass by the budget. well, you say very correctly, i would say even more, in principle, experience in public administration is enough to... emphasize that raising taxes is only an extreme and last resort to fill the budget or ensure the necessary payments, because the first thing to do is the effective use of the available, and when the ministry of finance tells us what to do with the money,

which are taken from the appropriate tax on the military, last year 45% was spent, and this year 65%. from what is planned for the corresponding period, well, excuse me, then it is necessary to change the method of channeling these funds so that they reach the military, that is why, for example, we proposed and will propose until the second reading of this project to return to the formula when communities can directly provide brigades with drones and everything necessary, this is the first, the second, you are right about the schematics and so on, it is... a little secret that there are issues that can be solved very quickly, in the 14th and 15th years, the budget was filled, simplifying management, reducing, not increasing, for example, the unified social tax and so on, there are things that will give a fairly quick effect, but only today we have something there were accepted

for customs, for public procurement, all these issues could be resolved, and the tax bill appeared as late as july, not to mention that it could have been done even earlier, the european union offered solutions just like there other colleagues, but now it is being done hastily. the third thing is possible to do, if you are already talking about raising taxes, then tax. this is something that will cause no less pain. how much is said about the gambling business, how much is said about tobacco, how much is said about alcohol, how much is said about excessive consumption, we do not see that, instead we see taxes that are aimed at those who work legally, who work in the white, or as an employee , receiving a salary, or as an individual entrepreneur, trying to provide for himself and his family. acquaintances, friends, relatives, etc., and this looks like a bit of a dishonest approach, and

in the end, you know that before raising taxes, it is desirable to cut spending a little, because we found, even with such a first pass, about uah 18 billion, which could be painlessly cut in order to a smaller amount had to be raised in taxes, all these proposals were submitted, all these positions were presented, that is, it is not something that we are talking about here. we criticize, no, all this was proposed as a solution, but either mr. hetmantsev has some, some textbook that is wrong, was it not enough, you know, how they raised taxes for those who do not have lobbyists in the corridors of power, well, this is not an honest approach, we are against it, and we will convince, until the second reading, i hope, here with the support of colleagues from all factions, that there should still be a sound economic approach to providing for the military, but not killing the economy. there is one more important issue, which the parliament actually considered this reset of the customs, and this decision has already been made, i really do not understand why

this decision was made so late in principle, because well, i remember very well the beginning of zelenskyi's presidential term, and actually how president zelenskyi and andriy bohdan , the then head of the office of the president of ukraine , came to the customs officers and had conversations with them, first about what was on the car. you are there, show me your phone or iphone, which, which iphone do you have, what do you live on, why, why so long, but your hands reach the customs, mr. oleksandr, i understand that this is not your profile topic, but well after all, we all understand in which country we live, all of us we see how customs officers live in the west, in the west of ukraine, not bad, in principle, and we, we understand that they probably do not have such a large salary. that they can afford what they can afford, well as for

the customs reset, you know what they say, better late than never, yeah, the thing is, if it didn't happen, it would always be possible to ask the question that you are asking now, why it was not done before, why it was not done during the time of the previous president or another president and so on, but the main thing is that it they also did this... a positive signal is good, and it must be said that according to experts' estimates , up to 150 billion hryvnias per year is exactly what the scheme at customs launders money from the budget, because it is actually unpaid taxes, or not incorrectly processed goods, or these are some kind of bribes for customs clearance of some goods, ms. oksano, how to overcome this difficult situation at the customs, well, they will reboot, we already have

a large anti-corruption infrastructure in ukraine, when it was adopted legislatively, in the verkhovna rada, i remember, they said, in us the best legislation in europe is anti-corruption, we will not have corruption, but how much has passed already, mr. rostislav, 8 years or 16 years, if i am not mistaken, these laws were passed. but well, but, but regarding the application of laws, we always have some question, whether it will not be the same with the customs, well, you know, really, if the traffic lights are fixed, even after reforming the customs, nothing will change, yes, the signs will change in offices, the persons who will occupy some positions will change, some people will still find opportunities and ways and will get again... to the places where they have been used to work for years, because they know how it was before, everything depends on

those goals, on the control that the state actually sets before itself, regarding the control of customs, so that it was all transparent, in order to at least somehow resolve the issue, to try to overcome at least a little something that no one has ever overcome, this is smuggling, and accordingly , corruption also begins with that. at customs, everything will really depend on how realistically the state wants to do it, whether there will be anyone we will speak beautiful slogans, we will vote for real laws, they will be very... very good, as you said, the best, the question is who will implement them and who will be those who will try to live by these laws and not violate them, therefore it is good that the law has been voted, now the most important thing remains, it is control and that these reforms take place when

people who really follow the law come, do not report, nobody knows where they go. in kyiv with some suitcases and then, or trunks, i’m sorry, with money, and then i i hope that we will have a real addition to the state budget. mr. rostyslav, oleksandr mereshko reprimanded that under other presidents, such a situation was at customs and not only at customs, and we remember how at the olimpiyskiy nsc, the then presidential candidate zelensky asked... president poroshenko why his friends have two hands, they say, why, if, if they are stealing, why didn’t they cut off these hands, if you had the opportunity to ask president zelensky at the nsc olympic games now that what question would you ask him, similar or different? well, look, first of all,

it is very easy to ask, and now volodymyr zelenskyy can address almost the entire list of these questions to himself. and here and there it’s time to talk about the covid war and so on, we heard about just big different constructions, big initiatives for the first time about billions of trees there and so on, but we didn’t see any reform things, i would instead talk about more specific things, and about severed hands you know it was 5 years to prove call me who has been proven at least something among these things that were attempted when they came to power and the current team, starting with petro poroshenko and all those who were said to be proven criminals, where are the cases, where are the verdicts, where are the results , well, obviously, it was exaggerated, and we remember how the media worked then, there was not just freedom

of speech, but there was a certain fashion for saying various things to the authorities and not thinking about how much they are. strange, but i would say because you, mr. sergiu, and mr. oleksandr, said that what are there predecessors, what was done, customs is only a part of a rather wide complex, and this anti-corruption infrastructure is only a third of the way to fight, because it is only tracking, controlling and punishing those who violate, and when hand washes hands, then it is necessary to break these dirty schemes, and the first thing that was done, for example, was automatic machines... vat refunds, the lion's share of the schemes rests on what is exported, what is imported with money from the value added tax, and when it was introduced into automatism, the revenues just increased and customs clearance issues fell well, unfortunately, after the 19th year, it was stopped. the second story is the unification

of the tax and customs registers, it was a difficult issue, because for decades we lived on it, it was already brought to mind and also, well, unfortunately, it does not work like that now, although little should have given results. the third is precisely the context of european integration, when joint work with our european partners from neighboring states, it would be possible to simplify the processes and make them transparent, this work was also brought to a fairly significant level, well... then i probably didn’t get enough, because we had to deal with something very big, and unfortunately, now in many ways we have rolled back, almost to the starting point there of the 16th, 17th year, so today you can say that i am such a friend an attempt, yes, we went through the corrected version through the appointment, through the tender commissions, the involvement of international advisers, we will see

how it will work, but this is the last thing i would like to say, i would still call on my colleagues to pay attention to what has been done. not to be rejected just because another team did it, or then along with the hr purge and together with the work of the anti-corruption infrastructure, it will give results. thank you, mr. rostislav, i would like to remind our viewers that we work live, and conduct polls throughout our broadcast. we ask you this, would you move to the united states of america or the eu if you had the opportunity? yes, no, on youtube and facebook, everything is quite simple. if you have a separate opinion, please write it in the comments under this video. if you're watching us on tv, pick up your smartphone or phone and vote on 0800 211 381. if... you had the opportunity and did you move to the united states of america or the eu, if so, please vote this number no, 0800 211 382, ​​no, and all the numbers, we

will count all the votes at the end of the program, and all the calls free, so vote, we'd love to hear your opinion. another topic that is relevant, which will be relevant, obviously in the next two weeks, is... zelensky's victory plan volodymyr zelenskyi said that 90% of the victory plan is already ready, and obviously this victory plan will be presented in the united states of america to the president of the united states joseph biden, it will happen after september 25, when the general assembly of the united nations begins. mr. oleksandr, do you know the content of this document, have you seen the draft of this document, because... er, since this is not just zelensky's victory plan, the victory plan for ukraine and ukrainians, i, as a ukrainian, for example, am interested to know , and what about this plan of victory?

well, i don't see according to the plan, but that there is a peace formula of president zelensky, which has a very specific nature. if it is specific this plan of victory, then i am not sure that it should be carried out to the general public. perhaps, well , only those who have the right to know about this plan, about the details of this plan , let's say our allies, partners, on whom assistance to ukraine depends, that is, maybe even there are some secret things that should not be brought out so that the enemy did not know, for example, did not take advantage of this knowledge, that is, i am very careful about the disclosure, let's say so, about the openness of this plan. well, very briefly you you say, but i would like to understand, since you are a representative of the presidential team,

is there any other plan b, relatively speaking, because judging by the information that i read and listen and read, it looks like there is a victory plan, the basis of which is based with the support of the united states of america. of ukraine, but i don't understand what will happen if we don't have this support , which is obvious, in this plan of victory, well, we won't have it, that is, will we have another plan of victory, or is there a plan b if there is a plan a? well, we don't know the details yet plan a, and how can we talk about plan b, but some things are really on the surface, that is, it is about the need to obtain in sufficient quantity and sufficient quality of modern weapons, starting with air defense systems, long-range missiles, that is,

atacoms , for example, patriot systems and so on, that is, in order to win the war, you need to have, well, a kind of even parity, you can say, if we are talking about weapons, and that is, such things, it seems to me, well, they are generally known about.. . in relation to yours the question, if, for example, there is a problem with the supply of weapons from the united states, well, first of all, i do not believe that, i am sure that it is in the national interest of the united states, there are many arguments in favor of which the united states should support ukraine, because, at least, well, there was a recent study conducted by american authors, by the way, and the main conclusion reached by these authors is that... the united states will be much more expensive if ukraine loses this war. that is, even from a point from the point of view of economic expediency, rationality,

it is necessary to support all kinds of ukraine right now so that it wins. if we talk about some kind of conditional plan b regarding the provision of military-technical assistance, let's not forget that there are at least 300, in fact much more, at least 300 billion. dollars in europe of russian sovereign assets, that is, these resources must be used. i am sure that the west will find different, perhaps even creative options, regardless of who becomes the president of the united states, in order to help ukraine. thank you, mr. oleksandr, ms. oksana, tell me, well, we are talking about this victory plan, obviously, all of us. we want this victory, obviously we all want to go to the borders of 1991, and we want russia to withdraw its troops from the territory of ukraine, and in

principle, war. that is going on in ukraine, it is a people's war, because if it were not for the ukrainian people, and no, not for the efforts of many layers of the people, not just the armed forces of ukraine, and volunteers, and ordinary ukrainians who help finance the army, and many, many people, which ones take indirectly and those who are at the front, those who indirectly help ukrainians to fight, this is a people's war. in the conditions of this people's war, do you understand why this victory plan, well, relatively speaking, is written only in one center, perhaps the verkhovna rada should be involved in this victory plan, is it correct from the point of view of the state, state secrets and secrets so as not to upset this plan of victory. what do you

really think of this? well, as they say, we all know, it's a very good saying, you want peace, get ready to war, therefore, when we will really have peace sooner or later, we are forced to continue not only to prepare for war, because we are already at war, but to continue to actively build up our internal forces in order to hold the defense, and then the question of future peace negotiations will take place according to the best scenario for ukraine. unfortunately, it so happened that we, as a country, an independent player, will not be the only ones sitting at this table, we will be a part of those big players of this world, who will also partially decide our fate, if this does not sound unfortunate, but yes it is, and of course we are hearing from our allies today that they will

exclusively support the position. countries, but they can in different ways, for example, set us up for something, for example, by allocating less funds to us for the internal support of our articles protected there, or etc., and it will be inside our country, we will seek more and more funds on the army, we cannot provide guaranteed payments there, we have a big such... propaganda story in the sense that many, many different people today does not always deal with what we were in the same 22nd year, but we have a lot of disunity, and this is also used by many, so what is the plan, what you asked, you know, at this stage, i do not sure that it is, that there is some such plan, that it should be made public, even

i... i'm not ready to tell you that i think it should be talked about right now, because there are still so many questions, and really a lot will be decided after the united states election, and these negotiations will continue, so for now, in order to our positions were strong, we must continue to internally clench our fists and hold defense, both for the rear, and for every citizen, as well as for the army, the army, and the people in general, because it is really a people. war, thank you, ms. oksana, mr. rostislav, you were the director of the national institute for strategic studies, and obviously, similar plans or similar initiatives were also developed, you understand how, how, on what principles these plans are built, can you tell should ukraine have several plans for victory, or several plans of action, like

how is it all happening, it was happening with your participation and there is nothing for ukrainians to expect from these plans? thank you, well, first of all, i would warn the authorities against the fact that something is written by a very high circle of five or six managers, as president zelensky once said, because such plans are not prepared by narrow circles or even with the involvement of two or three close experts - advisers, each such plan has a part that determines what... each specific authority does, there is a part that concerns the parliament, there is a part that concerns government, and you always ask how it was with us, we had a parliamentary platform, where even president poroshenko was not ashamed to come, telling the things that needed to be known to the deputies, leaders of factions, actually such leading representatives of the committees, and then , by the way, it was easier to fight with dew