What happened there that night, the target could have been the avizavod, where the a50 plane is being repaired, well , of course, we do not believe everything that the russians write, but there are very cautious indications that some other plane of a similar plan could even be affected, we are very much looking forward to the comments from our intelligence if they can provide them to us, uh, we see that already it is not a problem to strike, it is not a problem to bypass the Russian Air Defense , it is not a problem to penetrate into the territory of the Russian Federation, what can we generally say about the trends in our militaryindustrial complex, or about the trends of our cooperation with partners, these are our drones, partner drones or compilations . I apologize, i have certain problems with the sound, but i heard the question, what, what happened in taganrog, it is certainly important, i will remind you, it is. Perhaps the first such real symbolic raid behind the barricade, because taganrog is one of the few cities where they speak perebrik, not curb, so it is of course important from all points of view and from the point of view of putins recent visit to the south of russia and the goal, and well, all this is of course symbolic, as far as that is concerned. These drones, i think, well, they may not necessarily be our drones, because the policy of our partners is such that they allow us to carry out more and more such and such raids. On the other hand, there is a very difficult issue that concerns our involvement in the european, well, in general european money for defense. There is no single defense market in europe. Products, they are fragmented these markets, and therefore special mechanisms are created in order to carry out such collective efforts for and to provide assistance for joint production, ukraine must enter these structures, at two levels must enter, and at the level of creating funds, pooling of funds, joint procurement and at the level of industrial cooperation, when this money is distributed. Among those who create it, in general, it is necessary to remember such a thing an important principle that exists in the European Defense industry, justritur, fair accounting, how much the country invests , how much its industry should receive, well , all this is difficult to ensure, but well, this process has started, because if aid, the main resource of military aid to ukraine goes from United States to europe. There is no other way to enter these structures and to get european weapons, except by entering into joint financing and joint production, and we have possibilities, if the emphasis is really placed on european supplies, that europe will be able to block american supplies with its weapons, as far as this is realistic at all, right now no, right now no, we can be saved by such initiatives as with european funds, that is, with european funds would be enough, but europe cannot produce right now as much as ukraine needs, so the situation is rather such that europe can help buy on global markets, buy back what was produced earlier and buy what is needed ukraine, and in such a perspective, several years , well, in principle. Maybe except for a few points, well, of course, except for nuclear weapons, and the europeans have less of them there, except for satellite systems, because in europe they are. Not so powerful and with the exception of those miracle weapons that sometimes create such things that we do not know how it was done, well, certain shooting down of russian equipment, certain raids on russian territory, that seems to be american, not european. Mr. Oleksiy, please tell me, taking into account that on march 11 nato headquarters will raise the swedish flag, taking into account the information from the report. To the Baltic States that the Russian Federation may be preparing a conflict, in particular, related to the baltic sea, do you think it is worth looking into this information, since, well, it seems that we are not the only ones experiencing certain difficulties in the war with the Russian Federation , but russia is also stuck up to its ears in ukraine, it generally has something to plan and carry out an attack on the Baltic States. Or their neighbors . Im sorry, maybe i didnt hear everything, its about how real the threat is in the baltic, right now considering that the russians are in ukraine, what is in ukraine, well, i will answer this question, and russia will look for someone to attack, whom it can, of course, now it is difficult to believe that russia can start. An intensive operation somewhere in the south of europe, the forces are too unequal there, but on the other hand, it seemed that russia could not occupy, try to occupy the territory of ukraine, because the balance of forces was not like that, but this did not stop russia from being stupid, in principle the fact that the lines are being built in the countries in the baltics, fortification defense lines are being built , this is correct, because because. Russia will try to attack where it can attack, although so far i think that the creation of their military reorganization, the creation of districts, is rather the creation of general posts, and not real actions, but this does not mean that russia will not try, so it is better to prepare for this war, so that it does not happen, thats how i would say, regarding, thank you, thank you , mr. Oleksiy, oleksiy izhak, expert of the national institute. Of strategic research, we are now well break for a few minutes, but please dont tune out. See this week in the Collaborators Program. Rashistkakherson regional council. Who are they, deputy deputies from the kremlin. We, personally, have been waiting for russia for 30 years. But how traitors wash the cities of schoolchildren. Only development awaits the kherson region. See on tuesday, march 12, at 5 45 p. M. , the Collaborators Program with Olena Kononenko will be on the espresso tv channel. Two hours to learn about the war and how the world lives. A project for smart and caring people. Espresso in the evening. We continue saturday political club. Khrystyna yatskiv, Vitaly Portnikov and ihor eisenberg, professor at new york university. Congratulations, glory to ukraine. Glory to the heroes, i congratulate you, friends, i congratulate all viewers of espresso. Congratulations, mr. Igor. So, lets start with the message of the president of the United States to congress, how do you see it in general, how successful was it, how important was the emphasis on the war in ukraine . I think it was very successful, joe biden, not just the message, i think joe biden meant to start the crucial part of his election campaign. And those who wrote his speech, it was strong, very focused on the biggest problems , both of the world and of the United States, and the energy with which biden spoke, it reflected, you know, there is such a very interesting criterion, was it the speech was successful, during this speech, joe biden broke three times the record of fundraising for his election campaign, just from the list of americans, that is , he started the speech a little after 9 pm, so at 9 pm, at 1011 and in the evening, three times in a row, it was a record fundraiser , so obviously people liked the speech, the fact that he talked about ukraine from the beginning, and the fact that he actually compared putin to hitler at the very beginning of the speech, compared the danger that threatened the world at the time. And before that, actually, he referred to a speech, to a Roosevelt Speech in the spring of 41, when roosevelt. Addressed congress, compared those times to now, a very appropriate comparison, and how he said that roosevelt then wanted wake up the congress, so did he is trying to do this now, calling for the immediate approval of the National Security bill, which provides for assistance to ukraine. Well, in general, joe biden spoke very, very confidently about the achievements of his administration, primarily in the economy, because when he became president , the country was really in a state of flux. In a pretty dire economic situation, there were a lot of unemployed people, and in the three years of the biden administration, 15 million new jobs were created in the country, thanks to the laws that it initiated, that were passed by the previous congress, jobs lost during the pandemic have been restored, and inflation has tripled, the stock market is hitting absolute records, never seen before. High numbers, meaning the stock values of americas Largest Companies have never been as high as they are now, and the Unemployment Rate is the lowest its been in more than 50 years, and it s the second, second year in a row, so its an achievement, while joe biden has talked a lot about the dangers of democracy in the United States, and he, which is very rare, may never have happened before. He is very harshly criticized trump, without naming him, of course, he called him my predecessor, but very harshly criticized him all his approaches to politics, starting with foreign policy, because at the very beginning he said that this is not patriotic, just not americans say that putin can do whatever he wants with nato countries in europe, and so on, that is. The speech was a success, thats for sure, and i think even those people who had doubts about bidens age, what, what he has no energy, they should have dispelled these doubts after this speech, by the way, yesterday in the state of pennsylvania, biden gave another speech with about the same energy as when he spoke at the congress on thursday. Do we understand how important the ground on which this or that speech is delivered is also important . Still, it seems to me that there is a certain difference, speech. American president Joseph Bidens annual speech this year and the year 2022, for example, right . Well, but less so, super tuesday, march 5, everything happened, and it becomes clear that it is unlikely something will change. The nominee from the democrats will be joe biden, from the republicans, donald trump. At the same time , some analysts note that it may be easier for biden to beat someone, donald trump, than any other candidate. Republicans, what do you think, ms. Khrystyna , look, you and i can deal with such hypothetical things, of course, but the republicans couldnt have another candidate, its just that the Republican Party is like this now, unfortunately, because it simply pushed so far to the right that she could not have any other candidate besides trump, well, unless we assume. That trump ends up in prison, i even think that in that case nikki haley will not be a candidate, because there is rondosan, there is this vivek romaswamy, there are trump clones out there who, in that case , they are more likely to become the Republican Party candidates, unfortunately, look, in america, it is a twoparty system, which means, of course, that people can have a lot more views , than binary views. That is, people do not refer only to there centerleft and centerright, but such a shift too far to the right of the Republican Party , which has been going on for 30 years, he brought it, i would say, to the right corner , there is also such a left current in the democratic party, but it is not there, it is influential, but after all, she does not have the ability, so to speak, to take over the party and dictate its terms, that is, there are people with more leftwing views, leftwing, you know, in the american sense, in europe, that would be us they said that these are typical social democrats, but they do not have a decisive influence, but the Republican Party, as the american viewers themselves say, is simply captured by trump, that he captured it, and he did with it what he wanted to do with it, and this, by the way, he completed it by changing the leadership of the National Committee of the Republican Party, putting two cochairs there now, and one of these. Cochairs is his sons wife, so thats how he made the party a family business, as everyone says , because he wants the National Committee of the Republican Party. In his lawyer, because he has to pay a lot to lawyers because of all the lawsuits against him, so maybe if, if nikki haley was , say, the candidate, she would have, i think she would have a much better chance of beating biden than trump has because of course, non independent voters with such centrist views could vote for her, but she could not become the candidate of the modern Republican Party. And tell me, mr. Igor, why do people in the world generally perceive trumps victory as one that has already almost happened, and everyone even predictions for the future, they begin with the words after trumps victory, not in time, after, will happen teto and teto. I think its, its, by the way, a Successful Pr Campaign that trumps pr people are running, and well, i think people are kind of. Tending to fall for the hook, that kind of propaganda when propaganda says that something terrible will happen, and this means that this terrible thing will definitely happen, i can definitely say that it is absolutely unknown how the elections in november will end, it will be in 8 months, what will happen in america and in the world in these eight months, we dont know , a lot can happen, and i would rate the chances of both candidates as 50 50, but. I would Pay Attention to such alarm bells for trump, which come from the exit polls in the states , where the primaries were held recently, and precisely in the states where independent voters could participate in the primaries, are there states with open primaries, where not only party voters, but independent voters can come, say i want to vote for republican primaries, and they can vote, yes exit polls, they are interesting. The fact that a lot of people were polled, that is, tens, hundreds of thousands of people were polled at the exit polls, and people who had just voted, i. E. , who thought who they would vote for and why, were polled, that is, no, no, no, no. Abstract, no , they were answering a nonabstract question, so it is very interesting that among independent voters, trumps support is very small, it is somewhere from 30 to 3840 , it is very little, which. Would win the election, because it is the independents voters determine election results, also interestingly, 50 to 59 of those who voted for nicky gale say they will not vote for trump in november, so that means a portion of republican voters, just a portion of republicans will not vote behind trump, so its not at all clear that he has any advantages and. In eight months, a lot can change, so to say right now that trump will win, or to say that biden will win, its completely inappropriate, well, at least , for now the United States remains a democracy where the fate of the elections will be decided by the voters, and i think it is not worth making predictions about who will win. Mr. Igor, what is the general tradition of visiting in the United States. Elections, yes, that is, involvement in the processes in general, because at one time ukraines illness was that our turnout at the elections was low, and we started from what we started from, and now in the states, taking into account that a large part of people may simply not to find a candidate among these two for whom i would be ready to vote, whether they have the same problem, voter turnout at the elections. It, i think it depends on the timing, it depends on the challenges, it depends on how much people believe that the election can change their lives. Lets say in the 20th year, despite the covid, the turnout was huge, a record for the entire history of the United States. Well, i can say, i personally, my wife and i stood in line for three hours to vote, and we went to vote early, not even on election day, but a week before the election. And we then spent three hours in line, because so many people voted, never before in the elections in the 22nd year of the midterm elections for congress, significantly fewer people took part, especially those who vote for democrats, they were somehow very passive about the elections, many of them did not go to the polling station, and what will happen now, well, it is very difficult to say, it can happen, yes , i agree with you that people can somehow decide that. They dont like either trump or biden, so they will sit at home, and of course, that can happen, that people will feel closer until november, as far as they will count important during. And to vote, well, its hard to say now, but in the 20th year it was really a record, because then early voting was allowed in all states, even where it was not there before, because of covid, and everywhere there were queues, during all the days when voting was allowed, there were huge queues at all polling stations, how will it be now, lets see, and tell me, please, what you think about this idea, that the republicans will propose some kind of independent bill regarding. Aid to ukraine, this today it became known that this project is based , as it were, on some russian money, which is stored in the west, and will this money not be, as it were, a guarantee for ukraine to receive new aid . I, mr. Vitali, have already heard about three republican bills what you re saying, another one where congressman fitzpatrick is trying to take that bill that the senate passed, but add it back in there. Security at the border and so on, and another one where loans would be provided to ukraine, well, the option you are talking about is that loans were provided at the expense of this russian money, which is for events, by the way , the same proposal was heard from great britain, where it must be said that there is more russian sovereign money than in the United States, in the United States it is only about chi. Billions of dollars, in general, the vast majority of this money is under the jurisdiction of the european union, and just specifically in brussels there is a european repository where more than 200 Million Euros of russian money is located, and i can say that i would like any decision, but for ukraine to receive aid, but what should be taken into account is not. A divided congress , bills that are being prepared behind the scenes by one party, they have no chance of being adopted, because even within one party there can be different opinions, therefore, bills can only be passed if there is a bipartisan agreement, a Bipartisan Coalition to pass them, and if the republicans will prepare bills somewhere under the carpet so that no one sees it, i think that. There will be a chance of passing them not enough, because something can get there that, lets say, a significant part of the democrats may not like there, if there are some unacceptable conditions, if it does not agree with the leaders of the senate at all or if the senate votes for it, in the senate any bills can be passed only on a twoparty basis, because there you need 60 votes, the democrats have 51 seats in the senate, the republicans have 49, that is, there is nothing at all. It cannot be accepted unless there is a bipartisan agreement of a Bipartisan Coalition, that is, i would say that any which a bill that will provide aid to ukraine, that can pass, that will be good, but if the bills are being prepared behind the scenes, that is bad, i read another report yesterday that the same republican congressman fits patrick, he is going to collect signatures on another petition, discharge petition about. About their draft law, where aid to ukraine means all things related to the border, the democrats said that they have already started collecting signatures for the bill approved by the senate. This, by the way, is the pressure of speaker johnson, because if there are 218 signatures for any of these bills, it will still be considered bypassing the speaker, it will be a crushing political defeat for the speaker, that is, it will show that he cant. Cant run the house, he cant even to lead their faction, if there are, there will be those who will sign such a petition, so i really want to hope that in the end this problem will be solved, although it was a shame to see how the majority of republicans reacted to the part of bidens speech that related to ukraine, then they were silent, something were reading something on their phones, the speaker there in one place, when biden referred to how. How mr. Gorbachev said he will knock down this wall, so somewhere under the table he applauded so that it was not very visible that he that he was applauding, and it was clear on his face that he felt very, very bad when biden was talking about all this, and as we understand, in the case of trying to advance one of the alternative bills, we have time added to the moment. Theoretical approval, however, that is, it is no longer march, it is already april further, yes, although there is one point that, oddly enough, can be positive, because i will continue. Take place, after they have taken place, the republican members of the house of representatives may, therefore, already disappear their fears that trump may turn some of his supporters against them in their districts, that is, they may, surprisingly, get more freedom of action. Thank you, mr. Igor, igor eisenburg, a professor at new york university, was in touch with us. Another important event this week. Lihuets, special representative of the chairman xizen ping of the peoples republic of china for relations with the countries of central europe, visited kyiv after visiting the russian capital and the capitals of european countries, and we will talk about it with the former ambassador of ukraine to china, cochairman of the ukrainianchinese Business Council ihor lytvyn. Congratulations, mr. Igor. I congratulate you. Well, one can generally understand why lihui started this tour in the first place. He is hot. Government envoy on the issue of relations with eurasia, and that is why he came here, and to moscow, and to the european capital, in order to in order to express the main opinion, it is the opinion that it is necessary to convene an International Peace conference with the participation of russia. As the minister of Foreign Affairs and, in general, the chief diplomat of china, mr. Yi, said, this means the sessions of the thai peoples assembly. China supports the convening of an International Peace conference to which both ukraine and russia will agree, in which all parties will participate on equal terms and will be able to impartially and honestly discuss all peace plans. All conflicts should. End at the table negotiations, and the sooner negotiations begin, the sooner peace will come. That is, lihuey came here in order to call on the ukrainian side to participate in russia s peace conference, although our position is, as you know, we are holding a conference in switzerland first, and when there will be enough supporters of. The ukrainian peace formula, then e russia is called to the carpet, but china wants to make it so that at the first conference, and not at the second, as we plan, and as our western allies support us in this, at the second we planned and are planning to invite russia to the conference, but china wants this to happen. Is going to neither the first, nor the second , nor the third conference, they honestly have this impression yes, they somehow look at it, to put it mildly, without much enthusiasm . I dont know how the lifway negotiations ended in moscow, but there is an opinion that after all , russia would be ready to be invited and to discuss these issues with it, but we are not ready for this, and our president said that we would sit behind the aggressor theres no negotiating power, huh. Let them withdraw their troops from ours territory, and then there will be negotiations, when the territorial integrity of ukraine is established, that is, restored, then perhaps we will sit down at the negotiating table, but not now, that is why there is such a formula, let us convince that the formula is the ukrainian formula for peace, it the best, and we will have many supporters, and then we will call russia and simply set its conditions, such thoughts arise in. But lihui, according to the south China Morning post, which followed his european visit, repeated there russian narratives in his conversations with his european counterparts, while on his previous tour he was much more upfront, you can explain why this change of position towards precisely supporting the russian idea of how it should continue and end. I will tell you honestly that i dont see any change of position at all, both from the beginning and now, china is doing everything to achieve its chinese interests, and for and for chinese interests, what they call a conflict, or a crisis ukrainian must be finished, because china is stalling in its efforts to achieve Global Economic expansion, and