N1SRP — broadcast
20261012 010000 UTC
493 transcript segments
Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking
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[00:00:11] Pertsev saying that Russia will, of course,
[00:00:15] be watching what is happening in Serbia, and that it wants
[00:00:18] a government that is friendly to Russia. What does
[00:00:22] this message, three weeks before the elections,
[00:00:26] tell us? Well, of course, Russia as...
[00:00:30] "an autocratic empire, it always engages in some kind of personal
[00:00:33] contacts with the authorities in those countries
[00:00:37] it wants to influence. Sometimes it has to bribe various
[00:00:41] politicians. Sometimes, in countries similar to ours, which
[00:00:44] have either an autocratic regime or a hybrid regime, they can
[00:00:47] directly really contact the people who
[00:00:51] make decisions there, and of course, that suits them as long as their interests
[00:00:55] are not threatened. And as far as
[00:00:58] our elections are concerned, they really say they
[00:01:02] are following them. They are indeed following them
[00:01:04] in the sense that if Vučić shows weakness,
[00:01:08] he cannot stay in power. They will not interfere; they will let him
[00:01:12] go down the drain. They will wait for a new government to be formed and will start
[00:01:15] pressuring it, for example, with a new gas arrangement, similar to
[00:01:19] how they pressured the previous
[00:01:21] government. They will not even mention Vučić and will not
[00:01:25] remember him. That is, for Russia, that specific Vučić is not
[00:01:28] someone who is... personally important. He is important as long as
[00:01:32] he has the levers of power. When he, if he loses those levers of power,
[00:01:36] the one who succeeds him will be important, and Russia will start to
[00:01:39] build similar relations. We, of course, with the aim of building the same
[00:01:43] relations with the next set of leaders. And
[00:01:46] that's why, that's why I said what I said in the previous segment, that
[00:01:50] we must sever those ties with Russia so that
[00:01:54] we can, if we want to create some kind of free, functional state and so
[00:01:57] on, that's why we must sever ties with Russia. Then
[00:02:00] we have literally a connection
[00:02:04] with Europe. That's a two-in- one, that's right. That connection
[00:02:08] with Europe is perhaps a new methodology
[00:02:11] on which the European Union will decide
[00:02:15] in the future. That is not unanimous,
[00:02:18] but by majority, but it mentions precisely that
[00:02:22] it will specifically look at how candidate countries are progressing and how they
[00:02:26] relate. They did not specifically mention Russia and
[00:02:30] China, but they mean precisely Russia and
[00:02:33] China, which means that further progress
[00:02:36] will primarily depend on these relations. Yes, well,
[00:02:40] that new process simply shows that somehow this
[00:02:43] specific enlargement model has reached a dead end in reality
[00:02:47] because even if you have states like ours that
[00:02:51] truly do not want to implement these reforms, I mean, the government simply does not want to implement them, it does not
[00:02:54] want to bring that process to an end, there is simply no desire.
[00:02:58] That informally freezes
[00:03:02] within that society, within that state,
[00:03:06] you have an increasing intolerance towards the European
[00:03:09] Union, because it is very easy for those states and those
[00:03:12] authorities to tell their citizens that they don't
[00:03:16] want them, that nobody sees them there, they
[00:03:19] just want to exploit them and so on, they simply cover themselves,
[00:03:23] they factually cover their decision, that's all. And now this new
[00:03:27] process, yes, it would be some kind of evaluation process, not... so that you
[00:03:30] go, I mean, it's somehow like that university reform that
[00:03:34] used to be, not that you listen to the whole subject and then at the end
[00:03:37] take the exam all at once, but it's parceled out so
[00:03:40] that you now take that exam in practically several parts.
[00:03:44] This is similar, and when you take,
[00:03:47] for example, close those chapters, you again get some benefit, that is, they let
[00:03:50] you into some parts, I don't know, of the common market
[00:03:54] or the decision-making policy, various
[00:03:57] projects, so that's money specifically and... some influence
[00:04:00] that we can have through that
[00:04:03] process. So, not everything awaits us at the end of the rainbow,
[00:04:06] but as we progress, we get
[00:04:10] concrete benefits. That's something that really
[00:04:12] high-level corruption, I mean sounds more functional than the current one, which makes the government's narrative
[00:04:16] that when they say they'll do everything, then
[00:04:19] when the time comes for harmonization with
[00:04:23] the European Union's foreign policy, they'll do it at the end,
[00:04:26] practically falls apart, right? That narrative falls apart, yes.
[00:04:30] Well, our government or regime,
[00:04:33] they pursue such a policy that, I would say, they never want
[00:04:36] to bring any of those processes to an end,
[00:04:40] any of them concerning Europe, reforms, and so
[00:04:43] on. They just want to stay on that path. Yes, they don't want
[00:04:46] these negotiations to be officially frozen, for example. They have
[00:04:50] frozen funds, for example,
[00:04:52] but in the end, these negotiations are not formally
[00:04:56] stopped. They haven't been expelled, for example, from this European People's Party and something
[00:05:00] similar, and these are some, shall we say,
[00:05:03] concrete consequences that send a concrete signal that we have somehow
[00:05:07] stood against Europe, and this way it seems as if
[00:05:10] we are somewhat in between. "And like the government never gives up, but
[00:05:14] I'm stuck in one place. Uh, I mean, on the other hand,
[00:05:18] we see that Russia uses that much better than Europe
[00:05:22] in the sense that Russia is a state with one master who can make all these decisions
[00:05:25] how to control all these centers, how to
[00:05:29] blackmail, and Europe is simply a conglomerate of different
[00:05:32] states in which our government, our state, perhaps has
[00:05:36] bilateral relations with these member states, it can achieve
[00:05:39] a more favorable position for itself, so..." for example, we saw when
[00:05:43] decisions are made about us, about different clusters, one group of countries is against it, for example, these
[00:05:47] Baltic states, Poland, for example, these neighboring
[00:05:50] countries, with them we can, if there's good will,
[00:05:53] agree, but simply there is this one group of northern
[00:05:57] and eastern countries that simply does not tolerate our ties with
[00:06:00] Russia, and that's it. We're stuck here and
[00:06:03] that won't change, even if we say that now we're not as
[00:06:07] corrupt or not as dysfunctional as we
[00:06:11] were yesterday. We'll still find ourselves in that
[00:06:22] how Ukraine has surpassed Serbia, for example, in the process
[00:06:25] of Euro-integration. Stay with
[00:06:27] N1.
[00:06:36] How did Ukraine enter the first rank of candidates for membership in the European
[00:06:40] Union, how did it leapfrog Serbia, which is now lagging behind? Does
[00:06:43] it really meet the standards or does it have the favor of Brussels? I will
[00:06:47] discuss this with Sofia Popović from Contemporary Politics, who was recently
[00:06:51] in Kyiv with her colleagues. There you spoke with
[00:06:54] representatives of the civil sector and with politicians and
[00:06:58] media. Do they all agree
[00:07:01] in their assessment that Ukraine has indeed made
[00:07:04] some steps, or do they see it, as I said,
[00:07:08] as some favor from Brussels, so now Ukraine is in the first row?
[00:07:13] "The picture is mixed, given the fact that
[00:07:16] after the Russian invasion, or rather, due to geopolitical circumstances, Ukraine even
[00:07:20] got the opportunity to negotiate full membership, because before that, it
[00:07:24] did not have a European perspective. Of course,
[00:07:28] colleagues, journalists and experts are
[00:07:30] dissatisfied with the pace of reforms that
[00:07:33] the government is implementing, but on the other hand,
[00:07:37] they clearly had results to show and tell us about, which the government
[00:07:41] has indeed implemented." So the narrative that we can
[00:07:44] hear in Serbia in the region that Ukraine
[00:07:48] is a political leader, that all this is happening because
[00:07:51] of geopolitics, is really not entirely true,
[00:07:54] because Ukraine has results behind it, especially
[00:07:58] in the area of rule of law, chapter 23 when
[00:08:01] we talk, for example, about the fight against corruption,
[00:08:05] these are results that even countries in the region that have been negotiating
[00:08:09] much longer cannot boast of. And what are... what are some
[00:08:13] specific steps that now put Ukraine in that
[00:08:16] first row? What have they specifically done that, for example,
[00:08:20] hasn't been done here in Serbia or the region? So,
[00:08:23] what is important is to take into account that it is a country that is
[00:08:26] at war, that some things that Ukraine is currently
[00:08:30] doing, some reforms, simply must be implemented after
[00:08:34] the war ends. These are, for example, criteria, those
[00:08:37] parts of the accession process that relate, for example, to economic
[00:08:41] criteria. Mhm. "When it comes to the rule of law, Ukraine
[00:08:44] did not start from scratch. So, in 2013,
[00:08:48] they had a change of regime that was similar to this
[00:08:51] regime here. After that, they started implementing
[00:08:55] reforms that were not related to the European Union, meaning
[00:08:59] liberating state institutions, media, starting the fight against
[00:09:02] corruption, because corruption was, especially then, the
[00:09:06] biggest problem of Ukrainian society, and they have, when
[00:09:09] we speak specifically about those reforms, created..."
[00:09:12] an entire system for combating corruption that yields
[00:09:16] results. I'll just tell you that Ukraine now has over
[00:09:19] 250 convictions for high-level corruption. When I say
[00:09:24] that the president of the Supreme
[00:09:27] Court of Ukraine was convicted in a case that involved about
[00:09:31] 2.5 million dollars in bribes.
[00:09:34] I'm talking about vice prime ministers, I'm talking about
[00:09:38] cabinet members of President
[00:09:40] Zelensky. One of them was... involved in a money laundering affair for
[00:09:44] some 10 million dollars, and a country at war
[00:09:47] prosecutes the head of the cabinet
[00:09:50] of the president who also commands the forces of Ukraine. I think that is
[00:09:54] something that is unimaginable in Serbia, but in the region.
[00:09:58] If we add up all the cases of high-level corruption prosecutions in the region, I
[00:10:01] don't know if there are even 30. Yet one country has over
[00:10:05] 250. And what is interesting when I mentioned that
[00:10:08] anti-corruption system, it has a
[00:10:11] special police, a special prosecutor's office,
[00:10:15] a special anti-corruption court, a special
[00:10:17] appeals court, so that somewhere, it depends from case to
[00:10:21] case, but on average, the period from when the police initiate
[00:10:24] proceedings to the final judgment is somewhere between a year and a year and a half,
[00:10:27] which is a system that is truly effective and yields
[00:10:31] results. What we heard in Ukraine that we didn't know
[00:10:34] is that in these bodies, foreign, i.e.,
[00:10:38] international experts, play an important role,
[00:10:41] not in the sense that foreigners choose judges, but
[00:10:45] that foreigners in the process of choosing judges
[00:10:48] verify the integrity of these people,
[00:10:51] meaning their assets, whether they were involved in any
[00:10:55] questionable processes in the past, and so on. That is something
[00:10:58] that yields results, and it is unimaginable
[00:11:01] that we would see this in Serbia or any country
[00:11:04] in the region. And how independent is the anti-corruption agency and
[00:11:08] special prosecutor's office in Ukraine, and how independently
[00:11:11] can it really do its job? It really
[00:11:15] is independent because of these international
[00:11:18] experts I was just talking about, but
[00:11:21] of course, the government always tries to...
[00:11:25] "threaten the independence of these bodies. We had such an attempt
[00:11:29] last summer when the government in Ukraine, that is,
[00:11:32] the ruling party, tried to
[00:11:35] change the law so as to make these bodies
[00:11:38] less independent. We had a similar process in Serbia, but in
[00:11:42] Ukraine it did not pass, because in the midst of
[00:11:46] war we had strong demonstrations by both citizens and
[00:11:49] representatives of civil society, as well as appeals from the European Union to do it.
[00:11:52] It was abandoned, so..." That speaks volumes about
[00:11:56] how simply the government cannot even in wartime
[00:11:59] touch these bodies which, as I say, yield
[00:12:02] results, and citizens trust these
[00:12:06] bodies the most. We also mentioned media freedom.
[00:12:09] Uh, how much media freedom
[00:12:12] can exist in wartime conditions,
[00:12:15] what does it look like on the ground? We went to
[00:12:19] Kyiv with the idea of writing a story about
[00:12:22] media freedoms during the war, because we expected
[00:12:26] a completely different picture. What is happening in
[00:12:29] Ukraine, we were surprised by the fact that
[00:12:32] in a country at war, the media are more independent than
[00:12:36] here in Serbia. What is, for
[00:12:39] example, a challenge in Ukraine is that special program that is
[00:12:42] broadcast on all television stations, which was launched at
[00:12:46] the beginning of the invasion, which made sense, so
[00:12:49] that citizens hear the same information on all television stations
[00:12:53] about what is happening on the front, what is happening in major cities.
[00:12:56] However, as the war has been going on for more than four and a half years, that
[00:13:00] program, journalists say that the program no longer makes sense, so now
[00:13:04] journalists are trying to get out of that measure, which is very difficult given
[00:13:07] that a state of war has been declared on the territory, that
[00:13:11] the media must follow certain instructions given to them by the government, but
[00:13:14] we heard very interesting stories about how, for example,
[00:13:18] one investigative portal wrote a story
[00:13:21] about a corruption affair involving a high-ranking
[00:13:25] government official, that then the Ministry of Defense prohibited
[00:13:28] the publication of that story, but that out of solidarity all
[00:13:31] other media published that story because they did not have a formal
[00:13:35] prohibition, so media freedom in that sense is not threatened.
[00:13:39] Of course, the problem is partly funding, given
[00:13:43] that since the beginning of the war there have been fewer and fewer advertisements in Ukraine, so
[00:13:46] journalists are facing the same problems as
[00:13:49] everywhere in the world, but the independence of the media, I would say,
[00:13:53] exists, it's at a higher level than here in Serbia. Mhm, with the previous
[00:13:57] guest I talked about that change in the decision-making methodology in
[00:14:00] the European Union, that decisions are made by majority and not
[00:14:04] unanimously. How much does that favor Ukraine compared, for example, to Serbia?
[00:14:08] That favors Ukraine
[00:14:11] because the majority of
[00:14:14] European Union countries are for Ukraine's progress on
[00:14:17] that path. Currently, Hungary,
[00:14:20] regardless of the change of government, is blocking further opening
[00:14:24] of clusters for Ukraine due to the issue of the Hungarian
[00:14:28] national minority, so Ukraine is now facing the same scenario as other
[00:14:32] countries in the region, which is the blocking of negotiations due to some
[00:14:35] bilateral issues, but Ukraine with
[00:14:38] great enthusiasm, I would say, expects such a type
[00:14:42] of reform and transition to majority voting,
[00:14:45] although there is concern in Kyiv that
[00:14:49] a change in the type of membership could
[00:14:52] bring them. from what they want, and they only want full
[00:14:56] membership of Ukraine in the European Union, because they see this, along with the end
[00:15:00] of the war, as their strategic
[00:15:04] priority for the coming years. Uh, we already mentioned at the beginning that they are
[00:15:07] now in the first row of countries in the process
[00:15:11] of Euro-integration. Uh, on the other hand, Serbia opened
[00:15:14] its last cluster in December
[00:15:17] 2021. The war in Ukraine began in
[00:15:20] February 2022.
[00:15:24] And how did we now get into a situation where Serbia has been
[00:15:28] stagnating or regressing for five years, while Ukraine, which is
[00:15:31] at war, is moving forward? On the other hand, Serbia is now in the same
[00:15:35] group of countries as Turkey and Georgia, which
[00:15:38] absolutely have no EU perspective whatsoever.
[00:15:42] The reason why Serbia is stagnating on its European path, I would say,
[00:15:46] primarily lies in what is happening in Serbia,
[00:15:49] that is, the fact that more and more, so
[00:15:52] it seems there is no end to the regression in fundamental
[00:15:56] criteria, i.e., in the areas of rule of law.
[00:16:00] Of course, it was the government's decision not to
[00:16:04] align with sanctions against Russia that influenced this, so
[00:16:07] that progress could not be made. After that, we also had Banjska,
[00:16:11] so every year there was some, some bigger scandal
[00:16:15] in Serbia that simply confirms the decision of those countries
[00:16:18] that are against staying against it. On the other hand, countries
[00:16:22] like Montenegro or Albania recognized
[00:16:25] the geopolitical moment, because that geopolitical moment is not
[00:16:29] only positive for Ukraine, but also for
[00:16:32] the Western Balkans, so they are bringing their negotiations
[00:16:36] to an end while we are stagnating, but it is really
[00:16:39] difficult to watch how all the
[00:16:42] countries that are in that process, even those that are
[00:16:46] more recent like Moldova and Ukraine, are really
[00:16:49] truly surpassing. And during your stay in Kyiv, you talked
[00:16:52] with various actors. How do they
[00:16:56] view relations with Serbia, the fact that
[00:16:59] Serbia, through third countries, is still sending weapons to
[00:17:03] Ukraine, but has not imposed sanctions on Russia?
[00:17:07] What hurts them more or means more to them at this moment, the sending of weapons? What does
[00:17:11] that situation look like?
[00:17:13] Uh, unlike Serbia, where the government
[00:17:17] tried to put the topic of Ukraine's relations high on the agenda, primarily for
[00:17:20] European partners, not for the domestic public, the relationship between Ukraine
[00:17:23] and Serbia is not a top topic in Ukraine,
[00:17:27] but what we heard from our interlocutors, among
[00:17:30] them politicians from the ruling party, is that what is important,
[00:17:34] what is important to Ukraine, is "precisely what it gets from that relationship,
[00:17:37] which is, as you mentioned, weapons
[00:17:40] through third countries. In a way, they are,
[00:17:44] I would say, aware that the government uses
[00:17:47] its relationship with Ukraine as a kind of
[00:17:51] improvement of its reputation in Europe, but they are simply a country at war that
[00:17:55] looks after its own interests, and their most important interest is
[00:17:58] to get what they need most, which is weapons.
[00:18:02] But on the other hand, Serbia is indeed a topic there
[00:18:06] in a way. So..." the relationship of the Serbian Orthodox Church with the Russian
[00:18:09] Orthodox Church, the authorities, but it seems to me that they
[00:18:12] understand that kind of dependence
[00:18:15] uh on Russia, but not entirely the relations and
[00:18:19] uh the way the Serbian
[00:18:27] we will continue to talk about this topic. My colleague Aleksandra Gotfroa
[00:18:30] spoke with a journalist from Kyiv Independent about the European
[00:18:34] path and whether
[00:18:37] Ukraine is really making progress in the fight against
[00:18:40] corruption.
[00:18:47] Mr. Sukhov, thank you for speaking to N1. Ukraine's
[00:18:51] aspiration towards the European Union is neither new, nor has it been
[00:18:54] simple or easy. In 2013, the then President
[00:18:58] Viktor Yanukovych refused to sign the Stabilization and Association
[00:19:01] Agreement, followed by the Revolution of Dignity. Then Russia
[00:19:04] annexed Crimea, and the war in eastern Ukraine began. Now Ukraine has opened its first
[00:19:08] clusters amidst a full-scale war. How did it manage to do that?
[00:19:23] Thank you for inviting me. I think that opening the clusters
[00:19:26] is probably a technical issue. I don't think it means there's much
[00:19:30] progress. Unfortunately, there's little progress in implementing the reforms
[00:19:33] required by the European Union, but some things that have been achieved in
[00:19:37] terms of reforms were achieved long before the negotiations
[00:19:40] formally began. I think the main reason they
[00:19:44] opened these clusters and accepted Ukraine's application for candidate
[00:19:47] status is that the European Union wanted to show
[00:19:51] solidarity with Ukraine during Russia's aggression against Ukraine, but
[00:19:55] as for reforms, I wouldn't say there's much
[00:19:57] progress. So, you think that the
[00:20:01] main factor that accelerated Ukraine's European path is the fact that there is a
[00:20:05] war, which is also a threat to the European Union, that is.
[00:20:11] Yes, I think so. To be objective, I must say that there have been relatively
[00:20:15] successful reforms in Ukraine, such as the formation of NAKO and SAPO,
[00:20:19] anti-corruption agencies, and an anti-corruption court, but
[00:20:23] they were not formed as part of negotiations with the European Union;
[00:20:27] they are separate from that. These bodies were formed long before
[00:20:31] Ukraine applied for
[00:20:32] membership.
[00:20:35] Let's talk about NAKO and SAPO. That is one of the legacies of the Revolution
[00:20:39] of Dignity, or Maidan, as that event is known worldwide.
[00:20:43] The creation of these completely independent bodies to fight corruption. Now
[00:20:47] these bodies are exposing corruption among very high-ranking
[00:20:50] officials, officials very close to Ukrainian President
[00:20:54] Zelensky. Does that hinder Ukraine's European
[00:20:56] path?
[00:20:59] No, it actually helps Ukraine on its path to the European Union, because that's what
[00:21:03] Ukraine can show Europe. It says: see, at least in some
[00:21:07] areas we have the rule of law, because if even the highest
[00:21:10] officials can be brought to justice, that means that it is,
[00:21:14] at least in some aspects, a successful reform, because earlier even
[00:21:18] NABU and SAPO primarily prosecuted middle-level
[00:21:22] and lower-level officials, but last year and this year the situation
[00:21:26] has drastically changed because they have filed indictments against the former
[00:21:29] head of Zelensky's cabinet, Andriy Yermak, before that against
[00:21:33] one of Zelensky's close associates, Timor Mindich, and now
[00:21:36] also against the former deputy head of the cabinet, Iryna Mudra.
[00:21:40] So, that shows that anyone can be brought to justice,
[00:21:44] that no one has immunity from the rule of law. Although
[00:21:47] there is a lot of resistance to all this, and the government is trying.
[00:21:59] There were attempts to limit the independence of NAKO SAPO. Zelensky
[00:22:02] had signed the corresponding law, then people took to the streets
[00:22:05] of Ukraine to protest. So, people said what they thought about it, and
[00:22:09] the European Union reacted. But the very fact that this
[00:22:13] happened, that an attempt was made to limit independence, that's not exactly
[00:22:17] a good message, is it?
[00:22:21] Obviously, it wasn't a good message. The only reason
[00:22:24] why the authorities decided to withdraw that decision last year, that
[00:22:28] attempt to limit the independence of NABU and SAPO,
[00:22:31] is that the explicit message from the West, and primarily
[00:22:35] from Europe, was that it was not acceptable. Also,
[00:22:38] the position of Ukrainian society. These protests, in combination with European
[00:22:42] pressure, led to the withdrawal of the law which aimed to
[00:22:46] eliminate the independence of NABU and SAPO. The reason why
[00:22:50] the government wanted to eliminate the independence of these
[00:22:53] bodies is because the government thought that if it allowed
[00:22:56] NABU and SAPO to continue to act independently, then
[00:23:00] almost everyone around Zelensky might end up in prison at some
[00:23:03] point. It's obvious that they had an interest in stopping
[00:23:07] that, but thanks to the European Union and the people
[00:23:10] of Ukraine, that didn't
[00:23:11] happen.
[00:23:20] Let me ask you one more thing related to this topic. When those people are indicted,
[00:23:23] they either manage to escape, like Mindich or the former state
[00:23:27] prosecutor, or those who remain, Zelensky fires
[00:23:29] them. Does that show Zelensky's true desire to fight
[00:23:33] corruption, or is it perhaps about damage
[00:23:35] control?
[00:23:44] Well, if someone manages to escape, that shows that that person may
[00:23:48] have received some leaked information from the Anti-Corruption Agency
[00:23:51] or another body, the SBU or the State
[00:23:55] Prosecutor's Office helped that corrupt person, for example
[00:23:58] Mindich. If such officials or associates
[00:24:01] of the president are allowed to escape, that shows
[00:24:04] that there is little political will to fight corruption,
[00:24:08] i.e., there are probably attempts to protect them.
[00:24:11] When Zelensky decides to fire some officials, for example,
[00:24:15] Yermak or Iryna Mudra, that means that
[00:24:18] he is afraid of a negative reaction from the public, he is afraid that his
[00:24:21] ratings will continue to fall, that he will become very unpopular.
[00:24:25] Yes, that is damage control, that is an attempt to
[00:24:28] stay above that scandal, an attempt to portray himself as someone
[00:24:32] who is not involved in corruption
[00:24:34] schemes.
[00:24:38] My last question, one of the requirements in the accession process, and
[00:24:41] I'm asking you this also because of the situation in Serbia, is media freedom. You
[00:24:45] work for an independent media, So, what is the situation with media freedom in
[00:24:49] Ukraine? And I'm taking into account, of course, that Ukraine is at war, that war imposes
[00:24:53] certain restrictions, but what is
[00:24:55] the situation?
[00:25:00] Even before Zelensky became president and during Poroshenko's time and before
[00:25:04] that, there were always attempts to restrict freedom of speech. After
[00:25:08] the start of the Russian invasion in 2022, Zelensky
[00:25:11] gained greater powers, wartime powers, and therefore now has
[00:25:15] a greater ability to restrict freedom of speech. For example, there's that
[00:25:19] TV marathon. which unites all television
[00:25:22] channels, which the European Union criticized because it restricts freedom
[00:25:25] of speech. Now almost no one believes that it's necessary,
[00:25:29] although it might have been necessary at the beginning of the invasion,
[00:25:33] though that can be doubted, but now it's definitely not necessary
[00:25:36] anymore, but they're holding that TV marathon, not
[00:25:40] allowing private independent TV channels to
[00:25:43] operate independently, which is an obvious restriction and
[00:25:46] censorship. There were many attempts to pressure
[00:25:49] the media there. There were cases where
[00:25:52] some activists, anti-corruption fighters, such as
[00:25:56] Vitaliy Shabunin, were accused in suspicious criminal
[00:26:00] cases that many people
[00:26:03] treated as pressure due to their criticism of the
[00:26:06] authorities. These pressures continue, but I must say that the Ukrainian media
[00:26:10] community resisted, that it remained very strong despite attempts
[00:26:13] of censorship. Journalists have a large number of journalistic investigations
[00:26:17] into corruption, and the more such investigations there are, the greater the pressure
[00:26:21] on journalists, because officials have more
[00:26:23] reasons to pressure independent media, to pressure the media.
[00:26:27] Mr.
[00:26:44] Towards the end of the show, we go to Brazil where general elections were held.
[00:26:48] The current president Lula was expected to win in the first
[00:26:52] round. However, Flavio Bolsonaro, son of former president
[00:26:55] Jair, finished ahead of Lula with
[00:26:58] 47/45
[00:27:00] percent of the votes. The difference is about 2 million voters, since
[00:27:04] no one won a majority, the decision will be made on October 25th in
[00:27:08] the second round. This result shows that the political
[00:27:12] movement of Flavio's father, former president Jair Bolsonaro,
[00:27:15] still has great strength, even though he is in
[00:27:18] prison. In the campaign, everyday problems such
[00:27:22] as prices, but also urban
[00:27:25] violence, prevailed. Flavio promises a tougher response to
[00:27:28] crime and economic policies with lower
[00:27:31] taxes. relies on social programs, public
[00:27:34] investments, and the results of his previous mandates. For
[00:27:38] Lula, this is his seventh presidential candidacy.
[00:27:41] He first won back in 2002, the second
[00:27:45] time in 2006. He returned to power in
[00:27:48] 2022. Specifically by defeating Jair
[00:27:51] Bolsonaro. After that defeat, Jair's supporters
[00:27:55] stormed institutions in Brasília. The former president was
[00:27:58] later sentenced for attempted coup to 27 years.
[00:28:02] Therefore, the second round is not just a discussion about economics for some
[00:28:06] voters, it is also a question of Brazil's attitude
[00:28:09] towards the events that followed the previous
[00:28:12] elections. Brazil can no longer continue like this, and I am very satisfied because
[00:28:16] many public opinion research agencies placed us behind
[00:28:20] the opponent while our internal polls showed that we were leading, which was
[00:28:24] confirmed.
[00:28:26] We had a real chance to win already in the first round. The result
[00:28:30] is unexpected, I must admit that I was convinced that I would win in the first
[00:28:33] round, ahead of us are only uncertainty, murky biographies,
[00:28:37] a dark past, in the biography of the father, in the biography
[00:28:40] of the son, there is nothing that hints at a promising future for Brazilian
[00:28:44] society. The right and the Bolsonaro family
[00:28:47] have strengthened even outside the presidential race. Michelle
[00:28:50] Bolsonaro, Jair's wife and his son Carlos
[00:28:54] won seats in the Senate, the youngest
[00:28:57] son Jair Renan and Jair's brother
[00:29:00] Renato were elected as deputies, the Senate is particularly
[00:29:04] important, out of 54 newly elected senators,
[00:29:07] 34 come from the right, senators in Brazil
[00:29:11] have the authority to decide on the impeachment of Supreme
[00:29:14] Court judges, institutions that freed
[00:29:17] Jair Bolsonaro. Flavio Bolsonaro hopes that a
[00:29:21] presidential victory would open the way for him to achieve
[00:29:25] his father's release through amnesty or
[00:29:28] pardon. In the second round, he will count on the votes
[00:29:31] of other right-wing candidates who together won a few
[00:29:35] percentage points. Lula, on the other hand, has three
[00:29:38] weeks to win over the undecided and get his
[00:29:41] supporters to the polls. The first round changed
[00:29:44] expectations, the second will decide who leads