Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:00a turning point, why does he need it, what could he be
00:00:03dissatisfied with? Well, the first service,
00:00:06the counterintelligence service and military
00:00:08counterintelligence, well, here, along the lines
00:00:12of counterintelligence, I'm saying that the tasks are narrowing, the circle of foreigners
00:00:15is getting smaller, so there's less work
00:00:19left. Along the lines of military intelligence, it's provided, the most
00:00:22important thing, it's already the
00:00:25fifth year that the military on the front line
00:00:29are submissive...
00:01:43This is an absurd picture, also war. A tanker is burning in the
00:01:46Black Sea after attacks by Ukrainian naval drones. On the shore,
00:01:50a lonely guitarist calmly plays, passers-by walk by,
00:01:53as if the disaster is just a backdrop for a concert.
00:01:56Such footage resembles a biblical apocalypse. Moscow
00:02:00continues massive strikes on Ukrainian cities. This
00:02:03week, dozens of civilians became victims of shelling. In
00:02:07Pryluky, a five-story residential building was
00:02:10destroyed, among the twenty-two dead were entire families with children.
00:02:40In Ukraine, in the first 8 months of 2026 alone,
00:02:43over 15,000 civilians were killed or
00:02:47wounded. In Kramatorsk, a brutal strike hit two
00:02:50passenger buses. Despite the emergency work
00:02:53of rescuers, the tragedy could not be prevented. At least
00:02:5730 people died.
00:03:22Kyiv and other large cities of Ukraine are facing strikes
00:03:25on infrastructure, as if Putin decided on a war of
00:03:28attrition. To exhaust the Ukrainian people, since the army
00:03:32is not succeeding. This week in the Lyman area, Ukrainian forces
00:03:36are conducting a counteroffensive operation, "Uivaldi." They
00:03:39are pushing back Russian units in certain
00:03:42areas. The AFU reports hundreds of prisoners and
00:03:45demonstrates them in a video. Details in Andrei Shilova's
00:03:49report. The capture of Russian soldiers was reported
00:03:53at the end of September by Andriy Biletsky, commander of the Third Army Corps
00:03:56of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
00:04:33The news was also confirmed by the President of Ukraine, who visited the command post of the Third
00:04:36Corps. Volodymyr Zelensky wrote that another
00:04:39250 occupiers replenished our
00:04:42exchange fund. The discussion of this news from the Russian side
00:04:46became an illustration of growing tension and
00:04:48disagreements. Former deputy of the Ukrainian parliament from the Party of Regions,
00:04:52Oleg Tsaryov, living in Crimea, and regularly publishing
00:04:55front-line reports, called the news of the capture a Ukrainian
00:04:59informational bomb. He asked himself: what do
00:05:02the relatives of the prisoners feel, looking at faces, searching for
00:05:06their own, and not hearing any reaction from the Russian
00:05:09command. If Kyiv put prisoners from different
00:05:13days into one picture, this must be proven and shown.
00:05:16If this is a real failure, it must be acknowledged and
00:05:19explained. There is no special defiance in Tsaryov's text, he
00:05:22stipulates that anything can happen in war, and a quote: "We do not have a collapse of the front,
00:05:26the situation is much better than it used to be."
00:05:29Still, the reaction was not to the news of prisoners, but to Tsaryov's assumption
00:05:33of a real failure, it turned out to be loud. Prominent
00:05:36Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov, in his standard
00:05:40manner, considered that the very
00:05:43conversation was supporting the enemy's information
00:05:46campaign, and we coddled
00:05:49this person in our country, we allocated him a
00:05:52system by which he can live. He exists only
00:05:56thanks to the mercy of our authorities, his income
00:05:59is connected only with our authorities. Now he's dragging
00:06:02into the information agenda,
00:06:06launched by the enemies,
00:06:09outright disinformation. Conditional Solovyov, we mean.
00:06:12Some class of propagandist works
00:06:15exclusively
00:06:18for the regime's
00:06:20agenda,
00:06:22therefore,
00:06:26they are included in this system where feedback from
00:06:30reality is
00:06:33absent, these are all enemy
00:06:35voices,
00:06:40and they waver along with the line. What
00:06:42is called,
00:06:45and any initiative from the ground, they will
00:06:49naturally reject, because
00:06:52their role is exclusively systemic.
00:06:55As for others,
00:06:58they are, as they say, sincere fascists.
00:07:02A Telegram channel, which has over a million subscribers,
00:07:05reposts Tsaryov's post in its feed, called "The truth about the
00:07:09front cannot be given to the enemy," it shows...
00:07:25The Elder Edda, having admitted, translating into printed language, that we, obviously, in
00:07:29the sense of the Russian command, lied a lot. Blogger
00:07:33Yuri Podolyaka, with an audience of more than 2.5 million
00:07:36people. Joining the conversation, he writes about the hope
00:07:40of gradually regaining trust.
00:07:45and acknowledges the problem of fake reports, because, quote, "one of its reasons is the fact
00:07:49that we officially do not retreat from anywhere."
00:07:53Many others also admit this. We forget to tell the people to their face
00:07:56that things are going badly in the Krasnoliman direction, there
00:07:59we have to, as some military correspondents cleverly say,
00:08:02retreat to previously prepared positions. This is
00:08:06the truth, this is the truth of what I am talking about, that the situation on
00:08:09the front is very different. Somewhere we are moving forward
00:08:12with great pressure, sometimes advancing not
00:08:16only 6, but 16 km in a day, and somewhere we have
00:08:20to roll back 5-6 km, giving up some
00:08:23settlements. All their attempts, like
00:08:26this, "tell us honestly,"
00:08:29they are initially doomed to this
00:08:32kind of systemic denial from
00:08:35the regime and
00:08:39ultimately they...
00:08:42maximum
00:10:13possible escalation. That is why we need to work
00:10:16all together. Europeans cannot put pressure on him, but they can
00:10:20help us, and this will push him to
00:10:23negotiations. They can do more, I think.
00:10:26President Trump can do more, and between
00:10:30us, he should do more, because the losses are so
00:10:33great.
00:10:37Against this backdrop, new reports are emerging from Moscow,
00:10:40the Telegraph writes about the possible return of
00:10:44General Sergei Surovikin to military command. According to the
00:10:47publication, an intensification of strikes on Kyiv is being discussed, including
00:10:51on bridges and critical infrastructure.
00:10:55There is no official confirmation of the new appointment yet, but the very
00:10:59prospect sounds like a continuation of the previous
00:11:01scenario. We will talk about the situation at the front with military
00:11:05observer Yuri
00:11:13troops near Lyman grind down the overall strategic picture on
00:11:17the front? To a very serious extent, simply because
00:11:21the defeat near Lyman and the liberation...
00:11:55but this is Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka, Kostiantynivka. So
00:11:59the defeat of Russian troops north of
00:12:02Lyman means that
00:12:05the strategic plan of the Russian campaign of 2026
00:12:08was completely thwarted.
00:12:12As I understand it, we are talking about the Donetsk region
00:12:15or going into
00:12:18the neighboring region. Well,
00:12:22it's quite possible that it was planned.
00:16:07Well, 250 people, that's practically
00:16:10three companies, if
00:16:14we're talking about an incomplete composition of these companies, but as it
00:16:17actually exists, about three companies
00:16:20were surrounded, this is a very
00:16:24serious group by current standards,
00:16:28they had no other choice but to either
00:16:31die, be eliminated, including
00:16:35by unmanned aerial vehicles,
00:16:37or to surrender, they chose to surrender.
00:16:40Yuri, the Z-military correspondents, they
00:16:44are panicking, saying that everything is very bad on the front. At the same time,
00:16:47the Ministry of Defense says there are successes, we are taking one settlement
00:16:51or one village after another, but what is actually happening on the front
00:16:54line?
00:16:56Both are happening on the front line actually,
00:17:00because if you look at
00:17:03the situation somewhere in Sumy region, in
00:17:06Kharkiv region.
00:17:37the Vivaldi operation is developing,
00:17:40which is apparently entering its final fourth
00:17:44stage. The second zone
00:17:47where the situation has
00:17:50strategic importance is the so-called
00:17:54Zaporizhzhia direction, that is,
00:17:57the direction towards the city of Zaporizhzhia, but there
00:18:01Russian troops practically, well, the offensive
00:18:04of Russian troops practically fizzled out. There are
00:18:08quite heavy battles, but neither side
00:18:11is moving, in general, reaching Zaporizhzhia is not
00:18:15going to happen for Russian troops anytime
00:18:18soon, that should be kept in mind, so
00:18:21that's the real situation.
00:18:25Now, as for the disputes between
00:18:28military correspondents and the Russian
00:18:31Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Defense in Russia never
00:18:34acknowledges, or practically never acknowledges, its own
00:18:38defeats. If in
00:18:41the Ministry of Defense reports this or that
00:18:44direction suddenly disappears, it means that
00:18:47there, well, not that there are no successes, but that failures
00:18:50are pursuing Russian troops.
00:18:54Z, well, that's normal, normal propaganda,
00:18:58normal propaganda of the Russian Ministry
00:19:00of Defense. As for the Z military correspondents, who
00:19:04are on... and failures of the Russian army,
00:19:37which are written about by Russian military
00:19:41correspondents, well, if there is that
00:19:44minimum, and these correspondents reflect
00:19:47the mood of the officer corps. Yuri,
00:19:50if we weigh: on one side, the successes
00:19:54of the AFU in Donbas,
00:19:56on the other side, we see a picture of infrastructure being
00:20:00destroyed by Russian drones, then on whose
00:20:03side is the advantage still?
00:20:10Well, it's impossible to give such an answer, because
00:20:13the advantage on the front line
00:20:15today is, well, the initiative is in
00:20:19the hands of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, nothing
00:20:22else but to try
00:20:25to bomb, well, to destroy from
00:20:28the air the infrastructure and
00:20:31generally the life support system of
00:20:33Ukraine, the Kremlin has no other
00:20:37option, it has no other instrument, another
00:20:40question, I think that this instrument is not a
00:20:44way, with the help of this instrument the Kremlin is not
00:20:47capable of achieving those goals.
00:22:21These moods were present from the very beginning of the war.
00:22:25If we talk about what can really threaten
00:22:29Ukraine, yes, no one argues that the situation
00:22:32in winter, and today too, by the way, is quite
00:22:36difficult. In winter, it may become even more
00:22:39complicated. However, the question is
00:22:42whether this situation will transition
00:22:45to that state when...
00:22:48reach an interception rate of
00:23:5070-80%. Tell me, Yuri, given
00:23:52the statement
00:23:54and the logic of Defense Minister
00:23:57Andrei Belousov about a protracted war, does this signal
00:24:01the Kremlin's preparation for an official martial law and
00:24:04a new wave of mobilization?
00:24:07I think there are
00:24:09many military, and not only military, in Russia
00:24:13who indeed insist on
00:24:16the introduction of martial law, which, by the way,
00:24:20opens up the legal possibility for carrying out
00:24:23total mobilization.
00:24:25But there is another
00:24:27point of view, which currently dominates in the
00:24:31Kremlin: let's try with
00:24:34the help of these massive bombardments to achieve our
00:24:38goal. The question is which line
00:24:41will prove more, more influential. For now,
00:24:45the second line is winning,
00:24:48but...
00:25:50The main criterion for appointment to
00:25:53high military posts for Putin is not
00:25:57so much the quality of the military, the military qualities
00:26:00of the candidate, but his unquestioning
00:26:04loyalty to Putin himself,
00:26:08because Putin, as I think, perfectly
00:26:11remembers Mao Zedong's maxim, "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun," he wants
00:26:14these rifles to be in the hands of people
00:26:18fully under his control, and, by the way,
00:26:21devoid of political initiative. Yuri, thank
00:26:37of Time: Week's Results" with Mumin Shakirov. Watch
00:26:41us on Current Time TV on YouTube
00:26:45Radio Liberty. See you next week.
00:27:56of Russia. How do Russian authorities implement the basic law of the country?
00:28:00What are they discussing this week?
00:29:19The deportation or transfer of protected persons from an occupied
00:29:22territory to the territory of the occupying power or to the territory
00:29:26of any other state, regardless of whether
00:29:29they are occupied
00:29:33or not, is prohibited for any reason whatsoever. The occupying
00:29:36power shall not deport or transfer part of its own
00:29:39civilian population into the territory occupied by it.
00:30:25Vladimir Putin, in principle, prefers to live in Valdai, the lake there
00:30:28was closed off with fences and cameras.
00:30:32You absolutely cannot deviate from this route, there are guards there who
00:30:36immediately chase you away and scold you. We can't even go to the other side to
00:30:57the decision was made that there would be war after all...