Who put defense under missiles?
When people talk about mobilization, they only talk about mobilizing people to the front, and the association is that we need to put more people with machine guns in the trenches because of the significant losses. In fact, there is another side of mobilization that, unfortunately, is not talked about here. This is the mobilization of industry.
ON THE MOBILIZATION OF INDUSTRY
Mobilizing people to the factory is no less important, and in fact, even more important than organizing the mobilization of people to the trench. Yes, the main front line is now held by those people who, unfortunately, do not watch our broadcasts now. They are on the front line. These are Ukrainian infantrymen, Ukrainian soldiers who are surviving in these cold trenches and holding that thin blue line. But. The destruction of the enemy, the victory in the war, depend critically on the industry. It is on how many shells, how many drones, how many means of destruction, intelligence, and supply means the state produces. Without this, victory is impossible. It is possible to win a battle with heroism. But heroism does not win a war. Because in war, you need to build a high-quality system. It is necessary to build a war support system. The enemy must be destroyed not by heroism, but by precise hits, the amount of ammunition, the number of drones. That is why we are now talking about mobilizing the defense industry.
THE BEST ILLUSTRATION OF THE STATE OF THE DEFENSE INDUSTRY
The topic is global. I want to tell you that I was on my way to a broadcast here in Dnipro... I was picked up by a taxi driver, he recognized me and told me that he was an engineer at one of the big state rocketry companies, and he told me this humorous... not really humorous, but a tragicomic story about how he, an engineer, has to work part-time in a taxi because he doesn't have a full load of tasks and government orders. Only partially. And such an organization as the Dnipro Design Institute, which develops many important projects related to the missile industry in Dnipro, has a professional pharmacist who is simply close to the Servant of the People party. He is an activist. He is a green activist. He was put in charge of a missile company. This is a paradox: a professional engineer works part-time in a taxi, and a pharmacist works part-time as the head of a state-owned rocketry company. These are the paradoxes we have with government procurement. And I was driving along and thinking: how incredibly illustrative this is of the topic we are considering today.
So, the main problem we have now is that mobilization in Ukraine is seen exclusively as the mobilization of assaultmen with assault rifles and shovels. All the discussions we have are about how many people we can force into a trench. In fact, there is no modern technological approach to war. Our active front line is somewhere around 800 kilometers. 800 kilometers is not 8 thousand, not 2 thousand. And this active front line, if you develop a plan, is not just about creating 100-500 brigades and then saying: I need 5,000 tanks, 20,000 vehicles, and 10,000 guns for 100-500 brigades. And if you solve the problem of defeating the Russian occupiers on the 800-kilometer front and calculate how many drones are needed there, how many optoelectronic reconnaissance stations are needed, how many guns are needed, how many shells and mines are needed, you can greatly optimize the very logic of war spending. The logic of building the defense industry, the formulation of the state defense order. The strategy itself can be rebuilt. We need to ensure that as many technical means as possible hold the frontline and as few people with machine guns and shovels risk their lives as possible. And to inflict much greater losses on the enemy. All these tasks must be solved by defense planning and the defense industry. Now, of course, we are living in chaos. Somehow, mobilization is going on by itself, no one wants to talk about this unpopular topic. The military holds press conferences, the president does not. The Minister of Defense does not hold press conferences. Everyone is looking for someone who will be responsible for getting people into the army. But there is no planning. If we had a clear plan, if we focused on using technical means in modern warfare, then we would have a different logic of war. And the cost of people would be less and not so many would have to be mobilized.
What is the main problem we see in the defense industry today? The lack of a clear doctrine, a clear plan of what the army needs. What kind of army we are building. How many people are needed for this army, for what positions. How much equipment is needed for this army and how much it costs. At least an indicative plan. All this is missing. As a result, we have engineers working in taxis, or we have engineers - there are many examples - in the infantry on the front line with assault rifles. Instead of using their knowledge and destroying the enemy with drones and guns. We do not know how to use the available resources. This is a big problem. But. Much of our defense industry still works. Somehow, people are paving these paths. And for the enemy, these projects - our drone development programs, missile construction programs, gun construction programs - are very sensitive issues. Therefore, on December 29 and January 2, the Russian command launched a series of strikes. The strikes targeted both densely populated areas of large cities and a number of defense enterprises.
Censor.NET has published a very important article. I would like to recommend it. Tetiana Nikolaienko has published a very important article called "Target No. 1: How the state frames arms manufacturers". This article is very cautious. It says that the enemy - it's not stated directly, but you can draw very clear conclusions - somehow the Russian command has obtained data on a number of Ukrainian defense companies. And immediately, a whole group of these defense enterprises was subjected to powerful massive missile strikes. Unfortunately, some of the missiles hit accurately. And we will not analyze the results, where it happened when it happened. But certain, of course, media reports make it difficult to understand what happened.
Unfortunately, there were losses. In Kyiv, as a result of a strike on one of the factories, a great tragedy occurred, a daughter and a mother were killed at once, both as a result of a rocket attack. It was a great drama. 27-year-old Viktoriia Kotliarova and her mother Liudmila died on December 29. It is a great tragedy. On December 23, Viktoriia got married to Andrii Kotliarov, a soldier of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Unfortunately, 6 days later she died as a result of a Russian missile attack.
Unfortunately, many people died, several dozen people were killed by Russian missiles in Kyiv. This suggests that the enemy has received information about where we have vulnerable and important targets, where we have defense enterprises. Tetiana Nikolaienko's article "Target No. 1" is precisely about who could be the source of such information for the enemy. By a strange coincidence, shortly before this rocket attack, the State Audit Service of Ukraine, headed by Ms. Basalaieva, demanded all the materials on all manufacturers of certain defense industries, with exact addresses, who spends which funds. The State Audit Service created a systematized reference for itself. And by coincidence, for some reason, after Ms. Basalaieva, the head of the State Audit Service, received this information, the enemy also launched a missile and bomb attack on all these companies on which she had collected information. That's a coincidence.
I would like to say that Ms. Basalaieva in her career is associated with a person who is closely associated with the Russian Federation. This is Andriy Portnov. And there are many questions as to who appointed this citizen to the position and why. I hope that the Security Service of Ukraine will take seriously this absolutely strange interest of the State Audit Service in defense projects, why they need such detailed information, and for what purpose they receive it. And finally, first of all, the State Audit Service and citizen Basalaeva herself will be checked to see how she received this classified information and how she disposed of it. Secondly, security measures will be taken at the level of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the National Security and Defense Council to protect defense enterprises from completely unjustified raids, inspections, commissions, criminal cases that are constantly being initiated by controlling bodies and law enforcement agencies. I would like to say that the violation of secrecy, state secrets, the location of enterprises, the direction of their work - this mess is entirely the fault of the state authorities themselves. Over the past six months, law enforcement agencies such as the State Bureau of Investigation, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, the Security Service of Ukraine, the National Police have raised many questions and visited many enterprises, asking many questions of all major arms manufacturers. High-profile criminal cases were initiated against some of them, and many of them were searched. As part of these searches, information about the activities of the enterprises was immediately widely disclosed in court rulings and in criminal cases conducted by a bunch of investigators. That is, top-secret information about the production of some unique weapon or equipment becomes known to dozens of people. And this is simply no longer a regime of secrecy. A huge number of people who are not at these facilities, who are not connected with this production and who do not take any risks, already know this. Only the employees of these enterprises are at risk.
SYSTEMIC LEAKAGE OF STRATEGICALLY IMPORTANT INFORMATION
I want to address the Security Service of Ukraine, the National Security and Defense Council: On December 29 and January 2, we witnessed a systematic leak of information, classified information about the location of state-owned defense industry enterprises that are of strategic importance to the enemy. This information is not accidental at all. The enemy struck precisely, including at some enterprises that were relocated after the start of the war. That is, the enemy received this information systematically. And this needs to be investigated to avoid the recurrence of such tragedies. This is not just some kind of failure during the war. People died. And more people may die. This is the result of this unhealthy thirst of law enforcement officers to visit those entrepreneurs who have money in their accounts. This is not a desire for secrecy. If the state has a need to control companies, this is a normal desire, which means that one unit of a law enforcement agency or special service should be allocated to vet people and this unit will control the expenditure of accounts, how the money is spent, on whom, and will have access to all information. But these will be specific people.
THE BIGGEST PROBLEM OF THE DEFENSE INDUSTRY
What is the situation in our country now? It's a complete mess. All employees and managers of defence companies say that our biggest problem now is law enforcement and regulatory authorities. These hordes of people who invent work for themselves, justify their rear existence with absolutely stupid things.
For example, I wrote about an absolutely stupid contract case of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, a detective named Viktoriia Smolina, who was found to know nothing about the defense industry, to have never researched anything. And they are now pursuing a case against the only manufacturer of thermal imaging sights and surveillance devices, Archer. Even the NABU special forces know well what Archer is, they know that it is a real manufacturer, a real company, that they make the best sights on the market today, which play a major role in the war. All our snipers, all our soldiers use them and know that they are No. 1. But nevertheless, NABU is conducting this custom case, discrediting the manufacturer, trying to interfere with its production activities, and still has not even closed the case, has not even apologized for its impudent behavior. And all this is done by specific detectives for taxpayers' money. It's just a shameful situation. Unfortunately, other law enforcement agencies do this on a much larger scale. And the SBI is constantly interested. And everyone is standing there - a case is opened, an inspection comes and they look with such sad eyes: well, how are we going to solve the issue? And there is a line of people who want to solve the issue. Because defense companies receive money. And our law enforcement officers are used to working in such a way - not for a salary, but to create a problem for someone and then come to an agreement with them. Unfortunately, this scheme works in our entire law enforcement system. Unfortunately, it has even started to work in the NABU, sad to say. Therefore, this practice must be stopped immediately. Because law enforcement agencies and regulatory authorities completely expose and hand over their information, they cannot control their information. This is information leakage. This attack on December 29 requires systemic solutions from the state. There should be one authorized structure, one authorized person who is responsible for controlling this information so that responsibility is immediately clear. If criminal cases are initiated by state authorities against defense companies, they should not go anywhere, but to a specific court. There must be a regime of secrecy, a specific group of judges who have been verified and can be trusted to manage this information. Well, someone has to be responsible for this mess and the deaths of people. If, as always, no one in our country wants to admit their failure - and this is a failure - then at least draw systemic conclusions to stop these failures. And to stop this pilgrimage of these looters in uniform running around defense enterprises.
"LOOTERS IN UNIFORM"
They should not even know where these companies are located. This is not their business. This is a matter of national security and should be dealt with in a closed manner. It cannot be done the way we do it here. It's a complete collective farm, chaos. This chaos needs to end. Because we have a lot of inspections and very few necessary projects. And no one takes responsibility. Everyone is sitting around pretending it's not me. The president is sitting there: it's not me. Well, they are searching for companies there - the president has nothing to do with it. The Minister of Defense has nothing to do with it. The Minister of Strategic Industry has nothing to do with it. For furniture, perhaps. The National Security and Defense Council is not us. The heads of law enforcement agencies - why, we are in control, we are opening cases here. They are just imitators of the activity in general. People do not realize that there is a war going on. They just don't realize it. They live as if it were peacetime. There are investigators, they need to make statistics on something, check off cases. So, you've looked through the list, who gets the budget money? Oh, these people. That's it, we're going to them. Let's go, find their cases, and we'll work on them, find them... create problems for them there. This is a completely insane approach. This is no way to work. Yes, we need to fight corruption. We need financial control. But you can't have information about the defense industry spread all over the country. Don't you realize that this is a kind of secrecy? I'm just shocked. To be honest, I am surprised that the National Security and Defense Council and no head of law enforcement agencies have yet come up with an initiative to increase secrecy about the activities of defense companies.
Minister of Strategic Industry, what are you doing here, Mr. Kamyshin? I don't know, you probably think you're there for furniture, or to sign some papers on working capital? No. You are responsible for protecting the interests of the defense industry. The Ukroboronprom concern. What can I say? Now Mr. Mylovanov has been reappointed as the head of the supervisory board, a man who simply behaves like a clown in Ukrainian politics, and this random person is given control of Ukroboronprom for some reason. This is just absurd. Absurd. There is no responsibility. Defense Minister Umierov. I understand that this is the Minister for Good Deeds. He is for everything good against everything bad. So who will shape this policy? Who needs the country to make sure that weapons are produced and that missiles do not hit defense enterprises? Where is this person in power? Why are you all afraid to take responsibility at all? I'm just shocked. Why? It's already hitting. People are dying. You are sitting in your offices, in bunkers. And you don't care. You sit there and it doesn't affect you. It's a pity. I want to say that if there are no measures to ensure security, if these thugs in uniform are not removed from the enterprises and if these raids continue, we will talk and write about it.
WHO WILL BE RESPONSIBLE?
This is just completely absurd. This is subversion, deliberate destruction, a deliberate blow to national security and work for the Russian Federation. This inaction, when the President hides his head in the sand, when the Minister of Defense, the Minister of Strategic Industry, all the heads of law enforcement agencies pretend that they are not involved, this inaction is like... it is simply equal to this treason. It's just that when you evade your job, it means you are not working for Ukraine. And I hope that conclusions will be drawn on these attacks on December 29 and January 2. So far, we have not heard anything. There are no changes. Everyone pretends that it's a war - the war will write off everything. That's the approach of the country's leadership to everything. But this is not true. The war will not be written off. We will remind you of this. Including on our broadcasts.
I would like to say that some very interesting changes point to the defense industry. The US State Department made a very, very important statement.
"GIVING A ROD, NOT A FISH" FROM THE USA
The United States is not going to support Ukraine's military financing in '24 at the level it did in 2022-23. That is, they are not going to supply the same number of weapons in the same amount. But we will continue to support Ukraine as long as necessary. This does not mean that we will continue to support them at the same level of military funding. This was said by a representative of the United States Department of State, specifically Matthew Miller, the spokesman for the United States Department of State. We will continue to support Ukraine as long as necessary. According to him, the United States does not believe that there is a need to continue support at the previous level, as Washington's goal is to help Kyiv get back on its feet and build its own military-industrial base so that Ukraine can finance, produce and purchase weapons on its own.
This is a very important statement, I want to tell you, friends. That is, as they say, America wants to give us a fishing rod, not a fish. This question is understandable, as tensions are rising around the world, with China escalating relations with Taiwan, Iran escalating the situation in the Middle East, the war in Gaza and around Israel, conflicts in Africa also escalating, and even in South and North Korea, that is, in the world of countries countries that are fighting for the redistribution of spheres of influence, such as Russia, China, Iran, using only forceful instruments, war, they, of course, want to use their military potential, their arsenals, and so that democratic countries can counteract, the countries of the Western world want to strengthen the expansion of the defense industry base of themselves and their allies. This is the right strategy. I'm just happy to say that, in principle, America doesn't just talk about it. The words of American officials are always linked to responsibility and action. It is important to say that our American partners have started direct investments in the Ukrainian defense industry. They understand the ineffectiveness, unfortunately, the helplessness of our government agencies, many of which are responsible for the defense industry, and they are considering - not considering but implementing - projects to support specific defense companies. This is very important. Unfortunately, on the other hand, we see that this causes an absolutely unhealthy excitement among our law enforcement officers. But the main thing is the strategy. Now America has begun to systematically support, we hope. We hope that this will be expanded, a systematic program of targeted support for specific effective Ukrainian defense companies. This is a new story, a new situation. This is a more understandable development strategy for manufacturers. Because the main problem is the lack of a state order. The state itself does not know what task to set for the defense industry. Americans see the ineffectiveness of the Ministry of Defense, the President, and the Ministry of Strategic Industry in many issues.
For example. There is still no mass production of mortar shells in Ukraine. There is still no mass production of cheap artillery shells in Ukraine. Perhaps someone thinks that these are very complicated technologies, that it just takes a lot of time or some huge budgets. In fact, no. We have received financial support, we will receive tens of billions of dollars from the United States and the European Union. Just to give you an idea, the construction of a plant to produce shells, for example, which can be ordered, a complete plant, a ready-made production line in some Western countries, democratic countries, costs 15-20 million dollars. This is a powerful production. Mines are such a simple design that they can be produced by many enterprises. It does not require any large investments at all. Mortar shells are the cheapest means of destruction available among infantry weapons. A mortar shell.
We have not had mass production of mines for two years. There is no order, no planning. There is no systematic implementation. It's just talk. Give us the shells, why doesn't the West give us the shells? President Zelenskyy is constantly sitting like an offended boy, looking for someone to blame for his own inaction. He always finds someone to blame: either the West is interfering with him, or America, or he said something wrong, or the oligarchs, or some politicians - everyone is constantly interfering. There is a simple question: Mr. Zelenskyy, why have you not done it in 2 years, not to mention 5 years, okay, Poroshenko didn't do it then, you haven't done it now - well, a full-scale invasion has been going on for 2 years, a simple task is the mass production of 60, 82, 129 mm mortar shells. Any metallurgical enterprise can do this. Why are they not at the front? Why are we begging the world for simple simple mines? Okay, let's not even talk about shells. But if we had mines on the frontline - we produce mortars, by the way - if we had mines in large quantities, then there are many questions, we would not need to spend such a lot of artillery shells that the West gives us. We have already received almost 3 million shells. This is a huge amount in fact. A lot of the tasks that our artillery performs, these expensive 155 mm and 203 mm howitzers, what we use on the front line, all of this can be done cheaply with our own mines. So, okay, there was no production, that's fine, let's move on. There was no production because we were preparing for a barbecue. So it took two years. The first year was chaos, we couldn't do it. The second year is now coming to an end - there is no mass production of mines. And when will it be?
WHAT DO WE PRODUCE AND WHAT IS NEEDED?
Therefore, it is clear that there is no hope for our officials... they do nothing and are not able to implement any systemic projects. The only hope is that the Americans will start directly funding some private or state-owned enterprises so that we can have our own ammunition. First of all, we need mortar shells, that is, munitions. We need drones - attack drones, reconnaissance drones, drones of all types. We need ammunition for drones, of course, including fuzes and mortars. And of course, we need to launch the production of artillery shells. This is a need for us for decades. Of course, we have a large number of artillery supplies. We already produce 155 mm artillery ourselves. We still have a large number of 152 mm guns, a large number of 122 mm guns. 105 mm guns are coming from our allies. All this requires a large number of artillery. That is, we produce guns, we produce mortars, but we do not produce ammunition for them, which is a complex. This is just absurd. Sometimes Ukroboronprom makes a commercial and says: we have started producing shells. And shows 20-30 shells. They have sent them somewhere else. Or 20-30 mines. There is no such thing at the front. It's all a show, a one-time event. We don't need advertising. This is a war. The war needs these shells and mines, at least 10-20-30 thousand per month, to be consistently produced. In the long run, we need 50-100 thousand. This is a large number. It's not stormtroopers with assault rifles and shovels who should be fighting in our country, heroically waiting for close combat with the enemy. The fight should be fought by a drone operator and a mortar gunner who can destroy the enemy from the same position close to them. And we can already do all this here. We have all the technological capabilities, specialists, a lot of companies that can do it. Components - 50 countries supply us with components. You can't make fuses right now, although we have begun production of fuses. There would be an order for this. Order the fuzes. But we can do the hulls, the assembling - we can do all that. We can do a lot of things. We need to get raw materials, components. I'm just sorry to say such elementary, primitive things. Anyone who knows the subject, who is a specialist, understands that these are just alphabetical things. Why don't they do it? It's just... it's hard to look at it. At the front, the enemy has always had an advantage in ammunition. It does not disappear. And it turns out that these Russians, whom our telethon likes to laugh at, are fighting with ammunition, they are fighting with equipment more than us, and we are fighting with people. And we have this discussion about how many people we are going to put in the trenches. And there is no discussion about where mortar shells are in Ukraine. And there is no discussion of why we are not producing these mines, why we are not supplying them to the front. Artillery shells - why haven't we bought a factory or several factories and produced the number of shells we need in Ukraine or in neighboring countries - is not discussed. And how many years will this continue?
You know, if these solutions didn't exist, they would have to be invented - well, okay, you could say it's a complicated technological process. In fact, the entire production technology is for sale. Plants and production lines are for sale. All this is easily assembled. We have the engineering staff. In a taxi, you can hire a lot of active engineers who do not have a government order right now. We can make ammunition, we can make drones. But all of this is not available at the front in the quantity that the enemy has, even approximately.
If it were not for volunteers and civil society, which searches for and buys drones, it would be a very difficult situation. So, dear friends, we are going to fight against this dominance of law enforcement and controllers who are simply destroying the defense industry in general and leaking data to the enemy. We will demand systemic solutions and hope that, thanks to the systemic support of our American partners, the defense industry will receive normal planning and stable funding. And, of course, we will protect this money so that law enforcement officers do not block it, steal it, or prevent people from making weapons for victory.
The answers to the questions.
POROSHENKO/ZELENSKYY
Oleksandr: why does Butusov always accuse only Zelia? (President Zelenskyy, I am sorry) but never Petia? (President Petro Poroshenko) Or was it good in Petro's time?
This is a common question. I answer it all the time. Look. If someone were to look on Google for critics who criticized President Poroshenko in general and wrote about problems in the defense industry, including the lack of mines, the lack of shells and everything else, in 2014-2019, when President Poroshenko was in office, there is no doubt that my name was there, I think, one of the most quoted. I wrote constantly. All this is easy to check. Just open Google. Why am I not talking about Petro Poroshenko now? Because I have to remind you that since 2019, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been the president of Ukraine. He's been president for 5 years, just without a few months. 5 years. Just as Poroshenko was 5 years old, now Zelenskyy is 5 years old. He is now in power. If President Zelenskyy really has criminal claims against Petro Poroshenko, then Zelenskyy is responsible for these criminal cases. It was he who promised the whole country at the stadium, saying: I am your sentence - he told Poroshenko. I am not responsible for this. Again, there is a page on President Zelenskyy's website, ask him why he said one thing and did not fulfill his election promises. Not me. And now Zelenskyy is in power. You should always ask the current government. Not Poroshenko, not Yushchenko, not Kuchma. For the absence of shells and mines. And for the mess and collapse of the defense industry, for corruption in the Ministry of Defense. Why should I ask those who are already retired? To whom President Zelenskyy and law enforcement agencies have no claims. There are no cases. Neither Poroshenko nor whoever else is there goes to interrogations. Neither do his predecessors. Everything is fine with them. So, friends, this is not my problem. This is the problem of the country and the state. We have an irresponsible government. And instead of being responsible for their actions, the government hires the Office of the President for money, some kind of black cash, and unfortunately, this was the case with their predecessors, hires bot farms that work under all critical publications and videos, writing: why not Poroshenko? Why only Zelenskyy? They pretend that, you know, people do not understand that responsibility is here and now. And every mistake, every failure and betrayal has a surname, name, patronymic of the official and statesman who is now in office. You did it - you are responsible. Did Poroshenko do it badly? Please, law enforcement, go ahead. Where are the cases for 5 years? Where are the interrogations? So let's do this. This is an important issue and I want to tell you that, unfortunately, this irresponsibility of the authorities, the attempts to always shift the blame to someone else, is just a disease of President Zelenskyy. He's just sick because he always wants to say that his failures, his incompetence, his stupidity, his self-importance, I mean, anyone is to blame except him. And he is always all in white and looking for someone else to blame for not doing something. And the Servants of the People are not doing something. Unfortunately, this manipulation is the basis for the telethon, which is funded by taxpayers, who pay oligarchs to finance their channel and everything else. That's why the government does nothing. Because our freedom of speech has been artificially restricted. On our television, most of the airtime is praise, hooray, hooray, everything is fine, Zelenskyy is a good man. But you will never hear or see anything about mortar shells and why they are not produced and why people are dying because of this, why the data and coordinates of defense enterprises were handed over and why workers died there. There is only halva there.
Liashuk: What's going on with Luch Design Bureau?
Luch Design Bureau is working, despite the fact that the enemy is hunting for production facilities and trying to destroy missile production with all its might. Luch Design Bureau is working. The wave that was raised there is absolutely another fake Internet story. There is no bankruptcy there. The company is working. It is changing its organizational form. So this is a normal story. What's not normal is that I could say a lot of things to Luch Design Bureau, but all of this is classified information. In fact, Luch Design Bureau is working efficiently, producing missiles whose strikes are very, very worrying for the Russian occupiers. Luch Design Bureau has only one problem: the right government order, the right tasking, and systematic, rhythmic funding. Let's hope that at least our American allies will help.
Pavlo Kozlenko: Have the 26,000 drones promised by the President reached the frontline?
You know, friends, I'm following this information myself, and I'm wondering where on the front line we can see these thousands of drones. This is a large number. If even one brigade gets one, you can be sure that the whole front will know. It's there somewhere, someone is giving it away. So far, I have no information about the actual distribution. Many managers write to me and send me reports and photos of the items in stock. But I have not seen a report from the troops yet. I hope to see it. For now, I take on trust. I can say for myself that in the area of Avdiivka, which I have talked about a lot, most of the drones are volunteer drones, from the local authorities, and they still come from there.
Nick Kovalchuk: Who is on the Supervisory Board of Defence Industry?
I told you. The Supervisory Board is headed by Tymofii Mylovanov. This is just a person who knows nothing about the defense industry or the needs of the defense forces, well... this is just a person whose job is to praise the government. That's all. Nothing else.
Therefore, with the same level of competence as the Dnipro Design Institute, which built spaceports and large rocket programs, it is now run by a pharmacist from the Servant of the People. Similarly, the same PR person was appointed to the Supervisory Board of Ukroboronprom. Absolutely irresponsible behavior of the authorities.
Nikolo. The question is: where is our missile program, where are our anti-aircraft missile systems and systems?
This is also an important question - where is it all? And it is not there. Why not? Because there is no state order and no planning for this development. If the state does not set a task to develop and does not control the implementation, then no program is possible. We had the Neptune anti-ship missile program, and it was completed. There was a program for the Stugna anti-tank missile system. It was completed. There are also many programs of anti-aircraft missile systems. Why have they not been implemented? Because there was no planning, no funding for development, and all of this was missing. The state is not engaged in this. That's why we are still standing with our hand out: "West, give us anti-aircraft missile systems. Everyone needs them. Not just us. There is tension all over the world, and everywhere we need air defense systems. Of course, we need our own production so that we can have... I'm not talking about some Patriots. We need simple, primitive anti-aircraft missile systems that can shoot down simple targets like Shahed. Cheap missiles with a simple guidance system. Missiles that can be radio-commanded, which were actually produced, began to be produced in the 50s of the twentieth century. These are simple technologies that we have. Many missile companies have their own guidance systems, engines, and production of engines. We can do all this. We need a state program for this. We need responsible people. Clear planning. Control of results at every stage. And we need to finance it. And there will be a result. The result is that I think no one is interested in this. President Zelenskyy and the entire leadership of the Servants of the People are interested in one thing: traveling abroad or making evening addresses to the people and saying that the West has not given us weapons again... I understand that they have been wanting to do this for many years. In 10 years they will say: they didn't give us something again. Well, this is not how it works in the real world. They give us money, they give us a lot of money. Significant funds for support. And we have to set priorities, finance them and implement them. Because there are never too many weapons in a total war. We will not have a surplus of anti-aircraft missiles. We will not have a surplus of artillery shells. We will not have a surplus of mortar shells. There will never be. For many, many years, we have to do this today. Sit down, look, and move forward step by step. If we have implemented the Neptune project, if we have implemented the Stugna project, if we have implemented the Bohdan project, then we can implement other projects. These are complex weapons systems. But they work. So, we need to develop other projects and implement them as well. None of this is being done because there is no political will or competence. There is a desire to engage in PR, populism, and make irresponsible statements.
Vladimir Ryabets. Thank you, by the way, Vladimir, for your support, you are a new sponsor of our channel. Thank you. By the way, 1534 people have already become sponsors of the Butusov+ channel, I am very grateful. I want to say that Mr. Nazar has just subscribed to the channel, for 12 thousand UAH per month. I am very grateful for such a significant support of the channel and our work.
Volodymyr Riabets: How do you react to Podoliak's statement that Ukrainians painted a picture and believed in it? That we can produce drones and shells. He said that we cannot build factories because they will be bombed.
What can I say? I want to say that... you know, anyone in power in Ukraine can say anything. The advisor to the Presidential Office is just a completely incompetent, irresponsible person. How are we going to get bombed? We are still producing missiles, producing guns, producing a large amount of equipment necessary for defense, supplies, and repairing equipment. And all this has not been bombed. We are actually producing a lot of things. Those enterprises where the managers took care of security as well as dispersal by themselves. And we have a large number of facilities that are of strategic importance and well protected. Russia has not even been able to bomb them. These are well-protected shelters. A large number of enterprises are well dispersed, hidden, and not so easy to destroy. So the President's Office simply wants to say: don't bother us, don't bother us with questions about where the weapons are, where the drones are. We won't do any of this because it will all be bombed. This is a complete lie. It's a complete lie. Fortunately, we do produce drones. Not so many and not all the types we need. But they are being produced. We produce weapons. Again. Not the whole range and not the right amount. But it is being produced. And this is just... The authorities are always thinking of ways to come up with an excuse for why they are doing nothing. This is how they create this information noise. If the President's Office... okay, let the president sit in a bunker, as usual, or just come and go, but if Mr. Yermak, Mr. Podoliak and other people like Mr. Umierov, Mr. Kamyshin were to be put in some kind of frontline position for 1 day. I'm not talking about permanently, but for one day they should be put in some kind of advanced position near Avdiivka, near Novodonetsk, in the Serebrianskyi forest. Just for them to spend a little bit of time there, to walk a mile in the shoes of an infantryman, a Ukrainian infantryman who is sitting in a trench, surviving. And they would sit and count how many shells and mines the enemy is firing, how many drones the enemy is firing, how many bombs the enemy is dropping, and compare them with what we are shooting and what we are using. And we would have sat there for a day, thinking that maybe we would have to do it again. And right away, I think they started some constructive brain activity. Because while they are sitting here in Kyiv in the warmth, sometimes they go on excursions to some command post, take a few photos there, and then immediately run away. They simply do not realize this danger, their helplessness. And they need to feel a little bit what hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians feel in those trenches. Unfortunately, neither Yermak, Podoliak, nor other populists from the President's Office even realize this. And they do not want to understand.
Tick-tack: SSU Head Maliuk said that maritime drones are made in underground production. Is there no possibility of transferring all military plants there?
Of course, it is possible. We have a large number of facilities that can be used, which are underground. There are a lot of mines with elevators and all the equipment. A large number are simply buried in the mountains or even buried. We have a lot of facilities that can be used for safe production. They can not only be hidden there, they can be well disguised. None of this will be visible and there will be no information about it. Unless the State Audit Service comes back there and leaks this data. So, of course, there are all the possibilities. There is just no desire and no logic. The government does not have this. That's true. But there are opportunities.
Slava Verba: Has the construction of fortifications begun after the government announced the allocation of funds for this purpose?
No, it hasn't. The plans came, and the troops were told that they had to dig trenches. These orders were not provided with equipment, people, or materials. They are talking and planning. Here in Kyiv, time flows differently. Everything is different here, no one in the government is in a hurry. If they didn't do it this week, they postponed it to the next week, and the next week someone forgot to report, communicate, or sign something, they postponed it to another week. If something is not being done, where is it? If these strategic defense lines or these engineering structures were being dug at the front, the information would spread very quickly. But this is not happening. That's why we don't see it. This is an acute problem. It remains.
I want to say in conclusion that I thank everyone for their support. The Butusov+ channel now has 1534 sponsors. We will soon plan some kind of broadcast specifically for sponsors out of gratitude so that we can answer questions, build some kind of direct communication, get more information from you because I really appreciate this great powerful support. 1534 people. It is thanks to you that we have the opportunity to go on the air regularly, and we try to do it as often as possible. It enables us to work and to work independently.
I also want to talk about our defense industry. We already have a large number of companies that make competitive products and competitive weapons. That is, we can do it. We can collect technologies, collect production facilities, lines, buy the equipment we need, buy components, connect all these production chains to get the result. We produce a lot of things. We have our own production of certain types of ammunition. There is the production of drones. And there are many types of drones. There is the production of guns... there is the production of mortars. There is the production of armored vehicles. But the main thing is the means of destruction, I mean. The main thing we have is the means of destruction. And this shows that we have the potential, we have the ability. We need to do everything possible to ensure that as many people as possible receive government orders, pay taxes and produce weapons that can destroy the Russian occupiers. This is the main mobilization in the country. Not mobilization to the trench. They are heroes, and we should bow low to our infantry for giving us the opportunity to talk about these issues in the rear and influence the government to make it move somehow. It hasn't moved for 2 years. So, in order for the infantry not to suffer such losses, for the war not to be so costly and not to drink so much blood from the Ukrainian people, we need to destroy the enemy with munitions, ammunition, and drones. This is what we need to do. Therefore, mobilization to the defense industry is no less important than mobilization to the front line. No less important. But it critically depends on proper defense planning, provision of resources, and proper competent management decisions.
Friends, I know a lot of companies. The enemy does not succeed in everything. Not everything. That is why our defense industry, despite all the attacks by the Russians, despite all the obstacles put up by our own state, is nevertheless making very significant progress. We have a lot to boast about. Some things we will not mention here for now. We don't want the enemy to understand either the scale or the priorities.
That is why I am actually very optimistic that Ukraine can build a powerful competitive defense industry. We have the potential to do so, with the support of our Western allies.
And today, as never before, I am confident in our victory. A victory that will be ensured by the common position of our civil society, pressure on the government, and the fact that we still have a great enough intellect and great enough resources to become strong. Glory to Ukraine.
