there's a bbc newscast coming up, we 'll meet you in 15 minutes, stay with espresso. israel struck iran, officials in the united states say so, but the official radio ... is very low-key from all sides, there is no confirmation of this strike from either israel or iran, so what is known about the explosions that the iranians heard, and if tensions between countries is growing, what will happen next in the middle east? we are talking about this on the bbc live from london. i am yevgenia shedlovska. so, this was israel's response to a massive attack iran well, israel has not officially confirmed the night attack, but iran has directly. israel does not

blame. western leaders continue to call for restraint. let's figure out together what is known. explosions rang out in iran at night. a video showing flashes in the sky was shared online. and iran officially claims that its air force shot down three drones. then american officials told cbs that it was an israeli missile attack. an israeli missile hit iran. and later the abc tv channel quoted. of an american government official, unnamed, for according to which three israeli missiles fired from an israeli plane hit the radar of iran's air defense forces, but there is no official confirmation of this. iranian state television reported that explosions were heard near a military base in isfahan, a province in the center of the country that is home to iran's nuclear program. several nuclear facilities are located there, as well as a large, powerful air base. of

missile production, so observers say that the attack on such a place could be very symbolic, here is the comment of the former us assistant secretary of state mark kimmitt. if it is true that israel tried to strike in the area of ​​the nuclear facility in sfahan, there are three reactors there, and concrete is being poured for the fourth one. in fact, isfahan is largely the center of iran's nuclear program, both in terms of training and scientific research. as well as the development of nuclear capabilities, which is why it is a very valuable object for an israeli attack, because the israelis are most afraid of the rocket early today, but of its nuclear potential tomorrow. and after reports of explosions in in isfahan, the iranian media released the following video, shot in that area near one of the nuclear facilities, published by a semi-official news agency linked to the islamic revolution guards corps. the camera approaches and says, shows the battery counter. defense, soldiers can be seen

standing nearby, and a reporter behind the scenes says that everything is safe there. the international atomic energy agency confirmed that iran's nuclear facilities were not damaged, but at the same time, this un agency called for restraint. nuclear facilities should never be targeted in military conflicts, this is what the magathe declare, and commenting on this attack, iran assures that the claimed downed drones did not cause any damage. this is what our colleague from the persian service of the bbc told us about... the action in tehran. iranian media reported three explosions in the sky over isfahan, but iranian officials did not confirm that they were israeli. they report that they found three drones in the sky that were shot down by iranian air defenses. an official spokesman, the commander of iran's army , said that there was actually only one explosion and that it was a suspicious object in the sky. which was

liquidated this means that the iranians are trying to downplay the incident and are not actually confirming what happened. even the tansim news agency, close to the spanish revolutionary guard corps, reported that there was no attack outside the country. so, these conflicting reports and the fact that they don't say exactly what happened, could mean that they are probably trying to downplay the incident and say it was in israel and on us. did not attack this attack, if it was indeed israel, is in response to missile and drone strikes by iran almost a week ago, which in turn were iran's response to the attack on its consulate in damascus. the blame for it was placed on israel, which did not confirm it, but did not deny it either. so when iran attacked israel with its missiles and drones, iranian officials said that from their point of view it was all over, mission accomplished. iran had no intention of continuing its attacks against

israel, but if israel attacks iran in return, iranian officials say iran will launch an even bigger military operation against israel. so we have this iranian threat. people, but as i said, the fact that the iranians have not confirmed that it was israel that attacked iran last night means that it is highly unlikely that iran will respond. we are in a situation where iran is under a lot of pressure, the economy is in ruins, the iranian people do not support the government. in recent years , there have been waves of protests against the existence of the islamic republic across the country, and new protests erupt inside iran every couple of months. therefore, it would be very difficult for iran to want to further escalation. we see that the iranians also do not have the sophisticated air defense systems that israel has. they have missiles that can reach israel, but they don't have allies like the us, uk and france, who supported

israel during the iranian operation against that country. therefore, it will be very difficult for iran to even want to further escalate this situation. gerani, after the friday prayer , people went to the streets to protest against israel. there have been similar protests before, but summarizing the position of iran, they declare about three drones were shot down, they say that there were no external attacks from outside the country, air defenses were working over isvahan, so there were explosions, this is how the iranian media talk about this incident. let's take a step back and remember once again what happened before: on april 1 , an attack on... the iranian consulate in damascus, among the dead, high-ranking iranian military personnel believe that it was an israeli attack, although telviv did not confirm this. tehran warned that it would respond and in two weeks launched hundreds of drones and missiles at israel for the first time directly from its territory. the israeli military, with the help of allies

of the united states, britain and others, repelled this blow. representatives of the israeli authorities called for the introduction of sanctions against iran due to such an attack, which has already been done by britain and the united states. sanctions against drone manufacturers and those involved in the missile program, the eu is also planning additional restrictions against iran, which is already under many sanctions, but at the same time, telyaev stated that he reserves the right to choose how and when to respond to iran, in the way and that way the time we will choose, such wording sounded from representatives of the israeli military cabinet. there is still no official comment from the israeli authorities on the possible attack on iran, but ... within the israeli government there are differences of opinion about what the response should be, according to james landale, a bbc columnist based in jerusalem. the first thing i want to point out is the absolute silence on the part of israel about this attack. there was no statement, neither the prime minister

nor the cabinet of ministers said anything. all we know on this moment, in fact, is a one-word scarecrow that ben gvir, israel's national security minister, wrote on the x network. which most people understand as weak, israeli opposition leader yair lapit reacted to this. he furiously accused the benagwiras of causing enormous damage to israel's reputation. this led to ridicule. he said that no security minister had ever caused such damage to the country. and this reaction of lapide is related to the following: if this attack was indeed carried out by israel in order to send a message that it can strike in depth territories, including near iran's nuclear facilities, then the security minister's statement that the attack was a failure undermines this strategy, which is what lapit means when he accuses bangvir of undermining israel's actions last night, which looked like a modest, limited strike in response to iran's massive attack last

week, without escalation, but with a desire to send iran a warning that israel could do more if telyaev wanted it. the big question in the relationship between israel and the united states now is what will happen next, and here attention is again turning to the gas sector. the americans and israelis are in very intense negotiations regarding israel's intentions to attack rafah, a city in the southern gaza strip. the united states is concerned that a possible attack would affect the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who are in that part of the sector, and at the moment the parties have not reached an agreement, so if ... the situation with iran will calm down a little, if the degree between the two countries drops , then whether this will allow israel to continue its military operation in gaza against the remaining hamas militants. the international community calls to prevent a major conflict in the middle east.

un secretary-general antonio guterres said it is time to stop the dangerous cycle of attacks from the middle east. the eu is also talking about it. it is necessary to do everything possible so that all parties... benefit from the escalation in the region, this is the statement of the president of the european commission, ursula fonderlein, and the group of seven calls on all participants to show restraint, we must stop the war in the gas sector, avoid. expansion to the rest of the region, this is how the eu chief diplomat wrote about simka's statement, josep borel. actually, the foreign ministers of the group of seven countries had just gathered for a meeting in italy, on the island of capri, and it was there that the american secretary of state anthony blinken had to answer questions from journalists about a possible israeli strike on iran, and as the bbc's jessica parker says, who was at this press conference, he did it rather reluctantly. it was difficult to get any key information from us secretary of state anthony blinken, and it's quite interesting because before

i spoke to him i spoke to the minister italian foreign minister antonio tajani, who said the united states was informed of the nighttime attack at the last minute. so i was expecting to hear a bit more from anthony blinken, but in his speech he didn't raise the issue of what happened during the night, even though he was asked about it by four different journalists, myself included. we asked what exactly did the us know, what the talks were, or did they think it was already? end of current events, but we haven't heard back from him. however, he stressed that the us was not involved in this. he talked a lot about attempts to de-escalate the conflict in the middle east, talked about how discussions were taking place regarding the humanitarian situation in gaza, about attempts to release israeli hostages, so he touched on the topic of the conflict in general, but without the details of the events of last night, which everyone wanted to hear about. so, according to us secretary of state anthony blinken, the united states was not involved in the alleged strike. on iran and call for de-escalation in general. but what now? the war in the middle east may

expand as israel fights back hamas in the gaza strip for almost six months, after hamas militants attacked israeli settlements in october, iran and israel are bitter enemies. therefore, such a direct confrontation between them, which has been happening in recent weeks, worries many. what 's next? bbc security columnist frank gartner analyzes. my assessment is as follows - the crisis is now over, it has been averted, all the problems of the middle east have not been exhausted, but the real fear of an escalation of the conflict in the spirit of an eye for an eye between israel and iran at the moment is similar passed why, let's go back to the events of april 1. a devastating airstrike was carried out on the iranian consulate in damascus, which was razed to the ground. it was a targeted, high-precision strike that israel didn't claim, but everyone knows it was... it was, killing 13 people, including two high-ranking iranian

generals. iran responded strongly, the region held its breath, the middle east was on hold for 13 days, and then we got a response last weekend. on the night of saturday and sunday, there was a massive attack by iran on israel. approximately 330 drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles were launched over israeli territory. all of them, or almost all of them , were shot down by the forces of israel and the navy. the united states, the british air force, the air force of jordan and maybe even saudi arabia. all of them, or almost all of them, were shot down by the forces of israel, the us navy, the british air force, the air defense forces of jordan, maybe even saudi arabia. it was the first time that iran launched a direct attack from its soil on israeli territory. that is, not through a proxy, like hezbollah in lebanon, the houthis in yemen, it was a direct attack. therefore, israel felt obliged answer. the entire week of the us event and others. countries strongly urged israel. biden, in particular, said: "please don't react

harshly, leave everything as it is, accept the victory, we shot down all the missiles, you are safe, no one was killed, but israel still felt that they had to respond to show what needs he can contain iran. so what happened today was a very precise symbolic strike, where it was struck. the fact that we didn't see any casualties is good, iran said he would not respond, that's great, but look where he hit, izvahan province, where natanz is, iran's uranium enrichment plant, several nuclear facilities, several air bases, several military centers, and israel has made it clear that it can inflict hit there and he can hit much harder if he gets in the way. well, that concludes our broadcast, more. read on our website bbc.ua and subscribe to our social media pages, if

you haven't done so before. i say goodbye to you until next week, our next broadcast, see you on monday, all is well. greetings, friends, on the live air of the espresso tv channel, the verdict program, my name is serhiy rudenko, we work live on the espresso tv channel, as well as on our youtube and facebook platforms, and throughout our entire. on the air we are conducting a poll today, we are asking you this, do you think putin is the legitimate president of russia, yes, no, everything is quite simple on youtube, if you have your own opinion, please leave it under this video, write it, it is important to us know what you think about legitimacy

putin, and if you watch us on tv, pick up your smartphone or phone and... if you believe that putin is the legitimate president of russia (0800-211-381, no), 08021382, all calls to these numbers are free, vote, today we have a journalism club, a traditional journalism club that we hold every friday, and today our guests are my colleagues, kateryna nekrecha, journalist of radio freedom, kateryna, i welcome you, thank you for joining us today, i congratulate the viewers of tzvebok, stka, tv presenter, public figure, blogger and blogger who has more than a million subscribers on the youtube channel, if you are not yet subscribed to yanina sokolova, please find her channel on youtube, subscribe, it is very important, support ukrainian-language content, yanina, i congratulate you, thank you for being with us today, greetings, greetings to all the viewers, greetings to you, sergey, well, me,

since i will ask you also, my dear guests, since we are asking our tele'. viewers about putin's legitimacy, why are we actually asking because the parliamentary assembly of the council of europe this week recognized that putin is an illegitimate, illegitimately elected president of russia, and that the regime that exists in the russian federation is actually a dictatorship, and of course this resolution of the parliamentary assembly of the council of europe has a recommendatory nature, but obviously, obviously, we can also... discuss and talk about whether he is the legitimate president of russia or not, whether to call him president or not or just to call him putin and nothing more. katerina, what do you think we should do with the legitimacy of the president of russia, and what? to constantly insist and convince our

western partners whether he is illegitimate, he is elected in the temporarily occupied territories of ukraine by citizens. countries, well at least their votes are recorded as having voted for the president. well, it seems to me that the elections, as they call us, in the occupied territories, in general, it is necessary to take a million quotation marks, quotation marks, and this is a very important point, also to emphasize that people with all those stories, how they came home with automatic weapons to the people, it is definitely impossible to call it a vote, therefore, i would say this separately, regarding the legitimacy of putin, well, it is very interesting, in fact, how states, leaders will react to this, and what decisions will be made in this context, i, as a journalist, will comment on these decisions and point out then in such a of the situation, whether it is recognized or not, i did not observe the action that took place on the territory of russia, but i am interested in how it was different , including the so-called elections in the occupied

territories, because they were also in putin's previous elections, ukrainian occupied territories, then... if you take all of this as a whole, and putin's past elections, were they globally different or not, now an aggressive full-scale war against ukraine has just been unleashed, this is such a big argument, but it is obvious that the adoption of such a decision and recognition of it as illegitimate , it simply cuts off some diplomatic opportunities, and therefore also certain economic relations and opportunities, surely this is such a decisive factor in the recognition or non-recognition of putin by the world as legitimate or not? thank you. yanina, well, that's it it would seem like a rhetorical question: do you recognize putin as a legitimate president, but still, since we have equal opportunities, equal questions to our guests and to our tv viewers, i will still ask you about putin's legitimacy. sergey, do you and

our viewers recognize the legitimacy of kim jong-un? er, the leader of the dictator of north korea, there are no elections there, so in principle, there is no legitimacy either. you answered your question: in countries where there is a dictatorial regime, a totalitarian regime, and in countries where there is no chance to compete with anyone from the representatives of the candidates of various political forces, in the presidential, parliamentary elections, elections cannot be considered democratically elected heads of state, this... this seems obvious to me and should be obvious to everyone, i am very sad that when putin, so to speak, it was the successor's turn. to hold his position, the leaders of many countries of the world, the top lights of democracy, did not pay as much attention to it as, say, it was

, well, for example, during the time when lukashenko entered his next circle, it was accompanied by protests, and for sure, this fueled the story of what the whole world was saying about the so-called president, the undemocratically elected president, the self-elected president, what to say about... putin, in this context, when a person has been in office for more than 20 years, and the last cadences that we are observing, i by that time i had already had time to give birth to two children, who, if the war continues in a few years, will go to serve, and i do not see an alternative in the possibility, the possibility for someone to participate in the elections, firstly, everyone is dead, who could win something, and secondly - well, this a totalitarian country, it's either you or nobody, that's why it's definitely an undemocratically elected president, accordingly the so-called president,

i think we probably all need to unite in the journalistic world to call it that way, however, we also consider russia a country at the moment, which does not claim any correlations related to the rule of law, democratically elected institutions. politicians, and thought, and all those processes that accompany the rule of law and democracy in any country of the democratic world, therefore for me, sergey, no, i will be more categorical, i think it is time to be categorical. thank you, yenina, for your position and for your opinion. let's talk about our president, since his legitimacy is now being questioned. russian propagandists say that after may 20, 2024, the term of his presidential term is coming to an end, of course,

no one in ukraine will pay attention to this, there is a war, we all understand that president zelensky will be the president of ukraine until the next elections, and it is obvious here there are not even two different opinions, exactly 5 years ago 19'. in april 2019 , a debate was held at the olympic stadium with the participation of zelenskyi and poroshenko, two days after that, the second round of the presidential election took place, in which zelenskyi won, i think that this is a great reason to summarize these five years of president zelenskyi, they passed quite... quickly, perhaps it is all connected with quite such dramatic events of the last two years, and yet, as you, my colleagues,

dear, do you evaluate the 5 years of zelenskyi's presidency, or katya, he coped with his main role in the life of the president of ukraine, the main role in life, and an important one, but was there any transformation? not enough in these five years, i even sometimes, when footage comes across there a few weeks, a week before the full-scale invasion, and here is the zelensky that we see in two years and visually, in his rhetoric, in his confidence , well, we all see these changes, certain transformations have also been experienced by a part of society, which is the same, maybe five years ago, i looked at the situation in which ukraine found itself in one way and i looked at russian aggression in a different way, and two years ago... i somehow re-realized all this, probably this main transformation and happened to the ukrainian president for two years therefore, we have seen it, for me here, well, political scientists

will judge and give their evaluations, from an informational point of view, as a journalist, i am interested in the following, to what extent his rhetoric on some issues is changing, whether he is becoming less emotional or not, whether he is more restrained in communication there with... with the press, or he gives more interviews, it seems to me that especially in these two years, when there is a lack of such communication, it seems to be there, because every day there are video messages, for example, there are many interviews with western media, but maybe there is there are press conferences, they do not happen so often and such rhetoric is also quite different, but it seems to me that there is a lack of communication with ukrainian journalists, not within the framework of the telethon, but... with journalists from different newsrooms who could put, well, at least, i don't know, once a quarter there are some questions, maybe a few journalists will gather there, but in order for the conversations to be more in-depth,

because these western journalists... ask one thing, when there are some big global meetings where several hundred journalists are interested in something else, they ask those questions, of course, which are also concern society, but if there was more of this kind of communication with ukrainian journalists, more in-depth, it would probably give me more answers to some questions, why politics is conducted in one way or another, in general, you have to look at the ratings and probably in that number and how ukrainians feel about this situation, well, the ratings say that... probably zelenskyi did well, and his trust in him is quite high even now, and in these times, and in difficult political times in ukraine, and surely this is such a major assessment. yanina, you publicly appealed to zelensky on several occasions, i remember in march 2019, you quite sharply invited volodymyr oleksandrovich to a discussion, he at least

once... and in october, in my opinion, when this conflict was at its peak was with volunteers who were at the front and protested against the disbandment of russian and ukrainian troops, did he at least once give you some kind of answer outside the limits of publicity, whether all these questions that you had remained and in general, how are you, did your attitude towards zelensky change during these last? five years, look , well, first of all, regarding the first question, serhiy, volodymyr oleksandrovich zelenskyi, during his entire term of office, did not give a single uncomfortable interview, not a single one, and this was a trend that started back in the of his election campaign, zelensky's entourage, which allowed him to give several interviews with so-called journalists loyal to him, well, there is a big interview with gordon.

clearly complimentary, which would not harm the numbers, on the contrary, these numbers increased, the rating was already quite high before the elections, fueled by the series servant of the people, the film and tv channel 1+1, rotation, recognition, trust, the ability to give positive emotions, quite correct scripted rhetoric , which every ukrainian, for sure, and i, and you, including globally, would like to implement regarding justice. obligations of people's deputies, the president, anti-corruption laws, the rule of law, well, everything that was actually voiced in such simple language in this series, it was all correct in fact, that is why many people voted, but it happened as it happened, i think zelenskyi did not even suspect that he would have to be the president of a full-scale warring country, which was attacked by a full-scale

russian federation, and during these years. it really has undergone some changes, it used to sound great a valid phrase that every president of ukraine, starting late, depending on his personal qualities, should become a nationalist, and i had such hopes in 2022 and at the beginning of 2023, but at the moment, given actions that do not take place by listening to the opinion of civil society, russian journalists, and western partners result in this opinion returning to what it was in 2018-19, when the rumors first started, and then when zelensky was swamped, about legitimacy or illegitimacy, or lose powers after may 20, 2024 volodymyr zelenskyi, on my youtube we discussed this issue with former judges

of the constitutional court live on the air, the constitution, you must understand, friends, is higher than the law on martial law, that is, there is a martial law regime, and he actually dictates to us at the moment that we cannot hold elections, however, there is a constitution that obliges us to elect a new head of state, due to the fact that his term has already been suspended, such an opinion was heard, however, i will tell you frankly, even with in terms of the voting process, if he was, and this norm is written in the law on martial law, if suddenly such a decision was made, and many people said, listen, look at our country in the 14th year, and the elections of this president took place at a time when we already were in a state of war, and not full-scale, but wars, they voted, these are completely different, different stories, many soldiers are now in the trenches, many people left

the country to... organize all this in order to democratically