19/01/2015 Ukraine: Daily Highlights - Reforms in the Interior Ministry and the Ministry of Health will start with Kyiv

01/19/2015 Daily Highlights by "Digests and Analytics - Ukraine" News Agency

Topics of the day

President Poroshenko will participate in the World Economic Forum in Davos. Reforms in the Interior Ministry and the Ministry of Health will start with Kyiv. The intensity of the fighting in the Donetsk airport is not slowing down. Ukraine wants to stop consuming Russian gas.

Key Events In Ukraine

• Law on military mobilization was adopted by the Verkhovna Rada and came into effect. It consists of three stages and will take place during 2015. Soldiers, called in March 2014, will be demobilized between March 18th and May 1st.
• President Poroshenko leaves Kyiv for a visit to Davos to attend the World Economic Forum.
• "Naftogaz" reported that natural gas supplies from Russia are carried out according to schedule. Terms of a new gas import contract with Poland are geting negotiated while the date of  supply resumption is still to be determined. A new pipeline is planned, which will supply gas to Ukraine from LNG terminals in Poland and Lithuania. According to President Poroshenko, Ukraine will be able to give up on Russian gas supplies in two years.
• "Ukrzaliznitsya" canceled six pairs of passenger trains, and schedule frequency is reduced on some routes due to unprofitability of passenger traffic and lower demand.
• Prosecutor General Yarema is going to speak to the deputies of the Verkhovna Rada with a report on investigations of resonant crimes in response his department’s results labeled unsatisfactory by the corresponding committee of the parliament.
• EBRD worsened its forecast for the Ukrainian economy slow down to 5%.
• The official rate of hryvnia has not changed: 15.81 UAH / USD (0.01 UAH), 18.32 UAH/EUR (-0,18 UAH), 2.43 UAH / 10 RUR (-0.01 UAH).
• NBU has provided commercial banks with more than 222 billion UAH during 2015 to maintain liquidity, at an average rate of 15.57% per annum, of which about 43 billion UAH in December.

Kyiv Life

• First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Zghouladze announced a reform of the ministry. In the capital, the traffic police had to be replaced by patrol service. New employees will be recruited on a competitive basis. Traffic police will be dismissed. The reform is sponsored by the US.
• Health Minister Kvitashvili announced that health reform will start with Kyiv, where there is support of local authorities.

War in Ukraine

• Fierce fighting for the Donets’k airport and Peski using all kinds of artillery and tanks is not slowing down. At the beginning of the day, some wounded soldiers were evacuated from the new terminal. Militants blew up ceiling of 2nd floor of the building, many Ukrainian servicemen was wounded. According to the Presidential Adviser Biryukov, powerful reinforcement troops are being transferred to the airport.
  Despite the Orthodox holiday, active hostilities continue along the whole line of fighting.
• Militants are carrying out large-scale shellings of residental areas of Donbass: Debaltseve, Mariupol, Donets’k, Horlivka, a number of cities of Luhans’k region. In Donetsk and Gorlovka, shelling intensified with the night arrival. There are numerous victims among the population.
• NSDC said two battalion tactical groups of the Russian army have crossed state border in the Luhans’k region.
• Russian air forces can be used against the Ukrainian army because LPR militants announced the creation of its own air force.
• President Poroshenko announced the conditon for a cease-fire regime in  Donbass: the full implementation of the Minsk Agreements.
• Interior Ministry called the grenade explosion, which wounded 13 people near the court building in Kharkov, a terrorist attack. SBU began a massive anti-terrorist operation in the city.
• Ukrainian army has received the next shipment of winter clothing from Australia.

Ukraine and the World

• EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini said that sanctions against Russia can not be canceled because of the worsening military confrontation in the Donbass.
• Poland is ready to participate in the modernization of Ukrainian thermal power plants to allow use of different brands of coal, which will expand the geography of suppliers and reduce its dependence on coal supplies from Russia and the Donbass.

Trends

• Companies, which pay salary openly and legally, virtually have no ways of paying the government-advertised low rate of the single social tax contribution due to limitations established by law.
• Prime Minister Yatsenyuk requested and explanation from the Minister of Energy Demchishin for contracts signed at the end of December 2014 by the state enterprise "Ukrinterenergo" for the supply of electricity from Russia and energy services for Crimea. Made public documents may be indicative of a treason by employees of the Ministry.