21/03/2015 Ukraine: Daily Highlights - Lithuanian President Grybauskaitė awarded as Ukrainian "Person of the Year"

03/21/2015 Daily Highlights by the "Digests & Analytics - Ukraine"  News Agency

Topics of the Day

Lithuanian President Grybauskaitė awarded as Ukrainian "Person of the Year". The situation in the Donbas does not look like truce. Chubarov was elected a Head of the Crimean Tatars Mejlis again.

Key Events of Ukraine

• President Poroshenko announced the dismissal of the Ukrainian Customs’ administration which would occur in the near future.
• Military service at Ukrainian Armed Forces will be considered as a work experience.
• Agency Fitch lowered the long-term foreign currency ratings of the two largest Ukrainian state-owned Ukreximbank and Oschadbank to 'CC', which indicated a high probability of default due to the Ministry of Finance statements about possible restructuring of sovereign debt.
• The head of the Crimean Tatars Mejlis Chubarov was elected again. The former head of Bakhchisaray district Umarov has become his deputy.
• Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė awarded by Ukrainian award "Person of the Year" for the defense of the interests of Ukraine in the international arena and the active support of its European aspirations and territorial integrity.

Kyiv

• Mayor Klitschko demanded to justify tariffs from Kyivenergo and Kyivvodocanal. In case of failure Kiev authorities will reconsider the terms of cooperation with these monopolists.

Ukraine at War

• Militants are not stopping attacking the Ukrainian Army positions, one Ukrainian military was killed during the last day. In the Donetsk Airport area the Ukrainian units have been attacked twice by tanks and heavy artillery, in Stanitsa Luhanska militants seized a bridgehead on the bank of the Seversky Donets river. Two sections of the railway track were blown up near Popasnaya and Volnovakha. The Ukrainian State Security Service managed to prevent a terrorist attack in the Kharkiv region.
• The military prosecutor said that the military man who was responsible for an accident in Kostyantynivka had been drunk.
• An officer of the  Ukrainian State Security Service was killed in Volnovakha when he was trying to prevent the smuggling out of the zone controlled by “DPR” militants.

Ukraine and the World

• Norway is ready to increase the natural gas supplies to Europe in order to reduce dependence of Europe on Russian energy resources.
• The party of former President Saakashvili held a mass rally in Tbilisi against economic policy of the current Georgian authorities

The Trends

• Drunkenness among servicemen and protection of smuggling by police officers in the combat zone reduce greatly the credibility of the local population, which are being affected by Russian propaganda, to the Ukrainian authorities.