04/04/2015 Ukraine: Daily Highlights - Soros called on Europe to shift the focus from Greece to Ukraine

Billionaire George Soros

04/04/2015 Daily Highlights by the "Digests & Analytics - Ukraine" News Agency

Topics from the Media and Social Networks

• Poroshenko gave another TV interview.
• Soros called on Europe to shift the focus from Greece to the Ukraine.
• The government wants to ban communist ideology before May 9.
• Car registration authority will be completely reorganized and shrinked.
• Head of Traffic police (GAI) of Ukraine dismissed, the chief of GAI of Kiev detained.
• Head of State Financial Inspection, who revealed financial abuse in government, dismissed.

Key Events in Ukraine

• Minister of Justice Petrenko said that the government has prepared a package of laws to ban the communist ideology and looks forward to their adoption by Parliament before May 9. Also a draft bill to hold local elections on a proportional basis with open party lists is prepared. Election of mayors of large cities with a population of over 100 thousand planned to be held in two rounds.
• The Government has made a list of state debts about which it is preparing to negotiate a restructuring with creditors. Among them are debts of Ukrzaliznytsia, "Yuzhnoe", Sberbank, Ukreximbank and the Kiev city administration. The IMF has put debt restructuring condition for obtaining new tranches of the loan.
• The Ministry of Justice said that the Constitutional Court agreed with the cancellation of the parliamentary and judicial immunity.
• The Ministry of Interior plans to reform - separate national police, leaving behind only the political functions of the Ministry.

Ukraine at War

• Fighting doesn’t stop on the frontline in the Donbas, three Ukrainian soldiers were killed yesterday. Avdiivka and Opytne were attacked, Granite was under tanks fire from militants.
• The President and the government visited the exhibition of the latest weapons in New Petrivcy near Kiev.

Ukraine and the World

• American billionaire Soros in an interview with Die Welt called on Europe to provide immediate assistance to Ukraine, to avoid problems with refugees and increasing pressure from Russia. According to him, Putin’s purpose is not a military victory in Ukraine, but destruction of its political and economic system and the weakening of the European Union.
• Russia has successfully tested a new missile air defense systems S-400, which provides simultaneous destruction of up to 36 different targets by 72 missiles at a distance of 400 km.
• Gazprom demanded again that Ukraine pay for gas, which it supplies to the occupied territories of Donbass, and is ready to sue for enforcement of payment. Naftogaz refused to pay for these supplies because it has no control over pumping gas metering stations and receives no funds for fuel consumed by insurgents DNR and LNR.

The Trends

• Russia is preparing for a new type of cold war to weaken NATO, Europe and the US, but does not have sufficient resources for its long-term conduct.
• President Poroshenko leads Ukraine to the freezing of the conflict in the Donbass, which should not be damaging to the economy and destabilize the political situation in the country. Therefore Russia, with high probability, will continue military operations in the Donbass using controlled militants to cause serious military defeat of Ukraine.