07/22/2015 Ukraine: Daily Highlights - A volunteer Georgyi Tucka was appointed a Head of the Luhansk Military-Civilian Administration

A new Head of the Luhansk Military-Civilian Administration Georgyi Tucka

07.22.2015 Daily Highlights by the Digests & Analytics Ukraine News Agency

Topics from Media and Social Networks

• Volunteer Georgyi Tucka was appointed a Head of the Luhansk Military-Civilian Administration.
• President Poroshenko initiated the withdrawal of the heavy weapons for 30 km from the fighting line in the Donbass.
• "Ukrnafta" has chosen a new Chairman and paid the dividend to the state.
• A Russian court removed an attachment from "Roshen" factory in Lipetsk, owned by President Poroshenko.

Key Events In Ukraine

• President Poroshenko appointed Head of the "People Rear" volunteer organization Tuka a Head of Luhansk Military-Civilian Administration.
• The Constitutional Court started to consider the law on changes to the Constitution, adopted by the Parliament in the first reading .
• Minister of Social and Economic Development Abromavicius stated that the number of regulatory body employees will be reduced by six times - from 68 thousand to 10-12 thousand. A new transparent procedure for inspections will be developed . The Government prolonged a moratorium on inspections of small and medium-sized businesses until the end of 2016.
• Foreign Minister Klimkin reported on the increased number of refusals to issue the Schengen visas.
• The General Prosecutor’s Office is investigating the possible embezzlement of funds of the National Bank refinancing by the leadership of Delta-Bank, before it declared bankruptcy in March 2015.
• The Government identified the customs, which it intends to put under the management of the British company.
• The meeting of "Ukrnafta" shareholders elected a new Chairman. His candidacy was put forward by structures, controlled by the minority shareholders - enterprises belonging to the "Privat" Group of oligarch Kolomoisky. Former governor of the Odessa region Palitsa was added to the management of the company .
  The Board decided to use 100% of the 2014 profits to pay the dividends, the state is owed UAH 633 million of dividends.
  The audit showed that in 2014 "Ukrnafta" siphoned off more than UAH 3 billion to the structures belonging to the "Private" Group, thus reducing the distributable profits in form of the dividends.
  The "Privat" Group  filed a suit in the Stockholm Arbitration against Ukraine for the amount of $ 5 billion for an unauthorized siphoning of the natural gas by "Naftogaz" from "Ukrnafta".
• A new Center for the Administrative Services, previously provided by the Regional Registration-Testing Department of the Traffic Police, opened in Kiev. Deputy Interior Minister Zguladze said that the Ministry plans to reorganize the Registration-Testing Department into a civil body, providing services as part of the Interior Ministry, and the Traffic Police will be dismissed due to the low workload of the investigators.
• The Leadership of Ukraine signed the documents necessary to obtain a second tranche within the IMF extended funding program in the amount of $ 1.7 billion, which will be directed to replenish foreign exchange reserves of the NBU.
• The official hryvnia exchange rate did not change: 22.01 UAH/USD (-0.01 UAH), 24.00 UAH/EUR (+0,07 UAH), 3.86 UAH/RUR 10.

Ukraine at War

• President Poroshenko authorized the working group on resolving the situation in the Donbass to sign an agreement that guarantees the creation of a 30-kilometer buffer zone around the fighting line, which should mark the beginning of a real cease-fire under the supervision of the OSCE, with the withdrawal of tanks and weapons with the caliber of less than 100 mm.
• The Headquarters of the Anti-Terrorist Operation said that recently the concentration of the militants troops in the key areas of the Donbass - Uglegorsk, Gorlovka and Donetsk - sharply increased, same tendency is observed on the Ukrainian-Russian border - the number of the Russian military also significantly increased. The OSCE confirmed the existence of a large cluster of the occupants machinery near Mariupol and reports on absence of withdrawal of the weaponry from the fighting line. During the fighting, five Ukrainian soldiers were wounded .
• As a result of the shell hit of the car during the militants shelling of Avdeyevka  two people were killed, a retiree was injured in Dzerzhinsk. Observers reported numerous casualties as a result of the shelling of the Dokuchaevsk-Novortroitskoe highway.
• The next Russian convoy is preparing to invade the Donbass through the part of border, uncontrolled by Ukraine.

Ukraine and the World

• The construction of the second branch of the Russian gas pipeline to China, "Power of Siberia" ("Altai") is postponed for an indefinite period because of the high price for the natural gas, which "Gazprom" explains by the high cost of construction. China is ready to build a pipe cheaper and offers to announce an open tender for the construction, but Russia strenuously refuses to allow Chinese companies to the domestic market.
• Canada, after the signing of a free trade zone treaty,  eliminated duties on 98% of the goods supplied to Ukraine. The Ministry of Social and Economic Development expects a growth in exports of Ukrainian products abroad, starting from autumn of 2015.
• The French parliament condemned the MPs who intended  to make a “private visit” to the Crimea. Ukraine's Foreign Ministry considers it an unfriendly gesture and warned that such persons may be denied from the entry to Ukraine.

The Trends

• Ombudswoman Lutkovska said that the publication of the recruits summons in the press and on the Internet with indication of the specific information is a violation of the law on personal data and can be a conduit for the agressor to gather the intelligence data.
• Political scientists and analysts believe that the elections to the Verkhovna Rada in Chernigov are the dirtiest since the times of Yanukovych and believe that the victory of the pro-government candidate could set up a precedent for the massive use of the administrative resources during the next election, and the vote-buying by the member of oligarch Kolomoisky clan Korban could demonstrate a possibility of legal circumvention of the electoral legislation .
• Deputy Head of the Central Election Commission Magera expressed the opinion that the new law on local elections passed by the Verkhovna Rada, is a copy of the Russian law on elections in St. Petersburg, where the authorities used it for a large-scale bribery of the voters. The text of the law itself is not available on the website of the Verkhovna Rada, it was not signed by the President either.
• President Poroshenko accepted the resignation of Constitutional Court Judge Shyshkin, who was one of the judges who disagreed to grant President Yanukovych the extended powers and return to the text of the Constitution of 1996. He also opposed the Constitutional Court statement that the lustration and the process related to it put pressure on the court.