10/15/2015 Ukraine: Daily Highlights - Ukraine became a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council

Ukraine became a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council

10.15.2015 Daily Highlights by the Digests & Analytics Ukraine Agency

Topics from Media and Social Networks

• Ukraine became a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council.
• 11 Ukrainian soldiers were injured as a result of landmine explosions in Donbas.
• The EU will cooperate with Turkey to resolve the problem of illegal migrants.
• Mobile operator MTS is ready to work in Ukraine under the Vodafone brand under a franchise agreement.
• Poroshenko wants to make English the second working language of the Ukrainian state institutions.

Key Events in Ukraine

• Minister of Economic Development and Trade Abromavicius said that Russian companies will not be allowed to take part in the privatization of Ukrainian enterprises.
• The Prosecutor General's Office opened a criminal case against the SBU employees for hindering the work of journalists. Head of Security Service of Ukraine in Kyiv instructed the First National TV Channel not to release a program on the luxury cars of SBU employees, considering it a violation of the law.
• MP Leshchenko released the evidence of the involvement of the Head of Presidential Administration Lozhkin in money laundering case investigated by Austrian prosecutors.
  Former SBU head Nalyvaychenko reported at a meeting of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Combating Corruption on the results of the investigation conducted by the FBI and the Latvian Office for the Prevention of Money Laundering on offshore companies related to Kononenko, Deputy Chairman of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc parliamentary faction. Journalists released information on another flat in London owned by the head of the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine Nasirov.
• NBU slightly strengthened the official hryvnia rate: 21.69 ₴/$ (-0.24 UAH), 24.81 ₴/€ (-0.13 UAH), 3.48 ₴/10 ₽ (-0.04 UAH).

Ukraine at War

• Two women tripped over tripwire in the village of Stanytsya Luhanska. Two soldiers walked over tripwire in the same village, and nine other people were blown up by a land mine in the Stanytsya Luhanska district.
  The Information Resistance NGO reports that the militants are finishing the construction of the second line of defense and concealing military equipment near the line of fighting.
  The UK is trying to find out where the LPR militants got TOS-1 Buratino multiple rocket launchers manufactured only in Russia.
  Anti-Terrorist Operation Headquarters stated that there have been no violations of the Minsk Agreement and that the Ukrainian army continues the withdrawal of weapons.
• Reconnaissance has found centers to recruit mercenaries to Syria in the occupied Donbas.
• The OSCE mission reported that the access for DPR militants to the border with Russia was banned.
• Ukraine has resumed its TV and radio broadcast for the occupied city of Luhansk and the adjacent territories.

Ukraine and the World

• The EU granted Frontex, the European External Borders Agency, the authority to forcibly deport illegal immigrants on its own initiative.
• Ukrainian Foreign Ministry expressed protest to Russia over the biased ruling of a Moscow court against the former director of the Poltava defense plant Soloshchenko.
• European leaders agreed to grant €3 billion to Turkey, to easy visa requirements and to hold talks on EU membership in exchange for preventing illegal migrant traffic from Turkey to the EU territory and for providing them with necessary facilities in Turkey.
  German parliament passed a law tightening the immigration legislation.
  Bulgarian border guards shot dead an illegal migrant from Afghanistan during a clash at the border.
• American Republican Party presidential candidate Trump sees no sufficient grounds to accuse Donbas militants of downing flight MH17. He believes that the US should neither take action in this respect nor intervene in the conflict in Ukraine.
• The EBRD will grant a loan of €100 million to Chernihiv, Odesa, Chernivtsy and other cities to purchase public transport and improve infrastructure.
• The meeting of the Ad Hoc Committee of Creditors of Ukraine in London failed to reach the quorum. However, its attendees issued a resolution stating the terms of restructuring of Ukraine's external debt. Prime Minister Yatsenyuk stated that the creditors "decided to reduce an overall debt of Ukraine by a total amount worth US$3 billion and to restructure the corresponding debt for a total sum of US$8.5 billion."  The Committee of Creditors is scheduled to meet again on October 29. The Ministry of Finance stated that Russia had the last chance to join Ukrainian Eurobonds holders for the final decision on Ukrainian debt restructuring.

The Trends

• According to experts, the introduction of excise duty on imported cars significantly increased their cost, but neither revived Ukrainian car manufacturers nor increased tax revenues.