President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy has dismissed Ambassador of Ukraine to China Pavlo Riabikin, Ambassador of Ukraine to Lithuania Petro Beshta, Ambassador of Ukraine to Japan Serhiy Korsunsky, Ambassador of Ukraine to Slovenia Andriy Taran, and Ambassador of Ukraine to Rwanda Andriy Pravednyk.
The President also dismissed Vasyl Gamyanin from the post of Ambassador of Ukraine to Indonesia and from the post of representative of Ukraine to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which he held part-time.
The relevant decrees No. 863-868/2024 of December 21 were published on the President’s website on Saturday.
The Ministry of Health violates the rights of citizens to healthcare services and prevents private clinics from entering the single medical space, according to the Association of Private Medical Centers of Ukraine.
“The Ministry of Health of Ukraine does not allow private healthcare institutions to form a capable network and routes of medical care, thus pushing them out of the single medical space. Currently, attempts are being made to create an artificial infrastructure of medical institutions that will receive priority and preferential funding from the state and local budgets, which does not take into account the capacity of private medicine and hinders its development, as well as violates the right of patients to choose a medical institution to receive medical care,” the association said in an open letter to government agencies.
According to private healthcare market participants, such actions impede the implementation of high-quality progressive models of medical care, transparent financial settlements, and promote the practice of informal payments for patients, potentiating the development of corruption schemes in the healthcare sector.
“Artificial obstacles are systematically created for the participation of privately owned medical institutions in the medical guarantees program through constant changes in the rules, regulations and criteria for concluding contracts with the National Health Service of Ukraine (NHSU), which is a significant threat to changing the course of the declared healthcare reform in Ukraine and creates risks of irrational spending of state budget funds to create new capacities in public medical institutions instead of using and attracting existing ones.
Private healthcare market participants note that private healthcare facilities “are now deprived of an equal opportunity to purchase blood products and can only purchase them if there is a surplus of such products in blood centers.”
The private healthcare market operators also emphasize “discriminatory regulations against healthcare workers working in private medical institutions.”
In particular, the association states that the Ministry of Health, using administrative resources, is actively promoting a 100% quota for booking medical workers who work in state-owned and municipal healthcare facilities, grossly violates the rights of private healthcare facilities to be recognized as critical and introduces discriminatory norms.
“Such a state policy creates extremely unfavorable conditions for attracting investment in private healthcare, as the lack of state guarantees, unfavorable environment for business development, weak investment protection through the creation of discriminatory norms by the authorities will directly impede the stable participation of potential international and national investors and contribute to the formation of a negative international image of our country,” the association emphasized.
Ambassador of the Republic of Serbia to Ukraine Andon Sapunji presented his credentials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, the Serbian Foreign Ministry confirmed.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry reported that Mishchenko congratulated Sapunji on the start of his mission in Ukraine, emphasized the resumption of the work of the Serbian Embassy in Kyiv and expressed readiness to further develop and strengthen friendly Ukrainian-Serbian relations.
On March 3, 2022, after the start of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Serbia announced the temporary closure of the Embassy of Serbia in Ukraine for security reasons. The staff continued to perform their duties from Belgrade until conditions for their return became possible.
Diplomatic relations at the embassy level between Ukraine and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) were established on April 15, 1994.
Following the results of the main timber auctions for the first quarter of 2025, the state enterprise “Forests of Ukraine” signed contracts for UAH 1.3 billion, which is the most successful result of the auction for two years of activity, the company’s CEO Yuriy Bolokhovets said on his Facebook page.
According to him, almost 90% of the lots put up for sale were contracted, which is a record high. The average price increase was 31%. The main species, pine, has risen in price the most (by 51%). Prices for industrial firewood remained almost unchanged. Mostly the cheapest items were bought at auctions – 72% of the volume put up for auction.
Bolokhovets noted that the auction was attended by 10% more participants compared to the same auction last year.
“I would like to note that timber for the first quarter has only been contracted. We will see the percentage of contract fulfillment by businesses next year. In case of failure, the resource will be put up for additional bidding,” he emphasized.
The CEO of Forests of Ukraine emphasized that the company aims to increase revenues to the state budget, but is always ready for a dialogue with the market and is interested in creating conditions for the development of Ukrainian woodworking.
As reported, Ukraine launched a forestry reform in 2016. As part of it, the sale of raw wood at electronic auctions has already been introduced. Since 2021, an interactive map of wood processing facilities has been operating in a test mode in a number of regions.
The industry has implemented the Forest in a Smartphone project, which contains a list of logging tickets for timber harvesting and allows you to check the legality of logging on the agency’s online map.
On June 1, 2023, Ukraine launched a pilot for the electronic issuance of logging tickets and certificates of origin of timber. In addition, the State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine” has launched a pilot project to procure timber harvesting services through the electronic platform Prozorro.
Since the beginning of 2024, the state-owned Ukrgasbank (UGB, Kyiv) has financed almost 90 energy projects totaling UAH 1.8 billion, said Tetiana Kornienko, Director of the Small and Medium Business Department of Ukrgasbank, at Get festival business on December 12 in Kyiv.
“The main part of UAH 1.3-1.4 billion is made up of two components: solar stations and cogeneration units,” she said.
Cogeneration accounts for the largest share of the total amount of loans granted due to the high cost of projects in this segment.
Also, about 20% of the total amount of loans disbursed is for the purchase of generators, which belongs to small projects.
“We lend to almost the entire line of equipment used in the generation sector. These include generators, solar panels, cogeneration, and wind farms. We are ready to take on any project,” the department director emphasized.
According to her, the bank has its own technical office that provides assistance in analyzing projects and finding optimal solutions. Ukrgasbank also has a fairly wide range of financing programs.
According to Kornienko, one of Ukrgasbank’s key requirements for borrowers is that they have sufficient cash flow to cover loan repayment, including the flow generated by the project itself.
Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Vitaliy Koval and representatives of the USAID Harvest program handed over the first 10 grain dryers to farmers working in the frontline areas, the press service of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food reported.
“The first 10 grain dryers will benefit more than 100 farmers. This will allow them to increase production, ensure proper drying of grain and sell products with 15-20% added value in the frontline regions,” the minister said.
According to him, the USAID Harvest program will also provide farmers with 7,000 grain sleeves, which will help preserve 1.4 million tons of grain. The initiative is aimed at overcoming the critical shortage of grain storage capacity in Chernihiv, Dnipro, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Sumy and Zaporizhzhia regions and will help about 300 farms with an area of 1,000 to 10,000 hectares.
Koval reminded that during the war, when granaries for long-term storage of grain were destroyed throughout the frontline territory, such sleeves became a real salvation for Ukrainian farmers.
The Minister thanked the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which, with the financial support of the governments of Canada, Japan and the United States, were able to implement this program.
