Investigators of the State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) on Wednesday, December 29, conducted a series of searches as part of an investigation into a criminal scheme for the supply of coal from the temporarily occupied territories and assistance to the LPR and DPR terrorist organizations by a group of Ukrainian citizens.
“In order to avoid manipulation and subsequent informational speculations around this criminal proceeding, we inform you that on December 29, 2021, the investigators of the State Bureau of Investigations, on the basis of the relevant determinations of the investigating judge, conducted a number of searches at the places of possible storage of things or documents that are important for criminal proceedings,” the SBI told Interfax-Ukraine.
The bureau said that within the proceedings under Part 1 and Part 3 of Article 258-5 (financing of terrorism), Part 1 of Article 111 (high treason) and Part 1 of Article 258-3 (creation of a terrorist organization) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
Earlier, Head of the central headquarters of the European Solidarity party Oleksandr Turchynov said at a briefing that law enforcement officers at 07.00 on Wednesday searched the premises of first assistant to the fifth president of Ukraine, Yuriy Onyschenko, and former deputy Serhiy Berezenko, but found nothing.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky signed decree No. 687/2021, which determines the timing of the annual call-ups of Ukrainian citizens for military service, the retirement of servicemen who have served the terms of such service, and the procedure for carrying out activities related to the preparation and conduct of duty calls in 2022.
As reported on the website of the President’s Office, according to the document, next year the regular conscriptions of Ukrainian citizens for military service will take place from April to June and from October to December.
According to the decree, the transfer to the reserve of servicemen who have served the established terms of military service is also provided for in April-June and October-December.
The draft commissions will begin work on April 1 and October 1, 2022, and preparatory activities are scheduled to begin a month earlier than these dates.
“It should be noted that conscripted military servicemen are not involved in combat missions in the area of the Joint Forces Operation,” the statement says.
The military, who undergo military service in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, are primarily involved in the recruitment of arsenals, bases, warehouses, ammunition storage centers and in positions related to ensuring the life of military units in permanent deployment points (except for those deployed in Donetsk and Luhansk regions).
Citizens of a training conscription age will not be subject to conscription. They are given a grace period for the entire period of study.
A deferral from conscription for military service is also provided to citizens of Ukraine who are undergoing military training under the training program for reserve officers at higher military educational institutions and military educational units of higher education, for family reasons, to continue their professional activities and health status.
A deferral from conscription may be granted to conscripts in accordance with the decisions of the draft commission of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, regional and Kyiv city draft commissions on the submission of regional (city) draft commissions.
The Constitutional Court of Slovakia has satisfied the complaints of NJSC Naftogaz Ukrainy about the violation of its rights to a fair trial, recognizing that the company incurred unreasonable costs in the framework of enforcement proceedings in the republic.
The press service of the company clarified that the matter concerns enforcement proceedings, which have been carried out in Slovakia since 2017 on the initiative of Italia Ukraina Gas S.p.a. (IUGAS) and its successor Trameta kft (Hungary) in order to recover from Naftogaz a fine of $12.7 million and interest on the final decision of the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce dated December 19, 2012.
At the same time, within the framework of the compulsory execution of the arbitral award, the Slovak bailiff seized the Naftogaz gas imported through the territory of the republic.
The press service noted that numerous abuses by the bailiff within the proceedings led to the artificial formation and accumulation of Naftogaz’s debt in the amount of about EUR22 million for the alleged storage of the previously seized natural gas, although neither the executor nor the custodian company provided any or documentary evidence of the fact and the cost of its storage.
“The decision of the Constitutional Court of Slovakia in favor of Naftogaz has come into legal force and is not subject to appeal. With this decision, the Constitutional Court overturned the decision of the District Court of Bratislava II on the obligation of Naftogaz to reimburse the costs of the alleged gas storage in the amount of more than EUR11.5 million. Thus, the district court of Bratislava II is obliged to reconsider the complaints of Naftogaz regarding the illegal and unfair accrual of executive expenses,” the company said.
Naftogaz’s lawyers have already prepared an application to the Bratislava District Court with a petition to reconsider the issue of the validity and legality of gas storage costs and will submit it in the near future.
According to Naftogaz, these enforcement proceedings became the largest in the history of Slovakia.
Naftogaz recalled that the fine was awarded by the Stockholm Arbitration Tribunal following a dispute over a contract for the supply of 13 billion cubic meters of gas during 10 years at a fixed price of $110/1,000 cubic meters, which was signed in 2003 with IUGAS at that time by the deputy head of the Naftogaz board Ihor Voronin. At the same time, Voronin signed the agreement without the necessary approvals, and Italian citizen Marco Marenco, who owned IUGAS at the time of its conclusion, was later convicted in his homeland for fraud and tax evasion.
The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has included a long loaf, and sunflower oil in the list of food products, the rise in price of which must be declared in advance by business entities selling them, and also prohibited setting a markup for rye-wheat bread and long loaf in excess of 10%.
The government decision is contained in government resolution No. 1432 dated December 30, 2021.
“The list of goods of large social significance approved by government resolution No. 341 dated April 22, 2020 shall be supplemented with paragraphs as follows: Long Loaf and Sunflower Oil,” the government said in the resolution.
In addition, the highest retail markup for rye-wheat bread and long loaf is set at no more than 10% of the wholesale selling price, taking into account advertising, marketing, logistics services, preparation, processing, packaging, and other services related to the sale to the end consumer.
This regulation is introduced for the period of quarantine caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to current government resolution No. 341 dated April 22, 2020, goods that have large social significance are subject to mandatory declaring of food price increases. These include buckwheat groats, granulated sugar, wheat flour of the highest grade and noodles from it, pasteurized milk with a fat content of 2.5%, rye-wheat bread, chicken eggs of the C1 category, chicken carcass, still mineral water and butter with a fat content of 72.5 %
A business entity is obliged to notify the State Service on Food Safety and Consumer Protection about an increase in the price of these food products by more than 15% 30 days before the start of the application of the new price, 14 days with an increase by 10-15% and 3 days with an increase by 5-10%.
On December 30, 2021, as a result of the annual work of Ukrainian winemakers and relevant associations, the Ministry of Agrarian Policy of Ukraine held the ” Great Tasting of Ukrainian Wines.”
Event organizers:
– Ukrsadvinprom public union
– the Ukrainian Association of Winemakers and Sommeliers (http://www.sommelier.in.ua/spip.php?rubrique28)
– the Association of Craft Wine Producers
– the Association of Cavistes of Ukraine
– the Experts Club
The purpose of the event: popularization of wines of Ukraine by presenting the range of sparkling and still wines, both from well-known large producers and from small (craft) winemakers.
The presentation was attended by:
– Roman Leschenko – Minister of Agrarian Policy of Ukraine
-Volodymyr Pechko- head of Ukrsadvinprom
– Natalia Blahopoluchna – President of the Ukrainian Association of Winemakers and Sommeliers and the Association of Cavistes of Ukraine
-Svitlana Tsybak – President of the Association of Craft Wine Producers of Ukraine
– Heads and representatives of the departments of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy
– Representatives of wine producers and specialized organizations
20 producers presented their wines for tasting:
• Prince Trubetskoi Winery
• Oreanda
• Villa Krim
• Koblevo
• Chizay
• Beykush Winery
• Guliev Wines
• Frumushika-Nova
• Driukivski Wines
• Babchuk Winery
• Narovylo
• Gigineishvili Wine House
• Villa Tinta
• Sadyba Sterkh
• Slivino
• Bohdan’s Winery
• Grapes Odesa
• Don Alejandro
• Kalyus Winery
• Stakhovsky Winery
The presented samples (there were more than 50 of them) were from different grape varieties, such as the international group of varieties – Chardonnay, Riesling, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, and local grape varieties – Sukholymansky, Chersegi, Saperavi, Odesa Black.
Brut category sparkling wines (white and rosé) were in the aperitif part of the presentation, and then white, rosé, orange and red dry wines from different regions of Ukraine amazed everyone with their quality, namely, from Odesa, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Zakarpattia, Dnipropetrovsk, Kyiv, Khmelnytsky, Vinnytsia.
In his welcoming speech, Minister of Agrarian Policy Roman Leschenko stressed the importance of abolishing the excise tax on dry wines from January 1, 2022, which will promote domestic wines and facilitate the work of winemakers, and thanked everyone for organizing such an important event and congratulated the audience on the coming year 2022!
Let’s go to the New Year with Ukrainian wine!
Interfax-Ukraine News Agency is an information partner of this event and other events of Ukrsadvinprom.
Special partner of the event – company Sophienwald, hand-made glasses from Austria.
BLAHOPOLUCHNA, CAVISTE, EXPERTS CLUB, LESCHENKO ROMAN, SOMMELIER, TASTING, TSYBAK, UKRSADVINPROM, URAKIN, ПЕЧКО
Among Ukrainians, the most popular New Year gifts are a romantic trip, a car, accessories and money, according to the results of a study conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) on December 3 through December 11, 2021.
According to the opinion poll, if in the previous pre-COVID-19 years Ukrainians were very mercantile (money was in first place by a large margin), now, the first place is taken by a romantic trip (18% of respondents) and a car and accessories to it (12%). The next three gifts that Ukrainians would like to receive are money (10%), a mobile phone and other electronic devices (9%), as well as household appliances (7%).
Less than 5% of respondents want to receive all other gifts.
So, as for the desired gifts for men and women, apart from money (which both men and women like equally), there is expected to be a significant difference between them. Some 14% of men and 10% of women would like to get cars or accessories for them, 8.3% of women and 4.5% of men would like to get household appliances (men also actively participate in cooking and cleaning). Some 20% of women and 17% of men would like to go on a romantic trip. 6% of women and 3% of men would like to get eau de toilette, perfumery, and cosmetics.
In addition, according to the results of the study, if we consider the change in wishes from 2014 to 2021, then in addition to a significant increase in the desire to travel, there is a growing need for mobile phones and other electronic devices (from 3% in 2014 to 9% in 2021), as well as for tablets and PCs.
Asked about the desired gift, the respondents were able also to add their own wish if it was not on the list. More often than not, there was something that was impossible to give – peace and health. But there were also more realistic wishes. These were congratulations from children or grandchildren or that they come to visit.
Some respondents answered that they would like to receive a book, a balalaika, a large chocolate bar, a two-cylinder moped, a set of paints for painting, a kiss from his wife, “so that all those who are testing the waters in Ukraine go to the demonic father behind the road-edge,” a sable fur coat as a gift, and “to take away his woman for six months.”
The number of those wishing to have a pet also increased from 0.8% to 1.8%.
The survey was conducted by Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) on the basis of a random sample of mobile telephone numbers (with random generation of telephone numbers and subsequent statistical weighting) among 2,000 respondents living in all regions of Ukraine (except for the Autonomous Republic of Crimea). In Luhansk and Donetsk regions, the survey was conducted only in the territory controlled by the Ukrainian authorities.
The sample is representative of the adult population (age 18 and older) in Ukraine. The sample does not include territories temporarily not controlled by the Ukrainian authorities – the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
The statistical error of the sample (with a probability of 0.95 and taking into account the design effect of 1.1) does not exceed: 2.4% for indicators close to 50%, 2.1% for indicators close to 25%, 1.5% – for indicators close to 10%, 1.1% – for indicators close to 5%.
