OSCE Secretary General Helga Maria Schmid will visit Ukraine this week for meeting with high-level Ukrainian officials and travel to Donbas, the OSCE press service said.
“Schmid plans to hold talks with senior-level officials, including Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine Oleksiy Reznikov, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, and Dmytro Razumkov, Chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament. The talks will focus on the crisis in and around Ukraine and on ways to strengthen co-operation between the OSCE and Ukraine,” the OSCE press service said in a statement released by on Tuesday.
During his visit, the Secretary General will also meet with the staff of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM) and the OSCE Project Coordinator in Ukraine.
She will also meet with representatives of international humanitarian organizations, as well as civil society representatives and youth activists. Schmid also plans to visit eastern Ukraine to see first-hand the situation in conflict-affected areas and the work being carried out by SMM and Project Coordinator in Ukraine on the ground.
Vienna Insurance Group (VIG, Austria) in January-March 2021 increased collection of premiums by 1.6%, to EUR3.11 billion, according to the information of the group, posted on the website of Ukrainian Insurance Group, whose main shareholder is VIG.
According to the results of the first quarter, the group’s pretax profit amounted to EUR128 million, which is 5% lower than in the previous year. Net profit increased by 15%, to EUR99 million.
The combined ratio of the group was 95.2%, which is almost in line with the indicator for the same period a year earlier. The financial result amounted to EUR175.8 million, which is 29% more than in the first quarter of 2020. As of March 31, 2021, the group’s investments, including cash and cash equivalents, amounted to EUR37.1 billion.
Vienna Insurance Group (VIG) is a leading insurer in Austria, Central and Eastern Europe. The group includes about 50 companies in 25 countries of the world.
In Ukraine, VIG is represented by the following insurance companies: Ukrainian Insurance Group, Kniazha VIG, Kniazha Life VIG.
As of the end of May 2021, direct flights to and from Belarus to Ukraine are operated by Motor Sich (Ukraine) and Belavia (Belarus) airlines.
According to the data of the State Air Traffic Services Enterprise (UkSATSE), Belavia in 2020 was the third in terms of the number of flights operated in Ukraine’s airspace (10,644 flights) after the Turkish Türk Hava Yolları (14,623 flights) and Ukraine International Airlines (14,406 flights).
Belavia flies from Minsk to Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv, Zaporizhia, Odesa and Kherson.
Motor Sich operates flights on the Minsk-Zaporizhia route twice a week.
The mobile operator lifecell in April expanded the coverage of high-speed mobile Internet of 4G standard in 674 settlements in all regions of Ukraine.
According to the operator’s report, in general, as of the end of April, 10,745 settlements were connected to the 4G network by lifecell, where a total of more than 27.7 million people live.
In April, lifecell network was expanded in 674 settlements, of which 667 settlements with a population of up to 5,000 and seven settlements – up to 25,000 people.
“In April, the average use of data traffic per data subscriber was 12.4 GB. This figure increased by 22% compared to the same period in 2020. The 4G subscribers increased the average monthly use of mobile Internet by 20%, to 10.8 GB,” the operator said.
As of the end of April 2021, the leaders in the use of lifecell mobile Internet were:
– up to 5,000 people – Dryzhba (Yampil district, Sumy region), Baturyn (Chernihiv region) and Bibrka (Sambir district, Lviv region);
– up to 25,000 people – Koziatyn (Vinnytsia region), Kamianka (Cherkasy region) and Zdolbuniv (Rivne region);
– up to 50,000 people – Irpin, Vyshneve and Fastiv (Kyiv region);
– up to 100,000 people – Brovary (Kyiv region), Uman (Cherkasy region) and Boryspil (Kyiv region);
– up to 500,000 people – Chernihiv, Vinnytsia and Cherkasy;
– million-person cities – Kyiv, Odesa and Kharkiv.
At the same time, in April the volume of voice calls in the lifecell network increased slightly by 3% compared to April 2020.
The Ministry for Development of Economy, Trade and Agriculture maintains its forecast for the growth of Ukraine’s GDP in 2021 at 4.6%, Minister Ihor Petrashko, has said, commenting on a statement by Deputy Head of the Office of the President Yulia Svyrydenko about the expected GDP growth of 5.1% in 2021.
“We keep our forecast at 4.6%, the first quarter it is 3% down, so far for the two months it is 2.2% down,” Petrashko said in an exclusive comment to Interfax-Ukraine on Thursday on the sidelines of the Ukraine 30 forum.
This forecast takes into account the risks of additional lockdowns, the minister said.
“We hope that there will be no [strict quarantine restrictions]. Last year we predicted a 4.8% decline of the economy, but in fact we got a drop of 4.2%,” Petrashko said.
“There are no such talks [about an all-Ukrainian lockdown] for the entire Ukraine,” he said.
Consignors – which can only be Gazprom – have not been interested by offers of additional capacities for gas transportation through Ukraine for June from Gas Transmission System Operator of Ukraine (GTSOU).
Gazprom has a long-term reservation of Ukrainian capacities in the volume of 40 billion cubic meters for 2021, which is equal to 109 million cubic meters per day. The company additionally booked 15 mcm at auction on May 17, giving a total of 124 mcm per day.
GTSOU offered an additional 63.7 mcm per day at the monthly auction on Tuesday; however, there were no bids for this. The outcome of the last major additional auction a month ago was the same.
The announcement of this auction – with the prospect of significant supply growth on the European market – and its outcome have a substantial influence on spot prices for gas on the European market. They reduce under pressure of the appearance of potential new supply and rebound following an unsuccessful auction. Meanwhile, Gazprom prefers not to comment on its plans regarding short-term reservation of Ukrainian capacities.
Gazprom is currently pumping 124 mcm per day on average through Ukraine, fully using the volume booked.
If Gazprom had accepted the offer to use additional transit capacities, it would have meant a return to transportation volumes through Ukraine of 2019, before the new transit contract and payment of $3 billion to Naftogaz in line with a Stockholm arbitration ruling.
Europe is currently dramatically increasing gas consumption. Global supplies of liquefied natural gas and pipeline gas from Russia are at their highest levels, but this so far impedes the start of mass replenishment of gas in underground storage facilities to prepare for next winter.
