European Union High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy Josep Borrell will visit Ukraine on January 4-6.
As the press service of the European Commission reported on Monday, “his first trip abroad this year testifies to the EU’s strong support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity at a time when the country is faced with a Russian military buildup and hybrid actions.”
Borrell, accompanied by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, is expected to first visit eastern Ukraine and the disengagement line. Then he will travel to Kyiv, where he will meet with the Ukrainian authorities.
The deficit of the Ukrainian state budget amounted to 1.4% of GDP in January-November, while 5.5% of GDP was projected in the law on the state budget, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.
“Thanks to the balanced fiscal and debt policy, the state budget deficit amounted to only 1.4% of GDP over 11 months,” the prime minister said, opening a government meeting on Wednesday.
Ukraine is fully included in the “yellow zone” of epidemic danger, however, the growth in the incidence of coronavirus (COVID-19) is expected to resume from the middle of January, experts from Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) said.
“We at KSE expect further unloading of the medical system in the next one to two weeks, and after that, from about the middle of January, we expect an increase in COVID-19 incidence,” Head of the KSE Center for Health Economics Yuriy Hanychenko said at a weekly online briefing on Wednesday.
KSE experts do not expect Ukraine to enter the “green zone” of epidemic danger in the first quarter of 2022.
However, speaking about forecasts for 2022, Hanychenko said that Ukraine needs to reduce the incidence rate by two to three times in order to reach the “green level” of epidemic danger.
Analyst at the KSE Center for Health Economics Kateryna Kuzminova, in turn, said that over the past week, the death rate from COVID-19 in the country has decreased by 25%.
“Since the death rate is a deferred indicator and mortality trends are following the number of new cases and hospitalizations with a lag of several weeks, we expect a continuation of the decline in the coming weeks,” she said.
Commenting on the vaccination situation, KSE experts said that over the past week the rate of vaccination has decreased by 25%, but it is expected that they will be able to be compensated by the introduction of booster and additional doses of the vaccine.
Ukraine is approaching the WHO target of vaccination of 40% of the population by the end of 2021, more than 40% of the population in 20 of 25 regions of Ukraine received one dose of the vaccine, according to KSE. The highest level of vaccination is observed in Kyiv and Kyiv region (respectively 72% and 58%), the lowest in Zakarpattia (32%).
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.
