The Verkhovna Rada at a meeting on Friday adopted a law on the full guarantee by the state of deposits of individuals for the period of martial law and three months after its completion. According to the head of the committee Daniil Getmantsev in the Telegram channel, the law also establishes that subsequently the maximum amount of compensation on deposits will be UAH 600,000 compared to UAH 200,000 now.
In addition, the Rada adopted in the first reading bill No. 7233 amending the Tax Code and other laws regarding the collection of a single fee and accounting for denatured ethyl alcohol and chemical and technical products. The bill is aimed at providing favorable conditions for the production of denatured ethyl alcohol, bioethanol, chemical and technical products.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies decline on Friday, with some of the largest digital assets posting their biggest drop in weeks as risk appetite wanes, Barron’s writes.
Bitcoin has lost over 4% in the past 24 hours but is holding above the key technical level of $45,000. The price of the cryptocurrency jumped above this indicator last Sunday and continued to rise at the beginning of the week, rising above $48,000.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, bitcoin began to decline as investors exited risky assets, including cryptocurrencies and equities. By Thursday evening, its price had fallen more than 3%, showing the most significant one-day drop since March 10, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
“Bitcoin’s rally is fading, and the Wall Street session, which was accompanied by risk aversion, could lead to continued pressure on cryptocurrencies,” said Edward Moya, an analyst at Oanda.
The price of the most popular cryptocurrency at the beginning of 2022 was around $46,200 and remains well below the high of $68,990 reached in early November.
Meanwhile, some market participants believe that the fall in prices may be short-term, said Barron’s.
Meanwhile, the price of Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by capitalization, fell more than 3% below $3,300, also showing the largest one-day decline since early March on Thursday.
Kazakhstan will not be a tool to circumvent US and EU sanctions against Russia, Timur Suleimenov, First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration of Kazakhstan, said.
In an interview with Euractiv, he called the purpose of his visit to the EU “to demonstrate to our European partners that Kazakhstan will not be a tool to circumvent sanctions against Russia by the US and the EU.”
“We will comply with the sanctions. Despite the fact that we are part of an economic union with Russia, Belarus and other countries, we are also part of the international community. Therefore, the last thing we want is for Kazakhstan to be subject to secondary US and EU sanctions,” he stressed. Suleimenov.
“We will do our best to control the sanctioned goods. We will do our best to control any investment in Kazakhstan by individuals or organizations that are under sanctions, and this is what we wanted to openly convey to the Europeans,” he said.
Rauta has developed several options for master plans development, taking into account different needs and funding opportunities, which may include projects for houses with 1-2 rooms with a separate entrance, own bathroom and kitchen.
“The concept of settlements for migrants is based on the highest speed of construction, comfortable layouts and increased energy efficiency,” said Andriy Ozeychuk, Rauta director. “The unification of production processes and ease of installation make it possible to ensure the mass construction of camps in any region of Ukraine in a few months.”
A distinctive feature of the Rauta proposal in comparison with alternative solutions for temporary residence is that houses made of sandwich panels can be effectively operated for decades and, if necessary, people will stay in such settlements for a long time with a comfortable standard of living.
If sometime the need for such settlements disappears, then the houses can be easily dismantled and moved to other places, as well as repurposed to perform new functions: recreation facilities, administrative centers, outpatient clinics, small commercial or office buildings, etc.
You can see the refugee houses layouts and possible options for master plans at the link.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba denied rumors that Germany and France are putting pressure on Ukraine to make concessions in negotiations with the Russian Federation.
“Those countries that you mentioned are our partners, they help us a lot, especially the UK, and we don’t feel any pressure in the negotiation process from their side, we feel support and we have very close interaction with these governments,” Kuleba said at the briefing in Warsaw on Friday.
So Kuleba responded to a journalist’s request to comment on media reports that France and Germany are putting pressure on Ukraine to make concessions to the Russian Federation in the negotiations.
The head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stressed that even before the start of the war, it was inappropriate to say that Ukraine could be put under pressure.
“We have shown in a number of situations that Ukraine does not succumb to any pressure, you can only speak with us on an equal footing and you can never speak down. And after 36 days of war, I assure you that no one in Europe or overseas will even dare to attack President Zelensky or to Ukraine for any reason,” Kuleba said.
The Motor (Transport) Insurance Bureau of Ukraine (MTIBU) fulfills its international obligations and functions in war conditions.
“We are all facing the tragic and unique situation of the war initiated by the Russian Federation in Ukraine: we now have one National Bureau (MTIBU), which is a member of the board of the Green Card Bureau, is under fire, but still continues to work. It seems fantastic and almost unbelievable, but yes – it’s true: under all these circumstances, cooperation with MTIBU continues, despite the dramatic reality,” said Sandra Schwartz, President of the Board of the Green Card Bureau, in an exclusive interview with the analytical publication XPrimm.
According to her, according to MTIBU, the war in Ukraine caused a huge flow of refugees who left the country, many of them travel by car. Thus, while promoting a general consolidation of efforts to help them cope with the tragedy of war and seek asylum, European insurers are dealing with a very specific technical problem: crashes involving cars with Ukrainian license plates in the context of the fact that in an extreme situation, many of of them left for European countries without concluding an agreement on compulsory international insurance “Green Card”.
Answering a question about the number of Ukrainian cars that are now moving on European roads, Schwartz noted that, despite the fact that the Council of Bureaux is in constant contact with the authorities of countries that have a direct border with Ukraine, and the total number of refugees is known, there is a significant shortage information on the number of cars on Ukrainian license plates that left the country after the start of Russian military aggression.
“So we don’t have aggregated hard data yet, but we are sure that there are a huge number of Ukrainian-registered cars that not only cross the Ukrainian border to leave, but also drive further across Europe, where people hope to find shelter. And many of these cars do not have proper insurance protection,” she stated.
Schwartz stressed that such a situation is not legitimate, but has become generally accepted due to its urgency, since checking whether people have proper insurance is much less important than giving them access to a shelter as soon as possible. However, of course, there is a need to solve it.
Schwartz explained that there are several national initiatives to provide Ukrainians with free or cheap Green Card insurance or to cover temporary losses caused by uninsured Ukrainian cars.
“Also, a discussion has already begun whether this should be a common pan-European solution and how such a mechanism can work,” said the President of the Council of Bureaux.
She explained that the Council of Bureaux is in close contact with Insurance Europe (Federation of Insurers and Reinsurers, which unites 39 European insurance associations) on this issue in order to decide on the solution that will best resolve the current situation.
Due to the fact that the Ukrainian Bureau “Green Card” and insurers who are full members of the MTIBU are actively working, Ukrainian drivers can remotely renew an expired policy or receive a new one in digital format (as a pdf file). In the current situation, during verification, the document will be accepted in digital format, despite the fact that this is inconsistent with the UNECE recommendations, according to which the Green Card is a valid document only if it is provided in paper form.
Finally, the war in Ukraine also has a significant impact on cooperation with the Russian and Belarusian Green Card Bureaus.
“The first question is how and how it is still possible under the sanctions regime to make sure that the Russian Bureau is able to fulfill its obligations as a member of the Council of Bureaux. Of course, most of the questions at the moment are related to financial aspects, money transfers, etc.
We, as a system, must decide, taking into account reputational aspects, whether it is appropriate to have a Russian National Bureau among the members of the Bureau.According to the rules of the Green Card system, the only reason for suspending the membership of a particular national bureau is that it violates our rules.Thus , we must, first of all, analyze whether this is true or not,” Schwartz explained.
