Washington is ready to welcome any option to de-escalate tensions on the border between Russia and Ukraine, State Department Spokesperson Ned Price has said at a briefing.
“De-escalation can take many forms. We would welcome any of it,” Price said, answering a question in what form Washington imagines the de-escalation of tensions.
In particular, according to him, the start of de-escalation could be considered both the withdrawal of troops from the border with Ukraine and the change in Russian rhetoric on the Ukrainian topic.
Citizens of Ukraine who received a booster dose of the coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine will get an additional UAH 500, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video statement on Monday evening.
“There is a clear understanding that immunity grows after each subsequent dose of the vaccine, and the ‘boosterization’ strategy has become the unified standard for all developed countries. Boosterization is the third dose of the vaccine, therefore, under the e-Aid program, another UAH 500 will be allocated for those citizens who receive the third dose,” he said.
Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal says there are currently no threats to the functioning of the national economy, except for disinformation pressure.
“There are no threats to the functioning of the national economy, except for information, especially disinformation pressure. There are no other factors that can destabilize the national economy today,” Shmyhal said after the NSDC meeting on Monday evening.
The number of loans issued by state-owned Ukrgasbank (Kyiv) increased by 22% in 2021, the bank’s press service reported.
According to the report, the bank’s loan portfolio increased by UAH 7 billion last year.
“In 2021, more than 300 eco-loans worth UAH 2 billion were issued, which ensured a reduction in CO2 emissions by 140,000 tonnes. Among them, about UAH 500 million are sustainable development projects,” Andriy Kravets, the head of the bank’s board of directors, said.
Ukrgasbank was founded in 1993. The state, represented by the Ministry of Finance, owns 94.94% of the shares of the financial institution.
According to the data of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), as of October 1, 2021, Ukrgasbank ranked fifth in terms of total assets (UAH 121.19 billion) among 71 banks operating in the country.
Retail trade turnover in Ukraine in December 2021 increased by 5.1% compared to the same month in 2020 in comparable prices, while in November the growth was 5.8%, the State Statistics Service reported. According to its data, in December, compared to November 2021, retail trade turnover increased by 19.3%.
The agency reported that in 2021, compared to 2020, retail trade turnover increased by 10.7%, to UAH 1.443 trillion.
The largest growth in the retail trade turnover of enterprises (legal entities and individual entrepreneurs) in 2021 compared to 2020 was recorded in Chernivtsi (by 25.7%), Ternopil (by 23.2%), Zakarpattia (by 20.7%), Vinnytsia (by 18.5%), Lviv (by 17.3%), Poltava (by 15.1%), Rivne (by 15%), Zhytomyr (by 14.2%), Cherkasy (by 13.3%), Chernihiv regions (by 12.4%). According to the State Statistics Service, the leaders in absolute terms of retail turnover in 2021 were Kyiv city (UAH 279.124 billion), Dnipropetrovsk (UAH 132.258 billion), Kyiv (UAH 120.074 billion), Odesa (UAH 107.05 billion), Kharkiv (UAH 97.838 billion) and Lviv (UAH 89.465 billion) regions.
