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Members of parliament (MPs) from the Servant of the People party intend to reintegrate Ukrainians with Russian passports from Donbas and Crimea, as well as Ukrainians working in Russia, in bills on dual citizenship.
“The main goal of our bill is to reintegrate our Ukrainians from the east and from Crimea, as well as our citizens who have Russian passports and understand the current situation in relations with the Russian Federation. They received these passports in different ways. Someone, like in Crimea, was forced to get a passport in order to work in Russia. There are estimated from 1 to 2 million of these people. We want to pull them out and give them the opportunity to ‘declare’ and live peacefully with these passports so that they are not persona non grata,” MP Oleh Dunda (Servant of the People faction) said at a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine news agency on Tuesday.
At the same time, he said, the bill will help “shed light on our political class and their foreign passports.”
“One of those who used informally dual citizenship was our political class, who received passports of other countries and used them … as a tool where they hide money. And people did not know about this,” he said.
He added the bill “will put a barrier to the aggressor country in gaining access to government posts.”
Dunda also noted that the bill will eliminate many gaps in the legislative field of Ukraine, allowing civil servants to have citizenship of other countries.
“For some of our high-ranking officials, a ban has been established to have a passport of another state. But the same laws have not established anywhere that if they acquire foreign citizenship while working in the civil service, they are dismissed,” the MP said.
As reported, on January 25, MPs from the Servant of the People faction registered three bills that would allow Ukrainians to have dual citizenship.
In bill No. 4640, the authors propose to amend the law on citizenship, which provides citizens of Ukraine with the right to obtain citizenship (allegiance) of a foreign state without losing the citizenship of Ukraine.
The proposed changes also allow foreigners to obtain Ukrainian citizenship without renouncing the citizenship of their country.
In addition, it is proposed to introduce a declaration of the presence (absence) of foreign citizenship (allegiance) and keeping records of Ukrainian citizens who have citizenship of other states.
The bill also proposes to provide for the submission of a declaration of absence of foreign citizenship by persons who apply for election to elective positions or to the civil service, to serve in local government bodies, to serve in law enforcement agencies.
The explanatory note to the draft law says that one of the important innovations is the introduction of the concept of “aggressor state.”
COVID-19 vaccines will begin to arrive in Ukraine under the COVAX mechanism in February this year, head of the EU Delegation to Ukraine Matti Maasikas said.
“We reacted quickly and provided EUR 190 million in aid and 1.2 billion in macro-financial support – an unprecedented amount for a crisis year. Today, the issue of vaccination against the virus has come to the fore. Vaccines under the EU-supported COVAX program will begin to arrive in February,” he said at a meeting of the Commission on coordination of implementation of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU.
“Ukraine and other neighboring countries are a priority for the EU,” Maasikas said.
As reported, within the framework of the COVAX program, Ukraine will receive 117,000 doses of American-made Pfizer-BioNTech m-RNA vaccine in February, and in parallel, during the first half of 2021, from 2.2 to 3.7 million doses of AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine.
The volume of new supply on the warehouse and logistics real estate market in Ukraine in 2021-2022 will amount to 364,000 sq m, while about 200,000 square meters is to be commissioned in the market of Lviv and the region, according to a study by Alterra Group.
“The leader is Lviv, where it is planned to put into operation about 200,000 square meters. In Kyiv, it is planned to introduce those projects that were predicted back in 2019 and 2020. In the regions, most of the premises planned for commissioning by developers are occupied by post offices and logistics companies,” Dmytro Kovalchuk, the co-owner of Alterra Group, said during the web conference on the analytics of the warehouse real estate market.
So, in Kyiv, the volume of new supply in 2021-2022 will amount to 71,400 square meters, among the planned projects, in particular, are the warehouse FM Logistic (17,000 sq m), Sun Factory 2 (23,400 sq m), Makarovsky of ADG developer (15,000 sq m).
Among the objects in Lviv are the expansion of the Protec warehouse in Zymova Voda by 40,000 sq m, the warehouse Lvivsilmash (42,200 sq m), a project from Galileo Logistic (45,000 sq m), Port Lviv Logistic Center (40,000 sq m).
According to the company, postal operators will continue to actively develop, the total construction volume of which will be about 158,000 square meters. Among the projects announced in 2021 is the expansion of the Nova Poshta network in Dnipro, Odesa, Kyiv with a total area of projects of 37,000 square meters, the construction of Ukrposhta logistics terminals in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, Dnipro and Odesa (22,000 sq m each), the expansion of the distribution center Mist Express in Lviv to 11,000 sq m.
Alterra Group is engaged in complex services for commercial real estate, development and consulting. The company’s portfolio includes 31 projects with a total area of 117,500 square meters.
The net loss of state-owned Ukreximbank (Kyiv) in 2020 amounted to UAH 5.6 billion against a net profit of UAH 63.62 million in 2019, chairman of the bank’s board Yevhen Metsger has said in a column published by the Interfax-Ukraine agency.
According to him, in the fourth quarter of 2020, the bank’s net loss amounted to UAH 3.4 billion, which is 1.5 times more than in the corresponding period of 2019 (UAH 2.21 billion).
Metsger explained that Ukreximbank entered 2020 with a number of problems, in particular, a structural deformation of the balance sheet, a weak foreign exchange position, a significant amount of overdue debt, a pool of expensive borrowings in foreign markets, which led to the formation of a loss.
According to him, these problems were caused by political factors, and in the context of the pandemic, they were intensified by macroeconomic challenges.
In addition, the banker said that the bank’s operating model was set to automatically generate losses, in particular, the volume of loan bookings regularly exceeded operating income by an average of 50%.
“And this accumulated portfolio of toxic assets caused constant pressure on the financial result. Firstly, a sufficient level of reserves was not formed for it, and secondly, it does not generate interest income for the bank. Over 2020, expenses to cover expected losses from the credit risk of non-performing assets amounted to UAH 4.3 billion,” Metsger explained.
Some 36% of Ukrainians trust Alexander Lukashenko, 26.7% – Joe Biden, 26.2% – Emmanuel Macron and 14.4% – Vladimir Putin, according to the results of a poll conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) from January 27 to February 1.
According to the research, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, whom the EU and the U.S. do not recognize as legally elected, is trusted by 36% of respondents, distrusted – by 53.6%,there are 7.6% of those who found it difficult to answer, and 2.7% do not know. The balance of trust in Lukashenko is (-17.6%).
U.S. President Joe Biden is trusted by 26.7% of respondents, 23.3% do not trust him, 25.4% found it difficult to answer, and 24.6% do not know. The balance of trust in Biden is (+ 3.4%).
Some 26.2% of respondents trust French President Emmanuel Macron, 23.2% do not trust him, 22.9% found it difficult to answer, and 27.6% do not know. The balance of trust in Macron is (+ 3%).
Some 14.4% of respondents trust Russian President Vladimir Putin, while 79.8% do not trust him, 5.6% found it difficult to answer, and 0.3% do not know. The balance of trust in Putin is (-65.4%).
The all-Ukrainian poll was conducted by personal interviews using tablets (CAPPE). Some 1,205 respondents living in 86 settlements of all regions of Ukraine (except for the Autonomous Republic of Crimea) were interviewed according to a 3-stage stochastic sample with a quota selection at the last stage, which is representative for the population of Ukraine aged 18 and over. In Luhansk and Donetsk regions, the survey was conducted only in the territory controlled by the Ukrainian authorities.
The statistical error of the sample (with a probability of 0.95 and excluding the design effect) does not exceed: 2.9% – for indicators close to 50%, 2.5% – for indicators close to 25%, 1.9% – for indicators close to 12%, and 1.3% – for indicators close to 5%.
