Charges brought in a case opened into the embezzlement of state funds allocated for the construction of fortifications, also known as Project Wall, along the border with Russia have been forwarded to the Darnytsky District Court of Kyiv. “Charges have been filed against three officials of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, three directors of contractor firms and two intermediaries. A total of eight people will go on trial,” the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine said on its Facebook page.
These persons are suspected of embezzling Ukrainian budget money allocated for efforts to equip the Russian-Ukrainian state border, territories adjoining the zone of the anti-terrorist operation in Donbas and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the post said.
Investigators have established that Ukrainian State Border Guard Service officials, acting in complicity and with the help of companies, misappropriated UAH 16.688 million (over $630,000) worth of budget funds.
Project Wall includes the construction of fortifications along the Russian-Ukrainian state border and in territories adjoining the area of the anti-terrorist operation in Donbas.
In February 2019, Ukrainian State Border Guard Service spokesman Oleh Slobodian estimated the readiness of Project Wall at around 30% at that time.
The volume of crop receipts since early 2019 as of May 31, 2019 totaled UAH 6.5 billion, according to a posting on the Facebook page of state-owned enterprise (SOE) Agroregisters. According to the enterprise, a total of 991 crop receipts were registered in January-May 2019.
Since the start of the introduction of the project in Ukraine in 2015, a total of 1,842 crop receipts for UAH 12.9 billion were registered. Over 900 farmers with different land banks used the tool.
“In the first five months of 2019, farmers received more than UAH 6.5 billion from crop receipts, most of which was spent on spring field work. For comparison, the same figure for 2018 was almost 66% lower and amounted to UAH 2.2 billion,” the enterprise said.
Agroregisters said, with reference to the preliminary forecasts of the Ministry of Agricultural Policy and Food, that the cost of the sowing campaign in 2019 was approximately UAH 134.2 billion, of which UAH 120 billion is provided by own funds of agro-industrial enterprises, and another UAH 15 billion are raised from external sources.
The Crop Receipts project in Ukraine is being implemented by International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, in partnership with the Swiss Confederation. The practical application of crop receipts began in 2014 in Poltava region. Soon other regions of the country joined this financial tool.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has arrived in Paris on a one-day official visit. In accordance with the program, upon arrival, the head of the Ukrainian state will visit the world’s largest startup campus Station F opened by French President Emmanuel Macron on June 29, 2017.
At about 15:30 local time Zelensky is to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron in the Elysee Palace. A joint press conference of the presidents is scheduled for 16:30.
Zelensky is also expected to visit the French Senate.
On Monday evening, the Ukrainian president will leave for Germany.
In addition to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Zelensky in Germany will also meet with President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
The total area of new residential and nonresidential buildings as of the start of their construction in January-March 2019 grew 1.9-fold year-over-year, to 2.7 million square meters. According to the report, the total area of apartment buildings in Q1 2019 was 2.662 million square meters (97% of the total volume), single-apartment buildings – 56,500 square meters and dormitories – 18,200 square meters.
The total area of new residential buildings at the beginning of construction in Kyiv grew 3.3-fold in Q1 2019, to 1.1 million square meters, while in Kyiv region the growth was small, to 220,000 square meters (212,000 square meters in 2018).
According to statistical data, the growth in the volume of new housing construction was also recorded in Lviv (3.2 times, to 377,900 square meters), Odesa (1.7 times, to 376,400 square meters), Kharkiv (1.6 times, to 231,300 square meters) and other regions.
Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman has initiated the creation of the Fund of the Future, a fund that will become the basis for financing social programs, while the source of these funds will be privatization, the deshadowing, demonopolization, and deoligarchization of the economy. “I want to create the State Fund of the Future, to which we will send funds from mines, privatization, and deshadowing. Funds from monopolies, oligarchs should be attracted there,” the head of government said on the air of ICTV Channel on Sunday evening.
Groysman noted that the money will be used to educate children, solve other problems. “Such funds were created in developed countries. And I would like such a fund to be established in Ukraine,” the premier added.
Primary registrations of electric cars in Ukraine in May 2019 grew by almost 50% year-over-year, to 610, while commercial electric vehicles – by 43%, to 33, the Ukrautoprom association has reported. As reported, in April of the current year, the registration of electric cars increased 67.2% to 495 units, commercial electric vehicles – 66.7%, to 40 units.
According to the report on the association’s website, the May market of commercial electric vehicles consisted only of imported used vehicles and was not very diverse. RENAULT Kangoo Z.E. were most popular vehicles, of which 31 units were registered, and the other two vehicles were NISSAN e-NV200.
At the same time, new cars were present in the registrations of passenger electric cars, but there were only 86 of them, while most of electric cars (524 units) were used passenger cars.
NISSAN Leaf remains the most popular electric car among Ukrainians, 329 units of which were registered in May, TESLA Model S is second, with 53 drivers who chose this model.
The May top five also included: BMW i3 – 46 units; FIAT 500e – 24 units; and RENAULT Zoe – 23 units.
In general, in January-May 2019, 2,381 electric cars and 176 commercial vehicles electric were delivered and registered in Ukraine, which is 64% and 209% more than in the same period last year, respectively.
