The Allard Pearson Museum has transferred to Ukraine artifacts from four Crimean museums that were presented at an exhibition in Amsterdam, the National Museum of History of Ukraine reports.
“After almost 10 years of litigation, artifacts from four Crimean museums that were presented at the exhibition “Crimea: Gold and Secrets of the Black Sea” in Amsterdam have returned to Ukraine. The Allard Pearson Museum transferred them to the National Museum of History of Ukraine. It is there that they will be stored until the de-occupation of Crimea,” the museum’s website said on Monday.
The press service reminds that the exhibition of artifacts was held from February to August 2014 at the Allard Pearson Museum. It featured items from the collections of the National Museum of History of Ukraine and four museums in Crimea: National Reserve “Chersonesos Tavriya” (Sevastopol), Central Museum of Tavrida (Simferopol), Bakhchisaray Historical and Cultural Reserve and Kerch Historical and Archaeological Reserve.
“In February 2014, Russia began the occupation of Crimea. Objects from the collection of the National Museum of History of Ukraine returned to Kyiv after the exhibition. At the same time, it became impossible to return valuables from Crimean museums to the territory not controlled by the Ukrainian authorities. However, the Crimean museums, which are de facto controlled by the Russian authorities, insisted on doing just that. A trial has begun in the Netherlands,” the statement said.
In December 2016, a court in Amsterdam ruled to transfer the artifacts to Ukraine in accordance with the law on heritage. In addition, the Court of Appeal decided to satisfy the claim for the transfer of Crimean artifacts to Ukraine, but on the basis of the Law of Ukraine “On Museums” and the order of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine of March 2014, according to which the Minister of Culture has the authority to decide on the transfer of artifacts for safe keeping if there is a risk of their loss/damage/destruction.
At the same time, the Crimean museums filed a cassation appeal with the Supreme Court of the Netherlands to overturn the decision of the Court of Appeal, but on June 9, 2023, the court dismissed the museums’ cassation appeal and upheld the appeal decision.
According to the decision of the Supreme Court of the Netherlands, Ukraine had to pay the Allard Pearson Museum EUR111,689 with interest for the entire period of storage of the Crimean museums’ collections.
“After fulfilling the obligations undertaken by the National Museum of History of Ukraine and the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine, the Allard Pearson Museum refused the payment determined by the court in its favor,” the statement said.
Currently, experts are examining the condition of 565 artifacts, including ancient sculptures, Scythian and Sarmatian jewelry, and Chinese lacquer boxes that are 2,000 years old.
According to the State Customs Service of Ukraine, the Kyiv customs office has begun customs clearance of the Scythian Gold.
“Right now, a truck with 2,694 kg of cultural property known under the common name ‘Scythian Gold’ has entered the territory of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, where Kyiv customs officers will identify the treasures in the Treasury of the National Museum of Ukraine,” reads a message posted on the telegram channel.
The law on raising the bank profit tax from 18% to 50% in 2023 and to 25% in the following years was adopted without discussions with banks, it is discriminatory and has long-term negative consequences for the investment and business climate in Ukraine, said Oleksandr Pysaruk, Chairman of the Board of Raiffeisen Bank (Kyiv).
“Excessive profits of banks cannot be determined based on the results of one year. Retrospective taxation of excessive profits for 2023, as well as an increase in bank profit taxes in the future, is unreasonable and discourages bank shareholders from investing in this business,” the head of Ukraine’s largest bank with foreign capital said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
Pysaruk emphasized that he supports the need to temporarily raise the bank profit tax in the current circumstances and has publicly stated this. According to him, the version of the law approved in the first reading to increase the tax to 36% for 2024-2025 was discussed with banks and was fair.
According to the banker, the retroactive taxation approved without discussion at the end of the year creates a very dangerous precedent and tax uncertainty for all economic agents, especially for foreign investors. “Retrospective is bad in itself, but when retrospective is linked to 50% instead of the existing 18%, it is a shock,” he added.
Commenting on the 50% rate, Pysaruk explained it as a desire to collect an additional 0.3% of GDP from banks as part of the revision of the program with the IMF, when state-owned banks are already paying large dividends.
“In fact, the payers of this record-high tax are private banks, of which the largest tax burden falls on banks with foreign capital. And the retrospective taxation is compounded by disproportionate and discriminatory treatment of private shareholders of the banking system,” the banker stated.
He noted that the problem is also the unfair singling out of banks from the rest of the economy in terms of raising their income tax to 25% on a permanent basis in the coming years.
“Why are they the only ones to receive the tax increase? Why 25% and why permanently? Why not 28%, 22%, or 20%? … This is an example for investors and business in general: if you are transparent, you will be taxed even more. And at the same time, you leave a bunch of economy that does not pay taxes or pays little,” Pysaruk said.
In his opinion, the tax on banks starting in 2024 should have been discussed as part of the preparation of the National Revenue Strategy prescribed in the program with the IMF, which the Ministry of Finance is obliged to present by the end of this year and which declares the expansion of the tax base.
The head of Raiffeisen Bank also emphasized that banks are a cyclical business, and its profitability should be assessed over a fairly long period of time, on average 7-10 years. According to him, in the period from 2013 to 2023, the total return on equity of Ukrainian banks (excluding PrivatBank and its nationalization) was 69%, i.e. approximately 6% per annum in hryvnia, while the cost of capital in any year after 2013 exceeded 20% per annum.
“That is, the last ten years have been unprofitable for bank shareholders. The situation is much worse for foreign shareholders of Ukrainian banks who calculate their total income in euros. Over the past ten years, the banking system has suffered a total loss of 52%, approximately -8% per annum in euros,” Pysaruk said.
He explained this by the large losses of Ukrainian banks in 2014-2016, the almost fourfold devaluation of the national currency and the inability to receive dividends for several years.
“Today, the banking business in Ukraine is unprofitable. The cost of capital is very high due to high inflation and very high risks in the country. And I’m not even talking about the war,” stated the Chairman of the Board of Raiffeisen Bank.
In his opinion, the adopted law will discourage strategic banking investors from participating in the privatization of state-owned banks, which is necessary given their high market share.
“We may be left with a banking system with an excessive share of state-owned banks for a very long time,” Pysaruk said.
He added that this approach also does not stimulate foreign direct investment in other industries. “This is a very bad story for a country that needs external assistance both during the war and afterwards for development,” the banker said.
Commenting on the impact of the increased tax directly on Raiffeisen Bank, the Chairman of the Board said that in the short term there will be no significant impact, as the bank has excess capital and liquidity. “We will pass the NBU’s stress test without any problems and will continue to support our clients,” Pysaruk said.
At the same time, he believes that some other banks that are not as well capitalized may face problems.
“The National Bank will probably have to mitigate its plans to recapitalize banks, because it was the party that agreed to this decision. Because taxing banks in such a cruel, unfair way and then demanding capital is an additional horror story for investors,” the banker said.
He added that, combined with the NBU’s further increase in capital buffer requirements in line with EU standards, the higher corporate tax will reduce banks’ ability to generate capital to meet the increased demand for loans as Ukraine develops after the war.
Pysaruk also suggested that some banks may appeal to an international court because the adoption of such a law violates the provisions of intergovernmental agreements on investment protection, citing Spain as an example where banks challenged the windfall tax.
The Chairman of the Board of Raiffeisen Bank, who was formerly the First Deputy Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine and then worked for the IMF for three years, also expressed regret that the Fund had agreed to such a tax increase. According to Pysaruk, this is due to the program’s basic assumptions, which are under threat, of ending the war in mid-2024 and a certain level of international assistance.
“The IMF has to draw up a macroeconomic model and calculate the debtor’s ability… to repay the loan. And this tax was probably needed for such a model to be developed. But the price of the issue is exactly this: in order to save this program and continue it, laws are being introduced that reduce Ukraine’s already low investment attractiveness and may hinder plans to attract private foreign capital to rebuild Ukraine after the war,” the banker said.
According to the National Bank of Ukraine, as of October 1, 2023, Raiffeisen Bank ranked 4th in terms of assets (UAH 196.35 billion) among 63 banks operating in the country. Its net profit in January-September this year amounted to UAH 6.14 billion compared to UAH 2.39 billion in January-September last year.
In October 2005, the bank became part of the Austrian banking group Raiffeisen Bank International AG. Currently, Raiffeisen Group owns 68.21% of the bank’s shares, while the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development owns 30%.
How has the full-scale war changed the top 10 Ukrainian wholesalers?
According to the Opendatabot Index, almost half of the top 10 most successful Ukrainian wholesalers are businesses that trade in solid, liquid, gaseous fuels and similar products.
The top 10 of the Index in the wholesale trade sector includes Okko, WOG, West Petrol Market (fuel) and DTEK Trading, which trades in energy products. The list also includes businesses that sell tobacco (Tedis Ukraine and Philip Morris Sales and Distribution). Only two companies on the list sell food: MHP (meat) and Kernel Trade (grain). The Index also includes Optima Pharm and Metinvest-SMC. Together, these businesses earned UAH 458.95 billion last year.
For the second year in a row, Kernel Trade, a part of Andriy Verevsky’s Kernel Group, has been the unchanging leader in wholesale trade. In 2022, the company’s revenue amounted to UAH 67.92 billion, down 21% compared to 2021 (UAH 85.79 billion).
OKKO (Vitaliy Antonov, Universal Investment Group – UIG) moved up to the 2nd position in the ranking with revenue of UAH 67.29 billion. The company’s earnings grew 1.6 times year-on-year in 2022.
Tedis Ukraine, a tobacco company owned by Borys Kaufman, rounds out the top 3. Last year, the company increased its revenue by 7% and earned UAH 64.95 billion. It is worth noting that at the same time, the revenue of another company in the Index that specializes in tobacco wholesale, Philip Morris Sales and Distribution (the Ukrainian branch of the international tobacco manufacturer Phillip Morris International), decreased by 15% in 2022.
Yuriy Kosyuk’s MHP ranks fourth in the Index. This company specializes in the wholesale of meat and meat products. Its revenue in 2022 amounted to UAH 46.73 billion and remained almost unchanged compared to 2021 (UAH 46 billion).
Andriy Gubsky’s Optima Farm took fifth place in the list. In 2022, the company’s revenues decreased by 4% to UAH 44.34 billion.
DTEK Trading, owned by Rinat Akhmetov, saw the largest revenue increase – 1.8 times over the year. The company’s revenue of UAH 36.68 billion allowed it to rise from 18th place in the 2021 ranking to 7th in the 2022 ranking.
But another Akhmetov company in the top 10, Metinvest-SMC, saw its revenues decline by 42% (2021 – UAH 51.39 billion, 2022 – UAH 29.86 billion),
Who did the full-scale war push out of the top 10 Ukrainian wholesalers?
It is worth noting that in 2022, the top 10 Ukrainian wholesalers underwent significant changes compared to 2021.
Last year, 2 companies specializing in energy trading dropped out of the list.
We are talking about United Energy, a company associated with Kolomoisky, which was the second largest earner in the country before the outbreak of full-scale war. Last year, United Energy earned 3.6 times less revenue than in 2021 (UAH 17.24 billion) and lost 19 rating points.
Chemical Trade (owned by Dmitry Firtash) also did not make it to the top. Having reduced its revenue by 1.4 times, the company dropped to the 12th position in the ranking.
Also, two businesses specializing in grain wholesale dropped out of the top ten:
– Nibulon (Andriy Vadatursky) and Nibulon (Andriy Vadatursky). The company’s revenues last year decreased 2.7 times by 2021, and a significant share of its facilities and equipment is still under occupation.
– ADM-Ukraine (a subsidiary of the international agro-industrial corporation Archer Daniels Midland Company): their revenue decreased by 1.5 times by 2021.
It is worth noting that the total revenue of the top 10 wholesale companies in 2022 decreased by 10% compared to the top 10 in 2021.
The OpenDataBot Index is an analytical tool for assessing the real situation and geography of Ukrainian business, based on data from state registers, OpenDataBot registers, financial statements of companies, information on relations with Russia, sanctions lists, and other analytical tools of OpenDataBot.
ADM-Ukraine, DTEK Trading, KERNEL-TRADE, Metinvest-SMC, MHP, NIBULON, OPTIMA-PHARM, Philip Morris Sales and Distribution, TEDIS UKRAINE, West Petrol Market, WOG, ОККО
Sweden will support the Grain from Ukraine initiative to ensure food security by providing an additional SEK 100 million (approximately $9.6 million) through the UN World Food Program (WFP), Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said in a live webcast of the initiative’s summit in Kyiv on November 25.
For his part, Swiss President Alain Berset, who attended the summit, announced that Switzerland would contribute to the relief effort by providing CHF 3 million (about $3.4 million) to the World Food Program.
“As a result of Russia’s military aggression, agricultural production in Ukraine has fallen by 45%; about 11 million people in the country are dependent on food aid,” the Swiss Embassy in Ukraine said in a Facebook post.
“It is admirable how Ukraine is defending its country against Russia’s ongoing aggression and at the same time contributing to the global food supply. We support Ukraine’s efforts to export grain and other agricultural products to world markets and to the most vulnerable countries,” the Swedish government’s website quoted the Prime Minister as saying.
It is specified that since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Sweden has allocated more than SEK 28 billion for various efforts to support Ukraine.
Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonite announced an additional EUR 2 million at the summit. Another EUR 3 million was provided by Finland.
Following the summit, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that last year, the Grain from Ukraine program managed to attract about $180 million, while this year it has raised more than $100 million.
“This is support for other countries and support for Ukrainian exports and farmers. This is very important. I think we will be able to double this figure,” the President of Ukraine said.
The Opendatabot service presented the top 10 most successful Ukrainian wholesale companies that earned the most last year. In total, these businesses earned UAH 458.95 billion in 2022, the resource reports.
According to the Opendatabot Index, almost half of the top 10 most successful Ukrainian wholesalers are businesses that sell solid, liquid, gaseous fuels and similar products, two companies sell groceries, and two sell tobacco.
“OKKO, WOG, West Petrol Market (fuel) and DTEK Trading, which sells energy products, are among the top 10 companies in the wholesale sector of the Index. The list also includes businesses that sell tobacco (Tedis Ukraine and Philip Morris Sales and Distribution). Only two companies on the list sell food: MHP (meat) and Kernel Trade (grain). The Index also includes the pharmaceutical company Optima Farm and Metinvest-SMC, the resource notes.
“Kernel Trade, a part of one of the largest agricultural holdings in Ukraine, Kernel, has remained the unchanging leader in wholesale trade in the country for the second year in a row. In 2022, its revenue amounted to UAH 67.92 billion, down 21% compared to 2021 (UAH 85.79 billion).
The second position in the ranking is occupied by OKKO, whose revenue increased 1.6 times to UAH 67.29 billion.
The top 3 is rounded out by Tedis Ukraine, a tobacco company that increased its revenue by 7% to UAH 64.95 billion.
The revenue of another company specializing in wholesale tobacco trade, Philip Morris Sales and Distribution, decreased by 15% to UAH 29.08 billion (10th place).
The fourth place in the Index was taken by MHP, whose revenue in 2022 amounted to UAH 46.73 billion and remained almost unchanged compared to 2021 (UAH 46 billion).
The fifth place on the list goes to Optima Farm, which reduced its revenue by 4% to UAH 44.34 billion.
DTEK Trading recorded the largest increase in revenue, up 1.8 times. Its revenue of UAH 36.68 billion allowed it to rise from 18th place in the 2021 ranking to seventh in the 2022 ranking.
At the same time, Metinvest-SMC reduced its revenues by 42% to UAH 29.86 billion, compared to UAH 51.39 billion in pre-war 2021.
“It is worth noting that the top 10 Ukrainian wholesalers have undergone significant changes compared to 2021. Last year, two companies specializing in energy trading dropped out of the list,” the resource notes.
We are talking about United Energy, which was the second highest earner in the country before the outbreak of full-scale war. In 2022, it earned 3.6 times less revenue than in 2021 – UAH 17.24 billion – and lost 19 rating points.
Khim-Trade also dropped out of the ranking: having reduced its revenue by 1.4 times to UAH 26.3 billion, the company dropped to the 12th position in the ranking.
Two businesses specializing in grain wholesale dropped out of the top 10 most profitable: “Nibulon in 2022 reduced its revenue by 2.7 times compared to 2021, to UAH 15.18 billion, and ADM-Ukraine by 1.5 times, to UAH 25.17 billion.
The total revenue of the top 10 wholesale trade companies last year decreased by 10% compared to the top 10 in 2021, Opendatabot summarized.
“The Opendatabot Index is an analytical tool for assessing the real situation of Ukrainian business based on data from state registers, financial statements of companies, information on relations with Russia, sanctions lists, and other analytical tools.
The New Year’s tree in Kyiv will be installed on St. Sophia Square, just like last year, at the expense of patrons, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
“This decision was made today by the Kyiv Defense Council. The city will not spend any money. Just like last year, the Christmas tree will be set up and decorated at the expense of patrons. And in compliance with the regime of limiting the use of electricity. Global Decor LLC is responsible for the installation and maintenance of the main Christmas tree, all resources and financial support related to this,” Klitschko wrote on Telegram on Monday.
According to him, there will be no mass events, fairs or entertainment on St. Sophia Square. “If the city’s district state administrations plan any festive events in the districts, it will be only in compliance with safety rules in places where there are shelters. And also not at the expense of the Kyiv budget,” the mayor added.
According to Klitschko, the Christmas tree will be set up in the capital by December 6 and dismantled by January 10. This is earlier than last year, “because this year we celebrate Christmas according to the New Julian calendar,” the mayor explained.
