The fare on the roads of Bulgaria is not charged for any car with a Ukrainian registration number (electronic vignette for cars weighing up to 3.5 tons and a tariff for trucks and buses over 3.5 tons) when using the national road network, according to the Motorny website ( Transport) Insurance Bureau of Ukraine (MTSBU).
The corresponding decision adopted by the Council of Ministers of Bulgaria came into force on February 24, 2022 and will be valid until the need for humanitarian and medical assistance is eliminated.
All violations in the electronic system of vehicles generated for cars with Ukrainian registration after February 24, 2022 are closed. Thus, cars with Ukrainian registration can freely leave the territory of Bulgaria even if they violate traffic rules.
The National Service (BGTOLL) has a customer service hotline that operates daily from 8:00 am to 10:00 pm. By calling 0700 10 876 or by e-mail info@bgtoll.bg all persons, including Ukrainians, can receive the necessary information.
The report also notes that in Poland, travel on toll roads for cars with Ukrainian numbers is also now free. In Slovakia, cars from Ukraine can move without purchasing an online vignette. In Germany, the autobahns are free for all cars.
About 10 million households in Ukraine use T2 digital air and pirated services, according to a study of the Ukrainian SWEET.TV online cinema.
“There are now about 10 million households in Ukraine that watch TV channels and films through free sources. These are T2 air and pirated services… In addition, there is a problem that Ukrainians, in principle, do not understand that they are using pirated services and viewing advertisements on such sites. It is equated to the legal purchase of content. Many do not even think that viewing content on pirate sites is illegal,” Director of SWEET.TV Oleksandr Rezunov said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
According to him, when buying a new TV set, most Ukrainians do not even receive an offer to subscribe to a legal Internet TV service because almost half of the equipment is bought in small, local stores.
All this, in Rezunov’s opinion, greatly hinders the development of the pay TV market in the country.
“T2 broadcasts free channels of media groups that show expensive Hollywood content. At the same time, OTT services have to pay royalties for placing each channel and each unit of content on their platforms. This approach to filling T2 broadcasting significantly slows down the development of the paid content market. In the place of media groups, I would wonder whether it is worth broadcasting expensive content for free,” he said.
The director of SWEET.TV also said that pirated resources are funded mainly by advertisers and supported by consumer interest. This means that it is worth introducing responsibility for placing advertisements on pirated services, as well as responsibility for watching pirated videos – as it already works in most European countries and the United States.
According to him, in order to fight piracy, SWEET.TV became a member of the Clear Sky anti-piracy initiative, as well as a member of the supervisory board for media and communications of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine.
SWEET.TV is a Ukrainian OTT platform with more than 260 TV channels, including HD and 4K, products from Disney, Pixar, DreamWorks, etc.
The platform has direct contracts with Disney, Paramount, Universal, Sony and other international content producers for dubbing media products specifically for the territory of Ukraine, and not for the CIS. The service creates Ukrainian-language dubbing for cult Hollywood films in the Hollywood in Ukrainian project.
Ukravtodor (the State Automobile Roads Agency of Ukraine) denies information that a number of roads, renovated and built as part of the Big Construction, will soon become toll roads, the ministry’s press service reports on Facebook.
“On December 23, 2020, at a government meeting, a resolution was approved that sets the maximum amount of payment for one-time travel on roads that are built under the concession. There is not a single road built at the expense of private investors in Ukraine yet. That is, none of the Big Construction roads can become toll this year. The only purpose of the resolution is to create conditions for starting a dialogue with investors on the implementation of concession projects in Ukraine,” Ukravtodor reported.
The press service of the department also said that the construction of concession toll roads necessarily involves a free alternative.
Ukravtodor reported that in November, together with the IFC and the Ministry of Infrastructure, they presented a public-private partnership program in the road industry.
“At the first stage, it is planned to transfer to investors six pilot sections of roads with a total length of 1,400 kilometers. On these sections, the investors have no right to charge a toll, but they will earn on roadside infrastructure and availability payments from the state road fund,” the message says.
The owner of Global Spirits alcohol holding, Yevhen Cherniak, is ready to produce spirit disinfectors and sanitizers free of charge at the holding’s facilities.
“We are ready at our facilities, re-profiling them, to produce spirit sanitizers and disinfectors for medical institutions free of charge,” he wrote on his Facebook page.
At the same time, Cherniak said that this requires permits from the ministry.
“This project is non-profit, we take all the costs of production, only raw materials and permits are from the monopolist [Ukrspyrt state-owned enterprise],” the owner of Global Spirits said.
In response to this initiative of the businessman, Deputy Minister of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture of Ukraine Taras Vysotsky said that in order to implement this initiative, it is necessary to amend the Tax Code.
“These changes have already been worked out and are awaiting adoption at the next extraordinary plenary session,” he wrote on his Facebook page.
Vysotsky said that Ukrspyrt is also ready to instantly switch to the production of disinfectants immediately after the relevant amendments to the law have been introduced.
In turn, Acting Director of Ukrspyrt Serhiy Bleskun supported the idea of the owner of Global Spirits and proposed a plan for its implementation.
“During application, it may be the following solution: to determine the amount of spirit (Ukrspyrt will provide almost any), to remove the excise tax from the volume by the decision of the Verkhovna Rada, to sell it at distilleries without excise (including our one), distilleries dispense spirit or products containing spirit as agreed with the Ministry of Health, distilleries deliver through their own distribution within 24 hours to those in need of this product anywhere in Ukraine,” Bleskun wrote in the comments on the businessman’s post in Facebook.
