French Ambassador Etienne de Ponsin has returned to the Ukrainian capital, Tudor Alexis, Consul General of France in Toronto, reports.
“French Ambassador to Ukraine Etienne de Poncins raised the French flag to reopen our embassy in Kyiv and says: “Kyiv was not conquered, Ukraine withstood the aggression and we want to be as close as possible to the authorities to show support and express solidarity” , he tweeted Friday night.
As the French Foreign Ministry reported on April 14, the embassy will soon return to its permanent base in Kyiv.
Kyiv will leave tariffs for hot water at the level of the previous heating season until May 31, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
“Today, in the conditions of martial law, when people found themselves in a difficult financial situation, we made an important decision on the provision of public services in the capital. This decision will ensure the use of tariffs for hot water and heat energy for its preparation until May 31 at the level of the previous heating season. That is, we will extend these tariffs without raising them!” Klitschko said after a meeting of the city council on Friday.
The Kyiv mayor recalled that the city authorities managed to keep tariffs for heat and hot water in the 2021-2022 heating season – “despite a significant increase in the costs of producing these services.”
“So today, in difficult conditions for the state and people, the city continues to restrain tariffs. Further adjustment of the cost will depend on the price of gas, which will be set at the state level. Today, we are doing what we can and what depends on us,” he said.
The Planeta Kino cinema chain reopens the cinema at the Appolo shopping center (Dnipro) on Thursday, April 14, in the capital next week, Natalia Baidan, CEO of the chain, told Interfax-Ukraine.
“We work in Lviv and Odessa, tomorrow we will open in the Dnieper. Next week we will open in Kyiv. Until the end of the month, possibly in Sumy. The situation is difficult and not yet predictable with Kharkov,” she said.
The CEO of the network specified that a cinema in the River Mall will first open in the capital.
At the same time, she noted that from the point of view of business, the results of March are unsatisfactory.
“We generate losses. In normal months, our sales were at the level of about UAH 80 million per month, now it is less than UAH 2 million. I am actively negotiating with copyright holders to provide us with new releases. There is a hope that they will appear in May. Then, I hope, the situation will be resolved,” Baidan said.
The Cinema Planet network, which belongs to Triumph Media Group LLC, has nine cinemas in Kyiv, Odessa, Lvov, Kharkiv, Sumy and Dnipro. It is also known about plans to open a new cinema in the Ocean Mall shopping center (Kyiv).
LLC “Triumph Media Group” was established in 2006, the main activity is the demonstration of films.
According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs, the owner of the enterprise is Moviemax Limited (100%, Cyprus), the ultimate beneficiaries are Dmitry Derkach and Andrey Shpig. The authorized capital is UAH 72.5 million.
Business is restoring work in Kyiv, more than 1,000 grocery stores, 35 markets, 450 cafes are already operating, said the mayor of the capital, Vitaliy Klitschko.
“Businesses, shops, markets operate in Kyiv. Today, there are almost 1,000 grocery stores in the city, more than 160 Kievkhleb points of sale, 35 markets, about 450 cafes. Beauty salons, service stations, clothing stores are resuming work. We are also holding ten mini-fairs to ensure access to food,” he said on the Rada TV channel on Wednesday.
The mayor recalled that the fee under contracts with restaurant sites and mobile trade was reduced to UAH 1, and share participation – by 50%.
Data from all of the capital’s air quality monitoring points have been included in the “Kyiv Digital” application, said Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
“I will note that Kyiv continues to strengthen control over the state of atmospheric air. After all, military actions and shelling caused fires in the suburbs, from which the air condition on some days was unsatisfactory,” Klitschko stressed.
According to him, five stationary complexes of European standard are already working in the capital, carefully examining the quality of the air on about 10 indicators. It is also planned to add to them the measurement of the radiation background.
Kyiv plans to install three more stationary points of observation in Desniansky, Holosiyivsky and Sviatoshynsky districts in 2022.
There are also more than 40 indicative air monitoring stations in the capital, supplementing the data from the main stations.
The Italian Embassy in Ukraine will resume its work in Kyiv after Easter, Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said, Corriere della Sera reports.
“We were the last to leave Kyiv and will be one of the first to return,” Di Maio was quoted as saying by Corriere della Sera.
He stressed that this is another gesture of support for the Ukrainian people, a concrete way to confirm that diplomacy must win.
“In the coming days, all the checks necessary for moving to Kyiv will be carried out, everything must be done in a safe environment and in coordination with other European partners,” Di Maio said.
