Oleksiy Danilov, the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (NSDC), has announced the launch of a mechanism for the formation of the register of oligarchs, commenting on the implementation by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky of the relevant decision of the National Security and Defense Council.
“The mechanism for forming the register of oligarchs has been launched. President Zelensky approved the regulation (presidential decree of June 29, 2022), which establishes the procedure for forming and maintaining the register,” Danilov wrote on Twitter on Thursday.
As reported, Zelensky put into effect the decision of the National Security and Defense Council dated June 29 on approval of the regulations on the register of persons with significant economic and political weight in public life (oligarchs), the procedure for its formation and maintenance. Corresponding decree No. 459/2022 of June 29 was published on the presidential website and comes into force from the day of publication. Control over its implementation is entrusted to the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council.
According to the regulations, the register will be maintained in an electronic form, for its maintenance, the NSDC office will determine the structural units that are empowered to ensure the performance of the functions of the holder and administrator of the register.
Information about the oligarchs will be entered by the creator of the submission through the electronic account and include, in particular, their passport details, registration address, a list of legal entities, the beneficiary of which he is, a list of individuals to whose election funds the oligarch made contributions, as well as the rationale for recognizing the person as an oligarch. Users of the register with the right to access it will be, in addition to administrators, the creators of submissions, declarants, registrars, employees of the holder and administrator of the register, the chairman, secretary and members of the National Security and Defense Council, as well as authorized employees of other state bodies.
Businessman Ihor Kolomoisky and the fifth president of Ukraine, leader of the European Solidarity party, MP Petro Poroshenko meet the criteria under which they are included in the register of oligarchs provided for by the president’s bill on de-oligarchization, Justice Minister Denys Maliuska has said.
“There are official partners of Mr. Kolomoisky in the Verkhovna Rada, and he is not alone, therefore Mr. Kolomoisky definitely could be included [in the register of oligarchs] European Solidarity understands that their leader [Petro Poroshenko] also automatically falls into the register,” Maliuska said on the air of Savik Shuster’s Freedom of Speech program on Ukraina TV channel on Friday.
As reported, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky this week submitted a bill on the prevention of threats to national security associated with the excessive influence of persons with significant economic or political weight in public life (oligarchs) (No. 5599) to the Verkhova Rada.
According to the document, any three of four conditions are sufficient for the National Security and Defense Council to include a person in the register of oligarchs: significant influence on the media, participation in political life, beneficial ownership of a monopoly company and a fortune equaling over 1 million living wages (about $83 million at the current exchange rate).
The Lekhim group of pharmaceutical companies (Kyiv) plans to register in Ukraine a vaccine against coronavirus (COVID-19) disease produced by the Chinese company Sinovac Biotech until February 5, after the vaccine is registered in Brazil, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Lekhim group of pharmaceutical companies Valeriy Pechayev said at a press conference held at Interfax-Ukraine on Wednesday.
“The company received confirmation from the Health Ministry that when registering a vaccine in Brazil, Ukraine will register the vaccine as well. From January 25, Brazil will start immunization with the Sinovac vaccine, they should register the vaccine by January 25. As soon as registration in Brazil is completed, we will submit documents to the State Expert Center. I think we will register the vaccine before February 1-5,” he said.
Pechayev said that Lekhim received from Sinovac a quota of 5 million doses of vaccines for sale in Ukraine in the first half of 2021, of which 1.913 million doses are planned to be purchased by the Health Ministry.
“Until February 15, Lekhim is receiving applications from enterprises for the supply of vaccines. Lekhim will check customers for compliance with the cool chain. The price for customers will be UAH 504 per one dose of vaccine. The profitability of the deal for Lekhim is 4-5%,” he said.
In turn, Director of the Department for Development of the Lekhim group of pharmaceutical companies Mykhailo Rensky said that it is difficult to talk about the timing of vaccine supply, since they are prescribed only for a contract with the Health Ministry.
According to Head of the National Technical Group of Experts on Immunoprophylaxis, pediatric immunologist Fedir Lapiy, as clinical studies in Brazil have shown, the effectiveness of the vaccine to prevent mortality was 100%.
Lapiy said that there is no generalized report on clinical trials for any of the COVID-19 vaccines. “After clinical studies, manufacturers take data from different countries and combine them. There is no such data from any manufacturer yet,” he said.
At the same time, Lapiy said that it is impossible to assess the effectiveness of the Russian vaccine against COVID-19, since it failed the third phase of clinical trials.
Sinovac Biotech is a Chinese vaccine producing company founded in Beijing in 2001 with a capacity of 300 to 500 million doses of six types of vaccines for humans and animals per year. Sinovac’s main products are vaccines against hepatitis A (prequalified by the WHO) and B, influenza, mumps, chickenpox, which are registered and approved for vaccination in 34 countries around the world.
The Lekhim group of pharmaceutical companies was founded in 1992. It includes three enterprises: PJSC Technolog (Uman) (at the final stage of obtaining WHO prequalification), JSC Lekhim-Kharkiv (Kharkiv) and the management company JSC Lekhim (Kyiv).
CoronaVac is an inactivated vaccine. It uses a traditional vaccine mechanism in which a non-living virus that cannot replicate in human cells is used to activate the immune system. Phase 3 trials of the Chinese vaccine have already taken place in Brazil and Indonesia. Tests are ongoing in Turkey and Chile.
Patients with acromegaly demand that a register of people with orphan (rare) diseases be created on the basis of the eHealth system and their disease be included to budget-funded programs.
They said this during a press conference, which was hosted by the Interfax-Ukraine News Agency on Tuesday.
“It is necessary to create a register of people with orphan diseases on the basis of the eHealth system, develop and approve a patient pathway, create a specific program on acromegaly and a separate budget for it. It should have a package approach, including surgery procedures, beam therapy and medication, as well as training of family doctors (for dealing with acromegaly). We will also demand that our non-governmental organization be included to all permanent working groups for procurement of medicines,” President of NGO Ukrainian Pituitary Foundation Andriy Putnikov said.
He also noted that there is a need for assessment of medical procedures as an effective instrument for treatment using innovative solutions within the framework of limited financing.
“Despite the law and instruction of the Cabinet of Ministers No. 160 dated March 31, 2015, which provide for guarantees for people with acromegaly regarding regular lifetime treatment, in fact such patients are not provided in full or not provided at all with medicines. The reason is the lack of the state register, hence the majority of acromegaly cases are treated without a system approach and ineffectively,” he said.
Putnikov also complained about the absence of multidisciplinary clinics and the lack of domestic standards for diagnostics and treatment of acromegaly.
In turn, endocrinology expert of the Health Ministry of Ukraine Iryna Kondratska said that it is necessary to train family doctors as patients with acromegaly contact them first in case of necessity.
“Nobody diagnoses acromegaly. The problem is that there is no awareness and information. We have a disastrous situation – 844 patients with acromegaly are officially registered in Ukraine today,” she said.
Kondratska added that there are successful cases of the programs for treatment of this disease in Zakarpattia regions and Kyiv.
At the same time, member of the Ukrainian medical expert community Tetiana Koba said that assessment of medical procedures could be used as an instrument for doctors to purchase necessary medicines for treatment of the disease in regions.
“We have only one solution – either instruction No. 333 (currently No. 1172 dated December 4, 2019) excluding the grounds for assessment of medical procedures should be amended or an instruction or a method of assessing medical procedures should be developed as soon as possible. We have to give doctors an instrument using which they could buy necessary medicines at the local or national level,” he said.
Doctor of Medicine, Professor Mykhailo Kyryliuk, who is a neuroendocrinology expert, emphasized that treatment of a patient with acromegaly could cost the government at least UAH 8,000 per month.
“For example, the average cost of treatment of such a patient in the United States is $24,000 per annum, of which $17,000 [is spent] on medical services and the rest – on medicines. […] Our government cannot allocate such money. The minimum cost of a surgery for such a case is UAH 45,000,” he said.
Putnikov also noted that today acromegaly patients pay from $3,000 to $5,000 for surgery at the Neurosurgery Institute in Kyiv.
Ukrainians registered 11,000 cars with foreign license plates, which were registered in the temporary importation or transit regimes, in one month, the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine reported on its website on Thursday.
“From November 25 through December 26, 2018, citizens cleared 11,000 vehicles with foreign license plates, which have been imported to the customs territory of Ukraine since January 1, 2015 until the new rules of importation of these vehicles took effect,” the authority said.
Almost 9,600 out of cleared vehicles stayed in the country in violation of the Ukrainian legislation, the State Fiscal Service said.
On December 26, almost 1,400 vehicles were cleared.
As reported, Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada passed bills cutting the excise duty on vehicles and toughening supervision over the movement and use of vehicles registered in other states. The preferential excise duty (with the 0.5 factor) was set for owners of cars with foreign licenses plates for clearing their vehicles within 90 calendar days.
The framework bill on the key principles of the government agricultural policy and rural development policy (No. 9162), which should determine Ukraine’s agricultural strategy, has been registered by a group of lawmakers.
“The document introduces the Agrarian Attache Office to represent and protect the interests of Ukrainian agricultural producers abroad. A step-by-step implementation of the government policy will be an action plan for implementing the basic principles for the development of the government agricultural policy and rural development policy, which will be developed for the period of five years to implement the law. Monitoring of the corresponding plan of measures is also proposed,” the co-author of the bill, MP Oleh Kulinich (deputy group Vidrodzhennia Party) said on his Facebook page.
According to MP Mykola Kucher (Petro Poroshenko Bloc parliamentary faction), the bill will also introduce additional control over the management of state-owned land.
“Although at first glance, bill No. 9162 is declarative, but it is it that establishes the fundamental principles of the formation and implementation of the government agrarian policy, thereby getting a strategic content,” Kucher said.
