Spending on the payment of salaries in the public sector has been reduced by 10%, Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal has said.
“We have already reduced the total cost of wages in the public sector, except for the budgetary sector, meaning civil servants, not teachers and not doctors, by 10%. We have reduced costs by 10% in the Cabinet of Ministers, the President’s Office, the Verkhovna Rada,” Shmyhal said in an interview on the air of the national telethon on Friday morning.
The prime minister noted that the authorities intend, if necessary, to continue the trend to reduce the cost of wages in the public sector.
He also added that expenditures directly on the functioning of the government, parliament and the President’s Office have also decreased.
“Everything that can be abandoned, we do away with, and we redirect everything to the needs of the army and the Armed Forces,” Shmyhal said.
As reported, the Cabinet of Ministers has canceled the payment of labor intensity bonuses for the prime minister, ministers, their deputies and heads of regional and Kyiv state administrations until 2024.
So far, none of the allies has provided their vision of security guarantees for Ukraine, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said.
“I did not raise the issue of security guarantees at the meeting, because we know exactly the list of allies that we see as potential security guarantors with whom we are negotiating on a bilateral basis. But in my bilateral meetings here, we raise and discuss this issue with them. They receive a better understanding of what we want. But we are still discussing. None of them have given us their vision of security guarantees at the moment,” Kuleba said at a press conference after attending a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels on Thursday.
On Thursday, April 7, Ukrposhta made the first delivery from the Belgian Post Group (Belgian Post, bpost), 40 tonnes of humanitarian aid, which bpost collected from the population in its 657 branches.
According to the press service of the national postal operator, the reloading was carried out on the border with Romania thanks to the help and assistance of the Romanian Post.
According to Ukrposhta, in particular, 20 tonnes of food and hygiene products, as well as 20 tonnes of essential medical supplies were delivered from Belgium. They are already moving to Kyiv region, as well as to the east and south of Ukraine.
It is noted that food and hygiene products will be donated to the needs of defenders and organizations that take care of children and the elderly, and will also be distributed to IDPs.
Medicines were purchased by a charitable foundation in Belgium according to the needs of specific hospitals, they are sent to them by targeted delivery.
“Thanks to the fact that from the beginning of the war, Ukrposhta turned to the member countries of the Universal Postal Union for support, today we have it from many post offices of the world, which is expressed in real actions. Another 40 tonnes of humanitarian aid is hundreds of meals for people from the most difficult regions, these are medical supplies for the treatment of military and civilians who were injured due to rocket attacks by Russia,” the press service of the company quotes Ukrposhta CEO Igor Smelyansky.
At the same time, the head of Ukrposhta separately thanked the Belgian Post for understanding not only the plight of Ukrainians, in which they found themselves due to the Russian attack, but also the difficult logistical conditions. In addition to organizing the collection and delivery of aid, bpost also organized its sorting into categories, which will significantly speed up the work, reducing processing time and saving precious minutes, and immediately send aid to the most affected regions of Ukraine, Smelyansky noted.
Ukraine has connected power unit No. 1 of the Khmelnytsky NPP to the power grid, as a result of which eight of the 15 existing power units are operating in the power system, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported, citing the Ukrainian nuclear regulator.
“Ukraine said one of the two units at the Khmelnytsky Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) had been reconnected to the grid after regulator maintenance,” according to the IAEA daily report on Ukraine on its website late on Wednesday.
As a result, eight of Ukraine’s 15 reactors are currently operating, including two at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhia NPP, three at the Rivne NPP, two at the Yuzhnoukrainsk NPP, and now one at the Khmelnytsky NPP.
“The seven other reactors are shut down for regular maintenance or held in reserve,” the agency said.
As reported, Ukraine stopped power unit No. 1 of the Khmelnytsky NPP on April 2, it remained in operation after power unit No. 2 was put into repair from February 18 for scheduled preventive repairs lasting approximately 92 days.
Before that, according to the IAEA, power unit No. 2 of the Rivne NPP was put out for repair.
The United States has included a number of Sberbank Group companies, including subsidiary banks in Ukraine and Kazakhstan, Cetelem Bank, bankrupt Sberbank Europe AG and payment service YooMoney, in its sanctions list, a statement from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) indicated.
Sberbank Insurance, Sberbank Life Insurance, Sberbank Insurance Broker, Sberbank Leasing, Sberbank Factoring, NPF Sberbank, Sberbank-AST, Sberbank Capital, Sberbank CIB and Strategy Partners have also been included in the OFAC Specially Designated Nationals List (SDN List), as has United Credit Bureau, in which Sberbank holds a 50% according to the latest disclosure.
The SDN List now also includes Digital Technologies, a company through which Russia’s top bank invested in a range of information technology companies.
The United States on Wednesday imposed blocking sanctions against Sberbank that call for freezing assets in the U.S. and bar U.S. citizens from doing any business with the bank. The UK imposed similar sanctions against Sberbank.
The United States imposed correspondent and payable-through account sanctions against Sberbank in February 2022.
The Ministry of Finance of Ukraine in March raised the forecast for payments on public debt in 2022 by UAH 4.93 billion compared to the March forecast – up to UAH 572.26 billion, according to the forecast for April on the agency’s website.
According to him, the largest amount of payments falls on April-June of this year – UAH 167 billion, while in August-September it is projected at the level of UAH 145.32 billion, in October-December – UAH 124.63 billion.
The Ministry of Finance estimates payments on domestic debt in 2022 at UAH 440.95 billion, and on external debt at UAH 131.32 billion.
According to the Ministry of Finance, on a monthly basis, the largest amount of payments fell on February – UAH 75.78 billion, and May – UAH 69.59 billion.
At the same time, the ministry increased the forecast of payments on public debt in 2023 by UAH 25.71 billion to UAH 400.91 billion.
In 2024, the ministry expects a payment in the amount of UAH 348.74 billion.
