Newly appointed Ambassador of Ukraine to the United States Oksana Markarova has announced plans to establish the Ukrainian House in Washington in 2021.
“In the Ministry of Finance, in addition to the typical Ministry of Finance work itself, my team and I managed to start and successfully create new projects related to public finance – the eData portal, the Startup Fund, and the UkraineInvest office, which are still actively working and developing after I left the Ministry of Finance. Likewise, for Washington, I have a dream, which has already turned into a plan – to establish a permanent Ukrainian House, which will be the main platform for the promotion of Ukrainian narrative, a meeting place for the exchange of ideas of all friends of Ukraine, a place for discussion and promotion of Ukrainian culture,” she said in an interview with LB.ua.
According to Markarova, the Ukrainian House will work in synergy with the embassy and will be open to everyone.
“And we will start establishing it this year,” she said.
Philip Morris Ukraine, a large tobacco manufacturer, will soon file a motion with the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in Washington in response to the decision of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) on a UAH 1.2 billion fine.
“Several years ago, the Antimonopoly Committee issued permits for the concentration of a company that practically ‘swallowed’ all distribution in the tobacco market. We actually had no choice with whom to work with. What happened next? Over time, the same Antimonopoly Committee declared that we, the producers, were to blame for ‘establishing a monopoly,’ and issued a huge fine to the producers,” said the company’s CEO Kostas Salvaras in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
According to him, back in February, the company filed a notification to the Ministry of Justice about the violation by the state of Ukraine of a number of obligations under the investment protection agreements. “The state has expired six months for the peaceful settlement of the dispute, and we have the right to initiate arbitration proceedings directly,” Salvaras said.
“At the moment, we have already prepared an application to the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes in Washington. We will submit an application shortly. We believe that we have a high chance of winning. When we win, we will be able to demand from the state not only return the fine paid by us, but also to compensate for our costs for lawyers,” said the director general of Philip Morris Ukraine.
As reported, the AMCU imposed a fine of UAH 6.5 billion for anti-competitive concerted actions on four cigarette producers, including a UAH 3.4 billion fine on the distributor Tedis Ukraine.
Later, Philip Morris Ukraine paid a fine to the AMCU for a total amount of more than UAH 1.18 billion in order to avoid the accrual of penalties.
PJSC Philip Morris Ukraine jointly with LLC Philip Morris Sales and Distribution are affiliated companies of Philip Morris International (PMI), one of the world’s largest manufacturers of tobacco products.
The company has been operating in Ukraine for over 20 years. It produces products at a factory in Kharkiv region.
In 2016, Ukraine became the seventh market in which Philip Morris launched IQOS, based on tobacco heating technology. Both affiliated companies employ over 1,300 people.
Washington is ready to join the peace process in Ukraine, Assistant to the U.S. President for National Security Affairs John Bolton has stated.
The United States is set to join such efforts in any way possible because what is going on in Ukraine and in Crimea should not be regarded as a purely European dispute, Bolton told a press briefing in Kyiv on Wednesday, adding that the North Atlantic Alliance, or NATO, was established in light of the fact that the U.S. had been involved in two world wars, and NATO was to maintain peace.
Bolton also recalled that Germany and France were planning to organize a Normandy format meeting.
However, to take part in such meetings, one should get prepared and be guided by experience and all the positive things from previous meetings, because if there were no positive points during previous meetings, then it hardly makes sense to hold another such meeting, Bolton said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has received U.S. President Donald Trump’s invitation to pay an official visit to Washington, the newspaper Dzerkalo Tyzhnia (Mirror Weekly) said on Saturday.
According to the newspaper, Zelensky received the invitation on May 31 and the visit may take place in August-September, “after a meeting between the U.S. president and the Russian one.”
Meanwhile, neither Washington, nor Kyiv have officially confirmed this information.
