U.S. diplomat: Russia a ‘malign influence’
Acting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Philip Reeker says the citizens of both Russia and Ukraine are “paying a price” for Russia’s “malign influence.” In an interview with RFE/RL on October 31, Mr. Reeker accused Russia of “keeping a hot war going” in eastern Ukraine and described Russia’s activities there as an occupation. “One of the most obvious places most broadly where the Russian malign influence is seen is in Ukraine, where Russia has invaded a country, has occupied a country, has continued to keep a hot war going in the eastern part of Ukraine,” Mr. Reeker told RFE/RL. “Thousands of people have died.” He said Russia has “undertaken obligations through the Minsk process to find a way forward” on ending the five-and-a half-year conflict between Ukrainian government forces and Russian-backed separatists. But he said Russia has “not lived up to those proposals, [which is] what we want to see happen.” He added, “Russians are paying a price for that, [for] the actions of their government. But certainly Ukrainians are. And that kind of malign influence is something we don’t want to see.” (RFE/RL)
Trump reinstates some duty-free trade
U.S. President Donald Trump has reinstated duty-free treatment with Ukraine on certain items following a suspension in 2017, the White House says. In a proclamation on October 25, Mr. Trump said he had in December 2017 suspended duty-free rights for certain Ukrainian goods because Kyiv was not properly protecting intellectual property rights. But he said he was reinstating the duty-free treatment because Ukraine had made progress on the issue. According to the U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) office, the reinstatement affects about one-third of the $36 million in trade benefits that had originally been suspended for Ukraine. The move comes at a time when Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives have begun an investigation focusing on his dealings with Kyiv. The inquiry focuses on a July 25 call President Trump made to his Ukrainian counterpart in which he asks Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate former Vice-President Joe Biden and son Hunter, who had business dealings in Ukraine. Democrats claim Mr. Trump pressured Mr. Zelenskyy to investigate the Bidens by threatening to withhold approved military aid and by dangling a potential White House visit for the Ukrainian leader in return for an investigation into Mr. Trump’s political opponents. The U.S. president has denied he did anything wrong. There is no evidence that ex-Vice-President Biden was involved in any wrongdoing related to Ukraine. U.S. media have also reported that trade privileges were also being withheld from Ukraine, allegedly to pressure Kyiv. The Washington Post on October 24 cited people briefed on the matter as saying White House trade representative Robert E. Lighthizer withdrew a recommendation to restore some of Ukraine’s trade privileges in late August after John Bolton, then national security adviser, warned him that Mr. Trump probably would oppose any action that benefited the government in Kyiv. However, The Washington Post quoted an unnamed administration official as saying the presidential proclamation about the trade status of Ukraine, along with two other countries, was being held up for several weeks as part of a routine “country review process.” (RFE/RL, with reporting by Reuters, AP and The Washington Post)
Hungary vetoes NATO statement on Ukraine
Hungarian officials have vetoed a joint NATO statement about Ukraine because it didn’t contain language criticizing Kyiv for its education and language laws that Budapest says deprives the Hungarian minority in Ukraine of its rights. Hungary believes the country’s education law restricts the right of ethnic Hungarian minority of approximately 125,000 people to be educated in their native language. Kyiv in 2017 passed the law, which emphasizes the teaching of Ukrainian in publicly funded schools and curtails the teaching of Russian and other minority languages, such as Romanian and Hungarian. It doesn’t forbid pupils from seeking further language study in their native language at private institutions or through other avenues, such as self-organized groups or home tutoring. Kyiv maintains that the law is meant to ensure that all Ukrainian citizens can speak the state’s official language, and it denies the law is discriminatory. The ongoing spat had prompted Budapest to previously block all meetings of the NATO-Ukraine Commission – the key format for bilateral cooperation between Kyiv and the Western military – at all levels above that of ambassadors. In June, Brussels dropped criticism of the educational law, pushed mostly by Hungary, at the yearly EU-Ukraine summit. The NATO-Ukraine Commission has also reconvened with the alliance’s leadership currently on a two-day visit to Ukraine that ends on October 31. Meanwhile, Hungarian Foreign Affairs Minister Peter Szijjarto dismissed criticism that Hungary’s relationship with Russia is uncomfortably friendly as Russian President Vladimir Putin was meeting with Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Buda Castle on October 30. “These are laughable insults on [the] part of our Western friends,” Mr. Szijjarto said, as cited by the Associated Press. Mr. Orban followed up on the minister’s comments, saying that the NATO statement was still being finalized so that it includes at his behest clauses that state Ukraine should adopt changes recommended to the disputed laws by the Venice Commission and legal experts for the Council of Europe, the continent’s top human rights body. (RFE.RL)
Millions pledged at investment forum
At the first Ukrainian government-sponsored investment forum since President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s election, hundreds of millions of dollars in investments and loans were promised on October 29 in Mariupol, a port city less than 30 kilometers west of the frontline of a conflict with Russian-backed separatists. Most of the money would be channeled to the government-controlled part of the Donbas. During his keynote speech, Mr. Zelenskyy asked the 500 foreign and Ukrainian attendees to not cross out Ukraine as backward and hopeless. “Ukraine is a country of opportunities. And today they are knocking on your door,” he said. “But as they say, opportunity never knocks twice. So do not miss the opportunity, please. Don’t sleep through Ukraine.” Alain Piloux, the vice-president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Ukraine’s largest foreign investor, told the forum participants that the EBRD has plans to loan 300 million euros ($333 million U.S.) for the development of regional roads, while noting that Ukraine is the top destination for the bank’s loans. At the forum, President Zelenskyy and Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk opened a two-lane, 225-kilometer highway that connects Mariupol with Zaporizhzhia, a city in the southeast with growing airport traffic. The nation’s three largest mobile operators signed a government agreement to ensure 90 percent coverage of 4G Internet in the nation in two years. To give residents in the Donbas and Russian-controlled Crimea access to Ukrainian TV programming, the U.S. Agency for International Development is helping finance the construction of 11 digital TV transmitters, the Ministry of Information Policy said. State-owned railway company Ukrzaliznytsia announced it is investing $6 million to open a second Kyiv-Mariupol night train that runs daily. COFCO, a Chinese state-run food-processing company, signed a memorandum to pump $50 million in developing port infrastructure in Mariupol, which would boost cargo traffic by 2.3 million tons. A 100 million euro ($111 million) water supply and treatment project was part of a signed declaration of intent by the French government, European Investment Bank, and the Mariupol City Council. Metinvest, owned by Ukraine’s richest billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, pledged to spend $400 million over the next five years to reduce pollution caused by his factories in Mariupol, Kryvyi Rih and Zaporizhzhia. Kharkiv multimillionaire Oleksandr Yaroslavsky has started building a $50 million terminal at the Dnipro airport in the southeast. Mr. Yaroslavsky said he was ready to invest $100 million for the construction of a new airport in Donetsk, which was destroyed in the war. (RFE/RL, with reporting by the Kyiv Post, Reuters, Ukraine Business News, Interfax and Ukrayinska Pravda)
OSCE cites ‘big step forward’
Kyiv and Russia-backed separatists have begun withdrawing troops and weapons from a frontline area in eastern Ukraine, as part of a plan to end the Donbas region’s five-year conflict. Martin Sajdik, the special representative of the chairperson-in-office in Ukraine for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), said on October 29 that the sides “renewed the disengagement of forces and hardware” in the town of Zolote in the eastern Luhansk region, and “continued negotiations on the renewal of disengagement” in the nearby town of Petrivske. “Thus, the sides, literally by stepping backwards, have today made a big step forward,” Mr. Sajdik said in a statement. Earlier, Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Vadym Prystaiko said the planned withdrawal in Zolote was “taking place right now,” adding: “We are beginning [the process] today.” Rodion Miroshnik, a separatist official in the Luhansk region, wrote on his Telegram channel that the pullout was under way on the separatists’ side. Mr. Prystaiko said shooting in Zolote stopped on October 17 and the withdrawal began on October 29, once OSCE monitors were on the ground to check compliance by both sides. The minister said that, after the withdrawal process in Zolote is over, Kyiv will start withdrawing its forces from Petrivske. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who rose to the presidency earlier this year on promises to end the conflict, accepted the withdrawal plan, part of the so-called Steinmeier formula, earlier in October. The Steinmeier Formula lays the groundwork for reinvigorating the larger peace deals known loosely as the Minsk Accords, and the first major international summit on the Ukraine conflict in three years. (RFE/RL, with reporting by UNIAN, Ukrayinska Pravda, Reuters, AP, Interfax, AFP and TASS)
NBU official detained on bribery allegations
A specialist at Ukraine’s central bank was arrested on October 29 for allegedly soliciting $50,000 from a businessman while promising to secure a license to operate a currency exchange. The suspect was arrested outside the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) building in central Kyiv while accepting $40,000 in cash, the Prosecutor-General’s Office said in a Facebook post. An additional $10,000 was supposed to be paid once a lifetime license was issued. His alleged crime has been prequalified as fraud since the suspect’s competency at the NBU doesn’t allow him to issue currency exchange licenses. On its Facebook timeline, the NBU said that it hasn’t received more detailed information from prosecutors and that the arrested specialist, who was not named, works in a different department in a nonmanagerial capacity. Furthermore, “NBU decisions on the issuance of licenses are made by a decision-making collegium based on the findings of several departments, which makes it impossible for one person to influence the decision-making process,” the bank said. The person seeking the license currently holds one that expires on December 21, but was rejected for a renewal in July by the NBU, the Prosecutor-General’s Office told Ukrayinska Pravda. After the rejection, the man allegedly sought the help of the NBU employee. (RFE/RL, with reporting by Ukrayinska Pravda)
Supreme Court rejects Shokin’s appeal
The Chamber of Appeals of Ukraine’s Supreme Court has upheld a ruling that former Prosecutor-General Viktor Shokin should not be reinstated. According to the ruling announced on October 24, the appellate court said the decision by the High Administrative Court not to reinstate Mr. Shokin was valid. Mr. Shokin served as Ukraine’s prosecutor general in 2015-2016. He was fired from the post in April 2016. His name has been at the center of political struggle in the United States between President Donald Trump and his possible challenger in 2020, Joe Biden of the Democratic party. Mr. Trump and some of his advisers have suggested that the former U.S. vice-president improperly pressured Ukraine to fire Mr. Shokin from the post to stop him investigating Ukrainian gas firm Burisma, where Biden’s son Hunter was a director. Although Ukrainian anti-corruption officials have rejected Mr. Trump’s allegations, the U.S. president pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate the Bidens, which has led the Democratic Party to initiate an impeachment inquiry. Mr. Shokin’s initial appeal against his sacking with the High Administrative Court in March 2017 was unsuccessful. Last month, he filed a new appeal with the Supreme Court’s Chamber of Appeals. The chamber’s October 24 rejection of Mr. Shokin’s appeal can be further appealed to the Supreme Court’s Big Chamber. (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, with reporting by Ukrayinski Novyny)
Law ends ban on privatization
Ukraine has taken another step towards privatizing state assets as it seeks to attract investment and reach lofty economic goals set by the new administration. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on October 28 signed a law abolishing a two-decade-old list of state enterprises that were barred from privatization. The list contained over 1,000 state-run businesses. The Zelenskyy administration is targeting economic growth of 40 percent over the next five years and $50 billion in investment, figures that will likely only be achieved with large-scale privatization. Western governments and financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund have for years called on Ukraine to privatize state assets, which are often ripe for corruption. The state will sell the small businesses on the list through its online procurement platform ProZorro, where the highest bidder will win. The larger state enterprises will be sold in auctions that take into account other aspects, such as investment and job creation. Not all of the state-owned assets on the list will be completely sold off. The Cabinet of Ministers will have to select companies over which the state should maintain control. The Cabinet of Ministers will have to submit that list to the Verkhovna Rada within three months. The state must restructure or resolve problems at some of the companies before they can be privatized, U.S.-Ukraine Business Council President Morgan Williams said. Some of the companies have significant environmental problems, lawsuits, or oligarchs as minority owners – all issues that could keep foreign investors away, he said. The state will soon sell off about a dozen assets, including hotels and resorts. The government has said it will use the money in part to pay down debt. (RFE/RL)