23/03/2015 Ukraine: Daily Highlights - A stand-up fight for spheres of influence between the major oligarchic clans in Ukraine began

23/01/2014 Daily Highlights by the  "Digests & Analytics - Ukraine" News Agency

Topics of the Day

A stand-up fight for spheres of influence between the major oligarchic clans in Ukraine began. The State Fiscal Service top-management dismissed. US Congress called on the US President to give Ukraine lethal arms.

Key Events of Ukraine

• Prime Minister Yatsenyuk replaced the Head of the State Fiscal Service Bilous and his two first deputies.
• In connection with the events around the Head of the State Administration of the Dnipropetrovsk region Kolomoiskiy four deputies quitted the faction Petro Poroshenko Block.
• Minister of Energy Demchishin said that all the accounts of companies controlled by the government will be transferred to the state-owned banks.
• From April 1 Ukraine will discontinue the natural gas purchases in Russia which price is much higher than a price of reverse-flow deliveries of natural gas from Europe.
• Naftogaz of Ukraine predicts an increase in losses from the sale of natural gas for households and district heating providers, despite the rise in tariffs several times.
• The Ministry of Finance is making preparations for issuing of Eurobonds worth $ 1 billion under the guarantee of the US government in April-May 2015.
• National Bank has significantly strengthened the hryvnia against the dollar: 23.15 UAH/USD (-0.04 UAH), 24.95 UAH/EUR (+0,21 UAH) 3.86 UAH/10 RUR (-0.02 UAH).

Ukraine at War

• According to a UN report, the number of victims of the conflict in the Donbas has exceeded 6 thousand people, more than 15 thousand have been wounded. The realistic figures may be much higher, since most of killed were not registered in the morgues of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
  The UN has revised the amount of aid within the Plan of humanitarian response in the Donbas from $ 189 to $ 316 million, the number of recipients has increased from 900 thousand to 3.2 million people.
• OSCE records violations of the ceasefire in the war zone. The militants resist inspection of their positions and flight operations of the mission’s fly drones. The biggest military clashes with the use of heavy equipment and artillery were recorded near the Donetsk airport and Shirokino.
• During the night in the center of Donetsk there were fights with the use of artillery, small arms and mortars. Experts believe that the Russian special services tried to take control over some groups of militants.

Ukraine and the World

• The both major parties of the US Congress overwhelmingly adopted a resolution calling on President Obama to give Ukraine defensive lethal weapons.
• The US successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile Minuteman III.
• President Poroshenko believes that the UN Security Council may send a peacekeeping force to Ukraine.
• Russian authorities continue to pretend that the militants of “DPR” and “LPR” are not under the management of Russian bosses.

The Trends

• Ukrainian and international experts have warned of a danger of a sudden destabilization of the domestic policy situation initiated by teams of President Poroshenko and Prime Minister Yatsenyuk which have launched an attack on oligarch Kolomoisky’s business.
  The pressure is carried out both by force and stove-piping. In case of a liquidation of the backbone PrivatBank, owned by Kolomoisky, the stability of the Ukrainian banking system will be at risk. Under the threat of Russian troops and the Donbas militants’ attack such events are working against the interests of national security.
• The further strategy of IMF assistance will depend on the ability of Ukraine to restructure the national debt, in particular, $ 3 billion which should be returned to Russia till the end of 2015. Russian authorities have already announced that they refused the proposals of Ukraine on debt restructuring.