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financial fraud. Huta was extradited to Ukraine from Switzerland following his arrest earlier this week. Prosecutors didn't request Huta’s arrest, claiming they didn't have the legal basis, the epravda.com.ua news site reported, citing Interior Minister Spokesman Mykhaylo Apostol. Appearing to be making claims on behalf of Huta's defence, Apostol said it will be hard for prosecutors to prove his alleged crimes. Mriya is in the news this month after Saudi Agricultural and Livestock Investment Company (SALIC) has completed its purchase of Mriya group’s Ukrainian farming assets although the value of the deal was not disclosed. After completion of the harvest, Mriya and SALIC’s Continental Farmers Group will integrate the two companies, with Mriya’s Simon Cherniavsky as CEO and CFG’s Mark Laird as executive chairman. In the spring, the companies plan to submit a joint business strategy for working their combined land bank, which totals 210,000 hectares.
2.8 Polls & Sociology
In the 2018 world happiness report, all 12 (non Baltic) former Soviet states were surveyed . Uzbekistan is happiest, Ukraine least
44 Uzbekistan
59 Russia
60 Kazakhstan 67 Moldova
68 Turkmenistan 80 Tajikistan
87 Azerbaijan 92 Kyrgyzstan 128 Georgia 129 Armenia 138 Ukraine
Ukrainians consider hostilities in Donbas, corruption and low levels of production to be the biggest problems for the state , according to a poll conducted by the Rating sociological group. Over half of the respondents (57%) said that military operations in Donbas are the most important problem for Ukraine, 49% named corruption, and a quarter (26%) of those polled think that the a low level of production is the biggest problem for the country. Tellingly only 8% of Ukrainians consider Russian presence in Crimea to be a problem for Ukraine. The government has been introducing bans on Russian language books and a quota system for Ukrainian language programming on TV, but only 5% of respondents said the language issue is a problem. Other issues the respondents considered to be unimportant include: land ownership rights, lack or probability of cutting natural gas, electricity, water supply, ecology and a delay in the payment of salaries and pensions.
Ukraine's opposition leader, former prime minister and leader of the Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party Yulia Tymoshenko retains her leading position among candidates for the 2019 presidential election in a new survey, conducted by Social Monitoring, the Yaremko Ukrainian Institute of Social Research, Kyiv International Institute of Sociology and the Rating sociological group. Tymoshenko, who was the first politician in the war-torn country to officially announce a bid in the 2019 presidential elections, have rating at 13.4%. The ratings of politicians in bne’s who’s who in Ukraine’s elections have not changed much in the last months. 7.6% of respondents are ready to vote for showman Volodymyr Zelensky, incumbent President and Civic Position Party heads Petro Poroshenko and Anatoliy Hrytsenko, respectively - 7%, and Opposition Bloc Party head Yuriy Boiko (aka Boyko) - 6.9%. Among those who have made their choice and are ready to take part in the election, 18.9% are ready to support Tymoshenko, 10.7% - Zelensky, 9.9% - Hrytsenko, 8% - Boiko. Some 75.8% of respondents said that they definitely intended to
19 UKRAINE Country Report December 2018 www.intellinews.com