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Atlantic Council blog: “Strong Ukraine-Turkey partnership holds the key to Black Sea security.” Writing that Turkish officials were impressed by the performance of Antonov planes fighting wildfires in Turkey last month, Kuleba says joint production will be discussed in December in a meeting of defense and foreign ministers in Ankara. He writes: “Ukraine welcomes this interest and is ready to explore the possibilities for joint Antonov plane production and international export.”
Judicial reform, anti-corruption reform to accelerate, said President Zelenskiy during an interview on the Ukrainian tv channel, ICTV. The President believes that in the near future the anti-corruption agencies of Ukraine will resume their work in full, as well as accelerate the implementation of judicial reform and restart the Constitutional Court. "There are challenges, certain inhibitions, but today, with some changes in the leadership of the Verkhovna Rada, we will speed up the voting at second reading of the law on the National Anti-Corruption Bureau," said Zelensky.
The Georgian government has ruled out the option of extradition of the former President, Mikheil Saakashvili, to Ukraine. Speaking about the recent arrest, the Deputy Prime Minister, Tea Tsulukiani, said that the trial in his case will take place in Georgia. "Speaking about the extradition of Saakashvili is legally nonsense. If we're talking about handing Saakashvili over to Ukraine for the Georgian court to judge him there - we have no intention to do that. This makes no sense", Tsulukiani said.
Ukraine delays the appointment of the Head of the Anti-Corruption office.
The US and the European Union have expressed frustration with Ukraine struggling to elect the future leader of the unit responsible for prosecuting corrupt officials. Washington and Brussels have tied significant financial and military aid to Kyiv’s progress on reforms, including battling corruption. On October 9, Ukraine again failed to move forward with the process for choosing the next head of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office due to repeated quorum failures and other excuses, reported RadioFreeEurope
Pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk is under suspicion regarding new charges of treason and financing terrorism, Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova announced on Facebook on Oct. 8. The charges relate to Medvedchuk’s involvement in the smuggling of coal from Russian-occupied Donbas and its purchase by Ukrainian state-owned firms, radiosvoboda.org reported on Oct. 8. Medvedchuk is already under suspicion for treason and the transfer of state secrets to Russian intelligence services.
The Verkhovna Rada voted to dismiss Dmytro Razumkov as speaker on Oct. 7. The MPs supported the measure with 284 votes (out of 226 needed), pravda.com.ua reported. MPs from the Opposition Platform For Life and European Party factions voted against the measure, as did seven of the ruling Servant of the People faction. The parliament is slated to vote on a new speaker on Oct. 8. The move was expected, albeit of questionable legitimacy, and Razumkov has already stated that he will fight an illegal or unprocedural dismissal in the courts. His replacement will certainly be more attentive to President Zelensky’s vision of how the parliament should be run. Current first vice-speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, Ruslan Stefanchuk, is widely expected to take the speaker’s post. Notably, this morning, Zelensky issued an order to terminate Stefanchuk’s status of president’s representative in the Verkhovna Rada, which can be considered as the last step required for him to gain the
8 UKRAINE Country Report November 2021 www.intellinews.com