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“This US action is its latest pressure on the Ukrainian government to do its best to avoid the legalization of Skyrizon and related Chinese companies as Motor Sich owners. Definitely, this makes the recent attempt of Skyrizon and DCH to gain control over Motor Sich an impossible task. This is clearly bad news for Motor Sich, which will continue losing its market share and staff, and whose operational performance is under threat due to an ongoing lack of clarity in its governance,” Alexander Paraschiy of Concorde Capital said in a note.
In other news, Ukrainian businessman Oleksandr Yaroslavsky, the owner of DCH Group, reported on January 18 that he has been invited to appear on January 19-22 for questioning at the State Security Service of Ukraine (the SBU) as a witness in the Motor Sich case.
In this case, the SBU is investigating “state treason” and “sabotage” related to the sale of Motor Sich shares to Chinese firms. Instead, Yaroslavsky stated that “sabotage” was in the activities of state agencies, which resulted in the arrest of Motor Sich shares and the dismissal of almost 10,000 employees.
Recall, Skyrizon made several attempts in 2017-2019 to legitimize its 50%-plus stake in Ukrainian aeronautics engine producer Motor Sich (MISCH UK) that it acquired in 2016-2017. The Ukrainian government failed to approve Skyrizon as a Motor Sich majority shareholder, which is the result of pressure from the US Namely, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo named in 2020 Skyrizon’s attempt to acquire Motor Sich as “malign” Chinese investment into Ukraine. The latest attempts of Skyrizon to legalize its investment into Motor Sich have been made in partnership with DCH Group.
Motor Sich produces engines for Russian helicopters, Ukrainian planes and Russian & Chinese military training jets. The latter engines are of special interest to Chinese firms.
2.8 Politics - misc
One year after Iran’s military mistakenly shot down UIA Flight PS752 with two surface-to-air missiles, Iran is offering $150,000 payments to families of each of the 176 victims. While Iran’s report on the shootdown near Tehran has yet to be made public, an AP report cites of host of irregularities around the shootdown. Contrary to international treaties, the crash site was bulldozed and many personal effects were looted. Not only were wallets returned empty but cell phones were returned without memory cards. An official Canadian report says this raised questions “about whether Iran had found evidence that passengers recorded videos or tried to call those on the ground in their final moments.”
In February president Zelenskiy closed three pro-Russia TV stations
associated with the Opposition Platform - For life leader VIktor Medvedchuk. Media reports allege the three stations lose $1.5mn a month and the real source of funds is the Kremlin. Most TV stations lose money in Ukraine and are subsidized to promote the political groups of major businessmen, or oligarchs. The stations -- 112 Ukraine, NewsOne and ZIK – had a total audience share of only 5%. But their news stations had higher ratings. After the stations continued streaming through YouTube, Oleksandr Tkachenko,
15 UKRAINE Country Report February 2021 www.intellinews.com
