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through its territory. The panel concluded that in placing the restrictions, the Russian side protected its "essential security interests" in a time of an "emergency in international relations", local media reported on April 5. Russia has introduced a series of measures to limit the transit of Ukrainian goods through its territory, which resulted in a plunge in Ukraine’s exports to Kazakhstan and neighbouring countries. Specifically, the limiting measures taken by Russia in early 2016 caused a 46% year-on-year drop in Ukraine’s export to Kazakhstan in the first half of 2016. Alexander Paraschiy at Kyiv- based brokerage Concorde Capital believes that the ruling can be interpreted as a diplomatic failure, it will hardly have any economic implications for Ukraine. "Even if the WTO experts had decided that Russia did something wrong by limiting Ukrainian transit, the Russian side would hardly have changed its behaviour in the short term. All in all, we see the news as neutral for Ukraine’s trade outlook and economic prospects," he wrote in a note on April 8. Meanwhile, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin believes that Ukraine has lost the dispute in due to the fact the the country's government did not listen to strategy and tactics the Ukrainian diplomats suggested. "They ask why Ukraine has lost the dispute in the WTO. Without self-promotion for our diplomatic team, I can say that sometimes one should still listen to the foreign ministry both on strategy and tactics ("evil" emoticon)," Klimkin tweeted on April 5.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has signed the newly created bankruptcy code, legislation that is aimed to better protect the interests of creditors in relation to their insolvent debtors. The law was adopted by parliament in October 2018, simplifying the procedures of debt restructuring, debtor financial recovery and liquidation, as well as creating a bankruptcy procedure for individual debtors, according to Kyiv-based brokerage Concorde Capital.
2.11 Polls & Sociology
Ukrainians are becoming less likely to look negatively upon their Russian counterparts according to a poll released in March. Some 77% of Ukrainians said they have a positive attitude toward Russians, while 82% of Russians felt similarly disposed toward Ukrainians. As far as their feelings toward Russia as a whole, some 57% of Ukrainians said they felt favorably, up from 30% in May 2015. Feelings toward governments were a different matter. Ukrainians remain very negative about Vladimir Putin—69% view the Russian president and his government as bad or very bad, while 85% of Russians expressed a negative attitude about Poroshenko’s administration, according to the poll. Conducted in February, the survey by the Levada Centre in Moscow and the Kyiv Institute of Sociology included 1,600 people in Russia and 2,042 in Ukraine.
Where did 11mn Ukrainians go? About 6mn were lost due to Russian expansionism -- 2.3mn in Crimea, 2.3mn in occupied Donetsk, and 1.5mn in occupied Luhansk. The other 5mn vanished through emigration and Ukraine’s falling birthrate. The loss of 21% of Ukraine’s population in one generation gives post-Independence politicians a poor report card. It undoubtedly boosted Zelenskiy, the 41-year-old post-Soviet challenger, who trounced President Poroshenko by a 3:1 margin.
In a country without a census for almost two decades, the April 21 presidential election indicated that the current population may be 41mn. In 1991, 31.9mn Ukrainians voted, out of a 1991 census population of 52mn. In
22 UKRAINE Country Report May 2019 www.intellinews.com