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conflicts involving alleged raids of private property that couldn’t be addressed by the courts. ​​The video features an elderly citizen who had won a Supreme Court ruling in his attempt to recover an apartment he had inherited, which had been illegally removed from his ownership by corrupt state officials. While numerous officials had refused to fulfill the court decision, the property became registered under third persons. The Anti-Raid Office ultimately reached a ruling to cancel the illegal registration, which is signed by the Justice Minister, and the pensioner is able to regain ownership of the property.
Ukraine central bank to enforce recovery of UAH1.5bn from Zhevago. ​The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) obtained an enforcement order to recover UAH1.539bn ($66mn) from Kostyantyn Zhevago, the majority owner and former CEO of Ukraine’s largest iron ore pellet exporter Ferrexpo (FXPO LN), the central bank said in a Dec. 26 press release.​ ​ The order is due to the Oct. 1 court decision to enforce Zhevago’s personal commitment to repay an NBU refinancing loan to his former bank, Finance & Credit (F&C), which was declared insolvent in 2015. The Oct. 1 court decision took effect recently after Zhevago had failed to appeal it in the second-tier court. The NBU expects the amount owed to be partially enforced against Zhevago’s personal funds, as well as against the assets of some of the companies controlled by Zhevago that were surety providers, the release said. The total amount the NBU is owed in relation to all the refinancing loans it provided to F&C bank is UAH6.6bn ($283mn), according to the release. Zhevago has filed an appeal with the Supreme Court of Ukraine after its claim was rejected by the second-tier court, according to a Dec. 26 report by Interfax-Ukraine.
Russia has granted citizenship to more than 196,000 Ukrainians since simplifying the procedure for of acquiring a Russian passport ​for the residents of the occupied regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, according to the Russian Internal Affairs Ministry. The figure includes 60,000 residents of Ukrainian-controlled areas who have become citizens, the ministry said, as reported by the Russian TASS news agency on January 1. Earlier on December 9, Russian Interior Minister Vladislav Kolokoltsev told the Interfax news agency that 125,000 Donbas residents had acquired Russian citizenship at that time. He also said that, since April, 160,000 Ukrainians had applied to receive Russian passports. That suggests that, in less than a month, 36,000 more Ukrainians applied for citizenship, while Russia granted around 71,000 passports over the course of 22 days. The Kyiv Post reported on January 2 that it could not confirm the figures reported by TASS or Interfax. Russian President Putin signed the decree implementing the simplified citizenship procedure on April 24, deeming it a humanitarian measure to help Donbas residents denied their basic human rights. Vladislav Surkov, a key presidential aide who reportedly oversees occupied Donbas, said the decision was “the duty of the Russian Federation to those speaking and thinking in Russian.”
2.3 ​Polls & Sociology
Ukrainians’ optimism about their country’s future has hit a 15-year high,
according to a nationwide poll released in the last week of December by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation. For the first time since June 2005, more Ukrainians – 44% -- believe the country is heading in the right direction than think the country is headed in the wrong direction – 36%. In June 2005, the last time optimists outnumbered pessimists, the ratio was 42% - 31%. One year ago, 70% of respondents to the same poll said the country was going in the wrong direction.
8​ UKRAINE Country Report​ February 2020 ​ ​www.intellinews.com