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2016, to 56% in 2018. Similarly, fraud attributed to senior management also doubled, from 27% in 2016, to 55% in 2018. Looking ahead, 16% expect a cyberattack in the next two years – and believe it will be the most damaging economic crime they face.
Two German shipping companies - Hansa Heavy Lift from Hamburg and Heinz Corleis KG from Stade (Lower Saxony) - are suspected of busting EU sanctions by illegal supplying raw materials to Ukraine's Crimea occupied by Russia in 2014. In November and December 2017, both companies delivered 35,000 tonnes of Norwegian ore to the port of Kavkaz in the Kerch Strait, according to the Deutschlandfunk radio station, Interfax news agency reported on June 6. The ore was later allegedly reloaded onto the Russian ship Nefterudovoz-2, which headed to a port in Crimea.
Oligarchic power declines . The total wealth Ukraine's top 10 oligarchs has declined by 39.1% from $20.2bn to $12.3bn since 2009. The biggest losers are Rinat Akhmetov at 66.4%, Victor Pinchuk at 36.4%, Ihor Kolomoysky at 30.6 , and Gennady Bogolyubov at 11.8%. The conflict in the East has seriously undermined Akhmetov's fortune whilst Kolomoysky's problems are already well documented. Not everybody has lost money: President Poroshenko is up 85.3%, grain magnet Andre Verevskiy by 75.8%, chicken supremo Yuriy Kosiuk by 69.5% and Dmytro Firtash, despite his virtual incarceration in Austria, is up 60.2%.
Moscow-based Eurasian Economic Commission is launching an anti-dumping investigation against Ukraine and China for galvanized rolled steel products . The complaint to the executive body of the Eurasian Economic Union was filed by three Russian steelmakers: Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works, Novolipetsk Steel, and Severstal. The main Ukrainian target is the nation’s largest producer of galvanized steel, Metinvest’s Mariupol Iron and Steel Works, or MMK. On a separate front, Russia is raising costs of steel exports from Mariupol by restricting shipping on the Sea of Azov.
Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, has greenlighted in the first reading a bill on counteracting the illegal seizure of farmland, Interfax news agency reported on June 10. The motion was backed by 232 lawmakers, six more than the necessary minimum of 226 votes. The bill proposes a number of legislative measures which would make it impossible to illegally seize the lands used by agricultural enterprises and prevent the seizure of property and the appropriation of corporate rights of these enterprises, according to deputy chairman of the parliamentary agrarian committee Oleksandr Bakumenko.
Viktor Medvedchuk, the godfather to one of Russian President Putin’s children and his longtime advisor on Ukraine , announced on his Facebook page on July 28 that he has accepted an invitation to join the Russian-oriented For Life party led by Kyiv media mogul Vadim Rabinovich. In a television poll, viewers selected Medvedchuk to lead attempts to renew relations with Russia. “Peace in Donbas, renewing relations with the Russian Federation and the CIS countries – these are the key tasks that stand before Ukraine, before all of us,” Medvedchuk wrote. “Yes, these tasks are not simple: we should learn to listen and listen to all regions. We should learn to conduct talks and search for compromise. A peaceful, economically stable and politically stable Ukraine is the goal that stands before us now.”
15 UKRAINE Country Report August 2018 www.intellinews.com