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investigation after his former campaign chief received an unexpectedly light sentence in a high-profile case brought by Mueller. "Both the Judge and the lawyer in the Manafort case stated loudly and for the world to hear that there was no collusion with Russia," Trump tweeted the same day.
Following the sentencing, Manafort's lawyer, Kevin Downing, said there was "absolutely no evidence that Paul Manafort was involved with any collusion with any government official from Russia." However, he did not address the wider question of whether other members of Trump's election team may have been involved with Russia, AFP reported on March 9.
2.5 Politics - misc
ProZorro, the electronic procurement system, has saved almost $2.8bn since its introduction four years ago, reports the Economic Development and Trade Ministry. About 215,000 companies, 80% of them small businesses, have used the platform, the ministry reports Facebook. Mandatory for most government procurements since 2016, the system posts information on tenders and conducts competitive bidding sales. Foreign companies are eligible to participate.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, European Union (EU) and United States (US) have urged Ukrainian parliament to postpone the consideration of a dozen bills that will reintroduce criminal responsibility for illicit enrichment of the nation's officials following February's cancellation by the nation's Constitutional Court of the law.
The European Union, Canada and the United States have added a number of Russian individuals and legal entities to the sanction lists on March 15 for their involvement in the Black Sea military standoff in the Kerch Strait in November 2018. The additional sanctions are unlikely to have any economic impact, but maintain the sanction pressure in place. At the beginning of March, the US prolonged Ukraine-related sanctions against Russia for another year. As analysed by bne IntelliNews, more negative news flow on sanctions is the main potential catalyst for Russian market in the coming months: a bipartisan group of US senators tabled legislation on February 13 that could broaden and deepen the US sanctions regime on Russia. In the latest sanction move the USTD outed four members of Russia's FSB security
14 UKRAINE Country Report April 2019 www.intellinews.com