Page 13 - bne IntelliNews Ukraine Country Report May 2017

The United States administration will cut its financial assistance to Ukraine in 2018 by 68.8%, Foreign Policy magazine reported on April 24. The administration of President Donald Trump will seek to cut assistance to developing to developing countries by over one-third, according to March budget proposals quoted by the publication. According to a 15-page State Department budget document, the overhaul also includes re-channelling funding from development assistance into a programme that is tied closely to national security objectives.
The European Parliament on April 6 approved granting a visa-free regime to Ukrainian citizens by the European Union (EU). On February 2, the European Parliament passed a law to lift the visa requirement for Georgian citizens travelling to the EU, but stopped short of doing the same for Ukraine. According to media reports, the EU will finally approve a visa-free travel regime for Ukraine in late spring prior to coming into effect in the summer.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has assured his Ukrainian counterpart that "no one will ever embroil Belarus in a war against Ukraine", Petro Poroshenko said on April 26. Since 2014, the leadership in Kyiv has feared that Russia, which annexed Ukraine's Crimean peninsula in 2014 and continues to support the pro-Moscow rebellion in Donbas, could use Belarusian territory for aggression against Ukraine. "The peaceful people of Belarus and their experienced and honourable president Lukashenko will not allow that,” Poroshenko's media service quoted him as saying during a joint visit with Lukashenko to the Chernobyl nuclear plant situated near the southern border of Belarus.
Corruption in Ukraine is worse now than it was under former president Victor Yanukovych , who was ousted three years ago, according to a new report published by EY (formerly Ernst & Young). Ukraine was ranked the lowest among all countries participating in the biennial EY EMEIA Fraud Survey, followed by Cyprus and Greece. “Despite all the efforts that the country and its people are making to fight corruption, unfortunately, the number of respondents who believe bribery and corruption to be widespread in Ukraine is unacceptably high, at 88%,” Alexei Kredisov, Managing Partner, EY
Ukraine,saidinthereport.Russiawasrankedin16t h placebyEY,uptwo slots since two years ago, with 66% of respondents saying they encountered
corruption in the country’s business environment.
Fifteen of Ukraine's largest state-owned enterprises including the Chernobyl nuclear power plant are sabotaging requirements for independent audits , the Economic Development and Trade Ministry in Kyiv said in a statement published on April 25. An independent audit of financial reports for 2015 was conducted in full only by 25 out of 46 largest state-owned enterprises. Eleven of 25 mentioned enterprises "are fully sabotaging" the requirement to conduct audit, according to the ministry.
Ukraine's national power company Ukrenergo on April 25 cut power supplies to rebel-controlled territories in the eastern Luhansk region due to debts for previously supplied electricity. Russia is expected to make up the supply to affected areas. "Electricity supplies to the temporarily uncontrolled territory of the Luhansk region were halted completely overnight," the company's head Vsevolod Kovalchuk wrote on his Facebook page. According
13 RUSSIA Country Report April 2017 www.intellinews.com