Page 19 - UKRRptAug20

requirement is proposed temporarily, for ten years, and this step is supposed to support the national producer, or at least require nonresidents to locate their production in Ukraine,” the bill’s summary said.
Ukraine’s parliament approved on July 16 amendments to the elections code ahead of the local elections, which it voted the prior day to set for Oct. 25. ​The biggest change involved extending the proportional system of voting (awarding council seats based on party results) to territories of 10,000 residents, from 90,000 before. This provision was criticized by the Opora election monitoring organization as violating international standards (being changed too close to the elections) and restricts the ability of candidates to compete independently. The changes also unified the elections code’s norms, simplified election procedures, correlated various deadlines and resolved gaps and inconsistencies, according to the bill’s summary. More than 200 out of 289 statutes to the code were amended, it said.
Rada puts off bill easing NABU head dismissal, ​Ukraine’s parliament voted on July 14 to return bill #3133 to the parliamentary human rights committee for review, the nv.ua news site reported the same day. Recall, the bill expands the list of criteria to dismiss the head of the National Anticorruption Bureau (NABU), aimed at enabling the soon dismissal of Artem Sytnyk, a figure widely supported by Ukraine’s Western financial partners. In April, the IMF warned Ukraine’s top officials that approval of this bill would threaten its cooperation with Ukraine. The Rada decided to put off the bill's approval at the initiative of David Arakhamia, the head of the People’s Servant parliamentary faction, who placed a call to one of the deputy heads of the president’s office, according to the nv.ua report.
Donbas ceasefire upheld on July 28 after 100-plus violations the prior day. ​Only one violation of the Donbas full and all-encompassing ceasefire occurred on July 28 in the war zone, reported this morning the press service of the Joint Forces Operation. One shot was fired from a grenade launcher near the village of Shumy in the Donetsk region. “The shot was off target and had a provocative character, which is why our soldiers didn’t fire in return,” the press service said. On July 27, the first full day of the ceasefire, the OSCE mission reported 111 violations of the ceasefire regime, including 21 explosions, all of which were reported in the Donetsk region. In the neighboring Luhansk region, the majority of the armaments (21 of 22) of the Russian-backed forces were positioned in violation of the restrictions of the July 22 agreement. The Russian-backed forces also restricted the movement of OSCE monitors and deployed drones, also in violation of the agreement.
COVID-19 cases spike past 1,000 again​ at the end of July. The Ukrainian government has decided to expand its newly adopted policy of assigning colour-based zones based on the COVID-19 infection rate, Health Minister Maksym Stepanov told his daily press briefing this morning. As of August 1, the four-color zones will be assigned not only to the nation’s regions, but also to the countries to, which Ukrainian citizens travel to, he said. The zone designations will be renewed once a week, he said, as opposed to once every three days currently. The two indicators applied to countries are: the infection dynamics for the last 14 days as compared to Ukraine’s, and the percentage of those ill in the last 14 days, as compared to the prior 14 days, which can’t exceed 30%.
The State Security Service, or SBU, took a more censorial tack, posting
19​ UKRAINE Country Report​ August 2020 ​ ​www.intellinews.com