Page 13 - UKRRptMay21

offered the special envoy role late last month and is being vetted. Hochstein previous served as an independent director on the board of Naftogaz.
Forbes lists seven Ukrainians amongst its latest list of the world’s 2,755 billionaires. They are: Rinat Akhmetov -- $7.6bn; Viktor Pinchuk -- $2.5bn; Konstantin Zhevago -- $2.3bn; Igor Kolomoisky -- $1.8bn; Gennadiy Bogolyubov -- $1.7bn; Petro Poroshenko -- $1.7bn; and Vadym Novinsky -- $1.4bn.
After struggling to source sufficient coronavirus vaccines, the US pharmaceutical company Pfizer has promised to supply Ukraine with 10mn doses, enough to inoculate 12.5% of the population, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a tweet on April 6.
Pro-Zelensky sport celebrity leads in scandalous election to Rada. The election commission of the 87th district (in the western Ivano-Frankivsk region) announced on April 5 Vasyl Vitastyuk as the winner of the March 28 elections for a vacant place in the Verkhovna Rada. Vitastyuk, a strongman celebrity who was nominated by pro-president party the Servant of People, won with 31.25% votes, or 1.56pp more than second-place Oleksandr Shevchenko, a business partner of tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky and director of a popular ski resort. Third place, with 28.86% votes went to Ruslan Koshulynsky from the nationalist Svoboda party (also supported by Poroshenko’s party), who served as vice-speaker of the Rada in 2012-2014. Both losing top candidates declared they would question the election results. The calculation of votes at the 87th district was followed by numerous scandals and mutual accusations of top candidates. The top candidates accused each other of buying votes. One of the techniques applied against Shevchenko was the nomination of two namesake candidates who drew 1.02% of votes. Another was the cancellation of election results in some locations where Shevchenko allegedly collected a lot of votes. The Central Election Commission, which approves the final decision on the election results, stated on April 5 that it will work on the election documentation and will wait for court rulings before adopting a final conclusion on the election’s results. In other election of an MP held on March 28, in the eastern Donetsk region, local mayor Andriy Aksyonov won with an overwhelming majority of over 65% of the votes. The candidate from Zelensky’s party gathered just 3% of the votes. According to journalist Denys Kazansky, Aksyonov was involved in organizing a pseudo-referendum aimed at the separation of Donetsk region from Ukraine in 2014.
2.3 Polls & Sociology
Zelenskiy popularity recovers a little in polls, but his Servant of the People rating still falling
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s popularity has recovered slightly in the polls following several months of action by the president that saw him close down the TV stations of one of his main rivals, face down a threat of invasion by Russian forces and lobby hard for Ukraine’s inclusion in Nato and the EU in the west.
If presidential elections were held this weekend Zelenskiy would take 28% of those who intend to vote and have made their choice already, according to Ukrainian Institute of the Future (UIF) with the assistance of New Image Marketing Groups that took the survey between April 9 to April 18, Interfax Ukraine reports.
13 UKRAINE Country Report May 2021 www.intellinews.com