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● Structural reforms - policies related to human capital, measures to facilitate trade and improve the business environment
The government also announced the launch of a web portal, where all the indicators, the content of the reforms, and the implementation schedule are collected so that everyone can see in real-time what is changing in Ukraine.
Parliament passes law on use of English in Ukraine. The law also defines specific positions that require knowledge of English, and establishes protocols for the usage of English in various government and public sector offices.
Zelenskiy dismisses Lieutenant General accused by soldiers of heavy losses. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced on June 24 that he had replaced the Commander of the Joint Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Yurii Sodol, with Brigadier General Andrii Hnatov.
● Corruption
Former Ukrenergo official charged with embezzling funds designated for bulletproof vests. Investigators from the SBU and National Anti-Corruption Bureau allege that the unnamed former official organized the procurement of bulletproof vests at an "artificially inflated price" in the spring of 2022, following the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in the spring of 2022.
Ukrainian officials insist they are battling corruption as fiercely as their troops are fighting Russia’s invaders in the east. But Western governments, including the United States, say it is still not enough — a source of increasingly raw tension between Kyiv and some of its strongest supporters that poses constant peril to additional economic and military assistance, the Washington Post reports. Nearly every month adds a new case to a string of high-profile arrests and dismissals. In late May, the former deputy head of the presidential administration, Andrii Smyrnov, was charged with “illicit enrichment” by Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau, which said he had acquired real estate, vehicles and other assets worth more than 10 times his reported salary and savings. In April, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy fired Illya Vitiuk, the head of the cybersecurity department at Ukraine’s Security Service, days after local media reported that Vitiuk’s wife had bought an apartment for more than $500,000 in an elite Kyiv neighborhood. Within the past year, the country’s chief justice, Vsevolod Knyazyev, was charged with taking more than $2mn in bribes and promptly dismissed. And a prominent oligarch, Ihor Kolomoisky, who was once a stronger supporter of Zelenskiy, was jailed on suspicion of fraud, embezzlement and money laundering, and then charged with financing a murder-for-hire scheme in the early 2000s. Ukrainian officials say the cases are evidence of a concerted — and successful — effort to fight graft. All the accused maintain their innocence, and their cases have not yet come to trial.
Mayor Mukacheva was given a preventive measure - two months in custody or a bail of 30 million. "On June 26, 2024, at the request of the NABU detectives, approved by the SAP prosecutor, the investigating judge of the VAKS applied a preventive measure to the mayor of Zakarpattia, who, together with other persons, is suspected of abusing his official position in order to sell at an undervalued plot of communal property with an area of more than 3 hectares.
Brothers of Medvedchuk, ex-MP Kozak charged in absentia with tax evasion of $1.8 million. Two brothers of the former pro-Russian Ukrainian lawmakers, Viktor Medvedchuk and Taras Kozak, were charged in absentia with defrauding the state of Hr 75 million ($1.8 million) in taxes, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said.
35 UKRAINE Country Report July 2024 www.intellinews.com