- Two Russia-friendly political parties – Opposition Bloc and Za Zhittya (For Life) – join forces prior to the 2019 presidential and parliamentary elections. They will nominate a single candidate for president.
- RFE/RL investigation found that $72 million were withdrawn from the accounts in the bank of Viktor Yanukovych’s son through President Petro Poroshenko’s bank. Oleksandr Yanukovych’s Ukrainian Development Bank is undergoing liquidation, and its depositors are refunded by the State Deposit Guarantee Fund.
- President Petro Poroshenko turned down General Prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko’s resignation. Lutsenko tried to quit amid public outrage over the lack of progress in the investigation into an acid attack that killed activist Kateryna Gandziuk.
- Gandziuk’s death is the latest of at least 10 murders of activists and journalists in Ukraine since the EuroMaidan Revolution. There have also been at least 93 violent attacks and at least 6 attempted murders. Guess how many of those who ordered the attacks have been found and prosecuted? None. We took a closer look at the impotency of Ukrainian law enforcement and made a list of the slain activists and journalists who deserve to be remembered.
- Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin is one of the longest-serving members of the government, taking over in June 2014. He has his plate full but he found time to sit for an interview with the Kyiv Post.
- Ukraine’s state-run gas extracting giant UGV has a big hurdle to increasing gas production: local councils in the gas-rich Poltava Oblast refuse to give the company exploratory drilling permits.
- Ukrainian Railways will get a $150 million loan from EBRD to purchase 6,500 freight wagons.
- Agrotrade between Ukraine and the EU is up 5% year-on-year, tops $6 billion. Exports amounted to $4.12 billion.
- Mariupol-native Oleksiy Kachko is 23. He’s a combat veteran of Russia’s war in the Donbas where he fought with the Azov Battalion. Now, back into civilian life, he runs a coffee shop in his hometown called Veterano Coffee.
- And in Kyiv, a newly-established Veteran Hub provides all kinds of support to war veterans – from legal aid to counseling to help with job search.
- “Aftermath VR: Euromaidan” is an immersive virtual reality documentary that reconstructs the massacre of Feb. 18-20, 2014, in Kyiv where 125 people died and hundreds were injured in violent clashes between protesters and security forces.
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