Here's another update from our news desk:
Kyiv says it will approve a ban on the import of some Russian goods in response to similar actions by Moscow.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said during a cabinet meeting on December 30 that "for every Russian action, Ukraine will take counteractions and countermeasures."
He also said the government would change the duty on Russian imports, but gave no details.
Ukraine's Ministry of Economy and Trade said on December 29 that it has drawn up a list of 43 products from Russia whose import will be banned starting from January 10.
The products range from meat and dairy products to alcohol and railway hardware, including locomotives
The trade war ignited earlier this month after the Kremlin said it was suspending a free trade zone with Ukraine because of "extraordinary circumstances affecting the interests and economic security" of Russia. That was in reference to a free trade pact Kyiv has signed with the European Union.
Moscow said the EU-Ukraine pact, which is due to come into force next month, could lead to a flood of European imports into Russia and make its own exports to Ukraine less competitive.
(Reuters, Interfax)
From the report:
In violation of relevant withdrawal lines, the SMM observed one anti-tank guided missile system (9K111 Fagot, 120mm) at a Ukrainian Armed Forces position near government-controlled Popasna (69km west of Luhansk).
The SMM observed that the previously-reported six wired anti-tank mines were still present at the first Ukrainian Armed forces checkpoint near the western entrance to the village of Marinka (government-controlled, 23km south-west of Donetsk).
Ukraine’s Security Service has banned Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin from entering Ukraine. The SBU sent the statement to Ukrainian Internet news service Apostrof.
“On the basis of Article 16 of the law On Legal Status of Foreigners and Stateless Persons, member of the European Parliament Janusz Korwin-Mikke and Russian citizen Dmitry Rogozin were banned from entering the territory of Ukraine,” reads the statement.
Polish MEP Korwin-Mikke visited Crimea earlier in December, breaking Ukraine’s laws. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Entering the peninsula by any means but mainland Ukraine is against the law.
Writing for Reuters, Josh Cohen says, "Corruption in Ukraine is so bad, a Nigerian prince would be embarrassed."
United States Vice President Joe Biden has never been one to hold his tongue. He certainly didn’t in his recent trip to Kiev. In a speech before Ukraine’s Parliament, Biden told legislators that corruption was eating Ukraine “like a cancer,” and warned Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko that Ukraine had “one more chance” to confront corruption before the United States cuts off aid.
Biden’s language was undiplomatic, but he’s right: Ukraine needs radical reforms to root out graft. After 18 months in power, Poroshenko still refuses to decisively confront corruption. It’s time for Poroshenko to either step up his fight against corruption — or step down if he won’t.
When it comes to Ukrainian corruption, the numbers speak for themselves. Over $12 billion per year disappears from the Ukrainian budget, according to an adviser to Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau. And in its most recent review of global graft, anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International ranked Ukraine 142 out of 174 countries on its Corruption Perceptions Index — below countries such as Uganda, Nicaragua and Nigeria. Ordinary Ukrainians also endure paying petty bribes in all areas of life. From vehicle registration, to getting their children into kindergarten, to obtaining needed medicine, everything connected to government has a price.
The worst corruption occurs at the nexus between business oligarchs and government officials. A small number of oligarchs control 70 percent of Ukraine’s economy, and over the years have captured and corrupted Ukraine’s political and judicial institutions. As a result, a “culture of impunity” was created, where politicians, judges, prosecutors and oligarchs collude in a corrupt system where everyone but the average citizen benefits.
Read the entire article here
The Crimean blockade will reformat and the number of participants reduce reduce, said Refat Chubarov, one of the blockade’s organizers and the head of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis.
“Our people [will be] in far smaller numbers and will stay very close to customs officers [and] to border guards. They will only observe that the governmental decree is carried out, that there is no smuggling,” Chubarov said.
The blockade, organized by activists, began on September 20. On December 16, the Ukrainian government adopted a resolution "on limiting supplies of certain goods from temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine and/or from other territories of Ukraine to temporarily occupied territory." The document comes into force 30 days after its publication.
This would presumably raise some hackles, if confirmed: