Week in numbers

The European Parliament needs three months to complete all the necessary procedures for granting Ukraine a visa-free regime; 115 Ukrainians remain hostage to militants in Donbas; UAH 6,879 per 1,000 cubic meters is a new single price for gas for Ukraine's households.

One Ukrainian soldier was killed and another seven wounded in 24 hours since the so-called "Easter truce." Despite the agreement on a complete ceasefire in the ATO zone, pro-Russian fighters of illegal armed groups fired on the positions of the Ukrainian troops 27 times.

The Russian occupation authorities in Crimea handed one former plant in Simferopol to a notorious Russian film actor Mikhail Porechenkov, who is banned from entering Ukraine, to build a movie studio, the Russian media reported.

A 2.5% growth of industrial output is forecast in Ukraine in the first half of 2016, according to the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade. In 1Q 2016, the growth of industrial output was at 3.7%.

The European Parliament needs a minimum of three months to complete all the necessary procedures related to the consideration of the European Commission’s proposal to grant Ukraine a visa-free regime.

Ex-director of Russia’s TMK construction company Igor Nesterenko was sentenced to three years and three months in prison by a Russian court on charges of embezzling more than RUB 100 million during the construction of the Russian spaceport Vostochniy, foreign media reported. A total of six criminal cases were opened into the alleged offenses during the construction.

NATO intends to put on rotation in the Eastern member states four battalions of 4,000 troops, according to foreign media quoting senior sources.

Five risk groups are in a so-called "black list" of recipients of social payments, according to the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine. The first group consists of those who lost their passports, the second is the recipients with no identification codes, the third and the fourth ones refer to the internally-displaced persons, while the fifth one is the recipients of subsidies. According to the Ukrainian authorities, about UAH 60 billion from the state budget could go to illicit social benefits.

14 people were injured and one was killed in a car bomb attack near a police headquarters in the city of Gaziantep in southern Turkey, foreign media reported.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry plans to renovate 22 objects of the Naval Forces of Ukraine. In 2016, f about UAH 70 million will be allocated for these purposes.

24 police officers were wounded in France during mass protests against changes to the labor legislation, while more than 100 protesters were arrested, foreign media reported.

30 years have passed since the Chornobyl nuclear accident. A huge amount of radioactive substances was released into the environment as a result of the largest man-made disaster of all time of the peaceful use of nuclear energy. 116,000 people have been evacuated from the affected areas, while another 230,000 were resettled from contaminated zone.

30 years have passed since the Chornobyl accident / Photo from UNIAN

34 films and TV series produced by individuals and legal entities of the Russian Federation, have come under the ban in Ukraine, according to the State Film Agency.

40% of department employees of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine have failed a lie detector test, according to the ministry. The Defense Minister said that those who failed a polygraph will be dismissed.

45.5% of Ukrainians favor deprivation of citizenship of those who supported the Russian aggression, the annexation of Crimea, and separatist movements in the east and south of Ukraine, according to a survey by the Razumkov Center. In addition, 42.3% of Ukrainians do not support amnesty for members of separatist movements, even if they have not committed serious crimes.

Ukrainians bought 75 electric vehicles in the first quarter of 2016, Ukravtoprom reported. Since the beginning of the year, 7,058 cars with petrol engines and 4,199 diesel vehicles have been sold. Another 912 of the cars sold run on natural gas.

115 Ukrainians remain hostage to militants in the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, said the representative of Ukraine in the subgroup for Humanitarian Affairs of the Trilateral Liaison Group, First Deputy Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Iryna Gerashchenko. Another 12 Ukrainians, including Nadia Savchenko, are being held in Russian prisons.

200 people have been killed over six days as a result of bombing and shelling of Aleppo in Syria, foreign media reported. Two-thirds of victims are on the opposition side. Several air strikes on a hospital in the Syrian opposition-controlled area of Aleppo took the lives of at least 27 people. Among them are at least three doctors of the Doctors without Borders.

247 Polish banks – 17 commercial and 230 cooperative ones – have become victims of hacker attacks, foreign media reported. No reports came on financial losses as a result of these attacks.

2,818 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since 2014, of which 88 – in three months in 2016, according to the Prosecutor General of Ukraine. According to the Assistant UN Secretary General for Political Affairs, the total number of victims in the Donbas conflict zone is more than 30,700 people, including 9,333 – the victims.

3, 000 law enforcement officers, including 400 soldiers of the National Guard of Ukraine, are engaged in the protection of the public order in Odesa during the May holidays, according to the Security Service of Ukraine.

Law enforcers arrived in Odesa / Ukrainska Pravda

UAH 6,879 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas is a new single price for the Ukrainian households, according to the decision of the Cabinet of Ministers. Along with the increased gas tariffs, the heating bills also increase by 60%. In addition, the Cabinet has reduced the rate of gas consumption during the heating season from 7 cubic meters per square meter of a heated area per month to 5.5 cubic meters.

12,500 Ukrainian troops will participate in 10 multinational military exercises in 2016, according to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. Exercises will not only be held in Ukraine, but also in Romania, Lithuania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Poland.

The Russian military group in the occupied parts of Donbas consists of 34,000 troops, said Deputy Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko at the UN Security Council meeting in New York.

111,480 landmines and explosive devices were defused by military engineers in the area of the Anti-Terrorist Operation since its beginning, according to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.

The oncologists record 130,000 new cases of cancer among the adult population of Ukraine annually, according to the National Cancer Institute. The highest death rate from cancer is recorded in Zaporizhia, Kirovohrad, and Sumy regions.

The United States can allocate $3.4 billion for the deployment of troops in Eastern Europe to deter Russian aggression, foreign media reported, citing the fact that this issue has been widely discussed in the permanent committee on armed forces at the U.S. House of Representatives.

REUTERS

The Ukrainian Cabinet plans to allocate UAH 19 billion for the repair and construction of state highways and local roads in 2016.

UAH 27 billion is a total debt of all electricity consumers from the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, according to the Ministry of Energy and Coal Industry of Ukraine.

Ukraine has spent $53.6 billion between 2005 and 2015 to subsidize gas for the population, including $20.2 billion in cash and $33.4 billion in non-cash subsidies, according to Naftogaz of Ukraine.

Margarita Andreyeva

UNIAN in Google News