Latest news with #OlenaHarmash
Hindustan Times
5 days ago
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
Zelenskiy vows to protect Ukraine's anti-corruption agencies, bows to protests
By Olena Harmash and Dan Peleschuk Zelenskiy vows to protect Ukraine's anti-corruption agencies, bows to protests KYIV -Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy vowed on Wednesday to retain the independence of anti-corruption agencies, bowing to pressure from the first wartime street protests and rare rebukes from European allies. For a second day in a row, thousands of people across the country - from Kharkiv in the northeast to the capital Kyiv to Lviv in the west - took to the streets demanding reversal of the law curbing the independence of anti-graft agencies. In his evening address to the nation on Wednesday, Zelenskiy said he would submit a new bill to ensure the rule of law and retain the independence of the anti-corruption agencies. "Of course, everyone has heard what people are saying these days... on social media, to each other, on the streets. It's not falling on deaf ears," Zelenskiy said. Thousands of people turned up for a second day of protests in central Kyiv, close to Zelenskiy's office. In the first such demonstrations of the war, the youth, activists, and war veterans chanted 'Shame' and 'Veto the Law'. "It's like a knife in the back, to be honest," Maryna Mykhalchuk, 26, who has friends killed in the war and plans to join the army soon, told Reuters. Opposition lawmakers and European officials also called for reversal of the law, which Zelenskiy signed overnight. The law gives the Prosecutor General appointed by Zelenskiy more power over two investigative anti-corruption agencies. It was rushed through parliament on Tuesday, a day after the security services arrested two anti-corruption officials for suspected Russian ties. In a joint statement, both agencies - the anti-corruption bureau NABU and the specialised prosecutors SO - said they wanted their independence restored through legislation. Parliament is expected to hold an emergency session next week to consider the new draft bill from Zelenskiy's office, several lawmakers said. STRONGEST CRITICISM SINCE THE WAR BEGAN The law prompted some of Ukraine's European allies to deliver their strongest criticism of Zelenskiy's government since Russia's invasion in February 2022. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen expressed her strong concern to Zelenskiy and asked for an explanation, said the spokesman. The law's critics say the government appears to be trying to rein in anti-corruption agencies to protect officials. After decades of endemic corruption in Ukraine, cleaning up its government has been held up as the key condition for the country to join the EU, tap billions of dollars in foreign aid, and integrate more broadly with the West. The issue risks antagonising Kyiv's most loyal allies at a time when it is trying to smooth over the relationship with the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has frequently criticised Zelenskiy. "Ukraine's anti-corruption institutions are vital to its reform path. Restricting them would be a significant setback," Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp said in a post on X. Benjamin Haddad, France's European Affairs minister, said it was not too late to reverse the decision. Ukrainian political analysts said the legislation risked undermining society's trust in Zelenskiy during a critical stage of the war against Russia. Fierce fighting rages along more than 1,000 kilometres of the frontline. Russian troops continue their grinding advance in the east and have stepped up near daily attacks on Ukrainian cities with hundreds of drones. Hundreds of protesters, some clad in military uniforms, in the city of Zaporizhzhia, close to the frontline in the southeast, demanded overturning the law with chants of "Ukraine is not Russia." Similar rallies took place in other major cities across the country. The public's European aspirations are vital to sustaining the war effort, said Valerii Pekar, a Kyiv-based analyst: "Only democracy and the European choice give us a chance to win," he posted on Facebook. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Zelenskiy aides visit US as Ukraine strikes Russian-held territory
By Olena Harmash and Aleksandar Vasovic KYIV (Reuters) -Senior Ukrainian officials visited Washington on Tuesday seeking U.S. support against Russia, as Kyiv showed its ability to fight on by setting off an explosive device under a bridge that has become a symbol of the Kremlin's claims on Ukrainian territory. A day after talks in Istanbul that made little progress towards ending Russia's war in Ukraine, Kyiv launched what appeared to be one of its biggest waves of coordinated attacks of the conflict. Ukraine's SBU security service said it had hit a road and rail bridge that links Russia and Crimea below the water level with explosives. The extent of any damage was not clear but there were no immediate signs of traffic disruption. The bridge is a flagship project for Russian President Vladimir Putin, built after he annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, in a precursor to the latest conflict. Meanwhile, Ukrainian drones and shelling targeting the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region and the Kherson region in the south damaged electricity substations, leaving at least 700,000 people without power, Russia-installed officials said. Underlining the gulf between the two sides after more than three years of war, the Kremlin said work on trying to reach a peace settlement was extraordinarily complex and that it would be wrong to expect any imminent decisions. Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, arrived in the United States along with Deputy Prime Minister Yuliia Svrydenko. Ukraine says Moscow is stalling the peace talks and Yermak signalled that he would press Ukrainian demands for tougher sanctions on Russia. "We will actively promote issues that are important for Ukraine. Our agenda is rather comprehensive," Yermak said on the Telegram app after arriving in Washington. "We plan to talk about defence support and the situation on the battlefield, strengthening sanctions against Russia." Yermak said the officials would also discuss a deal that gives the U.S. preferential access to new Ukrainian mineral projects and sets up an investment fund that could be used for the reconstruction of Ukraine. DRONE ATTACKS Kyiv appears determined to show U.S. President Donald Trump that it can still fight on, despite the rising death toll and destruction in the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War Two. Ukraine's attack on Russian-occupied territory in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions followed multiple Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure that have at times left millions of Ukrainians without power during the war. "There is no electricity throughout the region," Yevgeny Balitsky, the Russian-installed governor of Zaporizhzhia, said. "The Ministry of Energy ... has been instructed to develop reserve sources of electricity as soon as possible. Healthcare facilities have been transferred to back up power supply sources." The attack followed drone strikes at the weekend on Russian military airfields, some of which housed long-range nuclear-capable bombers. Ukraine's success in striking deep into Russia has prompted calls by some Russian military bloggers for a harsh response. A Russian artillery strike on the northeast Ukrainian city of Sumy on Tuesday killed three people and wounded 25, local officials said. "That's all one needs to know about the Russian wish to end this war," Zelenskiy said on Telegram. Moscow has responded to such accusations by saying Ukraine is not making a genuine effort to seek peace. At Monday's talks in Istanbul, Russia told Ukraine it would agree to end the war only if Kyiv gives up big new chunks of territory and accepts limits on the size of its army. Ukraine rejects the Russian conditions as tantamount to surrender. "The (peace) settlement theme is extremely complex, it consists of a large number of nuances...," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, adding that "it would be wrong to expect any immediate solutions and breakthroughs here". (Writing by Timothy HeritageEditing by Gareth Jones)
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Ukraine revamps minerals sector, eyes billions in investment from US deal
By Olena Harmash KYIV (Reuters) -Ukraine is overhauling its minerals sector, which has been pounded by three years of war, in the hope of unlocking potential and attracting billions of dollars of investment from a minerals deal with the U.S., its ecology minister said. The country has deposits of 22 of 34 minerals deemed as critical by the European Union for industries such as defence, high-tech appliances and green energy, as well as ferro alloy, precious and non-ferrous metals used in construction, and some rare earth elements. However, much of the sector is underdeveloped, weighed down by Soviet-era bureaucracy and lack of investment. After months of fraught negotiations, Kyiv and the United States agreed a minerals deal in April that was heavily promoted by U.S. President Donald Trump. It created a fund, which became active on May 23, that will receive money from new mining licences in Ukraine and invest in minerals projects. Ecology Minister Svitlana Hrynchuk told Reuters in an interview that Ukraine hoped the fund would significantly increase the mineral industry's potential, noting extraction was a capital-intensive and long-term task. "Currently, our natural resources sector's share of gross domestic product is 4%, but the potential is much greater," she said late on Monday, without giving projections. "We really hope the agreement will draw more attention to this sector and make foreign investment more understandable and more attractive." With the conflict still ongoing, about half of the country's mineral wealth and a fifth of its territory are now under Russian occupation. Ukraine has lost most of its coal deposits, as well as some lithium and manganese deposits and other minerals. Hrynchuk estimated that the sector had suffered losses of about 70 trillion hryvnias ($1.7 trillion) due to the occupation of Ukrainian territory and combat action along a more than 1,000 km (621 miles) frontline. Ukraine updated its strategy for its resources sector at the end of last year and was now focusing on improving access to information and data on geological exploration, reducing bureaucracy and finalising the lists of critical and strategic minerals crucial for the economy, she said. The work is also part of Ukraine's push to move closer to the European Union, which Kyiv hopes to join in 2030. UNDERDEVELOPED AND UNEXPLORED Hrynchuk said the government was working with the European Commission and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development on a multi-year project to digitise up to 80% of Soviet-era geological data. That task is about 40% complete, she said. The government was also working to review an existing 3,000 mining licenses. Hrynchuk estimated that about 10% of them could be dormant. "We are not interested in taking away assets if there is a potential for them to work," she said. "We are interested for those assets which are... valuable for the state and have not been working for 10 years or more, to make appropriate managerial decisions about them. And to launch them back into circulation." The licence review will be done this year and next, she said. Despite wartime challenges, the government continued to auction mining licenses and last year raised 2.4 billion hryvnias from auctioning 120 mining licenses. It hopes to get a similar amount into the state coffers this year and has already awarded 32 licenses, with the majority for building sector materials, including clay, sand, marble, granite, but also amber. Investors, who at present are predominantly domestic, were mostly interested in licenses for oil and gas exploration, as well as minerals such as titanium, graphite and manganese, she said. The U.S. minerals deal was agreed despite a clash between President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Trump during their meeting in the White House in February. Final documents to enable the joint investment fund to operate were exchanged last week, but projects will take time to materialise, Ukrainian officials said. The minerals deal, which U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent termed as a full economic partnership, hands the United States preferential access to new Ukrainian minerals accords and will help to fund Ukraine's reconstruction. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Ukraine revamps minerals sector, eyes billions in investment from US deal
By Olena Harmash KYIV (Reuters) -Ukraine is overhauling its minerals sector, which has been pounded by three years of war, in the hope of unlocking potential and attracting billions of dollars of investment from a minerals deal with the U.S., its ecology minister said. The country has deposits of 22 of 34 minerals deemed as critical by the European Union for industries such as defence, high-tech appliances and green energy, as well as ferro alloy, precious and non-ferrous metals used in construction, and some rare earth elements. However, much of the sector is underdeveloped, weighed down by Soviet-era bureaucracy and lack of investment. After months of fraught negotiations, Kyiv and the United States agreed a minerals deal in April that was heavily promoted by U.S. President Donald Trump. It created a fund, which became active on May 23, that will receive money from new mining licences in Ukraine and invest in minerals projects. Ecology Minister Svitlana Hrynchuk told Reuters in an interview that Ukraine hoped the fund would significantly increase the mineral industry's potential, noting extraction was a capital-intensive and long-term task. "Currently, our natural resources sector's share of gross domestic product is 4%, but the potential is much greater," she said late on Monday, without giving projections. "We really hope the agreement will draw more attention to this sector and make foreign investment more understandable and more attractive." With the conflict still ongoing, about half of the country's mineral wealth and a fifth of its territory are now under Russian occupation. Ukraine has lost most of its coal deposits, as well as some lithium and manganese deposits and other minerals. Hrynchuk estimated that the sector had suffered losses of about 70 trillion hryvnias ($1.7 trillion) due to the occupation of Ukrainian territory and combat action along a more than 1,000 km (621 miles) frontline. Ukraine updated its strategy for its resources sector at the end of last year and was now focusing on improving access to information and data on geological exploration, reducing bureaucracy and finalising the lists of critical and strategic minerals crucial for the economy, she said. The work is also part of Ukraine's push to move closer to the European Union, which Kyiv hopes to join in 2030. UNDERDEVELOPED AND UNEXPLORED Hrynchuk said the government was working with the European Commission and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development on a multi-year project to digitise up to 80% of Soviet-era geological data. That task is about 40% complete, she said. The government was also working to review an existing 3,000 mining licenses. Hrynchuk estimated that about 10% of them could be dormant. "We are not interested in taking away assets if there is a potential for them to work," she said. "We are interested for those assets which are... valuable for the state and have not been working for 10 years or more, to make appropriate managerial decisions about them. And to launch them back into circulation." The licence review will be done this year and next, she said. Despite wartime challenges, the government continued to auction mining licenses and last year raised 2.4 billion hryvnias from auctioning 120 mining licenses. It hopes to get a similar amount into the state coffers this year and has already awarded 32 licenses, with the majority for building sector materials, including clay, sand, marble, granite, but also amber. Investors, who at present are predominantly domestic, were mostly interested in licenses for oil and gas exploration, as well as minerals such as titanium, graphite and manganese, she said. The U.S. minerals deal was agreed despite a clash between President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Trump during their meeting in the White House in February. Final documents to enable the joint investment fund to operate were exchanged last week, but projects will take time to materialise, Ukrainian officials said. The minerals deal, which U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent termed as a full economic partnership, hands the United States preferential access to new Ukrainian minerals accords and will help to fund Ukraine's reconstruction. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Peace in exchange for land? For many Ukrainians, it's too painful to contemplate
By Olena Harmash KYIV (Reuters) - Vitali Klitschko, the former heavyweight boxer who is now mayor of Kyiv, ventured last month into hazardous political territory: he delicately suggested in an interview that Ukraine might need to cede land to end its battle against Russia. After a flood of angry online comments, he walked back his comments, saying on Facebook that "territorial concessions contradict our national interests and we must fight against their implementation until the last". U.S. President Donald Trump and his negotiators believe the only route to ending the Russian war in Ukraine is for Kyiv to acknowledge in some form that it is not getting back the Ukrainian land Moscow's troops have taken since invading. But the episode with Klitschko -- along with opinion polling shared exclusively with Reuters -- indicates that, more than three years into the war, most Ukrainians are not willing to cede territory to Russia in exchange for a ceasefire deal. The state of public opinion helps explain why Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who is expected to run for re-election, has resisted Trump's pressure to cede territory in ceasefire negotiations. A poll from Gradus Research exclusively shared with Reuters showed that almost three-quarters of the population did not see territorial concessions as a way to end the war. "Most respondents believe that Russia's main goal in the war ... is to establish full control over our country," Gradus said in a research note. "Ukrainian territorial concessions are not perceived as a compromise or a guarantee of peace - on the contrary, they can only strengthen the aggressor." Russia has denied seeking control of Ukraine, but its forces headed directly to Kyiv in their full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 before Ukrainian troops pushed them back from the capital to their current positions in the south and east. The Ukrainian poll conducted this week indicated that 40% of respondents believed that even in the case of concessions, peace would be only temporary and unsustainable. Another 31% thought that concessions would not lead to peace at all, Gradus said. Russia now de facto controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory, including the Crimean peninsula that it seized and unilaterally annexed in 2014 as well as large parts of four other regions of east and southeast Ukraine. According to U.S. negotiators, many of Ukraine's European allies, and some Ukrainians when speaking in private, say Ukraine will have to acknowledge loss of territory to end the war. Ukrainians are exhausted and up against a bigger and stronger enemy. Their attempts to push Russia back on the battlefield have failed since the first year of the war, and their Western partners have not given them enough military aid for it to achieve a decisive victory. Zelenskiy has acknowledged that Ukraine cannot regain its territories by military force but notes that formally ceding land would run counter to the country's constitution. Opposition to giving up land has softened as the war has ground on. Data from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), showed that in March about 39% supported territorial concessions, compared with just 10% in May 2022. Yet it also found that in March 50% of Ukrainians rejected the idea of giving up any land to Russia, ever, down from 51% in December. Data from another pollster - Razumkov Centre -- from a February-March poll showed nearly 82% of respondents were against any formal recognition of the occupied territories. "The definition of territorial concessions that more than half of the population might accept with a heavy heart is a de facto recognition of the occupation without de-jure recognition," said Anton Hrushetskyi from KIIS, adding that the country would have to receive security guarantees in exchange. Apart from Klitschko's short-lived intervention, no prominent figures in Ukrainian politics or public life are trying to promote a national conversation about the need to acknowledge the loss of territory. Evhen Mahda, a political analyst in Kyiv, said a dialogue between the country's leadership and society about giving up land was needed to ensure broad acceptance of a potential deal. "Unfortunately, we have to be realistic," Mahda said, about the terms of a deal to end the war, while noting that many Ukrainians still perceive discussions about a compromise on territory as a betrayal. (Additional reporting by Sergiy Karazy; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
