Авторы публикации
ANALYTICAL REVIEW OF THE MOST IMPORTANT DOMESTIC, FOREIGN POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC EVENTS OF THE WEEK
04.10.- 10.10.2021
CONTENT:
SUMMARY AND KEY TRENDS.
INTERNAL POLICY.
1. Resignation of the Head of the Verkhovna Rada Dmitry Razumkov.
2. The head of the Supreme Court resigns.
3. The Prosecutor General signed a suspicion to the mayor of Odessa Gennady Trukhanov.
4. Attack on the film crew of "Schem" in "Ukreximbank".
5. The SBU will check the involvement of Poroshenko and the ex-head of the National Bank Gontareva in the Medvedchuk case.
6. Death of People's Deputy Anton Polyakov.
FOREIGN POLICY.
1. Published an investigation into the "Pandora's dossier". Vladimir Zelensky is one of his defendants.
2. Large-scale failure of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsUp.
3. The Minister of Defense of Taiwan said that by 2025 the PRC will be ready to annex the island by force.
ECONOMY.
1. After record highs, the price of gas in Europe fell below $ 1,000.
2. Expensive gas hits the greenhouse industry in Ukraine, as well as other food industries in the country.
3. Ukraine's international reserves fell sharply due to debt payments.
4. Ukrainian legal entities will not be fined for not disclosing the ultimate beneficiaries for another couple of months.
5. Two Ukrainian seaports are ready for privatization this year.
SUMMARY AND KEY TRENDS.
Summing up the results of the outgoing week, we note that:
First , the trend towards the administrative and economic strengthening of the power of the president and his entourage continued. Parliament Speaker Dmitry Razumkov was dismissed. Thus, the Office of the President is trying to eliminate one of the possible competitors of V. Zelensky in the next presidential election. Ruslan Stefanchuk, a loyal Bankova, was appointed to the post of parliament speaker.
Secondly , the process of “tightening the screws” manifested itself this week at the regional level. The Prosecutor General signed a suspicion to the mayor of Odessa Gennady Trukhanov, who is one of the political partners of the mayor of Kiev V. Klitschko, the main competitor of V. Zelensky. Within the framework of the same trend, the case of V. Medvedchuk should be considered as the main instrument of Bankova's influence on P. Poroshenko, ex-head of the NBU V. Gontarev and on the very head of the political council of the OLE.
Thirdly , the opposition of the Office of the President, the judiciary and Western partners continues for influence on the country's judicial system. Despite the fact that the head of the Supreme Court, Valentina Danishevskaya, is leaving her post and resigning, the judiciary of the Supreme Court does not abandon its attempts to minimize foreign influence in the sphere of justice. The Supreme Court will consider the issue of applying to the Constitutional Court regarding the verification of the compliance with the Constitution of the norms of the law on the procedure for the election and appointment of members of the High Council of Justice. This may call into question the legitimacy of the participation of "international experts" in this process.
Fourth , this week, leading Western media outlets actively wrote about the role of Vladimir Zelensky and his entourage in the Pandora Dossier, which reveals the offshore schemes of high-ranking politicians and officials of a number of states. The fact that the President of Ukraine was given special attention in this matter in the Western media is not accidental. This circumstance testifies to the continuation of the trend of dissatisfaction among Western partners with the sabotage of reforms aimed at strengthening external dependence (primarily judicial reform and corporate governance reform) on the part of the Ukrainian leadership. Earlier, within the framework of the same trend, the Western elites openly (through the mouth of the Bulgarian journalist Hristo Grozev) threatened the Office of the President of Ukraine with an early publication of an investigation into the “Wagnerian case”.
In Europe as a result of a series of scandals and leaks of information (most likely with the participation of m special services) the political trend continues to reduce the popularity of "Eurosceptics" - right and left political couplestiy. After deterioration of the results of AGD and "Linke" in the last elections in Germany, the social democrats and communists in the Czech Republic lost... Chancellor Austria C Kurz also resigned due to corruption accusations, which will affect not only relations between the Russian Federation and the EU, but also Ukraine politics. After all, Austria was seen as one of the most likely negotiating platforms for a peaceful settlement in Ukraine, D. Firtash has been detained and waiting for extradition to the United States.
Fifth , another tendency that has manifested itself in the outgoing week is the struggle between "financiers" and "digitalists" in the depths of the liberal part of the American political elite. The media campaign of condemnation of the social network Facebook in the American press, which even reached the Congress and combined with the largest disruption in the work of the social network in recent years, looks not as a "coincidence", but as a blow by "financiers" on "digital people", designed to demonstrate to the latter their vulnerability and force to go to a backstage agreement.
Sixth , the Ukrainian industry and business as such are working on the brink of profitability due to the binding of the cost of gas for the end consumer to world prices. The production of greenhouse plants in Ukraine is already in question this year.
Seventh , the Ukrainian state will lose at least three seaports in the next two years, despite numerous lawsuits affecting them. This testifies to the desire of the relevant officials to quickly sell the state property, not caring about the price at which this property will be sold to private hands.
INTERNAL POLICY.
Briefly :
This week, the trend for the administrative and economic strengthening of the power of the president and his entourage was continued. Parliament Speaker Dmitry Razumkov was dismissed. Thus, the Office of the President is trying to eliminate one of the possible competitors of V. Zelensky in the next presidential election. Ruslan Stefanchuk, a loyal Bankova, was appointed to the post of parliament speaker.
The process of “tightening the screws” was manifested this week at the regional level. The Prosecutor General signed a suspicion to the mayor of Odessa Gennady Trukhanov, who is one of the political partners of the mayor of Kiev V. Klitschko, the main competitor of V. Zelensky. Within the framework of the same trend, the case of V. Medvedchuk should be considered as the main instrument of Bankova's influence on P. Poroshenko and on the head of the political council of the OLE.
Along with this, the opposition of the Office of the President, the judiciary and Western partners continues for influence on the country's judicial system. Despite the fact that the head of the Supreme Court, Valentina Danishevskaya, is leaving her post and resigning, the judiciary of the Supreme Court does not abandon its attempts to minimize foreign influence in the sphere of justice. The Supreme Court will consider the issue of applying to the Constitutional Court regarding the verification of compliance with the Constitution of the norms of the law on the procedure for the election and appointment of members of the High Council of Justice. This may call into question the legitimacy of the participation of "international experts" in this process.
1. Resignation of the Head of the Verkhovna Rada Dmitry Razumkov.
On October 4, the head of the Verkhovna Rada, Dmitry Razumkov, announced the beginning of the procedure for his recall. On October 5, the deputies voted for the removal of D. Razumkov from the plenary sessions for a period of two days[1] . After the dismissal of D. Razumkov, Ruslan Stefanchuk chaired the plenary sessions.
On Thursday, October 7, 284 people's deputies supported the resignation of the head of parliament. Of these, 215 are members of the Servant of the People faction, 20 are Batkivshchina, 6 are Voices, 19 are representatives of the For Maybutn group, 18 are Trust. Another 6 votes were given by non-factional ones. In fact, we can say that this is the current informal parliamentary coalition, which basically coincides with the “budget coalition” - the parties and forces that voted for the state budget of 2021.
For the resignation of D. Razumkov, not a single vote was given to the HLPF and the EU factions.
The results of the voting indicate that it would not have been possible for Servant of the People to resign the speaker independently, without outside help (this is also evidenced by the subsequent vote for the appointment of a new speaker). 18 deputies who did not vote for the resignation of the Servant of the People after personal pressure from the president and the work of the security forces is a problem and a sign of another crisis within the power team. In his interview with reporters, the head of the faction David Arakhamia said that with each deputy who did not vote for the resignation of Dmitry Razumkov, there will be a separate conversation and the decision of his fate [2] .
Ruslan Stefanchuk was appointed the new chairman of the Verkhovna Rada on October 8. Previously, on October 6, Volodymyr Zelenskyy removed him from the duties of his representative in the Verkhovna Rada. It is expected that after the appointment of a loyal OP figure to the post of speaker, the role of parliament in the country's political system will significantly decrease.
In general, the so-called "Speakeriada" continues the course aimed at strengthening the power of the president and his entourage. V. Zelensky forms a new balance with big business (oligarchs) and builds a one-man model of power in which figures like D. Razumkov and A. Avakov (as before - A. Bogdan, R. Ryaboshapka, A. Danilyuk, etc.) create unnecessary Problems.
The main strategic reason for the resignation of D. Razumkov is that in this way the President's Office is trying to eliminate one of the rather strong potential competitors of V. Zelensky in the next presidential election. Today they are trying to persuade D. Razumkov not to get involved in the new election campaign by threats to deprive him of his mandate. After all, no matter how many D. Razumkov gains, these are the potential votes of V. Zelensky, which may not be enough for re-election, here the personal factor and Bankova's desire to seize the resources of parliament, to influence the media and the Rada TV channel matter.
In addition, the "Anti-oligarchic bill", "judicial reform", "tariff memorandums", "amendments to the Constitution" and others are the key theses of the new electoral program of V. Zelensky and the independent head of the Verkhovna Rada could create significant problems with their adoption.
2. The head of the Supreme Court resigns.
On Friday, October 8, it became known that the Head of the Supreme Court Valentina Danishevskaya was convening a plenum for October 22 to elect a new chairman of the court. At the same time, she does not plan to nominate herself and remain in this position. V. Danishevskaya herself will end her three-year term of office on November 30 [3] .
At the beginning of September this year, two judges of the Supreme Court have already resigned.[4] .
Mass resignations in the Armed Forces fit into the trend of confrontation between V. Zelensky, the judiciary and external players for influence on the country's judicial system. In particular, the judiciary is trying to minimize foreign influence in this area. In general, the judicial reform provides for the transfer of key powers for the selection of members of the High Council of Justice and the High Qualification Commission of Judges - into the hands of “international experts”. V. Danishevskaya invited the Head of the Verkhovna Rada and the President to hold a meeting at which it would be possible to inform about the risks of the judicial reform. The Supreme Court will consider the issue of applying to the Constitutional Court regarding the verification of compliance with the Constitution of the norms of the law on the procedure for the election and appointment of members of the High Council of Justice [5] . This may call into question the participation of Western experts in the process. Earlier, for its part, the Council of Judges of Ukraine could not get enough votes to elect three members of the Ethics Council, which blocked the main part of the judicial reform.
The dismissals of judges are also caused by their unwillingness to assist Bankova in the subordination of the judicial vertical of power. In particular, this concerns the confrontation between the president and the removed head of the KSU A. Tupitsky.
The Supreme Court demonstrated that they are ready to cancel the presidential decrees. There are now several lawsuits to challenge the decrees of V. Zelensky, in particular, on the introduction of NSDC sanctions. The Court of Cassation of the Supreme Court appealed to the Security Service of Ukraine for clarifications on the case of sanctions against the 112 Ukraine TV channel. And the issue of sanctions by the National Security and Defense Council, given the role of the Armed Forces in protesting them, is of great importance for the banking sector.
Therefore, it should not be ruled out that the authorities exerted some form of pressure on the judges of the Supreme Court.
Earlier, the State Bureau of Investigation opened a criminal case on the fact of the Supreme Court's decision to declare illegal the decree of President Volodymyr Zelensky, by which he canceled the appointment of Alexander Tupitsky as judge of the Constitutional Court[6] . Along with this, the judges of the Supreme Court were accused of trying to protect the corruption system and destroy the judicial reform.
3. The Prosecutor General signed a suspicion to the mayor of Odessa Gennady Trukhanov.
This week, Prosecutor General Irina Venediktova signed 5 suspicions as part of the investigation into the criminal case of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office on the acquisition of land in Odessa[7] . As follows from the message of the Prosecutor General, the current mayor of Odessa Gennady Trukhanov is among the suspects. The well-known Odessa businessman Volodymyr Galanternik and the ex-prosecutor of the Odessa region Oleg Zhuchenko will also receive suspicion. In general, according to expert opinions, losses to the city budget amounted to more than UAH 533 million.
Gennady Trukhanov himself considers the suspicion that was presented to him absurd and says that there are many people who " want to destroy local self-government in Odessa." He says that these are “concrete developers”, Kiev and Odessa officials, NABU director Artem Sytnik, “remnants of the team” of the ex-head of the Odessa Regional State Administration Mikhail Saakashvili[8] .
In general, the suspicion of the mayor of Odessa fits into the trend of “tightening the screws”, suppression of the main political and economic competitors of the authorities at the regional level.
Whether G. Trukhanov is guilty and whether he will bear real criminal responsibility is difficult to say. Despite the fact that Gennady Trukhanov is included in the list of the most scandalous mayors of Ukrainian cities and has repeatedly appeared in large corruption investigations. The reason for suspicion of G. Trukhanov may be not only legal, but also political.
Today, G. Trukhanov is one of the political partners of the mayor of Kiev V. Klitschko. It is possible that they will try to force G. Trukhanov to submit a letter of resignation. Then the political balance in Odessa may change and power will pass into the hands of the "Servants of the People".
4. Attack on the film crew of "Schem" in "Ukreximbank".
On October 4, journalists of the Scheme program were attacked during an interview with Ukreximbank Chairman of the Board Yevhen Metzger.[9] Two cameras were taken from the journalists by force and returned an hour later without recordings. The recording was restored the next morning. The recording caught the moment when the security guard E. Metzger used force against the journalists, and the head of the board himself ordered the cameras to be taken away and filming stopped.
According to the Kiev Prosecutor's Office, Yevgeny Metzger is charged with obstruction of the legitimate professional activities of journalists and - illegal detention of people (parts 1, 3 of article 171, part 2 of article 146 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine)[10] . E. Metzger resigned after the incident during the investigation and apologized to journalists.
E. Metzger is called "the banker whom Zelensky calls", and his wife Yulia Metzger, who is on the supervisory board of PrivatBank, is a friend of Elena Kravets from Quarter 95.
According to the investigative journalist D. Bigus [11] After E. Metzger became the head of Ukreximbank, this institution turned into a “support fund” for government projects. This applies to "Big Construction", loans for aircraft "Antonov", loans "Ukrenergo" after "green tariffs". Thus, Metzger simply gives out "state money for presidential ambitions."
After the scandal with the attack on the journalists of the Scheme program, the president announced that E. Metzger should leave his post. Considering that the incident took place against the backdrop of an unpleasant for V. Zelensky story with offshores, in terms of information, the scandal with E. Metzger is partially interrupted by the scandal involving V. Zelensky himself. In the future, it is expected that this story will be "released on the brakes." And despite the loud statements, no one will be punished for attacking journalists.
5. The SBU will check the involvement of Poroshenko and the ex-head of the National Bank Gontareva in the Medvedchuk case.
On October 8, during a briefing, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine, Ivan Bakanov, said that law enforcement officers would check the involvement of the fifth president, Petro Poroshenko, and ex-head of the National Bank, Valeria Gontareva, in the case of the leader of the OHSZ Viktor Medvedchuk. The Office of the Prosecutor General has prepared a new suspicion for Medvedchuk - for trading in coal from the uncontrolled part of Donbass[12] . The actions of the People's Deputy of Ukraine are qualified as treason and assistance to the activities of terrorist organizations. According to the investigation, V. Medvedchuk “actively cooperated” with the top leadership of Ukraine, negotiated with him and persuaded him to make the necessary decisions.
In general, an exchange of blows is taking place between the camp of V. Zelensky and P. Poroshenko, who now basically lay claim to one electoral field. It is obvious that the case of V. Medvedchuk is now "emerging" as the main instrument of Bankova's influence on P. Poroshenko, due to the offshore scandal with the participation of V. Zelensky, in which the ex-president may be involved in the information incitement.
In response to a new attack from the Office of the President[13] through the Medvedchuk case, P. Poroshenko organizes a motor rally for angry citizens under the slogan: “The bank continues to usurp power. The country's political leadership is sabotaging the Wagnergate investigation. The authorities are lying to us about Zelensky's offshores. Kolomoisky regains his influence, and the country is led to a geopolitical turn to the East. You, too, are all for.. freaking out? "
It is expected that the rally will create a negative information background and irritate Bankova.
In the near future, an extreme aggravation of relations between P. Poroshenko and V. Zelensky, new criminal suspicions of P. Poroshenko and his comande.
V. Zelensky's team also considers P. Poroshenko to be involved in the new "offshore scandal."
6. Death of People's Deputy Anton Polyakov.
On October 8, it became known about the death of Anton Polyakov - People's Deputy of Ukraine, who was found dead in a taxi in the Dnieper district of Kiev[14] . The police later reported that the deputy felt bad in a taxi, and he died in an ambulance. Several versions of the people's deputy's death are being considered: a chronic illness that could lead to death, or poisoning with an unknown substance on its own or under the influence of other persons. A criminal case was opened under article 115 - premeditated murder, but marked "Natural death".
Anton Polyakov entered the Verkhovna Rada as a nominee from the Servant of the People party in the 206th district in the Chernihiv region. After being expelled from the party, he joined the For Maybutn group, which is associated with I. Kolomoisky. As part of this group, the day before the incident, he voted to remove Dmitry Razumkov from the post of speaker of parliament.
A. Polyakov headed the subcommittee on compliance with anti-corruption legislation in the field of reforming the military-industrial complex of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Anti-Corruption Policy. Ideologically, the people's deputy opposed the course of V. Zelensky on all major issues - from humanitarian to economic, as well as against external management and the dominance of foreign citizens in state-owned companies. A. Polyakov has also repeatedly stated that "servants of the people" receive an additional payment in envelopes. In his last broadcast, A. Polyakov said that "Servants of the People" are bribed in the Rada for voting for the law on oligarchs [15] .
On the one hand, the death of A. Polyakov caused a negative public outcry, and on the other, the authorities have an opportunity to put a loyal candidate to the vacant seat in parliament.
Since Anton Polyakov was elected by the majority vote, it will be possible to take his place through elections in the 206th constituency in the Chernihiv region.
It is worth remembering that earlier, a year before the death of Anton Polyakov, Valery Davydenko, a deputy from the Doverie group, also a native of the Chernihiv region, was found shot dead. Then the by-election was won by the candidate from the "Servant of the People" Anatoly Gunko.
FOREIGN POLICY.
Briefly:
This week, leading Western media outlets actively wrote about the role of Vladimir Zelensky and his entourage in the Pandora Dossier, revealing the offshore schemes of high-ranking politicians and officials of a number of states. The fact that the President of Ukraine was given special attention in this matter in the Western media is not accidental. This circumstance testifies to the continuation of the trend of dissatisfaction among Western partners with the sabotage of reforms aimed at strengthening external dependence (primarily judicial reform and corporate governance reform) on the part of the Ukrainian leadership. Earlier, within the framework of the same trend, the Western elites openly (through the mouth of the Bulgarian journalist Hristo Grozev) threatened the Office of the President of Ukraine with an early publication of an investigation into the “Wagnerian case”.
Another tendency that manifested itself in the outgoing week is the struggle between "financiers" and "digitalists" in the depths of the liberal part of the American political elite. The media campaign of condemnation of the social network Facebook in the American press, which even reached the Congress and combined with the largest disruption in the work of the social network in recent years, looks not as a "coincidence", but as a blow by "financiers" on "digital people", designed to demonstrate to the latter their vulnerability and force to go to a backstage agreement.
1. Published an investigation into the "Pandora's dossier". Vladimir Zelensky is one of his defendants.
On October 3, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which is funded by one of the George Soros foundations, published the so-called "Pandora Dossier". It includes information about the involvement of the leaders of the countries in offshore schemes. Among other things, information about Vladimir Zelensky appears in the investigation[16] .
Prior to publication, the consortium described the investigation as its biggest ever exposure of financial secrets. The dossier used reports from more than 600 journalists from 117 countries and data from more than 11.9 million files obtained as a result of the leak.
Speaking about the true motives of the authors of the investigation, one cannot fail to note several interesting facts. In addition to being funded by the George Soros Foundation, the "independent investigative journalists" are strikingly disclosing data primarily from offshore jurisdictions traditionally under British control. For example, the British Virgin Islands. Thus, "independent" (of course, in quotation marks) investigative journalists undermine the stability and profitability of the very "British hidden financial empire", which was actively talked about by the world media after Braxit as Britain's main resource for returning to the circle of great powers.
At the same time, offshore companies traditionally supervised by American financial capital abroad are not included in the investigation. But the southern, traditionally "republican" states of the USA appear. Thus, the authors of the "Pandora Dossier" report tens of millions of dollars that have been moved from European and Caribbean offshores to South Dakota.[17] . The consortium says South Dakota, Nevada and more than a dozen other states have emerged as leaders in providing financial secrecy, while law enforcement agencies around the world are investigating the Bahamas, Caymans and other traditional offshore havens.
Thus, the political background of the investigation is clear. Liberal financiers, once again, are trying to put the pig on a resurgent conservative (whether British or American).
But what is remarkable about this for the Ukrainian man in the street is that this time the President of our country Volodymyr Zelensky and his entourage fell under the "hot hand" of the investigators. According to the British edition of The Guardian, the published files show that Zelensky was involved in an extensive network of offshore companies co-owned by his longtime friends and partners in the television business. Among them are Sergey Shefir, who produced the Zelensky show, and Shefir's older brother Boris, who wrote the scripts. Another member of the team is childhood friend Ivan Bakanov. Bakanov was the general director of the Kvartal 95 production studio. The fourth member of this close-knit group is Andrei Yakovlev, film director and producer of Kvartal 95[18] .
Before becoming president, Vladimir Zelensky declared part of his personal assets. These included cars, property and three jointly owned offshore companies. The first of these, Film Heritage, which he owned with his wife Elena, is registered in Belize.
But the dossier also shows other offshore assets that Zelenskiy did not appear to disclose. Film Heritage owned 25% of the Cypriot holding company Davegra. Davegra, in turn, owns Maltex Multicapital Corp, a previously unknown company registered in the tax haven of the British Virgin Islands (BVI). Zelensky, brothers Shefir and Yakovlev each owned 25% of Maltex shares.
According to the documents, on March 13, 2019, two weeks before the first round of voting in the elections in Ukraine, Zelenskiy transferred a quarter of Maltex's stake to Serhiy Shefir. It is unclear whether Shefir paid Zelenskiy. Bakanov witnessed this secret transfer and signed the offshore papers.
About six weeks later, after Zelensky's convincing victory, a lawyer from the Kvartal 95 group signed another document. It stipulated that Maltex will continue to pay dividends to Zelensky's film company, even if it no longer owns a stake in the company.
In other words, there is a possibility that the current president of Ukraine, already in office, continued to receive dividends from the offshore company and, contrary to the law, did not declare them.
In addition, the investigation allowed journalists to assume that the offshore companies surrounding the current president were used to withdraw funds from PrivatBank during the period when it belonged to the oligarch Igor Kolomoisky. Considering the criminal cases against Kolomoisky in the United States, this is a much more serious charge.
In our opinion, there are two reasons why the "independent investigators" feeding off Soros raised the issue of Zelenskiy's offshores, and the leading Western media picked it up:
First, Washington is tired of Zelensky's sabotage of transferring Ukraine's judicial system under external control. The Americans are demanding control over the courts "yesterday" and not "sometime later." Added to this are a number of other requirements for the Ukrainian leadership: on the reform of corporate governance, the adoption of a new law on the Security Service of Ukraine, etc.
Secondly, the United States and Western Europe are frankly fed up with the foreign policy rudeness of Ukrainian politicians, which Zelensky himself recently called "an impudent foreign policy." Apparently, Western leaders have decided to respond to the harsh public criticism of the Ukrainian president.
In this situation, Bankova chose a fairly simple, but partly effective defense tactic: to keep silent about the offshore story in the mainstream media controlled by the government and to whitewash the president with the help of purchased opinion leaders on social networks who claim that “offshore is normal ".
2. Large-scale failure of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsUp.
This week has shown the world how fragile it is to dominate the virtual space, which seemed unshakable.
On the evening of October 4, information appeared that Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp stopped working due to some kind of failure.[19] .
Only the old, previously uploaded feed began to appear on Facebook and Instagram. Messengers were not available. On WhatsApp, messages were sent but never received. It was also impossible to make an audio or video call.
Everything described happened after 18:30 Kiev time. After a few minutes, users began to observe a slowdown in the work of TikTok, Telegram, Twitter, Google services, Amazon.
The fact is that users migrated to these services to continue communication, which is why they could not withstand the influx of audience.
Downdetector crash tracking resource showed that the largest telecom providers in Europe and Russia began to experience problems. Rostelecom said it was fixing problems in the foreign sector, but its network was stable. At the same time, the failure in the Internet did not affect radio stations, telephones and broadcasting.
Facebook, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, said it was aware of the problem. Zuckerberg's employees initially promised to restore the services as soon as possible. But in the end, the case dragged on for seven hours.
It was not possible to fix the problem quickly, because there were problems even with physical access to the workplace in the office - electronic passes stopped working. The media write that the company's employees had to use a grinder to break into jobs.
Even the White House commented on the situation. Jen Psaki said the country's leadership is monitoring the global disruption.
Industry experts are already saying this is Facebook's biggest problem since 2008 - in 13 years. Then the social network "lay" for almost a day. But at that time, few people noticed this - this service was not yet very popular. FB recovered only closer to two o'clock in the morning in Kiev.
As a result of the incident, it was stated that the cause of the incident was a failure in the operation of the routers.
However, from our point of view, the failure of Facebook and other major social networks could have much deeper causes than ordinary people assume and announces the technology corporation itself.
On the eve of this event, the publication "The Wall Street Journal" published a number of documents of the corporation Facebook, confirming that the company knew about the "destructive influence of social networks on the psyche of people", as well as on politics and crime in entire countries. Leading American media spread this information, and a few days later there was a failure. And what is characteristic, during it, some "unknown hackers" began to offer on the darknet a database of 1.5 billion Facebook users.
In the immediate aftermath of the crash, former Facebook employee Frances Haugen, who accused the largest social network of inciting hatred for profit on the eve of a global disruption, delivered a denunciation speech to Congress[20] . Most likely, this is far from a coincidence.
The background for what is happening is that the American "financiers" (elites associated with bank capital) from the Democratic Party are at war with the "digital elite" wishing to seize control of the liberal part of the world. Under these conditions, it is profitable for them to "reset" all the "magic" of techno giants overnight, at least for a while. To nullify their power over the masses, steal their data, and start spreading it. And then blame corporations for not keeping track of data security and subject them to harsh regulation.
Probably, it is this process that we will observe in the foreseeable future.
3. The Minister of Defense of Taiwan said that by 2025 the PRC will be ready to annex the island by force.
China will be ready for a full-scale invasion of Taiwan by 2025. At least, the island's defense minister is convinced of this, describing the current tensions as the strongest in 40 years.[21] .
On Wednesday, Chiu Go-Cheng, in an interview with the China Times, said that China is capable of an invasion now, but will be fully prepared for it in three years.
“By 2025, China will reduce costs to a minimum. Now he has opportunities, but it is not easy for him to start a war, given many other factors, ”he said.
Beijing has sent about 150 combat aircraft into Taiwan's air defense zone over four days, starting Friday, when China celebrated a key patriotic holiday. As a result, the other day there was a record escalation of military activity in the gray zone near the island.
Beijing claims Taiwan is a province of China, promises to return it by force if necessary, and accuses the island's government of being separatist. The Taiwan government, in turn, declares that the island is a sovereign state that does not need to declare independence. On Tuesday, Taiwan's President Tsai Ying-Wen wrote that Taiwan would not be an "adventurer" but would do "everything possible" to protect itself.
While there are growing speculations that China may take aggressive steps against Taiwan, the timing and nature of such action is being actively discussed by analysts and government officials.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken called Washington's commitment to cooperation with Taiwan "solid as a rock", describing China's military activities around the island as "provocative" and "destabilizing." However, what the price of America's "firm commitment to cooperation" is, we recently saw in the example of Afghanistan.
The complexity of the situation around Taiwan is due to the fact that for the People's Republic of China the island state remains, so to speak, an "open gestalt." It was there that the opponents of the Chinese Communists in the civil war, the Kuomintang Party, fled.
Contrary to the claims of Western media, the Taiwanese regime can hardly be called "democratic." Rather, it resembles the Singapore or South Korean dictatorship of the late 20th century, when the capitalist economy in these states was combined with the most severely centralized and cruelly punishing system of power for the slightest offenses.
In the context of the new Cold War against China, the United States is seeking to use Taiwan as a "deterrent" at the side of the enemy. This, in turn, further provokes Beijing to an early "final solution to the Taiwan question." So, talk about a possible military seizure of Taiwan by the PRC is by no means a fantasy. The question is, rather, not whether it will happen, but when it will happen.
ECONOMY
Briefly:
Ukrainian industry and business as such are working on the brink of profitability due to linking the cost of gas for the end consumer to world prices. The production of greenhouse plants in Ukraine is already in question this year.
The Ukrainian authorities are resisting the disclosure of the ultimate beneficiaries of legal entities, citing insufficient bandwidth of the registration system. As in the case of the launch of electronic declarations, this reform will be completed under external pressure from Western partners.
The Ukrainian state will lose at least three seaports in the next two years, despite numerous lawsuits affecting them. This testifies to the desire of the relevant officials to quickly sell the state property, not caring about the price at which this property will be sold to private hands.
1. After record highs, the price of gas in Europe fell below $ 1,000.
On October 7, the price for gas in Europe for the first time in several days did not renew the record, but, on the contrary, began to decline. Now it reaches below $ 1,000 per thousand cubic meters. This is evidenced by data published on the website of the world's largest gas market operator ICE Futures[22] . Apparently, the market was influenced by yesterday's assurances from V. Putin about his readiness to meet the growing demand for gas in the EU. As well as rumors about the imminent launch of Nord Stream 2.
Some energy-intensive companies are temporarily shutting down because they are no longer paying for themselves[23] . German ammonia producer SKW Stickstoffwerke Piesteritz GmbH reportedly said on Tuesday it would cut production by 20% to offset rising gas prices (the company burns 640 gigawatt hours of natural gas annually). "There is no point in producing ammonia at this price level. If the government does not take action, a complete halt in production is inevitable," said the company's executive director, Petr Singr. In addition, in September, fertilizer producer CF Industries Holding stopped work at two plants in the UK for the same reason - high gas prices. At the same time, the Austrian company Borealis AG and the Norwegian chemical company Yara International ASA also cut production volumes. The EU added that they will indicate measures, including tax cuts and state subsidies, which governments can use to help.
At the same time, Bloomberg, citing experts, emphasizes that the longer the crisis lasts, the more likely it is that there will be a total shortage of energy supplies.[24] . Gas prices at the main European hub TTF soared by 40% on October 6 and set a new record - almost $ 2,000 per thousand cubic meters.
2. Expensive gas hits the greenhouse industry in Ukraine, as well as other food industries in the country.
The price of gas for greenhouse enterprises in Ukraine reaches 40 thousand hryvnia per thousand cubic meters, including taxes and delivery. This price makes the greenhouse economy unprofitable this season. The gas price should be at least 30 thousand hryvnia per thousand cubic meters so that these enterprises do not become unprofitable.
By the end of the year, chicken will add another 5-10% in price. Eggs, which are currently in purchase for 22-23 hryvnias, will cost 29-30 hryvnias per ten by December.
Bread, sugar, sunflower oil, dairy and meat products, greenhouse vegetables - everything will skyrocket in price. Where there is heat treatment, there is gas, and its price is now simply shocking. Therefore, if at the end of August, we had inflation of 10.2%, then I think it will be at least 14-15% for a year. Record gas prices will affect the cost of food products in September-October.
Sugar production in Ukraine is also becoming unprofitable due to high gas prices, threatening increased unemployment, social instability, and flooding of the market with cheap imports. Entrepreneurs complain about the lack of any government support, such as a special VAT regime and subsidies.
Sugar and sunflower oil prices increased by almost 100% over the year[25] . Average food prices in September this year compared to September 2020 increased by 14.3%. 90% of large and most small bakery enterprises use gas for the production of bread and bakery products. At the same time, in the structure of energy consumption of enterprises of the industry, 60% is gas, and electricity - 40%. According to the State Statistics Service of Ukraine, incomes of the population amounted to 1.08 trillion hryvnia, and expenses - 1.17 trillion hryvnia. The reduction in savings amounted to 86.5 billion hryvnia. Disposable income per person amounted to UAH 18,969.
3. Ukraine's international reserves fell sharply due to debt payments.
On October 7, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) published an article on its official website that Ukraine's international reserves in September decreased by 9.2%, taking into account the passage of the period of peak payments on external obligations of the state[26] .
In general, the following factors determined the dynamics of reserves during September:
● first, public debt management operations. The total volume of payments by the government for servicing and repaying public debt in foreign currency amounted to $ 2,557 million. USA. In particular, USD 2,521,100,000 was allocated for servicing and redemption of external government bonds (OVDPs), and USD 2,100,000 for servicing domestic government bonds (OVDPs).
Foreign exchange earnings in favor of the government from the placement of government bonds amounted to USD 216.9 million;
● secondly, revaluation of financial instruments (due to changes in market value and exchange rates). Last month, their value decreased by $ 202 million;
● third, the operations of the National Bank in the interbank foreign exchange market . In September, the supply of foreign currency in the interbank foreign exchange market predominantly exceeded demand. This allowed the National Bank to redeem USD 146.6 million in reserves. At the same time, on a separate day of the month, the demand in the market exceeded supply, therefore, in order to smooth out devaluation fluctuations, the central bank sold 7 million US dollars.
Ukraine continues to be a country of peripheral capitalism, being in an endless cycle of repayment of debts to external creditors in foreign currency, which means that the national currency will not strengthen significantly in the coming years.
4. Ukrainian legal entities will not be fined for not disclosing the ultimate beneficiaries for another couple of months.
On October 8, ex-people's deputy Vitaly Ilyashenko on his Facebook page confirmed that the Verkhovna Rada voted to postpone the declaration of the ultimate beneficiaries of legal entities for 9 months instead of two months, as stated by the Minister of Justice Denis Malyuska. The voted bill is awaiting the signature of the head of the Verkhovna Rada and the president.
As a reminder, on October 7, Justice Minister Denis Malyuska said on his Facebook page that Ukrainian legal entities, at least in October and November, will not be fined for failure to provide information on the ultimate beneficial owners.[27] . This decision is related to the throughput of the registration system. So, in Ukraine there are more than a million legal entities, of which only 171 thousand submitted information. "Missing the deadline will be due to objective reasons," the minister explained. Finally, the problem should be solved by bill # 5807, which is now being considered by the Verkhovna Rada. In it, the timing of the submission of information was changed. And as D. Malyuska explained, even if the president does not have time to sign the law by October 11, the protocols will not be drawn up anyway. The provision of information occurs within three months from the date of approval of the relevant regulatory legal act (until October 11). According to the draft law, they want to extend the term to 1 year (until July 11).
Deoligarchization slows down due to the general disinterest of the Ukrainian system of power in it. As in the case of the introduction of electronic declarations, the Ukrainian government will in every possible way delay and resist this process, but under pressure from Western partners, it will eventually complete this reform as well.
5. Two Ukrainian seaports are ready for privatization this year.
On October 7, an article appeared on the official website of the State Property Fund of Ukraine (SPFU) that two Ukrainian ports are ready for privatization this year, and the third one next[28] . Deputy Chairman of the Foundation Taras Yeleiko, during an online discussion organized by the Kyiv Post on the topic “Ukraine's infrastructure needs: what is the cost?”, Specified the names of the data: Ust-Dunaisk, Skadovskiy and Belgorod-Dnestrovskiy seaports.
According to him, the port of Ust-Dunaisk will be ready for auction in October this year, and the port of Belgorod-Dnestrovsky by the end of 2021. As for the Skadovsk Sea Trade Port, its privatization should be expected next year. Also, Deputy Chairman of the State Property Fund Taras Eleiko focused on the fact that all ports are united by the same problem that affects the preparation of these objects for auctions - overload with lawsuits, arrests and various obligations.
Considering that all ports are involved in numerous litigations, all of them will be sold at a much lower price. The unfavorable pricing environment will lead to the fact that Ukraine will lose a significant part of its port infrastructure, depriving the state of the opportunity to earn and fill the budget on its own, further exacerbating the pressure on private business to fill the state budget.
Edited by:
Ruslan Bortnik,
Daniil Bogatyrev.
Authors:
Daniil Bogatyrev,
Oksana Krasovskaya,
Andrey Timchenko.
[1] https://www.unn.com.ua/ru/news/1947169-rada-vidpravila-razumkova-u-vidstavku-z-posadi-spikera
[2] https://t.me/vestiukr/21735
[3] /glavcom.ua/ru/news/glava-verhovnogo-suda-uhodit-v-otstavku-789585.html
[4] https://news.obozrevatel.com/society/vyisshij-sovet-pravosudiya-uvolil-dvuh-sudej-verhovnogo-suda-nazvanyi-familii.htm
