Ukraine is fighting in many fronts, IT drives export, Russian oil income crashes, ban Russian athletes

Ukraine is truly fighting on every front

Talk of the last weeks, besides the war, is definitely the topic of corruption. Is it or isn't it? Is it really the beginning of the true fight against corruption, or is it like Ukrainians joked before - "like fishing in Discovery Channel - you catch it, show it and let it go".

Justice reform has been one of the most critical reforms demanded by Ukrainian people, businesses, foreign investors, and donors. You have to know that your rights and assets would be protected in court if something happens. Meanwhile, only every 4th Ukrainian trusts in courts, and I can understand why. The justice reform, which attempted to kick off in 2015 is now starting to show its first "fruits." Still, a long way to go, but this week we saw the true battle with "inner enemies" as Ukrainians call the corrupt businessmen and civil servants. Several deputy ministers were fired, as well as heads of regional administration, specially dedicated bodies of fighting high-level corruption announced its 100th sentence, sending the former prosecutor of the Prosecutor Generals Office Dmytro Sus to jail for 9 years and Security Services have been paying special visits and attention to possibly corrupt officials. And even to the notorious oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi. That all culminated with a possible shift of Minister of Defence Oleksii Reznikov to lead another Ministry or just be replaced. There were no charges against him but any shadow on reputation in the time of war is not acceptable.?

As well, a special group of US government auditors has arrived to audit the aid provided by States and the initial verdict is that "no misuse has been detected".

People are truly supporting this fight, and winning the fight against corruption is one of the most expected achievements from the government. Since Maidan in 2015, Ukraine has managed to raise in Corruption Perception Index from 131 place to 116 place but I am sure all the processes will speed up with Ukraine wanting to join the EU as soon as possible. I love my Ukraine and I want it to come out of the war stronger on every front, and I believe it will. I believe in the people of Ukraine.

Btw, talking about the people of Ukraine. In October 2022 Mayor of Dnipro was offered the biggest bribe in Ukrainian history disclosed so far - 22 million dollars. Mayor, who was before becoming a politician a very popular anti-corruption journalist, obviously informed the dedicated legislative organs. Now Filatov has made an official request to donate 10% of the disclosure fee he is entitled to the account of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.?

IT drives the export of Ukraine

Meanwhile, IT continues to be the driver of export of Ukraine, managing to continue the annual increase even despite the war. Export of IT services grew by 6%, reaching $7.4 billion in 2022. The amount of taxes paid to the budget increased by 16% and the headcount of the sector reached 282 000, being the second biggest in Europe after Poland. Meanwhile, according to Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov, 5 more countries what to export the government services app Dia. See more.

Russian oil export crushes

Oil sanctions and (somewhat) price cap continues doing its job and according to CREA Russia is losing $160-180M daily. Although, I will keep on repeating that the cap is by half too high. Anyways, on February 5th also oil products were hit with sanctions and now we are starting to get somewhere. One year into war, sadly. The maximum price for premium-to-crude products will be $100 per barrel and the maximum price for discount-to-crude will be $45 per barrel. “We expect the collapse of profits from oil and gas exports to be at more than 50%, precisely because of the introduction of the EU embargo on oil and petroleum products and the introduction of price restrictions. Oil and gas account for 60% and 40% of federal budget revenues. We expect that Russia’s revenues will fall below the critical level of $40B per quarter,” Yuliya Svyrydenko, First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy of Ukraine, has said. She has expressed hope that plunging profits will make it more difficult for Russia to continue waging an expansive war.

Russia is already living off its savings, using the money from National Wealth Fund and selling off yuans.?

Russian oligarch dollars converted to Ukraine

On the positive note, the first precedent was set and US courts allowed confiscation of assets from Russian oligarch and handing them over to Ukraine. The first precedent was set with confiscation of assets from the Konstantin Malofeyev who might be called probably the "extreme-Putinist" with his pro-Putin and pro Russian Orthodox Christianity media group Tsargrad. In 2020 YouTube blocked the channel and rightfully so. The assets may be used by US government "to help to rebuild Ukraine".

Sure, this amount is very small but it is rather important to set the precedent so that bigger amounts can follow. So far, according to different estimates, the losses of Ukraine are up to $750B while the war continues. This amount can be compared to 4 annual GDPs of Ukraine.

And the picture of the week is dedicated to those who say that Russian sports is not in politics. Russian athlets are directly financed from Russian budget by terrorist regime and are part of its propaganda. So, if sports is not into politics, then this is exactly reason why Russian and Belorussian athletes SHOULD be excluded from all the international competitions.