Prisoner swap, arrest of Medvedchuk's property, and resumption of business: Highlights on war as of April 14

Author

Yulia Ustymovych

The 50th day of the war against Russian invaders continues in Ukraine. has compiled business, political and economic news that will help you learn more about the situation in the country that has been fighting for its right to exist for more than a month.

The major developments of the day are:

The charitable initiative Seeds for Ukraine, aimed at raising funds and planting material for growing vegetables in the conditions of the Russian military invasion of Ukraine, got a batch of seeds worth $500,000 from a European company, KSE President Tymofiy Milovanov reported on Facebook.

On Thursday, April 14, the fourth war prisoner swap between Ukraine and the Russian Federation took place, Deputy Prime Minister — Minister for the Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine Iryna Vereshchuk reported. "By order of President Zelenskyy, another, fourth war prisoner swap took place today. 5 officers and 17 privates were exchanged. 8 civilians were also released, including 1 woman. In total, 30 of our citizens are going home today," Vereshchuk reported.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine attacked the enemy cruiser Moskva with two missiles from the Neptune Coastal Missile System (CMS). The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation reported that as a result of a fire on the missile cruiser Moskva ammunition exploded, the ship was seriously damaged. Turkish media report that the ship could sink at any moment. According to them, 54 sailors from the cruiser were rescued by a Turkish ship.

Politics

The Ministry of Youth and Sports claims that 40% of young people in Ukraine have suffered from Russia's armed aggression. "More than 2 million young people have become internally displaced and about 2 million more have gone abroad. 53% of Ukrainians do not work today, of which 60% are young people under 35," the press service of the Ministry of Youth and Sports said in a statement.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba is convinced that the situation with the visit of German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier to Ukraine will be resolved through diplomatic channels and will not harm Ukrainian-German relations. He stressed that Ukraine stands for relations that are built on mutual respect and building a new German policy towards Ukraine under the current circumstances.
Ireland is in favor of including an oil embargo in the sixth package of sanctions against the Russian Federation, Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said. He noted that Ireland had allocated more than 20 million euros of humanitarian aid to Ukraine and would allocate 33 million euros of military assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Coveney also said that Ireland is in favor of Ukraine's accession to the EU to happen as quickly as possible. He also said that about 23,000 Ukrainians came to Ireland over the war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine. Coveney became the first foreign minister to visit Kyiv during wartime.
The court arrested another 154 pieces of movable and immovable property belonging to the family of the leader of the Opposition Platform for Life (OPFL) and Putin’s crony Viktor Medvedchuk, who had been detained the day before, and his wife Oksana Marchenko.
Turkey will adhere to restrictive measures against Russia if they are approved at the UN level, the Anadola news agency reports, citing Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. "Turkey will follow all the restrictions agreed and approved at the UN level," the agency quoted him as saying. Cavusoglu added that Turkey's actions in this area are based on international law.
The Verkhovna Rada, during a meeting on Thursday, passed a resolution approving a statement recognizing the actions of the Russian army in Ukraine as genocide of the Ukrainian people, according to the map of the draft resolution on the website of the Parliament.

Economy

The National Bank of Ukraine at a scheduled meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee decided to keep the discount rate at 10%, given the ongoing war in the country unleashed by Russia. "It was decided to postpone consideration of the issue of changing the discount rate. Under the current conditions, the impact of the key policy rate on the functioning of the money market and the FX market remains limited. With this in mind, the key policy rate will stay flat at 10% until monetary transmission channels are effective again," the NBU said in a statement.
For the period from mid-March to April 13, Ukrainian banking institutions provided loans to farmers under the state program to support the 2022 sowing campaign for a total of 5.43 billion UAH. Farmers from the Kirovohrad, Vinnytsia, Dnepropetrovsk, Odesa, and Lviv regions raised more loans for sowing. The total budget of this program in support of the 2022 sowing campaign is 50 billion UAH.

Business

The company Tet, Latvian IT integrator, offers Ukrainian businesses free data storage services on the Tet Cloud cloud platform whose physical servers are located in Riga. The company offers cloud resources for Ukrainian entrepreneurs free of charge for at least 60 days and, if necessary, is ready to look for individual solutions for a specific business and extend the free period. In addition, for Ukrainians who are forced to seek asylum in Latvia, there is the option of employment in accordance with open job vacancies, as well as support where Ukrainian families are hosted, where children are provided with equipment and optical Internet.
Comfy, the chain of electronics and home appliances, opened 67 out of 97 stores. On Wednesday, April 13, the store of the Respublika Park shopping center (Kyiv) resumed its work, Comfy CEO Ihor Khyzhniak told the Interfax-Ukraine news agency. According to him, the company is also trying to open some of the stores in Kharkiv when it is safe for employees and customers.
Bolt is launching a service in Drohobych, Truskavets, Mukachevo, and Kamianets-Podilskyi from April 14, the company's press service said on Thursday. Currently, the Bolt service is already available in 28 cities of Ukraine.

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