Daily Digest: Top stories from Monday, Nov. 12 - Nov. 12, 2018

Elections staged in parts of eastern Ukraine occupied by Russian and Russian-backed proxy forces on Nov. 11 were held in breach of the Minsk peace protocols, reports Euan MacDonald. Kremlin-backed occupiers staged the widely criticized elections in occupied parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, formally installing leaders into power that were earlier put in place there. The OSCE was not permitted to monitor the vote and it was widely condemned by Ukraine’s western allies, who broadly labelled it a sham election. There is no way to independently verify the reported results of the elections and Ukraine has said it will not recognize them.
“Ukraine can count on the United States,” was the message that U.S. Secretary of State for Energy Rick Perry brought with him to Kyiv on Nov. 12, reports Bermet Talant. Perry, a close ally of U.S. President Donald Trump and a former presidential hopeful himself, was in town to reaffirm Washington’s support for Kyiv: he announced that President Trump would sign a memorandum on energy security with Ukraine and said that the U.S. would continue to oppose Russia’s Nord Stream 2 and TurkStream gas pipelines, seen as a serious threat in Kyiv. “The citizens of Europe, the citizens of Ukraine in particular, should never be held hostage by a single source of energy,” said Perry.
A suspect has been detained by the authorities investigating the murder of Kherson activist Kateryna Gandziuk, reports Bermet Talant. The Office of the Prosecutor General said on Nov. 12 that they had detained Igor Pavlovsky, a former aide to the lawmaker Mykola Palamarchuk, on suspicion of aiding and abetting in the murder of Gandizuk who died in hospital on Nov. 4, after three months in hospital following an acid attack. Pavlovsky has been denied bail while the investigation continues.
Ukrainian intelligence claim that citizens in the Donbas region received threatening text messages as the occupation authorities there staged elections that have been widely labelled an illegal sham. A spokesman for the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, Dmytro Hutsuliak, said on Nov. 11 that some residents of Donbas got threatening texts while others, especially pensioners, were given incentives that included food packages to go out and vote.
The European Union could impose new sanctions on Russia, in response to the elections staged in the occupied territories of the Donbas on Nov. 11, an EU spokesperson said on Nov. 12.
Hungary will continue to give passports to citizens of Ukrainian Zakarpattya, but on its territory, according to Hennadiy Moskal, Governor of the Zakarpattya Regional Administration. Passports will be issued in the Hungarian city of Kisvárda, situated near the border with Ukraine. Moskal said in a television interview that he sympathized and understood why Ukrainian citizens find the idea of a Hungarian passport attractive and that it was difficult for the authorities here to prevent them trying to get one.
The Ukrainian government will connect rural schools to the internet and has allocated about $107 million for this, according to President Petro Poroshenko. “I will initiate the allocation of Hr 3 billion for the connection of rural schools to the Internet next year,” he said at an official meeting, as reported by Interfax Ukraine. “If we lay the Internet cable for telemedicine in rural medicine, then it is obvious that both the school and the village council should have high-speed Internet,” he added.
Ukraine has spent about $1.79 billion on road construction projects in 2018, Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan said on Nov. 12, as reported by his ministry’s press service. Ukraine, the largest country in Europe, has over 170,000 km of interconnected roads and highways but much of the network is in urgent need of repair.
A Kuwaiti development fund is ready to invest in Ukrainian cancer treatment with a loan towards projects that are focused on medical procedures like bone marrow transplantation, according to a government press release published by Liga business news on Nov. 12. The Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development is reportedly interested in funding such areas of medicine and Ukrainian lawmakers are keen to make more treatments available in Ukraine as they strive to reduce the number of citizens who feel the need to go abroad for particular treatments.
Ukraine’s walnut exports grew 18 percent in September and October when compared to the same period last year, says a Nov. 12 article published on the analytical platform EastFruit that tracks such data. The export of frozen berries and vegetables from Ukraine is also substantially up. According to EastFruit, 31,300 tons of frozen berries and fruits were exported by Ukraine from June to October this year, a 32 percent increase over the same period last year.