Equator of Chairmanship
UKRAINE has for more than six months held the presidency of the OSCE - the world’s largest regional security organization that unites 57 countries. “Of course, the middle of the year is not the time for the final assessments of the results of our presidency. They can be assessed after the holding of
the 20th OSCE ministerial meeting in Kyiv this December. But OSCE presidency in the first half of the year has already proved that Ukraine is properly performing this responsible mission,” OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Leonid Page 2 Kozhara said in the Day newspaper.
also in this issue:
Artek to host OSCE Children and Youth Summit Page 2
Ukraine, Russia to jointly produce An124 Ruslan aircraft Page 4
Ukrainian Astronomer Discovers a New Comet Page 5
Ukraine Digest, Thursday, July 18, 2013
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diplomacy
UKRAINIAN YEAR OF THE OSCE: THE EQUATOR OF CHAIRMANSHIP
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kraine’s presidency starts preparing for the 20th OSCE ministerial meeting. “In less than six months, the foreign ministers of the 57 OSCE participating states and 11 partner countries in cooperation will gather in Kyiv for the jubilee, 20th OSCE ministerial meeting,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister and OSCE Chairperson-inOffice Leonid Kozhara said in an article “Ukrainian Year
of the OSCE: The Equator of Chairmanship” in the Day newspaper. He stressed that the proposals of Ukraine on the event will reflect the priorities of the chairmanship in all three dimensions of security, including the settlement of conflicts, the principles of non-proliferation, cyber security, the impact of energy activity on the environment, the fight against trafficking in human beings and promoting the Helsinki +40 process.
Artek to host OSCE Children and Youth Summit
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kraine as the OSCE Chair initiated a children and youth forum, which will take place at Crimeanbased international children’s resort “Artek” July 20 to August 1 this year. Director of the Informa-
tion Policy Department of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry Yevhen Perebyinis announced this at a briefing in Kyiv on July 16. “The OSCE Children and Youth Summit is one of the key events of the Ukrainian presidency in the Organization in our
Leonid Kozhara, Ukrainian Foreign Minister: “An indisputable achievement of Ukraine’s presidency is a significant intensification at our initiative of discussions on energy security in the OSCE”
Speaking about the achievement of Ukraine’s chairmanship of the OSCE the Minister noted intensification of energy security discussions. “Before 2013 the energy security issue was actually on the periphery of the interests of the OSCE,” Kozhara said, adding that Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow had jointly initiated the OSCE high-level conference
on energy security, which is to be held in Ashgabat this October. The initiative aroused considerable interest and support among the OSCE member countries. “We expect the conference in Ashgabat to launch the process that will lead to a significant improvement of the OSCE’s international role in the field of energy security,” Kozhara said.
state this year,” he said, adding that the the summit will introduce young people with the activities of the OSCE and existing tools to overcome the challenges and threats to security and stability in the OSCE area of responsibility. The official opening and closing ceremony of the summit will be attended by Leonid Kozhara, honourable representatives of the OSCE as well as other international guests. The event will also see representatives of 43 OSCE member countries, eight partner countries and 13 countries that are perennial participants in the International Children’s Fes-
tival “Change the World for the Better.” The national delegations - in groups of children aged between 12 and 16 years old - will participate at the summit. A delegation of ten children from Great Britain is visiting “Artek” this year as well. Such possibility became reality in big part due to the partnership of the Embassy of Ukraine in London and the Chernobyl Relief Foundation in the UK. The event is organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine and the Ministry of Social Policy with the assistance of the All-Ukrainian Charitable Foundation of Hope and Good. www.ukremb.org.uk
Ukraine Digest, Thursday, July 18, 2013
european integration
Jose Manuel Barroso, European Commission President, expressed his hope that the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU will be signed at the Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius this November
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“
Together with President Komorowski, I wish to see the objective of political association and economic integration with our Eastern partners being achieved. The Ukrainian authorities reaffirmed their commitment to implementing the benchmarks, which could enable a possible signature of the Association Agreement and its Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area by the time of the Vilnius Summit.”
Warsaw, July 11
“ Stefan Fule, European Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighborhood Policy, hopes Vilnius summit will make processes of political association and economic integration of Eastern Partnership countries with EU irreversible
I hope that the summit will approve a promising agenda for Eastern Partnership for the next two years that will make the processes of political association and economic integration between the EU and eastern partners irreversible. Of course, not all of our partners want to move at the same speed. Some countries want to move faster than others. Eastern Partnership is not cloths to fit everyone equally. Our partners can determine themselves what they mean in closer relations with EU.” Batumi, July 12
UKRAINE ASSOCIATION WILL OPEN OPPORTUNITIES FOR EU BUSINESSES Linas Linkevičius, Lithuanian foreign minister, convinced that the EU companies would obtain opportunities of investment in the Ukrainian business and experience certain growth after signing the Association Agreement
T
he Ukraine-EU Association Agreement will provide longterm economic advantages for both Ukraine and the EU, reckoned Lithuanian foreign minister Linas Linkevičius while talking to the BTB TV channel. Following the document signing, the EU companies are expected to experience certain growth, obtain opportunities of investment in the Ukrainian business, and enjoy absence of cus-
tom duties, said the official. 45-million Ukraine constitutes one the largest consumer markets in Europe. In 2012, most investment inflow to the country was attracted by industrial, infrastructure, and agricultural projects. The current turnover between Ukraine and the EU constitutes EUR 40 billion, which is believed to significantly increase after the AA is in force. Namely, the former PACE President Mevlut Cavusoglu estimated the turnover would double after the comprehensive free trade area is introduced, as he stated in June 2013. Signing of the AA would also be beneficial for Ukraine. Ukrainian producers would gain access to 500 million consumers, which is bound to influence Ukraine’s
GDP growth, according to Lithuanian foreign minister Linas Linkevičius. The AA would also provide for more investment and implementation of new standards in the country. Moreover, the document did not imply breaking up Ukraine’s traditional market connections, for example, with Russia, emphasized Linkevičius. He added that Ukraine belonged to Europe not only geographically, but in all other respects. Linkevičius has previously expressed hope that the EU-Ukraine AA would be signed at the Eastern Partnership summit in November 2013 in Vilnius, as reported by lithuaniatribune.com. Just in early July 2013, the Visegrád Group stated their interest in Ukraine’s successful Eu-
ropean integration, namely the AA signing at the Eastern Partnership summit. In June 2013, Luxembourg and Ireland also supported the November signing. The European Commission has already adopted the proposals for decisions of the Council of the EU on the signing and provisional application as well as the conclusion of the EUUkraine AA. The proposals technically enabled the EU to move ahead with the required preparatory arrangements for the signing. At the time, the Commission highlighted that the AA was “the first of a new generation of Association Agreements between the European Union and the Eastern Partnership countries,” unprecedented in the number of areas covered. www.ukremb.org.uk
Ukraine Digest, Thursday, July 18, 2013
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Ukraine, Russia to jointly produce Condor
economy
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krainian and Russian at a meeting in Sochi on July 12 agreed to set up a joint venture for the production of the world’s largest aircraft, the An-124 Ruslan (NATO reporting name: Condor). Yuriy Boyko, Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister, said this in an interview with 5Channel. “It was decided to set up a joint venture to build the An-124 Ruslan, the world’s largest aircraft. We received instructions from the prime ministers of the two countries to sign the founding documents at a meeting of the Ukrainian-Russian committee on economic cooperation this September,” press service quoted Mr Boiko’s as saying. He stressed that such cooperation will stimulate further development of Ukrainian-
Russian cooperation in the aviation industry. The Antonov An-124 Ruslan is commonly used for oversize freight charters. It was designed by the Antonov design bureau in the Ukrainian SSR, then part of the Soviet Union. The An-124 is the world’s largest serially manufactured cargo airplane and world’s second largest operating cargo aircraft, behind the one-off Antonov An-225 (an enlarged variant of the An124). Developed primarily as a strategic military freighter (in which role it can carry missile units and main battle tanks), the first prototype An-124 flew on December 26, 1982. A second prototype, named Ruslan (after a folk hero), made the type’s
first western public appearance at the Paris Airshow in June 1985, preceding the type’s first commercial operations in January 1986. Since that time the An-124 has set a wide range of payload records, a recent achievement being the heaviest single load ever transported by air - a 124 tonne powerplant generator and its associated weight spreading cradle, a total payload weight of 132.4 tonnes, set in late 1993. Numerous reengine studies have also been conducted, including using Rolls-Royce RB-211-524Gs, General Electric CF680s (as the An124-130) and even Aviadvigatel NK93 propfans.
Ukrainian watermelons from Kherson are exported to United Kingdom
The list of countries importing Ukraine’s watermelons this year added the United Kingdom, which already received 21 tons of striped watermelons from Ukraine’s southern
Kherson region. “If earlier watermelons from local melon plantations were supplied mainly to Russia, Belarus and Moldova, so now more and more sup-
plies go to Estonia (835.5 tons), Latvia (379.2 tons), Poland (86.3 tons). The United Kingdom joined the list. Overall, in July local farmers and intermediaries have already exported
POWERPLANTS Four 229.5kN ZMKB Progress D18T turbofans. PERFORMANCE Max cruising speed 865km/h, typical - between 800 and 850km/h. Range with max payload 4500km, range with full fuel load 16,500km.
WEIGHTS Operating empty 175,000kg, max takeoff 405,000kg. DIMENSIONS Wing span 73.30m, length 69.10m, height 20.78m. Wing area 628.0m2. CAPACITY Flightcrew of six consisting of two pilots, two flight engineers, navigator and communications operator. Upper deck area behind the wing accommodates up to 88 passengers. Main deck cargo compartment can carry a range of bulky and oversized cargos. The An-124’s total payload in weight is 150 tonnes.
1,007 tons of watermelons,” chief of Kherson Customs Office Vitaliy Buliuk said. Now, the customs officers prepare documents to send abroad at least two or three trucks with watermelons every day. However, this is not the limit, and after the ripening of late varieties of melons, exports may increase several times, Buliuk predicted. www.ukremb.org.uk
Ukraine Digest, Thursday, July 18, 2013
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space
Ukrainian Astronomer Discovers a New Comet
H
ennadiy Borisov, astronomer at the Crimean Laboratory of the Sternberg Astronomical Institute, spotted a new comet, now marked C/2013 N4 (Borisov). C/2013 N4 is currently traveling through Auriga constellation. Borisov made his discovery during a routine observation of the sky, which he pursues as a hobby. A professional in the area of instrumentation and measurement devices (telescope production and maintenance), Borisov had set his home telescope to take pictures of the dawn sky and then ran the pictures on his computer as animation. The animated images allow to spot movement, which was how in the early morning of July 9, 2013, Borisov noticed the moving comet, now named after him. “The most amazing thing [about Bo-
risov’s discovery - ed.] is that he beat the automated surveys to the punch. These days nearly all comets and many asteroids are found by professional astronomers using robotic telescopes hooked up to sensitive cameras and computers,” notes Bob King in his piece dedicated to the news for universetoday.com. Reportedly, Borisov is the first comet discovered from the territory of Ukraine during the two decades of the country’s independence. At first, Borisov could not believe the unidentified object was actually a new discovery, so he checked and rechecked with the databases, as he told Astro Channel in an exclusive interview. After the discovery was supported by the participants of an astronomic gettogether taking place on the premises of the Crimean lab, Borisov submitted his data to the Minor Planet Center in
Ukraine sends application for international space conference in 2016
Cambridge, USA. Detailed information on the new comet and its route is available at the official website of the center. The comet is expected to slowly brighten as it approaches its closest point to the sun. On August 20, the distance between the comet and the central star of the Solar System will shorten down to 182.7 million kilometers, reports universetoday.com. C/2013 N4 will pass the Earth on August 11, 310 million kilometers away from our planet. Interestingly, 21 novae in M31 (Andromeda Galaxy) were discovered at the Crimean Laboratory of the Sternberg Astronomical Institute between 1969 and 1989.
UKRAINE has submitted a bid to host the International Astronautical Conference 2016. Prime Minister Mykola Azarov announced this on July 10 during a meeting with Executive Director of the International Astronautical Federation (IAF) Christian Feichtinger. “I want to thank you for
For more information, please, contact Oksana Kyzyma, Press Secretary of the Embassy of Ukraine to the UK
accepting Ukraine’s application to host the International Astronautical Conference in 2016 in Kyiv,” Azarov said. He emphasized that Ukraine has a developed aerospace industry, in particular, it implements a programme for the development of space industry till 2020 and joint projects with Russia and Brazil.
Tel.: 020 7727 6312 E-mail: press@ukremb.org.uk Address: 60 Holland Park, London W11 3SJ
Issue #17, July 18, 2013 In the preparation of this issue materials of UKRINFORM were used