Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada MP Oleh Tsaryov reported on various major news in Ukraine on April 8th.

Today is the professional holiday of the staff of the Military Mobilization and Conscription Committees in Ukraine, celebrating the personnel of military committees. It is hard to notice the public rejoicing or presenting flowers and gifts to the military committees. Meanwhile, Yurii Kovaliuk, head of a department at the Military Committee in Dubynskyi district of Rivne Oblast, unexpectedly made some remarks that might cost him his career. According to him, since the beginning of the war, Ukraine's human resources calculations have been incorrect. The actual manpower is far less than expected, but people are still being sent to the battlefield continuously. He personally participated in the battle of Artemivsk, was injured there, and confirmed the massive losses. Now, Kovaliuk said he would not let his 22-year-old son be conscripted. He also frankly admitted that he had been dissuading young men aged 18 to 24 from joining the army, as it meant certain death.

The funded Ukrainian media "Economic Truth" reported that this year, Ukraine once again faced the situation of insufficient funds allocated to the army in the national budget. According to the media, funds originally planned for paying soldiers' salaries at the end of the year were already being used in the first month of the year to purchase ammunition, drones, and other weapons. Therefore, by August, additional budget expenditures will have to be increased to ensure soldiers receive their pay. Last year, the parliament took unprecedented measures to raise taxes to allocate an extra 500 billion hryvnias. However, after the relevant report was released, the Ministry of Finance stated that there would be no problem with soldiers' salaries, as the budget had already reserved funds for this purpose.

Romanian presidential candidate and former Prime Minister Victor Ponta promised that if elected, he would stop Ukrainian grain exports through Romanian Black Sea ports. He stated that due to policies favoring Ukrainian grain access to port facilities in recent years, Romanian farmers have suffered significant losses. At the same time, he promised to continue other aid to Ukraine, especially arms transportation. On the other hand, Polish Law and Justice Party presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki claimed that Polish farmers and transport companies face unfair competition from Ukraine, and Zelenskyy showed disrespect to the Polish state.

Meanwhile, Zelenskyy appointed a new Ukrainian ambassador to the Netherlands. The new ambassador is former Prosecutor General Kostiantyn Klimkin, who resigned last October due to a scandal involving forged disability certificates for prosecutors. By the way, a new prosecutor general has yet to be appointed since then. Additionally, ambassadors to China, Norway, Finland, Kazakhstan, and Lebanon have been appointed. The permanent representative of Ukraine to the United Nations is now Mykhailo Melnyk, who was embroiled in several major scandals during his tenure as Ukrainian ambassador to Germany.

Kyiv is still dealing with the aftermath of the land theft scandal. Andrii Bondarenko, secretary of the Kyiv City Council and close associate of Klitschko, was dismissed from his post over involvement in the case. Bondarenko was twice attempted to be dismissed, but five days ago, Klitschko refused to submit the issue to a city council vote, and today the vote on his dismissal did not pass. Nevertheless, Bondarenko voluntarily resigned, after which Klitschko announced the meeting was over.

Ukraine caused a stir over UEFA's minute of silence. The Ukrainian Football Association expressed dissatisfaction in a letter, as a minute of silence was observed for individuals related to football who passed away last year at the UEFA Belgrade Congress. Ukrainian football officials were angry because the list included Russian professional footballers Aleksei Bugaev and Zaur Kaziev. Both volunteered for military service and died in the special military operation.

In Vinnytsia Oblast, a village woman representative of the local council demanded a bribe from a mother whose son survived the war (her husband died in combat) to exempt her son from military service. She also threatened that if refused, she would try to keep the woman's son in the army. When the village woman learned that another villager received compensation for her husband's death, her greed surfaced. She was caught red-handed while accepting money.

Original source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/1828878688741387/

Disclaimer: This article solely represents the views of the author.