Daily Digest: Top news this weekend

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Highlights from the Kyiv Post print edition

• Find all the stories in our March 15 print edition here.

Latest news:

• Incumbent Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is using the Regional Development Council, a government agency that he leads, to campaign covertly for the March 31 presidential elections, election watchdog Opora alleged in a report
• Multi-millionaire and leader of the Osnova political party Serhiy Taruta will back Yulia Tymoshenko, head of the Batkivshchyna party, in the March 31 presidential elections, the two politicians announced at a joint press conference.
• Entertainer Volodymyr Zelenskiy would defeat incumbent Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in the second round of the presidential election, according to  new poll.
• The Ukrainian Election Task Force, a group set up with the help of the Atlantic Council, a U.S. think-tank, to expose foreign interference attempts, said Russia may try to interfere in Ukraine’s elections, and might also target critical infrastructure such as power grids, telephone networks or airports.
• Thousands of people gathering for a rally by the far-right National Corps party in Kyiv to demand the arrest of the suspects in a large-scale embezzlement scheme in Ukraine’s defense sector.
• Don’t like wearing shoes? You’re not alone: it turns out that Kyiv has its own community of bare-footers – people who prefer not to wear shoes outside. Learn about them in this video from the Kyiv Post.
• The French Spring festival begins on March 30,kicking off with a show in Kyiv and continuing throughout the month of April in 9 cities, including Lviv and Odesa. (VIDEO)

Russia’s war on Ukraine:

• Russian-led forces mounted two attacks on Ukrainian army positions in the Donbas on March 16, with one Ukrainian soldier reported as killed in action and another one as wounded in action.
• The United States and the United Kingdom said they will never recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea and call on the world to thwart the attempted legalization of the annexation of the peninsula by the Kremlin.
• Two women share their stories of sexism and gender inequality in the Ukrainian army and beyond.

Business news:

• Exports of goods from Ukraine in January 2019 from January 2018 grew by 9.2 percent, to $4.066 billion, while imports increased by a mere 0.7 percent, to $4.045 billion, the State Statistics Service has reported.
• Ukrainian energy companies cut the consumption of anthracite coal by 4.8 million tonnes, or 54 percent, according to the report of the Cabinet of Ministers for 2018. Ukraine used to source much of the high-grade coal from mines in parts of the Donbas now under occupation by Russia.

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