Tax on childlessness, frozen Russian assets for Ukraine and new blackouts: May 21 highlights

Childlessness tax

Servant of the People MP Serhiy Hryvko registered in the Verkhovna Rada a draft law aimed at improving the demographic situation in Ukraine through the introduction of the "childlessness tax".

The lawmaker proposed to establish a demographic fee for all citizens aged 21 to 58 years — except for people who have three or more children or infertility or group I disability.

The bill was mostly criticized online after the publicity. The head of the parliamentary committee on finance, tax and customs policy, Danil Getmantsev, said that there is no chance of the adoption of this "grotesque" draft law.

New blackouts

On May 22, hourly shutdown schedules will be in effect for industrial and household consumers throughout Ukraine from 12 to 7 a.m. and from 6 p.m. to 12 a.m., Ukrenergo reported.

Shutdowns can be applied in case of exceeding the specified consumption limits, which Ukrenergo allots to each region every evening.

Information about exactly when there will be outages in a certain area can be found in the online profile, on the official websites of regional energy companies, as well as on their pages on social media, Ukrenergo adds.

Russian assets for Ukraine

The Council of the EU supported the use of profits from the frozen assets of the Russian Central Bank to help Ukraine.

Every year the bloc plans to withdraw from 2.5 to 3 billion euros, of which 90% will go to military needs for arming the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces hit another ship of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation

On May 19, the Ukrainian military attacked the temporarily occupied Sevastopol. In addition to the Russian Black Sea Fleet minesweeper Kovrovets, the Defense Forces hit the project 22800 missile ship Tsiklon.

Construction of this vessel began in temporarily occupied Kerch in 2016, and was launched in 2020. This ship entered service with the Russian army in 2023. Tsiklon also has eight launchers for Kalibr cruise missiles and supersonic Oniks missiles.

Suspilne drops the telethon

Public broadcaster Suspilne decided to start its own broadcasting on the First Channel. It called this measure an expansion of its own broadcasting in the United News telethon, although media analysts see it as the channel's actual withdrawal from the format.

From 3 p.m. on May 21, Suspilne complemented the information block of the telethon on the First Channel with additional news content, documentaries of its own production and investigations, although it will continue to exchange content with all participants of the telethon.

The head of the Supervisory Board of Public Broadcasting, Svitlana Ostapa, considers this a "civilized divorce", which was achieved within the scope of the expansion of content production.

Plans to return some of the men from abroad?

The government obliged citizens of Ukraine who were removed from military registration due to leaving the country for more than three months to return home within 30 days, to appear in person at the city or district territorial recruitment center and to register for military records.

The Cabinet also obliged foreign diplomatic institutions to inform men between the ages of 18 and 25 who are on permanent or temporary consular registration about the need to update their data and register for military service.

Military registration of medics

The Cabinet of Ministers has excluded the norm according to which female doctors or pharmacists who are not on the military register in the military recruitment centers (military commissars) could be employed as non-military personnel.

Now all doctors and pharmacists must register for the military if they want to continue working.

Previously, this norm provided that women who received an education in a medical or pharmaceutical specialty and were not on military registration could be employed as non-military conscripts until the end of 2026. Now, this norm has been eliminated.

Other news

• The Ministry of Education and Science has published recommendations for educational institutions: higher educational institutions are advised to start the academic year in the first half of August, if necessary, to extend it until July 2025 and to study on Saturdays in the warmer months.
• An electronic military registration document will soon appear in the "Reserve+" application. It will be possible to generate it from June 18.
• The European Union signed an agreement on partnership in the field of security and defense with Moldova. This document is the first such document in the history of the EU.
• European Solidarity MP Iryna Herashchenko accused the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Ruslan Stefanchuk of sexism. He allegedly called her a "girl" during a parliament session.
• Germany plans to increase its spending on military aid to Ukraine by 3.8 billion euros in 2024.