The Verkhovna Rada may consider draft laws related to Defence City, which is supposed to create special conditions for defence enterprises

Bills related to the Defense City initiative — a special tax and regulatory regime aimed at supporting Ukrainian arms manufacturers — are scheduled to be put to a vote on July 15.

This was reported by one of the authors of the bill Davyd Arakhamia in an interview with Babel.

However, he emphasizes that the tax, customs, and regulatory parts will probably be put to the vote — Defense City requires changes in these areas. And regarding the part on criminal liability, compromises will be sought.

According to him, it is the criminal procedural component that looks the most scandalous. [Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Law Enforcement Issues Serhiy] Ionushas says that the amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code are written crookedly there. The draft law proposes that a search request be considered together with the person whose house the search will be conducted — this contradicts the very purpose of the search.

Arakhamia emphasized that Ionushas has already said that he will register an alternative project in order to have room for maneuver and write everything correctly.

"I expected the committee to be a platform where we would find a middle ground between reassuring producers and preserving the purpose of these investigative actions," Arakhamia said.

He added that the bill will still change between the first and second readings.

• At the end of June, MPs submitted several bills to the Verkhovna Rada that are supposed to launch the Defence City initiative: a special taxation and regulatory regime. Their goal is to support Ukrainian arms manufacturers. Future Defence City residents will be included in a special List of defence industry enterprises, they will receive tax benefits, will be able to relocate their production using a simplified procedure, they will be allowed to export their products, and information about them will disappear from public registers (in particular, their addresses: the motive is to protect them from Russian missiles).
• The MPs also offered arms manufacturers a certain immunity from criminal prosecution. The bill caused great outrage in the media — during the years of the Great War, journalists made dozens of materials about corruption and violations in the procurement of weapons and other defence industry products.

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