US intelligence: Ukraine faces difficult times, our correspondent Aleksandr Gorobets reports

Ukraine, Russia, and other ex-communist countries of Europe and Central Asia are facing difficult times, the report “The Global Trends for 2015” prepared by the US National Intelligence Council says (the report is placed on the CIA web cite). The report’s authors conclude that “Ukraine and Russia will have to tackle problems caused by environmental negligence, including radioactive pollution from nuclear installations which are improperly run.” At that, the both countries will hardly react adequately to those problems since the economic growth is being given top priority there, the report says. It also says that Russia, Ukraine and their neighbours will keep on suffering from the following negative factors: “insufficient structural reform, low labour productivity in agriculture, and declining infrastructure.” The report forecasts that the population in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Trans-Caucasian countries will continue to shrink, life expectancy going down. As for Ukraine, its movement towards the West will be “hampered by widespread crime, corruption, and lawlessness.” The US National Intelligence Council includes 15 experts. It is located at the CIA headquarters being subordinate to CIA chief George Tenet.