Ukraine and the World – Against russia’s Aggression. Sanctions in Action

Ukraine has received  EUR 4.05 billion from its partners, of which EUR 1 billion is from ERA Loans financed from frozen russian assets, and  EUR 3.05 billion – via the Ukraine Facility for recovery and integration.

“We are working together, Ukraine, Europe, and the United States, to ensure that such guarantees (of security for Ukraine) are in place, to such an extent that putin, sitting in moscow, would never even think of attacking Ukraine again,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte pointed out that the security guarantee system for Ukraine will consist of two levels, the first of which involves the conclusion of a peace agreement or ceasefire, and the second level is what the United States and Europe will provide.

“You can see that Europeans, Ukrainians, and Americans want peace and are making every diplomatic effort to achieve it, while russia is simply stalling for time, and it is clear that russia does not want peace,” said EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas.

Prime Minister of Romania Ilie Bolojan believes that the use of military bases by NATO allies for F-35 fighter jets could be his country’s contribution to efforts to achieve lasting peace in Ukraine.

Minister of National Defence of Poland Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz has announced the completion on September 1 of the construction of a new training ground  for Polish and Ukrainian military servicemen.

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“As I stated earlier this year, I intend to initiate legislation that would designate russia as a state sponsor of terrorism under US law if it does not return the children,” said US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Department of the Treasury has imposed sanctions on Greek citizen Antonios Margaritis, his companies, and ships that are part of Iran’s so-called  “shadow fleet”  and have been involved in the illegal transportation of oil to China.

“russia is playing for time and believes that this will make it more resilient than Western democracy,” said Minister of Defence of Finland Antti Häkkänen.

The russian government is preparing to increase the tax burden on small businesses in order to fill the Social Fund (formerly the Pension Fund) and the Mandatory Medical Insurance Fund, which has a multi-billion dollar deficit. The government is considering abolishing preferential insurance contribution rates for small and medium-sized enterprises.

russia reduced steel production in January–July by 4.4 % to 40.8 million tons and fell to the  fifth place in the top 10 steel-producing countries. In July, steel production in russia decreased  by 2.4 % year-on-year to 5.7 million tons.

According to the Central Bank,  credit in the economy grew by 1.7 trillion rubles in July, to almost 150 trillion rubles (149.9 trillion as of August 1). However, its annual growth slowed to 10.1 % from 10.7 % in June, the lowest since the beginning of 2021.

russian businesses have been plagued by inspections following the government’s demand to collect a record 600 billion rubles in fines. Businesses are most often faced with inspections by the Social Fund (an increase from 14 % to 24 %) and the prosecutor’s office (from 15 % to 23 %), as well as the fire inspectorate: over the course of a year, 30 % of SMEs that underwent inspections had to deal with it, compared to 19 % in March 2024.

In russia, on the afternoon of August 22, Google Meet crashed, which, after blocking calls in Telegram and WhatsApp messengers, became the leader in terms of downloads in the russian app store. The number of user complaints reached almost 300 per hour. The outages affected Karelia, Moscow and Moscow region, St. Petersburg, and Ivanovo region.

russians have been  banned from verifying their Instagram accounts under threat of criminal prosecution for “financing extremism”.

russian authorities continue to work on transferring various areas of russians’ lives to the state-controlled messenger Max: now citizens are being offered to use it to make appointments with doctors.

Foreign agents are the only category of russian citizens numbering fewer than a thousand people, for whom numerous repressive laws have been passed over the past eight years (since January 2018). They are required to report their expenses quarterly and to include an outrageous statement about their foreign agent status in any public text larger than the main text. Failure to do so will result in a fine and then a criminal case. They are prohibited from participating in political activities on any side – neither as candidates, nor as observers, nor in campaign headquarters; they are not allowed to teach or work with children. They are restricted in the disposal of their own funds – money is transferred to a special account from which it cannot be spent. Now, income tax is being raised again: from the usual 13 % to as much as 30 %. It has also been decided to deprive foreign agents of tax breaks.

Starting September 1, russian banks will begin limiting cash withdrawals from ATMs to detect suspicious transactions: unusual times of day for cash withdrawals, atypical amounts or ATM locations, requests for cash withdrawals that are unusual for the customer, such as withdrawals using a QR code instead of a card. Banks will also have to monitor changes in customer phone activity at least 6 hours before the transaction, an increase in the number of SMS messages from new numbers, including in messengers. In addition, withdrawals within 24 hours after taking out a loan or increasing the cash withdrawal limit on a credit card will be considered suspicious.

russians have begun to actively get rid of used premium Chinese cars: since August last year, the number of advertisements for the sale of such cars has tripled.

Chief of the State Border Guard of Latvia Guntis Pujāts  believes that the situation with illegal migrants on the Latvian-belarusian border will remain quite tense until winter.

belarus’ GDP slowed significantly in the first seven months of the year, with extremely poor results in all belarusian regions. Vitebsk and Grodno produced less gross domestic product than last year (-1.3 % and -0.7 %, respectively). Wholesale trade in Vitebsk region declined  by almost 40 % compared to the same period last year, as did exports of goods. According to data for the first seven months, industry contracted by 2.9 %, which means that Vitebsk goods, in particular petroleum products, did not sell well in other countries. Industrial enterprises in the region produced less this year than last year (-2.9 %). In the manufacturing sector, the decline reached almost 4 %. Gomel region remains the worst in terms of industrial production – it declined by 2.6 % in the first seven months of 2025, and by 6 % in the manufacturing sector itself. Enterprises in Gomel region operated at a net loss of minus 97.8 million rubles. In particular, the loss of the industrial sector was even greater: minus 343 million. The total net loss of loss-making organizations exceeded one billion rubles, while a year ago it was only 406 million. That is, over the year, the losses of loss-making organizations increased  2.5 times. The main generator of losses in Gomel region is the Mozyr Oil Refinery: minus 757.8 million rubles for January–May.

lukashenko has once again announced the theoretical possibility of releasing people, but on condition that they leave belarus: “Do you want one and a half or two thousand, as they believe there? Take them, take them there.”

By a decree of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, a group of citizens united under the name BelVarta on all Internet platforms has been recognized as an “extremist formation” and banned from operating in belarus. Cooperation with “extremist formations” in belarus is subject to criminal liability.

From September 1, 2025, a six-month licensing period for apple exports will be introduced in belarus.