April 16, 2022 Ukraine and the World – Against Russia’s Aggression. Sanctions in Action

Poland’s President Andrzej Duda has signed a law previously passed by the Parliament, which provides for an embargo on coal supplies from russia and the possibility of freezing the assets of entities and individuals supporting the rf.

Polish Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of Culture and National Heritage Piotr Tadeusz Glinski has stated that the rf’s war against Ukraine gave a chance for full reconciliation between Kyiv and Warsaw on historical issues.

“Yes, there are difficult moments in our common history, topics that need to be closed – and we will definitely return to them in our relations with a free and independent Ukraine – after the war… Matters of history must give way to the present and the future – our common future, because Ukraine today defends the whole of Europe, defends the civilized world”, he said.

The US Department of State expressed its position on the rf’s note stating that arms supplies to Kyiv could have “unpredictable consequences”: russia's statements about the risks of increasing military aid supplies to Ukraine will not make the United States change its position on the issue.

The International Monetary Fund has increased emergency funding for assistance to Ukraine, launched a special account for further funding and, together with international partners, is preparing for a large-scale effort to rebuild the country. This was stated by IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva. “The IMF has increased emergency funding by $ 1.4 billion to help Ukraine meet its immediate spending needs. Together with international partners, we are preparing for the large-scale recovery efforts that will be needed”, Georgieva said.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz proposes to increase the country's military budget by € 2 billion, primarily to help Ukraine. Scholz plans to spend an additional 2 billion euros to purchase military equipment for Ukraine. 400 million euros will go to the European Peace Fund, which buys weapons for Ukraine. Other funds will be directed to bilateral military contracts with Kyiv.

In the first 14 days of April, Germany reduced its imports of russian oil by pipelines by 27.7%.

The German government will use up to € 3 billion over ten years for the freight and operation of four floating liquefied gas terminals. Chartering agreements for the three terminals have already been signed by the Ministry of Economy, and one more will be signed on April 20. According to the government's plan, such measures will reduce the country's dependence on russian gas supplies.

The city of Torgau in Germany has canceled a commemorative event marking the 77th anniversary of the meeting of soviet and American soldiers on the Elbe at the end of World War II.

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has signed agreements with the Government of Japan on assistance in the amount of 13 billion yen. These are concessional funds to finance the priority needs of the Ukrainian people.

The Japanese research center Teikoku Databank has reported that more than a third of Japanese companies officially registered in russia have left the rf or ceased operations there.

The Government of Ukraine together with the UN is launching two more programs of payments for internally displaced persons – the decision was made at a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers on April 15. “According to our agreements, IDPs who need additional protection will monthly receive UAH 2,200 for each family member. These funds will be paid by the UN World Food Program for three months”, said Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal.

Also, according to the Prime Minister, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees will provide special assistance to low-income pensioners from among IDPs. “They will also be paid an additional 2,200 hryvnias. We plan to cover about 700,000 internally displaced persons with these payments from donors”, Shmyhal added.

The United States has added 10 aircrafts, including seven belarusian ones operated by Belavia, to the list of aircrafts banned for violating export restrictions on russia, the US Department of Commerce said. In total, more than 150 russian and belarusian aircrafts are currently on the “black list” of the US Department of Commerce.

The United States considers deputy head of state duma babakov and two of his aides, vorobyov and plisyuk, foreign agents who “led an international network of influence and disinformation aimed at promoting the interests of the russian federation”, read the documents of New York's Southern District Court.

The American company Axiom Space due to sanctions and “logistical problems” will not transfer to “roscosmos" 2 billion rubles for the flight of NASA astronaut Mark Van de Hay.

One of the largest web services for hosting IT projects and their joint development GitHub has blocked the accounts of sberbank, alfa-bank, as well as ten other companies and individual developers. Instead, individual developers are asked to answer questions about visiting Crimea, North Korea, Cuba, Syria and the dpr, lpr. Owners of corporate accounts are asked about the organization's relations with these countries and regions, as well as whether company executives have visited there. Blocking the accounts of russian users on GitHub began on April 13.

The Polish game studio CD Project Red, the developer of Cyberpunk 2077 and the series of games “The Witcher”, has stopped working with russian companies.

The Austrian machine-building and technological concern Andritz is shutting down its activities in russia.

Northern Macedonia has declared six more russian diplomats persona non grata.

The Chernihiv Economic Security Bureau found six wagons of belarusian fertilizers and passed the information to the military-civil administration for further nationalization. The bureau found that a belarusian supplier had sent more than 380 tons of nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium fertilizers to Ukraine to one of the foreign-invested companies. As it turned out, the founder of the recipient company is also the belarusian OJSC with 100% ownership. The estimated cost of fertilizers is over UAH 10 million.

rf

“putin is not planning a meeting to discuss the causes of the fire on the “moscow” military cruiser which drowned”, peskov said.

The international rating agency Moody's believes that payments in rubles for two issues of russian dollar bonds contradict the terms of the initial contracts. If the situation does not change before the end of the grace period – May 4 – it will be possible to assume that there was a default, – reads a press release.

The alfa bank app has been removed from the App Store.

Due to the difficult economic situation in the country, the bank of russia recommends that banks and non-credit financial institutions abandon the payment of dividends in 2022.

April 15, the moscow stock exchange index fell to 2,350 points, updating at least from February 24. In general, the russian market fell by 6.47% for the week.

According to the moscow stock exchange in russia, the dollar for the working week rose by 3.92 rubles, the euro – by 2.65 rubles.

Fears of being subject to Western sanctions are holding back russian brokerage firms from cooperating with sberbank, which is trying to transfer investment portfolios of its clients with foreign stocks to other market participants.

sberbank throughout russia has stopped hiring new employees, except for specialists in IT and providing services.

The average daily production of oil with condensate in russia in the first two weeks of April amounted to 1,392 thousand tons, which is 7.45% less than in March. In the first days of April, the decline was 4%.

“gazprom” has reported that within 3.5 months it has reduced gas production by 1.3% and exports to foreign countries – by 26.4%.

The head of roscosmos rogozin has said that the launch of russia's interplanetary missions Exomars and Venus-D has been postponed indefinitely.

The ministry of industry and trade of the rf has stated that international carriers, “mostly from unfriendly countries”, continue to refuse to supply russian products. Difficulties in transporting goods are also exacerbated by the EU's ban on the entry of trucks with russian license plates and the withdrawal of insurance coverage for trucks of European carriers located in russia.

Shares of the russian gold producer petropavlovsk have fallen by 12.7%, shares have been falling sharply for the second day in a row after the inclusion of gazprombank in the list of UK sanctions.

putin allowed border crossings to be opened before the construction was completed.

roskomnadzor has restricted access to the website of the French radio RFI at the request of the prosecutor general's office. He also blocked the Moscow Times website.

belarusian producers are raising selling prices for sugar to prevent its mass export to russia, where the price of the product is twice as high, the state concern “belgospishcheprom” said.

The day before the ban on trucks from russia and belarus came into force, there were queues of more than 80 km on the Polish-belarusian border. The fifth package of EU sanctions concerns international road haulage, which requires belarusian and russian carriers to leave the EU by 16 April.

poklonska, the deputy head of the russian cooperation agency, responded to the pseudo-deputy prime minister of the occupied Crimea, konstantinov’s words about the “the Crimean people’s looking forward to “iskanders”’ striking Kyiv. “I don't want the “iskander” rocket or anything more serious to fly anywhere, especially to Kyiv”, poklonska wrote in her telegram. She stressed that she was looking forward to “the return of Russian soldiers and prisoners of war and restoration of destroyed facilities and relations”.