April 21, 2022 Ukraine and the World – Against russia’s Aggression. Sanctions in Action
4/21/2022

The regulator in the fields of electronic communications, radio frequency spectrum and provision of postal services (NECK) has allowed Starlink terminals to be used by all categories of users, not just critical infrastructure. This was announced by Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov. At the initiative of the State Special Communications Service of UKraine, the NECK adopted a decision stipulating: for the period of martial law, the use of spaceX Starlink subscriber satellite terminals is permitted for all categories of users; making changes to the Plan for the use of the radio frequency resource of Ukraine to regulate the operating conditions of the SpaceX Starlink system on the territory of Ukraine in accordance with this decision.
The German government will hand over modern tanks to Eastern European countries, and the latter will hand over Soviet military equipment to Ukraine. They will replace the equipment that the former members of the Warsaw Pact are ready to send to Ukraine. The German government declares its readiness to hand over German tanks to countries that will send Soviet-era equipment to Ukraine. Negotiations are under way to determine which NATO member country will supply weapons to Ukraine in Eastern Europe. Germany will provide the Ukrainian military with heavy artillery and teach them to use it. In addition, the German military will conduct exercises on the use of the PzH 2000 artillery system, which the Netherlands handed over to Ukraine. The trainings will take place in Poland or Germany.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has said that in the future Germany will completely abandon imports of russian energy: “We did make mistakes in the past, but we must reduce our imports of russian energy”. She stressed that Germany intends to stop using russian coal by the end of the summer. Also, according to Baerbock, by that time the country will be able to halve oil consumption from russia, and by the end of the year – to completely give it up.
The Minister of Economy of the German Federal Land of North Rhine – Westphalia Andreas Pinkwart has called for studying the issue of shale gas production in the country to reduce dependence on russian energy carriers.
Germany is proposing to form an alliance on global food security, said Minister of Economic Development and Cooperation Svenja Schulze. She said that russia's invasion of Ukraine is threatened by the worst food crisis in decades, which will affect primarily the poorest countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
The administration of a wildlife park in Bavaria has decided to rename one of its wild boars, which three years ago was named in honor of russian president putin. They said the animal did not deserve the name of the “inhuman monster”. After a few weeks of deliberation and online voting, the boar was named after a policeman from a popular Bavarian series of books, Eberhofer.
Ukraine and Canada are negotiating the extension of the Free Trade Agreement to services and investments after the end of the russian war in Ukraine. This was announced by the press service of the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine following Trade Representative Taras Kachka’s online meeting with the President of the Canadian-Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce Zenon Potichnyi and representatives of Canadian business. The parties agreed to continue the dialogue on attracting Canada’s economic, financial and expert assistance in critical sectors of the Ukrainian economy, as well as further cooperation in expanding the presence of Canadian investors in Ukraine.
British architect of Apple Park Norman Foster called the creation of a master plan of Kharkiv the first step in the restoration of the city after the war. Foster has already drawn up a draft plan for the city's manifesto, which is yet to be revised. “The first step will be a master plan of the city, linked to the region, in order to combine the most beloved and revered heritage of the past with the most desirable and greenest elements of infrastructure and buildings”, said Foster. He promised to involve the best architects and designers in the implementation of the project.
Monuments to the red army were demolished in the Polish cities of Siedlce, Garcarsko and Miedzyblock, according to the Polish Institute of National Remembrance. “It is an injustice to the victims, a violence against history and historical truth, against decency – to put on the pedestal those who enslaved free, independent states, those who inflicted pain and suffering on women and children. Those who today are becoming a model for the genocides of the 21st century”, said President of the Institute of National Remembrance Karol Nawrocky. There are still about 60 soviet monuments in Poland.
Latvia’s Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics has announced that the EU is preparing measures to prevent russia from circumventing sanctions.
The russian consulate general in Klaipeda (Lithuania) has closed.
Eight russian diplomats accused of collecting intelligence have left Japan.
Japan has officially deprived russia of the most-favored-nation regime in trade, the country's Parliament said.
Montenegro has banned the broadcasting of russian TV channels rt and sputnik.
Shell has begun recalling its employees from joint ventures with “gazprom” and “gazprom neft”. Against the background of russia’s aggression against Ukraine, Shell refused to buy russian oil and announced its intention to gradually reduce gas purchases. At the same time, the company withdrew from “sakhalin-2”, “nord stream-2”, “yenisei” and “salim petroleum” joint projects with “Gazprom” and “gazprom neft”, and closed all gas stations in russia.
The French company Danone has stopped importing Evian and Alpro products – mineral water and herbal drinks – to russia.
Tobacco manufacturer Imperial Brands has closed its business in russia.
Cyprus will deprive four more russians from their sanctions lists, whose names have not yet been released. Well-known russian businessmen have already lost their Cypriot passports, such as gutseriev, kuzmichev, moshkovich and ponomarenko.
The International Football Federation has suspended russia's payments for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. director of development of the russian football union mitrofanov said that russia should receive from FIFA $ 100 million, but so far it has received only 30% of this amount. FIFA says payments have been suspended but not canceled.
russian tennis players will be banned from participating in the Wimbledon International Tennis Tournament, Sportico reported. The All-England Club of Lawn Tennis and Croquet will be the first tennis organization to deprive russians of the opportunity to participate in these prestigious competitions.
The World Federation of International Music Competitions has excluded the Tchaikovsky International Competition from its membership due to russia's aggression against Ukraine.
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Almost 98,000 workers in russia are “idle”, said deputy minister of labor pudov during a meeting of the state duma expert council. “Speaking in absolute numbers, it is 2.5 times more than on March 1. As for the figures announced before the dismissal, it is almost 50 thousand people”, pudov stressed.
The federal state statistics service said that in March, wage arrears in russia increased by 8.3% to 1 billion rubles.
The state duma has passed a law banning russian banks from providing information about their customers and their operations to the competent authorities of countries that impose sanctions on russia, its citizens or organizations.
The car-sharing operator “yandex.drive” may lose almost 35% of its fleet this year due to the expiration of leasing contracts and the need to return cars to their owners. The purchase of new cars is impossible in conditions of their total shortage, which arose in russia due to sanctions and the refusal of world manufacturers to work with russia. According to experts, Chinese producers will not be able to meet demand due to high prices and broken logistics chains. And russian brands, in particular, lada, are not suitable for car sharing. Operators studied the possibilities of russian brands, but they proved unsuitable for car sharing: the mileage of such cars is 100-120 thousand kilometers per year, so they had to be declared unfit before the end of the lease.
After the large-scale deterioration of the situation in the russian car industry, the russian government is going to reduce environmental requirements for manufactured cars, even allow “Euro-0”. The ministry of environment of the russian federation has stated that production of such cars will lead to air pollution in densely populated cities.
The puppet state council of Crimea, temporarily occupied by russian federation, will consider depriving natalia poklonska, deputy head of roscooperation, of state awards, for her remarks on the symbols of the “military operation in Ukraine”, said chairman of the “parliament”s committee for legislation trofimov. According to him, “unfortunately, completely unexpected people are beginning to say things categorically unacceptable to the vast majority of Crimeans and russian citizens in general. In particular, we have a question about natalia vladimirovna, who voices her position on behalf of a person who has state authority. Her words about the z and v being a symbol of grief do not quite coincide with the opinion of our armed forces”.
The so-called state council of the temporally occupied by Russia Crimea has deprived seven Ukrainians of national state awards, including former Ukrainian Presidents Leonid Kravchuk and Leonid Kuchma, boxer Oleksandr Usik.
With the blocking of foreign social networks in Russia, bloggers have problems with moving to russian platforms. The former audience is reluctant to follow the “opinion leaders”, and the new one is not interested. As a result, bloggers lose up to 70% of their audience and up to 80% of their income. After blocking Instagram, only 10-20% of the bloggers' audience followed them to other platforms, said the CEO of labelup borisov. Epicstars communications director yermoshina believes that the followers make “few percent”. Many users remain on blocked social networks using VPN, but the time spent on social networks has decreased: the share of those who log in for less than five minutes has increased.
After the closure of Instagram for russians, in March 2022 alone, the reduction in sales of russian fashion business exceeded 60%, said the director general of the vipro marketing agency maklaeva: “We discussed how much the fashion business has changed in March 2022, and 90% pointed out that sales falling by more than 60%. At the same time, private specialists in the field of tourism and other business areas have also been affected and are forced to revive business from scratch.
Peskov has said the kremlin will announce “in a timely manner” when putin decides to visit wounded servicemen in hospitals. Over the past 56 days of the armed aggression against Ukraine, almost 21,000 russian soldiers have been killed.