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

President of Poland Andrzej Duda has stated: “russia and the russian regime have broken a great taboo, which has always been a hard security border since World War II, that no power attacks another state in a frontal way to take away freedom, to take away independence, to take away land, to question the existence of the state and the nation”.

August 15, Latvia transferred four Mi-17 and Mi-2 combat helicopters to Ukraine. “The West should support Ukraine until its entire territory is liberated from the russian occupation forces”, Defense Minister of Latvia Artis Pabriks said.

Since August 15, Latvia has resumed the rehabilitation program for wounded Ukrainian servicemen.

The Norwegian airline SAS has converted one of its Boeing 737-700s for medical evacuation and is transporting wounded Ukrainians for treatment in European clinics. The Boeing has already performed more than 10 flights from the Polish airport Rzeszów to Norway, Germany, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands.

New Zealand has joined the training program for Ukrainian servicemen in the United Kingdom and is sending 120 instructors to the country.

Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau will participate in the online summit of the Crimean Platform on August 23.

Finland intends to take part in the reconstruction of the infrastructure destroyed during the hostilities in Chernihiv region.

The District Court of the Hague has set November 17 of this year as the date for issuing a decision in the case of the downing of a “Malaysian” Boeing on July 17, 2014 in the area of ​​the village of Hrabove, Donetsk region.

rf

Due to the lack of alumina caused by the shutdown of the Mykolaiv alumina plant in Ukraine and Australia's ban on exporting raw materials to the russian federation, the r company for the production of primary aluminum rusal began to purchase it at the world market value, which is twice as expensive as the price at which it was purchased before the rf’s aggression against Ukraine. rusal's costs for the purchase of alumina in the first half of 2022 almost doubled to $675 million. Because of this, the cost of rusal's final products has already increased by 33%.

According to the results of the first half of the year, the remuneration of management companies in the rf decreased by 7% on average, while the costs of doing business continued to grow significantly. Universal companies, targeting both retail and institutional investors, were the most affected, in some cases seeing their revenue decline by 10-25%. Experts are sure that due to the russian crisis, they will have to further reduce expenses, in particular on advertising and marketing activities, which will inevitably affect the effectiveness of business promotion.

In russia, cargo and passenger planes are planning to replace the co-pilot with a computer in order to save money. The message of the russian ministry of industry and trade on the state procurement portal shows that the government aims to replace the co-pilot with a virtual one and thus reduce the cost of operating aircrafts. The money in question is 2.9 billion rubles. Experts remind that international flight safety requirements suggest that there should always be at least two people in the cockpit of a plane.

In the first half of the year, the average cost of interior decoration and engineering equipment of office premises in russia increased by 30%, as calculated by nikoliers company. Standard decoration has become more expensive by 32%, to 70,000 rubles for 1 sq. m, work on business-class facilities – by 31%, to 105,000 rubles, in premium office complexes – by 28%, to 163,000 rubles. The reasons for the increase are the difficulty of purchasing materials, the stoppage of import supply and production, the increase in the cost of logistics, said the regional director of the construction project management department of nikoliers temnyshev. Certain positions, in particular wood, have been increased in price by up to 80%, – emphasized the general director of q1 group nyuman.

HIV-infected russians are again complaining to the public movement “patient control” about the impossibility of having blood tests conducted to assess the effectiveness of therapy. In 2020, refusals to take tests were explained in AIDS centers by the workload of laboratories with tests for COVID-19, now – by Western sanctions and the increase in the price of reagents. Most complaints come from moscow, leningrad, chelyabinsk, kemerovo, ulyanovsk, kaliningrad, orenburg, arkhangelsk, kurgan, nizhny novgorod, tyumen, amur, novosibirsk, oryol regions; republics of kabardino-balkaria, north ossetia, dagestan; krasnodar and krasnoyarsk territories, Crimea temporarily occupied by the russians; st. petersburg.

Due to the russian crisis, more than 50% of higher educational institutions of the rf have increased tuition fees since September of this year, the ministry of science and higher education of the russian federation reported.

Vice Chancellor of Germany Robert Habeck said Germany would not return to a business model that depends on russia’s gas and “president who violates international law”.

Prime Minister of Finland, Sanna Marin, has said that the Republic of Finland intends to continue investing in strengthening the border with russia. “Since the reality is that the country has an aggressive neighbor, we must not be naïve”, Ms. Marin stressed.

The Warsaw office of Canada's Visa Center has completely stopped issuing visas to citizens of the rf.

Due to the refusal of a number of manufacturers of premium headphones (Sennheiser, Marshall, Sony) to supply their products to russia, their stocks at retailers remained until the end of the quarter. The suppliers say that they have arranged the supply of the goods under the parallel import scheme, but experts claim that those are fakes.

JBL, Bose, Harman Kardon closed their offices in russia; Marshall, Sennheiser, Samsung, Sony, Yamaha, Sennheiser, Shure do not officially supply their products to the russian federation. It is their equipment that is used both for home studios and for stadium concerts in nine out of ten events. In addition, all these brands are listed in almost every state contract, so the absence of these manufacturers on the russian market paralyzed the activities of not only official distributors, but sound engineers of concert venues throughout the rf as well.

The Lithuanian Šiauliai Bank, through which payment for cargo transit with kaliningrad was made, has stopped accepting payments in rubles.

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia, Urmas Reinsalu, spoke against the search for options to ease the fate of citizens of the rf who own real estate in his country. “As for the payment of utility bills, it is of course in the interest of Estonia that these people fulfill their obligations. They must find ways that do not violate the sanctions regime”, Reinsalu said.

The American Apple Corporation demanded that the russian rutube remove the content of the russian state media in the application for IOS. Earlier, YouTube blocked the channel of the russian state corporation rostyekh, rbk, tass, russia today, solovyev live, rt, as well as the channels of propagandists vovan, lexus, krasovsky.

International real estate corporation Savills, which was founded in Great Britain in 1855 and operates in more than 70 countries, has stopped business in russia.

A delegation of the Taliban government from Afghanistan (officially considered a terrorist organization by russia and banned) is visiting russia. Minister of Industry and Trade of the Taliban government, Nuriddin Azizi, has said that during the negotiations, the Taliban offered russia to sell 1 million barrels of oil under the barter trade scheme, if the russian side was interested in “some Afghan products” in exchange for energy resources.

The large IT company Ciklum is leaving the belarusian market and leaving the local Hi-Tech Park. The Ciklum company was founded in 2002 by Danish native Torben Majgaard. The core of the company's business and development is located in Ukraine.

prime minister of belarus roman golovchenko has stated that the sanctions imposed on russia and belarus will backfire on those who do it. Given the approach of winter, belarus can help European countries with fuel wood and Euro pallets. “You know, a person always votes with a refrigerator, so to speak”, the head of government said.

By the end of 2022, inflation in belarus will remain within 18%, experts of the Eurasian Development Bank believe. Acceleration of price growth, according to experts, occurred due to sanctions, which led to the disruption of production and logistics chains, as well as due to “undervaluation of the belarusian ruble against the russian one”.

OLVI Holding from Finland, which owns 96.36% of lidskaye pivo JSC in belarus, plans to sell these assets within 12 months. Despite the fact that in June the government of the republic of belarus announced additional restrictions on the sale of companies to shareholders from countries that imposed sanctions, the company will carry out the divestment according to the plan. The board of directors of OLVI made the decision to sell lidskaye pivo and stop operations in belarus on March 5, at the same time the holding stopped a significant part of exports to russia.