February 20, 2024 Ukraine and the World – Against russia’s Aggression. Sanctions in Action

Nikki Haley, a Republican, former Governor of South Carolina, believes that the defeat of Ukraine in the war against russia “immediately puts America at war”. “Ukraine's not asking for troops, they’re just asking for the equipment and ammunition to win this war. They have a great fighting force. We need to give them what they need so that they can win, so that we can prevent sending any of our military men and women to fight”, she summarized.

US President Joe Biden’s Administration is considering providing Ukraine with long-range ballistic missiles ATACMS.

Minister of Defence of the FRG Boris Pistorius has called on US lawmakers to approve additional military aid to Ukraine, warning that denying such support could harm the US economic interests.

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Rishi Sunak and President of the European Commission Ursula von Der Leyen “emphasized the importance of further support to Ukrainian people”.

Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic Jan Lipavský has stated that European countries should find the way to purchase ammunition for Ukraine.

Italy is ready to sign a security agreement with Ukraine in the near future.

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Gabrielius Landsbergis has urged the EU immediately to find a “creative decision” to assist Ukraine and stressed that what Ukrainian soldiers can now do on the battlefield – “ is a miracle”. At the same time, Landsbergis pointed out that russia may conduct a sudden attack on NATO countries.

Prime Minister of Estonia Kaja Kallas proposes the EU to release military bonds for EUR 100 billion to stimulate the defense industry and at the same time to do more to provide weapons to Ukraine. Kallas also states that the warrant for her arrest issued by russia is just an attempt to intimidate her against the background of assumptions that she may receive a high position in the European Union.

In the first months of 2024, Japan became the largest financial support donor for Ukraine – its aid in the first quarter is expected to be about $ 2.2 billion. At the same time, Ukraine and Japan have signed the Convention on the elimination of double taxation on income taxes and preventing tax evasion and avoidance.

The European Commission has announced a meeting of the coordination platform on export and transit of Ukrainian agricultural products against the background of the blockade of the border with Ukraine by Polish farmers.

Representatives of the Czech Republic, together with the country's Agrarian Chamber, agreed on the possibility of imposing duties in the form of deposits for importers of Ukrainian agricultural products in the EU, which are returned when the cargo has passed the country in transit.

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US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken discussed the possible creation of nuclear space weapons by russia with its Chinese and Indian colleagues.

Within days the EU will legalize the use of interest from the income from the rf’s frozen assets to support Ukraine, – said President of the European Commission Ursula Fon Der Leyen.

“We are now in the process of adopting a 13th package of sanctions. We are on the last meters”, said Minister of Foreign Affairs of Germany Annalena Baerbock.

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Romania Luminița Odobescu has said the EU should quickly adopt the 13th package of sanctions against russia and start work on the next.

Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia have condemned russia's plans to hold elections in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.

Finland is prepared for a potential conflict with the rf, – said Prime Minister of Finland Petteri Orpo.

Because of the risk of secondary sanctions, banks of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) restricted payments with russia and began to close accounts of russian companies and individuals.

Polymetal International plc, which is among the ten largest gold producers in the world, has announced its intention by the end of March to sell its share in the russian polymetal because “the current group's structure continues to bring the company to an unacceptable level of risk related to operating activities in the territory of the rf, and which threatens with the complete destruction of the shareholder value”. In August 2023, the company completed the delisting at the London Stock Exchange, last week the russian investment group “east”, the largest Polymetal’s shareholder, sold its share of the Oman Invest Fund.

The prosecutor general's office of the rf through the arbitration court is trying to nationalize the ivanovo plant of heavy machine building.

Due to the russian crisis, the state duma of the rf is preparing changes to the main mechanism of stimulating private investment in the rf – agreements on protection and encouragement of investments, the rights and abilities of which are going to be reduced.

From March 1, the rf will ban VPN services for free access of the population to the Internet beyond all restrictions that the authorities have imposed in russia.

According to the analytical centre of the rf, russians’ spending on food in 2022-2023 increased from 4.5 thousand rubles a month – to 21.1 thousand rubles. The proportion of those who spend more than 20 thousand rubles on food, in 2023 increased from 27 % to 34 %.

8 % of the russians surveyed in 2023 gave up buying a car, another 57 % postponed buying for 1-2 years due to the “geopolitical situation” around the rf. The share of those who would like to buy a new car in the next five years decreased to 78 %.

The ministry of industry and trade of the rf is going yet again to increase utilization fee for agricultural equipment 5-10 fold, despite the decrease in profitability of russian farmers; the cost of powerful imported tractors and combines will increase by 5-10 million rubles per unit.

The association of electro-metallurgists of the rf has reported a deficiency of scrap metal in southern russia due to the decrease in its supply from the temporarily occupied Crimea. The main reason is the impossibility to supply through the temporarily occupied territory of Donetsk region of Ukraine.

Due to the shortage of labor in the russian industry, financial and construction sectors, widely used is the so -called “quiet hiring” – filling vacancies with own employees. Sometimes the number of appointments for such positions reaches 50-60 %. At the same time, personnel units point out the absence of knowledge for new tasks (54 %), increased load on staff and the personnel’s burnout (54 %), blurring of responsibilities at the enterprise and making workers intended for new posts, perform former responsibilities (54 %). 28 % of companies have declared the absence of fresh ideas and approaches to resolving work problems due to the restriction on employment, employees’ dissatisfaction with new functions and firing – 12 %, deterioration of relationships in the team due to opaque personnel selection – 8 %.

In January, small companies of the rf managed to hire only 12 % of employees - at least since the spring of 2023.

The average price of secondary real estate in the 18 largest regions of russia (16 cities-millionaires, moscow and leningrad regions) in February was 142.1 thousand rubles – within a month the price increased by 1 %, within a year – by 15.6 %.

The moscow auction house has sold the Ukrainian artist Ivan Aivazovskyi’s “Moon Night” painting, which is on the international wanted list, for 92 million rubles.

Directors of russian schools have been sent “a school director’s handbook”. Among the topics that they should pay attention to, there is the actualization of “military-patriotic education, and education with taking into consideration the “special military operation” and “forming children’s moral orientations to the marriage as a union of a man and a woman”.

Annual inflation rates in belarus have accelerated in January 2024 to 5.9 %. “High demand and increased inflation in the rf – rb’s key trading partner - are the main factors of accelerating the rate of rise in prices”, - says the eurasian development bank. Food in January went up by 6.9 % compared to 6.8 % in 2023.

According to the results of January, in the belarusian economy there was a fall in GDP in information and communication (-5.8 % compared to the same period of 2023), water supply, harvesting, processing and removal of waste, activities to eliminate pollution (-4, 1 %). The list of outsiders also includes construction, which last month fell by 7.7 % compared to the same month of 2023.

The eurasian development bank refused to allocate funding to belarus for reconstruction of the main road gomel - kobrin. The work has been started at the expense of own low funds. Before the sanctions against belarus, construction and reconstruction of main roads and motorways was carried out at the expense of the budget and foreign loans from the World Bank, the EBRD, the European Investment Bank. But these structures terminated cooperation with the leadership of the rb.

At the trades of the belarusian currency and stock exchange, on February 19, the euro went up by 0.62 % to 3.4902 rubles, and the Yuan rate increased by 0.13 % to 4.4746 rubles for 10 yuan.

The belarusian red cross society addressed the minsk city executive committee with a request to help organize systematic collecting money from the society of doctors of the capital city. The members of primary organizations are invited to write applications for the transfer of membership fees in the amount of 1 % of the average monthly wage once a year.

prosecutor general of belarus shved announced his willingness to make decisions on depriving opponents of belarusian authorities of citizenship, as well as confiscation of their property.

belarus is preparing a draft law on responsibility for promoting unconventional relations, prosecutor general shved said.