January 1, 2025 Ukraine and the World – Against russia’s Aggression. Sanctions in Action

In his New Year's address, Chancellor of the FRG Olaf Scholz has promised to continue supporting Ukraine in its fight against russia’s aggression. “I assure you that we will not leave Ukraine in its lurch and will support it like no other country in Europe”, the Chancellor emphasized.

“The war is on, as we see in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, Sumy... But Ukraine must win this war. And our task is to do everything possible for this. Therefore, Poland will continue to supply weapons and military equipment. Everything that is needed for the fight”, said Piotr Łukasiewicz, Charge d'Affaires of Poland in Ukraine.

Italy has announced allocation of EUR 13 million to the Ukraine Energy Support Fund.

Exports of goods from Ukraine in 2024 increased by 13.4%, reaching USD 41 billion, while exports in physical terms increased by 28.8%, to 129.3 million tons.

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia Margus Tsahkna has condemned Slovakia’s threats to cut off electricity supplies to Ukraine, emphasizing that such statements are completely unacceptable.

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The Prosecutor General's Office of the FRG has charged three men with working for russian intelligence – participating in sabotage operations. All three have both German and russian citizenships.

The European Union assures that it is ready to the suspension of russian gas transit through Ukraine.

The genealogy platform MyHeritage will delete all accounts of russian users. According to letters sent by the company, this will happen on February 1. The Israeli service is considered one of the largest in the field of genealogy. It allows to find relatives by DNA, create family websites and family trees, and has more than 6 billion profiles.

The government of the rf has expanded the list of goods supplied from “unfriendly countries” subject to higher import duties. Increased duties are introduced on certain types of meat and fish products, canned ready-to-eat vegetables, fruits and nuts, confectionery and flour products, pasta, sauces, and soft drinks. Duty rates will increase by 10 percentage points on average compared to the current 5-20%. Duties on beer and cider will be increased (from EUR 0.1 to EUR 1 a liter), as well as on roasted and instant coffee (from 8% and 7.5% to 13% and 17.5%, respectively). The import duty on spark plugs will be 25% instead of the current 10%. In addition, the scope of the already imposed increased duties on perfumes and cosmetics will be expanded.

The moscow exchange (moex) index showed a 6.97% decline in 2024. The RTS index decreased by 17.56% over the year. The moscow exchange index in yuan decreased by 14.54% over the year.

Chinese road carriers are taking away from russian ones the market for the delivery of goods from the Far East.

The rf’s government has changed the procedure for one-time payments for signing a contract with the russian army for the war against Ukraine. Now, russians who signed the contract while serving a prison sentence will not receive the reward.

putin has signed a decree on temporary measures to regulate the stay of illegal migrants in russia. According to the document, migrants staying in the rf illegally must leave the country on their own or have their legal status regulated by April 30, 2025.

The interim governor of kursk region, aleksandr hinshtein, refused to compensate the residents of sudzha for their lost property.

In six districts of chuvashia, more than 10,000 people are without electricity on New Year's Day.

governor of the krasnoyarsk territory kotyukov has issued a decree restricting the use of pyrotechnics throughout the region.

On December 30, an Airbus plane sold to iranian airline Toos Airlines, returned to minsk after departure due to technical problems.

The government of the rb has extended until December 31, 2025, the ban on the import and sale of certain types of goods and on the import from “unfriendly countries” of alcoholic beverages imported with the rb’s excise taxes. Prohibited is the import and sale of water, mineral and carbonated included. The ban on labeling of alcohol imported into the country also remains in place.

rosselhoznadzor for the first time has detected medicines in the products of seven belarusian enterprises: against helminthes albendazole aminosulfon, aminomebendazole, aminoflubendazole – in the soft cheese of the turov dairy plant; anti-inflammatory medication diclofenac – in the butter of the slutsk cheese factory, rogachev beef of the mogilev raipo; anti helmintic medicine niclosamid – in dry milk products of the lida dairy and canning plant; analgesic methylaminoantipyrine - in “belmeaitfood”’s beef; undeclared and unregistered genetically modified soy components in cattle feed “alnikorprodukt vertelishki”. rosselkhoznadzor will change the status of seven companies in the register of enterprises of the customs union to “enhanced laboratory control”.

lukashenko's regime reports that the number of doctors in the country is “growing every year”. However, the data of civilian monitoring of the health care system show that the actual number of doctors in the country is 26 to 40 doctors per 10 thousand people.

On December 22, the newspaper of lukashenko's administration, “belarus today”, published an article about the peat enterprise “dneprovskoye” in bykhov district. Next week, one of the characters of the publication, the head of the planning and economic sector, was tried for “spreading extremism”.