January 16, 2025 Ukraine and the World – Against russia’s Aggression. Sanctions in Action

Prime Minister of Poland Donald Tusk has announced the 46th, worth more than EUR 200 million, package of military aid to Ukraine. At the same time, he has promised that his country will help Ukraine speed up our joining the European Union.

The Government of the FRG has announced the next tranche of military aid to Ukraine, which includes 20 mine-protected vehicles, ammunition for Leopard 1 tanks, 14,000 155 mm caliber shells, 19,000 122 mm caliber shells, 600 HF-1 attack drones, 50 Vector reconnaissance UAVs, 46 RQ-35 Heidrun reconnaissance UAVs, 43 Songbird reconnaissance UAVs, 495 HK 416 assault rifles, 11,000 120mm mortar rounds, binoculars, woolen blankets and turnstiles. Marder infantry fighting vehicle, RCT-30 wheeled infantry fighting vehicles and RCH 155 self-propelled howitzers are being prepared to be delivered to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Minister of Defence of Germany Boris Pistorius has said that his country is working on various options by analogy with the “Danish model” regarding the financing of arms purchases from the Ukrainian military industry. According to forecasts, this year foreign financing of arms production in Ukraine will exceed last year's many times.

A third of the weapons in Ukraine are of domestic production, 30% are from the EU, and up to 40% are from the USA.

Future US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has said that the next presidential administration understands the nature of the full-scale war in Ukraine and is in favour of ending it as soon as possible.

The Czech Republic has handed over a 155-mm DITA wheeled self-propelled artillery unit to Ukrainian border guards.

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Kästutis Budris has pointed out that his country is ready to discuss with its allies Ukraine's potential request for deployment of peacekeeping forces.

South Korea plans to hold consultations with Ukraine regarding the return of north korean soldiers captured by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

In 2026, the conference on the recovery of Ukraine will be held in Poland.

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The European Commission intends to initiate a ban on the import of russian primary aluminum as part of the 16th round of sanctions against the rf. Imports of russian primary aluminum to the EU have decreased over the past two years. From January to October 2024, the EU imported more than 130,000 metric tons of primary aluminum from russia, or about 6% of the total of 2.2 million tons. In 2023 and 2022, this figure was 11% and 19%, respectively.

The European Commission is also considering the gradual cessation of liquefied natural gas imports from russia, sanctions against dozens of vessels, and disconnection of new banks from the SWIFT international payments system.

The EU Court has confirmed the sanctions against the russian mobile operator “megafon”.

Almost 500,000 metric tons of russian oil products are stuck on tankers that have been sanctioned by the USA.

The American oil service company SLB will have to stop its activities in the rf after the introduction of new large-scale sanctions against the russian oil industry.

Japan is introducing new sanctions against the rf because of the latter’s invasion of Ukraine. The new measures will ban the export of goods to russian companies and a number of other countries that are believed to have helped moscow evade sanctions. Japan will freeze the assets of 11 individuals, 29 organizations and three banks.

The Biden administration has confirmed that north korean troops deployed against the Armed Forces of Ukraine in kursk region are suffering increasing losses, and advised the kremlin to provide them with a sufficient number of body bags, – said White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby.

The Czech Republic is ready to give up the import of russian crude oil through the “Druzhba” pipeline and replace it with supplies through the Transalpine Oil Pipeline (TAL), which was specially modernized for this purpose, – said the country's Prime Minister Petr Fiala.

Prime Minister of Poland Donald Tusk has said that russia was planning terrorist attacks against Poland and international airlines. “These acts of sabotage are versions of the war that russia has declared to the whole world, not only to Ukraine. They require joint action, and Poland plays a key role in countering acts of sabotage and diversions that took place not only on Polish territory”, said Tusk.

“russia has been planning air terror — not only against Poland but also against airlines around the world”, emphasized Donald Tusk.

Prime Minister of Estonia Kristen Michal has emphasized that the operation “Baltic Sentry”, launched by NATO countries to protect the undersea infrastructure in the Baltic Sea, promises a quick response to possible malicious actions. At the same time, the first ships of the new patrol mission are already in the Gulf of Finland.

Estonia's Conservatives have proposed a draft law on the complete closure of the border with the rf. Isamaa party leader Urmas Reinsalu has explained the initiative in response to the series of hybrid attacks that russia has organized against Estonia and its allies. “Both the partner special services and the security agencies of Estonia have repeatedly warned about the risk of the russian special services’ sabotage”, said Reinsalu.

Prime Minister of Australia Anthony Albanese has said that the Government will take the “strongest action possible” if russia has harmed Australian citizen Oscar Jenkins fighting for Ukraine and captured by russian military. On January 15, the Australian ABC TV channel reported that Jenkins may have been killed.

The agreement on a comprehensive partnership between moscow and tehran does not provide for the creation of a military alliance between the states, said minister of foreign affairs of iran abbas arakchi. “The agreement includes security and defense cooperation, but does not aim to establish a military alliance”, he said. Also, in the agreement, iran refused to recognize Crimea as russian.

In Kazakhstan, the court of the city of Satpayev has sentenced to 4.6 years in prison a citizen of the country who fought against Ukraine in the ranks of the international criminal organization “wagner”.

In russia, the non-existent “Belgorod People's Republic” (“BPR”) has been included in the register of “terrorist organizations”. The corresponding entry appeared in the single federal list published on the official website of the fsb.

In 2024, the volume of exports of russian pipes of large diameter decreased more than four times: in 2023 it was 436,000 tons, while in 2024 this indicator fell to a level below 100,000 tons.

The collapse of the Internet in russia on January 14, which became the second major outage of the runet since the beginning of the year, caused by problems with roskomnadzor’s technical means of countering threats.

In russia, popular inexpensive foreign cars – Hyundai Solaris, Kia Rio, Renault Logan and Duster, as well as VW Polo and Skoda Rapid – are out of stock. The production of these cars was stopped in the country back in 2022 due to the war in Ukraine, and dealers had been selling off the leftover stock.

russian truck manufacturer “kamaz” has for the first time ceded its leadership in the domestic market. By the results of 2024, the Chinese Sitrak took first place in terms of the total number of vehicles sold in russia. All in all, 102,000 new heavy commercial vehicles (HCV), were sold on the russian market within the year, which is by 18.8% fewer than a year earlier. Almost a fifth part (19%) of the market fell to Sitrak (19.4 thousand vehicles).

Over the year, prices for IT equipment placement services in data centers in moscow region, st. petersburg and leningrad region have grown significantly faster than in 2023, by 35% and 9%, respectively.

Spices will rise in price in the rf – selling prices will be increased starting February 24. In 2024, spices rose significantly in retail prices. Manufacturers' selling prices increased by 30% during the year.

The section on soviet repressions has been removed from the museum of moscow’s “history of moscow” exhibition.

russian children under 14 should be restricted from accessing social media, said amir khamitov, a member of the state duma from the “new people” party. In his opinion, this will help protect them from anti-russian propaganda.

russian kindergartens and schools have started forcing children to record video messages to the participants of the war against Ukraine and to collect aid for the front. The measures are part of the “year of the defender of the fatherland” announced by putin.

During one of the meetings in the local administration, the head of timashevsk district of the krasnodar territory of the rf andrey paliy expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that he has to contact the relatives of the dead participants in the invasion of Ukraine. “You think it's easy for me to visit everybody and pick up the smell from a coffin?” he complained. Paliy added that he had no intention “to bow to the mothers’ feet” and “to talk stuff and nonsense”.

The official magazine of the ministry of defense of the rf has published an article with a proposal to introduce a system of awarding attack aircraft in the country, similar to the armed forces of Nazi Germany. The authors of the article believe that “there is an urgent need” for awards which commanders could hand out on the battlefield. As an example, they cite the award system of the Wehrmacht, where “the issue of awards was well thought out and thoroughly controlled”.

In the rb, guitarist of rock group Evthanazia and, at the same time, chief power engineer of the rechitsa hardware plant A.D. Andrei Starushenko has been accused of spreading “extremism”. And this – despite the fact that the group's texts relate to the topics of other worlds, philosophy of life and death. In 2021, the guitarist was awarded a certificate of honor by the rechitsa district executive committee and the district council “for many years of conscientious work, a significant contribution to the development of hardware production and active participation in the public life of the plant”.

moscow's tver court has arrested 66-year-old Halyna Archagova on charges of publicly justifying terrorism. According to the investigation, the pensioner posted a video on vkontakte with comments in support of the Freedom of Russia Legion, which consists of Russians and fights on the side of Ukraine. The rf’s authorities consider it a terrorist organization. The pensioner asked the court not to arrest her, but to choose some other preventive measure because she is taking care of her old father, but the court refused to. Even her children cast off the woman, who is in the so-called “hungry cell” and asks for basic food.

Eight European countries have joined the sanctions against 26 individuals and two legal entities from the rb, introduced by the European Union on December 16, 2024. Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, North Macedonia, Ukraine and Montenegro will “ensure compliance of their national policies” with the EU Council's decision on sanctions. On December 23, 2024, Switzerland also announced that it would join the December sanctions. In total, 287 individuals and 40 legal entities from the rb are currently under European sanctions.

On January 13, 2025, and before that on January 9, Polish border guards did not record any attempt to illegally cross the rb-Poland border. On January 7 and 8, migrants tried to enter the territory of Poland less than 10 times a day. The decrease in the number of migrants at the border is due to the fact that in the autumn of 2024, many of them were removed from the western regions of the rb in order to prevent destabilization of the situation in the country during the presidential elections in January 2025.

The rb has dropped six positions in the Global Firepower world military rating. In the updated Military Strength Ranking for 2025, the country took 70th place out of 145 countries in the world and is now between Sri Lanka (69th place) and Slovakia (71st place).

In 2024, 42,000 belarusians received a decision on granting a residence permit in Poland.

In 2024, at least 8,895 people in the rb were subjected to various types of repression related to criminal or administrative persecution (arrests, interrogations, searches), – reports the human rights center “Viasna”. These are solely the cases known to human rights defenders.

prosecutor general of the rb andrei shved has said that “many” belarusians who left for abroad, are eager to return to their homeland, but are afraid of “those who oversee them in the West”.

In lukashenko's election program, there is a promise to create a single online portal for public services, which has been operating in the country for 10 years.

The national bank of the rb demands from banks to stop lending to russians in order to avoid financial losses due to speculations on the disparity of credit rates with russia.

On December 30, 2024, the Swiss manufacturer of trolleybuses, the company Carrosserie Hess AG, started liquidation of its subsidiary in the rb – llc “hess great stone”.

The st. petersburg transport committee believes it has found out a problem with belarusian maz buses. There are allegedly two reasons for their catching fire: a short circuit and the radiator's hydraulic drive. The underlying reason is that the layout of the buses has not changed for many years, while the needs have changed. The BELPOL association had previously expressed a different version: the reasons were the forced design changes due to international sanctions (the designed Mercedes engines were replaced with Chinese Weichai ones), poor quality installation of electrical equipment during assembling, and the low efficiency of the russian-made “epotos” fire extinguishing system, which was installed at the request of russian customers.

Since December, in view of the so-called “presidential elections”, the rb’s high school students have been having weekly information hours on the elections and political events in the country. The main thesis is “do not be an activist”. If the national anthem of the rb is played at school events, students should not smile, otherwise they may earn a reprimand and be put on notice by the school administration. At the same time, school chats urge parents not to participate in “extremist” events, “not to succumb to provocations,” and warn that participation in unauthorized gatherings is subject to criminal liability.