July 20, 2022 Ukraine and the World – Against russia’s Aggression. Sanctions in Action

The European Union is preparing new sanctions against almost fifty russians and a number of legal entities. The new blacklist concerns 47 individuals and eight organizations, and also prohibits the import of russian gold. Among others, the mayor of moscow, sergey sobyanin, the head of rostekh sergey chemezov, russian actors sergey bezrukov and vladimir mashkov may fall under sanctions.

Besides, the EU intends to impose sanctions on sberbank, as well as the biker club “night wolves” and its president aleksandr zaldostanov. The russian military-patriotic movement yunarmiya, the fund for the support and popularization of the russian language abroad “russky mir”(“russian world”) shipping and arms companies will also be sanctioned.

The Republic of Poland proposes the following EU sanctions against russia. In particular, the list includes  russian gas and the rest of the oil. Poland raises the issue of pipeline oil or at least very high tariffs for it, the rest of russian banks, russian gas – primarily liquefied, the IT sector and the road and sea transport.

General Director of the Turkish company Baykar Makina Haluk Bayraktar has assured that the company will not sell its Bayraktar drones to russia. “We have never done such a thing and we will never do it. Because we support Ukraine, we support its sovereignty, its resistance and independence”, the businessman said.

The Norwegians admired the example of the Lithuanians and Poles and decided to raise money to buy a Bayraktar drone for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The organizers have said that every citizen can donate at least 10 kroner to the UAV. They intend to collect 55 million kroner (about 5.5 million US dollars) and transfer them to the aid fund at the Embassy of Ukraine.

The USA has warned Iran about possible further sanctions in the event of the transfer of drones to the russian federation. “We will continue to monitor the situation. All our sanctions remain in force. Any such operation will lead to a number of sanctions that we have in store, as well as, probably, a number of sanctions from other countries of the world”, said State Department’s Spokesperson Ned Price.

US Secretary of Treasury Janet Yellen criticized China's economic relations with the russian federation. She also urged Beijing to use its “special relationship with russia” to persuade the kremlin to end its war against Ukraine.

Slovakia wants to give up russian nuclear fuel. For several months, the country's government has been negotiating to find suppliers of nuclear fuel for the NPP to replace rosatom.

Ireland has suspended visa-free travel for refugees from most of Europe to make room for Ukrainians.

During his visit to Lviv on July 19, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Hungary Levente Magyar stated that Budapest is ready to allow all aid provided by other countries to Ukraine, including military aid, to pass through its territory.

Hungary is also ready to accept Ukrainian children in its sanatoria and camps, has offered to help treat civilians and military personnel in its medical facilities, and has confirmed that it is ready to provide 1,000 scholarships for Ukrainians at its universities.

Ukraine will be able to take advantage of EU funding in the field of health care within the framework of the EU4Health program on the same terms as EU member states, Norway and Iceland. EU Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Stella Kyriakides and Minister of Health Care of Ukraine Viktor Lyashko signed an agreement on Ukraine joining the EU4Health program. The agreement between Ukraine and the EU will provide an opportunity to support the Ukrainian health care system and respond to its urgent needs, will contribute to the recovery of the country in the long term, in particular, will make it possible to more effectively prepare the health care system of Ukraine to European standards and facilitate the sectoral integration of Ukraine with the EU.

As part of the project of solidarity with Ukraine, actor and director Alain Delon recited poems by Taras Shevchenko. The Cultural Center of Ukraine in France occupies premises in Delon's former house.

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The retropavlovsk gold mining company, due to the inability to sell gold, filed a statement to stop trading shares on the moscow stock exchange. Earlier, the court made a decision on the appointment of external management in the company.

According to experts' forecasts, “not just unemployment, but permanent unemployment” awaits russia. Such a situation can become a big problem for specialized federal and regional departments, which is why they have already begun to prepare for new realities: they are reformatting the work of employment services throughout the country and promising future retraining and employment programs for certain categories of the population, in particular young people. However, the best specialists, who mostly worked in international companies, have already lost their jobs, and it is unlikely that they will be retrained. It is likely that young and talented specialists will increasingly leave the rf. At the same time, in the regions with the highest unemployment rate (9% versus 4.5% on average in the rf) – dagestan, ingushetia, altai, tuva, north ossetia, kabardino-balkaria, karachay-cherkessia and chechnya – specialists do not see significant potential for retraining. According to a sociological study of the “code: russia” project, only 9% of young russians count on the government. And almost all of them are afraid of economic crisis, war and poverty.

According to the omd om group company, in the first half of the year advertisers reduced the budget for promoting their products on the Internet by 34% –  to 91 billion rubles. According to the results of 2022, for the first time in history, Internet advertising in russia will decrease at once by 43%. 2020 was considered the worst year for this market segment, when, against the background of the pandemic, Internet advertising grew by only 4%. Almost one-third of online advertising investment came from foreign brands that left russia after its February 24 invasion of Ukraine.

bashkiria is running out of carbon dioxide for drinks: due to a reduction in supplies to other states, in russia, plants producing it have stopped.

the russian hacking group rahdit, which works under the “roof” of the FSB and directly of the kremlin, has said that foreign vacuum cleaners, refrigerators, irons, TVs and other household appliances can be used for surveillance and wiretap. And modestly urged to buy “made in russia” ones, forgetting to remind that there are almost no such household appliances in the rf.

ashmanov, a member of putin's council for the development of civil society and human rights, has said that YouTube video hosting may be blocked in russia by the autumn. In his opinion, this will happen when there is an opportunity to replace it with russian services. The day before, the magistrate's court of the tagansky district of moscow fined Google more than 21 billion rubles for repeatedly not removing materials about the russian soldiers’ atrocities in Ukraine.

The international rating agency Fitch has lowered the long-term foreign currency rating of belarus from C (default imminent) to RD (limited default or default on certain obligations). At the same time, on July 15, the international rating agency Moody's recognized the coupon payments on Belarus-27 Eurobonds, made in belarusian rubles, as a default of belarus on its external debt. The republic had to pay $22.9 million, their non-payment after the end of the grace period is considered default by Moody’s.

The Lithuanian Seimas’ Committee on National Security and Defense will consider banning the country's entrepreneurs from developing trade and economic relations with potential partners in russia.

According to Bloomberg, russia's redirection of crude oil from European consumers to Asia is not successful at all – supplies to China and India have fallen by almost 30% compared to the peak after russia's invasion of Ukraine.

In the Indian port of Cochin, the russian dry cargo ship vv maua-i was detained, as it did not pay the fuel fee in the amount of $ 23,503 to the Estonian company Bunker Partner OU.

Polymetal International PLC, which is engaged in gold and silver mining in russia, Kazakhstan and Armenia, has announced that it is studying the possibility of selling its russian assets.

russian oil supply to India and China is down for the fourth week in a row, lower by 30% compared to their peak in May.

“The head office of Joma has stopped all sponsorship contracts with russian and belarusian sports teams in connection with the beginning of the russian federation's full-scale military aggression against Ukraine”, the company's statement reads. In the past, Joma was a technical sponsor of football clubs CSKA and Akhmat.