July 20, 2023 Ukraine and the World – Against russia’s Aggression. Sanctions in Action

The USA will provide Ukraine with an additional $250 million to support agriculture suffering from blocking grain exports following russia's full-scale invasion.

“He (putin) deprives the world of any hope for the arrival of Ukrainian grain. Each of his bombs hits the poorest people in the world”, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Germany Annalena Baerbock drew attention to the fact that russia, after announcing its withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative, attacked Odesa for the second night in a row.

Croatia has offered its ports for the export of Ukrainian grain. At the same time, Lithuania has also announced its readiness to ship 10 million tons of grain from Ukraine through the Klaipeda seaport.

The EU is seeking to transport more Ukrainian grain by road and rail to offset losses from the suspension of the grain deal. “They use hunger as a weapon. This is one of the worst things putin could do”, said the EU's top diplomat, Josep Borrell.

The European Union will propose to create a special fund totaling EUR 20 billion to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine for the next four years. If approved, this step will consolidate ideological changes called the EU's “peace project”. The proposal does not stipulate that the EU will pay directly for Ukrainian weapons. Instead, Brussels will help countries cover their own costs of purchasing and transferring goods such as ammunition, missiles and tanks. It will also help pay for the training of the Ukrainian military. Funding is provided through the existing fund “European Peace Fund”.

Lithuanian Defense Minister Arvydas Anušauskas at a meeting of the Contact Group on Defense of Ukraine announced the creation of a “coalition for demining”. “The coalition is formed on the principle of “train and equip”, which is used as part of the assistance to Ukrainians with military training, which Lithuania provides together with Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and soon – Denmark”, the Minister added.

Ukraine and the UN have signed a memorandum on increasing assistance from the international Organization. The allocated money will go to war risk insurance, demining, energy infrastructure and support for small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as support for post-war recovery projects.

The countries participating in the Ukraine Defence Contact Group (“Ramstein”) have trained 17 Ukrainian combat brigades (more than 63,000 military) for future counteroffensive actions.

Minister of Defence of Spain Margarita Robles has said her country has already sent four Leopard 2A4 tanks, 10 armored personnel carriers, trucks, all-terrain vehicles and ambulances to Ukraine.

Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg intend to transfer M113 armored personnel carriers to Ukraine in the near future.

Ireland will allocate to Ukraine another EUR 5 million in humanitarian aid and will train Ukrainian sappers and military doctors.

An action has started in Lithuania aimed at raising EUR 300,000 to purchase 500 kamikaze drones for Ukraine.

General Mark Milley, chairman of the US Army's Joint Chiefs of Staff, has explained that the slow pace of Ukraine's counteroffensive does not mean its failure, and there is still much fighting ahead. “We are talking about real people and real equipment, as well as real minefields where people die. When that happens, units slow down — and rightly so — to survive and get through those minefields”, Milley said.

Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin has assured there is no disagreement between allies regarding support for Ukraine.

President of Chile Gabriel Boric called russia's invasion of Ukraine “an unacceptable aggressive imperialist war that violates international law”.

“russia is trying to erase Ukrainian culture and identity. russia's aggression against Ukraine began not on February 24, 2022, but when russia illegally annexed Crimea. Civilians in Crimea, including Crimean Tatars, have been oppressed since 2014. Their situation has only worsened following russia's full-scale invasion with an increase in violence, house searches, arbitrary arrests and conscription into the russian armed forces”, said British Ambassador to the United Nations James Kariuki.

“I think russia is much more fragile than the russians want to admit... The split in the hierarchy of the russian army is very real, the level of losses is terrible”, said UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace. At the same time, Wallace called on official London to invest in modernizing tanks, and not in increasing the number of troops.

Prime Minister of Ireland Leo Varadkar has said his country is conducting a special investigation into how Irish-made parts got into Iranian Shahed drones, with which russia systematically attacks Ukraine.

Finland’s Criminal Police has collected testimony from about 50 eyewitnesses and victims of war crimes in Ukraine.

Ukrenergo will receive $ 240 million in grant assistance from the World Bank.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany has allocated EUR 5 million to the Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund (ASB) for the next 18 months to help Ukrainian refugees in Georgia.

Richard Moore, the chief of the UK's Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, has called on russians angered by the war in Ukraine to “join forces” with his intelligence service and “put an end to the bloodshed”.

The United States is considering the possibility of imposing sanctions against Kyrgyzstan for possible participation in the supply of sanctioned equipment and electronics to the rf.

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Finland withdraws its consent to the work of russia’s consulate general in the city of Turku from October 1.

The coalition “We continue changes – democratic Bulgaria” (WCC-DB) has submitted a draft law to the country's Parliament, which will return the Rosenets port, controlled by the russian company lukoil, to the Bulgarian state’s control.

According to the statistical service of the European Union, in January-May, the EU reduced titanium imports from russia by 30%. Thus, Germany imported from russia 305.8 tons of titanium (- 12 % compared to the previous month), and France - 130.7 tons (-10 %). Also, small volumes of russian titanium were imported to Latvia (65.2 tons), Italy (54.3 tons), Belgium (41 tons), Estonia (17.1 tons), Spain (10.4 tons), Poland (0.5 tons), Romania (0.17 tons). In terms of money, in January–May, imports decreased by 20% compared to the same period last year.

Latvia has blocked about EUR 73 million in the country's bank accounts as a result of sanctions against russia and belarus.

Due to the russian crisis, the development group “etalon”, which specializes in the construction and sale of residential real estate in moscow and st. petersburg, must stop listing depositary receipts on the London Stock Exchange.

The cost of restoring the Crimean bridge, according to preliminary estimates of the russian government, will amount to 1–1.3 billion rubles.

The weakening ruble will undermine russia's economy in the second half of the year, reducing consumer and investment demand for the rf, the macroeconomic analysis and multiple forecasting center said.

In the second quarter, the annual amount of funds allocated for the project “safe qualitative roads” for the first time in the last three years decreased by 4.1%, to 451.9 billion rubles (previously the budget was constantly increasing).

After last year's putin's “partial mobilization” of the population for the war against Ukraine and the russians’ leaving for abroad, russia's manufacturing industry alone lacks 660,000 workers.

The russian government checked the concluded contracts ordered by the ministry of defense and, due to inflated prices for products, as well as lack of funds in the budget, reduced purchases by 10 billion rubles.

The russian government decided to reduce budget expenditures next year by 10 % (by 450 billion rubles). According to the plan of the ministry of finance, the budget deficit by the end of 2023 will amount to 2.9 trillion rubles (in June it already reached 2.6 trillion rubles), but economists say that the real budget deficit will be one and a half to two times larger.

The state duma has adopted a bill on strengthening measures to protect state secrets, which significantly limits the number of persons admitted to state secrets, including deputies: special lists of the “chosen” will be compiled.

The state duma is going to amend the law “on psychiatric assistance”, but public organizations dealing with this issue emphasize that the proposed changes will “significantly worsen the legal protection of people with mental disorders, throwing russia back into the past century”. 67 organizations appealed to putin with a request not to change the law. russian psychoneurological boarding schools contain 156 thousand people.

In the first half of 2023, russian military courts received twice as many desertion cases as last year. The military courts of the rf received 2,076 cases of unauthorized leaving of the units, most of the defendants were the mobilized. Courts hand down 100 sentences a week.

EU ambassadors agreed on a new package of sanctions against the belarusian regime. It includes weapons, dual-use products, aviation components, as well as persons involved in the persecution of Andrzej Pochobut. There will be no easing of sanctions on potash fertilizers.

belstat has stopped publishing data on IT specialists. Earlier, belstat classified data on the average salary of IT specialists, hiring and firing in the IT sphere.

The idea of belarus to sell carbon quotas to African countries has failed. Head of the African Voluntary Carbon Credit Market (AVCCM), Kwanele Hlabangana has said that the African market trades only compensation provided by African countries, but not from other jurisdictions, and foreign media “tried to drag our organization into geopolitics”.

belarus is short of many popular imported medicines for domestic animals. Veterinary pharmacies explain this situation by disruption of logistics chains due to sanctions against belarus and russia.