July 27, 2023 Ukraine and the World – Against russia’s Aggression. Sanctions in Action

The United States has officially released the contents of the next $ 400 million defense aid package for Ukraine. Ukraine will receive: additional ammunition for Patriot and NASAMS air defense systems; Stinger man-portable anti-aircraft missile systems; ammunition for M142 HIMARS rocket systems; 155-mm artillery shells; 105-mm artillery shells; 120-mm mortar shells; 60-mm mortar shells; 32 Stryker APCs; TOW anti-tank missiles; Javelin anti-tank missiles; unmanned aerial systems Hornet; Hydra-70 missiles; tactical air navigation systems; explosive munitions for overcoming obstacles; more than 28 million rounds of small arms ammunition; night vision devices and thermal imagers, spare parts, training ammunition and other field equipment.

The United States will have enough weapons both to support its army and to provide military assistance to Ukraine, which is fighting against russia’s aggression. This was announced by Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh. She pointed out that each aid package for Ukraine is formed collectively.

Principal Deputy Spokesperson for the US Department of State Vedant Patel has pointed out that the United States calls to stop hostilities in the immediate vicinity of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, as the mining of the nuclear facility threatens the security of the entire region. At the same time, he noted the deepening of the military partnership between russia and Iran, which is aimed at terrorizing civilians.

Norway is transferring to the European Peace Fund a voluntary financial contribution of 250 million Norwegian crowns (approximately EUR 22 million), which will be used to supply ammunition and spare parts for Leopard 2 tanks in Ukraine.

Representative of the Free Democratic Party of Germany (part of the governing coalition) Markus Faber believes that the project of military protection of grain carriers with Ukrainian agricultural products in the Black Sea is realistic. Faber has also called for supplying Ukraine with Taurus cruise missiles.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk has said that a year after the deaths of at least 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war in the colony in Olenivka controlled by the russian occupying forces, russia continues to obstruct the investigation into the tragedy. At the same time, according to him, moscow's claims that Ukrainian prisoners were killed by a HIMARS missile are not true.

France and Germany have supported the position of Ukraine, which is against the extension of the European Commission’s temporary ban on the import of Ukrainian agricultural products to 5 EU countries.

European Commissioner for Agriculture Janusz Wojciechowski has proposed to compensate from EU funds for transport costs for grain exports if it is transported from Ukraine by land.

This year, for the first time, Ukraine was included in the European regular review of structural peculiarities, economic indicators and development prospects – Spring 2023 Economic Forecast. The forecast notes that the development prospects of the state should have improved after obtaining the status of a candidate country on June 23, 2022.

The EU has sent 65 school buses to Ukraine.

“Chronic problems of the Czech Republic: we do not kidnap children, do not bomb hospitals and do not occupy neighbors. Get out of Ukraine”, the Czech Foreign Ministry said in response to russia's accusations of “chronic problems of the Czech Republic” and “Prague's further slide towards a russophobic course”.

The International Olympic Committee has not sent invitations to russia and belarus to participate in the 2024 Olympics.

Foreign Ministers of the three Baltic countries have appealed to the International Olympic Committee to prevent russians and belarusians from attending the upcoming Olympic Games in Paris, even in a neutral status.

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EU Ambassadors have extended sanctions against russia and belarus for six months for “violation of the territorial integrity of Ukraine”. As for belarus, the new package tentatively deals with aviation and dual-use goods and does not provide for exceptions and relaxations for belarusian potash fertilizers.

The Baltic countries have agreed to speed up disconnection from the joint power grid with russia and belarus. By February 2025, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia should be synchronized with the European energy system. The decision was made taking into account the changed geopolitical situation, with security in the region amid the war in Ukraine.

The government of Moldova is reducing the number of diplomats and technical and administrative staff of the russian embassy in Chisinau from 84 to 25 people.

Due to US sanctions, three more Georgian banks (Kartu, Terabank and a branch of Kazakhstan's Halyk Bank in Georgia) have stopped transferring funds through the russian payment system “unistream”.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic has filed a lawsuit in the Prague court against russia for the return of funds received by russia as a result of unjustified enrichment for more than 53 million Czech crowns ($ 2.4 million) over the past three years. We are talking about the misuse of land plots by the rf diplomatic missions.

From August 1, russian raiffeisenbank will stop accepting and buying cash dollars and euros from the population.

55% of companies in russia's timber sector have said they expect revenue to decline this year, 20% froze investment programs and another third cut them by more than 30%. By the end of the year, the decline in logging is projected by 35%.

Pulp and paper mills of russia, mainly concentrated in the north-west of the rf, are forced to reduce production volumes over the lack of demand and too expensive logistics to supply products to the Chinese market; by the end of the year, the decline in production may reach 50%. Russia has lost the European market, over the past year it was occupied by pulp and paper producers from India, Brazil and Argentina, where large capacities were recently launched on rapidly growing raw materials (eucalyptus and bamboo). Products from those countries are much cheaper than pulp from russian pulp and paper mills, the main part of which was built more than 50 years ago.

The decision to increase the use of pulp in the production of corrugated cardboard instead of waste paper led to losses of about 100 million rubles for each of the three largest russian pulp and paper mills – ilima, segezha group and arkhangelsk pulp and paper mills. In russia, an excess of corrugated cardboard was formed at about 600 thousand tons with a tendency to increase to 1 million tons due to low demand within the rf and problems with exports.

There is no money in the russian budget this year to pay the subsidy, which previously compensated for 20 % of the cost of building crab-catching ships at far eastern shipyards (the russian budget for 2023-2025 does not provide for such subsidies at all).

Due to the new russian realities, the moscow city council has reduced by 40 % the budget of previously concluded agreements with the pharmaceutical companies “r-pharm” and “biokad”, which guaranteed long-term purchases by the authorities of medicines totaling 32.5 billion rubles, subject to the construction of new pharmaceutical industries in the capital of the rf.

Wholesale prices for buckwheat in russia began to grow and, according to the forecast, by September will reach 45 thousand rubles per ton and more. The main reason is the devaluation of the ruble and the export of buckwheat mainly to Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Moldova and Georgia. At the same time, wholesale prices for russian rice will rise from 78 thousand to 82 thousand rubles per ton, while exports will be banned until the end of 2023.

The ministry of transport is unable to repay the debt of 2.8 billion rubles to air carriers this year for preferential flights to the Far East made in 2022. The deficit of money for subsidies this year is 4.3 billion rubles, so the ministry of transport is going to postpone debt repayment to 2024, fearing lawsuits from carriers and reduction of flights on budget routes. According to the latest data, the volume of subsidies for social transportation to the Far East in 2023 will be reduced by at least 2 billion rubles against the budgeted 12.3 billion rubles.

A draft law on russia's withdrawal from the IMF and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development has been submitted to the state duma.

The “yalta international economic forum”, which the russian occupying authorities were going to hold on September 29-30 in moscow, has been canceled.

According to the latest survey, the share of russians who prefer to save money rather than spend on expensive goods during the russian crisis has increased to 51.4%, the number of those willing to buy – decreased to 29.7%.

From August 1, the mobile operator beeline is the first in russia to increase the cost of roaming services for legal entities and individual entrepreneurs; experts believe that roaming prices will also be increased by other operators to maintain revenue amid lower demand for the service.

Several hundreds of underage students at alabuga polytech college in yelabuga, tatarstan, are being massively involved in assembling shahed drones and punished for refusing to work. Students are paid money, but they have to work around the clock, sometimes without breaks for rest and food. In addition, students must not disclose information about production, it is spelled out in their training contract, for violation of which the student may be obliged to pay a fine of 1.5-2 million rubles to the college. When assembling, they are thoroughly monitored with the help of listening systems and video surveillance. The security service can take away the student's phone and check his correspondence. For refusing to work, teenagers are threatened with expulsion from college, which imposes an obligation on parents to reimburse the educational institution from 170 to 420 thousand rubles as tuition costs.

According to belstat, in the second quarter of this year, the employment rate was 83.7% of the economically active population and 67.6% of belarusians aged 15 to 74. According to independent economists, if we consider the statistics on the number of people employed in the economy, it will be quite different. Thus, in May, 4 million 151 thousand people were employed in the country, while in January – 4 million 173 thousand. It turns out that in just five months the economy had lost about 22.2 thousand citizens capable of working.

In belarus, the liquidation of parties that have not been re-registered continues. On August 31, the supreme court will consider the claim of the ministry of justice on the liquidation of the party belarusian social democratic community, on August 9 – on the liquidation of the social democratic party of people's accord. On August 14, the issue of liquidating the belarusian people's front party will be decided. Earlier, the ministry of justice asked to liquidate the green party, belarusian patriotic party and republican party.

In belarus, amendments to the law “On languages” has come into force. It does not have any longer the requirement for heads of the education system to speak belarusian. Now this requirement is valid only for pedagogical workers.