June 23, 2023 Ukraine and the World – Against russia’s Aggression. Sanctions in Action

The World Bank Group has announced an additional $1.75 billion in financial support to Ukraine under the PEACE (Public Expenditures for Administrative Capacity Endurance in Ukraine) project. The funding consists of a $500 million guaranteed World Bank loan, a $1.25 billion grant from the United States, and a $15 million grant from Finland’s government.

The World Bank Group's Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) has begun providing war risk insurance guarantees in Ukraine.

The EBRD will provide EUR 600 million in loans and grants from international partners to support Ukraine's energy security: EUR 200 million to Ukrenergo, EUR 200 million to Naftogaz and EUR 200 million to Ukrhidroenergo. At the same time, the EBRD and other participants of the Ukraine Recovery Conference in London signed a statement of intent to cooperate in restoring the private insurance market in Ukraine for resilience during the war and post-war recovery.

The United Kingdom and Ukraine have signed a memorandum of energy partnership and establishment of a £62 million Energy Recovery Fund.

The European Commission is providing Ukraine with the next tranche of macro-financial assistance in the amount of EUR 1.5 billion.

Australian businessman and chairman of Tattarang investment company Andrew Forrest will invest $ 500 million in the Ukraine Development Fund (UDF).

The EU will allocate EUR 250 million to improve cross-border ties with Ukraine and Moldova.

British Foreign Minister James Cleverley has suggested that his country will support the proposal that Ukraine will not need to go through the stage of the NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) to join the military alliance.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said that Berlin, together with its G7 partners and the European Union, are working on long-term security guarantees to Ukraine.

Germany loosens the rules for providing export guarantees in trade with Ukraine.

The Committee on Foreign Affairs of the US House of Representatives has supported a bipartisan resolution calling on President Joe Biden's administration to immediately provide Ukraine with ATACMS missiles.

“russia continues to show no discernible interest in ending the war, and this is evident from the fact that African leaders spent several hours in bomb shelters as russia continued to shell Ukraine during their visit”, said Deputy Spokesperson for the US Department of State Vedant Patel.

The states belonging to the so-called “coalition for fighter jets” consider Romania as a possible place to train Ukrainian pilots to operate F-16 fighter jets.

Latvia will transfer to Ukraine all the helicopters which are at the disposal of its Armed Forces.

Estonia’s government has decided to provide Ukraine with another package of military assistance, which will include equipment for paramedics and sappers, anti-drone equipment, as well as another field hospital (jointly with Iceland).

Minister of Defence of Bulgaria Todor Tagarev has announced the preparation of a new package of military assistance for Ukraine.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, russia, with its war against Ukraine and hostile behavior towards the West, has confirmed that it is a major threat to security, freedom and democracy, as well as to the entire democratic world.

In Prague, 14 fines have been issued for attempts to tear down the flag of Ukraine from the National Museum.

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With the introduction of the 11th package of EU sanctions against russia, Germany and Poland will completely give up russian oil. The new EU sanctions package also includes arms manufacturers and suppliers of cybersecurity means for russian special services.

The Saeima of Latvia has adopted amendments to the Law “On Election Campaigning” in final reading, providing for a ban on election campaigning in russian.

In Lithuania, the Radio and Television Commission (LRTK) decided to block IP addresses where banned russian propaganda TV programs can be watched.

MPs of the Seimas of Lithuania have initiated the process of depriving figure skater Margarita Drobiazko of Lithuanian citizenship for her continuing to perform in russia.

russia's sberindex has reported that russians' spending on goods and services increased by 7.5% from June 12 to June 18.

Since June 2022, industrial electricity consumption in russia has decreased to 1 billion kWh per month, or by 4% compared to 2021, and has not recovered to this day. In regions with a high share of processing, in particular metallurgy, chemical industry and mechanical engineering, a decrease is to 7%, while in mordovia, kaluga, vologda, murmansk, novgorod regions and the perm territory decrease in electricity consumption is up to 30.6%. In the nenets autonomous district, kemerovo, kursk, amur, magadan regions, trans-baikal territory, yakutia, tuva, a 1 to 10 % decrease has been recorded in industrial energy consumption.

The average cost of land in russia in the first half of June rose by 10%, to 600 thousand rubles, the cost of land for industrial use – by 15%, up to 7 million rubles, for agricultural purposes – by 13%, to 450 thousand rubles.. Most of all the prices rose in dagestan (+ 47%, to 1.1 million rubles), rostov region (+ 30%, to 1.5 million rubles), tatarstan (+ 23%, 800 thousand rubles), omsk region (+ 20%, 300 thousand rubles) and the stavropol territory (+ 20%, 900 thousand rubles).

At the st. petersburg international mercantile exchange, the price of AI-92 petrol in the European part of russia increased by 2.25%, to 58,548 rubles per ton, the most since August 2021. To prevent a transport collapse, the authorities are going to increase the damper (artificial price restraint within the rf) for petrol by 31 % compared to May, for diesel fuel – by 51 %.

In russia, a campaign continues to destroy monuments to victims of political repression: in sverdlovsk region, vandals destroyed in two cemeteries the memorials to the Poles who were forcibly resettled to russia in soviet times.

The yekaterinburg-based NGO Polish Polyaros Society has reported that in rezhevsk district, have been destroyed monuments to Poles who died there in the 1940s, after almost 800 Poles, who were deemed “unreliable elements”, had been deported from the soviet-occupied territories of Poland.

The constitutional court of the rf rejected 13 complaints from applicants, who asked to recognize the article of the code of administrative offenses regarding the “discrediting” of the occupation forces of the rf as discriminatory and unconstitutional.

It has become difficult for russians to get vizas for a business trip or for tourist purposes to China: getting permits takes more than two months, even in moscow slots for filing documents are available only from mid-August.

In belarus, they plan to cancel the deferral of military service for students, said aleksandr volfovich, the state secretary of the security soviet. According to him, when a first-year student is drafted into the armed forces, “he will serve a year instead of a year and a half, return to the second year more mature, prepared, and, having graduated from the institute four years later, he will not have to puzzle over whether to join the armed forces or not”.

lukashenko has proposed to “postpone for now” consideration of the issue of purchasing rental housing by doctors. According to him, “the proposal came after a huge number of deficiencies in the health care sector were found out. So the timing isn't quite right”.

The state property committee of belarus proposes to introduce compulsory state registration of real estate, which can now be done at will. According to the head of the committee, dmitry matusevich, this is needed not only to protect the rights of owners, but also “from the point of view of the state, for example, tax authorities. Then property taxes are properly assessed on this property”.

Residents of minsk began to find in their mailboxes advertising leaflets with the KGB’s calling to report their contacts through social networks and instant messengers. A week earlier, the same reports were published in grodno.