June 27, 2024 Ukraine and the World – Against russia’s Aggression. Sanctions in Action

The EU Council has approved a draft security agreement between Ukraine and the European Union.

“Our top priority, and we all understand why, is Ukraine. And when we talk about Ukraine, we are not just talking about the country, we are talking about Ukrainians. We're talking about their children, and the Council of Europe is very active in all of these issues”, the newly elected Secretary General of the Council of Europe Alain Berset spoke on his priorities in his new position.

The European Commission intends to issue up to EUR 65 billion of EU-Bonds in the second half of 2024, with the proceeds going to finance the Ukraine Facility program, among other things.

The USA is considering lifting the de facto ban on the deployment of US military contractors in Ukraine to help the Ukrainian military maintain and repair US-provided weapons systems.

Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz has emphasized that Ukraine, unlike the rf, does want peace – “a just peace, without fear of new aggression” – hence “Ukraine’s Peace Plan” and the Global Peace Summit in Switzerland. “putin must admit that he will not achieve his goal of defeating Ukraine on the battlefield”, the head of the German government emphasized.

“We have made it clear that russian troops committed atrocities during their illegal invasion of Ukraine and that they must be held accountable for those atrocities. We support a number of international investigations into russia's atrocities in Ukraine, including the ICC’s investigation”, Spokesperson for the US Department of State Matthew Miller commented on the ICC’s arrest warrants for shoigu and gerasimov.

“I think that if I were in charge of the military personnel of North Korea, I would question sending my forces as cannon fodder in an illegal war against Ukraine”, Pentagon’s Press Secretary General Pat Ryder said about the dprk’s troops’ possible participation in the war on the side of the rf.

“Since February 2022, the HRMMU (UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine) has interviewed more than 600 Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war released from detention, including prisoners of war released from russian captivity in the May 31 (current year) exchange. As in previous findings, each interviewed reported torture ranging from severe beatings and prolonged stressful body positions to electric shocks to the genitals and dog attacks”, the Mission said in a press release.

Latvia has given Ukraine  medical equipment worth EUR 343,308.

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Sonata Coulter, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, has said that her country is ready to take action if the rf tries to influence the US presidential election.

The United States has imposed sanctions on nearly 50 legal entities and individuals who are part of Iran's “shadow banking” network, through which it illegally receives income and finances, in particular, “the transfer of drones to russia for use in the war of aggression against Ukraine”.

High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell has condemned as “completely unjustified” the decision of the russian authorities to block access to more than eighty European media outlets in the rf. Věra Jourová, European Commission Vice-President for Values and Transparency, called these actions of the rf “senseless”. “This decision further restricts the already totally controlled and censored access of the russian population to independent and free information”, – Peter Stano, the European Commission's Lead Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, supported his colleagues.

The Seimas of Lithuania has approved a proposal to denounce the international agreement with the rf on legal assistance and legal relations in civil, family and criminal cases.

The National Defense Council of Lithuania has approved the establishment of two new training grounds near the border with the rf in Tauragė and Šilalė districts.

In Latvia, the National Electronic Media Council (NEPLP) has closed access to the pro-kremlin websites rvio.histrf.ru, kuban24.tv, obzor.io, radiogordost.rf, kubnews.ru, bloknot.ru, business-gazeta.ru.

In Finland, the Parliamentary Defense Committee has supported an amendment to the law on military duty to allow reservists to help patrol the country's border. “The security situation is unpredictable, and we have to prepare for hybrid threats from russia in all possible ways”, said Jukka Kopra, the Committee's Chairman.

Despite the russian economic crisis, the ministry of finance did not support the proposal of the ministry of economy to increase the limit on spending from the russian national wealth fund from 4.2 trillion rubles to 6 trillion rubles. “Given the current balance of funds in the NWF, this will significantly reduce our safety cushion”, the ministry of finance emphasized.

The shortage of personnel makes russian employers reconsider their attitude to hiring employees – to hire workers without work experience, knowledge of the russian language and even with a criminal record, as shows the study by the HR holding ventra in May 2024. At the same time, according to the institute for national economic forecasting, entrepreneurs' expectations of a further decline in demand for companies' products and services are leading to a reduction in employee salaries: from 30 conditional points in December 2023 to 17 conditional points in June 2024. A survey of russian industry revealed a “decline in optimism” among respondents to a 17-months low.

In May, the central bank of the rf recorded a significant increase in corporate spending, especially in industry. The main reasons for this include higher purchase prices for raw materials and components, as well as higher transportation costs. “Price expectations resumed growth in June after a pause in May, having jumped to their highest level since December 2023”, the central bank said.

To hide information about the reduction of the aircraft fleet, rosaviatsiya removed from public access the data on the number of aircrafts in the fleet of each russian commercial air carrier. As of the end of March, the ministry of transport stated that there were 1.1 thousand aircrafts in the rf, but the number of foreign-registered aircrafts continues to decline. The head of the state corporation rostekh chemezov said in May that a significant reduction in the fleet in russia will begin in 2030, “as there will be no more opportunities for repairs”. Market experts believe that russian aviation will begin to decline already in 2026 or even much earlier, which will result in “reputational losses for russian aviation”. “The next step should be to hide the number of aircrafts produced in the rf”.

From August 2021 to March 2024, 66 airplanes and five helicopters that were previously in operation were imported from Iran to the rf. Russia continues to negotiate with other “friendly” countries, but the prices of direct purchases from “friends” are by 10-30% higher than market prices. Despite this, russia is trying to buy the planes before new international sanctions are imposed.

According to estimates by the center for macroeconomic analysis and short-term forecasting, the main victims of the economic shocks in russia that arose after the rf's military aggression against Ukraine are export-oriented industries: forestry and logging, production and sale of oil, coal, ore, woodworking, paper production, pharmaceuticals and automotive. In total, these industries (except for oil and gas) accounted for an average of 37% of the total revenue of russia's material production in 2022-2023. Over the past two years, forestry and woodworking had lost 26% and 21% of their revenue compared to 2021, and the automotive industry - 32%. Over the past two years, companies in those industries had increased their bank debt by an average of 35%.

russians continue to take out loans and live in debt. According to the central bank of the rf, in May, the volume of mortgage loans by banks increased by 1.7% to 19.2 trillion rubles (in April, the growth was 1.4%), cash loans reached 14.7 trillion rubles, having increased by 2% in May (in April, the growth was 1.8%). Since the beginning of the year, the debts of the russian population to banks have increased by 8%, which is 1.5 times higher than in the same period last year.

Due to russia's aggression against Ukraine, the losses of the border regions of the rf since 2022 have exceeded 730 billion rubles.

The Ambassadors of the EU countries to the European Council agreed on a new package of sanctions against the rb. The mission has said that this package will strengthen their measures in response to russia's invasion of Ukraine, including the fight against sanctions circumvention. President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen welcomed the agreement by the EU countries on a new package of sanctions against rb.

President of Poland Andrzej Duda, summarizing his talks with President of the PRC Xi Jinping and his visit to China, said that the rb’s hybrid attack at the border negatively affects trade with China and hinders the implementation of the “Belt and Road”.

According to a survey conducted by the representative office of the German economy in the rb (AHK Belarus), 62.2% of respondents – representatives of German companies operating in the rb – consider the political and economic conditions in the country to be the main risk for their companies. More than half of the companies that participated in the survey are not  ready to assess the possible damage from the sanctions. A quarter of the companies mentioned the amount of up to EUR 1 million (almost RUB 3.5 million). 15.6% of the companies – the amount of up to EUR 10 million (almost 35 million rubles), and one company – more than EUR 50 million (172 million rubles).

Head of the Armenian delegation Vrezh Kirakosyan has said that in accordance with the statement of the Armenian Prime Minister on the termination of official relations between the Republic of Armenia and the rb, the official delegation of Armenia decided not to go to the rb and not to participate in the annual international competition “slavic bazaar 2024”.

belstat has reported that the number of people employed in the economy in May decreased by another 14.3 thousand people after the decrease by 11.3 thousand in April.

In the rb, the shortage of personnel at large industrial enterprises is growing dramatically. “grodno azot” needs 782 employees, “naftan” – 274, “gomselmash” – 220, and mogilev metallurgical plant – 47.

Cigarette prices in the rb are to rise by 10-30 kopecks on July 1.

The ministry of internal affairs of the rb has recognized the community on the social network VKontakte called “Long Live Belarus!” as an “extremist formation”.