March 15, 2023 Ukraine and the World – Against russia’s Aggression. Sanctions in Action

The EU Council has decided to increase the financial ceiling of the European Peace Fund, from which money is allocated for military aid to Ukraine, to EUR 7.979 billion by 2027.

Prime Minister of Poland Mateusz Morawiecki has said that the transfer of MIG-29 fighters to Ukraine could take place within the next 4-6 weeks.

Ukrainian tank - drivers in Poland are being trained on Polish PT-91 Twardy tanks.

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Rishi Sunak has said that his country's highest priority is to continue providing military assistance to Ukraine.

The US Department of National Security has decided to extend for another year the stay of Ukrainian citizens who entered American territory under the United for Ukraine program.

Minister of Defence of the Netherlands Kajsa Ollongren has announced the transfer to Ukraine of two Alkmaar-class minesweepers that can be used to detect and neutralize explosive devices, as well as protect trade routes and the coast. Crews of Ukrainian sailors will begin training in the near future.

The decision on a new plan for the supply of additional artillery ammunition, including 155-mm shells from existing EU stockpiles, will be approved on March 20 at a meeting of EU Foreign and Defense Ministers, EU High Representative Josep Borrell said.

Since March 13, the Ukrainian military have been undergoing training on the radars, the money for which was collected in Lithuania. “The training will last four days – two days of theory and two days of practice in real conditions (monitoring of Lithuanian airspace). Fast training of personnel is one of the advantages of this equipment”, the Lithuanian Armed Forces said. After the training, Ukrainian servicemen will use radars at home to warn residents and preserve critical infrastructure. A total of 16 such radars will be transferred.

President of Lithuania Gitanas Nauseda has said the European Union, which seeks security, should strengthen sanctions against russia and accept new members.

The Lithuanian Parliament recognized pmc “wagner” as a terrorist organization.

The Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs believes that russia's frozen assets could become an instrument of pressure on moscow in the issue of compensation for war losses.

During a meeting with Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán, President of France Emmanuel Macron called for the unity of the EU on the issue of war in Ukraine.

Today, russia is the most sanctioned country in the world. Currently, 14,081 sanctions are in force against russian individuals and legal entities. This is five times more than before its recognition of the so-called “l/dpr” in 2022. Most of the sanctions against the rf have been imposed by the United States, Switzerland and Canada with 1948, 1782 and 1,590 restrictions, respectively. Most of these sanctions target individuals, and only 2,210 of the 11,327 sanctions are imposed on legal entities, sea vessels or aircrafts. These figures do not include sectoral sanctions, such as general trade embargoes on gas or oil. Before russia's invasion of Ukraine, Iran was the most sanctioned state in history – 3,616 active sanctions imposed by the United States, the UN, the EU, Australia, Canada, India and Israel. Syria is third now.

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A court in Germany on March 14 rejected rosneft's claim against the German government and confirmed the legality of its decision to transfer the russian company's refinery under external management.

Deutsche Bank AG has stopped all operations with the caspian pipeline consortium.

Large foreign owners of commercial real estate continue to leave the russian market, in particular, Logicor, a manager of warehouse and logistics complexes in Europe, sold the Weilcorp complex in st. petersburg with an area of more than 40 thousand square meters.

Due to the sanctions imposed by the United States and the United Kingdom against the russian mts bank, the mts telecom operator must close its business in Armenia.

For the first time since the beginning of russia's full-scale aggression against Ukraine, the federal customs service of the rf has published data on russia's foreign trade. According to the report, a drop in the most important investment imports for the economy (machinery and equipment) was recorded – from $ 36.9 billion in 2021 to $ 29.8 billion in 2022 (minus 19.1 %). The cost of importing land transport (primarily cars) decreased from $ 26.9 billion to $ 15.7 billion (by 41.5 %). Imports of food and agricultural raw materials increased – from $ 34 billion to $ 35.7 billion (by 4.9 %). Purchases of pharmaceutical products increased from $ 13.8 billion to $ 16 billion (by 16.3%).

rosmorport should postpone the completion of the construction of new terminals in seaports, which were planned to be commissioned in 2024. We are talking about facilities in ust-luga, vanino, novorossiysk, for which russia was unable to obtain imported equipment due to international sanctions.

By more than 20 % has increased the number of russians’ appeals for warranty repair of home appliances. According to experts, this is due to the absence of foreign brands in the country and the growth of sales of russian and chinese products.

In 2022, many foreign pharmaceutical companies stopped clinical studies of their medicines in the rf: up to 18 % of such studies were completely cancelled, 50-55 % never began or were stopped by the decision of the manufacturer. “Such a reduction in the number of local clinical studies of foreign original medicines means that in the next few years, patients may lose access to new innovative treatments in Russia”, – the all-russian union of patients said.

The gosduma (state duma – Transl.) has made another decision to suppress the expression of will of the russian population: criminal liability “for public discrediting of formations contributing to the armed forces of the rf and the spread of fakes about them”. The maximum punishment is 7 and 15 years in prison, respectively. Now, in addition to the military and rosgvardia, the norms will extend to “volunteer formation, organization or person”, which contribute to the tasks assigned to the armed forces of the rf. According to the ovd-info human rights media project, russian prosecutors have already opened more than 5,800 cases against people for discrediting the armed forces of the rf, and the authorities have used the laws on fighting the spread of false information to sentence to long-term prison the long-time critics of the kremlin.

In just over a year of the war, putin's rhetoric has changed from “we are launching a special military operation to denazify Ukraine” to “russia is fighting for the existence of its statehood, this is the task of survival”.

A moscow resident wrote a denunciation of her daughter's eight-year-old classmate in order to take revenge on a girl who allegedly offends her child. Having examined all the social networks of her daughter's abuser, she wrote a statement to the police. The reason was a video of a girl on the “likee” application (like TikTok), where an eight-year-old girl crumpled the painted russian flag with her hands against the background of the painted flag of Ukraine. So the muscovite announced “detecting the russophobic position” of the child.

The belarusian defense ministry has said that in March they intend to call those liable for military service. The number of the called is not mentioned.

From August 17, 2021, new entrepreneurs are not registered in minsk. In the city’s executive committee, this was explained by technical reasons. In the last year alone, the capital has lost more than six thousand entrepreneurs. According to belstat, over the year, belarus lost 13.3 thousand individual entrepreneurs.

belarusian government officials have classified another information. The ministry of labor has stopped publishing data on the indexation of incomes of the population. Detailed statistics on exports, public debt and state budget execution are no longer available either. Previously, the authorities stopped posting data on part-time employment and wage arrears, average unemployment benefits, statistics on mortality, on the number of pensioners, on the amounts of companies' debts to the social protection fund.

In belarus, detentions were held among psychiatrists and psychotherapists. During interrogations, specialists were required to violate the law on medical secrecy and report to law enforcement agencies about “unreliable” patients who came to their appointments. Almost 20 doctors were detained. Some of them were released after interrogations.