March 28, 2023 Ukraine and the World – Against russia’s Aggression. Sanctions in Action

18 Leopard 2 tanks from Germany have arrived in Ukraine.

After the war, there is no alternative to Ukraine's accession to NATO, says Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia Urmas Reinsalu.

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Gabrielius Landsbergis is convinced that the North Atlantic Alliance should deploy additional troops in the Baltic countries, which border on russia and belarus.

NATO has criticized russia for its dangerous and irresponsible nuclear rhetoric.

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Latvia Edgars Rinkēvičs has called for new sanctions after russia's statements about plans to deploy nuclear weapons in belarus. Lithuania will also call for new sanctions against russia and belarus over russia's nuclear plans.

France has called for the cancellation of the agreement on the deployment of russian nuclear weapons in belarus.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland has called russia's intention to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in belarus a step towards further drawing minsk into the rf’s military machine.

Germany’s government regarded the kremlin's statement on the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in belarus as “another attempt at nuclear intimidation”.

In Germany, an online platform was presented to help organizations, the private sector and initiatives to unite in a network to rebuild Ukraine. “We know from the experience of recovery around the world that good preparation is extremely important so that emergency assistance fits into long-term reconstruction as best and efficiently as possible”, said Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany Svenja Schulze.

Representatives of Ukraine on May 12 will take part in the meeting of Ministers for European Affairs of the Weimar Triangle countries (Germany, France and Poland). The main topic of the meeting will be the enlargement of the European Union.

Representatives of the French consulting company Beten International and the agency for architecture and urbanism INterland will join the development of a strategy for the reconstruction of Mykolaiv in the areas of ecology, mobility, industrial and port economy, construction on the principles of sustainable development. The beginning of cooperation was laid during the international forum ReBuild Ukraine in Poland in February 2023.

Poland, the United Kingdom, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia’s joint statement, published before the meeting of the IOC executive committee on March 28-30, at which it is intended to discuss the participation of athletes from belarus and russia in the Olympics, says that now is not the time to consider the possibility of returning russian and belarusian athletes to the Olympic Games in any status. “... russia and belarus have a way to return their athletes to the international sports community, namely, to end the aggressive war unleashed by russia with the help of belarus and to restore respect for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity within the internationally recognized borders”.

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On March 27, Kazakhstan’s government, against the background of the reports that russian companies were using local intermediaries to circumvent Western sanctions, decided to start requiring exporters to provide additional documents when sending goods to russia. The new rules, which come into force on April 1, will apply to exports within the Eurasian Economic Union and should reduce “underground” trade.

In 2022, in russia, the production of tractors and combines (in units of equipment) decreased by 1 % and 23 %, respectively; during January-February 2023, manufacturers already lost 11% of their profits compared to last year. The reasons for this situation in the association rosspetsmash are a decrease in the profits of farmers, unwillingness to buy russian agricultural equipment, importation to the rf of cheaper products from China, Turkey and India.

In the conditions of the russian crisis, rosspetsmash turned to the government for state support. In 2022, the subsidy for the association amounted to 8 billion rubles, but only 2 billion rubles are planned in 2023, while producers desperately need 15 billion rubles. According to the decision of the ministry of industrial trade, tractors and combines in general should be sold without a discount, as a result, they will be bought even less.

russian machine builders have said that high-tech components for agricultural machinery in the rf are produced “in insufficient quantities”, “the high level of credit rates and taxes, the cost and a narrow range of rolled metal products in the rf, the low level of customs protection of component manufacturers have led to the fact that it is unprofitable for factories to invest in the development of production – foreign components of comparable quality are 30% cheaper than russian ones”. At the same time, farmers claim that they are not able not only to purchase new agricultural equipment in the volumes they need, but to repair what has broken down: the cost of russian products for the year has increased by 30% to 70%.

During the period from February 2022 to February 2023, the cost of online advertising on the russian Internet sites yandex, vkontakte and rutube tripled for electronics advertisers, doubled for clothing sellers and is five times more expensive for promoting real estate and cars. Due to the rise in the price of advertising, sellers must periodically increase the price of their products by 5-10%.

Since the beginning of russia's full-scale military aggression against Ukraine, the main foreign Internet platforms, in particular YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, have not provided their resources for advertising russian companies.

From April 3, the russian raiffeisenbank will limit the possibility of transferring dollars for private clients, as well as increase for individuals the minimum threshold for transfers in dollars and euros to other banks.

Rent of rooms has risen significantly in the rf: for residents of Vladivostok – by 33.2 %, magnitogorsk – by 30.4 %, volzhsky – by 29.2 %, ivanovo – by 24.5 %, stavropol – by 19.2 %, kemerovo – by 18, 9 %, yakutsk – by 18.2 %, tomsk – by 16.7 %, vladimir – by 16.4 %, irkutsk – by 16.2 %.

The number of citizens of russia, as well as foreigners, who in 2022 issued for themselves the policies of voluntary health insurance decreased by 5 million people, to 31.8 million people (in 2021, the increase was 7.9 million people).

Last year, the number of officially registered HIV-infected people in russia increased by 40,000 and now is more than 1.1 million people. According to the results of the first quarter of 2023, rospotrebadadzor recorded infection of more than 1 % of pregnant women in 27 regions of the rf.

On billboards in moscow they began to show videos about the rules of packing “alarm” suitcase. At the same time, the authorities reassure the population that “those are planned information videos within the framework of the functioning of the rf ministry of emergencies”.

Another russian aircraft was forced to interrupt the flight and ask for emergency landing. On March 26, azimut airlines was unable to fly to moscow from nizhny novgorod. The sukhoi superjet -100 passenger plane, which was at an altitude of just over 3,000 meters above the city, gave an alarm 10 minutes after take - off and having stayed in the air for 20 minutes.

According to the national statistical committee of the republic of belarus, exports of belarusian goods to China increased in 2022 to 4.7 %. According to independent experts, this is not only due to the fact that China has suddenly enjoyed belarusian goods, through the PRC they can go to the markets of third countries. Today, belarus’ share in Chinese foreign trade is only 0.09 %. Beijing's main partners are the United States (16.2 % of exports) and the EU (15.6 %). Chinese exports to russia are 2.1 % of the total exports of China.

The ministry of emergencies of belarus intends to check the automated system of centralized civil defense alert on March 28-30. The check will selectively start electrical sirens, as well as intercept the air of FM-stations to broadcast emergency messages.