March 6, 2025 Ukraine and the World – Against russia’s Aggression. Sanctions in Action

The Government of Ireland has approved an additional EUR 100 million package of aid to Ukraine, which will be used to purchase non-lethal military equipment.

Prime Minister of France François Bayrou believes that European countries should replace American aid to Ukraine.

The Cabinet of Ministers of Latvia has approved a EUR 10 million investment in Ukraine’s drone industry.

The Government of Latvia has decided to donate 31 more cars confiscated from drunk drivers to Ukraine.

During an extraordinary meeting of the European Council on March 6 in Brussels, EU leaders intend to begin work on formulating a concept of the EU’s security guarantees for Ukraine following the potential conclusion of hostilities, including the deployment of European troops in Ukraine.

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Keir Starmer insists that any peace agreement in the war between russia and Ukraine should contain security guarantees in case of the putin russia’s repeated attack by putin’s russia.

“As a strong and unwavering supporter of Ukraine over the past three years, Japan will continue to stand firmly with Ukraine in this time of need,” emphasized Japan’s Ambassador to Ukraine Masashi Nakagome.

The Japan International Cooperation Agency will consider financing energy and infrastructure programs in Ukraine.

64 % of French citizens believe that France should increase or continue military aid to Ukraine.

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France and Germany may confiscate russian reserves to provide new loans to Ukraine.

German authorities are considering measures to prevent launching of the Nord Stream–2 gas pipeline.

Lithuania has imposed new restrictions on the transit of goods to Kaliningrad region.

The deficit of the russian budget deficit in 2025 may exceed the planned levels, deputy minister of finance vladimir kolychev warned on Tuesday. According to him, the “hole” in the treasury may be larger than expected, by up to 1 % of GDP, which corresponds to about 2 trillion rubles in monetary terms.

The toughening of US sanctions on russian oil, which led to oil producers’ increasing discounts on their barrels, has hit the federal budget’s commodity revenues. In February, the treasury received 771.3 billion rubles in taxes from oil and gas companies, by 18 % less than in the same month a year earlier. In terms of money, the government lost 156 billion rubles compared to the amount received in February 2024, and 18 billion rubles compared to January 2025.

russians have dramatically increased the amount of “bad” credit card debt. In January, overdue debt increased by 27 % year-on-year and reached a new record of RUB 510 billion, or 11.5 % of the total card portfolio of russian banks. In quantitative terms, 8.2 % of valid credit cards were overdue for more than 90 days, the highest level in the last two years.

The possible lifting of sanctions by US President Donald trump will not be useful to the rf, says mp vasserman.

russian cinemas are rapidly losing viewers: in February, their attendance fell by 34 % year-on-year to 8.9 million people. The total box office has also declined – from 4.8 billion rubles in February 2024 to 3.8 billion rubles this year.

In russia, clothing and footwear factories are closing en masse, unable to compete with orders for the war.

In February, sales of new passenger cars in the rf fell by 25 % to 77,296 vehicles compared to the same month last year.

In January-February 2025, far eastern railway (a branch of “russian railways”) loaded 11.8 million tons of cargo, which is by 1.9 % less than in the same period in 2024. In the reporting period, coal transportation decreased by 3.1 % to 5.6 million tons (47.5 % of total cargo). Oil and oil products fell by 12.8 % to 1.3 million tons, timber – by 5.8 % to 431.6 thousand tons, construction cargo – by 31.8 % to 259.3 thousand tons, and ferrous metals – by 4.2 % to 144.2 thousand tons.

The staff shortage in the ministry of internal affairs of the rf is 172 thousand people. The shortage of certified personnel in the criminal investigation department reaches 23.9 %, in the patrol and post service – 31.4%, in the drug control units – 24.7 %, in the pre-trial investigation bodies – 22.7 %. Despite the massive dismissals from the ministry of internal affairs, russia retains leadership in the number of police officers per capita. In 2024, there were 643 police officers per 100 thousand russians. For comparison, in China, India and the United States, this figure is 120, 128 and 256 police officers, respectively. In the European Union, the average number of police officers per 100,000 people was 335.3 in 2019-2021.

To replace retiring teachers and to close new vacancies, 96,000 educators will be needed by 2030, i 40,000 teachers included.

Small towns in russia are facing critical overall degradation and high costs of maintaining engineering infrastructure and architectural heritage, an outflow of young people and a lack of social services, which has been exacerbated since the beginning of russia’s war against Ukraine, when the budget is spent on defense rather than social spending.

The National Security Commission of Latvia’s Saeima has prepared a draft law that would ban some public administration employees from travelling to russia and Belarus. The ban on such trips from Latvia is intended to prevent or reduce the threat to national security posed by the rf and the rb. It is planned to apply to persons with special permission to access state secrets, those responsible for the security of critical infrastructure, as well as employees of the ministries of defense, the interior ministry and the ministry of justice, their subordinate institutions, military facilities, the bureau for the prevention and fight against corruption, the tax and customs police, as well as customs officials of the state revenue service. The ban will also apply to persons working in the diplomatic or consular service, as well as in judicial or prosecutorial institutions. The travel ban will also apply to transit through the territory of russia and belarus. However, it will not apply in cases where the trip is necessary to perform official duties or for humanitarian reasons, provided that permission for such temporary departure from Latvia is obtained.

Poland has imposed sanctions against a belarusian company that supplied fertilizers produced by “grodno azot”, which has been under EU sanctions since 2021.

lukashenko has said that putin “most likely did not expect” that his invasion of Ukraine would result in such a large-scale war.

The Gomel region prosecutor's office explained why it was decided to recognize as extremist the film “Forest” about stalin's repressions in Gomel, about an official who survived an execution by firing squad in the Novobelitsky forest. This video allegedly “denies the crimes of the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War,” the prosecutor's office said.

At the end of 2024, belarus retained its “leadership” among European countries in terms of the number of imprisoned journalists. As of December 31, there were 44 of them. In 2023, 37 journalists were reported as such (this was also the highest figure in Europe). Thus, their number increased by 18.9 % over the year.

In late February, in the rb, the Swedish gambling software company Evolution Products Development went out of business. It was the last global IT business on the belarusian market, ranked in the Forbes Top 2000. Due to its supporting russia’s aggression, belarus has been subject to sanctions, which in turn makes it difficult for companies to conduct financial transactions and cooperate with foreign customers. Therefore, IT business chooses jurisdictions with a favorable business climate and no sanctions restrictions, which ensures security, financial freedom, and access to international markets.

In belarus, parents of school children have been summoned to schools to talk to teachers and administrators to dissuade their children from enrolling in foreign educational institutions.