November 17, 2023 Ukraine and the World – Against russia’s Aggression. Sanctions in Action

Prime Minister of Estonia Kaja Kallas has said that there is a war of attrition between russia and Ukraine, but the situation is not hopeless. “... russia thinks it can hold out longer than Ukraine. But I have reason to believe that our support will help Ukraine hold out longer than russia”, Kallas emphasized.

“russia thinks it can wait this war out, and that the West will eventually turn its attention elsewhere. This could not be further from the truth”, said UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron. At the same time, he promised to increase financial support for Ukraine.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said he is confident that the United States will not abandon its support for Ukraine.

Denmark has handed over autonomous hydrographic complexes equipped with SeaBat T51-R echo sounders to the Ukrainian military, which make it possible to collect accurate data on the underwater environment and identify hidden threats to ships.

The Czech public initiative A Gift for putin (dárek pro putina) has opened a fundraiser for the American UH-60 Black Hawk multipurpose helicopter for Ukraine.

The next, 17th meeting of the Contact Group on Ukraine’s Defence (Ramstein) will be held online on November 22.

Switzerland promises to support the creation of a special tribunal to consider the crime of russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

According to the results of a joint special study by the Vienna Institute for International Economic Comparisons and the German Bertelsmann Foundation, Ukraine will not economically overload the European Union by becoming its new member, and after the war it will be able to integrate into the European market, following the example of other Central and Eastern European countries that joined the EU earlier.

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The chief diplomat of the European Union Josep Borrell, together with the European Commission, has presented a proposal for the 12th package of sanctions against russia to member states.

Among the 47 people whom the European Commission wants to add to the current sanctions lists is putin's cousin anna tsivileva, who heads the “defenders of the fatherland” fund, which supports the russian military in Ukraine. Also on the expanded list is ilya medvedev, the only son of the ex-president of russia, he is accused of organizing a disinformation and propaganda campaign in Ukraine.

The Czech Republic plans to block all state assets of the rf on its territory. At the same time, the Czech government wants to achieve an all-Europe decision to block russia's state assets. In particular, the national sanctions list includes “goszarubezhsobstvennost” – a structure engaged in the management of russian real estate abroad.

The Government of Lithuania has supplemented the national list of dual-use goods prohibited for transportation by land through the territory of the country, including machining machines, turning, drilling, boring, milling, thread-cutting machines, optical and semiconductor data carriers, lithium dioxide, manganese galvanic cells and batteries, vehicles for the transportation of goods and barometers.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has confirmed that Latvia did not discriminate against russian speakers due to the transfer of education to the Latvian language in private educational institutions.

Authorities of Norway may close the only checkpoint Storskog on the border between Norway and the rf, said Minister of Justice Emilie Enger Mehl.

Since November 18, the government of Finland is closing four checkpoints on the border with russia due to an increase in the number of illegal migrants arriving from the territory of the rf. At the same time, the Finnish Customs Service has warned that freight traffic between Finland and russia will be almost completely stopped.

russia has been expelled from UNESCO's Executive Board.

President of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his counterpart from Finland Sauli Niinistö have accused russia of helping refugees cross borders in order to destabilize Western countries.

Serbia will buy Azerbaijan’s gas, reducing its dependence on the rf.

77% of Georgians consider russia to be the biggest political threat.

In Estonia, a driver was fined EUR 600 for a “russian hooligan” sticker.

A huge number of empty containers from China have accumulated at the terminals of moscow region, which, as it turned out, are more profitable to be sold for scrap metal than to be returned to China. It is difficult to organize reverse loading due to the imbalance of container trade with China: the incoming flow in the ports of the far east is by 300 thousand TEU higher than the outgoing one.

In the first half of 2023, an increase in the number of bankruptcy cases of organizations was recorded in russia: it increased by almost a quarter – from 50.3 thousand as of January 1, to 62.6 thousand as of July 1, said konstantin chekmyshov, deputy head of the federal tax service of the rf.

The government of the rf has proposed to the regional authorities to assess the possibility of closing part of the offices of russia’s post in cities with the population of more than 10 thousand in order to direct the funds from renting out premises to supporting post offices in villages. The ministry of digital development proposes to leave at least one office of russia’s post in each city.

The total debt of russia’s post is 133 billion rubles, and, according to the management, “there are no sources of return and repayment”. Almost 311 thousand people work at 38 thousand post offices, more than 70% of post offices are unprofitable.

The fifth power unit of the leningrad NPP-2 with a capacity of 1.2 GW has been shut down for the second time due to the destruction of the blades of a steam turbine manufactured by the russian enterprise “silovye mashiny”.

The government of the rf is changing the mechanism for directing grants for the development and implementation of IT solutions: now state support will be provided only to those companies that have “own resources”.

Sales of used cars in the rf in October decreased by 4% compared to September due to an increase in the cost of loans for russians (in September, a decrease of 7.6% was recorded compared to August).

The leading russian companies “avtodom” and “avtospetstsentr” decided to significantly reduce the supply of cars from the European Union for the so-called “parallel imports” due to a decrease in the solvency of russians.

The loss of the russian online store ozon in the third quarter of 2023 increased by 6%, to 22.1 billion rubles.

russian tour operator tez tour has canceled flights to Egypt on red wings flights from November 26 due to “insufficient demand and low profitability of the destination” – we are talking about flights from moscow, yekaterinburg, st. petersburg and kazan, scheduled until April 2024. At the same time, the russian tour operator izi tour has canceled all scheduled flights to Sharm el-Sheikh from volgograd.

The government of the rf has stated that 48% of all federal highways are in a “non-normative state”.

All joint projects with countries “unfriendly” to the rf in the field of culture have been curtailed for geopolitical reasons, said special representative of the president of the rf for international cultural cooperation shvydkoi.

Due to the rf’s war against Ukraine, losses from the destruction of the infrastructure of belgorod, bryansk and kursk regions have exceeded 7 billion rubles this year.

Terrorist igor girkin and his second incarnation igor strelkov will be defended in a russian court by two different lawyers. According to lawyer molokhov, the defense of girkin in the upcoming trial will be carried out mainly by lawyer gadzhiev, the defense of strelkov – by lawyer molokhov.

Chairman of the Lithuanian Seimas Committee on Budget and Finance Mindaugas Linge proposed to assess the possibility of closing border crossings, through which the most massive flows of smuggling from belarus and russia go to Lithuania.

The debt of organizations and individual entrepreneurs of belarus on contributions to the budget of the social protection fund at the beginning of October increased to 7.7 million rubles. Even those who owed more than 100 rubles fell into debtors.

Due to the acute shortage of workers in certain specialties, the minsk tractor plant promises to pay workers 500 rubles if they bring new employees to the enterprise. The offer will be valid from December 1.