June 25, 2022 Ukraine and the World – Against russia’s Aggression. Sanctions in Action

The United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations has backed a resolution recognizing russia as a sponsor of terrorism. The resolution calls on US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to recognize russia as a sponsor of terrorism. Senators also voted in favor of a resolution condemning the use of famine as a weapon of war and recognizing the impact of the conflict on global food security.

The United States has announced a new $ 450 million aid package to Ukraine. It includes weapons and military equipment: new HIMARS artillery systems, tens of thousands of ammunition for artillery, as well as patrol boats to protect the Ukrainian coast and waterways.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken believes that russia has already lost the war against Ukraine. “Ukrainians are defending with incredible courage, and russia has already lost. putin's goal, in his own words, was to destroy Ukraine as an independent and sovereign country. This goal has failed ... According to our intelligence, russian troops suffer from low morale, high mortality, problems with equipment and management, which refuses to inform them about the real state of affairs on the battlefield”, Blinken said.

The US Secretary of State also stated that the possibility of a diplomatic solution to the conflict in Ukraine will be discussed at the next G7 summit, which will take place on June 26-28 in Germany. The G7 countries will also discuss “preparation for the situation” if there is no diplomatic opportunity.

The European Union has agreed to provide Ukraine with a new package of financial assistance in the amount of 9 billion euros, said the Prime Minister of Poland Mateusz Morawiecki. The funds will be used to finance the social sphere. “Ukraine is at war and has no money to pay for many public services, so we have approved the allocation of 9 billion euros in aid”, reads the statement.

President of France Emmanuel Macron says EU countries will do their best for Ukraine to get membership through a simplified procedure. “We understand that Ukraine is now involved in a conflict. Now we are doing everything possible so that Ukraine can become a member of the EU under a simplified procedure”, Macron said. According to him, the priority is to stabilize the geopolitical situation.

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson asked the G7 countries and NATO allies not to encourage Ukraine to agree to an unfavorable peace.

“My message to my colleagues in the G7 and in, in particular, in NATO, is as follows: “Now is not the time to agree and encourage Ukrainians to go to a bad peace, a peace for which they are offered to give up part of their territory in exchange for a ceasefire”, said Boris Johnson. He warned that such a scenario would be a disaster that could give courage to the russian president and cause additional economic damage to the world.

The United Kingdom’s intelligence believes that russia is using wagner mercenary pilots because it is short of properly trained personnel and suffers significant combat losses.

The intelligence believes that the use of retired pilots under contract with the wagner group indicates that the russian air force is probably trying hard to support the invasion of Ukraine with a sufficient number of crews.

 

In Canada, amendments to the Special Economic Measures Act have come into force. The law allows the Government of Canada “to take economic action against certain individuals in situations where this is called for by an international organization or association of States of which Canada is a member, a gross violation of international peace and security, a gross and systematic violation of human rights." or large-scale corruption has taken place with the participation of a national or foreign state”. Special economic measures include the identification and subsequent freezing of assets located in Canada, at the request of the Governor-General. Under the court decision, the frozen assets can be confiscated. The Authorized Minister of the Government of Canada, after consultation with the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, may transfer the proceeds from the sale of confiscated assets to: reconstruction of a foreign state adversely affected by a gross violation of international peace and security; restoration of international peace and security; compensation to victims of gross violations of international peace and security, gross and systematic human rights violations or large-scale corruption.

The G7 Foreign Ministers agreed on Friday that the russian invasion of Ukraine has caused the current global food crisis, and that moscow is responsible for it. According to the statement, russia is exacerbating the problem of food security with its blockades and bombing of key infrastructure in Ukraine. The ministers called on moscow to “stop attacks and threats and unblock Ukrainian Black Sea ports for food exports”. The heads of diplomatic missions of the G7 expressed support for the UN and the European Commission’s efforts made to transport Ukrainian grain by sea and rail.

Germany is considering nationalizing part of Nord Stream-2. The idea is that the German Ministry of Economy can confiscate part of the pipeline located on its territory and connect it to the floating liquefied gas terminal on the Baltic Sea coast to ensure a reliable gas supply.

Speaker of the Parliament of Moldova Igor Grosu has announced Moldova's intention to join EU sanctions against russia. According to him, the aim of these sanctions is to stop the war, so his country is in solidarity with the EU.

The Ministry of Energy of Ukraine has agreed with the Croatian side on cooperation in diversifying fuel supplies to Ukraine.

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After the rf’s invasion of Ukraine, russians have lost confidence in their own solvency: 77% of them doubt the ability to service their loans in banks, the company kept said after surveying more than two thousand respondents – retail customers and small and medium-sized businesses. Banking experts predict that in the future the situation will worsen and this will lead to an increase in “bad debts” and a reduction in lending in the country.

russian banks, including sovcombank, rosbank, promsvyazbank, otkrytie, and tinkoff, have suspended services to open savings accounts and deposits in dollars and euros. At the same time, a daily commission for keeping the dollar, euro and pound sterling will start operating in tinkoff investments on July 4.

Almost 35% of russian companies will not pay dividends in 2022. Even such a powerful energy group as en + group and the company rusal, which is part of it, said they also decided not to pay dividends to their shareholders for 2021.

Due to the shortage of food packaging, juice producers appealed to the russian government to allow to increase from 0.2 liters to 0.5 liters the maximum size of containers for beverages for young children (up to three years). Market participants offer to make such packaging the main one for children, despite the fact that athe child does not drink such a volume, and the shelf life of the mixture is extremely limited.

Prices for commercial unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in russia have increased by more than 30% in recent months, and in some categories – three times. This happened due to the cessation of sales in russia of drones of the Chinese company DJI and their mass purchases for the war against Ukraine. russia is trying to set up its own production of UAVs at least for industrial use, but experts say that none of russia's drone projects has been truly successful. There are no large-scale russian projects for the production of UAVs yet. At the same time, on March 1, due to changes in the federal aviation regulations (FAP-494), the industrial use of drones became virtually illegal. Under the new rules, the drone operator must be certified and attested as an external pilot. In russia, this is currently impossible due to the lack of a legal framework.

The central control department of fuel and energy complex announced that on June 24 it suspended for an indefinite period the provision of monthly information services to users, in particular, the provision of operational information on gas production, operational and exploratory drilling, coal mining, etc. At the beginning of April, the statistics on oil production in russia became secret.

In the first quarter of 2022, russian airlines suffered a record total operating loss for the last eight years – 61.1 billion rubles, – estimated in the russian association of air transport operators. In 2021, this figure was estimated at 33.3 billion rubles., In 2020 – at 55.5 billion rubles. According to russian presidential aide levitin, the moscow “air hub” has a very decreased passenger traffic.

In pskov region, 50 people evacuated from the temporarily occupied Mariupol want to return home, – said the ombudsman Moskalkova. According to her, there is no legal framework in russia for the return of refugees: “What funds should be used to buy transport documents to return them to their homeland? And accordingly, it is necessary to ensure the crossing of the border… “.

The belarusian automobile association has proposed to lose its dominance in the national market of cars made or imported from russia.

On June 24, the US Department of Commerce denied three russian airlines – nordwind airlines, pobeda airline and S7 airlines – export privileges. The waivers are issued for six months and can be renewed. The airlines violated export controls imposed after russia's invasion of Ukraine.

russian aviation industry is under very severe sanctions: most of the world's states have closed their skies, and lessors, mostly from Ireland and Bermuda, have demanded that all aircrafts be returned to their owners. Also, these aircrafts were deprived of flight safety certificates. russia is trying to circumvent the restrictions and actually begins to pirate the boards, hastily re-registering them in its register. But this does not detract from the impact of sanctions. At the moment, russian airlines can fly only inside the country and in several “friendly” countries, as long as the planes are in good technical condition, as neither repairs nor spare parts will be supplied to them by foreign companies. Leading aircraft builders have also joined the sanctions.

Also the day before it became known that russia has significant problems with flight safety. It could be on the “danger list” next to Eritrea and Bhutan. If the russian aviation authorities do not eliminate the problem by September 14, the list will be officially made public, and a red flag will be set in front of russia, which indicates the danger of passenger flights.

The US Department of Commerce has decided to impose a duty on nitrogen fertilizers from russia in order to deprive russian suppliers of the opportunity to receive benefits in the form of US compensation subsidies.

Greece has extended its ban on russian and belarusian aircrafts’ flights in its airspace until September 22.