Ukraine and the World – Against russia’s Aggression. Sanctions in Action

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte says that the Alliance’s cooperation with Ukraine is active and is being pursued in several areas simultaneously. In particular, the Alliance is “strengthening coordination through its command in Wiesbaden” and is involved in providing assistance to our country, as well as providing training and education for servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas has stressed that despite the importance of addressing Arctic security issues, the most pressing security challenge for the European Union currently remains in Ukraine.

UK Secretary of State for Defence John Healey has said that London is allocating additional £500 million for urgent support to Ukraine’s air defense.

The UK Ministry of Defense has also announced that it will provide Ukraine with additional 1,000 multi-purpose missiles to strengthen Ukraine’s air defense. These are light multi-purpose missiles that can be used from various platforms and MANPADS.

“...I have confirmed the commitment of Europeans – both in terms of arms support and our ability to stand alongside Ukrainians, who are now leaders in drone production and are keen to engage in constructive exchanges,” said Minister of Defence of France Catherine Vautrin.

The Netherlands will transfer F-16 aircraft simulators to Ukraine for training Ukrainian pilots.

Sweden is preparing a new contribution to the PURL program for the purchase of American weapons for Ukraine.

“We need more support for Ukraine. What we are seeing in Ukraine are attacks by russia that have nothing to do with military strategy; this is terrorism against the civilian population of Ukraine,” said Minister of Defence of the FRG Boris Pistorius, who also considers an agreement on the date of Ukraine’s accession to the EU to be realistic.

Ukraine has received from Lithuania 22 generators with a total capacity of 13 MW for hospitals and critical infrastructure in Kyiv.

The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has provided Ukraine with 13 generators for Kyiv’s needs under an emergency recovery program.

“Remembering those killed by russia’s war is not a violation, it is our moral duty. When remembrance is punished, neutrality becomes complicity”, – Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia Margus Tsahkna criticized the International Olympic Committee’s decision to disqualify Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych for his “helmet of memory”.

“...Remembering the fallen is not political propaganda, but an act of humanity,” – Prime Minister of Latvia Evika Siliņa condemned the International Olympic Committee’s decision to disqualify Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych.

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If russia blocks the Suwalki Corridor, NATO countries will respond with devastating force, – stated NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.

A bipartisan group of congressmen has introduced a bill in the US House of Representatives to impose sanctions on foreigners for participating in deals to import oil and petroleum products from russia. The initiators of the bill aim to “cut off the main source of military income” for the rf. Sanctions are also provided for “facilitating financial transactions” for the aforementioned agreements. Restrictions will also apply to CEOs and board members of companies involved in the supply of russian oil.

The Parliament of Estonia, Riigikogu, has voted for the country’s participation in the steering committee of the Special Tribunal for the Investigation of the Crime of Aggression by the rf.

Apple has begun restricting purchases, subscriptions, and other transactions for russians whose data match information on sanctions lists. While such cases were previously isolated, the restrictions have now become widespread. These matches could affect tens of thousands of russian users, who may lose access to their Apple IDs as a result.

Due to the scrap collection, more than 10 Chinese brands are planning to leave russia, including Kaiyi, BAIC, SWM, Dongfeng, Jetta, Bestune, Wey, Rox, Oting, and VGV.

“russia’s economy will continue to slow down in the first half of 2026, with recovery possible at best at the end of 2026, but more likely in 2027,” said minister of economic development maksim reshetnikov.

In 2025, russia’s external debt grew by $30 billion, or by 10.4%, to $319.8 billion.

The government of the rf is preparing to introduce a new tax on imported goods to fill the federal budget, which is facing an astronomical deficit of 8-10 trillion rubles this year. The possibility of introducing a 22% VAT on foreign goods on marketplaces is being considered.

Growing economic problems are having an increasingly strong impact on the russians’ standard of living. Over the past two years, the proportion of families forced to give up basic purchases and habitual expenses has increased. In 2025, 48.3% of russian families said they could not afford to go on vacation at least once a year due to lack of money. Currently, 45.6% of families are unable to replace furniture that has become unusable. More and more russians are also complaining about the inability to give gifts, own two pairs of good shoes per person, or eat meat and fish at least every other day.

“Civil servants in russia do not earn enough to ensure a decent standard of living, so it is necessary to increase their wages,” said sberbank ceo german gref. In 2022, the average monthly salary of civil servants in the rf was 79,800 rubles, and in federal government agencies – 197,000 rubles. For comparison: in 2022, the median salary in russia was only 40,300 rubles.

Due to a lack of funding, the government of the rf has suspended the project to create a unified modular platform (UMP) for the automotive industry. It was on the basis of the UMP that the Aurus line of luxury cars was created. The cars were first of all intended for transporting top government officials.

“The ministry of finance of the rf still does not see any real contenders for returning to russia among foreign companies that left the russian market after the start of the full-scale war against Ukraine,” said deputy minister aleksey moiseev.

In 2025, russian courts ruled to nationalize 33 private assets worth a total of $14.9 billion. The seizure to state revenue accounted for about 36% of the total annual volume of the russian mergers and acquisitions market.

russian grain shipments by sea fell by 12.8% year-on-year in January 2026.

Container traffic on the far eastern railway in January fell by 11% compared to the first month of last year.

Authorities of the rf began the year 2026 with a new “tightening nuts” on internet censorship, in which russia is already firmly among the world leaders. After the official announcement of the start of  blocking Telegram, roskomnadzor began removing prohibited and blocked sites from the national domain name system (NSDI), created under the law on the “sovereign runet”. On Tuesday, it became known that the YouTube domain had disappeared, and on Wednesday, the disappearance of WhatsApp was discovered. In total, at least 13 resources were removed from the NSDI. Among them were Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Windscribe, Apkmirror, Tor, as well as five media outlets: BBC, “Nastoyashchee Vremya”, Deutsche Welle, “Radio Svoboda”, and The Moscow Times.

In russia, against the background of social media and messenger blocks, the operator “megafon” has increased the cost of communication services by 10-20% since February.

A russian voice robot created to work in the call centers of management companies had to be taught not to use profanity. The neural network learned profanity after a month of communicating with customers of housing and utilities companies.

Premium petrol brands have begun to rise in price again in tatarstan, with the price of AI-98 increasing by almost 20 kopecks over the past week. The previous significant jump in fuel prices in tatarstan was recorded in mid-January, from the 13th to the 19th. At that time, AI-92 petrol rose in price by 47 kopecks.

“russians should start growing cucumbers at home against the background of their sharp rise in price in shops by more than 100%,” said member of the state duma nikita chaplin.

russians submitted 150,000 denunciations against each other to the fsb over the course of a year.

In 2025, 22,200 juvenile offenders were identified in russia. The latest increase in this indicator was recorded in 2015.

In 2025, the proportion of acquittals in criminal proceedings in the rb fell to 0.13%.

Last year, lukashenko’s regime handed down 40 convictions to minors under political articles.