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

Ukraine has received the first tranche of $1.5 billion from the International Monetary Fund under a new four-year program within the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) mechanism.

Within the next two weeks, a meeting of “energy Ramstein” is planned to discuss energy support for Ukraine.

In January – February 2026, Ukraine received more than 1,963 units of energy equipment. These include generators, transformers, block-modular boiler rooms (BMK), cogeneration units (CGU), boilers, etc. The aid was provided by partners from the EU, Germany, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia, Austria, Estonia, France, Japan, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Poland, Cyprus, Switzerland, and UNICEF/WASH.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has called on allies not to forget Ukraine’s need for assistance amid heightened military tensions in the Middle East.

“I am concerned about the overall context: the crisis in international law that is the inevitable result of the war in Ukraine. When a member of the United Nations Security Council deliberately attacked its neighbor... it was inevitable that this would lead to a period of chaos,” Prime Minister of Italy Giorgia Meloni linked the situation in the Persian Gulf to russia’s war against Ukraine.

“What we are seeing now is that russia is using every excuse it can find to simply drag out, delay, and continue its attacks on innocent lives in Ukraine. But our goal remains unchanged. We stand firmly on the side of Ukraine and are working to achieve peace,” said European Commission Spokesperson Anitta Hipper, commenting on the rf’s statement regarding the lack of clarity about the next round of negotiations to end the war against Ukraine.

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European Commission Spokesperson Balazs Ujvari, against the background of the rf’s lawsuit with the General Court of the European Union, has said that the European Commission is fully confident in the legality of the move to freeze the rf’s sovereign assets indefinitely.

“This sends a clear and unambiguous signal that we are serious about countering the ‘shadow fleet’ and closing every loophole that russia is trying to exploit,” European Commission Spokesperson Anitta Hippers commented on Belgium’s detention of the oil tanker Ethera in the North Sea.

Germany has increasingly begun to block russian accounts. The reason for this is the European Union’s decision to include russia in the list of countries with a high risk of money laundering and terrorist financing. Even residence permit holders have to confirm their right to use their accounts as soon as possible.

From June 1, 2026, Finland will ban russian citizens with non-biometric foreign passports from entering the country. Finland will become the eleventh European country to impose such a ban. Earlier, similar decisions were made by the authorities of Germany, Denmark, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, France, the Czech Republic, Estonia, and Poland in connection with russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Due to the participation of russia and belarus, the Lithuanian public broadcaster LRT will not broadcast the opening ceremony of the Winter Paralympic Games. Nor will the ceremony be broadcast by public broadcasters in Latvia, Estonia, and Finland.

In January 2026, the rf’s state budget deficit amounted to 1.72 trillion rubles. This is almost half of the planned amount for the whole year – 3.786 trillion.

The ministry of finance of the rf has proposed to exempt restaurants from VAT until the end of the year due to the risk of mass closures. In 2026, 250,000–300,000 small businesses may leave the market.

Over the past four years, production costs in the rf’s timber industry have increased by 45%, while prices for timber products on export markets have fallen by more than 30%.

On April 1, a new state standard for white bread made from wheat flour will come into force in russia, replacing the previous one from 1986. According to the new standard, white bread weighing less than 0.5 kg may be produced, whereas previously the weight of a loaf could not be less than half a kilo. Besides, the new standard does not include a recommendation regarding the 24-hour shelf life of white bread in retail outlets. After the invasion of Ukraine began, russian citizens faced so-called shrinkflation – manufacturers and retailers are increasingly reducing package sizes, offering consumers less product for the same price in an attempt to mask inflation and maintain revenue. This process has affected all categories of goods, including groceries, dairy products, and confectionery. Shrinkflation costs shoppers 1 trillion rubles annually.

russia’s largest steel pipe manufacturer, tmk, is shutting down its pipe rolling mill at the pervouralsk new pipe plant amid low demand in russia. tmk reported an increase in losses in the first half of 2025 to 3.2 billion rubles amid a difficult situation in the industry.

“raspadskaya”, part of “evraz”, one of russia’s largest coking coal producers, increased its net loss 4.5 times in 2025, to 53 billion rubles.

The russian subsidiary of the American company Intel – “intel a/o” – has reported zero revenue and a net loss of 28 million rubles for 2025.

“russian railways”, which is facing a systemic crisis and debts, has put the riga station complex in moscow up for sale.

The cost of traveling on russia’s toll roads for car owners increased by an average of 12.7%.

The russian truck market as a whole shrank by 43.7% in the first month of the year.

russia’s energy sector is short of more than 100,000 workers.

Tour operators are fining russians hundreds of thousands of rubles for cancelling tours to the UAE.

In 2025, 9,508 bankruptcy petitions were filed with courts in the krasnoyarsk territory. A year earlier, there were 7,438 such petitions. The increase is explained by the active receipt of bankruptcy materials from individuals – their number increased by 32% and accounts for 92% of the total number of cases. Of the total debt of 10.7 billion rubles, krasnoyarsk creditors were able to recover only 333.6 million rubles, or about 3%. The number of bankruptcies among citizens is increasing not only in the krasnoyarsk territory. High levels of household debt are having an impact: five years ago, the total debt of russians amounted to 19 trillion rubles, but by the end of 2025, it had grown to 41 trillion rubles. Most bankrupt citizens were unable to cope with debts of up to 500,000 rubles: there were 181,900 such russians in 2025. For 115,500 citizens, debts do not exceed 1 million rubles. In total, 456,700 russians were declared bankrupt.

In January and February, only two residential properties were commissioned in st. petersburg. This is a symptom of the structural shrinking of the market, which began in 2022.

In January 2026, the number of employees laid off in belarus exceeded the number of those hired by 1.8%.

In January 2026, 21 new buses from the minsk automobile plant were sold on russia’s market, which is 7.5 times fewer than in December 2025 (158). Also, 192 new maz trucks were sold in the rf, which is 2.2 times fewer than in December 2025 (415).