July 28, 2024 Ukraine and the World - Against russia’s Aggression. Sanctions in Action

“In practical terms, the United States continues to mobilize a broad coalition of allies and partners to provide military, economic, and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine. For its part, the United States has provided $82 billion in aid to Ukraine since the start of this brutal, unjustified war”, said US Under Secretary of Commerce Marisa Lago. At the same time, she assured that the private sector of the United States is ready to join the work on Ukraine's recovery right now, without waiting for the war to end.

Almost two-thirds of EU citizens are concerned about the security of the EU, and about 50% of citizens consider the war in Ukraine to be the biggest challenge for the European Union today.

Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has provided four modern Komatsu hydraulic excavators as part of an international technical assistance project.

In its official documents, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee has stated that it is the rf that is the cause of the threat to Ukraine's cultural heritage sites and called on the aggressor to “refrain from any actions” that would harm our country's cultural heritage. At the same time, UNESCO in Ukraine has opened a “Recovery Support Office”.

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High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell has called on China to use its influence on the rf to stop the war.

Nine European countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, North Macedonia, Ukraine, Montenegro, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) have joined the European Union Council’s decision to extend sanctions against Iran for another year over its support for the rf and groups in the Middle East.

Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution has warned that russian secret services are monitoring the social media accounts of German officials to identify potential targets for influence.

The Riga City Council (Latvia) has banned a planned event in the Verman's Garden in the historic center of the city dedicated to the rf’s navy.

Since the start of russia's full-scale military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, 494 companies from 57 countries have been subject to secondary US sanctions for their ties to russia, the russian international affairs council has calculated. 76.51% of the sanctioned companies are from countries that are “friendly” to the rf. The maximum number of companies under restrictions is registered in China (107 firms), followed by the UAE (75), and 66 companies from Turkey.

russian transportation companies, such as pek, digital ved, gtl, and logita trade, began to complain en masse that banks in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan were more likely to refuse to accept funds from russian companies: in July, the share of refusals reached 30%, and the average transaction time increased by 15% to two weeks. Amid international sanctions, banks in “friendly” countries that were once loyal to the rf have made financial transactions more complicated: they are requesting more and more additional documents and explanations, including information about companies, their founders, clients, sources of funds and details of transactions involving goods.

In the first half of the year, the number of Chinese cars registered in the rf increased by 28.3% to 1.86 million, which is 4% of the total fleet. The Chinese automotive industry has taken over the russian market the most in the last year and a half, after global brands left russia.

The rf is currently facing an unprecedented situation where there are virtually no new cars from foreign brands other than China on sale.

The russian automobile plant avtovaz will suspend production of cars from July 29 to August 18 over the shortage of Chinese components, and workers will be forced to go on “corporate vacation.”

The central bank of russia has announced that in order to curb inflation, which has reached a record high, it is preparing to increase the key policy rate to 19.4% by the end of the year. The intention of the central bank to continue tight monetary policy until the end of the year and next year immediately had a negative impact on the financial market of russia: most stocks lost 1-5% in value, and the moscow stock exchange index once again fell below 3,000 points.

At the same time, head of the central bank nabiullina, has admitted that the reserves of labor and production capacity in the russian economy are “practically exhausted”. It was emphasized that the russian economy will slow down to almost zero growth next year, inflation will be one and a half times higher than initially forecast, and the supply of imported goods will continue to decline. According to the central bank's forecast, the supply of imported goods to russia will decrease by $12 billion by the end of the year, and their total volume ($291 billion) will be by 5% lower than in 2014.

For the first time since the time of serfdom in russia, the state duma of the rf has passed a decision to ban the population from collecting cedar nuts in public forests (in the first reading, 296 members of the state duma supported the draft law, 98 were against).

The Free Russia Foundation has been recognized as an “extremist organization” in russia. Established in 2014 by those who disagreed with the current putin regime, the Foundation was engaged in supporting victims of political repression, developing civil society and analyzing the socio-political situation in russia.

The Sejm of Poland has supported a draft law that “excludes criminal liability for the use of weapons or direct force in violation of the rules” by security forces if there is a threat to the security of a person or the country, in particular on the border with the rf.

According to the research of the national bank of the rb, not all citizens of the country are able to form their own savings, and only a few are ready to invest their own money.

Special services of the rb are conducting a “purge” of unreliable people at defense enterprises. In particular, employees of the belarusian optical and mechanical association and “peleng” are subjected to polygraph tests, phone searches, interviews, and some are immediately fired.

On the instructions of minister of internal affairs of the rb ivan kurbakov, security forces in grodno have detained a local resident who filmed a queue at the registration office of the traffic police in grodno region. He was called a person who “artificially escalates the situation and carries out information provocations”.