Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury is undertaking actions as part of a coordinated international effort to disrupt Russian cybercrime services.
NATO Allies are deeply concerned about recent malign activities on Allied territory, including those resulting in the investigation and charging of multiple individuals in connection with hostile state activity affecting Czechia, Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and the United Kingdom.
Experts of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have continued to hear military activity in the region where Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) is located, but there have been no reports of new drone attacks on the site over the past week.
EU HR Borrell on freezing Russia’s assets: “We introduced rules for Central Securities Depositories, that generate these revenues, to keep them aside, to identify them, and account for them separately. These revenues are now on separate accrual accounts. We expect this mechanism could provide approximately €3 billion annually.”
Die Bundesanwaltschaft hat am 17. April 2024 aufgrund von Haftbefehlen des Ermittlungsrichters des Bundesgerichtshofs vom 9. und 11. April 2024 zwei deutsch-russische Staatsangehörigen in Bayreuth von Beamten des Bundeskriminalamtes festnehmen lassen.
“Ukrainians have reported 7,000 guided bombs in four months 2024, which is about 60 guided bombs a day. There is the constant shelling in the east of Ukraine. It is part of Putin’s strategy. On the other hand, it is clear that Ukraine lacks weapons for self-defense and to reject the Russian aggression” – EU HR Josep Borrell.
The Foreign Affairs Council in Luxembourg discussed the Russian aggression against Ukraine in a joint session gathering both EU Ministers of Foreign Affairs and EU Ministers of Defence. They discussed the situation in the Middle East, with particular attention to the ever-worsening situation in the Gaza strip and the risk of escalation in the wider region.
“Since the hybrid attack launched by Belarus in November 2021 against Latvia, Poland, and Lithuania, we all know how Putin and his allies instrumentalise migrants to test our defences and try to destabilise us. Now, Putin is focusing on Finland. This is no doubt in response to your firm support of Ukraine and your accession to NATO” – Commission President von der Leyen.
Against a backdrop of conflict and global security concerns, 2023 may prove to have also been a pivotal year for automated nuclear weapons systems.
“Russia cannot divert attention from its illegal invasion of an independent country, its attempt to illegally annex Ukraine’s regions, or its attempts to normalise its illegal seizure of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP). Russia is fully responsible for the nuclear safety and security risks it is causing” – EU Statement
“We all carry the bruises from Putin’s decisions. Europeans have struggled with the resulting pressures on the cost of living. And as gas storage levels ebbed and flowed, they became a barometer of our vulnerability, of our energy insecurity. But that barometer is now stable, trending in the right direction” – Ursula von der Leyen (EU) and Fatih Birol (IEA).
In August 2023, the U.S. Treasury had declared a round of sanctions targeting prominent members of Russia’s financial elite, as well as a Russian business association. The four individuals targeted include Petr Olegovich Aven, Mikhail Maratovich Fridman, German Borisovich Khan, and Alexey Viktorovich Kuzmichev, all of whom have served on the supervisory board of the Alfa Group Consortium (“Alfa Group”), one of the largest financial and investment conglomerates in Russia.
Sanctions or restrictions are a key tool for the EU to intervene where necessary to prevent conflict or respond to current or emerging crises. Read more about these tools.
The EU General Court annuls the inclusion of Petr Aven and Mikhail Fridman on the lists of persons subject to restrictive measures between February 2022 and March 2023. Aven, of Russian and Latvian nationality, and Fridman, of Russian and Israeli nationality, are major shareholders of Alfa Group, a conglomerate including Alfa Bank, one of Russia’s major banks.
“Sanctions are only effective if they are carried out and enforced properly. And they could be working even more effectively. For a number of reasons, their short-term impact has been less pronounced than expected” – EVP Dombrovskis.
“When I started my mandate, I said that ‘the EU needs to learn to speak the language of power’. And some years later, when presenting the Strategic Compass, I said another sentence which will be part of my heritage: Europe is in danger – EU High Representative Josep Borrell.
Following a series of targeted missile and drone strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure by Russia, Ukraine’s power supply has suffered significant damage. The EU has swiftly mobilised emergency energy assistance which is on its way to Ukraine.
Russian authorities regularly claim that the Russian economy would not really suffer from Western sanctions and that time would be on Russia’s side in its war of aggression against Ukraine. However, these ideas do not stand up to scrutiny.
The Chairman for the Russian Parliament Committee for the Development of the Far East and Arctic, Nikolai Kharitov, told the Russian Government News website, Izvestia, that once again it is considering leaving the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), specifically it is “denunciating the convention in the Arctic” citing concerns over NATO activity in the region.
The declared goal of NATO continues to be not to become a warring party in the Ukraine war. Recent considerations of French President Emmanuel Macron to deploy ground troops to support Ukraine in the war against Russia raise questions not only regarding participation in the conflict but also concerning the NATO collective defense case.
Russia’s attacks on Ukraine is continuing to endanger nuclear safety and security in Ukraine, with military activity taking place near the country’s Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) in the south, air raid alarms sounding at several sites, and shelling knocking out off-site power at a research facility in the north-east.
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