G7 Foreign Ministers meeting in Tokyo, Japan, have reaffirmed their readiness to continue to support Ukraine and to increase economic pressure and impose robust sanctions and other restrictions against Russia.

The Foreign Ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, and the High Representative of the European Union took part in the meeting.

“We will reinforce our coordination on sanctions to restrict Russia’s access to critical goods and technology. We will take further action to prevent the evasion and circumvention of our measures against Russia,” ministers said in a joint statement. “In order to reduce the revenues that Russian extracts from its exports, we will accelerate our consultation on energy, metals, and all non-industrial diamonds, including those mined, processed or produced in Russia.”

They also reaffirmed that, consistent with their respective legal systems, Russia’s sovereign assets in their jurisdictions would remain immobilised, “until Russia pays for the damage it has caused to Ukraine”. 

The ministers also said that “Russia’s irresponsible nuclear rhetoric and its announced deployment of nuclear weapons in Belarus are unacceptable”. 

“Any use of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons by Russia would be met with severe consequences. We deeply regret Russia’s decision to revoke its ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. We strongly support the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) continued presence and unfettered access at all of Ukraine’s civil nuclear sites,” the statement said.

Concerning the South Caucasus, G7 ministers expressed their grave concern over the humanitarian consequences of the displacement of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh after the military operation conducted by Azerbaijan. They urged Azerbaijan to fully comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law, and welcomed international efforts to address urgent humanitarian needs for those who had been displaced.

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Press release

Today the European Union is providing another €1.5 billion to Ukraine under its annual macro-financial assistance package. 

The European Commission made today a third payment of €1.5 billion under the Macro-financial Assistance (MFA)+ package for Ukraine, worth up to €18 billion. 

This support will help Ukraine cover its immediate financial needs: to continue paying salaries and pensions and to maintain basic public services such as hospitals, schools and housing for the displaced. It will also allow Ukraine to ensure macroeconomic stability and restore critical infrastructure destroyed by Russia in its war of aggression, such as energy infrastructure, water systems, transport networks, roads and bridges.

Today’s payment comes after the Commission found that Ukraine continued to make satisfactory progress to strengthen the rule of law, enhance financial stability, improve the functioning of the gas system and promote a better business climate. 

This finding will also enable the disbursement of two further monthly payments of €1.5 billion each in May and June.

Overall, since the start of the war, the support to Ukraine and Ukrainians amounts to around €68 billion. 

“We will continue helping Ukraine resist Russia’s aggression, keep its institutions and infrastructure running, and conduct crucial reforms,” President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen wrote on Twitter.

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Press release

February 24, 2022 is the day which will be imprinted in the memory of the people of Ukraine and the whole civilized world as the first hours of severe war of Russia against Ukraine. Today, it has been exactly a year since Russia has started a wide-scale war in the middle of Europe against independent Ukraine, which at the moment gets continued with mass assaults of heavy artillery bombs. The day today is the most painful for every Ukrainian. This is the day which substantially changed everything and moved us to the new world of unpleasant reality.

During this one-year people of Ukraine have been exposed to a lot of suffering, sadness and anxiety. Atrocities of Russian invaders and destruction are indescribable. The destructive war started by Putin led to everyday deaths of thousands of innocent peaceful citizens, elderly and children.  The Russian barbarian army has already exterminated 459 Ukrainian children and these data are not final. When on everyday basis we see terrible acts of the Russian invader, I have no doubt that Putin is a tyrant and the most dangerous terrorist in the 21^st-century world. When I think about what the people of Ukraine have to stand, the feeling of pain emerges and my hatred towards the Russian invader gets even more intensive. 

Tyrant Putin and his terrorist authority made millions of Ukrainians to essentially leave their homes. But, despite this hard suffering, brave Ukrainian people demonstrated to everyone that fighting for independence, freedom, values, identity, territorial integrity and the strength to fight for the right to live on one’s own land is in unity and this strength is much more than the will of any Kremlin dictator. Unity, bravery and persistent fight of Ukrainian people against the Russian military aggression is exemplary for the whole world.

These hard days gave the world civilized community the feeling of solidarity and it is not a coincidence that today, on February 24, the war anniversary, the American Friendship Club decided to hold the solidarity action near the territory of the embassy of Ukraine which was dedicated to the memory of peaceful Ukrainian children, elderly and soldiers who died as a result of the Russian war.

At the same time, with this event we wanted to once again show everyone and, most importantly, the Russian authority in Georgia, what the attitude of freedom-loving Georgian nation is towards brave people of Ukraine and our common values.

Besides, the aim of today’s solidarity action was to once again remind to the Russian authority of Georgia how much evil party and individual collaboration with tyrant Putin brings.    

Finally, I consider that besides military support it is extremely significant not to slowdown and further enhance support of brave people of Ukraine.

I am sure very soon brave Ukrainean people and the whole civilized world together with them will celebrate victory on the land of freedom and defeat of the tyrannous regime of Putin and his shameful army. 

Indeed! Russia should unequivocally and unconditionally get defeated in this war!!!

Glory to Ukraine! Glory to Georgia and the civilized world!!!

President of the American Friendship Club - Ilia Zukakishvili

February 24, 2023

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced its proposal for a ninth package of sanctions against Russia on Wednesday evening.

The Commission proposes to add almost 200 additional individuals and entities to the EU’s sanctions list. This includes the Russian armed forces, as well as individual officers and defence industrial companies, members of the State Duma and Federation Council, ministers, governors and political parties. “This list covers key figures in Russia’s brutal and deliberate missile strikes against civilians, in the kidnapping  of Ukrainian children into Russia, and in the theft of Ukrainian agricultural products,” says the press release by the Commission.

Secondly, the Commission proposes to introduce sanctions against three additional Russian banks, including a full transaction ban on the Russian Regional Development Bank “to further paralyse Putin’s cash machines”.

Third, the Commission suggests imposing new export controls and restrictions, particularly for dual-use goods. This includes key chemicals, nerve agents, electronics and IT components that could be used by the Russian war machine.

Fourth, the sanctions will cut Russia’s access to all sorts of drones and unmanned aerial vehicles. The Commission proposes to ban the direct exports of drone engines to Russia and the export to any third countries, such as Iran, which could supply drones to Russia.

Proposed economic measures against the Russian energy and mining sector include a ban on new mining investments in Russia.

Ursula von der Leyen also said that the Commission aims to target the Russian propaganda machine by taking four additional channels off the air and all other distribution platforms. 

She added that this package comes on top of the full EU import ban on Russian seaborne oil that came into force this week, as well as the global oil price cap agreed between the G7.

“Russia continues to bring death and devastation to Ukraine,” said von der Leyen. “We stand by Ukraine and we are making Russia pay for its cruelty.”

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Today, on November 15, 2022, a meeting was held in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan between the co-chairs of the Intergovernmental Turkmen-Russian Commission on Economic Cooperation, Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan R.Meredov and Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation A.Overchuk.

At the beginning of the meeting, the importance and productivity of today's meeting of A.Overchuk with the President of Turkmenistan Serdar Berdimuhamedov was noted, during which the guidelines for further promotion of multifaceted cooperation between the two countries were determined.

The co-chairs of the commission discussed in detail the prospects for partnership in the financial and banking sector, the oil, transport, electric power industries, as well as in the areas of education, culture, healthcare and tax administration.

Also, issues of preparation for the upcoming 12th meeting of the joint commission in Moscow on December 6-7 this year, on the sidelines of which it is planned to sign more than ten bilateral documents in various fields, were considered separately.

Further, the meeting continued in an expanded format with the participation of heads and representatives of a number of relevant ministries and agencies of Turkmenistan and Russia, within which the above mentioned topics were discussed in more depth.

Discussing cooperation in the field of education and culture, the parties expressed the need for further intensification of mutual actions in order to expand humanitarian cooperation. In particular, the importance of implementing projects for the creation of the Turkmen-Russian University and the construction of a new building of the Russian Drama Theater named after A.S.Pushkin in Ashgabat was noted.

According to Droa, Levan Ioseliani and representatives of Georgian Dream did not attend the PACE voting procedure where Russia was declared a terrorist regime.

"On October 13, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe voted to declare Russia a terrorist regime. The voting process was attended by 100 representatives of the member states, of which only one abstained from taking a position, and 99 unanimously declared Russia a terrorist regime.

The representatives of Georgia­n Dream, as well as the member of the Citizens party, the deputy Speaker of the Parliament of Georgia, Levan Ioseliani, did not attend the mentioned vote and, therefore, did not support the declaration of Russia as a terrorist regime.

Only Khatia Dekanoidze (UNM) attended the voting from Georgia, who supported the said decision. This is confirmed by the data of the voting archive of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

This step once again emphasizes the loyalty of Georgia­n Dream to Putin's regime and the fact that Russia is a natural political and civilizational space for them.

For Georgia, as a state occupied by Russia and a country with a Russian colonial past, the mentioned fact and the pro-Russian rule of Georgia­n Dream are not only shameful, but also pose a danger for us to stay in the ruins of a defeated imperial state. We must do everything to get our homeland back and finally establish a place for it in the Euro-Atlantic family," Dr­oa says in a statement and shares the relevant link: https://pace.coe.int/en/votes/39122

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe calls for a review of cases of political prisoners opposed to President Putin, in the Russian Federation and in other countries, and for their release, including Mikheil Saakashvili, Ukrainian citizen and former President of Georgia. The above is said in the resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe - "Further escalation in the Russian Federation's aggression against Ukraine", which was approved by the Assembly yesterday.­

The resolution, among other things, talks about the repressive environment in the Russian Federation.

"The authorities have implemented a far-reaching crackdown on civil liberties based on intimidation and open persecution, with the goal to provoke a state of terror in the general public for political purposes. Democratic figures are being repressed or killed, the system of opposition parties has been destroyed, the judiciary is not independent and many media and civil society organisations, such as Memorial International, have been closed down. Despite the many draconian measures passed in recent years, anti-war demonstrations and protests have been breaking out across the country. Amongst the most prominent public figures being persecuted for voicing criticism against the war is Vladimir Kara-Murza, who has been detained since April 2022. On 10 October 2022, the Assembly was honoured to award Mr Kara-Murza with the 2022 Václav Havel Prize, affirming support for his courage and determination to create a peaceful, democratic Russia. The Assembly calls on the Russian authorities for the immediate release of Vladimir Kara-Murza. The Assembly also calls for a review of cases of other political prisoners opposed to President Putin, in the Russian Federation and in other countries, and for their release (including Mikheil Saakashvili, Ukrainian citizen and former President of Georgia)," reads the resolution.

99 out of 100 members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe supported the resolution calling on European countries to declare the current Russian regime a terrorist regime, while one member, a Turkish MP from the Republican People's Party, abstained.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on Thursday voted to adopt a resolution declaring the Russian Federation a terrorist regime.

Ukrainian MP and member of the Ukrainian delegation to PACE, Oleksiy Honcharenko, called it “a historical result!”

“PACE has just adopted a powerful resolution on Ukraine! For-99 delegates. One abstained. This is a historical result! Full support of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe,” Honcharenko tweeted.

The Assembly also voted to speed up the creation of a Special International Tribunal to prosecute the crime of aggression against Ukraine and set up a comprehensive international compensation mechanism, including an international register of damage.

On October 12 at the Council of Europe, Oleksiy GONCHARENKO, a member of the Ukrainian delegation to PACE, addressed the press on the following issue: "Creation of a new initiative group to impose sanctions against persons and organizations guilty of war crimes and genocide against the Ukrainian people"

On 24 February 2022, Russia started a full-scale, unprovoked and unjustified military invasion of Ukraine. The purpose of this Russian aggression is to seize the territory of the sovereign, democratic and European state of Ukraine. In Ukraine, Russia is organising genocide and committing war crimes against the Ukrainian civilian population.

The military aggression against Ukraine is the result of the collective actions by the political, military and civilian classes of Russia, often supported by powerful business owners. 

Many of those responsible for initiating, supporting and committing the aggressive military action in Ukraine own property and bank accounts within the territory of the Council of Europe. Even after the outbreak of the large-scale hostilities, a number of persons who had been under Ukrainian sanctions but had not been under European sanctions, could move freely throughout the territory of the Council of Europe.  

We, representatives of Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Great Britain, Members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, found a group to identity and ultimately impose sanctions on individuals and entities involved in the Russian military aggression against Ukraine and who are located on the territory of the Council of Europe and the United States of America.

The Council of Europe and the European Union impose sanctions based on their own information, the United States and the United Kingdom on the basis of their own again, and Ukraine on the basis of theirs as well. This leads to desynchronization of actions and sanctions.

We, the founders of this initiative, aim to synchronize and coordinate all these lists of sanctions.
We start with a list of 1940 individuals who are involved in the Russian aggression against Ukraine and against whom the Government of Ukraine has already imposed sanctions, but neither the Member States of the Council of Europe, nor the EU, nor the United Kingdom, nor the United States of America took any action against yet.

We are urging the European Commission, His Majesty’s Government of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, the Government of the United States and all the Governments of the Council of Europe Member States to impose sanctions against all 1940 individuals already on the Ukrainian sanctions list.