The cost of war in Ukraine. Online October 6

The Bell continues to conduct online, dedicated to the economic consequences of the war in Ukraine, which began on February 24.

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21:19 The Ministry of Justice has added Bogdan Lytvyn and Tymofiy Martynenko, activists of the Vesna movement, to the register of natural persons - “foreign agents”.

20:57 Some Russian state media have been instructed to start acknowledging military failures in Ukraine amid fears that "relentlessly optimistic propaganda" is fueling growing doubts in society, Bloomberg writes , citing sources. As an example, the publication cites television, which recently talked about "retreats" and "defeats" on the battlefield without using the usual positive wording from the Ministry of Defense. Bloomberg emphasizes that the Kremlin is unlikely to allow the controlled media to go so far as to question, among other things, the correctness of Vladimir Putin's decision to launch an invasion. But since the prospect of slowing down the counter-offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is unlikely, the authorities hope that a little information noise will help maintain public support.

The new approach was also reflected at the highest level, the agency's interlocutors familiar with the issue specify. Since the beginning of the summer, Putin has held at least two closed-door meetings with several war correspondents, they say, one of them shortly before the announcement of a "partial" mobilization.

Sources say that during their last meeting with the president, the military correspondents painted a “horrible picture of the situation at the front” - in just a few weeks, the Ukrainian Armed Forces occupied large areas of territory, which the Russian Armed Forces spent months to capture. According to Bloomberg, some correspondents left the room wondering if Putin is getting a complete picture of the real situation at the front from official briefings.

19:20 Norway has decided to restrict the passage of Russian fishing vessels to its ports. Only three of them remain open: in Kirkenes, Tromsø and Botsfjord. There, Russian trawlers will have to undergo additional checks. “Russia’s unacceptable annexation of Ukrainian territories, attacks on gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea, and [unidentified] drone activity forced the government to step up security measures,” said Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt.

18:06 The European Union has imposed sanctions against another 30 Russian individuals. The list includes, among others, CEC head Ella Pamfilova, philosopher Alexander Dugin, head of the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation Dmitry Shugaev, head of the FSB border service Vladimir Kulishov, "arms tycoon" Alexander Kochkin (general director of Techmash, the parent company of NPO Splav ""), several representatives of the Russian command, as well as singers Oleg Gazmanov, Nikolai Rastorguev and Yulia Chicherina.

7 organizations also fell under the sanctions:

• "Goznak";
• OJSC Plant named after V.A. Degtyarev";
• MKB "Fakel" named after academician Grushin;
• Irkut Corporation;
• JSC "MMZ Avangard";
• JSC NPO Splav named after A. N. Ganichev;
• Central Election Commission.

16:43 Saudi Aramco, against expectations, did not raise the price of Arab Light, a key oil grade, with delivery in November for Asia after the decision of OPEC+ to cut production by 2 million b/d. The state-owned company symbolically (by 20 cents per barrel) raised it for the US, which is not the main market, and lowered it for Northern Europe and the Mediterranean.

Experts say that this is how the Saudis show that they do not intend to give up their market share in Asia to Russia, which is forced to reorient itself towards India and China, and are ready to offer Europe, which has refused Russian oil, conditions no worse than the United States, writes Bloomberg .

13:58 The Swedish Security Service has completed an inspection with the help of an underwater vehicle at the site of leaks at Nord Stream. The first conclusions are confirmation of suspicions of sabotage, there are traces of explosions near the pipes of both gas pipelines.

12:12 The EU officially announced the adoption of the eighth package of sanctions against Russia and revealed its details (the documents themselves have not yet been published). Main restrictions:

• The transportation of oil (from December 2022) and oil products of Russian origin (from February 2023) to third countries, as well as the provision of related financial and other services, is prohibited. The price ceiling is designed as an exception to the general prohibition, if oil and oil products are purchased cheaper than the established price.
• The EU is expanding the ban on imports of metal products from Russia - as well as other product groups, including pulp and paper, plastics and cosmetics.
• It is completely prohibited to provide crypto wallets, accounting services and storage of crypto assets to residents and citizens of Russia, regardless of the amount.
• The list of sanctions includes the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping.

12:02 Two chairmen of the State Duma committees - on defense Andrei Kartapolov and on combating corruption Vasily Piskarev asked Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov to deal with the problems of supplying the rear.

On the eve of Kartapolov (former commander of the Russian Armed Forces in Syria), on the air of the Solovyov Live channel, he said that it was necessary to “stop lying” about the military special operation in Ukraine and warned about the “loss of confidence” of the population in the Ministry of Defense. We wrote about the media campaign against the leadership of the Russian Armed Forces after the failures in Ukraine here .

11:21 More bad news for the German economy: according to revised data, orders in the industry in August fell by 2.4% compared to July, a recession in the world's largest economy is increasingly likely.

10:13 The first month of the premiership of Liz Truss, who took over the UK at the height of the energy crisis and with inflation under 10%, cost the country's stock and bond market 300 billion pounds, writes Bloomberg. If the political chaos continues, the UK market will remain uninvested, many participants say. Some believe that British stocks are starting to look fundamentally undervalued and it is time to add them to the portfolio.

9:56 Russia will allocate to Belarus a loan of $1.5 billion for import substitution, agreed since the summer. Probably, it was also discussed at the meeting of Presidents Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko in Sochi at the end of August. Russia remains the largest creditor of Belarus, and that - the largest state debtor to Russia.

9:28 Washington is preparing to ease the sanctions regime against Venezuela by allowing production in the country by Chevron, has learned The Wall Street Journal . In return, President Nicolas Maduro should engage in dialogue with the opposition to organize the 2024 presidential election. Also, with the participation of the opposition and the United States, a preliminary agreement was reached to unfreeze part of the Venezuelan funds frozen in US banks and spend them on humanitarian purposes.

In the 1990s, Venezuela produced 3.2 million b/d, but production fell into decline with nationalization, the withdrawal of majors from the country, and finally sanctions. It is impossible to quickly restore it, but Venezuela, with the world's largest oil reserves, remains a strategic resource for the US and the EU, independent of the development of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the newspaper notes. On the eve of the OPEC + countries, contrary to the wishes of the United States, agreed to reduce production by 2 million bpd.

The main thing for the night and morning:

• Since the announcement of the mobilization, Russians have twice as often tried to illegally take money abroad, reports Izvestia , citing data from the Federal Customs Service. In the period from September 20 to September 30, 557 facts of illegal movement of cash across the border were revealed, which is 93% more than in the same period last year. The total amount increased by 63% to 160.5 million rubles. Most often, citizens tried to transport rubles - mainly to Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
• Pavel Durov warned about security problems in WhatsApp, because of which "hackers can get full access to everything that is on users' phones" of this messenger. According to Durov, in order to gain control over a mobile device, hackers need only send a malicious video to the user or start a video call in the application.
• Putin yesterday signed a decree on the transfer of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant to Russian jurisdiction. Kommersant tells how Russia will operate the station. The nuclear power plant will be transferred to the ownership of the Russian Federation, and a new subsidiary of Rosenergoatom will become its operator (the scheme is designed to reduce sanctions risks for Rosatom). The licenses issued by Ukraine to operate the station remain valid until Russian regulators issue new documents. The position of the director of the nuclear power plant is still vacant: the former general director was expelled to Ukraine at the beginning of the week, accusing him of collaborating with the Ukrainian special services.
• again at night North Korea launched ballistic missiles , and two short-range missiles were fired. They flew from 350 to 800 km at an altitude of 50–100 km. On Tuesday, Pyongyang tested a medium-range missile (it flew 4600 km and fell into the Pacific Ocean), which led to an alarm in Tokyo.
• By the end of October, Rostelecom will close its subsidiary Rostelecom - Retail Systems (RRS), which developed a network of communication stores, learned Forbes . In these stores, it was possible to connect the services of Rostelecom, buy a smartphone, pay off a loan, make a money transfer, and receive an order from an online store. In total, there were more than 800 service centers in Russia in 79 regions. According to Forbes, the RPC began to experience problems after the start of the “special operation” in Ukraine. Employees of the company will be fired with the payment of several salaries.
• The London Metal Exchange will limit new supplies of copper and zinc from Russia's Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company (UMMC) and its Chelyabinsk Zinc Plant. The reason is that at the end of September the UK imposed sanctions against the ex-president of the UMMC Iskander Makhmudov.
• Mintsifra proposes to introduce personal responsibility for data leaks, reports Vedomosti . The department finalized the law on turnover fines and provided for liability for officials in it: from 200 to 400 thousand rubles for the heads of companies that made a large leak; 0.02% of turnover, but not less than 1 million rubles for individual entrepreneurs.

Continued online October 6th. Read the previous one here .