Translated material
The cost of war in Ukraine. Online April 25
The Bell continues to host an online video dedicated to the economic consequences of the war in Ukraine that began on February 24, 2022.
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This online is complete. Read about the main events of the day in the evening newsletter . Online continuation here .
21:22 In connection with the growth of spending on the war, the government may cut subsidies to oil companies, learned . Bloomberg
According to the Finance Ministry, last year Russian refineries received 2.17 trillion rubles of subsidies from the budget as compensation for the sale of gasoline and diesel fuel within Russia at prices below export prices. For the first quarter of 2023, they will be paid more than 253 billion rubles.
The amount of payments depends on the settlement price set by the government. It is planned to raise it by 50%, according to two Bloomberg interlocutors familiar with the situation. This will reduce the cost of subsidies in the future. It is possible that the price on the domestic market may exceed the export price, as a result of which, according to the damper mechanism, the oil companies will have to pay.
There is no final decision on this issue yet, said one of the sources. The initiative, if implemented, will “eat up” part of the profits of Russian oil companies, as the authorities are trying to contain the rise in fuel prices within the inflation limits, reminds Bloomberg.
The Ministry of Energy did not respond to the publication's request. The press service of the Ministry of Finance stated that "such proposals are not discussed."
18:58 The ruling party of South Africa called for the country's withdrawal from the International Court of Justice in The Hague, which issued a warrant for the arrest of Vladimir Putin.
The African National Congress considers it expedient for South Africa to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the ICC, said party leader and head of state Cyril Ramaphosa . He noted that the decision of the ANC is "largely" due to the alleged "unfair treatment of some countries" by the court.
To leave the ICC, is required , and there the ANC has a majority. parliamentary approval
In August, a BRICS summit is scheduled in South Africa, where Vladimir Putin may come. The ICC in March issued an arrest warrant for the Russian president (as well as children's rights ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova) on charges of deporting Ukrainian children. Signatory countries to the Rome Statute (ICC treaty) must detain on their territory suspects against whom an arrest warrant has been issued.
South Africa tried several years ago to withdraw from the ICC after the country's authorities were criticized for refusing to arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. He arrived in Johannesburg for the African Union summit in 2015 and left South Africa unhindered, despite an ICC warrant.
15:46 Sweden announced the expulsion of five Russian diplomats for activities incompatible with their diplomatic status. "Sweden called the Russian ambassador... and informed him that five embassy employees were asked to leave the country due to activities incompatible with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations," the Swedish Foreign Ministry said.
What exactly the Russian diplomats were guilty of is not specified. Earlier this month, Norway expelled 15 Russian embassy employees with the same wording - for "activities incompatible with diplomatic status." Norwegian authorities have determined that the expelled diplomats were undercover intelligence officers, writes Reuters. And last weekend, Russia and Germany exchanged demarches - Germany expelled up to 30 Russian diplomats, Russia - more than 30. We figured out what is behind the mutual expulsion of diplomats .
14:34 The government withdrew from the State Duma a draft tax amendment on personal income tax for workers from abroad, reports RBC . The document will be updated. The information was confirmed to TASS by the press service of the government. “It is necessary to make a number of technical clarifications to the bill before it is sent to the State Duma,” they said.
A bill containing various amendments to the Tax Code was submitted to the State Duma the day before. Most of the innovations from more than two hundred pages of the document will not directly affect the citizens. But one concerns the taxation of workers who left Russia. “A bill has been submitted to the Duma obliging Russian companies to levy 30% of personal income tax on payments in favor of employees who have left abroad after they lose their Russian tax residency in some cases,” the State Duma said in a statement without specifying what kind of “a number of cases” these are.
The Ministry of Finance clarified that the project would not affect “employees who work under labor contracts, for them the current tax conditions do not change in any way.” From the available data, it followed that it was planned to collect personal income tax at a rate of 30% from freelancers who went abroad, ceased to be Russian tax residents, but continue to provide services to Russian companies under GPC agreements. Read more about the upcoming amendments and who they will affect here .
What "technical refinements" are planned to be introduced into the bill is unknown. Its first version provided for an increase in personal income tax up to 30% for the departed employees of Russian companies working under labor contracts. And Vyacheslav Volodin proposed to oblige to pay personal income tax at a rate of 30% of individual entrepreneurs and self-employed people who left the country.
13:39 Maxim Oreshkin predicted Russia's GDP growth this year by 1-2%. And the level of deficit "will be near the target values," said the assistant to the president. After a period of “fairly large” budget spending in early 2023, he said, the budget will be in surplus until the end of the year.
The federal budget deficit in the first ten days of March exceeded the 2.9 billion rubles planned for the whole of 2023. Economists believe that by the end of the year it will amount to about 4.5 trillion rubles. As of mid-April, the government spent more than 10 trillion rubles from the budget - this is a third of the spending planned for the whole year.
13:13 Biden has officially announced that he will run for president in 2024. “Every generation has moments when you have to defend democracy. Stand up for your fundamental freedoms. I believe it's ours. That is why I am running for re-election as President of the United States. Join us. Let's get the job done," he tweeted.
12:53 For Russia, nuclear weapons "have the value of a bond that gathers the state," said Dmitry Medvedev . According to the deputy chairman of the Security Council, now there is a real prospect of a nuclear explosion "and it is growing every day for well-known reasons." Medvedev said this during a conversation with the participants of the Knowledge marathon, answering questions about climate change.
“Stop suffering because the temperature rose by one degree in such and such a year or for such and such a period. Do you really care about the climate to that extent? In my opinion, this is nothing compared to the prospect of being in the epicenter of an explosion with a temperature of five thousand Kelvin, a shock wave of 350 meters per second and a pressure of three thousand kilograms per square meter, with penetrating radiation, that is, ionizing radiation and an electromagnetic pulse " , - he said. The world is sick and probably on the verge of a new world war, but this can still be avoided, Medvedev also said.
The main thing for the night and morning:
- The Yermak-McFaul Group (an international group of experts advising on sanctions policy against Russia against the background of the war in Ukraine) has published new proposals for tougher sanctions. In particular, the group proposes lowering the oil ceiling from $60 to $45 per barrel, imposing blocking sanctions against the ten largest Russian banks, including Gazprombank, adding Alrosa and "thousands more Russians" to the sanctions list. But the most important thing in the new recommendations is the proposal to develop a mechanism for lifting sanctions against officials and oligarchs for "proper behavior." From ordinary Russians for European visas, it is proposed to take a "fee for the restoration of Ukraine."
- The Russian Defense Ministry said that the Ukrainian attacks on Sevastopol jeopardize the extension of the grain deal beyond May 18. According to the agency, on March 23 and April 24, Ukrainian unmanned boats tried to attack the Black Sea Fleet base in Sevastopol and the civilian infrastructure of Crimea. The boats, according to the Ministry of Defense, were launched from the port of Odessa, which is used to export grain.
- The EU and Japan did not support the US proposal to impose a complete trade embargo on Russia, writes with reference to the sources of the Financial Times. "From our point of view, it's simply not feasible," said one of the officials the newspaper spoke to. The fact that Washington and its G7 allies are discussing a complete ban on exports to Russia for the first time was reported by Bloomberg last week.
- Over the past six months, Iran has sent 300,000 shells and a million rounds of ammunition from its ports in the Caspian Sea to Russia, The Wall Street Journal reports , citing sources. According to the publication, the last cargo of shells was sent from the Iranian port of Bandar Amirabad to Astrakhan in early March. Until now, it was believed that Iran supplies mainly drones to Russia, and deliveries are made by aircraft.
- A draft law has been submitted to the State Duma, according to which the decision of the draft commission to send a citizen to the troops can be suspended for the duration of the trial, drew attention Kommersant . Such a norm existed in Russian legislation for more than 20 years, but in April 2023 it was abolished. The author of the current initiative, Sergei Shargunov, a deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, believes that the mechanism for suspending the decision during the trial should be returned to "ensure the rights and legitimate interests of citizens." If the law is passed, it will help to avoid the conscription of citizens who are not subject to it for health reasons.