UKRAINE WRAP | Russia plans to thwart sale of foreign bank units amid sanctions

July 15 2022 — 20:11

Ukrainian city grieves 4-year-old girl after Russian missile attack

A Ukrainian city far from the frontline grieved its dead including a 4-year-old girl with Down's Syndrome on Friday, a day after a Russian missile attack killed at least 23 people and wounded scores.

Ukraine said Thursday's strike on an office building in Vinnytsia, a city of 370,000 people about 200 km (125 miles) southwest of Kyiv, had been carried out with Kalibr cruise missiles launched from a Russian submarine in the Black Sea.

The attack was the latest in a series of Russian hits in recent weeks using long-range missiles on crowded buildings in cities far from the front, each killing dozens of people.

Residents placed teddy bears and flowers at a makeshift memorial.

Among the dead was Liza, a 4-year-old girl with Down's Syndrome, found in the debris next to a pram. Images of her pushing the same pram, posted by her mother on a blog less than two hours before the attack, quickly went viral.

Her severely injured mother, Iryna Dmitrieva, was being kept in an information blackout at a hospital for fear that finding out about her daughter would kill her, doctors said.

"She is suffering from burns, chest injuries, abdominal injuries, liver and spleen injuries. We have stitched the organs together, the bones were crushed as if she went through a meat grinder," Oleksandr Fomin, chief doctor at the Vinnytsia Emergency Hospital, said. Were she told of her daughter's death, "we would lose her".

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's wife, Olena, tweeted that she recognised the girl, who had once been among a group of disabled children who painted Christmas ornaments with the first lady in a holiday video.

"Look at her, alive, please," Olena Zelenska wrote.

The building housed an officers' club, which Russia's defence ministry said was being used for a meeting between military officials and foreign arms suppliers. It added: "The attack resulted in the elimination of the participants.

"Ukraine said the club functioned as a cultural centre. The building also housed shops, commercial offices and a concert hall, where musicians were rehearsing for a pop concert planned for that night. A nearby medical centre was destroyed.

A security camera captured debris flying at the moment of the blast, with two cyclists diving for cover before a cloud of dust darkens the sky.

Zelenskiy called Russia a terrorist state, urged more sanctions and said the death toll could rise.

"Unfortunately, this is not the final number," he said in a video address to an international conference aimed at prosecuting war crimes in Ukraine. An official in his office said 11 people were missing and 197 people had sought medical treatment.

Authorities in the southern city of Mykolaiv, closer to the frontlines, reported fresh strikes on Friday which wounded at least two people. They released video pictures of firefighters battling the blaze in the rubble.

"This time, they hit Mykolaiv around 7:50 a.m., knowing full well that there were already many people on the streets at that time. Real terrorists!" Mykolaiv mayor Oleksandr Senkevych posted on social media.

Reuters 

July 15 2022 — 19:15

Russian negotiator says grain agreements will not lead to Moscow-Kyiv talks - TASS

Agreements on export of the Ukrainian grain will not lead to the resumption of Russia-Ukraine talks, Leonid Slutsky, a Russian lawmaker who had taken part in peace talks with Kyiv in the past, said on Friday, state news agency TASS reported.

Russia's proposals on how to resume Ukrainian grain exports were "largely supported" by negotiators at talks this week in Istanbul and an agreement was close, the Russian defence ministry said on Friday. 

Reuters

July 15 2022 — 18:10

Russia plans to thwart sale of foreign bank units amid sanctions

Russia’s government plans to reject requests from foreign banks to sell their units in the country while sanctioned Russian banks are unable to sell their business abroad.

If a foreign bank seeks to sell branches in Russia, the authorities will block the move, the Interfax news service cited Deputy Finance Minister Aleksey Moiseev as saying on Friday. A government subcommittee on foreign investments will deny such requests “until the situation has improved,” he said.

Citigroup Inc. said earlier today that it’s considering a “full range of possibilities” on exiting its Russia business after President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February spurred sweeping financial and economic sanctions. 

The Finance Ministry isn’t ruling out the possibility of giving Russia’s state banks the right to manage units of foreign banks, though this question isn’t being discussed at the moment, Moissev said.

Russia’s central bank and the Finance Ministry didn’t respond to requests for comment. Societe Generale SA is the only major lender that’s exited Russian so far, taking a hit of about 3 billion euros ($3.03 billion) on the deal.

Other international banks, including Raiffeisen Bank International AG and UniCredit SpA, are considering selling.

Bloomberg

July 15 2022 — 17:00

Ukraine Needs Up to $12 Billion to Boost Winter Gas Reserves

Ukrainian state-run energy company NJSC Naftogaz Ukrainy may need between $8 billion to $12 billion to purchase natural gas for winter after the government’s order to increase fuel reserves amid Russia’s invasion.

The company, which is buying gas now regardless how high prices are to fulfill the order, must raise volumes of the fuel held in storage to 19 billion cubic meters before the heating season that usually starts in mid-October, Chief Executive Officer Yuriy Vitrenko said Thursday in his office in downtown Kyiv.

Naftogaz initially planned to have 15 billion cubic meters of gas and resume purchasing fuel again in the fourth quarter, he said. Currently, the nation has 11.3 billion cubic meters in storage and stockpiling for the winter will be very difficult, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said separately Friday.

“We spoke to potential creditors, including the US government, but so far there are not commitments to provide us with the full amount,” said Vitrenko, who had to interrupt his interview because of air sirens.

“Taking into consideration time limits, almost the only source is the state budget.” Naftogaz also has some liquid assets it plans to sell, Vitrenko said without elaborating, citing security concerns. He also declined to say how much gas Naftogaz has imported already, citing the same reasons.

 Vitrenko has been among top managers in Naftogaz for most of the period since 2014, when Russia cut off gas supplies to Ukraine’s domestic market.

Now he leads the company as Russian troops are targeting Ukrainian towns and cities, affecting gas supplies to the civilian population, though the Kremlin is cautious to preserve pipelines and pumping stations used to carry Russian gas through Ukraine to European customers.

“So far, I can say that Russians are not targeting the gas transportation system deliberately, they deliberately mark it not to bombard, and not to damage anything linked to transit,” Vitrenko said.

“But when they encircle towns, they put pressure on people, ruining civilian infrastructure.”Vitrenko forecasts that Ukraine’s gas consumption will probably drop 30% this year as the economy deteriorates after Russia occupied some of the country, destroyed steel mills, factories and forced more than 5 million people to flee abroad. 

Russia also cut gas transit via Ukraine since May 11 after the Sokhranovka cross-border point, also known as Sokhranivka in Ukrainian, was put out of service amid military actions and Russian occupation of the eastern part of the country.

Ukraine, which was the key transit route for Russian gas, offered Russian state energy giant Gazprom PJSC to re-route gas flows but the proposal was rejected. However, there is a so-called ship-or-pay clause in the current contract, which was signed in December 2019. As actual flows are lower than set in the deal, Naftogaz plans to meet with lawyers next week and “will work on the beginning of arbitrage” in Zurich, Vitrenko said.

Vitrenko helped Naftogaz win a $2.6 billion award from Gazprom in Stockholm arbitration in 2018 in a previous, four-year long dispute over the gas-transit contract.

Bloomberg

July 15 2022 — 16:11

Russia sanctions 384 Japanese lawmakers

Russia on Friday imposed sanctions against 384 members of Japan's parliament, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Moscow said the measures were taken against those who had "taken an unfriendly, anti-Russian position.

"Tokyo has hit Russia with harsh sanctions, joining the G7 in freezing the central bank's assets, since Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on February 24.

Reuters 

July 15 2022 — 15:40

Ukraine hurrying to agree grain deal next week - official source

Ukraine is hurrying to clinch a deal with Russia, Turkey and the United Nations next week to export grain via its Black Sea ports, a senior Ukrainian official source said on Friday.

Asked if it was realistic for the deal to be signed next week, the source said: "We really hope so. We're hurrying as fast as we can." The source asked not to be identified.

Reuters 

July 15 2022 — 15:30

EU executive proposes new gold import ban on Russia  

The European Union's executive, the European Commission, formally proposed on Friday new sanctions on Russia, including a new import ban on Russian gold.

EU governments must still sign off on the measures, expected as early as next week.

Reuters 

July 15 2022 — 15:03

Jewish refugees from Ukraine find shelter on banks of Hungarian lake

Neomi Gluzman Kravchenko plays with her son in a kosher shelter on the banks of Hungary's Lake Balaton, a refuge for her and her Jewish community hundred of miles from their war-ravaged homes in Ukraine. The psychiatrist from Kharkiv and millions of other Ukrainians fled after Russia launched its invasion on February 24, finding protection wherever they could with families and charitable organisations.

Many Jewish families passed through the Machne Chabad rescue village on their way to other destinations. "People went to Israel ... Some have gone to the USA," she says.

Others, like her, are still there over the border in Hungary, pausing a while and wondering if they can wait out the war.

Earlier this week, families kept their spirits up with a day of dancing and eating and religious celebration. Those traditions had flourished in Ukraine before the conflict, said Slomo Koves, chief rabbi of the Association of Hungarian Jewish Communities (EMIH), which runs the centre on land provided by Hungary's government.

"Jewish life was so thriving, so strong, so rich. Just before the war, they say it was like on a peak ... And that's why it's such a shame that all this just scattered in one day because of the war. Everybody hopes that they will have a chance to go back, to go home, and to restart this Jewish life."

About 400 people live in the camp, the largest of its kind in Europe, run by the EMIH and the Ukrainian Jewish Federation on the site of a former summer resort for communist leaders.

Another of the residents is software developer Saul Melamed, who had already been forced to flee him home in Ukraine's Donetsk region years before the invasion, during fighting there with Russian-backed separatists. That time he headed to Kyiv. This time he had to cross the border to find safety.

"The longer the war lasts, the smaller the chances that people would return," he said.

- Reuters

July 15 2022 — 13:26

Document nearly ready on resumption of Ukraine grain exports: Russia

Russia's proposals on how to bring about a resumption of Ukrainian grain exports were "largely supported" by negotiators taking part in talks this week in Istanbul, the Russian defence ministry said on Friday, and an agreement was close.

The ministry said that work on what it calls the "Black Sea Initiative" will be finalised soon.

Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the UN are due to sign a deal next week aimed at resuming Ukraine's Black Sea grain exports, which have been severely hampered by the conflict in Ukraine.

– Reuters

July 15 2022 — 13:24

UAE defends stance on Russian individuals, talking to US

The United Arab Emirates is consulting with the US on sanctions targeting Russian individuals, but does not want to "lump together" all Russians into one category as some seek safe havens amid the Ukraine war, an Emirati official said on Friday.

Dubai, the Gulf's financial and business centre, has emerged as a refuge for Russian wealth as Western sanctions target President Vladimir Putin's allies. The UAE, seeking to maintain what it says is a neutral position on the war, has not imposed sanctions. That has frustrated some in the West, who privately say the UAE position is untenable and siding with Moscow.

"We are having intensive consultations with the US government on [Russian] individuals. We are a dollar-denominated economy so for us it's important we have these conversations," Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, told reporters ahead of a state visit to France.

"There are many Russians who are not sanctioned and are interested in safer havens. Many of these individuals do not feel welcome in European countries, feel that this war will take too long and are looking at alternatives. These non-sanctioned individuals have nothing to do with the war and trying too lump them together with bigger issues is problematic," he said.

US assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs Barbara Leaf told a US House foreign affairs subcommittee hearing in June that Washington was not happy about reports of Putin-linked oligarchs and businessmen sheltering assets in the UAE.

Gargash said non-sanctioned people were free to what they wanted and the number of targeted individuals was small. "We have a healthy engagement regarding designating individuals and a lot of people who are not designated are Russians worried for themselves and the hostility they see in places they used to live in," Gargash said.

– Reuters

July 15 2022 — 12:28

Briton dies in detention in eastern Ukraine — separatist official

A British aid worker who was detained by Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine and accused of being a mercenary has died, an official in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) said on Friday.

Paul Urey, 45, was captured in southeast Ukraine in late April and was charged with "mercenary activities" by separatists in the DPR, a breakaway entity which is recognised only by Russia, Syria and North Korea.

Daria Morozova, who has the title of human rights ombudsman in the DPR, said on social media that Urey had been suffering from diabetes and respiratory, kidney and cardiovascular issues. "On our part, despite the severity of the alleged crime, Paul Urey was provided with appropriate medical assistance. However, given the diagnoses and stress, he passed away on July 10," she said.

Urey and another Briton, Dylan Healy, were detained by the Russian military in late April. The head of Presidium Network, a non-profit relief group with which Urey was in contact, told ITV news in May that he had diabetes.

Two other Britons and a Moroccan man who were captured while fighting for Ukraine have been sentenced to death in the DPR for mercenary activities.

The BBC quoted the founder of Presidium Network, Dominik Byrne, as saying that Urey was a humanitarian volunteer who had been detained at a checkpoint in southern Ukraine. "This is worrying news, however this has not been verified by any authority yet and investigations are ongoing to determine the truth," Byrne said following the report of Urey's death.

– Reuters

July 15 2022 — 11:13

Russian activist facing pornography charges wins rare acquittal

A Russian artist who faced three years in jail for drawing pictures of naked female bodies has been acquitted in a rare courtroom victory for a Russian LGBT rights campaigner.

Yulia Tsvetkova was arrested in 2019 and charged with distributing pornography after posting drawings of vaginas on social networks as part of a project to question the portrayal of body image in the media. She was later labelled foreign agent and spent four months under house arrest, in a move her supporters said was linked to activism and campaigning for feminist issues and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights.

Russia's top human rights organisation Memorial recognised Tsvetkova as a political prisoner and called for her release. The case was initiated following a complaint by a hard-line anti-LGBT campaigner, Memorial said. On Friday a court in the far eastern city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur acquitted Tsvetkova, a Telegram channel set up by her supporters said. Prosecutors had last month requested she be sentenced to three years in a prison colony.

"The three-year long trial ended with victory for the defence," Tsvetkova's supporters said on social media. "We are happy, but not completely yet. The prosecutor's office has 10 days to appeal."

It is a rare reprieve for a Russian activist in a country where more than 99% of all cases that make it to court end in a conviction.Supported by the ultra-conservative Russian Orthodox Church, Russian President Vladimir Putin has passed multiple laws over the last decade to restrict LGBT rights and assert what he calls "traditional values".

Russian lawmakers this week proposed to extend the country's "gay propaganda" law — which bans the portrayal of "non-traditional" relationships to children — to cover adults as well. The law has been used to stop gay pride marches and detain LGBT activists, and rights groups say it has been applied broadly to intimidate Russia's LGBT community.

– Reuters

July 15 2022 — 10:13

Ukraine denounces deadly missile strike as war overshadows G20 meeting

Western officials accused their Russian counterparts of war crimes on Friday after Russian missiles struck a Ukrainian city far behind the frontlines in an attack Kyiv officials said killed at least 23 people. Ukraine said Thursday's strike on Vinnytsia, a city of 370,000 people about 200km southwest of Kyiv, had been carried out with Kalibr cruise missiles launched from a Russian submarine in the Black Sea.

The attack was the latest in a series of Russian strikes in recent weeks using long-range missiles on crowded buildings in cities far from the front, each killing dozens of people. Russia, which denies targeting civilians, said the building it struck on Thursday was used to train troops. Ukraine said it was an office building housing a cultural centre used by retired veterans.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called Russia a terrorist state, urged more sanctions against the Kremlin and said the death toll in Vinnytsia could rise. "Unfortunately, this is not the final number. Debris clearance continues. Dozens of people are reported missing. There are seriously injured (people) among those hospitalised,” he said in a video address.

Zelenskyy told an international conference aimed at prosecuting war crimes in Ukraine that the attack had been mounted on "an ordinary, peaceful city". "No other state in the world poses such a terrorist threat as Russia,” he said.

Ukraine's state emergency service said three children, including a four-year-old girl, were killed in Thursday's attack. Another 71 people were hospitalised and 29 people were missing. It posted a photograph on its Telegram channel of a toy kitten, a toy dog and flowers lying in the grass. "The little girl Lisa, killed by the Russians today, has become a ray of sunshine," it said. Images of the girl, who had Down's Syndrome, pushing a pram like one found in the debris, went viral online.

Authorities in the southern city of Mykolaiv, closer to the frontlines, reported fresh Russian strikes on Friday morning, which wounded at least two people. "This time, they hit Mykolaiv around 7.50am, knowing full well that there were already many people on the streets at that time. Real terrorists!" Mykolaiv mayor Oleksandr Senkevych posted on social media. 

– Reuters

July 15 2022 — 10:08

Griner's lawyers tell Russian court she was prescribed medical cannabis

Lawyers defending US basketball player Brittney Griner told a Russian court on Friday she was prescribed medical cannabis in the United States for a chronic injury, a Reuters journalist at the courtroom reported. Griner pled guilty to drugs charges which carry a prison sentence of up to 10 years after she was detained at a Moscow airport in February carrying vape cartridges with hashish oil. – Reuters

July 15 2022 — 09:23

Britain says Bakhmut likely to be Russia's next objective in Ukraine

Russian forces have been slowly advancing westwards following shelling and probing assaults towards the town of Siversk in Ukraine's Donetsk region from Lysychansk, Britain's defence ministry said on Friday. "Bakhmut is likely to be the next objective, once Siversk is secured," the ministry tweeted in a regular bulletin. – Reuters

July 15 2022 — 08:49

Russia bans news outlet Bellingcat, labels it a security threat

Russia on Friday banned investigative news outlet Bellingcat and its main local partner from operating inside the country, branding them security threats.

Netherlands-based Bellingcat exposed the Russian-backed soldiers behind the downing of Malaysian Airlines jet MH17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014 and unmasked FSB agents sent to poison Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny in 2020.

Russia's prosecutor-general said the activities of Bellingcat its partner The Insider "posed a threat to ... the security of the Russian federation". Both will be added to Russia's "undesirable" list, which bans them from operating in Russia and makes cooperating with them illegal for Russian organisations and individuals, he said in a statement.

Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins dismissed the ban, writing on Twitter: "Bellingcat has no legal, financial or staff presence [in Russia], so it's unclear how Russia expects to enforce this."

The Insider is legally headquartered in Latvia, a move designed to protect it from Russian authorities. It has worked with Bellingcat on most of the organisation's high-profile investigations over the last five years, which also include identifying and tracking the movements of the men behind the 2018 poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Britain.

In a broad move to stamp out opposition and dissent, Russia has labelled dozens of international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society groups as "undesirable", and hundreds of domestic groups and journalists that oppose the Kremlin have been named "foreign agents".

The crackdown has intensified since Russia invaded Ukraine in February — a campaign the Kremlin refers to as a "special military operation" — with almost all independent groups outlawed or forced into exile, and new laws that make criticism of the armed forces punishable with up to 15 years in prison.

- Reuters

July 15 2022 — 06:37

Canada's Freeland 'says Russian technocrats responsible for war crimes'

Canadian finance minister Chrystia Freeland on Friday told Russian officials at a meeting of G20 finance officials that she held them personally responsible for "war crimes" committed during Russia's war in Ukraine, a Western official told Reuters.

Freeland directly addressed the Russian delegation taking part in the meeting of the Group of 20 major economies, telling them: "It is not only generals who commit war crimes, it is the economic technocrats who allow the war to happen and to continue," the official said.

Freeland, whose maternal grandparents were born in Ukraine, told the opening G20 session that the war was the "single biggest threat to the global economy right now," the official said. 

- Reuters