Germany will provide military aid to Ukraine in the amount of EUR7.1 billion in 2024, including a EUR1.1 billion aid package, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said at a press conference in Berlin on Friday.
“In total, Germany has allocated or committed EUR28 billion for military aid,” he added.
Today, Scholz noted, “we are preparing a new level – EUR 1.1 billion. This includes 36 armored howitzers and wheeled howitzers from industrial stocks, 120 thousand pieces of ammunition, as well as two Skynex systems and missiles for IRIS-T,” Scholz said.
According to him, the signed agreement on military cooperation establishes that Germany will continue to support an independent Ukraine that is defending itself against Russian aggression.
Germany, Scholz said, “will support Ukrainian partners in building modern, defensible armed forces in order to prevent any future Russian aggression.” According to him, “today’s agreement also covers assistance in the civilian sphere, such as demining, energy infrastructure in Ukraine and reconstruction.”
In turn, Scholz noted, Ukraine assumes responsibility for continuing reforms leading to the country’s accession to the EU. “I have to be clear: of course, we all want this war to end as soon as possible. But, unfortunately, we see that Russia is not ready for a lasting and just peace,” the Chancellor said.
He also appealed to the US Congress to “make the decisions that Ukraine needs now to provide financial and military support.”
According to the website of the German Ministry of Defense, on Friday the federal government prepared another package of military support for Ukraine worth EUR1.13 billion.
It includes 18 Panzerhaubitzen-2000 self-propelled howitzers (to be delivered in 2026-2027, including training, spare parts and ammunition, in addition to the 14 already planned), 18 RCH 155 wheeled howitzers (to be delivered in 2025-2027 in addition to the 18 planned), 120,000 rounds of 122 mm artillery ammunition (to be delivered in 2024), a second SkyNex air defense system (to be delivered in 2025), and 100 more IRIS-T SLS missiles (in addition to the previously planned).
“Our Security Agreement with Ukraine is historic. For the first time in its history, the Federal Republic acts as a guarantor state. Today’s signing is a clear sign that Germany is fulfilling its increased security commitments in Europe. Our “Munich package” worth more than EUR 1 billion confirms our ongoing military support for Ukraine and shows that we are fulfilling our promise to stand by our Ukrainian partners in their fight against Russian aggression,” said German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius.
How much money the 3 largest foundations raised last year
People donated UAH 18.75 billion to the three largest foundations last year. This amount is almost half as much as in 2022. The number of donors increased in the second half of the year. It was the end of the year when several platforms reached record amounts of money. This is evidenced by data from United 24, Come Back Alive, and the Shelter Fund.
For comparison, in 2022, the total amount of donations reached a record 34.38 billion UAH. Of this amount, 2/3 was raised in the first six months – UAH 24 billion, and the remaining UAH 10.5 billion was donated in the second half of the year.
Where did people donate the most money?
United 24 became the leader among charitable organizations in 2023. The foundation managed to raise almost 2/3 of the total amount – UAH 12.07 billion. The peak of donations was in December last year – UAH 3.55 billion or 29%. This is a record amount for a month since the foundation’s inception.
United 24 works in 5 areas:
● the needs of the Armed Forces – UAH 10.81 billion (90%);
Healthcare – UAH 0.76 billion (6%)
Restoration of destroyed property and infrastructure – UAH 0.25 billion (2%);
Humanitarian demining – UAH 0.13 billion (1%);
● Education and science needs – UAH 0.12 billion (1%).
December was also a significant month for Come Back Alive, as it was then that the foundation raised 20% of all its accumulations for the year – UAH 0.9 billion. In contrast, the foundation’s share of all donations raised together with its colleagues is 24%, or UAH 4.53 billion.
Only 11% of the total accumulated amount is accounted for by the Shelter Fund. The organization raised UAH 2.14 billion last year, of which the largest amount was received in October – UAH 0.31 billion.
https://opendatabot.ua/analytics/donation-2023
amount of donations, charitable organizations, Come Back Alive, Shelter Fund, UNITED 24
In January this year, Ukraine increased exports of processed pig iron in physical terms by 5.3% year-on-year to 142,176 thousand tons from 135,073 thousand tons.
According to statistics released by the State Customs Service (SCS) on Friday, pig iron exports in monetary terms increased by 3.1% to $50.004 million from $48.513 million during the period under review.
At the same time, exports were carried out mainly to the United States (92.26% of supplies in monetary terms), Poland (3.88%) and France (2.52%).
In the first month of the year, Ukraine did not import pig iron, as it did in January 2023.
As reported, in 2023, Ukraine reduced pig iron exports in physical terms by 5.8% compared to 2022 – to 1 million 248.512 thousand tons, while exports in monetary terms decreased by 26.2% to $471.467 million. Deliveries were made mainly to Poland (51.91% of supplies in monetary terms), Spain (21.41%) and the United States (13.15%).
In 2023, Ukraine imported 154 tons of pig iron worth $156 thousand from Germany (42.31%), Brazil (41.67%) and Poland (16.03%), compared to 40 tons of pig iron worth $23 thousand in 2022.
In 2022, Ukraine reduced exports of processed pig iron by 59% in physical terms compared to the previous year to 1 million 325.275 thousand tons, and by 61.1% in monetary terms to $638.774 million.
In 2022, Ukraine imported 40 tons of pig iron worth $23 thousand, while in 2021 it imported 185 tons of pig iron worth $226 thousand. Exports were mainly to the United States (38.47% of supplies in monetary terms), Poland (32.91%) and Turkey (8.12%), while imports were made from Germany (100%).
Real GDP percentage changes over previous period in 2014-2023
Source: Open4Business.com.ua and experts.news
US-based Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, has unveiled a new version of its flagship artificial intelligence (AI) model Gemini.
The new Gemini Pro 1.5 model is capable of processing several times more audio, video and text than the GPT-4 model, on which the popular ChatGPT chatbot is based, Wired writes.
In particular, Gemini Pro 1.5 can simultaneously process 1 hour of video, 11 hours of audio, 700 thousand words or 30 thousand lines of program code.
As part of the demonstration, it analyzed the transcript of conversations with the crew of the Apollo 11 spacecraft, presented as a 402-page PDF file, and found several funny moments in it on demand, including the words of the astronauts that the contact was delayed due to a break to eat sandwiches.
Google expects that the new features of the model will allow developers to create new kinds of applications based on it.
The new version of Gemini is already available to them on the AI Studio platform and through Vertex AI’s cloud-based application programming interface (API).
There is no word on when the model will be released to the general public.
War risk insurance in the construction industry is hampered by the lack of transparency of financial models, said Victoria Bereshchak, co-founder of the Partnership Mediation Institute, in a commentary to Interfax-Ukraine.
She noted that insuring war risks in the construction sector is much more difficult than in agribusiness, or large industry and energy. First of all, it is difficult to find financial institutions that are ready to provide guarantees and insure the property of developers.
“In residential real estate, this tool is hardly used, in particular, because of the difficult relationship between the market and potential insurers: they could not cooperate in peacetime due to legal issues and the lack of transparency of certain processes, in particular, the formation of financial capital of companies, and even more so in war,” Bereshchak emphasized.
At the same time, the expert noted that potentially, insurance of residential projects under construction will not greatly affect the cost.
“According to estimates, it is about 2-4% depending on the region (air defense protection of the city, density and number of attacks, potential and related risks with the war) and the size of the project,” Bereshchak explained.
For the commercial real estate segment, insurance is an important and necessary tool, especially for logistics centers.
The following military risks are most often considered in insurance:
explosion or direct hit of ammunition into an object containing explosives;
crash of military aircraft and/or remotely piloted objects or their parts onto the insured property;
military operations on the territory where the facility is located/construction is underway.
“Potentially (for commercial projects), we are talking primarily about cooperation with international financial organizations, the World Bank, and export credit agencies of other countries. I would also like to remind you that we have Law 3497-IX (draft law No. 9015), which significantly expanded the powers of the Expert Credit Agency to insure against military risks for investments of Ukrainian and foreign companies in Ukraine,” Bereshchak said.
