The United Nations (UN) is requesting $435 million in humanitarian aid for Ukraine to help it get through the winter, the Ministry of Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine reports, citing the UN Office.
“In connection with the adjustment of the Humanitarian Response Plan, the UN asks partners to allocate $435 million in assistance to Ukraine. This is stated on the website of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA Ukraine),” the Ministry of Reintegration said in a statement on its Telegram channel on Tuesday.
The UN believes that these funds will make it possible to provide humanitarian assistance to more than 1.7 million people throughout Ukraine until March 2024.
As noted, the relevant Humanitarian Response Plan is being implemented in support of the efforts of the Government of Ukraine, as well as national, regional and local authorities. In the future, it will be supplemented by a regular program designed to meet the needs of more than 11 million Ukrainians.
The 2023-2024 response will focus on communities where active hostilities have taken place or are taking place, namely in Donetsk, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Kherson, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, Sumy and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.
Cyprus-based International Distribution Systems Limited, the owner of Ukraine’s largest mineral water producer IDS Ukraine, has been subject to Ukrainian sanctions: asset freezes, prevention of capital outflows abroad, and a ban on increasing the authorized capital of related Ukrainian companies.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Decree No. 739 of November 7 on the implementation of the sanctions adopted by the National Security and Defense Council on the same day was published on the President’s website.
The decree imposes similar sanctions on eight more companies: four – Sogeral Foundation, Haberfield Limited, Slavisilla Holdings Limited, and Dendar Investment Fund Limited (all based in Cyprus) – for a period of 10 years, while IDS Limited and four others are subject to two-year sanctions.
The latter also include Alfa Finance Holdings Limited, Erasmony Limited, Rissa Investments Limited and CTF Holdings S.A.
Most of these companies are associated with Mikhail Fridman and other co-owners of the so-called Alfa Group, as evidenced, in particular, by the data disclosed earlier in Russia on the scheme of interaction between the participants of the management company Alfa Capital Management Company LLC, under whose control or significant influence this management company was. The list includes Peter Aven, German Khan, Andrei Kosogov, Alexei Kuzmichev and the former minority shareholder of Sense Bank, The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research. Friedman and his partners were previously included in the Ukrainian sanctions list.
As reported, the Ukrainian legislation adopted during the war allows the High Anti-Corruption Court to seize the assets of sanctioned persons to the state revenue.
Direct budgetary funding for Ukrzaliznytsia (UZ) in 2023 will amount to UAH 5 billion, of which UAH 3.5 billion has already been allocated over 10 months, and the government provides state guarantees for another UAH 6 billion for loans that the company takes out from international financial institutions, the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine has reported.
In particular, according to the Ministry of Finance, it is UAH 3.9 billion from the European Investment Bank (EIB) and UAH 2.1 billion from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
It is specified that out of the UAH 3.5 billion already allocated this year, almost UAH 3 billion has been allocated for the purchase of new passenger railcars, including the completion of payment for 100 passenger railcars ordered in 2021 and 44 railcars in 2023.
“The prepayment for the purchase of 44 new passenger cars was made on October 28 this year, including the supply of 9 new reserved seats. These will be the first new second-class cars purchased over the past 15 years and the first Ukrainian-made second-class cars,” Deputy Finance Minister Oleksandr Kava said in a release. He recalled that Russian second-class cars were previously purchased.
According to the Ministry of Finance, work is also underway to implement international projects aimed at restoring railway infrastructure: attracting a loan from the EBRD of up to EUR 200 million under the Emergency Support to Ukrainian Railways Project, a $25 million World Bank grant under the Restoration of Critical Infrastructure and Network Connectivity (RELINC) project, a EUR 37.6 million loan from France, and grant assistance from Switzerland for CHF 14 million.
As reported, this fall UZ signed a contract with Kryukiv Carriage Works (KVSZ, Poltava region) for the manufacture of 44 passenger railcars for UAH 1.951 billion with delivery by December 31, 2025.
By the spring of 2023, KVSZ had completed fulfilling Ukrzaliznytsia’s order for 100 passenger railcars under the contract signed in 2021 for more than UAH 3 billion, but pointed to late payment.
The farms of KSG Agro have completed the sunflower harvesting campaign on an area of 7,360 hectares with a yield of 24 c/ha, the press service of the agricultural holding reported.
“The results of the harvesting campaign are positive for us, thanks to weather conditions with sufficient rainfall. We predicted a final yield of 23-25 cwt/ha, but in fact we got 24 cwt/ha. This year’s harvesting campaign was delayed because we partially used seeds with a late maturity. We should also mention the results of Apostolivske branch, which for the first time since it joined the holding achieved high sunflower yields of 24.5 c/ha,” said Dmytro Emelchenko, Head of the company’s crop production division, as quoted in the press release.
According to him, in parallel with the sunflower harvesting campaign, the holding’s farms sowed winter wheat on an area of 2 thou hectares and rapeseed on an area of 1.5 thou hectares.
“The peculiarity of this year’s winter crops was that due to weather conditions we sowed almost dry. Nevertheless, the seedlings received at the end of October are in satisfactory good condition,” said Mr. Yemelchenko.
KSG Agro, a vertically integrated holding company, is engaged in pig production, as well as the production, storage, processing and sale of grains and oilseeds. Its land bank is about 21 thousand hectares in Dnipropetrovska and Kherson regions.
According to the agricultural holding, it is one of the top 5 pork producers in Ukraine.
Last year, due to the full-scale war launched by Russia, KSG Agro ended with a net loss of $1.68 million compared to $17.71 million in net profit in 2021, its EBITDA decreased 5.5 times to $1.79 million, and revenue decreased by 47.3% to $16.2 million.
In the first quarter of 2023, the agricultural holding earned $1.53 million in net profit, which is 17% less than in the same period last year. Its EBITDA increased by 23% to $1.87 million and revenue by 45% to $5.12 million.
Oil prices are falling on Tuesday after a slight rise in the previous session amid decisions by Saudi Arabia and Russia to extend voluntary production cuts.
The cost of January futures for Brent crude oil on the London ICE Futures exchange as of 7:10 a.m. on Tuesday amounted to $84.77 per barrel, which is $0.41 (0.48%) lower than at the close of the previous session. On Monday, the price of these contracts rose by $0.29 (0.3%) to $85.18 per barrel.
December futures for WTI in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) fell by $0.36 (0.45%) to $80.46 per barrel by this time. As a result of the previous trading, the value of these contracts increased by $0.31 (0.4%) to $80.82 per barrel.
The market is under pressure from fears of a weakening global economy and, consequently, oil demand. “Weak economic expectations are holding back the oil market and justifying the position of OPEC+ countries limiting production,” OANDA analyst Craig Earlam said, as quoted by Market Watch.
Last weekend, it became known that Saudi Arabia decided not to change the volume of voluntary oil production cuts and will keep it at 1 million bpd until the end of 2023.
In December, Riyadh may review the parameters of the restrictions to make a decision either to deepen the reduction or to increase production, the Saudi state agency reported on Sunday, citing an official source in the country’s Energy Ministry.
Saudi state-owned Saudi Aramco said on Monday that it will keep the price of the main grade of oil supplied to Asia, Arab Light, unchanged in December. The price of this grade for Asian buyers has been rising for five months in a row.
The Russian Federation will extend until the end of December 2023 an additional voluntary reduction in the supply of oil and oil products to world markets by 300 thousand barrels per day, which came into effect in September and October 2023.
