Austria has pledged to provide additional humanitarian support to Ukraine in the amount of EUR 8 million and will also provide EUR 2 million for the Ukrainian initiative Grain from Ukraine, Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg said.
“And today I can announce that we have committed to provide additional humanitarian support to Ukraine in the amount of EUR8 million: EUR5 million for the World Food Programme’s mine action program and EUR3 million for humanitarian assistance through international organizations working in Ukraine and Moldova,” said Schallenberg at a joint press conference with his Ukrainian counterpart Andriy Sibiga on Wednesday.
He also announced the allocation of additional funds for the Grain from Ukraine initiative.
“And I am pleased to announce that we will provide EUR2 million in addition to the EUR2 million allocated by the Austrian Development Agency for the Grain from Ukraine initiative, which I believe is important to reduce the impact of Putin’s war on global food security,” the minister said.
The foreign minister noted that at the bilateral level alone, his country provided EUR264 million in support to Ukraine, which was directed to humanitarian and financial assistance.
As of November 19, farmers in all regions of Ukraine sowed more than 6.14 million hectares of winter crops, up from 6 million hectares last week, the press service of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food reported.
According to the report, almost 5.06 million hectares were sown with winter crops, which is 98% of the forecast. In particular, winter wheat has been sown on 4.4 million hectares (4.3 million hectares a week earlier), which is 98% of the forecasted area under the crop, barley – on 610.5 thousand hectares (577.8 thousand hectares) and 96%, rye – on 68.6 thousand hectares (68.1 thousand hectares) and 97%, rapeseed – on 1.08 million hectares (1.07 million hectares) and 96%.
Agrarians in 14 regions have completed sowing winter grains, and 12 regions have completed sowing winter rapeseed.
According to the Ministry, the leaders in terms of winter grain sowing are farmers in Odesa – 760 thou hectares, Dnipro – 532 thou hectares, and Mykolaiv – 503.1 thou hectares.
As of November 14, a year earlier, Ukraine planted 5.8 mln ha of winter crops, including 4.022 mln ha of wheat, 506 thou ha of barley, 77 thou ha of rye, and 1.159 mln ha of rapeseed.
On Thursday, November 21, moderate snow is expected in western regions of Ukraine at night and in some places light snow in the afternoon, reports Ukrhydrometcenter. The temperature at night 0-5 °, in the Carpathians up to 8 ° frost, in the afternoon about 0 °.
In Zhytomyr, Kyiv, Chernihiv, Vinnitsa and Cherkassy regions, wet snow and rain, heavy precipitation in some places at night, sticking wet snow. The temperature at night and during the day is 0-3° of heat. In the rest of the area moderate, in some places heavy rains. Temperatures are 5-10° warm at night, up to 14° in Crimea, 7-12° during the day, 13-18° in the south-east of the country. In the western, most northern and Vinnitsa regions there is icy road ice on the roads.
The wind is predominantly north-westerly, at night on the Left Bank southern, 7-12 m/s. Throughout Ukraine, except for western and most northern regions, gusts of 17-22 m/s.
In Kiev at night heavy, in the afternoon moderate rain and wet snow, icy roads. The wind is north-westerly, 7-12 m/s. The temperature at night and in the daytime 0-2° of heat.
According to the Central Geophysical Observatory named after. Boris Sreznevsky, the highest temperature during the day on November 21 in Kiev was recorded in 1926 and amounted to 16.1 ° heat, the lowest at night – 15.3 ° below zero in 1890.
On Friday, November 22, at night without precipitation, only in the eastern regions and in the extreme west of the country, in the afternoon in Ukraine, except for southern and eastern regions, moderate snow, snowstorm, in the Carpathian region significant snow;
Wind south with transition to north-western, 7-12 m/s. In the southern part, in the afternoon in central and northern regions gusts of 15-20 m/s in some places.
In the west, most of the north, Vinnitsa and Cherkassy regions, roads are icy.
The temperature at night is 1-6° frost, in the south of the country about 0°. During the day in western and northern regions from 3° frost to 2° warm, in the rest of the territory 0-5° warm, in the south of the country 6-11° warm.
In the Carpathians, light snow at night and heavy snow in the afternoon. Temperatures at night 5-10°, in the afternoon 2-7° of frost.
In Kiev, no precipitation at night, snow, snowstorm, south wind, 7-12 m/s, gusts of 15-18 m/s in the afternoon. The temperature at night 3-5° of frost, during the day 0-2° of heat.
The U.S. Embassy in Ukraine is closed in Kyiv on November 20 and recommends that U.S. citizens be prepared to take shelter immediately in the event of an air raid alert.
The office of the American Chamber of Commerce in Kyiv (AmCham) is also closed today. The organization’s team is available online.
In 2023, dairy farms in the European Union produced 160.8 million tons of raw milk, which is 0.8 million tons more than in 2022 and 15.8 million tons more than in 2013, according to a study by Eurostat.
According to it, most of the milk produced in the EU is used for butter and cheese production. Thus, in 2023, 149.3 million tons of raw milk were supplied to dairy plants, which was used to produce a number of fresh and ready-made dairy products.
In turn, EU dairies produced 22.0 million tons of drinking milk and 7.8 million tons of fermented milk products in 2023. At the same time, 58.2 million tons of whole milk and 17.4 million tons of skim milk were used to produce 10.6 million tons of cheese. Another 45.4 million tons of whole milk was used to produce 2.3 million tons of butter, the study says.
Germany became the leader in the production of milk and dairy products in the European Union, accounting for 19% of the total production of drinking milk. It was also a leading producer of fermented milk products (27%), butter (20%) and cheese (22%).
Spain was the second largest producer of drinking milk (15% of the EU total), followed by France (13%). The Netherlands was the second largest producer of fermented milk products (17%), followed by Poland (10%).
France was the second largest producer of both butter and cheese (18% of the EU total for each product). Ireland was third in butter production (13%) and Italy was third in cheese production (13%).
As of September 30, 2024, 4 million 197.37 thousand non-EU citizens who fled Ukraine as a result of the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, had temporary protection status in the EU, compared to 4 million 163.66 thousand citizens a month earlier, Eurostat reports.
“Compared to the end of August 2024, the largest absolute increase in the number of recipients was observed in Germany (+7,005; +0.6%), Poland (+4,645; +0.5%) and Spain (+3,170; +1.5%),” the agency said.
It noted that the number of beneficiaries decreased in France (-570; -0.9%) and Italy (-10; -0.0%).
Thus, in September, the growth in the number of refugees from Ukraine with temporary protection status slowed to 33.7 thousand from 39.8 thousand in August.
According to Eurostat, despite Germany’s deprivation of almost 237,000 people of this status in July, it still remains the country with the largest number of them in the EU and the world – 1,129,34 thousand at the end of September, or 26.9% of the total number of beneficiaries in the EU.
The top three also includes Poland – 979.84 thousand, or 23.3%, and the Czech Republic – 378.48 thousand, or 9.0%.
Spain (218.30 thousand), Romania (172.41 thousand), and Italy (166.79 thousand) follow with a significant lag.
At the same time, Eurostat clarified that the data for Spain, Greece and Cyprus take into account some people whose temporary protection status is no longer valid.
According to the agency, compared to the population of each EU member state, the largest number of temporary protection beneficiaries per thousand people in September 2024 was observed in the Czech Republic (34.7), Lithuania (28.1) and Poland (26.8), while the corresponding figure at the EU level is 9.3.
It is also said that as of September 30, 2024, Ukrainian citizens accounted for more than 98.3% of the beneficiaries of temporary protection. Adult women accounted for almost half (45.0%) of temporary protection beneficiaries in the EU, children for almost a third (32.3%), while adult men accounted for slightly more than a fifth (22.7%) of the total. A year earlier, the share of women was 46.5%, children 33.7% and adult men 19.9%.
At the end of September 2024, there were also more than 100 thousand people with temporary protection status in Slovakia – 126.97 thousand, the Netherlands – 119.01 thousand, and Ireland – 107.93 thousand.
Between 50 thousand and 100 thousand of them were in Belgium – 84.54 thousand, Austria – 81.91 thousand, Lithuania – 81.07 thousand, Norway – 76.11 thousand, Finland – 67.27 thousand, Switzerland – 66.63 thousand, Bulgaria – 64.32 thousand, Portugal – 63.66 thousand and France – 60.10 thousand (data on children are mostly not included – Eurostat).
This is followed by Latvia – 46.99 thousand people, Sweden – 44.63 thousand, Hungary – 37.99 thousand, Denmark – 36.93 thousand, Estonia – 34.24 thousand, Greece – 31.78 thousand, Croatia – 25.40 thousand, Cyprus – 21.68 thousand, Iceland – 3.92 thousand, Luxembourg – 3.82 thousand, Malta – 2.16 thousand and Liechtenstein – 0.66 thousand.
Eurostat clarified that all the above data relate to the granting of temporary protection on the basis of EU Council Decision 2022/382 of March 4, 2022, which establishes the existence of a massive influx of displaced persons from Ukraine due to Russia’s military invasion and entails the introduction of temporary protection. On June 25, 2024, the European Council decided to extend temporary protection for these persons from March 4, 2025 to March 4, 2026.
According to updated UNHCR data, the number of Ukrainian refugees in Europe as of October 15 this year was estimated at 6.192 million, and 6.752 million in the world as a whole, which is 38 thousand and 27 thousand more than as of September 24 this year.
In Ukraine itself, according to the latest UN data as of August this year, there were 3.669 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), which is 121 thousand more than in April this year.
According to regional authorities cited by the UN, between August 1 and October 3, more than 120,000 people left Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, including 19,500 who fled active hostilities. In Sumy region, the authorities estimate that 36,000 people, including 6,000 children, have been evacuated.
As noted by Deputy Economy Minister Serhiy Sobolev in early March last year, the return of every 100,000 Ukrainians home results in a 0.5% increase in GDP. In its macroeconomic forecast for this year, the Ministry of Economy has included 1.5 million people returning to Ukraine.
At the same time, the National Bank, in its October inflation report, again downgraded its forecast for the outflow from Ukraine this year from 0.4 million to 0.5 million. In absolute terms, the number of migrants staying abroad is expected to increase to 6.8 million this year.
In the new report, the National Bank confirmed its expectation that Ukrainians will start returning home in 2026, but lowered its forecast for net inflows in 2026 to 0.2 million from 0.4 million.
