The Ministry of Economy of Taiwan has announced a complete cessation of machine tool supplies to Russia due to stricter export control rules. These measures were taken after a series of investigations into such supplies were published in the media.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs of Taiwan on Friday, November 1, announced
about the complete cessation of supplies of machine tools that can be used in military enterprises to Russia. Export control rules were tightened after a series of investigations into such supplies were published in the media.
In particular, the fine for the initial violation of the sanctions imposed on Russia and Belarus was significantly increased to NT$1 million (approximately USD 31,100). In addition, the Ministry of Economy reported that it is conducting “active explanatory work” with manufacturers, urging them to comply with the law and control the final flow of products.
According to the ministry, this has already yielded results, and the volume of machine tool exports from Taiwan to Russia has “dropped to zero.”
In January of this year, the Russian edition of The Insider and the Taiwanese edition of The Reporter published a joint investigation,
which stated that Taiwan, despite the pro-Ukrainian position of the authorities, had become the main supplier of metalworking machines for the Russian military-industrial complex. The publication pointed out that these exports go through third countries such as Turkey. Already in February, Taipei imposed sanctions on several Russian companies that were mentioned in the article.)
In July, a new investigation was published by
The Insider reported that the Taiwanese company Giant Force intends to circumvent the restrictions by supplying Russia with an indispensable device for testing the heat-resistant coating of missile bodies – a “salt fog chamber”. According to the newspaper, this scheme involved a Chinese plant of a Taiwanese company, a Malaysian transportation company, and a Kyrgyz bank. As a result, the deliveries were disrupted due to the vigilance of banks, in particular Chinese banks, which feared sanctions for exporting dual-use goods, The Insider writes.
The supply of Taiwanese machine tools to Russia was also mentioned in reports by the British Royal United Kingdom’s Joint Institute for Defense Studies and the Open Source Center, a US government center that analyzes open-source information for US intelligence agencies.
In 2023, Russia bypassed sanctions and received more than 300 automated machines from German manufacturers, according to an investigation by the German television company SWR, which analyzed customs documents, as well as photos and videos. According to the report, German CNC machines are actively used by companies that supply the Russian army with engines and aircraft parts, including KAMAZ, NIR, and Industrial Solutions.
As the journalists found out, the Russian military-industrial complex uses machines from more than 30 German manufacturers, including Heller. According to SWR, in two-thirds of cases, equipment from Germany is delivered to Russia through intermediaries in Turkey.
German companies told SWR that they comply with sanctions against Moscow and do not know how their machines ended up in Russia. “Sanctions circumvention is an extremely lucrative business. As a rule, there is a person in a third country who will be well paid for this,” explained sanctions expert Benjamin Hilgenstock of the Kyiv School of Economics. He believes that German companies do not always know where their products are shipped to, but they “could definitely find out if they tried.” The expert called on the German government to tighten export regulations.
Source: https://www.dw.com/ru/tajvan-zaavil-o-polnom-prekrasenii-postavok-stankov-v-rossiu/a-70672790
On November 1, 2024, Ukraine started the season of natural gas withdrawal from its underground gas storage facilities (UGS), according to the data of the Association of European Underground Gas Storage Operators (GSE). While on October 30 and 31 a small filling of storage facilities was recorded, on November 1 the volume of their filling decreased by 0.05%.
On October 31, the head of Naftohaz, Oleksiy Chernyshov, stated on his Facebook page that the heating season was actively starting in Ukrainian cities.
He recalled that Ukraine used about 6.7 billion cubic meters of gas from its subway gas reservoirs during the 2023/2024 heating season, and expects the same figures for the 2024/2025 season.
As reported, Ukraine entered November 2023 with 16 billion cubic meters of gas stored in UGS facilities. In general, during the heating season 2023/24, 8.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas was withdrawn from storage facilities, of which Ukraine used 6.7 billion cubic meters. The gas withdrawal season lasted a total of 145 days.
Ukraine planned to enter the heating season of 2024/25 with gas reserves in UGS at least 13 billion cubic meters. At the same time, the low activity of gas injection by non-residents forced Naftohaz to buy gas and store it in Ukraine’s UGS facilities in the “customs warehouse” (CU) mode,
Chernyshov noted in his commentary to Energoreforma in early October that as of November 1, the company’s purchase of gas in the TC mode, which is carried out as a reserve at the expense of the EBRD loan, will amount to about 0.5-0.6 billion cubic meters.
According to former Energy Minister Olga Buslavets, in general, the reserves in Ukraine’s UGS facilities as of November 1, 2024 amounted to 12.9 billion cubic meters.
natural gas withdrawal, UKRAINE, underground storage facilities
The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has approved the first six-year management plans for eight river basins in Ukraine: Dnipro, Don, Dniester, Vistula, Southern Bug, Azov and Black Sea rivers, as well as Crimea until 2030, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine said on Friday.
“These are roadmaps on how to improve the quality of surface and groundwater in practice. They will help to assess the state of Ukrainian water resources, in particular, as a result of the impact of military operations, as well as to identify ways to achieve a “good” state of water,” said Svitlana Hrynchuk, Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine.
It is noted that the next step should be the implementation of river basin management plans. “This is one of the key indicators in the Water Quality sector during the negotiation process on Ukraine’s accession to the EU,” the statement said.
The implementation of river basin management plans is aimed at addressing the following major water and environmental issues: surface water pollution by organic, nutrient and hazardous substances; hydromorphological changes; groundwater pollution and depletion; climate change; reducing the impact of infrastructure facilities on water conditions; pollution of water bodies by household waste; biological pollution (spread of invasive species); and the impact of military operations.
“River basin management plans will enable Ukraine to fulfill its European integration obligations and harmonize its water policy with the EU Water Framework Directive. In preparing them, Ukraine took advantage of the experience of Austria, Slovakia, Romania, Poland, Hungary, France and Estonia,” the agency said in a statement.
The second round of the presidential election between incumbent President Maia Sandu and Socialist Party candidate Alexandru Stoianoglo began in Moldova on Sunday, NewsMaker reports. Polls opened at 7 am local time and will close at 21:00. There are 2219 polling stations in the country and abroad, of which 1988 are in Moldova and 231 abroad.
A total of 2.7 million voters are registered. The elections are monitored by 2400 observers.
In the first round, Sandu won more than 42% of the vote, while Stoianoglo received almost 26%.
As reported, according to the CEC of Moldova, after counting 100% of the protocols in the presidential election, Maia Sandu, who won 42.45% of the vote, and the candidate from the Party of Socialists, Alexandru Stoianoglo, won 25.98%. Earlier, the Experts Club analytical center presented an analytical material on the most important elections in the world in 2024, more detailed video analysis is available here – https://youtu.be/73DB0GbJy4M?si=eGb95W02MgF6KzXU
You can subscribe to the Experts Club YouTube channel here – https://www.youtube.com/@ExpertsClub
Europe will need to rethink its support of Ukraine if Donald Trump is elected president of the United States, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Sunday, as the continent “will not be able to bear the burdens of the war alone”.
Orban opposes military aid to Ukraine and has made clear he thinks Trump shares his views and would negotiate a peace settlement for Ukraine.
He backs former president Trump, the Republic candidate, to beat Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in Tuesday’s U.S. election.
“We (in Europe) need to realize that if there will be a pro-peace president in America, which I not only believe in but I also read the numbers that way, … if what we expect happens and America becomes pro-peace, then Europe cannot remain pro-war,” Orban said.
Ukraine will be high on the agenda when European leaders meet in Budapest in the coming week, he said, referring to a European Political Community meeting and a more informal meeting of EU leaders due to take place.
“Europe cannot bear the burden of [the war] alone, and if Americans switch to peace, then we also need to adapt, and this is what we will discuss in Budapest,” Orban said.
Europe is jittery about how the outcome of the U.S. election will affect the war in Ukraine and the continent’s security.
Orban has angered Brussels with his close ties to Russia and opposition to aid for Ukraine.
Hungary’s foreign minister Peter Szijjarto said in July that the Hungarian government sees Trump as a “chance for peace” in Ukraine.
In July Orban said his team was assisting Trump’s aides with policies on families and migration. On Thursday, he called Trump to wish him good luck ahead of Tuesday’s election.
The presidential candidates have expressed starkly contrasting visions for America’s role in the war, as well as the NATO alliance that serves as a shield against Russian aggression.
The Ukrainian military is losing ground in eastern Ukraine at the fastest pace in years. An influx of several thousand North Korean soldiers to Russia has added an unpredictable new dimension to the most savage war in Europe in generations.
And Russian bombardments — including 20 nights of drone assaults on the capital, Kyiv, in October alone — add to the civilian casualty count every day.
Against this difficult backdrop, Ukraine is bracing for the U.S. elections on Tuesday that will almost certainly shape the course of the country in profoundly different ways, depending on who wins the White House.
Former President Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee, and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, have expressed starkly contrasting visions for America’s role in the war as well as in the NATO military alliance that has long served as a shield against Russian aggression.
Ukrainian officials — desperate to steer clear of the toxic partisan battles that could jeopardize support from their chief military backer — are seeking to find ways to make different arguments that might appeal to both camps.
Mr. Trump’s claim that he will be able to broker a deal to end the war even before he takes office along with his often-expressed dim views of Ukraine — he has even blamed President Volodymyr Zelensky for starting the war — have stoked concerns that he would force the Ukrainians into a bad deal by cutting off military support.
Mr. Zelensky, who is asked about the prospect of a Trump victory in nearly every news conference and media appearance, told journalists in Iceland last week that he “understands all the risks.”
“Trump talks a lot, but I didn’t hear him say he would reduce support for Ukraine,” he said.
At the same time, Mr. Zelensky is under no illusions about the dire consequences of losing U.S. military assistance.
“If that support weakens, Russia will seize more territory, it would prevent us from winning this war,” he told the South Korean broadcaster KBS. “That is the reality.”
Kyiv is clearly looking for ways to appeal to Mr. Trump’s well-documented transactional approach to foreign policy, with Mr. Zelensky emphasizing that helping defend Ukraine is in America’s economic interests since his country “is rich in natural resources, including critical metals worth trillions of U.S. dollars.”
In 2022, the Canadian consulting company SecDev estimated the full value of all mineral resources of Ukraine at $26 trillion, including coal, gas and oil. Strategic resources — including some 7 percent of the world’s titanium reserves, 20 percent of its graphite reserves and 500,000 tons of lithium essential for electric car batteries — are within Ukrainian territory.
Russia is already plundering some of these resources in occupied territories, according to Ukrainian officials, British intelligence and independent investigations.
Those precious resources, Mr. Zelensky said, “will strengthen either Russia and its allies or Ukraine and the democratic world.”
Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and a Trump ally, made a similar point in a video he recorded with Mr. Zelensky in September. “They’re sitting on a trillion dollars’ worth of minerals that could be good to our economy,” Mr. Graham said. “So I want to keep helping our friends in Ukraine.”
Mr. Zelensky has also mentioned the possibility of using Ukrainian units to replace certain American troops stationed in Europe after the war, noting that battle-hardened Ukrainian troops could prove useful in protecting the European continent.
That may also have been an appeal to Mr. Trump’s longstanding goal of reducing America’s military presence in Europe. In 2020, he withdrew nearly 10,000 troops from Germany — about a quarter of the contingent stationed there.
“Donald Trump is entirely unpredictable — in both negative and positive ways,” said Oleksandr Kovalenko, a prominent Ukrainian military and political analyst. “Trump could very unpredictably take a stance that completely blocks aid to Ukraine, or he could just as unpredictably decide to provide Ukraine with support that neither Joseph Biden nor Kamala Harris would ever consider.”
Ms. Harris is widely seen as more predictable and likely to pursue policies similar to the Biden administration’s, which presents a different set of challenges for Kyiv.
Many Ukrainians believe that the Biden administration has been cowed by fear of a direct confrontation with Moscow, leading to an overly cautious and slow response that ultimately consigns them to a slow defeat.
“A future President Harris would need to deal with a central problem in America’s support for Ukraine: Does it want Ukraine to beat Russia and is it willing to provide the military, diplomatic and financial resources to do so?” Mick Ryan, a retired Australian Army major general and a fellow at the Lowy Institute, a research group, wrote recently.
“If the answer to this question is yes, it will require the United States and NATO to shift their strategy, and will demand a closer alignment of NATO and Ukrainian strategy to see the war through to victory,” he wrote.
Mr. Biden’s tepid response to a plan for victory that Mr. Zelensky presented on a recent trip to Washington has added to a deepening sense of frustration that has spilled into public view, with Kyiv saying it limits its options for finding an acceptable end to the war.
There is no indication that the United States will provide Ukraine with the kind of military support it believes it needs to force Russia into negotiations and no sign that Washington is ready to commit to the kind of security guarantees Kyiv views as essential to a durable peace.
Mr. Zelensky told reporters this week that America had delivered only a small fraction of the military support it pledged in a $61 billion aid package passed in April, complicating Ukraine’s ability to plan for what comes after the presidential election in the United States.
“You have to count on very specific things in very concrete time, otherwise you can’t manage this situation, you cannot manage defending lines, you can’t secure people, you can’t prepare for the winter,” he said this week.
“It’s not a question of money,” he said. “It’s always a question of bureaucracy, logistics, ideas or skepticism.”
As Ukraine continues to lose ground on the eastern front, Mr. Kovalenko, the military analyst, said that no matter who wins on Tuesday, the domestic partisan political battles that could follow the election present their own risk, sowing chaos that Moscow will move to eagerly exploit.
“What actually frightens me more is not January 2025, when the inauguration will take place, but the period right after the election,” he said in an interview. “Russia will now take full advantage of the U.S. elections, after which internal political events will dominate, distracting American society from Ukraine and other foreign policy issues.”
Constant Méheut and Liubov Sholudko contributed reporting from Kyiv.
Marc Santora has been reporting from Ukraine since the beginning of the war with Russia. He was previously based in London as an international news editor focused on breaking news events and earlier the bureau chief for East and Central Europe, based in Warsaw. He has also reported extensively from Iraq and Africa. More about Marc Santora
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/03/world/europe/trump-harris-ukraine-election.html
