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On today's show:
- Ukraine's Armed Forces hit the railway bridge on the Kalmius River, which Russia built in the village of Hranitne under occupied Mariupol. As a result, the construction itself, as well as fuel tanks and engineering vehicles, was destroyed.
- The eighth Aeroflot plane broke down in 5 weeks. 400 people stuck in Thailand
- respective 1000 Russians are in the process of extradition from Latvia due to migration adjustments," said Oleg Zykow, charge d’affaires of the Russian Federation in the Baltic Republic, on the air of Channel One.
- Blinken during his visit to Greece on 6 January agreed with Prime Minister Mitsotakis to deliver Ukraine's fresh arms supply," the Greek media informs.
- The politician of Sevastopol Razwojayev called the announcements which appeared in the city calls to leave the city due to expected rocket attacks of Ukrainian troops, false
- Since August last year, Ukraine has exported 15 million tons of cargo, mainly food, a temporary sea corridor in the Black Sea — Prime Minister Denys Szmyhal. besides the corridor works specified are Russian and Ukrainian data
- Swedish civilian Defence Minister Karl-Oskar Bulin, speaking at a conference on national security, called on fellow citizens to stand ready for war.
- The Italian authorities of Modena withdrew the approval to usage the hall for the conference and exhibition on the reconstruction of Mariupola on 20 January — TASS, citing organizers from the Russian-Emilia-Romania cultural association.
- Finland will not open checkpoints at the border with the Russian Federation," the head of the MMA reported.
- In the Murman region, a fresh support measurement was introduced for the participants of the SpcecOperation and their families, now the heroes of Russia and those who have been decorated with merit medals, will be able to get land ownership for free," said politician Andrei Chibis.
- The Russian Ministry of abroad Affairs informed of the termination of the double taxation agreement with Latvia. A akin treaty between Russia and Denmark has besides lost its power.
- Latvia will ban Russian grain imports and transit and will start dialog with Lithuania, Estonia and Finland to make a common position on this issue," said Latvian Transport Minister Kaspars Briškens in an interview with Latvian Radio.
- Government's disgraces are coming out. Infrastructure backing has been halved.
Our predictions are coming closer and faster. Yesterday, we released a comment on the day's heating scandal, and present there's already a tiny scandal about this topic.
The Russian authorities plan to radically reduce expenditure on housing and municipal infrastructure, despite the critical consumption and a series of accidents that swept through cities in early 2024.
From 2024 to 2026 According to the explanatory note to the budget bill, signed at the end of November by president Vladimir Putin, the backing of the housing and municipal services sector from the national treasury will be reduced by more than half.
This year, the national budget will allocate 886 billion rubles to housing and municipal services – 24 billion rubles more than in 2023. And although nominally spending will somewhat increase, real - given the inflation that Rosstat estimates to 7.5 - will fall by almost 5%.
Under the Budget Act from 2025, a sharp cut in expenditure on housing and municipal services will begin: they will be reduced by 43%, to 506 billion rubles. And in 2026 – by another 25%, to 381 billion rubles.
Thus, within 3 years, the state-funded budget for housing and municipal services will decrease by about 52%, to a minimum of 6 years.
According to the state for half of 2022, the consumption of the public utility infrastructure network in Russia, including heat and water supply and sewerage, exceeded 70%, said Sergei Pakhomov, president of the State Duma Commission on Construction and Housing and Municipal Services.
According to him, any regions inactive have asbestos aquifers that are 90 years old or older. Reducing spending on housing and municipal services threatens Russia with fresh man-made disasters, warns economist Igor Lipsits.
There were 246 accidents in the Leningrad region, of which 211 occurred on power grids – Oblast politician Aleksander Drozdenko.
In Nizhny Novgorod, Russia's 3rd most populous city, problems on January 6. 3 days later, in Yekaterinburg, the largest city of Uralu, the heating in 324 blocks, 5 schools and 2 kindergartens were disabled.
The Kremlin calls for "hope" that in the close future it will be possible to reconstruct electricity and heat, stated president Dmitri Pieskov's spokesperson on Tuesday. "Everybody has done everything he can and put maximum effort into it."
Indeed, in any places the effects were not immediately eliminated," he added.
2. The Russians are dying out. The population is shrinking.
We have the latest forecasts of Rosstat and they are not optimistic, so it will be much worse.
Over the next 2 decades, Russia is likely to die at an average rate of over 800,000 people per year, and by the mediate of the 21st century it could lose 15.1 million people from a permanent population. Independent studies say over a million.
Importantly, Rosstat's forecast, published as an addendum to the ‘baseline’ scenario, served and is utilized to draw up a budget for the payment of pensions and household allowances in the country.
In the "pessimistic" script of Rosstat Russia in the second half of the 21st century will have only 130 million permanent residents, corresponding to the Russian Empire levels in 1897 (129 million).
At the same time, even in the ‘pessimistic’ scenario, Rosstat assumes an unreal increase in natural growth: from 7.9 children per 100,000 inhabitants this year to 9.3 in 2045.
The situation may be even worse if there is no influx of migrants and outflows, as forecast: in the "pessimistic" scenario, Rosstat expects it to be 154,000 people per year. This will compensate for about 1 5th of the natural population decline.
Rosstat's "Pessimistic" forecast is consistent with the UN Department of economical and Social Affairs' baseline forecast. By 2050, Russia's population is expected to fall from 146 million to 133 million.
Russia faces "the most hard demographic challenges" and, in order to meet them, it is essential to revive the tradition of multi-children families in families," president Vladimir Putin said in November.
He reminded me that respective generations ago grandmothers and great-grandmothers present The Russians had 7 or 8 children in their families, and even more.
“Let us preserve and resurrect these wonderful traditions. Having many children and a large household should become the norm, a way of life for all nations of the Russian miru," the president called.
According to Putin, "impossible" is to solve demographic problems only with money, benefits, social benefits and benefits.
3. We announced and there they are. January raise. Repair the cars up.
For automotive enthusiasts who have lost Western brands after sanctions and were forced to control to Chinese cars, 2024 will bring another increase in repair prices.
According to a survey conducted by the Russian Automotive Services Union, out of 145 car repair owners surveyed 109 said they intend to increase the cost of services by an average of 10%. We are talking about the cost of work itself, as well as spare parts and consumables.
"In 2023, we observed a price increase of mainly replacement parts by 30–40% and sometimes by 100%. This is due to the expanding complexity of logistics, the depreciation of ruble, the difficulty of transferring funds from Russia to abroad banks and the increase in credit costs" – this is simply a quote from the president of the Russian car Dealers Association (ROAD) Alexey Podszczkoldin .
The president himself assured that motorists would not stay without spare parts: logistics chains were rebuilt after sanctions were introduced and imported equipment is supplied by Georgia, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan. Thank you, President, for the clear answer to where the Americans are expected to press.
At the same time, experts note that the departure from the Russian marketplace of companies supplying automotive parts and consumables to ‘traditional’ car manufacturers, on the 1 hand, provides the basis for an increase in the number of counterfeits of clearly low quality and, on the another hand, opens up fresh opportunities for Russian manufacturers.
Here is an example of russian philosophical thought. Everything went up and the country has 50% of counterfeit motor oils. But this opens up opportunities for Russian producers. I want all of you in the coming year, the enthusiasm and optimism of Russian officials. And for the Bareisms, I have another quote.
"The same interest in oil buyers of outdated brands has fallen by half in the last year, while national brands have grown on the contrary. "The counterfeit parts are produced abroad, but the oils are produced here in Russia. Customers are attracted to counterfeits by beautiful packaging and low prices," says Ilya Plisov, associate of the board of the Automotive Services Union.
Here he did not say, but I realize that we should look on the shelves of these ugliest and saddest packages, due to the fact that this is of quality.
4. Prolonged cessation of oil exports of the Falcon
According to Kommiersant, the problems with the shipment of the Sokół oil organization from Sakhalin-1 have not yet been resolved. Now the uncertainty has widened to the transportation of more parties. The causes of supply complications are unknown. The Indian authorities denied that they had difficulty paying for their supplies.
December tankers with Sakhalin-1 encounter problems with transportation to buyers. This is indicated by the vessel tracking service, according to which loaded oil tankers stand idle waiting for further orders from sellers.
According to Kpler, a tanker of the Vostoknyj Prospect, loaded in December, stands idle close Singapore from 1 January. Another tanker, Jaguar, which was moored in the South China Sea from 1 to 8 January, resumed the decision towards Singapore.
Earlier on January 5, the ship indicated as an Indian Paradeep target. The NS Lion tanker was loaded on 1 January off the coast of South Korea and has since remained off the coast of the Korean Peninsula.
On 8 January, the VLCC La Balena tanker, who had been carrying Venezuelan oil in fresh years, was loaded close South Korean Yeosu with the Pavel Chernysh tanker.
On 28 December, the NS Antarctic oil tanker, which was transshipping, resumed traffic in the East China Sea after respective days of idleness.
5. Orban plays his game before the EU summit.
The pressures on Orban before the 1 February summit by another EU leaders may begin to bear fruit. The reservation is that Orbán's plan will let him to block the allocation of funds each year or negociate concessions from Brussels in exchange for the abolition of the veto.
In December, all EU countries, with the exception of Hungary, approved a EUR 50 billion support plan for Ukraine; It is proposed to include the appropriations in grants and loans in the EU budget from 2024 to 1927.
Hungary made a fresh proposal at the Friday gathering of EU budget officials, and 3 diplomats said Politico in writing to Belgium, which presently holds the Presidency of the Council of the EU. According to 1 of them, Budapest proposes to allocate EUR 12.5 billion per year to Ukraine; the decision must be taken unanimously.
At the December EU leaders' summit, Orban categorically spoke out against spending money for Ukraine. Moreover, he managed to outsmart his colleagues: before the meeting, he stated that he would not agree to open formal negotiations on the country's accession to the Union, and made individual reservations about financial assistance, inter alia, against subsidies and ways of financing funds from the general budget.
However, at the summit itself, he unexpectedly did not argue the negotiations, but blocked the division of money.
As far as the current proposal is concerned, any European diplomats were skeptical of it," Politico writes. In the first version of Kiev, it receives predictable cash flows that aid to make a budget, which is not available for yearly approval of the aid. In addition, the EU budget planned for 7 years to include funds for Ukraine, "is a multiannual plan, we cannot correct it all year," said the EU diplomat.
6. Ministry of Finance intends to reduce grey gold exports
The Ministry of Finance wants to reduce the rapidly increased volume of exports of gold from the Russian Federation by individuals in fresh months. According to officials and confirmed by bankers, citizens increasingly buy and export ingots and coins as couriers for business, effectively implementing grey exports that allows companies to save on duties.
Deputy Minister of Finance Alexey Mojsieev told Interfax of the sharp and massive increase in gold exports by individuals from Russia: “We fear that the situation has simply gotten out of control due to the fact that exports of gold by private individuals have become a way of circumventing the duty, and legally so. We are seeing a sharp increase in exports. I can't give you the numbers, but they're shocking.
As of 1 October, Russia introduced export duties related to the ruble course on a wide scope of goods, including gold. The work ranges from 4% to 7% of customs value, depending on the rate of national currency will be collected at the rate of 80 rubles / 1 USD.
Privates don't pay anything.
Additionally, for natural persons, the Act of 9 March 2023 entered into force and abolished VAT (20%) on investment gold for natural persons. In addition, in 2022 and 2023 citizens were exempt from paying individual income taxation (13%) erstwhile selling gold bars. This rule besides applies to transactions from 1 January 2022 to the present day.
The benefits led to a crucial increase in demand: only in 2022 did individuals buy more than 75 tons of gold, 15 times more than in 2021. authoritative data for 2023 are not yet available but it is said that the value exceeded 2022 and may be respective times higher.
