On February 24 at 4 AM, Russia treacherously invaded Ukraine.
Russian forces are shelling not only strategic targets but also kindergartens, ambulances, hospitals, and residential areas, killing civilians on the streets.
Russian saboteurs, dressed as civilians, are planting bombs and setting up mines which are disguised as toys and chess boards.
The whole civilized world must condemn their actions as war crimes and terrorist acts.
The Ukrainian army bravely defends its country and protects Europe: in three days Russian forces have lost more people than in 8 years in Syria. This is a full-scale war and a devious act of abuse of international law.
The only way to stop Russia is to isolate its economy and prevent the country from leading a normal life.
How can you help Ukraine? Demand these actions:
Economy
1. Disconnect the Russia from SWIFT.
2. Freeze all state assets of Russia
3. Block all financial transactions of the Russian Federation: loans, loans, insurance, leasing, etc.
4. Freeze the assets of all Putin's allies: politicians, oligarchs, propagandists and regime promoters
5. Increase RwA for companies from Russia to 300%. Margin calls for all loans secured by assets from these countries should work
6. Include Russia in the FATF lists in the status of a country involved in terrorist financing
7. JP Morgan and Bank of America Merrill Lynch should exclude Russian assets with their indices
8. Pension funds around the world should get rid of ivestments in Russian assets
9. Embargo of Russian gas and oil
10. No fly zone above Ukraine
- Put pressure on businesses, functioning in Russia: https://www.petitions.net/pauserussia .
IT
- #BlockRussia — we ask the world’s top IT companies to stop providing their professional and entertainment services in Russia: streaming, games, AWS, Google Spreadsheets, and others should stop working. The exception can be made for media services that inform Russian population about the actual facts of the war that is happening;
- propagandists accounts on social media should be blocked;
- Visa and Mastercard should stop working in Russia;
- block the App Store and Google Play for Russian developers.
Culture
- Cancel all projects that involve participants from Russia or have Russian funding.
- Ban all Russian cultural centers from other countries.
- Expel Russian organizations and private entities from boards of trustees, cancel partnerships, ban funding.
- Cancel Russia's participation in international festivals, contests, exhibitions and forums (like it happened with Eurovision), such as:
- Venice Biennale
- Film festivals: Cannes, Berlin, Venice etc.
- Theatre and music festivals: Salzburg, Avignon, Arena di Verona etc.
- Book festivals: Frankfurt, London etc.
- Stop covering Russian culture in the media.
- Stop collaborating with artists who openly support Putin's regime. The Munich Philharmonic, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, La Scala and the Royal Opera already did it.
Sport
- exclude Russia from all international communities: IOC, FIFA, UEFA, and others;
- ban any Russian athletes from participating in international competitions;
- stop selling the rights to broadcast international competitions to Russian channels;
- ban Russian companies from sponsoring international competitions and clubs.
Transport
Sanctions against Russian trade vessels, including bulk carriers, general cargo vessels, containers, tankers and LPG/LNG.
- To forbid all vessels which are flying the Russian flag or which belong to shipping companies with Russian ultimate beneficial owners (UBO) to call any ports of EU, US, Canada, China (if possible) and all ports of other countries which stand against Russian aggression to Ukraine.
- To withdraw the Class (Class Certification) from all Russian-flagged vessels or vessels with Russians’ UBO in cases when vessels were classed with Classification societies, members of IACS. Full list is here: https://www.iacs.org.uk/about/members/ . Without valid Classification documents any employment of the vessels is almost impossible.
- Taking in mind that Russian Register (https://rs-class.org/en/) is a valid member of IACS, to impose special sanctions on all vessels having Class documents issued by Russian Register, and to forbid such vessels to call ports of countries which support sanctions against Russia. We can use a similar approach for all types of transport entities - barges (if no IMO number), tugs, aircrafts, trucks, railroad wagons, for all transport units.
- To impose addressed sanctions against Russian biggest partly state-owned shipowning group - SovComfLot and FESCO Transport Group.
- To ban major international container operators (Maersk, MSC, CMA, Hapag-Lloyd etc) to call Russian ports.
- To prohibit supply Russian Flagged or controlled tonnage with bunkers and luboils and other services relating to Russian-controlled tonnage.
2. In the sphere of insurance / re-insurance of Russian-controlled tonnage:
- to withdraw P&I cover of all Russian-controlled tonnage when such cover was provided by the clubs - members of IGA : https://www.igpandi.org and other international P&I companies.
- to ban Russian-controlled insurance companies to seek re-insurance cover via Western International groups - Lloyds, Munich Re, Swiss Re, Alliance re.
- To accept guarantees, any kind of marine and indemnity guarantees from Russian controlled tonnage or companies.
3. In the sphere of logistics and trans-shipment:
- To prohibit ship to ship operation (STS) when one of the vessels is controlled by a Russian citizen or company.
- to exclude Russian-controlled forwarders from international chains of cargoes’ supply.
- to ban Russian-controlled companies to get insurance via TT club - https://www.ttclub.com
Fashion
- Stop trade with Russia.
- Publicly support Ukraine.
- Cooperate with Ukrainian ambassadors and support their appeals.
- Dedicate a unique piece to Ukraine and donate the proceeds to support and restore Ukraine.
- Create a collection using traditional Ukrainian colors and symbols.