...will the National Bank of Ukraine stick to it's current product schedule?
I've been tracking the NBU product release schedule closely, I always keep an eye on it regardless but more so now, and it has been changing on a monthly basis, even prior to the Invasion. They have been paring the gold issues down since the initial release of the schedule in Nov-Dec of 2021, and now there is no gold commemorative or bullion issues on the latest iteration. Even the silver issues have been cut way back including halving the anticipated mintage of the 1 UAH Silver Archangel to 10,000, a mintage that would be the lowest since the initial release of the series back in 2011. Currently there is no release date for the Archangel which makes me think that these are in serious jeopardy of being cut from the production schedule unless the tides of war start to swing in Ukraine's favor.
Even the 500 UAH silver banknote that the NBU was planning to release has been cut from the schedule. The silver banknotes have been a staple of the NBU's souvenir product line since 1992!
With all of the slashing going on with the product schedule it was looking pretty bleak a month ago, the NBU had actually passed a resolution to pause all precious metal products at one point, but the schedule has been replenished with plenty of war themed and morality lifting products which, now, includes two commemorative banknotes.
The print runs are healthy, especially the 20 UAH note with a run of 300k. For comparison the 30th Anniversary notes of Ukraine's Independence that were issued last year only had print runs of 30k for each denomination, and there are plenty of those to go around. I have not seen any potential designs for the notes yet but I imagine that the 500 UAH note will be very similar to last year's commemoratives and that the 20 UAH note will be of one of the designs submitted to the NBU under their sketches for the creation of numismatic products dedicated to Ukraine's struggle against Russian aggression contest.
The NBU has already authorized production of 5 & 10 UAH coins titled "In Unity, Strength", both are on the current production schedule. The winning sketch "Unity-Power", lower-left in the image above, will be on one side and on the other side another submitted sketch "Assistance of Partner Countries" will be displayed (image of sketch obverse below). https://bank.gov.ua/en/news/all/viznacheni-pidsumki-golosuvannya-za-eskizi-dlya-stvorennya-numizmatichnoyi-produktsiyi-prisvyachenoyi-borotbi-ukrayini-z-agresiyeyu-rf
The banknotes, probably, have a very good chance of being printed as the NBU's Banknote Printing and Minting Works has all the capabilities to produce its own paper, along with the printing equipment needed to produce these notes. I also would not be surprised to see more notes added to the schedule in the near future, or other paper products. Everything is subject to change or, if things go terribly wrong for Ukraine, the entire production schedule could be deep sixed. It has been very interesting monitoring the actions taken by the NBU in response to Russian aggression, and the production schedule has not been immune to some of these actions. The messages being sent through these products, in both the artwork and production are all part of the Ukrainian response. More to follow when available...
Here are some more numismatic related announcements from the NBU, some are only available in Ukrainian so you have to use Google translate if you can't read them.
Production schedules from February 2022 (pre-invasion) and May 2022.
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