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Putin expects TurkStream pipeline to be launched by the end of 2019
Russian President Vladimir Putin hopes that the land section of TurkStream will be ready as planned before the end of 2019.
"We hope that the work on laying the land part [of the TurkStream pipeline] will be conducted in the same quick manner, so as to launch the gas pipeline as planned before the end of this year," said the Russian President at a press conference following the Russia-Turkey negotiations.
“The joint strategic cooperation is being successfully carried out on the largest …
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Kremlin confirms that Russian private security companies operate in Sudan
There are Russian private security companies independent of the Russian government that are active in Sudan, admitted Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova in a press conference on Wednesday.
Zakharova complained that the western media are still heavily engaged in an anti-Russian campaign based on what she calls “misinformation”, referring specifically to an article in the Times which reported that Russian mercenaries had been involved in suppressing protests in Sudan. The …
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Citibank to close one third of its Russian branches
The subsidiaries of foreign banks are continuing to reduce their presence in Russia. Citibank, a subsidiary of the American Citigroup, plans to close one third of its branches in Russia over the course of 2019, board member and consumer business manager Michael Berner told reporters on Wednesday.
The bank is currently in the top 30 in Russia by assets, and has 22 branches, 12 of them in Moscow.
“In the first quarter we plan to close two branches in Moscow and one in St. Petersburg, and in the …
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Bulgaria strips Russian millionaire Serguei Adoniev of citizenship
On Wednesday, the Bulgarian Ministry of Justice reported that Bulgaria stripped Russian millionaire Serguei Adoniev of the citizenship because he was found guilty of fraud in the USA about 20 years ago.
In an effort to join the Schengen Agreement, Bulgaria stated that it plans to stop the practice of selling citizenship to wealthy foreigners in exchange for an investment, which allows them to move freely within the EU.
Adoniev is ranked 147th in the list of Russia’s wealthiest businessmen, …
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Russia begins revision of Union treaty with Belarus
Moscow has started to revise its treaty from 1999 which established the Union State with Belarus. The work is being done as part of the bilateral integration work group, said Russian Ambassador to Belarus Mikhail Babich on 23 January, as reported by Interfax.
“The Russian part of the group has started working. They are currently making an inventory of all the terms of the union treaty according to the blocks: economic, social, on the state governance organs, on matters of security and military …