Contents tagged with Belarus
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Russian investigation: Oil contamination incident resulted from multi-million dollar theft
On Tuesday Russia’s Investigative Committee released the first results of its investigation into the incident where the contamination of Russian oil led to the temporary suspension of oil transit through the Druzhba pipeline, which accounts for around 20% of the country’s oil exports.
According to the investigation, the oil with organic chlorine compounds capable of “eating” pipes and refinery equipment ended up in Transneft’s system as the result of an embezzlement scheme.
The six suspects, …
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Ukraine starts receiving clean oil from Russia
The press service of the Ukrainian national oil company Ukrtransnafta confirmed that Druzhba oil pipeline system in the Ukrainian direction began to receive high-quality oil from Russia.
The oil pipeline operator specified that the fuel for further transportation to the EU is supplied from the linear production control station Mozyr of the pipeline operator Gomeltransneft Druzhba.
Following Belarus, the Ukrainian side examined the sample and confirmed that the quality of the oil is now in …
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Head of Belarusian national telecommunications company detained in Minsk
The General Director of the leading telecommunications company Beltelecom, Sergey Sivoedov, was detained and taken into custody in Belarus. He was arrested for allegedly receiving a 15 thousand euros bribe from an unnamed Russian citizen, who was also arrested. According to the Radio Liberty, in the press release of the country’s Committee for State Security (KGB), the arrested Russian national is marked with the letter “K”.
The investigators believe that Sivoedov received a bribe from a …
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Former Lukashenko's security chief accused of accepting a bribe from Russian company
Investigation Department of the KGB of Belarus charged with taking a bribe the former Deputy Secretary of the Security Council, Andrei Vtyurin. He was detained on May 3, according to the KGB’s website.
"The day before he was caught red-handed when receiving 148 600 US dollars from the representative of the Russian commercial structure "G" for assistance in promoting its interests in the Republic of Belarus", — said in a statement.
The KGB said that the representative of the Russian company …
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Belarus receives first clean oil supply from Russia
Russian oil has crossed the border of Belarus, beginning its flow at the Mozyr refinery, reports Interfax referring to the press-service of the Belarusian oil concern Belneftekhim.
"Oil meeting the standards, began to flow on May 2 at 12:40,” the press service of Belneftekhim said.
On April 23, Belarus was forced to suspend the export of light oil products to Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic States due to the low-quality Russian oil. On the same day, Belarus held negotiations in Moscow on the …
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Poland opens oil reserves after stopping supplies from Russia
The Polish Energy Ministry has decided to use 800,000 tons of oil from its strategic reserves to compensate for the Russian oil that the country has not been receiving, Reuters reports, citing an official spokesperson.
On 25 April, Poland announced that it had stopped accepting Russian oil through the Druzhba pipeline. Warsaw informed Gomeltransneft Druzhba, the Belarusian pipeline operator, that the oil refineries in Poland and Germany cannot accept oil with the quality indicators that were …
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Belarus completely stops accepting oil from Russia
Belarus has completely stopped accepting oil through the Druzhba pipeline until all the poor quality oil has been removed. At the same time, Russia claims that the oil contamination was deliberate sabotage.
Andrey Verigo, CEO of the Druzhba pipeline’s operator, Gomeltransneft Druzhba, announced that Belarus had completely stopped accepting Russian oil through the pipe on Tuesday morning. Transit is expected to resume on 2 May, but only to a limited extent. Verigo believes that it will take “at …
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Russia withdraws ambassador to Belarus less than a year after his appointment
Russian Federation Ambassador to Belarus Mikhail Babich was recalled from his post, reported the Russian edition of Kommersant with reference to several high-ranking sources.
“This has been discussed since last week,” said one of the publication’s sources.
A few hours after the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin signed the decree it was published on the Kremlin website. The publication says that Babich has been relieved of his duties as the Ambassador and Russia's special …
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Kremlin accuses Belarus of illegal food supplies to Russia
The Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance of Russia (Rosselkhoznadzor) announced that they continue to detect illegal food supplies from Belarus. “Currently, the Rosselkhoznadzor continues to analyze controlled products deliveries from Belarus to the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic transiting through the territory of the Russian Federation. As a result, the investigators have identified another intermediary company JSC Milkilakt, which carries out illegal …
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Putin and Lukashenko discussed contaminated oil supply from Russia
At the “One Belt, One Road” summit in China, Vladimir Putin announced that he had discussed the low-quality oil supply situation with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko.
The president said it was necessary to conduct an investigation, not ruling out the involvement of Russian law enforcement and special services if the internal corporate investigation is not enough. “First of all, it is necessary to conduct an investigation at the level of Transneft itself, and to identify the …