Contents tagged with Russian Economy

  • Russian Poor Increased By Millions

    On Thursday, December 10th, Interfax reported on the findings of the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation (Rosstat). The data indicates that the number of poor in Russia from January to September 2015 increased by millions of people and reached 20.3 million.

    2.3 million Russians joined the poverty line this year.  The total poverty rate in the country amounted to 14.1%, an increase of almost 2% compared to the year 2014.  The largest number of poor in 2015 was in the …

  • Kremlin threatens Ukraine with court over $3 billion debt

    After the International Monetary Fund's change in intercountry money lending policies (in hopes of assisting Ukraine), Russia is left no choice but to begin a $3 billion retrieval process from Kiev. As reported by TASS, Anton Siluanov, Russia's Minister of Finance, has stated that the Russian Federation will exercise any means necessary to protect its rights as a creditor. 

    According to Siluanov, the IMF's decision in lifting the ban on lending to the countries with defaulting sovereign debt, …

  • Ukraine called on EU to block new Russian Nord Stream pipeline

     

    At the meeting of the EU-Ukraine Association Council in Brussels, Ukrainian Prime Minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk called for a halt on the building of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. He also called for the extension of sanctions against Russia and for the beginning of a visa-free policy with the European Union for Ukrainians. 

    “We think that this project has to be blocked because it serves neither Ukrainian nor EU interests,” Yatsenyuk stated. According to him, the project deprives Ukraine, …

  • Russian military satellite fails to launch

    As reported by RIA Novosti, one of two military satellites, launched from the Russian Plesetsk Cosmodrome in the Arkhangelsk region, failed to separate from the booster rocket. The satellite was created to scan the Earth's oceans and weather systems from space, and to spot submarines. It took a decade to develop.

    An investigation has been opened and early indications suggest there was a problem with the satellite's attachment to the upper-stage rocket, which did not open up in time.

    The …

  • Russian court to overturn international court decisions

    As reported by RIA Novosti, a group of Russian Parliament members has introduced a draft bill that would authorize the Russian Constitutional Court to overturn international court decisions “if they run counter to the provisions of the Russian constitution”.

    The main goal of the proposal was “to safeguard Russian legal sovereignty,” one of the bill's co-sponsors, the Communist party lawmaker Vasily Likhachev, was quoted as saying.

    The bill's authors explicitly mentioned the European Court of …

  • Iran won't buy Russian Superjets.

    As stated by Iranian Minister of Roads and Urban Construction Ahmad Abbas Akhmud, Iran gives up plans to buy Russian Sukhoi Superjet-100 aircrafts to upgrade its fleet. 

    According to the minister, Iran has already held talks with Airbus and Boeing. "A preliminary agreement with leading aircraft manufacturers have been reached," - Akhmud said, "and as soon as the nuclear deal with world powers come into force, Iran's aviation industry will come out of sanctions".

    The secretary of the …

  • American hedge funds are betting against the Russian ruble

    As reported by the US Futures trading commission starting November 2014 American hedge funds and currency traders have placed a record number of short future contracts against the Russian ruble.

    The total number of short positions (betting on collapse of the Russian currency) has reached 6848 contracts (17.2 billion rubles).

    Overall the investors were net short 2857 contracts (7.14 billion rubles). This number takes into account long positions – bets on the increase of the value of the …