Contents tagged with Russia
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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 …
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Media: Russia agrees to tolerate Israeli attacks in Syria
After the most recent consultations to prevent conflicts in Syria, which the Russian and Israeli military delegations held last Thursday, the Israeli army’s press service released a generic statement on the “positive and professional atmosphere” in which the meetings took place and their “agreement to continue working together in the spirit of mutual understanding”.
During the talks, the two sides agreed on the new “rules of the game” which are based on the agreements on the mechanism of …
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Syrian Pantsir-S aerial defense system destroyed by simple Israeli drone
One of Syria’s Pantsir-S1 missile defense systems was destroyed by an Israeli SkyStriker drone, military expert Vladislav Shurygin told the Russian newspaper Izvestia.
The specialist noted that the SkyStriker, a so-called kamikaze drone produced by Elbit Systems, is a small, slow (up to 190 kph) unmanned aerial vehicle with a pusher propeller and an electric engine. The drone ways a mere 35 kg, of which the payload accounts for 5-10 kg. It has a maximum flight time of two hours, and is …
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Secretary General of Council of Europe speaks about the crisis in PACE due to the conflict with Russia
Depriving Russia of the right to vote in the Parliamentary Assembly neither improved the human rights situation in Russia nor made Russia to return the Crimea. Instead, it caused a crisis in the Council of Europe, said Thorbjørn Jagland, the Secretary General of the organization, at the PACE winter session on Tuesday, January 22. A report on his speech was published on the website of the Council of Europe.
Jagland noted that the Assembly’s decision to deprive the Russian delegation of the …
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Putin: Russia and Japan will continue negotiations on the Kuril Islands
Russia and Japan will continue negotiations on the peace treaty, stated Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe at the press-conference following the bilateral meeting in Moscow, the Russian service of Radio Svoboda reports.
According to Putin, both parties are interested in the signing of the document. Putin said that the conditions of the peace treaty should be acceptable for both countries and supported by society. The Russian President noted that Moscow will …
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Russian Tu-22M3 bomber crashes near Murmansk
A Tu-22M3 bomber crashed while attempting to land at a military airfield in the Murmansk region of Russia, TASS reported, citing a source in law enforcement agencies .
"The Tu-22M3 crashed at 1:40 p.m. MSK [on Monday] while landing at the airport of the long-range aviation regiment of Olenegorsk,” the source told the agency. "According to preliminary information, the commander and navigator survived... The crew of this aircraft consists of four people: the commander, assistant commander, …
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Ukraine prepared to extend gas transit agreement with Russia under European rules
Andriy Kobolyev, CEO of Ukraine’s national oil and gas company Naftogaz, said in a press conference after trilateral negotiations in Brussels that the company is willing to extend the current agreements to transit Russian gas through Ukraine after 2019 if they comply with European regulations.
“Naftogaz is willing to consider future agreements only if they completely abide by the European legislation that has been implemented in Ukraine,” Kobolyev said.
He added that Naftogaz is open to all …
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Putin asks Abe for investments during Kuril handover negotiations
Russia hopes to expand its investment and technological collaboration with Japan, said Russian President Vladimir Putin following negotiations with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe in Moscow.
After the leaders’ meeting in the Kremlin, to which Abe had come “fully resolved” to deal with the matter of the peace treaty – which has been left hanging for more than 50 years due to the territorial dispute surrounding the Kuril islands – Putin bemoaned the small amount of Japanese investments in …