Archive

April 23, 2008

Energy Blast – April 23, 2008

Russia’s tax authorities have claimed $256 million in back taxes on TNK-BP, and the Natural Resources Ministry has extended its investigation into the company by one month. TNK-BP’s co-owner has called on the Russian government to broa...
April 23, 2008

Today in Russian Business – April 23, 2008

The St Petersburg International Economic Forum, attended by up to 8,000 participants, will be held in early June. Aeroflot, the state-owned airline, would benefit from a takeover of Italy’s Alitalia as its lack of planes currently prevents i...
April 23, 2008

RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – April 23, 2008

TODAY: Russian journalists hold convention on crisis; Russia says Georgia flight over Abkhazia violated UN agreements, Georgia blames NATO for current troubles; IOC inspects Sochi. The Russian Union of Journalists is holding a convention in Moscow...
April 22, 2008

Gazprom, Libya, and the Gas OPEC

These are indeed tough times for energy, and not just for spiraling oil prices and the burden of filling your gas tank. It’s been almost a year and a half since now we first started blogging about Russia’s perceived efforts to form a n...
April 22, 2008

Business Under FSB Oversight

It’s tough to think of another country whose intelligence services are as deeply involved with foreign investment and private sector business than Russia. From Reuters: Russia has also been strengthening its hand with a proposed law on forei...
April 22, 2008

Testing NATO’s Ambivalence over Georgia

There’s a strong editorial in today’s Washington Post on Russia’s shooting down of a Georgian drone. Inasmuch as recognizing Kosovo, building missile shields, and talking about MAP status for Georgia and Ukraine at the NATO summi...
April 22, 2008

Rule of Law More Important than Democracy

Robert Conquest, the author of one of the most seminal works on the horrors of Stalin’s gulags, has a new essay reflecting on the republishing of this work almost 40 years later, and the tragic arc of Russian history. Conquest remarks that a...
April 22, 2008

Energy Blast – April 22, 2008

If given more freedom to invest, Russia “could soon follow the Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds and invest billions of dollars in direct overseas investments.” Deputy Finance Minister Dmitry Pankin says Russia should keep investing its oil an...
April 22, 2008

Today in Russian Business – April 22, 2008

Russia’s annual economic forum in London saw the country praised as “an island of stability” and “a rainbow in the storm”, although the hall was half-empty, sparking further speculation that the Kremlin had “actively discouraged Russians from atte...