TODAY: Russia suspends cooperation with PACE; G7 meets without Russia; Lloyds withdraws from Rosneft deal; EU calls on Bulgaria to suspend South Stream work; Finance Ministry seeks access to pension funds; Yandex lists on MICEX; Amnesty report slams ‘draconian’ laws.

Russia has temporarily suspended cooperation with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), defiantly claiming that the move will cost it nothing more than ‘a parade of Russophobia’.  The Group of Seven are meeting today without Russia for the first time in 17 years – Vladimir Putin is being excluded from the talks punitively due to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and ongoing role in the Ukraine crisis.  The G7 thus far has not issued any new sanctions against Russia, but is calling on Putin to engage with Ukraine’s new President Petro Poroshenko.  A new poll conducted by the BBC (though carried out largely before the annexation) indicates that people’s views of Russia have worsened in the last year.  Britain’s partly state-run bank Lloyds is withdrawing from a £1.2 billion trade finance deal involving Rosneft, highlighting ‘growing unease among Western banks in funding Russian deals’.  Poland’s foreign minister is urging France to cancel its planned $1.66 contract to sell Mistral helicopters to Russia; and the EU is calling on Bulgaria to suspend preparatory work on Gazprom’s South Stream pipeline, which will carry Russian gas to Europe.  Gazprom says US pressure will not stop it from supplying fuel to Europe, and that it aims to meet its estimate of providing 30% of EU gas demands by 2020.  A British lawmaker wants a rerun of the vote that granted Russia the 2018 World Cup tournament.  Vladimir Putin ‘secretly awarded’ state honours to the businessmen who funded the Sochi Winter Olympics.