Today in Russian Business – Jan 5, 2011

German Gref, the chairman of Russia’s top lender Sberbank, has apparently said that the government should delay selling a stake in the bank until the price increases, according to Vedomosti.  The head of the analytical center “Strategy,” Leonid Zaika, apparently believes that if 2012 will prove less difficult in financial terms for Belarus, it is only due to a Russian ‘ration’.  Lukaschenko ‘fails to understand that the Kremlin’s present-day generosity is explained by a burning desire to push Belarus aside, isolate it from the West, and exert further pressure on the country under more favorable conditions,’ says an op-ed in Belarus Digest.  Russia Profile wonders how many concrete economic benefits there are for Kazakhstan and Belarus in the incipient customs union with Russia.