Today in Russian Business – July 9, 2010

‘Business in our country is like wrestling with bears’ says Alexander Lebedev in a Bloomberg interview where he addresses the pitfalls of earning grand sums of money in Russia.  On a similar note, RFE/RL has a disturbing report on the threats of jail and extortion that Russian entrepreneurs face from corrupt officials.  Blog report from the Huffington Post on the future of  young Russian business minds.   Vladimir Potanin’s Interros has called fellow shareholder United Company RusAl a ‘destructive’ force within Norlisk Nickel as the struggle for control continues.   Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina says that a luxury tax to help plug the budget deficit could be on the cards.   Whether IIB survives or not is really a question of how successful its sales of major shipyards to the state are, Reuters argues.   Vladimir Yevtushenkov’s holding company Sistema has apparently agreed to sell its last 28% of property developer Sistema-Hals to the VTB Group.