Translated material
The price of a “special operation” in Ukraine. Online August 22
The Bell continues to conduct online, dedicated to the economic consequences of the "special military operation" in Ukraine, which began on February 24
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19:57 VK and Sberbank have finally agreed on a divorce in their joint venture O2O Holding, found out The Bell . As a result of the transaction, VK will receive the Delivery Club food delivery service, which will then be exchanged for Zen and News with Yandex. Sber will get all the other assets of the joint venture, including Citydrive carsharing and Samokat express delivery service.
19:00 Sevastopol authorities reported a drone shot down over the city. Earlier in social networks there were reports of an explosion in Sevastopol. “Air defense worked. The object was hit. At a high altitude, so the sound was heard in different parts of the city. Previously, a drone again, ” wrote Governor Mikhail Razvozhaev.
18:27 The Ukrainian battalion "Azov" (recognized as a terrorist organization in Russia) denies its involvement in the murder of Daria Dugina. “The woman whose name and military ID was published by the FSB… ( We are talking about Natalya Vovk, whom the FSB considers the perpetrator of the crime. - ed. ) has nothing to do with the Azov regiment and never belonged to our unit,” the message says. . The murder of Daria Dugina in Azov was called "preparation for a" tribunal "over the Azov people."
a drug test 18:11 The Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin passed because of a video from a party with her participation, turned out to be negative, the said . Finnish government
17:08 The president of the three main unions of insurers, Igor Yurgens, announced his resignation. He has worked in the insurance market for more than 12 years and headed the All-Russian Union of Insurers, the Russian Union of Motor Insurers and the National Union of Liability Insurers. Jürgens said he "wants to delve into new beginnings" and focus "on the development of ESG initiatives and a number of other areas."
Yurgens was president of the All-Russian Union of Insurers from 1998 to 2002 and returned to this post in 2013. Since 2015, he has been the President of the Russian Union of Motor Insurers, and in 2016 he also headed the National Union of Liability Insurers. Sources of TASS and Interfax say that Evgeny Ufimtsev, vice president of the All-Russian Union of Insurers and executive director of the Russian Union of Motor Insurers, could become Yurgens' successor.
15:51 Lev Gershenzon, the former head of the Yandex.News service (2007–2012), announced the launch of a beta version of The True Story, a new news aggregator. “Our algorithms rank stories, headlines, external content, but the choice - where to read the details, which opinion to believe, and which one to disagree with - always remains with the reader. May there always be a choice!” he wrote.
Elizaveta Osetinskaya (recognized as a foreign agent) on her channel "Russian Norms" talked with Gershenzon about how the Internet in Russia turned from a territory of freedom into a territory of non-freedom. Lev not only criticized former colleagues, but also promised that The True Story would help independent media exchange traffic. The release can be viewed here .
15:32 According to the revised data , the UK GDP in 2020 decreased not by 9.3%, but by as much as 11%. This is an important revision: it means that the coronavirus recession was the deepest in 300 years, since the Great Winter of 1709 itself. In the second quarter of 2020, the country's economy shrank by 21%.
15:12 The first yacht of the Russian sanctioned "oligarch" sold at auction has every chance of becoming the "Axiom" of the ex-director of the Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK) Dmitry Pumpyansky, writes Bloomberg. However, in this case, the sale of the asset is simplified due to the fact that the yacht is also collateral for a JPMorgan loan of 20.5 million euros, the agency notes.
The five-deck 240-foot (70-meter) yacht impounded by the UK in Gibraltar is valued at £67m but is likely to sell for less. Demand is "amazing," says a spokesperson for the auction house, with 115 inquiries and 28 lead views. A photo of the vessel can be viewed, for example, here .
14:19 The FSB announced that the murder of Daria Dugina had been solved , there was a trace of the Ukrainian special services in it.
According to the FSB, “the crime was prepared and committed by the Ukrainian special services,” and its perpetrator is a citizen of Ukraine, Vovk Natalya Pavlovna, born in 1979. The latter arrived in Russia on July 23, 2022, together with her daughter Shaban Sofia Mikhailovna, born in 2010.
“On the day of the murder, Vovk and Shaban were at the Tradition literary and musical festival, where Dugina was present as an honored guest. After a controlled explosion of a Toyota Land Cruiser Prado car driven by Dugina, on August 21, Vovk and her daughter left through the Pskov region to Estonia, ”the FSB said.
The Bell wrote about the consequences of Dugina's murder in the morning mailing list .
13:28 The editors of TJournal (blocked in Russia since mid-March for posting false information about the "special operation" in Ukraine) announced the closure of the resource from September 10th.
The project, which had been working for 11 years, ran out of funds: after blocking, the attendance of an already unprofitable resource fell five times, the owner of TJ, the Komitet company, lost a significant part of its advertising revenue. “From March 2022, we began to sharply burn through our reserves. A few months later, forced cuts affected all departments, from editorial to development, ”explains his team.
Despite attempts to save TJ “against the backdrop of a scorched media clearing in the Russian-speaking segment,” there is no logic and opportunity “for the existence of the project in its current form,” the message says. After closing, the site will remain a stub and an archive of publications in a simplified format.
13:17 The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, said that he does not support a complete ban on visas for Russians.
12:19 Lukoil announced the purchase of a 100% stake in the Spartak Moscow football club and its Moscow stadium, Otkritie Bank Arena. Financial details are not disclosed.
Leonid Fedun, who recently retired from the post of vice-president of Lukoil, resigns as president of the club and will not take part in management. Fedun indirectly owned 32.7% of the club, Vagit Alekperov, the ex-president of Lukoil, who left his post due to sanctions, had 36.7%
11:29 Euro for the first time since mid-July below parity against the dollar. Meanwhile, spot gas prices in Europe exceeded $3,000 per 1,000 cubic meters.
11:17 The Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), through which oil is exported from Kazakhstan, has suspended the operation of two of the three mooring facilities in Novorossiysk due to discovered cracks in the nodes. Limited supplies go through the third.
In early July, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev called for prioritizing the supply of Kazakh oil via the Trans-Caspian route after the decision of the Russian court to suspend transportation through the CPC oil pipeline for 30 days from July 5 (the decision was then suspended).
The oil pipeline terminal in Novorossiysk already operated with restrictions in March-April due to storm damage. Two thirds of Kazakh export oil goes through the CPC, the alternative is the Trans-Caspian route through Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and further to Europe.
10:26 An informed Telegram channel Mash wrote that the explosion of Daria Dugina's car occurred on a signal from an "impersonal" phone. The perpetrators allegedly followed Dugina's car to the place of the explosion - thus, we can talk about remote detonation, and not about an explosive device that went off on a timer.
The main thing for the night and morning:
- The murder of Darya Dugina may strengthen the position of the “party of war” and become an additional reason for intensifying repressions against the opposition.
- Bosch, which came to Russia back in 1994, is selling refrigerator and washing machine factories near St. Petersburg. The main contenders for the asset are Turkish or Chinese manufacturers (Midea, Hisense).
- The construction of a seaside resort in Dagestan, capable of taking on part of the tourist flow of overloaded Sochi, is being discussed at the federal level. The project for 30 thousand rooms (five times more than what is now in all of Dagestan) is tentatively estimated at 300 billion rubles.
- The Ministry of Finance is ready to resume buying foreign currency for oil and gas super profits as soon as the concept of a new budget rule is approved, writes Vedomosti . A test deal could be completed as early as September.
- In July, Russia remained the largest supplier of oil to China (7.15 mmt) and became the largest supplier of coal, overtaking Indonesia (7.4 mmt, +14% yoy).
- The Ministry of Justice will oblige collectors, microfinance organizations and banks to notify debtors at the beginning of a conversation who is talking to them - a robot or a person, writes RBC. Market participants were against it, fearing a decrease in the effectiveness of penalties.
- Germany is preparing to give priority to coal trains over passenger trains, which threatens a serious shock to the entire railway network.
- A full autopilot for Tesla in the US will rise in price from $12,000 to $15,000 from September 5, announced . Elon Musk