Translated material
The cost of war in Ukraine. Online April 21
The Bell continues to host an online video dedicated to the economic consequences of the war in Ukraine that began on February 24, 2022.
THIS MATERIAL (INFORMATION) IS PRODUCED AND DISTRIBUTED BY A FOREIGN AGENT OF THE BELL OR IS RELATED TO THE ACTIVITIES OF A FOREIGN AGENT OF THE BELL. 18+
Our site has been blocked. Subscribe to The Bell on Telegram!
As part of military censorship, Roskomnadzor blocked The Bell website, as well as dozens of other independent media. But we continue to work. Please subscribe to our channel in Telegram - where the editors publish news, analytics and exclusives the fastest. And here we tell where else to read us and how to support The Bell.
21:15 The Ministry of Justice added to the register of foreign agents. Today it includes:
- Hristo Grozev, investigative journalist;
- Natalia Sevets-Yermolina, journalist, activist, blogger;
- Elvira Vikhareva, ex-candidate for the State Duma;
- Human rights organization "Conscript's School";
- Journalistic project "Lawyer Street".
20:35 The Russian authorities have launched an advertising campaign for contract service in the army - it should help the Kremlin recruit 400,000 new contract soldiers to make up for losses in the war in Ukraine. The Bell found out who was organizing the advertising campaign.
18:06 Sales of Russian weapons to India stalled due to concerns about US sanctions, writes Bloomberg.
India has been a major buyer of Russian weapons for decades, but the war in Ukraine has hampered business relations between Moscow and New Delhi in the defense sector, the agency said.
Countries are looking for new mechanisms to pay for military contracts, since India now does not want to pay bills issued by Russia in dollars due to fear of secondary sanctions from the United States. And Russia is against India paying for weapons in Indian rupees (because of the unstable exchange rate).
As a result, Russia has been unable to receive more than $2 billion for weapons destined for India for about a year, according to Bloomberg.
Now the Indian authorities are trying to figure out how to pay for the supplies and not fall under sanctions. One of the options under discussion, according to the agency, is barter, but this too is fraught with difficulties.
16:34 Yandex announced that it had fully bought out the remaining share of Uber in Yandex.Taxi for $702.5 million. , the press release says. It is noted that the changes will not affect the operation of services for users and partners. Earlier, Yandex bought out shares in Yandex.Food, Lavka, Delivery, as well as in the direction of unmanned vehicles and rovers from Uber.
12:59 German Gref did not confirm the exchange of assets of Sberbank with Raiffeisen
Plans for a barter deal (the assets of the Raiffeisen group in Russia at Sberbank Europe), which the wrote Austrian press about, are notions, said German Gref, president of Russia's largest bank, after the annual meeting of shareholders. “I don't know anything about it. As always, someone’s notions, and a lot of rumors and gossip have been launched, no such negotiations are underway and have not been conducted, ”he said.
Sberbank can pay 10 billion rubles in tax on excess profits , said its head. In the future, he did not rule out a new record for dividends, but in absolute terms, and not as a percentage of profit.
12:11 Sberbank shareholders, as expected, approved dividends for 2022 at 25 rubles per share at the general meeting. In total, 565 billion rubles will go to pay dividends, and the state will receive half of this amount. This is more than his profit under RAS for last year (300 billion rubles). The fact is that Sberbank did not pay dividends in 2021: a record profit of 1.25 trillion rubles remained undistributed.
11:52 NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who visited Kiev the day before, said that all NATO allies agreed that Ukraine would become a member of the alliance before the meeting of the contact group for the defense of Ukraine at the Ramstein airbase. After the end of the conflict with Russia, Ukraine should have "means of deterrence to prevent new attacks," he added.
The main thing for the night and morning:
- Yesterday's powerful explosion in Belgorod, which only by chance did without casualties, could have been caused by a bomb with a control module that fell from a Russian Su-34 bomber. These modules were put into series in a fire order to cover the acute shortage of high-precision weapons in the Russian Aerospace Forces, and are being tested in a combat situation.
- The budget transfer for the DPR this year will exceed transfers to the Crimea (171 billion rubles against 162 billion rubles). In total, the budgets of the four "new regions" of Russia will receive 411 billion rubles and will be subsidized by 89%.
- The auto trader Avilon, which has finally been approved for the purchase of the Kaluga automobile plant Volkswagen, is collecting other assets of the auto cluster. "Kommersant" learned that the Kaluga tire plant Continental is buying Industrial Assets C8 JSC, associated with S8 Capital of the "lottery king" Armen Sarkisyan. The latter was called a partner of the co-owner of Avilon, Alexander Varshavsky.
- Forbes named Telegram founder Pavel Durov the title of the most impoverished Russian billionaire. In total, there are 110 people in the new Russian top, but over the past year, only 13 of them have reduced their fortunes. Of the total losses of $8.5 billion, Durov accounted for $3.6 billion.
- by $13 billion over the past 24 hours Elon Musk's estimated net worth has dropped . He was dealt a triple blow: an unsuccessful test launch of the Starship spacecraft, a drop in Tesla quotes by almost 10% in the first quarter report, and a purge of free "blue ticks" on Twitter. The least clear is why a multi-billionaire would quarrel with journalists and the media, take away verified accounts, and provoke their exodus with Twitter .
- The Financial Times found in the "Pentagon files" data on the development of anti-satellite cyberweapons by China, which allows not only to suppress individual satellites, but to block control and data transmission in Starlink-type constellations. The latter will be of key importance in the brewing conflict over Taiwan.
- "Pro-Russian hackers" were accused of attacking the European air traffic control agency Eurocontrol. The attack has been going on for two days and has not yet affected flights, but internal communications and the operation of airline flight plan monitoring systems have been disrupted.