If Chavez did not exist, he would have to be invented. The Venezuelan leader arrived in Moscow precisely when domestic leaders, overcome with a sense of their own greatness, began to trend almost daily about Russia’s new outstanding role in the international arena. What happened at the meeting between Medvedev and Chavez is very accurately described by a quote from “The Golden Calf” (which was aptly recalled by a member of the Hedgehog forum with the nickname Alexey65).

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the Mechel mining company of selling raw materials abroad at reduced prices. His harsh statements caused a serious drop in the company's shares, followed by the collapse of the entire Russian stock market. Mechel shares fell in price by almost half. According to data as of the first half of Friday, cited by Finmarket, the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange index lost almost 6%, and the RTS index lost almost 5%.

Now a little information about business corruption. Of course, you understood the meaning of the term, but just in case: business corruption concerns the relationship between business and power. Everything is simple. I will again use the results of the study of the Indem Foundation, which will allow us to begin to evaluate the dynamics of corruption in this area. And we will again use the characteristics of the corruption market, which are given in the following table. Table 1.

Russian metallurgists are now quite competitive, but they are experiencing a large shortage of coking coal, and Mechel is the largest owner of the company that mines and produces coking coal. But since Mechel is also a metallurgical company, according to press reports, it, withholding supplies to its competitors, provided coal for its own production and exported coal for which there is demand.

A Ukrainian friend of mine, a Russian Orthodox priest, is raising seven children: natural and adopted children together. This is quite difficult, since all adopted children are social orphans - orphans with living parents. So, one of the boys in his care, in addition to his father, also has a biological and legal (according to documents) father. In some ways, the described family situation is reminiscent of Orthodox life in Ukraine.

Duma deputy Konstantin Zatulin was detained on the evening of Thursday, July 24, at Simferopol airport. On instructions from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), he was not allowed to enter the country, and a corresponding note was made in his passport. Later, the SBU opened a criminal case against Zatulin. Zatulin's tender relationship with Ukraine is well known. He has already been declared persona non grata here and blacklisted.