The European Union said it was freezing the financial assets of 18 people suspected of embezzlement of state property in Ukraine, the Associated Press reported on Wednesday. The corresponding decision and the list of people against whom financial sanctions are applied were approved by the EU Council of Ministers on Wednesday. The list of names will be officially published on Thursday, March 6th.

Photo report from the entrepreneurs forum On March 5, an entrepreneurial forum “Territory of Business - Territory of Life” was held in Moscow, during which the results of the all-Russian competition for entrepreneurs “Business Success” were summed up. A report on the event is in the photo gallery.

Photo by PhotoXPress There are also economic reasons for dissatisfaction with the new Ukrainian authorities in the east and south of the country At the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine had excellent starting opportunities. A large domestic market, a population of 52 million people, skilled workers in a wide range of economic sectors, a strong industrial base, nuclear power, fertile land and an advantageous location - the list goes on.

The Ukrainian subsidiary of Sberbank resumed lending to clients with salary cards from March 5, reported on Thursday. the bank’s press service “The bank decided to lift restrictions on consumer lending to clients who own salary cards,” says the press release. Sberbank of Russia JSC also resumed the re-sale of the Profitable loan to all clients who had previously repaid the loan in full.

Photo by RIA Novosti The West has leverage over Moscow, which the Russian leader, captivated by the success of his initiatives on Syria and Iran, forgot about. Vladimir Putin’s decision to send troops into Crimea (and who knows whether everything will be limited to the territory of the peninsula) became a strategic miscalculation of the Russian authorities. Its consequences rival those of the Soviet Union's 1979 invasion of Afghanistan.

Telecom operator Megafon has committed to spend about 1 billion rubles by the end of 2016 on advertising and promotion of iPhone smartphones in Russia under the terms of a direct contract with Apple concluded in January 2014, according to the company’s financial report for 2013. According to the contract, Megafon will buy 750,000 iPhones over three years for subsequent sale in its retail network. In January, Megafon agreed with Apple on direct supplies of smartphones to Russia.

The political and economic crisis has had a negative impact on the fortunes of Ukrainian billionaires According to Forbes, in 2014, only nine billionaires from Ukraine were included in the ranking of the richest people on the planet. Over the past year, the fortune of the founder of the Kernel agricultural holding Andrei Verevsky (10th place in the ranking of the richest Ukrainians in 2013) fell below $1 billion, and the businessman left the list.

The head of the Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation, Andrei Klishas, ​​is preparing a bill proposing to confiscate the property, assets and accounts of companies from the United States and the European Union in the event of sanctions against Russia, RIA Novosti reported on Wednesday. According to Klishas, ​​it is proposed that the president and the government be given the right to authorize confiscation.

The head of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, announced the European Union’s readiness to allocate €11 billion in financial assistance to Ukraine in the coming years, the politician wrote on Wednesday, March 5, on the European Commission website. The statement notes that the European Commission on Wednesday decided on an assistance program for Ukraine over the next two years. The total amount of assistance could amount to €11 billion.

On Wednesday, March 5, the Bank of Russia revoked the license to carry out banking operations from the Moscow bank Monolit, according to the regulator’s website. According to the Central Bank, Monolit was involved in conducting dubious transactions in cash and non-cash forms. The total volume of such operations in 2013 amounted to 9 billion rubles.

The son-in-law of former Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, Valery Puzikov, who was previously put on the federal wanted list, voluntarily appeared before the investigative authorities, official representative of the Investigative Committee of Russia (ICR) Vladimir Markin said on Wednesday, March 5.

photo Getty Images For a long time, Endgame carried out “dirty” hacking work commissioned by American intelligence agencies. Will the company be able to refocus on the commercial sector? The classic biography of a hacker can be described as follows: a teenage genius hacks into the most secure Internet networks, gets caught, then accepts a tempting offer from one of the large corporations - and puts his talents into security service.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu called photographs of military equipment in Crimea that appeared in the media, which contained numbers of Russian regions, a provocation, RIA Novosti reports . Shoigu also called “complete nonsense” video recordings in which military personnel say that they are Russians.

The snipers who killed both Berkut soldiers and Euromaidan participants during the riots in Kiev could have been hired by the leadership of the opposition, follows from an audio recording of a conversation between European Commissioner Catherine Ashton and Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet that appeared on the Internet, which Tallinn has already recognized as authentic. . An audio recording of the conversation was posted on YouTube on March 5, 2014.

US President Barack Obama, during his conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, made it clear that he would not go to the G8 summit in Sochi in June if the situation in Ukraine did not change, Reuters reports , citing a representative of the American presidential administration.