The main owner and general director of Severstal, Alexey Mordashov , during a working meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, said that he considers it important in today’s economic conditions to prevent unreasonable investments and contain the amount of debt, TASS reports on Monday, January 19 .

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Providing Russians with an individual personal account insurance number (SNILS) from the moment of birth will simplify the population’s access to state and municipal services, Interfax reported on Monday , citing the head of the pensions department of the Ministry of Labor, Ignat Ignatiev. “This will make life much easier for citizens. There will be no need to run anywhere and specifically contact the Pension Fund,” Ignatiev explained.

Western intelligence services may have been behind the January 7 attack on the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, which killed 12 people, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said at a rally in defense of Islamic values ​​in Grozny on Monday. Kadyrov said that Europe “did not draw the proper conclusions from the bloody events in Paris,” RIA Novosti reports .

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev ordered the approval of final plans for import substitution in industry by the end of the first half of 2015, Interfax reported on Monday, January 19 . Speaking at a meeting on issues of stable functioning of industrial sectors, Medvedev noted that some measures are already being implemented. They, in particular, relate to pharmaceuticals, partly mechanical engineering, agro-industrial and defense-industrial sectors.

Ministers did not support the proposal of the head of EU diplomacy to reconsider cooperation with Russia The foreign ministers of the EU member states, during a meeting on Monday, January 19, in Brussels, did not find grounds for lifting economic sanctions against Russia, despite a corresponding proposal from the EU High Commissioner for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini, Reuters reports .

The Bank of Russia lowered the official dollar-ruble exchange rate on Tuesday, January 20, by 20 kopecks to 64.9732 rubles, the Finanz.ru website reported on Monday , citing regulator data. The official euro exchange rate has been reduced by 69 kopecks to 75.17 rubles. The cost of the bi-currency basket, calculated at official rates on Tuesday, decreased by 42 kopecks - to 69.56 rubles.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has sharply lowered its forecast for Russian economic growth in 2015, estimating a possible decline in Russia's GDP at 4.8%, the organization's website reported on Monday. This forecast is in stark contrast to the previous estimate provided by the EBRD in September 2014. Then the EBRD predicted that the Russian economy in 2015 would shrink by 0.2%.

Officials named five candidates for project financing, that is, the allocation of money to banks secured by loans for investment projects from the Central Bank, the Vedomosti newspaper reported , citing three federal officials on Monday, January 19. According to Deputy Minister of Economic Development Nikolai Podguzov, a meeting on this issue will be held on January 26. Among the five selected projects, two are related to mobile communications, three are related to poultry farming.

The international rating agency Moody's Investors Service on Monday, January 19, downgraded the long-term ratings of Sberbank, the Agency for Housing Mortgage Lending (AHML) and Vnesheconombank, according to the agency's website. The ratings of three Russian financial institutions were downgraded from “Baa2” to “Baa3”, the message says. These rating actions are caused by the weakening of Russia's credit profile, Moody's explained.

The information radio station City FM, part of the Gazprom-Media holding, will stop broadcasting from the beginning of March, TASS reports on Monday, January 19, citing materials from the Federal Competition Commission under Roskomnadzor at the agency’s disposal. As a result, music radio “Like FM” will be launched on the basis of “City FM”. The commission approved the change in the radio station's format on December 25, 2014.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said that the Russian authorities do not see any big risks of reducing oil production at prices of $50-60 per barrel, TASS reports on Monday, January 19 . “If oil prices are reasonable, somewhere around $50-60 per barrel, then we don’t see too much risk of a decline in production,” the Deputy Prime Minister noted, without ruling out minimal fluctuations.

The editor-in-chief of Echo of Moscow, Alexey Venediktov, said that the minority shareholders of the radio station refused to buy it out from the controlling shareholder Gazprom-Media in the near future due to the crisis, TASS reported on Monday, January 19 . “We did not submit a proposal to buy out the radio station, having decided not to do so given the crisis. We did not talk about this topic with the new management,” Venediktov said.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich did not rule out on Monday that food prices could be frozen in the country, Interfax reported . At a meeting of the United Russia faction in the State Duma, he reported on the government’s use of almost all mechanisms for monitoring food prices. The only tool that the Cabinet of Ministers has not yet used is price regulation. This measure is not used because there are fears of a shortage of food products, the prices of which are regulated.

The trend of rising prices for flour and bread in Russia will continue in the near future, Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said at a meeting with deputies of the United Russia faction on Monday, January 19. Dvorkovich noted that there are a number of objective prerequisites for rising prices for goods, in particular, dependence on imports, TASS reports . “There is an increase in foreign exchange rates.