Vladimir Putin met with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Great Britain Robert Cook. He informed Cook that the counter -terrorist operation in Chechnya was moving into the political phase, and Cook said that the UK, which itself from terrorism, is with understanding to the efforts of Russia.

All enterprises with debts to the budget will stop paying salaries to their employees. The culprit of this will be the Minister of Tax and fees by Alexander Pochinok, who offered to repay debt to the budget, change the priority of writing off funds from the debtor's account. Having made priority the execution of payments to pay off budget debts before payments for transferring funds for salaries, the tax authorities will bring enterprises not only to bankruptcy, but also provoke hungry riots.

Reserves for increasing Russian exports due to fuel and energy resources have been exhausted, the Minister of Trade Mikhail Fradkov told colleagues at a Kov meeting . Last year, the export of oil, gas, fuel oil, ferrous and non-ferrous metals increased, and the export of machine-building products decreased by 4%, despite the fact that by about 40% it consists of military-technical goods. The total amount of exports of Russia over the past year has not changed, but import increased by 10%.

Vladimir Putin, at the head of a group of Russian political figures and military leaders, laid flowers to the grave of an unknown soldier. The ceremony was attended by Yegor Straev and Gennady Seleznev, Alexander Voloshin, Marshal Sergeyev, government members, State Duma deputies, and veterans of the army and navy. It is expected that today Vladimir Putin will meet in the Petrovsky Hall of the Great Kremlin Palace with veterans of the Great Patriotic War.

Putin signed the government order to restore the objects of the fuel and energy complex of Chechnya.

The scandal with laundering of Russian money through Bank of the OF New York received an unexpected continuation. The head of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Valery Guryev reports that the facts of laundering of Russian money through Bank of New York have not yet been proven.

Boris Yeltsin, having observed for some time the activities of Vladimir Putin as the acting president, with approval responded about the first steps of his successor: "He chose the right path that was determined even with me, and firmly keeps this path." Answering the question of "Interfax", the first president emphasized that Putin is "a person with inner strength, firm, decisive, understands people, which is very important, and therefore people will reach for him." "I support him and will

The weighted average ruble exchange rate against the US dollar following the results of a single trading session on Wednesday at 11.30 amounted to 28.8273 rubles. per dollar, raising by 441 points. The volume of trading amounted to 205.137 million dollars.

The trading index on the RTS has grown again today (this time by 1.55%), reaching the mark of 181.13 points. The volume of trading amounted to $ 21.1 million.

Last night, Mikhail Kasyanov, who was in Kyiv on an official visit, finally talked with Kuchma and left for Moscow. This was preceded by a joint press conference of Kasyanov with the Ukrainian Prime Minister Yushchenko, at which the results of Russian-Ukrainian negotiations were summed up. The main thing that reporters said was seemed to be able to agree on the amount of Ukrainian debt for gas.

The Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg recognized as invalid the decision of the territorial administration of antimonopoly policies of July 27, 1999, to which 11 companies-operators of the fuel market of St. Petersburg were accused of "pricing conspiracy", which led to the fuel crisis in the spring of 1999. Then, in the Northern capital, gasoline for several days disappeared from the sale of almost all AZS, and Then appeared, but at high prices.

Commenting on today's statement by Boris Yeltsin about future joint work with Putin, sources surrounded by the current head of state reported that there was no talk of the formal return of the first president to the Kremlin. It is also reported that Yeltsin and Putin are sometimes called up: "Sometimes Yeltsin calls. He, in particular, is interested in how the counter -terrorist operation in Chechnya goes. Sometimes Putin. He copes with Yeltsin about business, well -being, mood."

The Government Commission on protective measures in foreign trade and customs regulation tomorrow intends to decide on a change in customs duties for oil and oil products. Two methods of increase will be considered: either the load of export duties should be equivalent to all goods, or the degree of processing of goods will be taken into account - the higher the level of oil production processing, the less the duty is.

As expected, they did not find a bomb in the VGTRK. Currently looking for the one who reported her.

Yesterday, the Supreme Commissioner of the OSCE for Human Rights and National Maxi Max Van Der chair arrived in Moscow and met with the Minister for Federation Affairs and Nationalities Alexander Blokhin. Naturally, we are talking about massive human rights in Chechnya. Today Van der chair will meet with Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and the CIS Minister Leonid Drachevsky. The topic of the conversation is likely to be the same.