Maria Butina, who was sentenced last week to a year and a half in the US, gave her first press conference since her 18-month sentence in the US. The Russian woman, who answered journalists' questions by phone, spoke about a huge debt to lawyers, the shock of "severe punishment" and the refusal of her former patron, ex-deputy chairman of the Central Bank Alexander Torshin, to contact her family. Conditions of detention.

According to Kommersant, Alexander Lukashenko promised Vladimir Putin to give the integration of Russia and Belarus Photo: kremlin.ru The script of the unification of Russia and Belarus is approaching reality. According to the sources of Kommersant, at the end of last week, at a meeting in Beijing, Alexander Lukashenko promised Vladimir Putin to begin the integration of the two countries under the 1999 Union Treaty.

Vedomosti owner Demyan Kudryavtsev will propose to the publication's board of directors to extend the contract with editor-in-chief Ilya Bulavinov for another two years, three sources familiar with the situation told The Bell. The board of directors in the new composition will meet after the May holidays, it is not known what changes will take place in it. Kudryavtsev and Bulavinov declined to comment.

According to sources Kommersant's , at a meeting in Beijing late last week, Alexander Lukashenko promised Vladimir Putin to begin the integration of Russia and Belarus under the 1999 union treaty. Putin gave Lukashenka a year to prepare, and the condition of the Belarusian president was the recall of Russian ambassador Mikhail Babich - now he will be dismissed in the near future, Kommersant writes.

In Russia, about 3% of the population, or 4.2 million people, are engaged in entrepreneurial activity, Sberbank found out. Probably, now this is the most accurate data: they are obtained by analyzing big data on the movement of funds on accounts and take into account only actually operating legal entities and individual entrepreneurs, notes . RBC Main The share of entrepreneurs in Russia is lower than the world average.

The world's largest network of co-working spaces WeWork unexpectedly filed documents for an IPO. Its placement will be the second largest in 2019 after Uber - in January, WeWork was estimated at $47 billion. The decision on an IPO may be forced for the company. This year, banks stopped lending to it, and the Japanese SoftBank changed its mind about buying a controlling stake in the network. Bankers and investors fear that WeWork's rental-based model may not survive the next crisis.

On Tuesday - 10 days after the accident at the Druzhba oil pipeline - Vladimir Putin caused the head of Transneft and his former colleague Nikolai Tokarev. At the same time, Belarus completely stopped receiving Russian oil, saying that not one, but 5 million tons of contaminated oil got into the oil pipeline. Photo: from the Kremlin website Putin's reaction. On the Kremlin’s website, Putin's meeting with Tokarev is called “working”.

Back in 2007 and 2013, the Bank of Russia warned Estonian and Danish regulators about Danske Bank's suspicious transactions worth billions of dollars. But no one heeded the warnings from Russia, Reuters writes , citing an investigation by the EU authorities. The Russian regulator turned out to be right in the end - last summer it became known that a dubious 200 billion euros of non-residents, including from Russia, passed through the Estonian division of the Danish bank from 2007 to 2015.

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó posted a video on Twitter announcing the "final stage" of the overthrow of President Nicolas Maduro. Guaidó claims to have received the support of the Venezuelan military and is ready to start peaceful protests across the country from May 1. More. Defense Minister Padrino Lopez said that the military remains loyal to the current president of the country.

A ban on the private import of food from abroad due to the danger of African swine fever (ASF) still remains on the agenda: the Ministry of Agriculture is considering the initiative of the National Meat Association, Forbes reported . The producers insist that the ban is in the interests of Russia, and will not bring them additional profit. Quote. “Jamon is to be eaten in Spain, bresaola in Italy, parmesan in France. If I need something in Russia, I go and buy local products ...

The deal to buy the Lenta retailer Severgroup Alexey Mordashov will close on April 30, follows from the retailer's message . Severgroup agreed with the main shareholders of Lenta - TPG Group and the EBRD - to buy out 41.9% of Lenta from them at $ 3.6 per receipt on April 1. After that, it became known that the second retailer in Russia, Magnit, also seriously looked at Lenta as an object for a merger and offered more - $ 3.65 per receipt, or $ 1.8 billion for the entire network.

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev wrote an op-ed "Nuclear Deterrence Madness" for The Wall Street Journal, in which he called on Russia and the United States to engage in dialogue on nuclear disarmament.

The French group PSA Peugeot Citroen has revealed details of the return of the Opel brand. The automaker will sell three models in Russia - a crossover, a minivan and a commercial van, which will be produced at the PSA Kaluga plant. The group is already looking for dealers in Russia, but its conditions look unfavorable. Read more.

Not rich Russians will suffer from the new initiative of Russian retailers Russian retailers proposed to cancel the duty-free limit on parcels from abroad and introduce a single fee of 15% regardless of the purchase amount, Kommersant writes . The idea of ​​the Association of Internet trade companies (Akit) is a serious blow to the wallet of poor Russians who have long been accustomed to order cheap goods from China by mail.

Gazprom admitted for the first time that it might not have time to lay the offshore section of Nord Stream 2 in 2019 due to the fact that Denmark does not give permission for construction, Kommersant . writes The delay weakens the positions of Gazprom in the upcoming negotiations on transit through Ukraine, and the concern is preparing to sue the country's authorities. For now, Denmark can drag out the process with impunity.