The US Department of Defense said it was taking all necessary steps to organize training of Ukrainian National Guard soldiers by American specialists, scheduled for late April. In particular, Pentagon press secretary Colonel Steve Warren said that “about 290 US troops, including paratroopers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade, Sky Soldiers, based in Vicenza, Italy,” would be sent to train six National Guard companies.

The famous satirical writer and playwright Arkady Arkanov has died in Moscow at the age of 82. This was reported by Interfax, citing a statement from the Moscow Academic Satire Theater, with which the writer collaborated. On March 14, he fell ill while hosting a memorial evening for Grigory Gorin. He was taken to hospital, where he died on Sunday morning. Arkady Arkanov (Arkady Mikhailovich Shteynbock) was born on June 7, 1933 in Kyiv.

For serious crimes, minors are currently sent to pretrial detention centers, but in this case they will go to centers with better conditions and educational work / Stanislav Krasilnikov / TASS The amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code, prepared at the initiative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, were submitted to the State Duma by the government in December 2014; today, the Committee on Criminal Legislation recommends adopting them in the first reading.

Yamal LNG has begun negotiations with potential buyers for five specialized gas carriers for transporting gas from the South Tambeyskoye field (Yamal LNG is the operator of its development project), Tradewindsnews.com reports. According to the site, they could be the Greek shipping company Dynagas and the Japanese NYK. The possibility of selling the vessels to other shipowners is being considered, says a source close to Yamal LNG. The cost of five gas carriers is $1.6 billion.

Oktyabrsky Electric Car Repair Plant Announces 18% Employee Cuts / I. Russak for Vedomosti OJSC Oktyabrsky Electric Car Repair Plant (OEVRZ, part of ZAO Transmashholding) will lay off 175 of its 940 employees by May 2015, a representative of the plant reported. Since the beginning of February, 70% of the employees have been idle: the plant will operate in this mode until the end of March, the further mode of operation is being discussed, he specified.

The NATO naval group in the Black Sea, having completed the exercises conducted there, left its waters, Interfax reports, citing Turkish media outlets publishing photographs of the ships passing through the Bosphorus. On Friday, the alliance's naval command also said that ships from NATO's Standing Maritime Group 2 had completed joint exercises with Romanian naval ships in the Black Sea and were returning to the Mediterranean to resume patrols.

The number of tablet users with SIM cards in the MTS network has exceeded the number of modems for the first time / E.Razumny / Vedomosti A slight decrease in sales of USB modems is due to the growing popularity of 4G routers, sales of which in the Megafon retail network increased 2.6 times in 2014, according to the operator's representative Aliya Beketova. The router allows you to connect several devices, which is more convenient and profitable, she explains.

GAZ Group Deliveries to Europe to Begin with Serbia / M. Stulov / Vedomosti The first deliveries of GAZ Group to Europe will begin with Serbia, by the end of 2015 sales of LCV of the Gazelle Next family will begin in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Macedonia, the company reported. The cars will be sold by nine dealerships in four countries of GAZ distributor in the Balkans – Verano Motologistic.

People are applying for mortgage loans less and less willingly, and the number of apartments sold with mortgages is already several times smaller than in 2014 / D. Abramov / Vedomosti Currently, only 15% of apartments are sold on average with a mortgage; last year, there were at least a third of such transactions, and for some properties, up to 60%, Kristina Shulgina, head of the mortgage and credit department at NDV-Real Estate, told Vedomosti.

It took Norilsk Nickel more than five years to get officials to correct an error in the license for the Maslovskoye platinum-copper-nickel deposit / E. Razumny / Vedomosti Norilsk Nickel received a license to explore the Maslovskoye deposit in July 2006. Three years later, the company entered its reserves on the state balance sheet – 728,000 tons of nickel (here and below, C1 + C2), 1.1 million tons of copper, 12.5 million ounces of platinum and 1.3 million ounces of gold.

For motorists involved in an accident, the new policy will cost more than 20,000 rubles / E. Razumny / Vedomosti From April 12, the base rate of compulsory motor third-party liability insurance for car owners will increase by 40% to 3,432–4,118 rubles, the Central Bank decided. At the same time, the regulator will expand the tariff corridor boundaries within which insurers can compete on price from 5 to 20%.

Janet Yellen /Andrew Harrer /Bloomberg This year, the US Federal Reserve System (Fed) is expected to raise the refinancing rate after all – the rate is at a historical minimum since the end of 2008.

Russian Ambassador to Denmark Mikhail Vanin has warned the country's leadership against joining the missile defense system / Chris Ratcliffe / Bloomberg Russian Ambassador to Denmark Mikhail Vanin has warned the country's leadership against joining the anti-ballistic missile defense system (ABM): in this case, "Danish warships will become targets for Russian nuclear missiles," he said in an interview with the local newspaper Lykkands-Posten on March 21.

The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) supports the proposal of the Ministry of Economic Development to conduct pilot projects to introduce in Russia the principle of portability of fixed telephone numbers from one network to another (Local Number Portability, LNP) in Moscow, St.

March 22, 2015, 14:19 / Economics Senators will discuss the objectivity of international rating agencies regarding Russia Vedomosti The International Affairs Committee of the Federation Council at its meeting on Monday will discuss the situation with international rating agencies, as well as the problem of objectively determining Russia’s place in international economic ratings.