United States President Barack Obama on Friday, December 18, signed a budget proposal for the current fiscal year (ending in September 2016), which includes lifting the embargo on crude oil exports. Earlier that same day, the House of Representatives of the American Congress and after it the Senate approved the draft of this document. Representatives of the parties finally agreed on the laws on Wednesday.

At a meeting on Friday, the State Duma adopted in the third reading a bill that gives regions the right to compensate the costs of paying contributions for capital repairs for elderly citizens and disabled people. Single citizens over 70 years of age may be compensated 50% of the contribution, and those over 80 years of age - the entire contribution. The same compensation is provided for families consisting of non-working citizens of retirement age.

December 18, 2015, 12:20 / Business / News Finland will buy Gazprom's stake in Gasum for 251.3 million euros undefined Vedomosti Finland will buy Gazprom's 25% stake in Gasum for 251.3 million euros, the country's government said in a statement. The transaction is expected to close in early 2016. As a result, the Finnish government will consolidate 100% of Gasum.

Presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said that the Russian and Belarusian leaders discussed providing a $2 billion loan to Belarus. According to him, negotiations on this topic will continue, Interfax reports. “It was discussed with Lukashenko,” he said, answering a corresponding question. “This will be discussed if it is discussed among all the leaders. I don’t know.

Minister of Economic Development Alexey Ulyukaev said that the introduction by Ukraine of a moratorium on the payment of debt on a loan to Russia is actually a declaration of default, TASS reports. This situation will not in any way affect the position of the Russian side in the negotiations on the Ukraine-EU association. “Moratorium, read – default... Of course not, these are not related things,” he commented on the introduction of the moratorium.

Police stopped the activities of a company producing counterfeit motor oils with an annual income of 12 billion rubles, operating in Moscow and the Moscow region, the press center of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs reported.

The order of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine on a moratorium on the payment of debt to Russia, which is due on December 20, came into force in Ukraine; the corresponding order was published on the website of the Ukrainian government on Friday. According to the document, the date of temporary suspension of repayment of payments on government loan bonds for 2013 is December 20.

December 18, 2015, 16:51 / Finance / News The Russian stock market reacted with a decrease of 3% to the Ukrainian moratorium undefined Vedomosti Ordinary shares of Sberbank on the Moscow Exchange as of 16.29 Moscow time fell by 4.24% and reached 99.35 rubles. At the same time, the bank's preferred shares fell in price by 3.30% to RUB 71.27. for one paper (as of 16.30 Moscow time). Sberbank today is among the leaders of the fall on the Moscow Exchange, TASS notes.

December 18, 2015, 00:13 / Finance Chinese authorities are investigating how much Chinese market rescuers earned from its collapse They suspect that regulators used Lingling Wei's inside information Problems in the Chinese stock market have caused problems for its regulators / Mark Schiefelbein / AP To stop the collapse in the stock market, China spent almost $200 billion and introduced emergency measures - banning IPOs and forcing brokers to buy shares of state-owned companies.

December 18, 2015, 20:39 / Finance / Video Among Vneshprombank depositors there is a member of the government talks about the problems of the bank and its clients Daria Borisyak , correspondent for the Finance department, on the air of Dozhd Vedomosti

The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) conducted searches in the subsidiaries of four Turkish banks. They were checked for involvement in money laundering, the Hurriyet newspaper reports , citing sources. The inspections were carried out on December 17. During the investigation, FSB officers did not find anything illegal.

A selection of the most interesting publications in the publications co-founders of Vedomosti dated December 18, 2015.

December 17, 2015, 11:27 pm / Opinions Infrastructure for brains Economist Ivan Lyubimov on why students will continue to go abroad and why this is beneficial for Russia Ivan Lyubimov , senior researcher at RANEPA Last week there were renewed public calls for students to “understand their responsibility to their own state” as graduates decide to pursue careers abroad.

December 18, 2015, 14:50 / Economy / News EBRD: Fed rate hike could limit Russian economic growth undefined Vedomosti An increase in the base rate by the US Federal Reserve could have a negative impact on the Russian economy, according to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). This was reported by Prime with reference to the EBRD. The increased rate, according to bank analysts, could limit the growth of the Russian economy and cause price volatility in the market.

Battle of Stalingrad: Learned to Fight Opinions / Analytics Articles, chronicles of the most important events of the pre-war period, documents and photographs will reflect the preparation of the parties for war and show the atmosphere of the pre-storm time. The first article in the series is a story about the "Barbarossa" plan adopted 75 years ago, the German strategy for the lightning defeat of the Red Army and the capture of most of the territory of the Soviet Union.