June 11:
Suleiman Kerimov, the Russian billionaire and Federation Council member, is selling off his Russian assets in order to buy Western assets. According to Kommersant, Kerimov has sold large stakes in Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, and Gazprom, the natural gas monopoly, in order to buy stakes in Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse and UBS. Sources told the newspaper that Kerimov and “several other Russian oligarchs” are discussing the creation of a “pool of investors” to buy the securities of foreign banks.
A banking source suggested why Kerimov may be selling off his Russian assets. “Today Suleiman Kerimov practically doesn’t appear in Moscow, and if he does, then he’s surrounded everywhere by numerous bodyguards,” the source told Kommersant. “Investing in foreign assets is safer; they allow you to safeguard your savings from various risks, including political ones.”
Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller has warned that oil prices could double from current record high by next year, the Financial Times reports. “The [oil price] is very high and we think it will reach $250 a barrel,” he said. A Gazprom spokesman said the company believes that level will be hit in 2009.
Russia has announced it will boost its military presence in the Arctic to protect its “national interests,” the Daily Telegraph reports. Ships will be sent to the Arctic Ocean as part of a summer training program aimed at increasing the Russian navy’s presence “not only in the Atlantic but also in the Arctic and the Pacific,” said Gen. Vladimir Shamanov, head of the combat training directorate. He added that Russia plans to increase the operational radius of the Northern Fleet’s submarines and has the capability to defend its claim to roughly half of the Arctic Ocean, including the North Pole. “We have a number of highly professional military units in the Leningrad, Siberian and Far Eastern military districts which are specifically trained for combat in the Arctic regions,” Shamanov said.
The Northwest Customs Directorate has uncovered 70 illegal attempts to move radioactive and nuclear materials across the Russian border, Rosbalt reports. The directorate’s acting head, Aleksandr Getman, stressed that none of the cases involved weapons-grade nuclear material and that such smuggling usually involves nuclear fuel pellets.
July 12:
BP Chairman Peter Sutherland has called BP’s dispute with its Russian partners in the TNK-BP venture “a return to the corporate raiding activities that were prevalent in Russia in the 1990s,” Bloomberg News reports. “This is bad for us and for the company and, of course, very bad for Russia,” Sutherland said at an International Chamber of Commerce conference in Stockholm, adding that the conflict is an “early test” for President Dmitry Medvedev. The Russian partners have called for TNK-BP Chief Executive Robert Dudley to resign for acting “exclusively in the interests of BP.” One of them, billionaire Mikhail Fridman, told Bloomberg that BP “should respect us,” adding: “TNK-BP is not a branch of BP.”
June 14:
Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov has said Ukrainians will likely lose their right to travel to Russia visa-free if Ukraine joins NATO because “NATO will force Ukraine to introduce a visa regime,” NEWSru.com reports. Speaking in the Ukrainian port city of Sevastopol, home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, Ivanov also predicted that Ukrainian NATO membership would sever Russian-Ukrainian military-industrial links. Russia’s NATO envoy, Dmitry Rogozin, said on June 12th that there are no Russian politicians “who would agree that in their lifetime, under their leadership, the Black Sea Fleet should leave Sevastopol,” Reuters reported. Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko wants the fleet to leave Sevastopol when its lease runs out in 2017.