January 24:
Russia's alternative energy plans for Europe are inching forward. Trade newsletter Natural Gas Europe reportsthat Russia's SberBank is interested in financing the "Turkish Stream" natural gas pipeline. The project, designed as a substitute for the recently-scrapped "South Stream" natural gas route, would be an alternative vehicle to bring Russian natural gas to Europe.
January 26:
Amid ongoing tensions in Ukraine, Russia's economic fortunes are sinking still further. The BBC reports that the Standard & Poors rating agency has cut Russia's credit rating to "junk" for the first time in a decade. "Russia's monetary-policy flexibility has become more limited and its economic growth prospects have weakened," the firm announced in a formal statement. "We... see a heightened risk that external and fiscal buffers will deteriorate due to rising external pressures and increased government support to the economy." As a result, the agency said, the Russian economy is currently judged to be below investment grade.
January 27:
Russian state-owned news agency Itar-TASS was used by Russian intelligence agents as a conduit to gather intelligence on U.S. financial markets, The Daily Beast reports. A criminal complaint filed by the Justice Department on January 26th details that Russian spies used the news outlet to gather intelligence, generating questions that were then asked by TASS of leading experts. The behavior fits a time-tested pattern, observers say. According to Michael Weiss of the Institute of Modern Russia, TASS was "a clearing house for Russian illegals [undercover spies] during the Cold War" and was used by them to gather data on political and military subjects of interest.
January 29:
Russia's economy is hurting as a result of Western pressure and plummeting oil prices, but you wouldn't know it from the spending habits of the country's rich. Canada's CBC reports that, rather than hoarding their money, the country's ultra-wealthy elites have embarked upon a veritable spending spree in recent weeks, buying up luxury items like Rolls Royce's newest model, the Wraith.
Nevertheless, all is not well in Russia. According to Kiril Rogov, senior researcher at the Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy in Moscow, Putin is losing support among the Russian elites as a result of Western sanctions, which are beginning to seriously destabilize Russia's economy. If this trend continues, Rogov notes, Putin will face a dangerous turning point.
Is Vladimir Putin's Eurasian Union fragmenting? The Associated Press reports that Belarus, long a stalwart of Russia's economic and political plans for the "post-Soviet space," is increasingly distancing itself from the Kremlin amid ongoing turmoil in Ukraine. "Those who think that the Belarusian land is part as what they call the Russian world, almost part of Russia, forget about it!" the news agency cites Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko as telling reporters. "Belarus is a modern and independent state."
January 30:
If Kyiv has its way, we could soon see another name on the list of state sponsors of terrorism. According to the Associated Press, the government of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is poised to submit a draft resolution to the UN General Assembly calling on the international community to recognize Russia as a terror-supporting state. The move comes on the heels of a mid-January vote by Ukraine's parliament that concluded that the pro-Russian separatist republics in the country’s east were effectively terrorist organizations, and that Moscow - through its support of their struggle against the Ukrainian state - was a state sponsor of terrorism.
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