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The Regions This Week
November 24, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 7
Eastern Europe
Nato member Turkey expects to receive a first advanced S-400 anti-aircraft missile system from Russia in 2019, the country’s Defence Minister Nurettin Canikli announced. Nato was outraged that Turkey, a Nato member, would buy non-Nato compatible missile system from Russia.
Russia or Kazakhstan may have had a nuclear power station or processing facility accident, after a cloud of radioactive isotopes was detected over Russia that was 1,000 times higher than nor- mal radiation levels on November 22.
Veteran Russian tycoon and senator of the Re- public of Dagestan Suleyman Kerimov was de- tained by police in the French Riviera on Novem- ber 20 on tax evasion charges. As a member of the Russian government, the incident could blow up into a major diplomatic spat.
Nearly two thirds (62%) of Ukrainians support the country’s accession to Nato. That represents a sharp change in attitudes, as while European Union (EU) membership has always been popular, the population was always more ambivalent about membership of Nato.
Ukraine’s civil society has decried the appoint- ment of 25 unfit judges to Ukraine’s Supreme Court. The reshuffle of the members of the Su- preme Court was supposed to be a major step in the fight against endemic corruption, but some commentators now say judicial reforms have failed.
The US has promised Ukraine “defensive” weap- ons, including the controversial Javelin tank- busting missile. The US National Security Council will recommend to US President Donald Trump that they allocate $47mn to the Ukrainian authori- ties for the purchase of weapons from the US.
The share in GDP of Russia’s state-owned enter- prises (SOE) is a lot less than 70%, according to
Rosstat and the Bank of Finland, which say when all the various contributions are totted up the share of SOEs in the economy is closer to 40%. This results is backed up by other independent studies.
The problems of Russian banks Financial Corpo- ration Otkritie and Binbank (aka B&N Bank) are seen as "insignificant" for the country's banking sector, Senior Director at Fitch Ratings CIS Alex- ander Danilov told Reuters on November 23. Da- nilov believes that the share of problematic banks in the sector is below 5%.
Olena Bogoliubova, the former wife of Hennadiy Bogoliubov, one of the former owners of Ukraine's PrivatBank, has won a case in a first-tier court against the bail-in of her UAH500mn ($20mn) deposits in Privatbank.
Russian state-run lender VTB is considering a second issuance of bonds available to ordinary citizens, the so called "people's bonds", due
to increased demands from the population, Vedomosti reported on November 23, quoting
a source at the bank.
Applying the 50% of profit dividend rule to state- owned banks would be “incorrect,” as lenders have to comply with capital requirements that are fed by profits, the governor of the Central Bank of Russia (CBR), Elvira Nabiullina said. Government recently said it plans to increase the dividend payout of Russia's largest bank Sberbank to 40% of net profit in 2018 and further to 45-50% in 2019-2020.
Russians' borrowing from banks has doubled since 2009, a poll run by the state owned pollster, the Russian Public Opinion Research Centre (VTsIOM) found. More than half (57%) of the respondents said that either they or their family members have at least one outstanding loan, compared with just a quarter (26%) in 2009.