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The Regions This Week
September 14, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 5
Eastern Europe
The pro-Kremlin mayor of the Russian capital Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, was re-elected comfortably with 82% of the vote, rising from 51.4% of the vote in the 2013 elections, although the voter turnout in the capital slipped from 32% to 30% — close to an all time low in a race where all opposition candidates were effectively excluded.
Russia Today aired an interview with Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, the two Russians accused by the UK of being responsible for carrying out the military-grade chemical attack on a Russian ex-spy in the town of Salisbury.
The Swedish appeals court revoked a previous suspension of an arbitration ruling that blocked attempts by Ukraine’s Naftogaz to seize Russian Gazprom’s foreign assets in Europe, Reuters reported. The decision could put Gazprom's assets in Europe under threat, as previously Naftogaz tried to seize Gazprom and Nord Stream 2 pipeline assets as part of the execution of the $2.6bn decision by Stockholm Arbitration in favour of Naftogaz.
Almost 42% of Ukrainians would support their country joining Nato as the preferred option for guaranteeing security, according to a poll conducted by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation and Kyiv International Institute of Sociology. A total of 35.3% back Ukraine's non-aligned status, 6.4% favour a military alliance with Russia and other CIS countries, and 16.3% were undecided.
Russian national air carrier Aeroflot is moving away from using foreign-made planes to buying Russian-made planes and says it will place a new order for 100 Sukhoi Super Jets domestic short- distance aircraft with about 87-seat capacity.
The Russian government tried its best to suppress a protest rally called by anti- corruption blogger and opposition activist Alexei
Navalny, but the anti-pension reform protest went ahead and more than 800 protestors were arrested at demonstrations across the country.
Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman believes that
failure to secure a deal with the IMF on a hike in gas tariffs for Ukrainian households would lead to default. "I am the first one to reduce the prices for resources, but the failure to meet the requirements will put Ukraine on the brink of default," Groysman said in a televised interview.
The self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics in Ukraine will hold elections for their parliaments and prime ministers for November 11. Both rebel republics propped up by Russia. The Donetsk parliament also elected Denis Pushi- lin as its new prime minister following the as- sassination of the republic’s leader Alexander Zakharchenko in August.
Belarus' foreign trade deficit widened in January-July. The foreign trade in goods soared 20.9% y/y to $39.3bn, however, the trade deficit jumped to $1.6bn in the same period of the year versus $929.7mn in January-July 2017.
State railway monopoly Russian Railways plans to buy back three issues of Eurobonds maturing in 2020, 2022, and 2024 for a total $700mn, Reuters said citing the company. Russian assets are under heavy sanction risk pressure and some companies might try to use the momentum to buy back their debt off the market cheaply.
The number of premium-class housing projects commissioned in the Russian capital this summer reached an all-time high, according to a Savills report cited by Vedomosti daily. As of the beginning of September, 2,725 new premium- class apartments were on the Moscow market.