Page 12 - bne_newspaper_August_31_2018

The Regions This Week
August 31, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 12
Eastern Europe
Moody’s says the effect of the most recent US sanctions on Russia will be limited. The US sanctions imposed in response to the Skripal poisoning are largely symbolic. However, as second bill due to be read by Congress this autumn that targets Russia’s sovereign debt would be far more harmful if passed in its current form.
A support package for sanctioned Russian aluminium major Rusal includes acquiring surplus metal for the state commodity reserve, the Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov said, contradicting earlier comments.
Russia will hold its biggest war games since the fall of the Soviet Union in September, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said. The Vostok-2018 exercise that will also involve the Chinese and Mongolian armies will take place in central and eastern Russian military districts and involve almost 300,000 troops, more than 1,000 military aircraft, two of Russia’s naval fleets, and all of its airborne units.
Ukraine's two-time former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko continues to lead the polls ahead of the 2019 presidential election, with 17.9% backing. The heads of the Civil Position party Anatoliy Hrytsenko (13.8%) and the pro-Russian Opposition Bloc party Yuriy Boiko (11.2%) follow her. President Petro Poroshenko is in fifth place (9.1%).
Belarus harvested 5.19mn tonnes of grain as of August 27 vs 7.18mn tonnes on the same date last year, according to the government's news agency BELTA. The outlet did not elaborate on
the reasons behind the significant drop this year, adding only that the weather conditions during the current harvesting campaign were "inclement".
Russia became the largest investor in Ukraine in the first half of 2018, according to data released
by Ukrstat. In the first half of 2018 Russia invested $436mn into Ukraine, or 34.6% of the total $1.26bn of foreign investment. Cyprus was the second largest investor ($219mn), followed by the Netherlands ($208mn), Austria ($59mn), Poland ($54mn), France ($47mn) and the UK ($43.4mn).
Russia's largest micro-finance company Domashnye Dengi (Home Money) is under threat of going bust after the state Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) started bankruptcy proceedings against it as well as personally against its head Evgeny Bernshtam in the Moscow Arbitrage Court.
Russia could increase coal exports in 2018
to over 200mn tonnes and will seek to further boost coal exports by over 50% in the long-
term, according to the Minister of Economic Development Alexander Novak. In 2017 Russia exported 186mn tonnes of coal out of 409mn mined, making it the third largest coal exporter in the world. The target for 2018 coal exports was 187mn-188mn tonnes.
Ukraine’s state-owned gas monopolist Naftogaz has not bought any natural gas from Russia's gas monopoly Gazprom for more than 1,000 days, counting from November 26, 2015, according to local media.
In a first, Yandex.Video’s streaming service could be blocked if it fails to remove links to illegal copies of TV series produced by Gazprom Media holding, communications watchdog Roskomnadzor warned Russian internet major Yandex. This is the first time the large-scale blocking of one of Russia's leading internet players has been threatened over piracy.
Financing for Ukraine’s security and defence sector will amount to about UAH200bn ($7.2bn), or at least 5% of GDP in 2019, according to the secretary of the National Security and Defence Council Oleksandr Turchynov.