Page 27 - RusRPTOct20

schoolchildren linked to contaminated lunches. Prigozhin’s catering company also has a lucrative state contract to supply school lunches in Moscow.
Navalny was released from a hospital in Berlin earlier this week having survived an attack utilising the deadly Novichok nerve agent that is widely believed to have orchestrated by the Kremlin, or forces close to the upper echelons of power.
Even while Navalny was in a coma, Prigozhin threatened to “ruin” Navalny by asking bailiffs to recover the debt should the activist recover.
Navlany’s press secretary Kira Yarmysh said court marshals seized Navalny’s three-bedroom apartment in southeastern Moscow to enforce the $1-mn court ruling in Prigozhin’s favour.
“Instead of siding with the affected children, the court sided with Prigozhin,” Yarmysh said in a video on Twitter as cited by the Moscow Times. “As a result, they seized the assets and the apartment of a person who was in a coma,” she said.
The court marshals’ seizure bans Navalny from selling, renting out or leaving the apartment in a will but does not mean he can no longer live there, Yarmysh said.
Navalny is currently still in Germany where he is recovering from the effects of the Novichok. He is up and about but says he still cannot drink a glass of water without help. Doctors say he will recover but say it is too early to say what the long-term effects of the poisoning will be. The incident has caused a major international scandal and could lead to fresh sanctions on Russia as Novichok is a chemical weapon that is banned under international treaties to which Russia is a signatory.
Russia denies that Navalny was poisoned and complains that Germany is not sharing its findings in order for authorities to launch an investigation at home.
2.11 ​ ​Putin’s new economic deal: more socially orientated economic policy
Spending on the social sphere will be greater than spending on the military for the first time ever ​in Russia’s new economic policy, launched in September together with the draft 2021-2023 budget.
Looking closely at Russia’s three year budget — that was approved earlier this month — reveals a new sort of economic policy. Not only will the government play a drastically bigger role in resource redistribution, but higher taxes on big business, the wealthy and the upper middle class will pay for more financial support for Russians on low incomes.
The 2021-23 ​budget​ anticipates a 10% cut in spending for the first time in four years, hitting almost every sector except state media. But that isn’t enough to
27 ​RUSSIA Country Report​ October 2020 ​ ​www.intellinews.com