Russian News From Russia…

Moscow’s rapid transit system, which is growing at a robust pace, is up for a vital upgrade, with 640 new state-of-the-art metro cars due to hit the rails in 2012-2013. The trains will ship out from the Metrovagonmash plant in Mytishchi outside Moscow, which clinched a two-year deal worth an estimated 20 billion rubles ($680 [...]

Russian oil major Rosneft and U.S. energy giant Exxon Mobil may start oil production in the Kara and Black seas in 2018-2020, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin said on Wednesday.   “Considering that drilling begins in 2015, in two to three years production drilling may be launched and production may start in 2018-2020,” Sechin said [...]

Southeast Asian nations and post-Soviet countries are key suppliers of fake goods to the Russian market, the head of the Main Administration for Combating Economic Crimes said on Wednesday. In an interview with RIA Novosti, Denis Sugrobov suggested that knockoffs of famous brands, names and logos get into Russia mostly from Southeast Asia, including China, [...]

  Russia’s largest steelmaker Severstal saw fourth quarter 2011 IFRS net profit increase 7.9 percent quarter-on-quarter to $463 million, the firm said in a statement on Thursday. Earnings per share rose seven percent to $0.46. The company’s revenue fell 17.5 percent in October-December 2011 to $3.727 billion “reflecting the weak market environment”. EBITDA fell 24.7 [...]

Russia’s largest grocery chain X5 Retail Group saw fourth quarter 2011 net profit jump 52.4 percent year-on-year to $134 million to IFRS, the company said in a statement on Thursday. The company’s net sales increased 13.9 percent in October-December 2011 to $3.965 billion compared with the same period in 2010, while operating profit soared 43.5 [...]

Russian mining magnate Alisher Usmanov has become Russia’s wealthiest businessman according to the 2012 Rich List published by the Russian edition of Forbes magazine on Thursday. Usmanov, the owner of Metalloinvest metals giant and a major shareholder in London’s Arsenal Football Club, has climbed to the top spot from the fifth place, after increasing his [...]

Russia will launch the second leg of the Nord Stream pipeline, intended to deliver Russian natural gas to Europe bypassing existing transit countries, in October 2012, Russian gas giant Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said on Thursday. “We have started pre-commissioning work and … in October we will start commercial supplies,” Miller told president-elect Vladimir Putin [...]

Russia’s foreign minister expressed concerns on Thursday over U.S. plans to keep its military contingent in Afghanistan after the pullout of international troops in 2014. At the same time, minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow was worried about the drug and terrorism situation in Afghanistan after the pullout. “We … do not understand such [U.S.] plans [...]

Russia’s Federal Service for the Oversight of Natural Resources (RosPrirodNadzor) is to take legal action to claim damages from Russian-British joint oil venture TNK-BP for oil spills in the Siberian Rivers, Environment Minister Yury Trutnev said on Thursday. “I have instructed RosPrirodNadzor to prepare a lawsuit to claim damages and proposed that the company (TNK-BP) [...]

The Russian Defense Ministry has signed contracts on the development and construction of satellites capable of detecting launches of ballistic missiles, First Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Sukhorukov said on Thursday. The new missile early warning satellites will be part of a unified aerospace defense network being formed in Russia. “Several military satellites will be launched [...]

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said Russia’s refusal to attend an international ministerial meeting on Syria in Paris on Thursday isolated the country from the Arab world and the international community. “I’ve personally invited [Russian Foreign Minister Sergei] Mr. Lavrov, and I regret that Russia sticks to a policy that isolates it from both the [...]