Russian News From Russia…

Gazprom and billionaire Viktor Vekselberg agreed to merge electricity assets, forming a utility that may control 25 percent of the country’s generating capacity. The combined utility will compete on the scale of international companies such as E.On and Electricite de France, Gazprom chief executive Alexei Miller said Thursday at a signing ceremony in Moscow. Vekselberg’s Renova Group, one of the biggest investors in Russia’s power market through [...]

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called on Sberbank, the country’s biggest lender, to lower its average mortgage rates to 8 percent from 11.5 percent to 12 percent now. “We must strive to ensure that the average rate decreases gradually to 8 percent,” Putin told Sberbank chief executive German Gref at a meeting Wednesday outside Moscow. “It will depend, of course, on macroecomics,” Gref said. Gref also spoke with [...]

Forced to sell his animals and flee his dried-up lands, former herder Sainbuyangiin Tsagaan-Ovgon is now hoping that mining profits will let him return to his native Gobi. The 72-year-old, who admits that he knows nothing about stocks, will soon receive 536 shares in the Mongolian company that owns the world’s largest coking coal deposit. The potential windfall is part of an experiment [...]

The Kremlin’s human rights council called for an amnesty for economic crimes that would apply to Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the jailed former billionaire head of Yukos Oil. “An amnesty can’t exclude specific individuals,” Tamara Morshchakova, a member of the council set up in February by President Dmitry Medvedev, told reporters Thursday in Moscow. “It would apply to all people accused of these crimes.” Khodorkovsky, the country’s richest man when he [...]

Avianova’s forecasts put it in the black by 2012, but funding has dried up and it cannot expand its six-plane fleet. Alfa Group’s investment arm A1 decided to sell its 51 percent stake in Avianova in late 2010, said Dmitry Chernyak, former managing director of the investment group, who quit in March this year. The discount airline, which is involved in a [...]

GROZNY — Ultranationalists made a rare visit to Chechnya this week, invited by local officials seeking to combat growing racism nationwide against people from the North Caucasus. The head of the banned Slavic Union, whose logo is a stylized swastika, was among the handful of nationalists who toured the tiny republic. “I was very surprised by what I saw here. You can meet normal people and just chat with [...]

STRASBOURG, France — The European Parliament called on Russia on Thursday to guarantee free elections and lift curbs on the opposition Party of People’s Freedom in a resolution that Moscow condemned as “crude” interference in its affairs. A resolution passed with a clear majority by the parliament in Strasbourg reiterated concerns about difficulties faced by parties in registering ahead of the December parliamentary vote, saying the restrictions were obstacles to political plurality. [...]

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has dismissed as “inappropriate” a statement by a British minister that his country would not ease visa rules with Russia until a former KGB bodyguard implicated in a London murder is jailed in Britain. David Lidington, minister of state for Europe, was cited by Interfax as saying Wednesday that British investigators have enough proof of Andrei Lugovoi’s involvement in the death [...]

Saakashvili’s personal photographer Irakli Gedenidze in a file photo. TBILISI, Georgia — The personal photographer of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and three other photojournalists were arrested Thursday and accused of spying for a foreign country. The arrests appeared to fall under what Georgia’s Interior Ministry calls an effort to root out Russian spy networks since the [...]

Tver lawmakers on Thursday confirmed a new governor to replace the unpopular Dmitry Zelenin, who last fall complained about finding a worm in his salad during a Kremlin meal. In Sakhalin, lawmakers reconfirmed their governor to a second term, Interfax reported. Both candidates, Andrei Shevelyov in Tver and Alexander Khoroshavin in Sakhalin, were appointed by President Dmitry Medvedev late last month. Zelenin, 48, a former Norilsk Nickel CEO and a [...]

A city-sponsored company will monitor Moscow-made media, web sites, books, DVD releases and even advertisement leaflets for signs of extremism starting next year, Ekho Moskvy radio reported Thursday. Moscow authorities did not specify the budget for the project, but said they have reached an agreement with web service providers, who would be deleting any online materials deemed to incite ethnic hatred, the report [...]

Russia’s richest are more focused on the opportunities generated by the financial crisis than its downside. They look to separate their personal wealth from their business interests and are largely opposed to involving their families in their business activities. Nineteen businessmen domiciled in Russia, each with more than $50 million in personal assets and businesses with annual turnovers above $50 million, were surveyed for a new [...]

The Kremlin human rights council asked the president Thursday to order a review into the case of a former senator sentenced last year to life in prison on charges of terrorism and organizing contract hits. While the council does not consider Igor Izmestyev blameless, it believes that the case was heavily tampered with, possibly because of the former senator’s conflict with a clan that ruled Bashkortostan in the 2000s, said council [...]

TAX CHANGES Social tax, charged on employers’ payroll funds, will drop from 34 percent of payroll to 20 percent for small businesses and 30 percent for all others, making a 460 billion ruble ($16.5 billion) dent in federal revenues, Putin reiterated Thursday. There’s a plan to charge employers a social tax on salaries higher than 512,000 rubles a year, which are now exempt. The rate is to be determined but will [...]