Russia Financial News

Telegram messaging app, one of the most popular social media platforms in Ukraine and Russia, will likely cross 1 billion active monthly users within a year, its founder said in remarks published on Tuesday. In a rare interview, Pavel Durov told U.S. journalist Tucker Carlson that the Dubai-based free cloud-based app that allows users to send and receive messages, calls and other files, is spreading like a «forest fire».

Army Training Command (ARTRAC), Lt Gen Manjinder Singh, has said that the war between Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas has been a learning experience for India, as it may face similar warfare practices from terror-hit regions on Pakistan's borders. He said this at the Army Training Command (ARTRAC) investiture ceremony held at the Army Training Command in Shimla on Tuesday. Lt Gen Singh, awarded ARTRAC Unit awards to the Army officials for their noteworthy performance in the year 2022-23.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is warning of potential global “economic spillovers” from rising tensions in the Middle East

Also Read: Explained | Why are crude oil prices elevated after OPEC+ policy decision and how will it impact India? Primorsk on the Baltic handled 10 tankers in three of the past four weeks, possibly reflecting a diversion to exports of crude that would have been processed at refineries hit by Ukrainian drones. The port hasn’t handled more than 11 tankers in a week in data back to the start of 2022. Refining rates are languishing near an 11-month low as repairs continue.

WHEN THE COMMANDING billionaire Vlad Doronin asks you to do something, he’s not really asking. So when, during an interview at his Miami Beach mansion, the Soviet-born Doronin directs me to lie down on a table so he can demonstrate a scary-looking machine, I don’t even inquire what the device does. I just climb onto the table in my form-fitting dress and heels, and the owner of the ultra-luxury Aman hotel brand places a plastic wand on my abdomen.

Moscow, Apr 16, 2024 -Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that further escalation in the Middle East could have «catastrophic consequences,» during a phone call with his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi, the Kremlin said Tuesday. «Vladimir Putin expressed hope that all sides would show reasonable restraint and prevent a new round of confrontation fraught with catastrophic consequences for the entire region,» the Kremlin said in a readout of the call. The situation in the Middle East grew even tenser over the weekend when Iran and its allies launched a barrage of over 300 missiles, drones and rockets at Israel.

UN Security Council to make it legitimate, representative, responsive and effective is through the expansion of the its membership in both the permanent and non-permanent categories. India has been at the forefront, especially leading the Global South, demanding reforms in the United Nations and seeking a place as a permanent member of the 15-member UN Security Council. «India is in favour of the expansion of UN Security Council membership in both the permanent and non-permanent categories, as this is the only way to achieve genuine reform of the Security Council and make it legitimate, representative, responsive and effective,» Ambassador Ruchira Kamboj, India's permanent representative at the UN, said in her remarks in the General Assembly at the sixth round of the Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN) on Security Council reform late on Monday. «In a nutshell, we need a reformed Security Council that better reflects the geographical and developmental diversity of the United Nations today. A Security Council where voices of developing countries and unrepresented regions, including Africa, Latin America and the vast majority of Asia and Pacific, also find their due place at the horseshoe table,» she said.

Between allegations of sophisticated cheating, rampant paranoia, and geopolitical strife at the highest levels of chess, the past few years have been among the most tumultuous this ancient game has ever known. So it was hardly a surprise that chess erupted into controversy again at the tournament to determine who would contend for the world championship. This time, the accusation that threatened to derail a major tournament came at a critical juncture and exploded like a piano falling out of a window.

Kremlin reacted coolly on Tuesday to French President Emmanuel Macron's call for a truce in international conflicts during the Paris Olympics, saying Ukraine might use it as an opportunity to regroup and rearm. Suspending armed conflicts under an «Olympic truce» is a longstanding tradition, and Macron said in an interview on Monday that he would work towards achieving one when Paris hosts the Summer Games from July 26 to Aug. 11. Asked about this, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that both President Vladimir Putin and the Russian military had «noticed that, as a rule, the Kyiv regime uses such ideas, such initiatives to try to regroup, to try to rearm, and so on and so forth».

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has told Chinese leader Xi Jinping who hosted him in Beijing that Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine threatens global security, in an apparent call for China to apply greater pressure on its neighbor to end the war

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has called for fair competition in trade relations with China while warning about dumping and overproduction while speaking to students in Shanghai on Monday

Also Read: Nifty Metal index bounces back 3.4% from day's low amid strong spike in metal prices China has set an ambitious economic growth target of around 5% for 2024, a goal that analysts view as requiring additional stimulus measures to achieve. In addition to the GDP data, China's release of March indicators—property investment, retail sales, and industrial output—underscored the persistent weakness in domestic demand.

Cold War II: The world needs to minimize hot eruptions in West Asia Sullivan was to travel to India earlier this year in February but because of the global crisis in Ukraine and West Asia, the annual review meeting on iCET was rescheduled. "Due to ongoing events in the Middle East, NSA Sullivan has postponed his trip to India this week," a US embassy spokesperson said.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar slams Sam Pitroda over Ram Mandir remark, says it represents Rahul Gandhi's thinking Describing the similar political atmosphere in the developing and developed countries, Sam Pitroda said, “So I have friends in many of these countries, and I believe the problems are very similar. The authoritarian regimes are getting more attention, institutions are bending, they are losing their independence.

₹9,600 a tonne with effect from Tuesday. The levy stood at ₹6,800 a tonne for the past two weeks.

India has showcased itself as a global leader, the top intelligence official from the US Department of Defense has told the Congress that in 2023, India took steps to modernise its military to compete with China and reduce its dependency on Russian origin-equipment. «During the past year, India has showcased itself as a global leader by hosting the Group of 20 economic summit and demonstrated a greater willingness to counter PRC (People's Republic of China) activity throughout the Indo-Pacific region,» Lt Gen Jeffrey Kruse, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency told members of the House Armed Services Committee — the subcommittee on intelligence and special operations during a Congressional hearing on defence intelligence countering China. India, he said, has advanced partnerships in the Indo-Pacific with regional South China Sea claimants, such as the Philippines, through training and defence sales and deepened cooperation with the US, Australia, France and Japan.

Volodymyr Zelensky urged allies on Monday to show the same «unity» towards Ukraine as Israel, which said it repelled an Iranian attack over the weekend with Western support. Ukraine has in recent months grown increasingly frustrated at delays in Western aid, including air defences it says are urgently needed to repel deadly Russian attacks.

Reserve Bank of India announced new steps for rupee-settled global trades, Russian banking major Sberbank said it has seen an uptick in volumes for rupee-rouble payments for Moscow’s imports, with the lender focusing on drawing more foreign clients to the domestic market. “Sberbank offers its corporate clients a convenient way of carrying out settlements in rupees and roubles. Sberbank has now become the main channel for such payments on Russian import operations, with volumes up by seven times last year compared to 2022. More and more companies are taking advantage of it, recognising the attractions of this means of payment,” Anatoly Popov, deputy chairman of the executive board of Sberbank, said exclusively to ET. In July 2022, the RBI said that it would put in place an additional arrangement for invoicing, payment and settlement of exports and imports in rupees. The step, taken in the aftermath of the Ukraine war, was aimed at supporting the increasing interest of global trading in rupees, the central bank said.

PAXG reached an all-time high of $2,855 on April 13 amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East following the missile and drone attack. 

Also Read: Gold rate today: Israel-Iran war continues to fuel gold prices Amidst an overall market downturn, the Nifty Metal index has emerged as a standout performer, representing the only sectoral index trading in positive territory today. At the start of the session, the Nifty Metal index experienced a decline of 2.3%, reaching an intraday low of 8,744 points. However, within the subsequent hours of trading, the index rebounded sharply, currently showing a gain of 0.95% at 9,041 points.

Digital ruble rollout plans could cost the Russian banking sector a total of $536 million per year, financial analysts have claimed.