Russia Financial News

SCO) on Tuesday will hold an online summit hosted by India seeking to expand the influence of the Eurasian group by including Iran and opening a path to membership for Belarus. China's President Xi Jinping and Russian leader Vladimir Putin will participate in the virtual summit, which will be Putin's first appearance at an international event since the short-lived mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group in late June.

Nifty traded at their record high levels. Meanwhile, crude oil prices held steady as markets weighed supply woes from cuts for August by top exporters Saudi Arabia and Russia against economic data that hinted at weak crude demand, Reuters reported.

Iran, one of India's key neighbours, will formally become a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) at the summit held under New Delhi's presidency on Tuesday in what would further boost connectivity initiatives via INSTC and Chabahar Port. Although Iran originally requested to join the alliance 15 years ago, membership was not approved until 2021 as SCO follows a rigorous process of admission. Iran plays a key role in INSTC and Chabahar Port as India's outreach to Russia and Central Asia.

Brent crude futures were up 22 cents, or 0.3%, at $74.87 a barrel by 0033 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude were at $70.06, up 27 cents, or 0.3%.

«We expect the uptrend in Indian equities to continue in the near term. Next week the market will take cues from economic data to be released locally as well as globally.,» said Siddhartha Khemka, Head — Retail Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Option data suggests a broader trading range in between 19000 to 19600 zones while an immediate trading range in between 19100 to 19500 zones, Taparia said. Here's breaking down the pre-market actions:STATE OF THE MARKETSGIFT Nifty (Earlier SGX Nifty) signals a muted startGIFT Nifty (Earlier SGX Nifty) on the NSE IX traded 2 points, or 0.01 per cent, higher at 19,441, signaling that Dalal Street was headed for muted start on Tuesday.

The next Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit will be hosted by India virtually on Tuesday. The summit is set to be joined by all SCO member states including China and Pakistan. Major highlight will be the participation of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Pakistan's PM Shehbaz Sharif.  Russian President Vladimir Putin will also be the part of the summit.

imports of crude oil from Russia fell 6.5% in June after reaching a record high in May, while those from Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the US increased, according to energy cargo tracker Vortexa. India imported 1.8 million barrels per day (mbd) of Russian crude in June. China imported 1.6 mbd of seaborne Russian crude in June, 12% more than in May, and Europe took 0.42 mbd, 28% more than in the previous month.

Investing.com — Right on cue, the Saudis came out to say their million-barrel cut for July will be extended to August and possibly September — maybe even infinitely. The Russians talked up their cuts too. But the announcements coincided with particularly bad global factory activity, sending crude prices lower.

Victoria Azarenka walked into Court 15 on Monday morning for her first Wimbledon match in two years, she was greeted by polite clapping. When the two-time Grand Slam champion from Belarus finished off a three-set victory more than 2 1/2 hours later, Azarenka shook her racket with her right hand and pumped her left fist, then offered a wave to the spectators who were applauding warmly.

The recent mutiny in Russia revealed cracks in President Vladimir Putin’s regime and raised hopes in the West that his days in power were numbered. There are two reasons for caution: Autocrats have remarkable staying power and only rarely are replaced by a democratic government. Images of hundreds of heavily armed men rumbling in a convoy toward Moscow raised the possibility that the man who launched the Ukraine war and has dominated Russian politics for more than two decades could lose power.

NEW DELHI : The leaders’ summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) takes places on Tuesday under the chairmanship of India, with a likely push for inducting Iran and possibly Belarus as new members. Apart from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the virtual summit is set to be attended by President Xi Jinping of China, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan, President Vladimir Putin of Russia and the leaders of a number of Central Asian countries. The previous summit took place in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, in September last year.

Saudi Arabia on Monday said it would extend its voluntary cut of one million barrels per day (bpd) for another month to include August, the state news agency said. Russia, seeking to nudge up global oil prices in concert with Saudi Arabia, will reduce its oil exports by 500,000 bpd in August, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on Monday, further tightening global supplies. The cuts amount to 1.5% of global supply and bring the total pledged by OPEC+ oil producers to 5.16 million bpd.

It’s July and OPEC — the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries — is expected to make all the right noises and moves to try and “seize back” the narrative in oil. The trouble is the Fed will also have something to say this week on why it paused rate hikes at last month’s meeting. And then, there’s that all-important U.S. jobs report for May.

Narendra Modi will host Chinese President Xi Jinping, his Russia counterpart Vladimir Putin, Pakistan's Shehbaz Sharif and other leaders of the SCO nations at a virtual summit of the bloc on Tuesday that is expected to focus on regional security situation and ways to boost connectivity and trade. It will be Putin's first participation in a multilateral summit after a mercenary group launched a short-lived armed rebellion last week that rocked Moscow. The summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) under India's presidency is also set to welcome Iran as the new permanent member of the grouping. The situation in Afghanistan, the Ukraine conflict and enhancing cooperation among the SCO member countries are expected to figure in the summit, people familiar with the matter said, adding boosting connectivity and trade is also likely to be discussed. The summit is also taking place against the backdrop of the over three-year eastern Ladakh border standoff between Indian and Chinese troops, and two weeks after Prime Minister Modi's high-profile visit to the US. The SCO, comprising India, China, Russia, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, is an influential economic and security bloc and has emerged as one of the largest transregional international organisations.

By Andy Bruce

Japan has excluded from sanctions three Russian energy projects in which Japanese companies are actively participating, according to an announcement posted to the website of the country’s Economy Ministry. According to the announcement, the exemption will cover projects deemed critical to Japan's energy security.

Russia has brought some 700,000 children from the conflict zones in Ukraine into Russian territory, Grigory Karasin, head of the international committee in the Federation Council, Russia's upper house of parliament, said late on Sunday. «In recent years, 700,000 children have found refuge with us, fleeing the bombing and shelling from the conflict areas in Ukraine,» Karasin wrote on his Telegram messaging channel.

Russia's envoy to the United Nations in Geneva said there were no grounds to maintain the «status quo» of the Black Sea grain deal that is set to expire on July 18, the Russian news outlet Izvestia reported on Monday. In a wide ranging interview, envoy Gennady Gatilov told the outlet that the implementation of Russia's conditions for the extensions of the agreement was «stalling.» Those conditions included, among others, the reconnection of the Russian Agricultural Bank (Rosselkhozbank) to the SWIFT banking payment system.

TotalEnergies and Shell on Sunday defended activities linked to Russia after a critical report into their trading in natural gas despite the war in Ukraine. The campaign group Global Witness said TotalEnergies was the third-biggest player in Russian liquified natural gas (LNG) last year and Shell the fourth, behind two Russian companies.

Wagner boss of «going off the rails» after receiving billions in public funds, as Moscow's new narrative takes shape after Wagner's brief mutiny. Last weekend the head of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, led his forces in a short-lived rebellion against Russia's top military brass, in a huge embarrassment for the Kremlin. «Prigozhin has gone off the rails because of big money,» Dmitry Kiselev, one of the main faces of the Russian propaganda machine, said on his weekly television show on Sunday.

Joe Biden has scheduled a diplomatic trip to Europe this month with stops in the United Kingdom, at the NATO summit in Lithuania and for meetings in Finland, the White House said Sunday. Biden is set to depart July 9 for «engagements» with the UK's King Charles III and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the White House said in a statement.