Russia Financial News

It might sound improbable, but Europe is still importing Russian natural gas through pipelines in Ukraine

Ukraine's top commander said on Thursday Kyiv had set up a military commandant's office in the occupied part of Russia's Kursk region where he said his forces were still advancing and had taken up to 1.5 km (0.93 miles) in the last 24 hours. Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi told President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a video published by the Ukrainian leader that Kyiv's forces had advanced 35 km into Russia's Kursk region since launching an incursion last week. Kyiv's surge into Russian territory last week caught Moscow by surprise, seizing the initiative from Russian forces who have been grinding out small but steady gains all year in the east of the country.

Ukraine have been deployed as part of Kyiv's ongoing incursion into Russia, British media reported on Thursday. It is believed to be the first time the Challenger 2 tanks have been used in active combat on Russian territory, Sky News and other UK outlets said. They did not specify how many of the tanks were thought to have been deployed by Ukraine in its surprise incursion into Russia's Kursk region, which began on August 6.

Britain's economy grew 0.6% in the second quarter of 2024, official figures showed on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast an expansion of 0.6%, building on a rapid 0.7% recovery in the first quarter of the year from a shallow recession in the second half of 2023. At the start of the month the Bank of England raised its annual growth forecast for 2024 to 1.25% from 0.5% due to a stronger-than-expected start to the year and an expectation of 0.7% quarter-on-quarter growth in the three months to June.

fleeing invading Ukrainian troops sought shelter from strangers. Russian parents feared that their children might be sent into battle for the first time. And in a televised crisis meeting Monday, President Vladimir Putin of Russia flipped through a white legal pad, reading aloud from handwritten notes, suggesting that his aides did not have the time to type up a speech for him as they usually do. Ukraine's surprise incursion into a sliver of Russia's Kursk region last week has not shifted the overall course of the war, but it has already struck a blow well beyond the few hundred square miles of Russia that Ukraine now controls: It has thrust a Russian government and society that had largely adapted to war into a new phase of improvisation and uncertainty.

Ukrainian Army used the battery fire or the hydrogen tank explosion technique to convert a civilian Toyota Mirai car into a hydrogen and plastic explosive that wreaked havoc. It was not a thermonuclear device or a hydrogen bomb, no fissile material was used. It was made using a fuel tank from a hydrogen car. However, the Ukrainian Army foiled the Russian efforts to take the town of Vovchansk and pushed them to a plant north of the river.

It’s been three years since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan

Among the myriad problems Justin Trudeau is confronting, two have an immediacy that must be especially troubling. One is political, the other economic.

Indian embassy here on Wednesday advised its citizens, including students, residing in Bryansk, Belgorod, and Kursk regions of Russia to relocate temporarily to safer places, citing recent «security incidents» in these areas following the intensification of the Russia-Ukraine war. The security advisory was issued hours after Russia's Belgorod border region declared an emergency under heavy shelling by Ukrainian forces that are pressing a major cross-border incursion into the adjacent Kursk region for a second week. An emergency was declared in Kursk last Saturday after Ukrainian forces on August 6 launched an incursion into the region, marking a significant escalation in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, with both sides reporting casualties and territorial gains. «In view of the recent security incidents in Bryansk, Belgorod and Kursk regions, Indian nationals are advised to take necessary precautions and temporarily relocate outside these regions,» the Indian embassy said.

German prosecutors have issued a first arrest warrant in their investigation into the undersea explosions in 2022 that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines between Russia and Germany, according to a media report

LONDON—As Britain’s oil and gas giants scale back their global green-energy ambitions, the U.K.’s newly elected government is launching a multibillion-dollar effort to regain the country’s place as a global pacesetter for clean energy. A new state-backed company, funded by increased taxes on oil and gas production, will invest in many renewable-energy projects around the country. Industry executives are split on whether the plan can meet the government’s ambitious goals.

currency exports. It has also said that Russia has received $2.3 billion worth of dollar and euro notes since March 2022, after its army crossed the border and entered Ukraine.

Narendra Modi is planning to visit Poland and Ukraine between August 21 and 23 with a message of dialogue and diplomacy amid intensification of Russia-Ukraine conflict. It comes just over a month after Modi visited Russia and Austria. This will be an Indian PM's first visit to Warsaw in over four decades despite Poland being India's largest trading and investment partner in central and eastern Europe. From Warsaw, Modi is expected to go to Kyiv on a half-day visit, ET has learnt.

Three news outlets were recently leaked confidential material from inside the Trump campaign, but have chosen not to reveal any of the details about what they received

Ukraine’s top military commander says his forces now control 1,000 square kilometers (386 square miles) of Russia’s neighboring Kursk region, the first time a Ukrainian military official has publicly commented on the gains of the lightning incursion that has embarrassed the Kremlin.

Global oil markets are poised to swing from a deficit to a surplus next quarter should OPEC+ proceed with plans to boost supplies, data from the International Energy Agency showed.

Global oil markets are poised to swing from a deficit to a surplus next quarter should OPEC+ proceed with plans to boost supplies, data from the International Energy Agency showed. Oil inventories are currently depleting as a result of peak summer driving demand, but should stabilize in the final quarter of the year, the Paris-based agency said in a report. That would likely tip into an overhang if the OPEC+ cartel presses ahead with provisional plans to bring back idled output starting in October, the report indicated. Oil consumption in China, the biggest importer, fell for a third month in June, the IEA said.

UN sanctions banning North Korea's imports of luxury goods, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un appeared to be using a new model of a Mercedes-Benz SUV, local media in neighbouring South Korea reported. Seoul-based Yonhap news agency on Tuesday published photos carried by the Korean Central News Agency, which showed a black Mercedes-Benz SUV on a special train that Kim used to visit flood-hit areas in the northwestern province of North Phyongan last week. Under UN resolutions, first enacted in 2006 after Pyongyang carried out underground nuclear tests, exports of luxury cars and other high-end items to North Korea are banned.

Russia are exploring the idea of a dynamic reference rate to start a rupee-rouble market, along with allowing greater deployment of the rupee balance that has accumulated in course of trade between the two countries since outbreak of the Ukraine war. A reference or exchange rate is aimed at overcoming the dollar trade barriers raised by US sanctions imposed on Russia in February 2022. These, along with putting in place a payment confirmation mechanism, are expected to figure during a meeting of senior central bank officials and bankers in Moscow this week, two industry persons told ET. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently took feedback from banks and financial institutions dealing with Russian funds registered in India.

Citigroup is taking a significant step to pare down its wealth management division with a plan to sell off its trust administration and fiduciary services business.

Iran is preparing to supply Russia with hundreds of ballistic missiles. State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel emphasised on Monday that if this transfer occurs, it would mark a significant escalation. On Friday, Reuters reported that dozens of Russian military personnel are being trained in Iran to use the Fath-360 close-range ballistic missile system, according to two European intelligence sources. They added that they expected the imminent delivery of hundreds of the satellite-guided weapons to Russia for its war in Ukraine. According to the report, Russian defence ministry representatives are believed to have signed a contract on Dec. 13 in Tehran with Iranian officials for the Fath-360 and another ballistic missile system built by Iran's government-owned Aerospace Industries Organization (AIO) called the Ababil.