How North Korea became Russia’s ally Paid Members Public
North Korea continues to support Russia almost a year after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Kim Yo-Jong, sister of the country’s leader Kim Jong-un and a senior figure in the country’s ruling Workers’ Party, promised last month that Pyongyang would always “stand in the same trench as the
Kremlin looks to squeeze cash from oil companies Paid Members Public
The Russian authorities continue their efforts to balance the books: after demanding funds from big business, they are now looking at oil companies. In particular, the Finance Ministry is changing the way it calculates taxes for oil companies. Instead of relying on prices from energy agency Argus, which currently shows
Russia to issue foreign books as ‘summaries’ amid Western boycott Paid Members Public
International isolation is making life tough for Russian businesses that earn money from content — movies, games and books. As a result of refusals by Western companies to license their content for Russia amid the war in Ukraine, movie theaters are either swapping Hollywood releases for Russian titles or coming up
Piracy workarounds Paid Members Public
Hello! This week our top story is about how Russian publishers are to issue “summaries” instead of Western non-fiction books to which they don’t have the rights. We also look at the Finance Ministry’s plans to squeeze more cash out of Russian oil companies and whether Russia and
Russia’s ‘new formula’ to increase tax revenue from oil exporters Paid Members Public
The Russian authorities continue their efforts to balance the books: after demanding funds from big businesses, they are now looking at oil companies. In particular, the Finance Ministry is changing the way it calculates taxes for oil companies. Instead of relying on prices from energy agency Argus, which currently shows
Kremlin looks to squeeze oil companies for cash Paid Members Public
Hello! This is Alexandra Prokopenko with your weekly guide to the Russian economy — brought to you by The Bell. In today’s newsletter, we’ll look in depth at how Russia wants to get more tax from oil exporters — and why these companies might be making more money than many
Former Russian governor gets record jail term for organizing murders Paid Members Public
Former Russian Governor Sergei Furgal was sentenced last week to 22 years in a high-security penal colony. A jury convicted him of organizing two murders and an attempted murder in 2004-2005. Furgal became one of the 34 Russian regional heads and 19 serving governors to be prosecuted in post-Soviet Russia
A regulator leak helps us understand how censorship works on the Russian internet Paid Members Public
Last week, several Russian publications (1, 2, 3) published analyses of a leak of working files and internal communications from Russia’s main Radio Frequency Center, the de facto executive arm of state communications watchdog Roskomnadzor. The center was attacked by Belarusian hackers back in November, but Roskomnadzor played down
