NEWS FROM RUSSIA: January 28, 2024

Edward’s weekly Russia-related news roundup & open thread

EDWARD SLAVSQUAT

JAN 28

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A Yandex delivery bot. Photo credit: News.ru

Welcome to Edward Slavsquat’s weekly Russian media news roundup and open thread-thing. Feel free to share your own URLs in the comments section.

The quote of the week:

This is a funnel from which there is no exit.

— Anatoly Nesmiyan on a proposed bill that would allow authorities to confiscate property and other valuables from Russian citizens convicted of “discrediting the army and the work of government agencies”. The draft law passed its first reading in the State Duma on January 24.

And now for some news.

Economy

The total income of Russian agricultural exporters from the sale of grain crops to China increased by 3.7 times in 2023 compared to the previous year, reaching almost $325 million. [Lenta.ru]
The main legal entity of the Yandex company came under the control of a Russian owner registered in Kaliningrad. MCAO Yandex became the owner of 99.999% in Yandex LLC. The remaining 0.001% belongs to the non-profit Public Interest Foundation. Previously, the main owner was the Dutch company Yandex NV. [News.ru]
Total investments in the construction of renewable energy sources (RES) in Russia at the end of 2023 amounted to 600 billion rubles. [TASS]
Banks in Myanmar began to connect to the Financial Message Transmission System (SPFS), the Russian analogue of the SWIFT system. [News.ru]
The total volume of installment plans and POS loans (loans issued in a store or on the seller’s website, without visiting a bank) issued through the Tinkoff Credit Broker service amounted to 100.5 billion rubles in 2023, which is 76% more than a year earlier, the company said in a statement. [Tinkoff]
Migrants from North Korea, Vietnam and Kenya have been invited to work in Russia. [media-mig.ru]

“Public Health”

Russia’s healthcare system is ready for the hypothetical threat posed by “Disease X”, Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said. [RBC]
Russia will begin vaccinating citizens en masse with a four-component flu vaccine by 2025, according to a top scientist at Rospotrebnadzor. [TASS]
The Moscow Department of Health has amended a new order requiring selective audio monitoring in clinics, the department’s press service reported. The data will be stored separately from electronic medical records and will not be kept for more than a month. [Vedomosti]
Coronavirus will continue to mutate but has lost its “pandemic potential”, according to Gennady Onishchenko, a top epidemiologist and deputy president of the Russian Academy of Education. [TASS]
Scientists from Russia and Belarus are developing a “Covid blocker”. [TASS]
Artificial intelligence is being used in medicine in all regions of Russia (excluding new regions where the necessary infrastructure is still being formed), according to Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko. He explained that AI is currently used to interpret x-rays and assist with making diagnoses based on medical records. [RIA Novosti]

Ukraine

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has officially approved Turkey’s ratification of Sweden’s NATO membership. [Free Press]
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova condemned NATO’s decision to hold the largest joint drills since the end of the Cold War. Zakharova described the exercises as a provocation and pointed to Moscow’s “constant calls for de-escalation”. [Izvestia]
Russian President Vladimir Putin called for the formation of a new elite made up of veterans of the special military operation in Ukraine. [URA.ru]
Humanitarian aid for SMO participants collected by volunteers in Samara was discovered in landfill between Rostov and Donetsk. [63.ru]
Gazprom is supplying gas to Europe via Ukraine in the amount of 42 million cubic meters per day, the Russian energy major disclosed on January 28. [TASS]
Russia will have to make changes to its logistics chains if Ukraine refuses to renew its gas transit contract with Gazprom at the end of 2024, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said. [News.ru]
The Kremlin said that the “fight against extremist sentiments” is one of the goals of the special military operation in Ukraine. [Lenta.ru]
Daria Trepova was sentenced to 27 years in prison for the assassination of popular Russian military correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky. [Fontanka]
Russian President Vladimir Putin said there are more than 600,000 Russian servicemembers currently participating in the special military operation in Ukraine. [Free Press]
Ukraine has confirmed that 65 Ukrainian soldiers were on a plane that crashed in the Belgorod region. Moscow claims the IL-76 was shot down by the Ukrainian military. [Nakanune]
An appeal is being prepared after Igor Strelkov was sentenced to four years in prison for extremism, Strelkov’s wife said in a message posted on Telegram. [Telegram]

Society

The West intends to start a revolution in Russia, said the director of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergei Naryshkin, in an interview. [RBC]
Robots will be able to replace humans in the future, and people should be wary of the development of progress in such a scenario, warned Chairman of VEB.RF Igor Shuvalov. He added that the Covid pandemic demonstrated that people do not always behave rationally. “We can only rely on the minds of individual leaders. [Chinese President] Xi Jinping is smart, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is smart, but this does not mean that all of humanity was able to assess all the risks and resist future pandemics by making the right decisions,” he said. [TASS]
A courier from a competing company rescued a Yandex delivery robot that got stuck in a snowdrift on the way to an order in Moscow. [News.ru]
The level of gasification in Russia increased by 0.8% in 2023. Almost 74% of the country now has access to gas. [Interfax]
Chief Rabbi of Russia Berel Lazar said South Africa’s UN lawsuit against Israel for genocide in Palestine was a “wrong” step. In his opinion, Israel has the right to defend itself. [RIA Novosti]
Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko are expected to approve new integration programs for 2024–2026 during a meeting of the Supreme State Council of the Union State in Moscow on Monday. [Regnum]