span style=”font-weight:bold;”Guardian Unlimited/spanbr /br /By Jason Corcoranbr /br /span style=”font-style:italic;”Vladimir Putin’s denial that he is a ‘billionaire-slayer’ looks increasingly unconvincing/spanbr /br /The Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin will have raised someeyebrows amongst west London’s oligarchical clique by rebuffing his image as “a billionaire-slayer”.br /br /Putin has been wielding his power to lance the ambition of aspirational tycoons for almost a decade and is showing no signs of stopping now. In an interview with Bloomberg, the Russian leader insisted the country’s rules and laws are a level playing field for all of its citizens.br /br /Well, tell that to jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who haslanguished in a Siberian prison since 2005 on back-dated charges of tax evasion in what many viewed as an attempt to silence a political opponent. A court rejected Khodorkovsky’s parole request last year, citing reasons such as a refusal to take part in a sewing course.br …

strongFinancial News/strongbr /br /Jason Corcoran br /br /emLetter from Moscow - January 4, 2009/embr /br /Letters to Father Frost, the Russian equivalent of Santa Claus, have been stacking up well ahead of the Orthodox Christmas Day on January 7.br /br /This year, the postal service in Moscow’s Kuzminki district reported an unusually high level of correspondence from adults who wish for a new job or help with meeting credit payments.br /br /However, grown-ups looking for personal bailouts may be better served popping a letter in the mail to Vnesheconombank, the state development bank, which has come to prominence during the financial crisis as the Kremlin’s main piggy bank.br /br /VEB, which traces its genesis back to the October 1917 revolution, was originally responsible for managing Soviet-era debt. It was transformed two years ago into a development agency to spearhead efforts to diversify Russia’s economy but has only recently come to ...

Russia's long-term sovereign credit rating outlook was lowered yesterday (Thursday) - to negative - by Standard & Poor's Ratings Services due to their assessment that the cost of the government's "bank rescue operation'' may increase. S&P cut their outlook from stable, a move which reflects the increased probability of a downgrade at some point in the future. Russia has committed as much as 15 percent of gross domestic product in budgetary and reserve funds to maintain banking liquidity, according to calculations made by the rating agency. At the same time S&P affirmed Russia's BBB+ long-term foreign currency and the A- long-term local currency ratings and the short-term ratings of A-2.``We expect Russian corporate and financial sector default rates to increase asdebtors' access to official funds will vary,'' S&P said in the statement.``Other uncertainties remain regarding what the economic policy response will ...

Financial News Jason Corcoran21 July 2008 Letter from MoscowMarathon queues, stony-faced immigration officials, lost baggage and creaking infrastructure may soon be a thing of the past at Moscow’s main international airport, Sheremetyevo.The airport, which hasn’t altered much since the Soviet era, is sprucing itself up and trying to improve its image as it prepares for a possible flotation.Travellers no longer have to face up to three hours snarled in traffic on the Leningradsky highway into the city following the introduction last month of a direct rail link.State-run Russian railway operator RZD invested more than $200m in the project, an amount matched by private investors. The public-private partnership is thought to be the biggest of its kind in Russia. The shuttle train into central Moscow will depart from the new business district know as Moscow City, ...