Recent Russia research

	RUSSIA MONITOR: Pension reform and the Moscow Exchange, 10 May 2013
	UPDATE: Russian privatization: Rumours of its death are exaggerated, Christopher Granville, Irina Lebedeva, CFA, Jan Cleave, 7 May 2013

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Previous blog posts

	The Rosneft-BP alliance and foreign investment charm offensive, 16 Jan 2011
	The Khodorkovsky trial outcome and Putin anger management, 13 Jan 2011

Russian election notes: 1996 and all that

23 Feb 2012

There has been a sensation following President Medvedev’s meeting with opposition leaders on 20 February. Medvedev is reported to have said at that meeting that Boris Yeltsin’s victory in the 1996 presidential election was falsified. By no means simply an historical curiosity, this claim is highly relevant to understanding present-day political risk.

Two of the politicians present at the 20 February meeting – to which the leaders of the marginal and, in some cases, radical parties were invited, as opposed to the “establishment” opposition represented in the Duma – have since...

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Russian election notes: Back to the fiscal-oil price risk

17 Feb 2012

Sifting through this week’s Russian election-related headlines from the point of view of investment risks, we identified a clear economic highlight – one that has to do with fiscal policy.

The story came into focus on 13 February, with the publication of the latest installment – on social policy – of Vladimir Putin’s election platform. The centre-piece is a promise to hike salaries in education and healthcare. Putin himself costed this commitment at 1.5 per cent of GDP. Sberbank economists have since put the number a little lower, at 1.23 per cent of GDP by 2018, with an aggregate...

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Gas sector reform breakthrough – good news for Russian oil companies

9 Feb 2011

15 months ago, we predicted a demonopolization of the domestic gas market as a big investment theme in the Russian energy sector (A new reason to buy Russian oil stocks). I had expected the corresponding policy moves to start materializing in 2010. What actually happened last year was a kind of prelude to proper structural reform. This took the form of Igor Sechin (Putin’s right-hand man and the deputy premier responsible for energy policy) using companies in his orbit – Novatek and Inter RAO – to soften up Gazprom’s domestic monopoly.

Novatek has always had a special relationship...

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Domodedovo explosion: What is to be done?

25 Jan 2011

“That suicide bomber in Domodedovo was trying to kill people like me.” This thought must be uppermost in the minds of international financial and business types who fly frequently to Moscow on the European airlines which increasingly use Domodedovo – especially as the bomber’s 4.30pm timing was obviously set to “meet” the main flights from Western Europe with his lethal and mutilating shrapnel-laden blast. My own mind is certainly concentrated by the fact that but for the last-minute postponement of a meeting, I would myself have been flying into Domodedovo yesterday. Emotions rarely...

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