Latest news with #Russian-related
Reuters
17-04-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Russia threatens Germany's Wintershall Dea with 7.5 bln euro fine, news agencies report
MOSCOW, April 17 (Reuters) - Russia's General Prosecutor's office has submitted a claim in a Moscow court against Germany's Wintershall Dea, threatening a fine of 7.5 billion euros ($8.5 billion) in case it pursues international arbitration, news agencies reported on Thursday. The Moscow Arbitration Court's website showed a claim against the company, as well as Aurelius Cotta, a law firm specialised in international arbitration, and three international arbiters, without disclosing details. The Reuters Power Up newsletter provides everything you need to know about the global energy industry. Sign up here. A spokesperson for Wintershall Dea in Germany said: "We have heard of the claim through the media. Please understand that we will not comment on the matter." Britain's Harbour Energy (HBR.L), opens new tab last year acquired most of Wintershall Dea's exploration and production activities except some assets, most notably the group's Russian-related activities and its 15.5% stake in the defunct Nord Stream 1 pipeline. Wintershall Dea's exit from Russia, announced over Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, was an uneasy process. Under Russian decrees from December 2023, Wintershall Dea's stakes in the Yuzhno-Russkoye oil and gas condensate field and in the Achimov gas projects were reverted to newly-created Russian companies and offered for sale to Gazovyye Tekhnologii, formalising the loss of control that BASF ( opens new tab and Wintershall Dea had flagged since January 2023. The company had initiated arbitration proceedings against Russia, which had repeatedly protested against such cases, saying they should have been considered only in Russian courts. ($1 = 0.8794 euros)
Russia Today
13-03-2025
- Business
- Russia Today
Investors betting on Russian return to Western markets
Investors are quietly betting that US President Donald Trump's recent initiatives to negotiate a peace deal in the Ukraine conflict could lead to Russia's return to Western financial markets, Bloomberg reported on Thursday. The US and its allies have slapped numerous rounds of sanctions on Moscow since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. Russia has been cut off from Western investments and its largest stock exchange has been sanctioned. In recent weeks, traders at a London brokerage have been seeking to buy Russian securities, an asset largely avoided over the past three years, Bloomberg reported. Their focus has been on buying dollar-denominated bonds issued by Russian energy giant Gazprom. Investors are speculating that heavily discounted Russian securities could surge in value if Ukraine-related sanctions imposed on Moscow are lifted, the outlet stated. Investors 'understand that as soon as there's a thaw, these discounts will collapse,' Iskander Lutsko, Dubai-based head of research and portfolio management at Istar Capital, told Bloomberg. Money managers report that sales teams are assessing interest in staking on the ruble through non-deliverable forwards (NDFs), a financial derivative that allows investors to bet on a currency's future value without actual exchange. By not involving physical Russian assets or individuals, they remain outside the scope of current sanctions. Major US investment banks Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase have reportedly been brokering ruble-linked derivative contracts to meet growing investor interest in Russian-related assets. 'There's an aggressive search for securities of Russian issuers around the world,' Evgeny Kogan, a Moscow-based investment banker, told Bloomberg. 'Investors in general are asking how quickly they can enter the Russian market.' According to the report, Russia's potential reintegration into the Western financial system could unlock hundreds of billions of dollars.
Bloomberg
05-03-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Goldman, JPMorgan Among Banks Offering More Russia-Linked Trades
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are among banks that have been acting as brokers to facilitate growing investor demand for ways to trade Russian-related assets. Both banks have reached out to investors in recent weeks offering ruble-linked derivative contracts — a trade that's allowed under Western sanctions because there's no physical Russian asset and it doesn't involve any Russian nationals, according to people familiar with the matter.
Yahoo
03-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘Putin Is on the Inside': Shock as U.S. Caves to Russia in Cybersecurity Fight
The White House is reportedly dropping Russia from its list of threats to cybersecurity and is instead honing in on China, part of the Trump administration's apparent broader effort to curry favor with the Kremlin and push for a peace deal that would end the country's ongoing war in Ukraine. According to The Guardian, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has received a new list of directives that largely omit Russia as a threat to monitor. Part of the Department of Homeland Security, CISA monitors cyber threats made to the United States. These directives were listed out in a memo, which singled out China and the protection of local systems as priorities, according to the newspaper. The document, however, failed to mention Russia—despite the country previously being a seminal focus at the agency. A source familiar with the matter who spoke to the outlet on the condition of anonymity said agency analysts were verbally told to not follow or report on Russian threats, adding that a 'Russian-related' project was consequently 'nixed.' 'Russia and China are our biggest adversaries. With all the cuts being made to different agencies, a lot of cybersecurity personnel have been fired. Our systems are not going to be protected and our adversaries know this,' the source told The Guardian. 'People are saying Russia is winning. Putin is on the inside now,' they continued. Another source who had worked on highly classified US joint task forces to monitor and combat Russian cyber threats additionally told The Guardian that the recent developments were 'truly shocking.' 'There are thousands of US government employees and military working daily on the massive threat Russia poses as possibly the most significant nation state threat actor. Not to diminish the significance of China, Iran or North Korea, but Russia is at least on par with China as the most significant cyber threat,' the source told the outlet. 'There are dozens of discrete Russia state-sponsored hacker teams dedicated to either producing damage to US government, infrastructure and commercial interests or conducting information theft with a key goal of maintaining persistent access to computer systems,' they added. In a statement to the Daily Beast, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said: 'The memo referenced in the Guardian's 'reporting' is not from the Trump Administration, which is quite inconvenient to the Guardian's preferred narrative. 'CISA remains committed to addressing all cyber threats to U.S. critical infrastructure, including from Russia. There has been no change in our posture or priority on this front.' The New York Times additionally reports that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the U.S. Cyber Command to stop 'offensive operations' against Russia. Citing a current and two former officials familiar with the discussions, the outlet reports Hegseth's instructions were issued before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's disastrous visit to the White House on Friday and seem to be part of a larger effort to invite Russia into peace talks. The Office of the Secretary of Defense did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast's request for comment.
Yahoo
11-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
U.S., Australia and Britain sanction Zservers for supporting ransomware
Feb. 11 (UPI) -- The U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday announced a joint effort with Britain and Australia to sanction a Russian-based Internet hosting provider for supporting ransomware operations. The nations sanctioned Zservers for its role in supporting global ransomware outfits like LockBit, which has forced billions from American companies to regain access to their networks. LockBit was responsible for the November 2023 attack against the Industrial Commercial Bank of China U.S. broker-dealer. Zservers and other so-called bulletproof hosting services, or BPH, are used to evade detection and law enforcement while breaking into computer infrastructures. "Ransomware actors and other cybercriminals rely on third-party network service providers like Zservers to enable their attacks on U.S. and international critical infrastructure," Bradley Smith, the Treasury's acting under-secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence said. "Today's trilateral action with Australia and the United Kingdom underscores our collective resolve to disrupt all aspects of this criminal ecosystem, wherever located, to protect our national security." Headquartered in Barnaul, Russia, Zservers has built a reputation as a safe haven for cybercriminals to evade law enforcement investigators. Through that time, the servers provided the means for ransomware attacks in the United States and other countries. U.S. officials accuse Zservers of subleasing IP addresses and running the programming interface malware used by LockBit and other Russian-related cybercriminals. Zservers likely ran ransomware attacks to continue by assigning new IP addresses to Lockbit users.
