Kremlin Lashes Out At West, Defends Troop Movements, As It Boosts Role In Belarus-EU Border Crisis

Map of Belarus and Environs, adapted from images at cia.gov

The Kremlin has vowed to safeguard its borders in the face of actions by countries it accused of trying to “contain” Russia and sought to walk back a Belarusian threat of a cutoff of Russian natural gas to Western markets […]

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War-Weary Ukraine Shutters Cash-Starved Banks as Trust Falls

Maidan Square in Kiev, Ukraine

(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Volodymyr Verbyany, Andras Gergely – June 12, 2015) When Vasyl Klos plunked $9,000 into a bank branch in his hometown of Lviv, Ukraine, in 2013, he assumed it was safe because it was German owned. He was wrong. Bank Forum JSC had already been sold by Commerzbank AG to Ukrainian businessman Vadim Novinsky, a fact Klos […]

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Fight between Ukraine’s government and oligarchs embroils largest lender Privatbank

Maidan Square in Kiev, Ukraine

(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Graham Stack in Kyiv – April 1, 2015) The war between Ukraine’s government and the oligarchs has reached into the fragile banking system, as the central bank felt moved to reassure depositors in Privatbank, the country’s largest, after allies of President Petro Poroshenko made murder allegations regarding its owner, Ihor Kolomoisky. The National Bank […]

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