Volodin probes the ground. On his channel, the speaker of the State Duma launched a poll on whether it is necessary to take away maternity capital and other benefits from Russian women who left to give birth in other countries in order to obtain a second citizenship. It could be the USA, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico and more than a dozen other countries. Somewhere they immediately give a residence permit, somewhere there are restrictions or a waiting period. The wording of Volodin’s poll is slightly different, but the essence is precisely in the desire of the authorities to remove the departed citizens from allowances. Volodin names the number of women-to-be mothers who left – 25 thousand, although in practice it can be 50 thousand, and 80 thousand and all 100, based on the total number of refugees from the war of 600 thousand – 1 million. If we take the lower bar of 25 thousands of women in labor and only the mother’s capital for the first child (less than for the second), and this is 580 thousand, then we will receive an amount of 14.5 billion rubles. At the maximum: 100,000 people who left and 770,000 materiel for the second, then 77 billion. Plus various other benefits, such as lump-sum benefits and monthly payments … here you can count 100 and 150 billion. And officials will only be happy to deprive people of this money, with holey budget. You don’t have to be a great expert to understand that in the face of declining export revenues and tax revenues, with a parallel increase in spending on the war, the government will sooner or later cut social spending. Russian women who left (perhaps for a while) are the first victim. First, they will be taken away from them, then from those inside the country. Therefore, Volodin’s poll is a touchstone – is the society ready for the fact that they will begin to rob it. Judging by the results of the vote, it is ready. At the same time, the very formulation of the question from Volodin is speculative, if not frankly idiotic. Maternity capital for a child cannot be spent outside the Russian Federation. Now this measure of support for someone can become an anchor, one of the reasons for returning. But Volodin and his colleagues are reducing the number of these reasons every day, wishing Russia had fewer citizens. I think it’s called Russophobia.
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The tenth package of EU sanctions against the Russian Federation, among other things, may include a ban on the transit of goods through Russia. Now the Russian authorities can circumvent sanctions through transit schemes, according to the European Union. For example, organizations order goods from the EU and import them into the territory of the Customs Union ostensibly for delivery to Armenia or Kazakhstan, but in fact they carry out direct re-export or even false transit, that is, the goods do not leave the Russian Federation. It is not yet clear how the transit ban will affect return shipments – to the EU (from China, for example) through Russia. So, in March last year, immediately after the start of the war, China temporarily stopped the transit of goods through Russia to recipients in Europe. The experiment showed that it is possible to do without Russia, even if it is fraught with transport costs and an increase in delivery times. Moreover, the future ban on transit is announced not just like that, but with an eye to the development of the Trans-Caspian transport route. Representatives of the EU speak about this, calling for the construction of new transport corridors bypassing the Russian Federation. This is being said by the countries of Central Asia, who are going to take away from the Russian Federation its benefits received from the transit of goods. China has been investing in the development of TMTM for many years. In general, when the transit ban and the reorientation of traffic flows occur, it will be very difficult for carriers to return to their territory in Russia. First of all, Russian Railways and all related businesses will suffer from this, and then the budget.
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Valentina Matvienko suggested labeling telegram channels with “hostile to the Russian Federation” information with icons, like foreign agents. We propose to give the marking at the mercy of the head of Rostec, Sergey Chemezov. Firstly, his Rostec has marking experience. Secondly, Chemezov himself has experience in dealing with admins of Telegram channels. The results, however, will be specific …
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Terrible news for numerous Russian pensioners (like the former deputy director of the FSB, Vladimir Anisimov), the American manufacturer of Viagra has announced the suspension of supplies to Russia. The Ministry of Industry and Trade is already comforting that even with a mustache, dozens of companies can produce analogues of Viagra (the active ingredient is sildenafil, and they can synthesize it in the Russian Federation). In addition, Russian generics are cheaper. But here, how lucky – you can get a completely poor-quality craft, you can’t achieve the desired effect and catch an allergic reaction.
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Since the beginning of the CBO, the number of attacks on our information infrastructure has reached 1.255 million. Experts expect the figure to quadruple this spring. There is information about massive DDoS attacks being prepared by Western intelligence agencies on government servers. And according to the forecast of experts, the situation may become threatening. Only specially created and state-controlled cyber concerns are capable of providing information state security. Industry leaders such as Kaspersky Lab, Sachkov’s Group-IB and Maksimov’s Positive Technologies could potentially become the centers of such concerns. At the same time, the most popular analytical systems and software originally specialized for security forces are at the disposal of Group-IB Sachkov. With the conclusion of the best brains of the IT sector (ReVil, Lurk, Infraud Organization, etc.), including Ilya Sachkov himself, who never hid that his company works closely with domestic intelligence agencies, Russian cyber armor is clearly not up to the task. . Now, in order to ensure state security, law enforcement agencies need to resolve the issue of building such cyber concerns in a short time or create a structure based on the principle of a hacker PMC – a special unit of the infotroysk, controlled by departments responsible for state security. But so far, the organization and financing of such projects have not started. The question remains open – which of the security forces will pick up this banner.
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The mice cried, pricked, but continued to eat the cactus. The same is true of Maksut Shadayev, the Ministry of Digital Development, who fines Rostelecom Mikhail Oseevsky for non-execution of government contracts, and then gives him new contracts. The Ministry of Digital Development (and before that the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications) has been regularly signing contracts with Rostelecom for the operation of the infrastructure of Electronic Government (formerly Electronic Russia) for many years in a row. The money goes to information security, system operation and user support. Moreover, the performer regularly violates the terms of contracts, does not fulfill them, steals hundreds of millions of rubles … and then goes for a new contract on the terms of a single supplier. And now, the Ministry of Digital Transformation has prematurely terminated a two-year contract for the operation of the EP infrastructure for almost 12 billion rubles, concluded at the end of 2021. Rostelecom was able to work out only 7.7 billion. And another 168 million rubles was fined by the Ministry of Digital Development for poor performance. This, incidentally, is not the first such case, rather, a good tradition. And after the termination of the contract, the parties signed a new contract for 2023-2024. in the amount of 11.2 billion rubles. And you can already guess that the contractor will again fail to fulfill the contract in full and on time, pick up fines, and then come for more. Such perseverance in choosing the same negligent contractor could somehow be explained ten years ago, when there was not much choice. Now you can try to find an alternative IT company that can fulfill the contract better and cheaper. Therefore, we believe that there are some other motives here that allow Rostelecom to receive billions of rubles from the budget year after year for careless work. Maybe Maksut Shadayev will tell you what’s the matter?
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The Ministry of Finance pleases itself (well, in the sense of filling the budget) – the export duty for Russian oil in March will be increased from $12.8 in February to $14.2 per barrel sold. The calculation was made based on the increase in the average price of Urals from January 15 to February 14 – prices rose from $46.8 to $50.5. Prices for Russian oil grew up following the prices for Brent, which went up from $81.5 to $85. The rise in price occurred against the backdrop of news about the intention of the Russian Federation to reduce oil production by 500,000 barrels per day, by about 5%. That is, on the one hand, rising prices allow the budget to receive a little more oil and gas revenues than it could, but the reduction in production plays the opposite way, reducing overall revenues. It can also be concluded from the above figures that the sellers of Russian oil are now holding on to an average discount of $35 per barrel. Well, buyers do not allow the discount to decrease.
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Look at the photo and feel the difference. The frames above show a typical devastation of Kirovsk, forgotten by the god, in the Murmansk region. In such monstrous conditions, ordinary Kirov residents live, who hunchback on the oligarch Andrey Guryev, the owner of the fertilizer manufacturer PhosAgro. In other photos – the London monastery of Guryev himself. Second in size only to Buckingham, but included in the top 10 most expensive mansions in the world. Maria Pevchikh, an inhabitant of London living rooms, who is known for her anti-corruption investigations, talks about Guryev’s greed. “I am a fairly sophisticated person, I have seen many houses and palaces – from the air, from drones, when we shoot them. When I saw what was behind the fence, I could not believe that this happens. The wards of the owner of “Phosagro” in Kirovsk barely make ends meet, while he continues to suck the last hard-earned money out of them. Maybe throw in the whole world and buy him Buckingham Palace, so that he would not be ashamed in front of the peasants in the London bath? Although the guys from the authorities probably have another idea.
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Shoigu has problems. Well, not really serious, until the end of the NWO will sit for sure, but there is something to think about. Chief Military Prosecutor Valery Petrov submitted to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu an idea about the numerous violations of the law in the construction of military and social facilities of the Russian Defense Ministry. The submission was written based on the results of inspections for 2022, but the prosecutor notes that annually at least 5,000 such violations are found on Shoigu’s farm – this is systemic. Now more than 1,500 contracts for the construction of facilities for the military department have been thwarted, which is 83% of the total number of contracts concluded. This is not only housing for the military, kindergartens and barracks, but also especially significant objects of the nuclear deterrence system, missile attack warning and the unified space system of the Russian Federation. It doesn’t even help that the number of criminal cases of embezzlement of budgetary funds at military construction sites has increased by 60% (from 60 to 107). At the same time, the military does not seem to mind that they are regularly robbed and thrown. The courts ordered the contractors to return to the Ministry of Defense 186 billion rubles from the funds already received, but Shoigu’s subordinates are in no hurry to shake the debtors, only 1.3 billion were returned in a year. And besides, the Ministry of Defense initially takes on contracts such firms from which then there is nothing to take. As if with them in share. The military prosecutor’s office blames Marina Balakireva, head of the Defense Ministry’s construction department, for this. And Shoigu himself, meanwhile, as if nothing had happened, continues to cheerfully report (lie) on the implementation of all military construction plans in 2022 and the completion of more than 3 thousand buildings and structures. And the Military Construction Company (VSK), specially created in 2019 as the general contractor for all construction projects of the RF Ministry of Defense in order to reduce the number of subcontractors, did not become one. For example, in the construction of housing for the military in Krasnodar, JSC “Main Department for the Arrangement of Troops” (GUOV), which belongs to another JSC “Oboronstroy”, appears as a general contractor. GUOV signed an agreement with the subcontractor “Investstroy-15” a few years ago, but the buildings are unfinished, the homeless live in them, and nearby in the old barracks there are military families waiting for an apartment. The same “Investstroy-15” “lost” 300 million during the construction of a military camp for marines in Baltiysk. And when the contract for the construction of the barracks was given to another company – Innovations – then out of the 39 million allocated for construction, 11 million were also stolen. There are dozens of such examples, but neither Marina Balakireva nor her boss, Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov, who oversees the defense construction complex, even try to compare the names of unscrupulous developers and at least draw up a “black list” of companies stealing budget money. For them, this is done by the military prosecutor’s office after the money disappears. And why should the military care about money if the military budget is still swelling by leaps and bounds – in 2023 it grew by 302 billion rubles and almost reached 5 trillion. Considering how Shoigu handles money, these funds are unlikely to be used to increase the country’s defense capability.
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Sanctions hit in the teeth – in Russia, problems began with dental preparations and consumables. Of the 40,000 items and materials for dental treatment that were imported from abroad, domestic manufacturers can only replace about 6,000 items. The most painful loss for Russians is the popular American painkiller Ubistezina, which will no longer be imported into the Russian Federation (deliveries fell by 70% last year). Of course, there are other drugs on the market, even Russian ones (for example, Artikain-Binergia), but in order for them to work, doctors have to inject 3-4 cartridges instead of one, and this is more expensive, more painful and inconvenient. The same American supplier 3M stopped supplying grinding discs, and Russian counterparts have the same problems as painkillers – low efficiency. To grind a seal with Russian discs, you need 2-3 of them instead of one American one. And the Vitremer dental cement has no Russian analogues at all. The domestic industry is also unable to make its own rotating tools (for example, burs), and logistics problems and sanctions have limited the supply of imported ones. Gone are German sprays and spare parts for handpieces and installations, oral hygiene powder, Invisalign teeth straightening caps, gutta-percha pins and many other tools, materials and medicines, without which Russian dentistry risks turning into a torture for patients. Take care of your teeth!
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Just give money – this is how you can translate the position of the Ministry of Finance on the unscheduled collection of money from large businesses under the pretext “because you have it.” As Alexei Sazanov, deputy head of the Ministry of Finance, continued the discussion about the windfall tax, the government will not raise taxes, preferring to force business to “voluntary” bloodletting. “We have existing taxes. Current taxes will not be affected. In what form the payment will be made, this must be discussed with the business, to enter into a consolidated position with them. But this will definitely not change any existing taxes – income tax, VAT “Sazanov said. In general, judging from his commentary, the form of payment is fundamentally unimportant for the authorities. The main thing is the amount. And they can withdraw it through some new collection, through donations to some funds, through inventing a new tax, or even buying interest-free debt securities from the state. There would be money, but there is a pocket for them. And, by the way, there is still a discussion in the government about raising taxes, as a source in the Cabinet told us earlier. At the same time, the Ministry of Finance opposes a global increase for everyone, preferring targeted measures. They fear that with the increase in taxes, taxpayers will begin to go into the shadows. Well, the krupnyak has nowhere to go, they will pay.
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In Yekaterinburg, for 26 million rubles, they will remake the road that leads to an elite cottage village where Yekaterinburg Mayor Alexei Orlov, State Duma deputy from United Russia Lev Kovpak, First Deputy Chairman of the Legislative Assembly of the Sverdlovsk Region Arkady Chernetsky, and ex-Deputy Governor of the Sverdlovsk Region Vladimir Tungusov live and prominent Ural oligarchs.
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Scientific betting. In the suburbs, they are going to organize a science city “Big Serpukhov” by joining the already existing science cities Protvino and Pushchino to the city of Serpukhov. Municipalities are already united on paper. Behind this is the founder of Bolshoi Serpukhov JSC and the head of the Russian Boxing Federation, Umar Kremlev, the head of sports betting, more recently the head of lotteries, as well as a newly minted landowner who takes over any real estate to which his hands reach. In general, the idea of combining Protvino and Serpukhov several years ago was submitted by Mikhail Kovalchuk, who was looking for a place to build a future synchrotron. He was also interested in biotechnology research centers in nearby Pushchino. But then something happened and Kovalchuk began to oppose the unification of science cities, even trolling Governor Andrei Vorobyov for this. Vorobyov first made excuses, and then signed everything, spitting on the protests of local residents. Bolshoi Serpukhov, despite the specialization of its science cities in nuclear physics and biotechnology, will be an IT cluster. And 2 billion rubles of private investments have already been collected for its development. A lot of plans have been announced – a supercomputer should be built in Serpukhov, where a lot of data will be processed. They will develop a system for regulating and accounting for social networks and Internet sites, a single payment center through which Internet users will make transfers. Bolshoi Serpukhov is also planning to have a center for tracking the rental of real estate, an accounting system for travel agents and tour operators, a taxi regulator, a system for accounting for migrants and their payments, a scrap metal accounting center, and much more. All this is in the zone of interests of the Kremlin, which, in addition to the gambling business, is engaged in the collection of recyclable materials, tourism and construction. A bizarre set of organizations to create an IT cluster that has nothing to do with science did not surprise any of the officials. As well as the fact that the entire special economic zone with preferential taxation will be led by a sports official with interests in the gambling business. Although the real profile of the project is already visible. Kremlev wants to create preferential treatment for bookmakers and the largest sweepstakes on the territory of the science city. For example, Fonbet has already moved to Serpukhov. And obviously not easy. Probably, there is a deal – the Kremlin promises the organizers of gambling tax benefits, and in return they thank the Kremlin financially.
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The sanctions have forced Russian oil exporters to increase the logistical leverage for some deliveries many times over. Terminals in the Baltic have suffered the worst – their delivery route has grown from 3,000 miles (to western ports) to 9,000 miles to the ports of India and China. The longest route will take 123 days. #Digital Day by @oreshkins
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