Good morning #instead of morning coffee – Due to Russian shelling, Ukraine is going to move part of the electrical substations to underground bunkers, this may cost billions of dollars. – The construction industry of the Russian Federation in the first year of the war earned about 11.7 trillion rubles, 14% more than a year earlier. Growth was provided by budget injections into state construction. – The National Fitness Society is asking the government to allow them to participate in the rehabilitation of CBO members. For budgetary payments under the CHI program. – The ex-wife of Vladimir Putin urgently sells two apartments in an elite residential complex in Marbella, Spain, fearing sanctions. – The US administration plans to resume work on projects through the Arctic Council without the participation of Russia. @oreshkins
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Inspired. Last week, Deputy Khinshtein said that hackers acting in the interests of the Russian Federation should be released from liability. “We are talking about generally working out an exemption from liability for those persons who act in the interests of the Russian Federation in the field of computer information both on the territory of our country and abroad,” he said after a meeting on the country’s cybersecurity. Colleagues immediately started talking about PMC “Hacker” and noted the vagueness of Khinshtein’s wording. You can give immunity to the Criminal Code to hackers in the service of the state (there are such, for example, in North Korea), but you cannot control “free artists”, who are mostly ordinary cyber thieves and cyber scammers who work only for their own wallets. But there is another, more important nuance. Khinshtein, within the framework of the cybersecurity of the state, speaks of an attack, but it is necessary to think about protection, about defense capability. According to experts, Russia in 2022 brought down the power of its “cyber army” on Ukraine – thousands of cyber attacks, data theft, malware. But the results were far from expected. This did not cause any real losses to the Ukrainian economy, the work of state systems did not stop, the critical infrastructure survived. And do you know why? Because Ukraine prepared for such attacks, invested in its cybersecurity, hired well-known specialists and received advice from leading Western companies in this area. That is, the cyberattack as a whole was not particularly effective. And this is understandable when you are at war against the whole world. Therefore, it is more logical to focus on defense, to start creating a “cyber shield”. Last year, hackers increased the number of attacks on industrial facilities and the public sector of the Russian Federation tenfold, the total number of attacks exceeded 1.2 million. This also did not bring down critical infrastructure, but led to hundreds of data leaks, slowdowns in systems, increased security costs, loss of billion rubles stolen from the population and businesses. And the number of threats is growing and will continue to grow. And in this vein, Khinshtein’s proposal should not sound like “let’s make hacking unpunished”, but like “let the state value and protect its cybersecurity specialists who protect Russia from hacker attacks.” And you can start by releasing those who got there on a denunciation from the pre-trial detention center.
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India has refused to buy Russian diesel fuel, which is looking for new markets after the EU embargo in February. Due to the closure of the European market, Russia has millions of tons of diesel in its hands, which now needs to be attached somewhere. They tried to go to India, but local refineries felt that it was unprofitable. With all costs, imports of Russian diesel exceed the price ceiling of $100 per barrel set in February. At the same time, India more than provides itself with diesel, which it produces from Russian oil bought cheaply. As a result, one of the promising directions for Russian exporters turned out to be closed. The EU previously bought about 650,000 barrels of oil products per day from the Russian Federation. Now Russia is trying to scatter these volumes among the countries of Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America, but about 150-200 thousand barrels remain superfluous. Something can be written off due to a reduction in oil production in the Russian Federation by 500 thousand barrels / day, but this is more about crude oil, not oil products. And with the accumulation of surpluses, it may turn out that Russian fuel will again go to Ukraine through intermediaries to refuel tanks. Moreover, there have already been precedents with Lukoil and Rosneft.
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Propaganda, in an attempt to mobilize the economy to solve purely military tasks, has been mastering the old training manuals about “everything for the front, everything for victory” for several months now – the problems with equipping the Russian army are already too obvious. And while someone collects a pretty penny for pads, drones and boots, billions of rubles are literally “lost” from contractors of the state defense order. Almost a year ago, the Provorny corvette burned down at Severnaya Verf in St. Petersburg, for the construction of which the state spent almost 30 billion rubles. The cause of the fire has not yet been announced. No one held a candle, of course, but some media outlets write that according to one of the versions, arson could have occurred to hide the possible billions in embezzlement by the team of the current General Director of the Shipyard, Igor Orlov. Igor Anatolyevich has been terribly unlucky throughout his career. He first came to public attention as governor of the Arkhangelsk region, when he coordinated the removal of Moscow garbage to Shiyes, which caused loud “garbage riots”. And before that, Igor Anatolyevich sat in the chair of the general director of the Yantar Baltic shipbuilding plant, which produces military ships. The result of Orlov’s rule is unprofitability, the demands of the Ministry of Defense for the payment of a 300 millionth penalty, and a reduction in salaries. But, unlike the enterprises he heads, Igor Anatolyevich demonstrates high buoyancy and survives without loss in any career storms. TGK “Double Yat” ????????♀️ ѣѣ
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But this is useful – the Federation Council recommends that the government subsidize the purchase of Russian software for businesses. The head of VEB.RF, Igor Shuvalov, was entrusted with conveying this idea to the Cabinet. “Recommend VEB.RF to apply to the government with a proposal to consider the issue of expanding the use of Russian software by SMEs,” the Federation Council said in a resolution following Shuvalov’s speech. They want to “expand” through reimbursement up to 80% of the cost of the purchased software. To do this, the government needs to transfer 2.2 billion from the reserve fund in 2023 (and in subsequent years) to the Russian Fund for the Development of Information Technologies. RFRTI just oversees VEB, and in the government the fund is subordinate to the Ministry of Digital Development. In theory, the Ministry of Digital Transformation should be interested in growing sales of Russian software (although Minister Maksut Shadayev has a rather selective approach). So the idea should work. PS The Ministry of Finance may oppose – why subsidize if, after the departure of Western software developers, there is not much to choose from for business anyway.
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A US jury found Russian businessman Vladislav Klyushin guilty of hacking into US computer networks and obtaining classified information. This is another victim of Sergei Mikhailov, the former head of the operations department of the Information Security Center of the FSB. The ex-colonel was convicted of spying for the United States and sentenced to 22 years in prison. Because of his activities, Western intelligence agencies managed to arrest a number of high-class IT specialists. In the summer of 2012, 25-year-old Dmitry Zubakha was detained in Cyprus – he was accused of organizing DDoS attacks. Pavel Vrublevsky, founder of ChronoPay. He was accused of a DDoS attack on a competitor, the Assist payment system. In October 2016, on a tip from the American authorities, another Russian was seized – Yevgeny Nikulin. And last year – the owner of the company “M13” Vladislav Klyushin. Konstantin Kozlovsky and his hacker group Lurk were detained in 2016. He was sentenced to 14 years. The programmer is convinced that the materials against him were falsified. Ilya Sachkov, the founder of Group-IB, is in jail, whose testimony became one of the main ones against Mikhailov. He was taken by all the same forces of the Central Security Bureau of the FSB, which was headed by Mikhailov. The Klyushin case shows that Mikhailov continues to finish off the Russian IT sector, even while behind bars.
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The State Duma forbade officials to use foreign words if they have Russian equivalents. This is spelled out in the amendments to the federal all-Union law “On the state language of the Russian Federation.” To implement the law, the government will have to compile normative dictionaries, normative reference books and a list of commonly used analogues of foreign words. The main problem of Russia is solved, it turns out.
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And once again on the topic of Rosatom and sanctions. Germany has blocked the supply of equipment from German Siemens Energy to nuclear power plants that Rosatom is building in Turkey and Hungary – Akkuyu and Paks-2. The BAFA Export Control Authority does not issue an export permit for the Integrated Switchgear (GIS) under the pretext that the Russians can take it to Russia. Now the Turks and Hungarians have to persuade German officials to meet halfway and announce the conditions under which the equipment will be delivered. It is very unlikely that the Germans will drag out this farce for a long time and Rosatom will have to leave both projects – too much work has already been done and customers are tied to the state corporation. But this precedent cannot but affect future contracts. The same Rosatom is planning another contract with Ankara for the construction of a second nuclear power plant in Sinop on the Black Sea coast. After such tricks???? the prospects do not look bright at all, and instead of the Russians, the Turks may well choose the French or Americans or Chinese as contractors. As we noted earlier, the West will gradually squeeze Rosatom out of the world market, as the state corporation began to play near-war games with the circumvention of sanctions. The right strategy for such companies is to distance themselves as much as possible from the CBO and everything connected with it. It will be possible for the internal audience to come up with some kind of explanation, but this will remove external risks. Although, it is possible that Rosatom would have started to put pressure on it in any case – February 24 showed that the Kremlin has become too reliant on “energy weapons” and is now being consistently knocked out of its hands.
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In January, the price of firewood rose sharply in Russia. Compared to December, the average price increase in the country amounted to 7%. But this is an average, and in the Altai Territory the price of the most affordable and cheapest fuel soared by as much as 43%, to almost 3 thousand rubles per cubic meter. Over the past 20 years, this is the strongest increase in the price of firewood in Russia. In total, since the beginning of the 2000s, firewood prices have increased by a total of 19.3 times, last year – by 19%, which is higher than the inflation rate. Furnace heating with wood or coal (which is also becoming more expensive) in Russia today is used by up to 30% of rural residents and 7% of urban residents. In total, this is more than 4 million households. In Tyva, 88% of families heat their homes with stoves, in Transbaikalia – 50%, in Buryatia, the Jewish Autonomous Region and Altai – about 40%. And these are not only private houses, more than 70 thousand MKDs sit on stove heating. It is interesting that there is no one logical reason for the sharp rise in the price of firewood. They are harvested from illiquid, dead wood, forests affected by pests. But such cuttings are usually carried out not by industrial loggers, who can reduce prices due to volume, but by local authorities and handicraftsmen hired by them. This significantly increases the final price of firewood. Well, the intricate forest legislation and a lot of rules make the preparation of firewood not only unprofitable, but also dangerous. For violations of the cutting rules, you can under Art. 260 of the Criminal Code to receive a fine of 3 million or up to 7 years in prison. It is often impossible to comply with all legislative subtleties. Even agricultural enterprises without a lot of paperwork cannot cut down a tree on their land. And firewood must also be delivered to the consumer and have properly executed accompanying documents, otherwise a fine of 700 thousand and confiscation of equipment. Large companies, where document management and logging are well-established in compliance with all norms, are simply not interested in tinkering with harvesting and transporting the cheapest wood. It turns out that the most accessible and cheapest fuel resource is becoming more and more inaccessible every year for the most vulnerable segments of the population living in emergency houses, in villages or simply without access to other sources of heating. Moreover, neither the sanctions of “unfriendly” countries, nor the general rise in the cost of consumer goods can be blamed for this. Only officials are to blame, who have not been able to put the legislative and regulatory framework in order for more than a decade. And almost all of these officials are in the Ministry of Natural Resources, and in the Federal Forestry Service. Well, at least they allowed to collect deadwood.
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Chaos, chaos in everything. Among others, the singer Klava Koka, who had already performed at Luzhniki on the anniversary of the annexation of Crimea and was included in the Ukrainian sanctions list, was announced to perform at the concert-rally timed to coincide with the President’s message to the Federal Assembly. Well, that is, a character ideologically close to the authorities. And so Roskomnadzor initiated the cancellation of Klava Koka’s concerts in the regions due to the “romanticization of alcohol consumption” – after checking the “Drunk Home” video. By the way, at the concert-rally, Leps will also seem to be performing, with his “Glass of Vodka”. Will the concerts be closed to him too? It will not be said in defense of Koki – this system itself does not know what it wants and in which direction to fight.
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Paper planes instead of real ones. Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov can relax a little (although, we suspect, he does not tense up at all in life) – he has a new reason not to rush into the production of domestic aircraft. And the reason is very weighty – CBO. According to Dmitry Khoruzhik, general director of the Aviasystems company, which provides services for aircraft, now the Russian industry is fully loaded with state defense orders, so everyone is not up to aviation. Khoruzhik talked about the assembly of Tu-214 aircraft in Kazan, but his conclusions are applicable to other aircraft. Recall that according to the plans of the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Ministry of Transport, by 2030 Russia should produce 1,000 domestic civil aircraft. Now these plans can be endlessly adjusted and “shifted to the right”, referring to the SVO and sanctions. Although it is worth recognizing that the aviation industry under the leadership of Manturov and until February 24 developed at a snail’s pace. 2017 was a record year for our aviation industry, when a total of 42 aircraft were built. In 2021, only 16 civil aircraft of classes 1-3 (heavier than 10 tons) were able to assemble, and in 2022 this number fell to 12. For comparison: Boeing has been producing 400-500 civil aircraft annually over the past 20 years. Problems are not only with heavy aircraft, but also with light aircraft. Through the efforts of the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the UAC, the release dates for five new “maize” of the Baikal project have been shifted to 2025. The Ural Civil Aviation Plant plans to produce up to 60 aircraft per year by 2030, although according to the papers of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the enterprise should produce 400 aircraft annually by this date, because otherwise regional aviation will simply die. However, the Cabinet is more or less realistic about the adequacy of Manturov’s promises, so the Ministry of Transport is now asking the Ministry of Defense for a dozen training L-410s in order to transfer them to civilian airlines. At the same time, the release of new modernized L-410s is still in question, because. earlier aircraft were equipped with Czech engines, but there was nothing to replace them. We are all for what – with such “plans” and circumstances, the safety margin of Russian aviation will last for 5-6 years, if not less. Then the planes will start to fall or simply stop flying. And foreign flights in Russia account for 95% of all passenger traffic. The authorities’ only hope now is in India, where the UAC wants to produce spare parts for Western aircraft models. The declared thousand aircraft by 2030 will still not work, but at least there will be something to patch holes in the fleet. But this is if the Indians are not threatened with sanctions. As the foreign agent Zemfira would say – we won’t take off, so we’ll swim.
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Rossiya Airlines revealed the reasons why the number of air incidents related to aircraft breakdowns has sharply increased in Russia (the latter included two consecutive failures on two aircraft at Pobeda). If you believe the explanations of “Russia”, then poor-quality maintenance is to blame for everything. It became of poor quality after the imposition of sanctions and the withdrawal from Russia of Western companies engaged in air services. Now aircrafts of “Russia” serve the technicians of “Aeroflot” and its subsidiary company “A-Tekhnik”. It comes out just like that. Violation of work technology, failure to follow instructions, a banal lack of qualifications – all this led to at least five failures of the hydraulic system and chassis. But everything comes with experience, right?
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After February 24, officials’ spending on state symbols – coats of arms and flags – increased 100 times. During the year, municipalities in the regions spent more than 1 billion rubles on buying this “patriotic utensils” against 10 million rubles a year earlier. Apparently, the most needed goods today. #Digital Day by @oreshkins
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