DEUTSCHE BANK WILL NOT RECEIVE MEDIA-MOST SHARES
Izvestia, January 12, 2001, p. 2
Gazprom-Media has announced that an agreement with Deutsche Bank on selling NTV shares to Western companies has been cancelled, due to Media-Most’s failure to carry out its obligations. According to the bilateral agreement between the company and Deutsche Bank signed on December 28, and the terms of the agreement on settling Media-Most’s debt to Gazprom signed on November 17, Media-Most had to transfer 24.46% of NTV shares to Deutsche Bank within two days. Media-Most has not transferred these shares. Despite Media-Most’s failure to meet its commitments, Gazprom-Media and Deutsche Bank did not cancel the agreement immediately, and tried to persuade Media-Most to reconsider.
MAVRODI’S BROTHER DETAINED
Izvestia, January 12, 2001, p. 2
Vyacheslav Mavrodi, brother of the former head of the MMM company, has been arrested in Moscow. According to the Moscow Department of the Interior Ministry, Mavrodi was detained on January 10 in an apartment he rented at 22 Lazorevy Drive. Vyacheslav Mavrodi has been wanted by police since August 1999. He is suspected of illegal dealing in gemstones. His arrest might help investigators find Sergei Mavrodi and his wife.
KALYUZHNY HAS LEFT FOR IRAN
Izvestia, January 12, 2001, p. 3
Victor Kalyuzhny, presidential envoy for the Caspian, will start talks in Tehran on January 12. The Russian official left for Iran a day after the president’s return from Baku, where Russia announced a change in its position concerning division of the Caspian Sea.
Kalyuzhny will discuss preparations for a summit of the presidents of the Caspian nations (Azerbaijan, Russia, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Iran). All of these except Iran have already agreed to attend the summit. Kalyuzhny has visited all the Caspian countries.
Meanwhile, diplomats from Iran and Turkmenistan have met to work on a position which differs from Russia’s views.
Iran and Turkmenistan consider that the waters and the seabed of the Caspian Sea should be divided into equal sectors among the five nations. Moscow and Baku have agreed to a partition of the seabed, not the waters.
ROSSIYA MOVEMENT MEETS IN MOSCOW
Tribuna, January 12, 2001, p. 1
The first congress of the Rossiya political movement will be held in Moscow on January 13: 500 delegates will gather in the Hall of Pillars in Unions House. According to the organizers of the congress, the movement has over 500,000 supporters, and local branches have been opened in 88 regions. Gennady Seleznev’s Rossiya movement is a real force on the left, and a rival to the Communist Party.
CALL AND REPENT
Rossiyskaya Gazeta, January 12, 2001, p. 3
Three years ago the Federal Security Service started a confidential telephone hot-line. Any Russian citizens who might be approached or recruited by foreign spies could tell Russian counter-intelligence about their problems. Such people would not be prosecuted.
According to the FSB, the hot-line received 600 calls in the past six months, 20 of them being of interest to counter-intelligence agents. The FSB advises those who have been enlisted by foreign secret services to think it over: whether to sell out their country, or to call 914-22-22.
PRESIDENT PRESENTS AWARD TO FSB DEPUTY DIRECTOR
Moskovsky Komsomolets, January 12, 2001, p. 2
The president has decorated Herman Ugryumov, deputy head of the Federal Security Service, who is in charge of Chechnya. Ugryumov received this decoration in recognition of the success of the counter-intelligence service in the North Caucasus.
CHECHNYA HAS BECOME DANGEROUS FOR AMERICANS
Moskovsky Komsomolets, January 12, 2001, p. 2
Medicins Sans Frontiers has suspended its activities in Chechnya. This decision was made after the abduction of Kenneth Gluck. General Babichev, Commandant for Chechnya, says this was Gluck’s own fault: he was travelling in Chechnya without official permission or bodyguards. In any case, all law enforcement agencies in Chechnya have now been ordered to search for the abducted US citizen. This is the second abduction of a US citizen in Chechnya. During the first war in Chechnya, one person from a non-government organization was abducted. He has never been found…
