Belarus is one of the world’s largest hubs for “Shadow Diplomacy”, where foreign countries employ businessmen to further their business interests with the regime. Similarly, Belarus is also engaged in its fair share of shadow diplomacy abroad.
After a hugely successful couple of years, Wildberries dominates the Russian e-commerce market. bne IntelliNews looks into the company's rise and its prospects for further growth as foreign competitors pull out of Russia.
Belarus is planning to modernise its agricultural sector, which could help it keep its comparative advantage. However, sanctions are looming.
The contraction in Ukraine’s GDP will be among the worst 10-20% of those in conflicts in the last 200 years, the development bank predicts in its 2022/23 Transition Report.
EU’s foreign policy chief is latest high-level Western official to visit Central Asia.
Russia’s imports crashed after the invasion of Ukraine in February as Western trade partners simply cut supplies to the country off while around 1,000 firms promised to pull out altogether. Now they are recovering fast.
Amid the ruins of their houses, Ukrainian villagers recall the Russian invasion and Moscow's retreat in some of the fiercest fighting of the war.
Greying of populations big dilemma for developed countries. Share of people on planet aged 65 years or above projected to rise from 10% now to 16% in 2050.
The withdrawal goes back to the unanswered question of what was Moscow’s original objective on February 24, and why did it take the Kherson bridgehead in the first place?
Sanctions, inflation rates and government policies have been (and still are) restraining Belarus’ industrial output and the domestic market’s expansion this year. The effects are clearly reflected in the increase in stocks of finished goods.
Outraged at Moscow’s virulent invasion, the British legal firm McCue Jury & Partners decided to launch a claim on behalf of Ukrainian refugees undergoing psychiatric care in the United Kingdom.
VTB, the Kremlin’s second-largest bank, has brought down the curtains on “the final chapter” in its “100+year history” in the City of London, according to its latest regulatory filing.
Russia could form new strike groups to attempt another offensive from Belarusian territory in 2-3 months, according to one Ukrainian military official.
“Ukraine fatigue” among Kyiv’s Western allies is building as the war drags on, fuelling both a cost of living crisis and an energy crisis, but Western aid to the embattled country is still far from halting.
On October 29, Russia pulled out of the landmark “Black Sea Initiative” grain deal, brokered by the UN and Turkey last July, only to rejoin a few days later. However, the deal is set to expire soon, and its extension is uncertain.
Inflation appears to be under control in Uzbekistan and to have peaked in Georgia and Armenia, but with prices still rising in Kazakhstan the regulator is ready to raise rates “as much as necessary,” the countries' central bank governors said.
It now looks increasingly likely that Europe will make it through this coming winter with sufficient gas supply. But the International Energy Agency has warned of a 30bn cubic metre supply-demand gap next year in its latest analysis.
The Ryan air incident of 2021 could be seen as a sort of prelude to what’s happening to the Belarusian economy today. Many other Belarusian SOEs struggling today are already (or will soon be) facing a similar fate.