Prague Property

Gazprom Neft Finance, a subsidiary of the energy giant Gazprom, has asked permission from the Federal Antitrust Service (FAS) to buy a 50% stake in Tomskneft from Rosneft.

Libya’s leader Colonel Muammar Qaddafi has met with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in Tripoli to discuss bilateral relations and international issues, including a joint nuclear energy programme.

Vladimir Putin’s love of judo has apparently landed him a starring role in an instructional DVD. The BBC today is running a story about Vladimir Putin’s forthcoming appearance alongside an Olympic champion.

They write: “Russia’s judo-loving President, Vladimir Putin, has recorded an instructional DVD along with Japanese Olympic champion Yasuhiro Yamashita. The DVD will be released as a supplement to a judo manual and is due to come out in January or February, the Kremlin’s most famous black belt said. He and Yamashita attended a judo lesson in his home city St Petersburg, two years ago after meeting in Tokyo. “Sports like judo teach you mutual respect,” Mr Putin said. “Respect for your rival, with the knowledge that an adversary who appears weak can put up resistance and even beat you if you lose concentration and become complacent.”

Billionaire Suleiman Kerimov is seeking to buy the 7.4% stake in Polyus Gold, Russia’s biggest producer of the metal, jointly held by former partners Mikhail Prokhorov and Vladimir Potanin. As predicted, Oleg Deripaska’s United Company Rusal has won its battle to grab a 25% blocking stake in Norilsk Nickel, the first step toward acquiring control of the company. A full takeover by Rusal of Norilsk would create a $100 billion metals giant. It is being predicted that the Russian stock market will have a strong year in 2008. “The market here should continue to perform even if the economies in Western Europe and the US do not,” said one analyst. Europe’s second-biggest insurer, AXA, has made a “major entry” into Russia with a deal to buy a 36.7% stake in insurer RESO-Garantia for about $1.16 billion. Russia’s largest bank, state-controlled Sberbank, plans to borrow $3 billion to $4 billion on international capital markets in 2008.

(PHOTO: A worker climbs inside a 46-meter (151 feet) Christmas tree in the centre of Russia’s Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk December 24, 2007. The artificial Christmas tree is the highest in Russia, local media reported. REUTERS/Ilya Naymushin (RUSSIA))

Today: Gunvor denies links with Putin; Fifth State Duma opens; Medvedev to begin presidential campaigning; Zubkov initiates wage hike for public sector; Khodorkovsky lawyers apply for case dismissal; corruption; Badri Patarkatsishvili assassination plot.

The oil company Gunvor has spoken out about its alleged links with Vladimir Putin, denying that the Russian president was the company’s “beneficiary” owner but admitting that he was a friend of its founder. “None of the shares of this organisation are held by President Putin or anyone allied by him,” Tornqvist wrote in a letter published in today’s Guardian.