Yukos

Russia said late on Dec. 7 it sold a stake in oil giant Rosneft for 10.5 billion euros ($11.3 billion) to Qatar and commodities trader Glencore, confounding expectations that the Kremlin's standoff with the West would scare off major investors. 

Russian investigators have charged Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev with extorting a $2 million bribe from Rosneft, Russia's biggest oil company, in a case that threatens to expose fault lines in President Vladimir Putin's inner circle.

Russian Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev has been detained detained on suspicion of taking a USD 2 million bribe.

According to TASS, "that allowed Rosneft (oil company) to complete the deal on purchasing the government's 50 percent stake in Bashneft."

Russian's Economy Minister Alexey Ulyukayev has been arrested on suspicions of extortion and threats to a representative of state-owned company Rosneft, Russian media report.

Ulyukayev has become the highest-profile official to be detained in Russian since 1991, with no minister having been placed under arrest in the country's post-Soviet history.

In a victory for Moscow, a Dutch court on April 20 overturned an order that Russia pay $50 billion to shareholders in defunct oil company Yukos, saying that the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration had no jurisdiction. 

Russia will supply 10 million tons of oil annually to India for the next decade, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said, with the mutual deals between the two countries also extending to nuclear power generation. 

Russia's top investigative body on Dec. 23 declared Mikhail Khodorkovsky as arrested in absentia and issued an international arrest warrant, two years after the Kremlin critic and former oil tycoon was pardoned after serving 10 years in prison.

President Vladimir Putin has signed a law allowing Russia's Constitutional Court to decide whether or not to implement rulings of international human rights courts. 

The law, published on Dec. 15 on the government website, enables the Russian court to overturn decisions of the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) if it deems them unconstitutional. 

Simeon Djankov, a former Bulgarian Finance Minister, has stepped down as rector of the New Economic School in Moscow (also known as the Russian School of Economics, RES), RBC Daily reports.

The business news outlet writes there is "mutual consent' about the move after Djankov has taken the office since 2013. Djankov is not leaving the Board of Directors of RES.

Venezuela and Russia have agreed to invest more than USD 14 B in the oil and gas industry of the South American country, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has said.