SocGen also sells its entire stake in Rosbank to a company affiliated with a Russian oligarch, costing the French bank about 3 billion euros ($ 3.3 billion). Rosbank is a heavyweight in the Russian banking sector and Societe Generale was the majority shareholder. “After several weeks of intensive work,” the bank said in a statement, it had signed an agreement with Russian investment fund Interros Capital to sell its entire stake in Rosbank and its insurance subsidiaries in Russia. Interros is one of the largest funds in the country, holding assets in heavy industry and metallurgy.
KEY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR: – The mayor of Mariupol says that the siege has hurt more than 10 thousand citizens – Biden and Monti to speak as US pushes for tough line against Russia – Ukrainian nuns open the doors of their monastery to the displaced – US doubts new Russian warlord can end Moscow stalemate – Analysis: War, economy could weaken Putin’s position as leader – Go to for more coverage
OTHER DEVELOPMENTS: MILAN – Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi secured an agreement Monday on more gas imports via a Mediterranean pipeline from Algeria, in the latest push by a European Union state to reduce its dependence on Russian energy after its invasion of Ukraine. Draghi told reporters in the Algerian capital after meeting with President Abdelmadjid Tebboune that an agreement to intensify bilateral energy co-operation along with an agreement to export more gas to Italy “are an important response to the strategic goal” of rapid replacement. Russian energy. Russia is Italy’s largest gas supplier, accounting for 40% of total imports, followed by Algeria, which supplies about 21 billion cubic meters of gas via the Mediterranean pipeline. The new agreement between the Italian energy company ENI and the Algerian Sonatrach will add up to 9 billion cubic meters of gas from Algeria, simply overshadowing Russia’s current 29 billion cubic meters per year. Increased flows will begin in the fall, ENI said in a statement. The story goes on
LVIV, Ukraine – The mayor of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol tells the Associated Press that more than 10,000 civilians have been killed in the southeastern city by the Russian invasion in February. Mayor Vadym Boychenko told the Associated Press by telephone on Monday that the bodies had been “carpeted on the streets of our city” and that the death toll could exceed 20,000. Boichenko also said Russian forces had brought mobile crematoria to the city to dispose of the bodies, and accused Russian forces of refusing to allow humanitarian convoys to enter the city in a bid to cover up the massacre. The mayor had previously stated 5,000 dead. He explained that this data was on March 21, but “thousands more people were lying on the streets, it was simply impossible for us to collect them.”
WASHINGTON – The Pentagon’s latest assessment is that Russia is preparing, but has not yet launched, an intensive attack on Donbas. A senior U.S. defense official said the Russians were moving more troops and supplies to the area and concentrating many of their missile strikes there. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss US internal military assessments. The official said a large convoy of vehicles heading south to the eastern city of Izyum contained artillery as well as air and infantry support, as well as battlefield command and control elements and other materials. The official said the convoy appears to have originated in the Belgorod and Valuyki regions of Russia, which are becoming key sites for Russian accumulation in the Donbas. The official said that the Russians are also strengthening their presence in Donbas by developing more artillery southwest of the city of Donetsk in recent days. – By Robert Burns
VIENNA – Austrian Chancellor Carl Nehammer says his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow was “very immediate, open and tough.” In a statement issued after his meeting, Nehamer said Monday that his main message to Putin was “that this war must end, because in a war both sides can only lose.” Nehamer was the first European leader to meet Putin in Moscow since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine in February. The Austrian leader stressed that Monday’s trip was not “a friendly visit”, but rather his “duty” to exhaust any possibility of ending the violence in Ukraine. Nehammer’s visit to Moscow follows a trip to Kyiv on Saturday, where he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. In a conversation with Putin, Nehammer said he had raised the issue of “serious war crimes” committed by the Russian military in the Ukrainian city of Bucha and others. “Everyone responsible will be held accountable,” he added. Austria is a member of the European Union and has backed sanctions by the 27-nation bloc against Russia, although it has so far opposed a halt to Russian gas supplies. The country is militarily neutral and is not a member of NATO.
UNITED NATIONS – The United Nations Children’s Fund says nearly two-thirds of all Ukrainian children have fled their homes in the six weeks since the invasion of Russia, and the United Nations has confirmed that 142 children have been killed and 229 injured. although these numbers are probably much higher. Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF director of emergency programs who returned from Ukraine last week, told the UN Security Council on Monday that of the estimated 3.2 million children left in their homes, “almost half could be at risk. not to have enough food “and attacks. on water supply infrastructure and power outages have left about 1.4 million people in the country without access to water. He said the situation was worse in cities such as Mariupol and Hersonissos in the south, which have been besieged by Russian forces, where children and their families have spent weeks without running water, sanitation or regular food supplies. “Hundreds of schools and educational facilities have been attacked or used for military purposes,” Fontaine said. “Others serve as civilian shelters.” He said the closure of schools affected the education of 5.7 million school-age children and 1.5 million students in higher education.
SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina – Relatives of Srebrenica genocide victims worry that history is repeating itself in the war in Ukraine. Hundreds of women who lost their sons, husbands and other relatives in the 1995 massacre of about 8,000 people in the eastern Bosnian city on Monday called for all those who committed war crimes to be brought to justice. An association of relatives of the Srebrenica victims, the Srebrenica Mothers, has been active in keeping alive the memory of the Bosnian Serb execution of Bosnian Muslim men and boys – mostly Muslims – in the last months of the 1992-95 WWII war. Sehida Abdurrahmanovic says that “we spent all these years working to prevent this Srebrenica (murder) from happening to anyone else.” But, he adds, “we are really sad to say that, but in today’s Europe it is happening again – Srebrenica is happening again.”
LONDON – The World Bank says Ukraine’s economy will shrink by 45% this year due to the Russian invasion, which has shut down half of the country’s businesses, stifled imports and exports and damaged a huge amount of vital infrastructure. Meanwhile, unprecedented sanctions imposed by Western allies in response to the war are plunging Russia into a deep recession, reducing more than a tenth of its economic growth, the Washington-based lender said in a report Sunday. The report said economic activity was impossible in “large areas” of Ukraine because productive infrastructure such as roads, bridges, ports and railways had been destroyed. Ukraine plays an important role as a global supplier of agricultural exports such as wheat, but this is now being called into question because planting and harvesting have been disrupted by the war, the report said. The war cut off access to the Black Sea, a major export route, including 90% of Ukraine’s grain shipments.
WARSAW, Poland – The mayor of Warsaw says a controversial group run by Russia’s diplomatic mission is being taken over by the city and will be made available to the Ukrainian community. Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski was at the scene on Monday and said a bailiff had entered the two seemingly empty buildings, named “spyville” by Warsaw residents, to check on their condition and identify them as being seized by City Hall. “It’s very symbolic that we are closing this process for many years now, at the time of the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” Trzaskowski said on Twitter. The Russian Embassy, which built the high-rise buildings in the 1970s, refuses court orders to pay the rent or hand it over. When it was busy, the buildings were vacated in the 1990s, after Poland lost communist rule and dependence on Moscow after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Since then, Poland says the lease of the plot had expired and asked for it to be returned.
BUDAPEST, Hungary – Hungary plans to amend its gas contract with Russian energy company Gazprom to meet President Vladimir Putin’s request for Russian gas to be paid for in rubles. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told a news conference on Monday that the subsidiary of the Hungarian energy group MVM, CEE Energy, would pay the gas bills in euros to Russia’s Gazprombank, which would convert the payments into rubles and transfer them to cash. Gazprom Export. . Putin, in retaliation for the sanctions against Russia by the European Union, asked to …
