Best printers for Home

Best Mixer Grinder

Best wired Earphones

Best 43 Inch TV in India

Best Wi Fi Routers

Best Home Theatre in India

Smart Watch under 5000

Best Laptops for Education

Best Laptop for Students

<ul class="summary-list"><li>"The period when the <keyword id="11893570" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="economy" source="Orion">economy</keyword> can live on reserves is finite," said <keyword id="11894337" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="russia" source="Orion">Russia</keyword>'s top central banker.</li><li>Russia can't use nearly half of its $640 billion foreign exchange reserves due to sweeping sanctions.</li></ul><p>On the same day that Russian President Vladimir Putin said the West's sanctions against Russia have failed, Russia's central banker issued a warning that the country's reserves cannot last forever. </p><p>"The period when the economy can live on reserves is finite," Russian central bank governor <keyword id="13649454" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="elvira-nabiullina" source="Orion">Elvira Nabiullina</keyword> said on Monday, according to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/russia-faces-economic-upheaval-two-years-return-inflation-target-nabiullina-2022-04-18/">Reuters.</a></p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-admits-it-cant-access-nearly-half-foreign-currency-reserves-2022-3">Russia</a> can't use nearly half of its $640 billion foreign exchange reserves as they have been frozen by sanctions imposed by the US, Europe, and other Western nations. The country is now holding mostly Chinese yuan and gold, according to <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-18/russia-has-found-no-place-yet-to-invest-reserves-after-sanctions">Bloomberg.</a></p><p>In an address to Russia's Members of Parliament, Nabiullina said sweeping Western sanctions had thus far mainly impacted the country's financial market, "but now they will begin to increasingly affect the economy," Reuters reported.</p><p>"The main problems will be associated with restrictions on imports and logistics of foreign trade, and in the future with restrictions on exports," said Nabiullina, per the <keyword id="11893589" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="news" source="Orion">news</keyword> agency.</p><p>She said Russian firms need to adapt by searching for new business models, partners, logistics "or switch to the production of products of previous generations," according to Reuters.</p><p>Adding to the bad news, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-200000-jobs-western-companies-exit-moscow-mayor-2022-4">Moscow's mayor</a> warned in an <a href="https://www.sobyanin.ru/prodolzhaem-realizatsiyu-plana-povysheniya-ustoichivosti-stolichnoi-ekonomiki">official blog post</a> on Monday that 200,000 city residents could lose their jobs as Western companies exit the economy en masse amid sanctions and corporate boycotts against Russia over the <keyword id="13186997" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="ukraine-war" source="Orion">Ukraine war</keyword>.</p><p>The comments from the Russian officials came even as <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-dollar-bonds-coupon-interest-payment-sanctions-swift-2022-4">the country's</a><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-dollar-bonds-coupon-interest-payment-sanctions-swift-2022-4"> coffers</a> appear to be holding up. The energy powerhouse was repaying its foreign debt on time until April 4, when the <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/bonds/russia-bond-debt-payment-blocked-us-treasury-default-risk-sanctions-2022-4">US Treasury</a> blocked the country's payment in dollars held with <a href="https://www.insiderintelligence.com/insights/largest-banks-us-list/">US banks</a>. <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/bonds/russia-default-debt-bonds-payment-rubles-us-dollars-treasury-sanctions-2022-4">Russia</a> then transferred the money in rubles. The ruble has also <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russias-ruble-rebound-explained-capital-controls-sanctions-economy-currency-ukraine-2022-4">bounced back to prewar levels</a> thanks to Russia's strict capital controls.</p><p>But the Russian economy is expected to contract 11.2% in 2022, the <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/region/eca/publication/europe-and-central-asia-economic-update">World Bank</a> said in a report released earlier this month. </p><p>Putin appeared unfazed by all the negative news.</p><p>"The calculation (by the West) was to quickly undermine the financial and economic situation in our country, to provoke panic in the <keyword id="11893875" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="markets" source="Orion">markets</keyword>, the collapse of the banking system, and a large-scale shortage of goods in stores," said Putin at a meeting with government ministers on Monday, according to a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/reviews/out?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Flivecoverage%2Frussia-ukraine-latest-news-2022-04-18%2Fcard%2Fputin-says-western-sanctions-have-failed-acknowledges-biting-inflation-li4ki1OiftAARk2l7Ezq">Wall Street Journal translation.</a></p><p>"But we can already confidently say that such a policy towards Russia has failed, the strategy of economic blitzkrieg has failed," he added, per the Journal.</p>

Putin says the West's 'economic blitzkrieg' has failed &mdash; but Russia's central banker warns the country's reserves can't last forever

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Russian President Vladimir <keyword id="6355086" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Putin">Putin</keyword> struck a dark tone after his private chat with President <keyword id="99719" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Joe-Biden">Joe Biden</keyword>.</li><li>He called talks "productive" but laid blame for the adversarial US-Russia relationship on the US.</li><li>"There's no happiness in life," Putin said. "There's only a mirage on the horizon."</li></ul><p>Russian President Vladimir Putin struck a dark tone during his lengthy, rambling press conference following nearly four hours of talks with President Joe Biden in <keyword id="13027" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Geneva">Geneva</keyword> on Wednesday.</p><p>Asked whether the meeting had helped build trust between the leaders, Putin turned philosophical.</p><p>"There's no happiness in life," Putin said. "There's only a mirage on the horizon, so we'll cherish that."</p><p>He added, "but I believe there's a spark of hope" in Biden's eyes.</p><p>The Russian leader told reporters it was "difficult to say" whether the meeting would change relations between the two countries and blamed the US for the adversarial nature of the ties. But Putin called Biden a "balanced and professional man" and said their discussions were "productive."</p><p><em><strong>Read more: </strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/matt-gaetz-staff-scrubbing-linkedin-updating-resumes-2021-6">Matt Gaetz's former staffers are scrubbing their résumés of all links to the congressman</a></em></p><p>"Everything to do with the deterioration of our mutual relations was initiated not by us but by the USA," he said.</p><p>Putin is a former KGB operative who has <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/putin-signs-law-allowing-him-stay-in-power-russia-2036-2021-4">ruled Russia for 20 years</a>, during which time he's believed to have become a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-putin-spends-his-mysterious-fortune-2017-6">billionaire</a>; some guess he's one of the world's richest people. Certainly, his reported taste for expensive watches, yachts, and fleets of aircraft would be far out of reach for most Russians, who earn an average monthly wage of about 51,100 rubles, or $700.</p><p>Putin spent much of the press conference deflecting criticism of Russia over its remarkable crackdown on dissent and the poisoning and imprisonment of Alexei Navalny.</p><p>The Russian leader justified the Kremlin's effort to squash opponents by <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/putin-black-lives-matter-january-6-riot-navalny-justification-video-2021-6">demonizing the Black Lives Matter movement</a> and comparing it to the US government's prosecution of people involved in the January 6 insurrection.</p><p>When questioned about these remarks later during a separate solo press conference, Biden said, "That's a ridiculous comparison."</p><p>Both leaders generally portrayed the talks as a first, modest step in making progress on a narrow set of issues that the US and Russia might see eye-to-eye on - with <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/06/16/u-s-russia-presidential-joint-statement-on-strategic-stability/">strategic stability</a> (nuclear-arms control) at the top of the list.</p><p>But they also made clear the summit in no way represented a total reset of <keyword id="923934" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="US-Russia-relations">US-Russia relations</keyword>.</p><p>Putin said Biden did not use the meeting as an opportunity to invite him to the White House, while Biden said he was "<a href="https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/1405224128630726663?s=20">not confident</a>" the Kremlin would drastically change its behavior.</p>

Putin says 'there is no happiness in life' after his meeting with Biden

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Three NATO intelligence sources tell Insider they believe Russia's Putin will attempt to kill opposition leader <keyword id="950302" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Alexei-Navalny">Alexei Navalny</keyword> again. Navalny is currently recovering from a nerve-agent poisoning in Berlin.</li><li>Navalny may believe that Germany might threaten its gas pipeline deal with Russia in response to the attempted assassination, thus complicating Putin's ambition to murder him.</li><li>But in the long run that's a mistake, these sources say. The West has a history of responding feebly to Russian security threats, and Putin is playing the long game.</li></ul>Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the latest critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin to be mysteriously poisoned, has announced he plans to return to Russia after his recovery from exposure to a deadly nerve agent.<br /><br />But Navalny, who is recovering in a Berlin hospital, will be taking an enormous personal risk, according to three officials from NATO intelligence services who focus on Russian intelligence operations.<br /><br />All three are in agreement that Navalny might change his mind (or be convinced by Western intelligence services) that the risk of returning to a country where the president apparently wants to murder him is too high.<br /><br />But they also concluded that for now, Navalny is under the impression that the failure to kill him in Siberia will make it more difficult for Putin to try again. Germany is furious over the incident, and the German government has leverage it can apply to Putin over the multi-billion-euro Nord Stream gas pipeline projects intended to link the two nation's economies.<br /><br /><h2>The assassination attempt has hurt Russia's ability to borrow money — but that's it</h2>"There's no other explanation than this was an assassination attempt ordered at the highest levels of the Russian government," said one counter-intelligence official from a Baltic nation. "There is some disagreement over whether it is possible that Putin did not directly order the attack but rather it was an initiative undertaken by his henchmen. But the presence of Novichok — which is made in a strictly controlled military lab — convinces me that Putin had to authorize it himself. There's a concern in some NATO circles [about] what it might mean if Russian officials decided to use a nerve agent on their most high profile dissident without Putin's formal approval, this is possible but in my opinion this is unlikely."<br /><br />On Thursday, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/17/europe/navalny-novichok-poisoned-water-intl/index.html">Navalny's legal team announced</a> that a German lab had concluded the agent was administered in a free bottle of mineral water provided by his hotel. <br /><br /><a href="https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/aktuelles/erklaerung-der-bundesregierung-im-fall-nawalny-1781790">The German government has officially issued strongly worded demands</a> for information on the incident even as there is renewed debate on whether the Nord Stream project is appropriate in light of Putin's apparent history of murdering or attempting to murder his opponents.   <br /><br />Already, Russia has indicated that German talk of strong economic sanctions or even the cancelation of the Nord Stream project has <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/russia-politics-navalny/update-3-russia-says-navalny-sanctions-talk-is-affecting-its-borrowing-plans-idUSL8N2GD2XC">hurt its ability to borrow money on international markets</a>. But will this pressure be enough to keep Navalny alive if he returns to Russia after he recovers? <br /><br />"Short-term maybe, but long term absolutely not," a Central European intelligence official who is frequently at odds with Russian intelligence services told Insider. <br /><br /><h2>'Putin is ruthless and but never stupid'</h2>"Putin is ruthless and but never stupid or rash. If Navalny returns to Russia he will face massive harassment and possibly arrest. This is how Putin ties up domestic opponents with a neverending stream of lawsuits, tax investigations, arrests on ludicrous charges. This will keep Navalny busy for years but eventually Putin is likely to decide that as Nord Stream becomes complete that the West, which he sees as greedy and weak, will probably not respond in a manner that really hurts him. The moment he makes that calculation — and of course he will never indicate he's made it, we will just know because Navalny is dead — then it will just be about finding a time or opportunity that suits him."<br /><br />The Baltic official agrees that another attempt on Navalny would probably not come immediately. But if Putin concludes the poisoning attempt and harassment did not change Navalny's focus on the corruption of Putin's inner circle, then he would not consider the West's reaction as a major factor. <br /><br />"What Putin has learned about the West in the last 20 years is, at least in his mind, the West's concerns about human rights and freedom take the back seat to powerful people making money from Russia," said the Baltic official. "The way he sees it, he openly sent assassins with radioactive poison to London to murder Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 and the UK did nothing serious in response. Then in 2018 he sends two more assassins to Salisbury to kill more defectors and instead nearly kill a policeman and does kill a British citizen. The response was some diplomatic back-and-forth but ultimately nothing serious."<br /><br /><h2 style="margin-bottom: 0.7em; line-height: 1.3; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 24px; background: 0px 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">'The guy sent assassins to spray Novichok all over Salisbury, killed an English woman, and the Brits didn't even kick out the ambassador'</h2><br />"If he doesn't give a f--- about killing people on British soil because nobody will do anything to him, what on earth will stop him from killing one of his own in Russia?" concluded the official.<br /><br />A military intelligence official based at NATO headquarters outside Brussels — who asked that their home country not be named — said that while the Germans are likely to push harder than the UK on their leverage against Putin, ultimately it's not hard to imagine that the West's feckless behaviour has convinced him that the EU cannot or will not take harsh measures.<br /><br />"I'm not sure if he will have Navalny killed right away or wait for the appropriate time," said the official. "But I am convinced that he doesn't see the West as being willing to stand up to him over some dissidents. The guy sent assassins to spray Novichok all over Salisbury, killed an English woman, and the Brits didn't even kick out the ambassador let alone take a dramatic step."<br /><br /><h3><strong>Read also:</strong></h3><h2><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-russia-uses-novichok-poison-putin-enemies-2020-9">Why Putin uses Novichok to poison his enemies, even though it often fails to kill them</a></h2>

Putin will try to kill Navalny again and the West will do little about it, NATO sources say

<ul class="summary-list"><li>No one believes Aleksander Lukashenko won 80% of the presidential vote in the <keyword id="63113" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Belarus">Belarus</keyword> election — that's why there was fighting on the streets of Minsk this weekend.</li><li>The chaos is likely to irritate Russian president Valdimir <keyword id="6355086" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Putin">Putin</keyword>, who has long wanted Belarus to stay closer to Moscow than Europe.</li><li>But Belarus officials arrested 33 Russian mercenaries, allegedly on their way to the Middle East, at a spa outside Minsk, complicating Putin's next move.</li><li>Putin will probably have to make a deal to get them back, security sources familiar with NATO's thinking tell Insider. </li></ul><p>Sunday's <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/09/world/europe/belarus-election-lukashenko.html">re-election of Aleksander Lukashenko as president of Belarus</a> appears to have been a debacle: He claims to have received over 80% of the vote, sparking violence overnight from incredulous opposition supporters who simply don't believe the numbers. Officially, Lukashenko defeated a slate of challengers including principal rival Svetlana Tikhanovskay, the wife of a jailed opposition figure who was forced by the arrests of her campaign staff Saturday to go into hiding in the capital of Minsk. </p><p>At least <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-53717834">120 people were detained in protests</a> that spread to Brest, Gomel, and Grodno, among other Belarus cities.</p><p><a href="https://twitter.com/tadeuszgiczan/status/1292538428148637696?s=12">Demonstrators could be seen on social media confronting police in the wake of the announcement</a>. They claim pre-voting ballot stuffing by the incumbent party of 27 years started before polling had begun, and pointed to inflated vote counts in multiple precincts as evidence. In one case, activists recorded video of <a href="https://twitter.com/TadeuszGiczan/status/1292395572595392517?s=20">a poll worker escaping the back of a polling station on a ladder</a> while clutching bags of what the activists claim are excess ballots.  </p><p>Now, analysts and intelligence services are wondering how <keyword id="6358826" type="LOCATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Russia">Russia</keyword>, and its mercurial president, Vladimir Putin, will react to the unrest.</p><h2>Lukashenko has played Putin against the EU for years</h2><p>Lukashenko's longstanding ability to play the European Union to its west and Russia to its east off one another to bring in international assistance has increasingly irritated Putin, who has long pushed for a closer economic and political union with Belarus, according to a NATO military intelligence official based in the Baltics. <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/comment/integration-hold-russia-and-belarus">Talks between Belarus and Russia collapsed in January</a> after Lukashenko reportedly demanded far more economic support from Moscow than the estimated $10 billion it receives annually in subsidized oil and natural gas imports.</p><p>The official, who does not have authorization to speak on the record, asked for anonymity in exchange for speaking freely about the crisis. The source's <keyword id="6357018" type="DEFINITION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Analysis">analysis</keyword> was confirmed by two other NATO/EU intelligence officials.</p><p>"It's not a great situation in general but doubly dangerous because nobody can say for sure what Putin will do," the NATO official said.</p><p>"The polling was a fraud but <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/news_corner/news/belarus-joint-statement-high-representativevice-president-josep-borrell-and_en">this was expected by everyone from the EU</a> to the Belarus people to the Kremlin," said the official. "After 27 years of moderate success in keeping Belarus neutral between Russia and the West, <a href="https://twitter.com/donaldtuskEPP/status/1292790701017702401?s=20">Lukashenko fell out of touch with his people</a>. This is a normal crisis for a dictator like him. What's unusual is Russia's confused position."</p><h2>Lukashenko 'has these mercenaries rounded up supposedly on their way to the Middle East and Putin freaked out'</h2><p>It was <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/belarus-30-foreign-private-military-contractors-detained-minsk/30755231.html">the July 29 arrest of around 33 Russian citizens</a>, allegedly mercenaries for a Kremlin-backed private military company operating in the Middle East, in a spa outside of Minsk that set things truly on edge, agreed the three European intelligence sources.</p><p>"[Lukashenko] has these mercenaries rounded up supposedly on their way to the Middle East and Putin freaked out," said the NATO official. "Several of them appear to have worked with the separatists in Donbass [Ukraine] and there's arrest warrants in Kiev for them. Preventing them from being sent to Kiev for trial, where they would almost certainly embarrass Putin, is a top priority and stopping the anarchy right now in Minsk. And the utmost priority is keeping Belarus out of the EU's orbit and cosy with Moscow." </p><p>All three intelligence officials agree that the strife over the election benefits Putin's agenda. </p><p>"Lukashenko is clashing with his own people and drawing ire from the EU, so if he wants to stay in power he's going to have to crawl back to Putin for political and financial support," said the official. "How far [Putin] is willing to go to keep [Lukashenko] in power probably depends on what happens next but it's clear from the stern wording of the Kremlin congratulatory statement sent today that Putin will expect a new enthusiasm from Minsk for its regional agenda."</p><p>Putin's statement was not subtle: "I expect that your statesmanship will facilitate the further development of mutually beneficial Russian-Belarusian relations in all spheres, as well as the further enhancement of cooperation within the Union State," it said, <a href="https://tass.com/politics/1187635">according to a telegram published by TASS</a>.</p><p>"My guess is that Lukashenko will extract some support from Putin and eventually return the mercenaries," Insider's source said.</p><ul class="read-more-links"><li><strong>Read more:</strong></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wirecard-why-russia-might-be-hiding-jan-marsalek-2020-7">Wirecard: Why would Russia hide a fugitive fintech exec from EU investigators?</a></li></ul>

The arrest of 33 Russian mercenaries amid election chaos in Belarus is testing Putin's patience

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>On Monday's "Late Show," host Stephen Colbert started talking about President Donald Trump's <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sean-spicer-trump-obama-wiretap-2017-3">accusations</a>&#xa0;that Obama wire-tapped phones in Trump Tower.<p>"The president's weekend tweetstorm felt like whiplash," he said.&#xa0;</p><p>Colbert speculates that Trump's accusations are just "to&#xa0;distract from recent bad press. He does it all the time. He's like a magician&#xa0;<span>misdirecting your attention with sleight of hand, and as we all know Trump has the slightest of hands."</span></p><p>Colbert then asked, "But what is the president trying to distract us from this time?"</p><p>That's when hte host brought out his "Figure-It-Out-a-Tron," which is actually just a chalkboard that he used in an attempt to illustate Trump's relationship with Russian President Valdimir Putin.</p><p>On the chalkboard was the name Trump and at the top Putin. On the right, there was a&#xa0;list of people and&#xa0;things that could connect them, including:&#xa0;Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, Jeff Sessions, FBI, CIA, NSA, Wikileaks, and "administration leaks."</p><p>Colbert wrote the letter "P" next to anything&#xa0;on the list&#xa0;that could connect Trump and Putin. "There's just so much P, which again, stands for Putin," he said in the mocking bit.</p><p><strong>You can watch the segement below:</strong></p><p>&#xa0;</p><div></div>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/jeopardy-host-alex-trebek-game-show-day-in-the-life-sony-2017-3">INSIDE 'JEOPARDY!' - We spent a day on the set with Alex Trebek</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="Q1eTM0YTE67yngugruoI2ST9az1aBhbg" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

You Searched For "Valdimir Putin" and got 5 results

Putin says the West's 'economic blitzkrieg' has failed but Russia's central banker warns the country's reserves can't last forever

Huileng Tan

Putin says 'there is no happiness in life' after his meeting with Biden

Eliza Relman,John Haltiwanger

Putin will try to kill Navalny again and the West will do little about it, NATO sources say

Mitch Prothero

The arrest of 33 Russian mercenaries amid election chaos in Belarus is testing Putin's patience

Mitch Prothero

Stephen Colbert tries to make sense of Trump's connections to Putin in one diagram

Carrie Wittmer

Popular Keywords

Buying Guides