Preparing to Western sanctions, Belarusian banks sign up to Russia’s alternative to SWIFT

December 20, 2021

Belarusian banks are preparing for tougher Western sanctions by signing up to Russia’s alternative to SWIFT, the international financial messaging network that underpins the global banking system, Russia’s Moskovsky Komsomolets tabloid has reported. Russia’s System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS) has more than 400 domestic users — practically every licensed Russian lender — but is …

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Russia threatens to block YouTube for taking down another German RT channel

December 19, 2021

Roskomnadzor, Russia’s telecom and Internet regulator, is threatening to restrict access to YouTube after the video platform shut down yet another German-language channel run by the Russian state-controlled television network RT (Russia Today). According to a Roskomnadzor press release published on Friday, December 17, the federal censor sent a letter to YouTube’s parent company, Google, demanding that …

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Avito becomes world’s most visited classified ads site

December 16, 2021

While America’s Craigslist is the most recognisable online classifieds platform, it’s in emerging markets that the segment is really taking off. According to digital analytics service Similarweb, the most visited classified ads website in the world for November 2021 was Russia’s Avito, which displaced Craigslist from the top spot for the first time. Avito is billed …

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Russian central bank to seek ban on investment in cryptocurrencies

December 19, 2021

The Russian central bank wants to ban investments in cryptocurrencies in Russia, seeing risks to financial stability in the rising number of crypto transactions, two financial market sources close to the bank said. Russia has argued for years against cryptocurrencies, saying they could be used in money laundering or to finance terrorism. It eventually gave …

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Yandex’s English-language search results return more conspiracy-promoting content than other search engines

December 16, 2021

Four scholars from Swiss and German universities studied “the presence of pages promoting conspiracy theories” across the world’s main search engines by “conducting a comparative algorithm audit to examine the distribution of conspiratorial information” in their search results. Juhi Kulshrestha, Mykola Makhortykh, Roberto Ulloa and Aleksandra Urman used a virtual agent-based infrastructure to “sytematically collect search outputs for …

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Former US citizen and Ulmart co-owner August Meyer arrested in St. Petersburg

December 16, 2021

August Meyer, co-owner of cosmetics chain Rive Gauche and former co-owner of now defunct online retail Ulmart — was arrested Wednesday last week in St. Petersburg. Meyer and his wife, Inna Meyer, are suspected of embezzling 2.4 billion rubles ($32.6 million at the current exchange rate) from state-owned bank Sberbank on the pretext of developing Ulmart shortly …

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MTS acquires Russian-founded biometrics provider VisionLabs

December 15, 2021

Intema, the AI accelerator and venture fund launched by mobile operator MTS this past September, is set to acquire biometrics firm VisionLabs for 7 billion rubles ($95 million at the current exchange rate). Founded in Russia in 2012, this developer of AI-powered computer vision solutions quickly drew the attention of top global digital players. Sber (at that time ‘Sberbank’) invested in the company in …

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Russian-born startup raises $3 million to make students’ education dreams come true

December 14, 2021

StudyFree, an edtech startup born in Russia in 2018, has just secured $3 million to continue its international expansion. The investor pool includes I2BF Global Ventures and TMT Investments, two funds with Russian connections, Techstars, as well as Andrey Doronichev and Mikita Mikado.  The former, Google’s ex-director of product management, is a figure of the Russian-speaking community …

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New East Tech Awards: Highlighting the region’s best startups and investors (deadline: Dec. 17)

December 24, 2021

New East Tech Awards — an event intended for both startups and investors — aims to highlight the strongest players in the VC market and provide them exceptional collaboration opportunities, networking and resources.  Startups from the ‘New East’ (Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Balkans) as well as VC funds, business angels and accelerators investing in …

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Skolkovo to host new tech park for “greener technologies, production processes and supply chains”

December 13, 2021

Last week, on the sidelines of the Open Innovations international forum, Skolkovo Foundation and Helyx Technologies inked a cooperation agreement to implement a “green tech park.” The initiative builds on the GreenTech Startup Booster, launched last year, which is now touted as “the largest international program for the development and implementation of technological projects in the field of ecology.” The new …

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JP Morgan: Shared mobility in Russia a “huge” growth opportunity

December 17, 2021

Shared mobility markets in Russia could grow by over 50% in the next five years, meaning good news for services provided by U.S.-listed Russian tech giant Yandex, JP Morgan said in a recent note. Ride-hailing and car-sharing markets could reach about 1.4 trillion rubles in 2026 from about 0.9 trillion rubles in 2021 ($19 billion …

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Nobel Prize winners’ tech anticipations encapsulated at major Moscow conference

December 13, 2021

This year’s edition of Open Innovations — one of Russia’s top tech events — was marked by the participation of holders of Nobel, Fields, Wolf and Abel Prizes, leading Russian and foreign scientists and futurists, alongside representatives of corporations, businesses and government bodies. They shared their vision of the future with over a million of viewers from 70 countries followed expert presentations. …

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