The Moscow Times

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday ordered the government to approve a plan to sell assets held by state energy holding company Rosneftegaz in 2013-15, paving the way for the sale of stakes in Gazprom and Rosneft.

VTB board member Olga Dergunova will be appointed to head the Federal Property Management Agency, Vedomosti reported Wednesday, citing unnamed government sources.

Kremlin heavyweight Igor Sechin was put back in charge of Rosneft on Tuesday, a year after he had the reins of the oil giant yanked from his hands under orders from then-President Dmitry Medvedev.

A longstanding platitude shared by both the Kremlin as well as domestic and foreign analysts is the need for Russia to diversify its economy away from energy dependence and reduce its non-oil budget deficit.

President Vladimir Putin on Monday announced the makeup of the new Cabinet answering to Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, with three-fourths of the members having been replaced.

The start of 2012 was pretty gloomy for M&A bankers; 2011 had just finished on a very uncertain note, and politicians in Europe were unable to plug the stream of bad news about the European crisis. And although it was not nearly as gloomy as the start of 2009, expectations for M&A bankers in 2012 were quite low and representative of the overall mood on the market as both market and M&A volumes have historically been pretty correlated elsewhere in the world. Not in Russia, however, as M&A volumes remain, high here and seemed little effected by the market prices, as there a set of deals for any set market conditions.

Diminutive economist Arkady Dvorkovich was one of the few officials to publicly criticize Vladimir Putin's decision to return to the presidency last September, and his appointment as a deputy prime minister adds a strong liberal voice to the new Cabinet.

Russia's richest man recognized the value of Facebook three years ago when he invested in the social-networking company and has now enjoyed a payday of about $1 billion, propelling him further ahead of Russia's oligarchs, who have largely stuck with oil and steel.

Uzbekistan's government says it plans to sell off almost 500 state assets over the next two years in an ongoing drive to expand the private sector in this former Soviet nation.

The Central Bank has not ruled out selling a 7.6 percent stake of financial giant Sberbank this year.

First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov staked a claim Monday to stay on as the government’s No. 2, signaling continuity on economic policy and potentially weakening Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s future role.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev assigned his acting first deputy Igor Shuvalov to oversee the implementation of presidential orders Saturday and said work should start right away, without waiting for the new government to be set up.

City Hall is considering privatizing the Moscow metro system as a step toward developing the capital's infrastructure, the Moscow government said in a new strategy document.

Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko has called for dialogue with the European Union on and described the bloc as "an important partner."