Wildberries will build a large logistics center in St. Petersburg
25.06.2021
Russian online retailer Wildberries has begun construction of a new logistics center in St. Petersburg. Its area will be 100 thousand square meters. m.The completion of the construction of the facility is scheduled for the 1st quarter of 2022. The volume of investments, excluding the cost of equipment, will amount to 3 billion rubles. The warehouse complex will become the largest in St. Petersburg, built for the needs of one company, - says the Wildberries press release.
Bloomberg reported Tuesday on a “secret meeting” held in mid-December between officials from Ukraine, the G7 and a small group of non-Western countries to try to ram through Kiev’s terms for peace talks with Moscow. Russia was not invited to the meeting, but ended up being informed about it anyway.
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Bloomberg reported Tuesday on a “secret meeting” held in mid-December between officials from Ukraine, the G7, and a small group of non-Western countries to try to ram through Kiev’s terms for peace talks with Moscow. Russia was not invited to the meeting, but ended up being informed about it anyway.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spilled the beans on the much-touted “secret meeting” of Ukrainian, Western, and Global South countries’ national security advisors in Riyadh on December 16 weeks before
Bloomberg’s report on the gathering,
telling Rossiya Segodnya chief Dmitry Kiselev about it on December 28.
“Considering our good relations [with Global South countries, ed.], I can say that another meeting like this took place 10 days ago – the G7 plus the leading developing nations. Not all countries from the world majority attended. Some turned down their invitations. The meeting took place in complete secrecy. Nothing was reported about it; there were no leaks,” Lavrov
said at the time.
“But you know about it,” Kisilev interjected
“Yes, we do. Our close allies and associates who attended that meeting did not promise to keep an issue that concerns Russia secret from us. Another meeting is scheduled to take place in January 2024 and a ‘peace summit,’ where [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky’s 'peace formula,' is to be approved in February 2024,” Lavrov said.
Commenting on
Bloomberg’s report and the absurdity of organizing "peace talks" aimed at resolving the Ukraine crisis without inviting Moscow to the table, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman
Maria Zakharova told Radio Sputnik on Wednesday that the “secret meeting” had less to do with ending the conflict, and more to do with pumping up Mr. Zelensky’s ego.
“This is a well-worn concept of attracting political attention specifically to the Zelensky regime. This is PR for the Zelensky regime. Speaking in terms used in political science, [the talks] were about maintaining a sense of constant activity in the information and political space, at the center of which is Zelensky,” Zakharova stressed. “This has nothing to do with resolving the Ukrainian crisis. These are two completely different topics.”
In fact, the spokeswoman suggested, holding “peace talks” without Russia, and on maximalist terms which Russia would never accept only serves to weaken the possibility of peace actually being reached.
“Because resolving the situation in Ukraine is, of course, painstaking work. This is work on the political and diplomatic track. This is negotiations, contacts and so on. This is not about the fate of one person, 10 people or their commercial, financial and economic interests, but about the fate of peoples and nations. That’s if we’re talking about the situation in Ukraine and a real resolution [to the crisis]. The PR around Zelensky, his so-called peace initiatives, his endless statements, appearances at various places and platforms – all this hype is created precisely to maintain the illusion of some kind of political activity while diverting the world’s attention from real processes of a possible settlement,” Zakharova said.
What is ‘Zelensky’s Peace Formula’?
President Zelensky rolled out his so-called "peace formula" in late 2022, with the proposal including 10 points, such as demands that Russia give up Crimea and Donbass, pay Ukraine reparations, subject officials and military personnel to war tribunals, and provide security guarantees buying Kiev time for its NATO accession bid. Essentially, the "peace formula" boils down to demands for total Russian capitulation. Russia, predictably, hasn't taken kindly to the document's proposals, with Lavrov calling it little more than a "figment of a sick imagination."
Zelensky’s NATO sponsors have since held a series of "peace talks" based on these demands without inviting Russia, aimed, it would seem, at getting Global South countries to join the West’s hybrid warfare economic and military pressure campaign against Moscow. Global South countries have refused, not only maintaining diplomatic and economic ties with Russia, but ramping up trade, and expanding West-alternative institutions in which Russia is a prominent member, most prominently via the BRICS bloc, which officially doubled its membership last year.
“No major progress” was made at last month’s secret meeting on Ukraine, which was held in Riyadh, people familiar with the session told Bloomberg, with Kiev and G7 rejecting recommendations by officials from Global South countries to try to engage Russia directly. Among the non-Western countries in attendance were India, Saudi Arabia, and Turkiye, according to the report. However, China, Brazil, and the UAE – which had attended previous meetings of the kind, didn’t show up this time.
In his December 28 interview, Lavrov said that although Moscow was initially anxious about Global South nations’ attendance of the gatherings, it eventually came to the understanding that their decision to take part didn’t carry an anti-Russian character.
“When developing nations started attending these meetings, we asked them why they needed to do this. Don’t they understand that these meetings were pointless at best? They replied that they understand everything. These statements were made by countries from the world majority, which were invited to attend. But they were pursuing two things: first, they wanted to hear what [Ukraine and the West] had to say, and how serious a suggested settlement would be, and second, they wanted to explain that nothing good would come of it until talks were held with Russia’s participation,” Lavrov said.
The "peace formula" being pushed by Zelensky comes following multiple instances of Ukraine rejecting Russian overtures designed to restore peace to the region – starting with the
2015 Minsk Accords, which were aimed at ending the civil war that had broken out in the country’s east, and promised to reintegrate Donbass into Ukraine in exchange for federalization. Kiev dragged its feet in implementing the proposal, instead using Minsk to prepare for a wider war involving Russia (something former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and former French President Francois Hollande
have now all admitted).
In the spring of 2022, just weeks into Russia’s special military operation, Moscow and Kiev held a series of talks in Belarus and Turkiye aimed at resolving the crisis – hammering out a draft peace agreement including a commitment by Kiev to reject NATO membership, reduce the size of its armed forces, and accept Crimea and the Donbass’s status as a part of Russia in exchange for peace guarantees and other concessions.
Ukrainian authorities rejected the peace deal, ostensibly on orders from Kiev’s NATO sponsors, as part of the US-led proxy war thinking aimed at “weakening Russia.” Last summer, at the height of Kiev’s blood-soaked counteroffensive, President Vladimir Putin lamented that Kiev, at the behest of its foreign masters, had thrown a viable peace deal
“into the dustbin of history.”
In the nearly two years since, Ukraine has suffered staggering casualties on the battlefield and socio-economic collapse at home, with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reporting on Tuesday that Ukraine’s Armed Forces had lost
over 215,000 troops in 2023 alone.
Russian Billionaire Blames Sotheby’s for Art Deal Frauds
Sotheby’s defended itself at a trial Monday against accusations that it helped defraud a Russian oligarch out of tens of millions of dollars, saying it knew nothing of wrongdoing by an art buyer who advised the billionaire on buying works by famed artists like Amedeo Modigliani and Leonardo da Vinci.
Sotheby’s attorney Sara Shudofsky told a jury in an opening statement in Manhattan federal court that billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev was “trying to make an innocent party pay for what somebody else did to him.”
Shudofsky said the fertilizer magnate, a savvy businessman who has run highly successful businesses, had “good reason to be angry with himself” after spending hundreds of millions of dollars to buy art masterpieces without taking “the most basic steps” to protect himself from a broker who cheated him.
“Sotheby’s didn’t know anything about those lies,” the attorney said. “Sotheby’s had no knowledge of and didn’t participate in any misconduct.”
She spoke after Rybolovlev’s lawyer, Daniel Kornstein, insisted that a London-based Sotheby’s executive was part of a group of executives who were in on an elaborate fraud.
“As a result of participating in the fraud, Sotheby’s made a lot of money,” Kornstein said. “Sotheby’s had choices, but they chose greed.”
The trial is likely to provide a window into how high-stakes transactions involving art enthusiasts worldwide develop and their importance to the operations of auction houses that rely heavily on their reputations as they match up some of the world’s wealthiest investors.
Rybolovlev, 57, who bought a Palm Beach mansion from Donald Trump for about $95 million in 2008, is expected to testify. In 2016, as Trump readied himself to become president, he called the deal “the closest I came to Russia” when he was questioned about his ties to the country.
In one order last March, Judge Jesse M. Furman urged lawyers to work toward a settlement to avert a trial that would be “expensive, risky, and potentially embarrassing to both sides.”
The case stems from $2 billion Rybolovlev spent from 2002 to 2014 to acquire a world-class art collection through purchases by two of his companies: Accent Delight International Limited and Xitrans Finance Limited.
To carry out the purchases for Rybolovlev’s home in Geneva, Switzerland, he relied heavily on Yves Bouvier, an art broker who claimed he could save Rybolovlev money by handling negotiations for art in return for a 2% commission, Kornstein said.
Before long, Bouvier became such a trusted friend of the billionaire that he attended small birthday parties for Rybolovlev and his daughter and joined him at soccer matches, the lawyer said.
“Bouvier turned out to be a con man” who bought works of art from Sotheby’s and sometimes nearly doubled the price before he resold the art to Rybolovlev, Kornstein said.
“If you’re the buyer and operating in darkness, you have no way of learning that unless the auction house knows about it and can help you out,” he said.
In all, Bouvier pocketed $164 million through his “secret markups” and another $6.4 million by collecting his 2% commission, Kornstein said.
The lawyer told jurors to look at documents including emails that “don’t lie” and would prove that auction house executives knew what was happening. He urged them to ignore what he predicted would be “fairy tales” from Sotheby’s witnesses.
A message sent to a lawyer for Bouvier to seek comment on the accusations against him and a settlement Bouvier reached with Rybolovlev several weeks ago in a Swiss court was returned with the message that it had been forwarded to Bouvier’s representative.
In all, Rybolovlev had accused Bouvier of defrauding him through sales of 38 art pieces, including Picasso’s “Homme Assis au Verre” and Rodin’s “Le Baiser,” “L’Éternel Printemps” and “Eve,” but the judge last year disqualified from the trial many of the dozen or so works bought in private sales through Sotheby’s on various legal grounds.
Among the four works at issue in the trial was de Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi,” a depiction of Christ as “Saviour of the World,” which Bouvier bought from Sotheby’s for $83 million, only to resell it to Rybolovlev for over $127 million, which Kornstein said was a “secret markup” of over $44 million.
In 2017, Rybolovlev arranged for Christie’s to sell it and it went for a historic $450 million, becoming the most expensive painting ever sold at auction.
Other artworks that Kornstein said involved improper markups that will be addressed at the trial were a Modigliani sculpture and paintings by Gustav Klimt and Rene Magritte.
In 2018, Rybolovlev was included on a list that the Trump administration released of 114 Russian politicians and oligarchs it said were linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
However, he was not included on a list of Russian oligarchs sanctioned after Russia attacked Ukraine, and Kornstein told the jury that his client hasn’t lived in Russia in 30 years.
The comments are promising of the shift of how the Twitter community is awakening
