The Russian government will welcome outgoing BP CEO Tony Hayward to any new post in the Russian-British TNK-BP joint venture, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin said on Wednesday. "The format of work can be different," Sechin said, adding Hayward will be welcome in any post he may be appointed to.

Inspired by driving the latest Lada Kalina sports model through the Siberian tundra last week Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told news channel Vesti 24 that Russia will gradually increase import duties on foreign carmakers from the existing 30% to encourage them to open manufacturing plants in Russia.

China and Russia have agreed to create the first cross border tiger conservation reserve for the rare Siberian tiger along the border, the World Wildlife Organization said. The two countries have agreed to establish a reserve along the Jilin province of China and Primosky in Russia, bordering areas that are home to the Siberian tiger.

A power substation in Russia's Volga region of Tatarstan partially crumbled after what officials said was a 'bang' and cut power to the homes of around 80,000 people, authorities said on Tuesday. The officials however refused to say that an explosion caused the accident in the region's main city of Kazan.

In a rare example of the state responding to public protest Russia’s President Medvedev has instructed the government to suspend work on the Moscow – St Petersburg highway that has already cut a swathe through the ancient Khimki forest north of Moscow. 

The Rezidor Hotel Group, one of the fastest growing hotel companies worldwide, and the Regional Hotel Chain (RHC), the leading dedicated regional hotel developer in Russia, announce the Park Inn City Centre Sochi. The hotel featuring 160 rooms is scheduled to open in 2013, in time for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. RHC is one of Rezidor's most important partners for future business development in Russia - in 2009 both companies have signed an agreement for up to 20 Park Inn hotels centrally located across major cities in the country.

Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Sunday formally opened the Russian section of an oil pipeline to China, hailing it as an important step in diversifying energy exports away from Europe. The new pipeline is a 64-km spur from the strategic 4,800-km Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) pipeline. The first 2,700-km section from Taishet in the Siberian region of Irkutsk east to Skovorodino in the Amur Region was inaugurated by Putin last December. The pipeline, built and operated by state monopoly Transneft, will enable Russia to export crude oil from its new oilfields in Eastern Siberia to the Asian Pacific markets of China, Korea and Japan from its terminal at Kozmina, on the Sea of Japan.

Innovative Russian pharmaceutical company Pharmsynthez plans to raise 500 million roubles ($16.28 million) ($16.28 million) in an Initial Public Offering (IPO) on local exchange MICEX this November, the company said on Monday. It will use the raised funds to build a new production plant in St. Petersburg and make strategic acquisitions overseas.

RusHydro JSC, Russia's largest power-generating company, today began trading its American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) on the highest tier of the OTC market, OTCQX®.Pink OTC Markets Inc., the financial information and technology services company that operates the leading electronic quotation and trading system in the U.S. OTC securities marketmade the announcement. 

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill and President Dmitry Medvedev walked side by side at a ceremony celebrating the restoration of the icon above the Smolensky Gate to the Kremlin from Red Square. Watched by the President Patriarch Kirill anointed the icon in the rain and wind on the day of the Assumption in the Orthodox Christian calander.