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James Kilner

0754GMT//Witkoff flies into Russia; Russian officials ask Ethiopia to ease Boeing aircraft

WITKOFF IN RUSSIA: Steve Witcoff, Donald Trump's personal envoy, has been filmed in Moscow ahead of talks with Vladimir Putin. This is his first trip to Russia since April. Video showed Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund and an envoy for Putin, walking

0756GMT//Witkoff to meet Putin on Wed; fringe towns in Russia are dying out

NUCLEAR MISSILE THREAT: The Kremlin said it may lift a moratorium on the deployment of land-based short and medium-range nuclear missiles after the US moved two nuclear-armed submarines closer to Russia. (COMMENT: This is part of the fallout from a Twitter spat between Donald Trump and Dmitry Medvedev, a former

Two-week service break

Good morning, The Russian Morning Memo is going on a two-week break. It'll be back on Monday Aug. 4. Yours, James, Editor – The Memo

0715GMT//Russian banks see unpaid loan crisis; interest rates likely to be cut; oligarchs choose to cruise in the Arctic

UNPAID LOANS: Three of Russia's largest banks have started talks with the Central Bank on taking emergency cash to cover unpaid consumer loans, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday. Bloomberg quoted Russian banking insiders as saying that the Central Bank had asked commercial banks to "restructure" loans

0652GMT//Kremlin cancels its main weapons fair; sanctions delays repairs to refineries; Putin visits Magnitogorsk

WEAPONS FAIR CANCELLED: The Kremlin has cancelled its biggest annual weapons fair "Army" next month, the Izvestia and Kommersant newspapers reported without giving a reason. (COMMENT: If confirmed, this is a humiliation for the Kremlin. It set up the weapons fair in 2015 to show off Russian military

0654GMT//Kremlin dismisses Trump's secondary sanction threat; Russia claims most Armenian brandy is fake

RUSSIA DISMISSES TRUMP THREAT: The Kremlin has rejected Donald Trump's threat to impose secondary tariffs on Russia's trading partners if it didn't negotiate a peace deal with Ukraine in the next 50 days. (COMMENT: The threat of secondary sanctions against Russia's main

0726GMT//Trump threatens Russia's trade partners; carrot prices soar; Russian 'spy dens' to set up in UAE and Saudi Arabia

TRUMPS THREATENS RUSSIA'S PARTNERS: Donald Trump said on Monday that he would impose secondary sanctions on Russia and its trading partners if Putin does not negotiate a deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days. (COMMENT: This is a major threat. Slapping sanctions on countries such

0615GMT//Kremlin seizes gold mine and tinned food producer; Lavrov tours North Korean beach resort

SEIZING ASSETS, PART 1: A court on Friday in Chelyabinsk in the Urals confirmed the seizure of Yuzhuralzoloto, Russia's fourth biggest gold mine, from oligarch Konstantin Strukov. Government officials have claimed that safety standards have been undermined. Strukov was detained earlier in July on his private jet trying

0805GMT//Putin skips funeral of minister who shot himself; Lavrov and Rubio meet; Kremlin bank sets up in Abkhazia

PUTING SKIPS MINISTER'S FUNERAL: Vladimir Putin ducked out of attending the funeral on Thursday of Roman Starovoyt, his former transport minister who killed himself on Sunday evening after being accused of corruption. The Kremlin said that Putin was busy with work. (COMMENT: Starovoyt's suicide is a

0815GMT//Lavrov to meet Rubio for 2nd time; white collar prisoners to work in labour gangs

RELATIONS WITH THE US: Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, will meet with Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, on the sidelines of the ASEAN foreign ministers forum in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday. (COMMENT: This is Lavrov and Rubio's second meeting. The previous one was in