Russian businessman Vladimir Kogan has acquired 82 percent of Uralsib Bank's shares as part of a central bank plan to avert bankruptcy at the top-30 Russian lender, the bank said on Wednesday. The Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) will also give Uralsib loans for 14 billion roubles ($224 million) for six years and 67 billion roubles ($1 billion) for 10 years to help improve its financial position, the state agency said. Uralsib is Russia's 26th largest bank by assets, according to an Interfax ranking, and it is the biggest bank to be saved with central bank funds since Bank of Moscow in 2011.

Russia's central bank is considering relaxing rules for banks that lent to troubled airline Transaero, a senior central banker said on Tuesday, a day after a deal to buy a controlling stake in the airline fell through, Reuters reported. Alexei Simanovsky, first deputy governor of the central bank, told reporters that the bank was considering extending the time period over which banks had to create loan-loss provisions, thereby easing pressure on their balance sheets. "We are thinking that it could be an extension on creating reserves," Simanovsky said.

A Ukrainian Eurobond held by Russia and due for redemption in December is "official" debt, and for that reason Russia is not taking part in restructuring talks Ukraine has held with private creditors, Russia's finance minister said on Wednesday. Anton Siluanov told journalists that Moscow would take legal measures if Kiev did not repay the debt on time. Russia's longstanding position is that the $3 billion Ukrainian Eurobond should be classified as official intergovernmental debt and is therefore subject to different rules than for sovereign debt owned by private firms.

Russia's biggest lender Sberbank does not believe the indebted Transaero airline could be saved even if it changes owners, RIA news agency quoted Sberbank First Deputy Chief Executive Maxim Poletaev as saying on Thursday. The creditor would not withdraw its lawsuit seeking to declare Transaero bankrupt but was ready for talks with a co-owner of Russia's S7 Airlines who had signed an agreement to buy at least 51 percent of Transaero from its current owner, Poletaev was quoted as saying.

A co-owner of Russia's S7 Airlines, Vladislav Filev, has signed an agreement to buy at least 51 percent of airline Transaero, a spokeswoman for S7 said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Transaero, Russia's second-biggest airline, is laden with debt. Two of its main creditors, Sberbank and Alfa Bank, have filed bankruptcy cases against the airline after it lost out on a lifeline deal with competitor Aeroflot. Read more.

President Vladimir Putin called on the International Monetary Fund to help Ukraine repay a $3 billion bond due December, as Russia said it was weighing plans for a possible default on the debt, Bloomberg News reported. The Washington-based fund is preparing to allow countries supported by a loan program to default on debt to official creditors, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said at a government meeting with Putin on Tuesday.

The Russian government’s decision to change its plan on Aeroflot PJSC’s takeover of Transaero Airlines sent the shares of the nation’s biggest airline surging, Bloomberg News reported. The Russian government will change its plan on Transaero and its bankruptcy “isn’t ruled out,” First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said in Moscow on Wednesday. Aeroflot’s offer to buy 75 percent plus 1 share of Transaero expired on Tuesday, RIA Novosti reported, citing Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov. A government commission earlier this month backed the takeover of Transaero by Aeroflot.

Russia’s economic crisis has put dozens of banks out of business this year and is threatening many more. But for others, it is turning into a bonanza, Bloomberg News reported. PJSC B&N Bank, founded by Mikhail Gutseriev, the billionaire owner of OAO Russneft, is one of the beneficiaries. In recent months, the company has gobbled up a string of troubled lenders to become one of Russia’s largest private banks. That pace of growth was hard to imagine before U.S.

Russian coal and steel producer Mechel has signed a debt restructuring deal with the country's second-largest state bank, VTB, leaving it one step away from reaching an agreement with all three of its main lenders, Reuters reported. The indebted miner has spent a year in talks over a $6.8-billion debt restructuring with its three main lenders: VTB, Gazprombank and Sberbank. VTB has agreed to restructure Mechel debt worth 70 billion roubles ($1 billion), the bank and the miner said on Wednesday.

For most countries, the economic slowdown in China and the accompanying slump in commodity prices represent something between nuisance and pothole. For Russia, they are a catastrophe, The Wall Street Journal reported. Russia’s currency and economy, already squeezed by Western sanctions, have been sent into virtual free fall by slumping oil prices. The International Monetary Fund predicted in July that Russia’s economy would shrink 3.4% this year, the most of any major emerging market. That now looks optimistic.