Two decades after embarking on perhaps the most dramatic – and chaotic – privatisation drive in history, Russia is planning to sell stakes in major state companies to help balance its budget and restructure its economy, reversing a recent policy of boosting Kremlin control over big business, The Irish Times reported.

Sea Launch Co LLC, a provider of commercial satellite launches, received court approval for its reorganization and will emerge from bankruptcy under Russian ownership, according to court documents filed on Friday, Reuters reported. Sea Launch will exit bankruptcy with a $200-million line of credit and $155 million in new equity investment by Energia Overseas, a Russian company. Energia will end up with 95 percent of the company.

Russian state-owned bank Sberbank is seeking a seat on the board of failed Kazakh bank BTA, the head of Kazakhstan's national welfare fund, Kairat Kelimbetov, said on Friday. "The talks are only with Sberbank," Kelimbetov, who also has a seat on Sberbank's supervisory board, told Reuters. "We are formulating a plan for the next 2-3 years." The welfare fund owns BTA. Sberbank has been in talks to take over the bankrupt Kazakh lender, one of the largest in the oil rich central Asian state. If it takes a board seat it would likely signal the takeover is ready to proceed.

TNK-BP Ltd., BP PLC's Russian venture, hopes a recent bankruptcy filing at a Siberian gas venture will speed up the government's takeover of the project, allowing TNK-BP to recover at least some of the roughly $900 million it invested there, interim Chief Executive Mikhail Fridman said Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported. Under pressure from regulators, TNK-BP agreed to sell its controlling stake in the huge Kovykta field to state gas giant OAO Gazprom back in 2007. But Gazprom never closed the deal and executives say publicly the company doesn't need Kovykta's huge reserves.

TNK-BP, a joint venture between Britain's BP and a group of Russian billionaires, said on Thursday that its unit which holds the license to the vast Kovykta gas field had filed for bankruptcy, Agence France-Presse reported. TNK-BP said the RUSIA Petroleum unit is unable to pay off debts to its parent company. "The current financial situation precludes RUSIA Petroleum from timely repayment of its loans to TNK-BP Group," the company said in a statement. The loans were made to the subsidiary to finance the development of the vast Kovykta gas field, it said.

Sea Launch's plans to emerge from bankruptcy under majority Russian ownership are still subject to court and regulatory approval, but company leaders say they expect to resume commercial missions early next year, Spaceflight Now reported. The besieged launch firm filed a plan of reorganization in a Delaware bankruptcy court this week, kicking off several months of behind-the-scenes negotiations between the Sea Launch's new owners and unsecured creditors.

The new gas deal with Russia offering Ukraine a 30% discount on the price of Russian natural gas supplies will help Naftogaz to avoid bankruptcy, the Ukrainian national energy company said in a statement on Thursday, RIA Novosti reported. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Yanukovych agreed during their meeting on Wednesday in Kharkov in east Ukraine that Russia would grant Ukraine a 30% discount on the gas price of $330 per 1,000 cu m over the next ten years.

Managers of defunct Russian oil firm YUKOS have won injunctions hitting payments by foreign customers to state oil major Rosneft, jeopardising delivery of up to a fifth of Russia's oil exports, sources told Reuters. Rosneft's shares fell by as much as 3 percent on the news, which raised fears about the flagship company's exposure to a raft of lawsuits relating to some of its key assets. Rosneft declined to comment on the injunctions but trade sources said they were part of a protracted legal battle between YUKOS and the Russian government.

GAZ Group, the Russian carmaker owned by billionaire Oleg Deripaska, “officially completed” restructuring 39.2 billion rubles ($1.3 billion) of debt, clearing the way for the government to guarantee its loans, BusinessWeek reported on a Bloomberg story. “This is a unique transaction because of the large number of participants involved, the large amount of ruble debt and the use of Russian legislation,” Alexander Bazarov, a vice president of OAO Sberbank, which managed the restructuring, told reporters in Moscow today.

Ukraine's presidential election yesterday—which appears headed to a second round run-off on Feb. 7 between the two leading candidates, Viktor Yanukovych and Yulia Tymoshenko—unfolds against the background of financial ruin, The Wall Street Journal reported in an opinion piece. It has long been obvious that the defeat of the incumbent, Viktor Yushchenko, who has painted himself into the anti-Russian nationalist corner, would produce a political rapprochement between Ukraine and Russia. Mr. Yanukovych is committed to non-alignment (meaning no application for NATO membership) while Ms.