A unit of Russia's Alfa Group said on Thursday it had withdrawn its proposal to acquire Central European Distribution Corp, one of the world's largest vodka producers, through a restructuring of CEDC's finances. Alfa Group unit A1 said in a two-sentence statement to Reuters that it had officially withdrawn its non-binding offer to restructure CEDC. It also said the two other members of its consortium, CEDC investor Mark Kaufman and SPI Group, which owns Stolichnaya Vodka, had been informed of its decision.

Russia's largest banks said Thursday their clients' exposure to losses in Cyprus so far appears modest, while there were few other signs of immediate fallout for Russian business, executives and analysts said, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Kremlin's angry public attacks last week on a planned tax on bank deposits in a tax haven long favored by Russians led many observers to suspect Russians' exposure to Cyprus's troubled banks was substantial. Estimates ran as high as €20 billion ($26 billion) in Russian money said to be at risk.

Cyprus has thrown its international reputation as an offshore banking hub into peril after considering a bold plan to levy a one-time tax on deposits, The Wall Street Journal reported. The proposed tax—which would have helped Cyprus raise funds as part of a €10 billion ($13 billion) bailout deal from the European Union and International Monetary Fund—was rejected by Cyprus's Parliament on Tuesday. Cyprus is now scrambling to find other ways to raise the funds. Still, much of the damage appears to have been done. The tax proposal provoked outrage in Moscow.

Boeing Co has sued its Russian and Ukrainian partners in satellite launch service Sea Launch, saying they refused to pay it more than $350 million following the joint-venture's bankruptcy filing in 2009, Reuters reported. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Friday, targeted RSC Energia, a company partially owned by the Russian government, and two Ukrainian state-owned companies, PO Yuzhnoye Mashinostroitelny Zavod and KB Yuzhnoye.

Russia's No. 1 telecoms operator MTS said on Wednesday its Uzbek subsidiary had applied for bankruptcy, Reuters reported. The phone operator had been fighting to restore its Uzbek business after a court revoked its license to operate in August as part of dispute involving a criminal case against local MTS managers and a back-tax claim. MTS was ordered to pay $600 million in fines by an Uzbek court in November.

Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska’s Kuban Airlines, the country’s 14th biggest, declared bankruptcy and ceased flying today after running up debt and breaching federal regulations, Bloomberg reported. “The main reasons for stopping the airline’s operations are the difficult financial situation and failure to comply with a number of provisions mandated by new federal aviation rules,” Krasnodar-based Kuban Airlines said in a statement on its website. The carrier filed for bankruptcy at the Krasnodar Region Arbitration Court.

OAO Mechel, Russia’s largest producer of steel-making coal, got a year’s breathing space on repayments to a $1 billion loan by signing a restructuring deal with banks, Bloomberg reported. The company, which reported an $823 million loss for the second quarter of the year because of falling coal prices, got banks to agree to an amendment and restatement of the syndicated loan, it said in a statement distributed by Globe Newswire. The facility, maturing in 2015, would have repaid $600 million next year in monthly installments and these will be delayed for 12 months, it said.

Russia’s regional governments have no chance of defaulting on their debt even as they increase their borrowing levels, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said, Bloomberg reported. “Investors often ask about the possibility of default in the regions -- there can simply be no such thing,” Siluanov said at a conference organized by VTB Capital in Moscow today. “That’s ruled out. Perhaps 15 years ago there was tension of this kind, but now it’s impossible.” Russian regions will increase borrowings this year, he said in another speech at the Federation Council, the upper house of parliament.

Switzerland-based trader Gunvor said on Monday that operations had resumed at its German Ingolstadt refinery, acquired from insolvent refiner Petroplus earlier this year, Reuters reported. Gunvor, which is co-owned by a Russian tycoon and chief executive Torbjorn Tornqvist, bought the 100,000 barrels per day plant in May from the insolvent Petroplus to build on its presence in Europe. "We intend to build upon the good and enduring customer relationships, and enlarge our trading activities in Germany and the Alpine region," said Tornqvist in an emailed statement.

Bondholders are demanding higher yield premiums from OAO Mechel relative to other Russian metals and mining companies on concern its debt load will soar with the takeover of a smaller steel producer, Bloomberg Businessweek reported. Billionaire Igor Zyuzin’s coal company, which agreed on new covenants under its international debt less than four months ago, will seize control of the indebted Estar Group if the Moscow-based company can’t repay a $945 million bank loan guaranteed by Mechel’s units by the end of September, according to the debt agreement.