* The Japanese embassy in Moscow said President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi would hold bilateral talks during this July's G8 summit in St. Petersburg
* Alexander Medvedev, deputy board chairman of Russia's energy giant Gazprom, said the company's market capitalization would rise to $1 trillion in the next 10-15 years, more than four times its current $240 billion
* Gazprom said a third company could be invited to join the Russian-German $10.5-billion project to build the North European Gas Pipeline connecting Russia with Europe along the Baltic seabed
* LUKoil, Russia's No. 1 independent crude oil producer, said it would earmark $3 billion to redeem its shares on the stock exchange
* LUKoil president Vagit Alekperov said the company was in talks with U.S. energy giant ConocoPhillips to process its oil in the United States
* State-run oil-pipeline monopoly Transneft announced plans to transport 1.3 million metric tons of oil per year (26,000 bbl/d) to China via a pipeline running across Kazakhstan
* Law-enforcement agencies said police in Moscow had broken up a major operation involving high-ranking figures in national and local administrations smuggling goods from China
* Alfa-Bank, Russia's largest privately owned bank, said its net profits in the first three months of the year had grown by 140% year on year to about $53 million
* Russia is unlikely to join the WTO this year if it fails to complete bilateral accession talks with the United States by mid-June, the country's top negotiator at accession talks said
* State-run foreign trade bank Vneshtorgbank Tuesday posted net profits of about $110 million for January-March, a rise of 80% year on year
* The Federal Property Fund said the privatization of telecoms giant Svyazinvest might not take place in 2006 as planned
* Fitch Ratings said it had downgraded Ukrainian state-owned oil company Naftogaz local and foreign currency Issuer Default Ratings to B+ from BB- due to the company's deteriorating financial condition
* The Russian Embassy in Cairo said at least one Russian tourist had been killed and another injured in a series of explosions at an Egyptian resort on the Red Sea
* A court in Georgia ruled that a Russian couple detained for allegedly crossing the border illegally should be held in a pre-trial detention center for two months
* Three-time Olympic champion Vladislav Tretyak was unanimously elected as the president of the Russian Hockey Federation
* The Commonwealth of Independent States issued an appeal for the world to join efforts to build a new confinement shelter at the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster
