General had earlier reports of Russian takingout Zmiiny aka Zmeiny, aka Snake Island south of Odessa. I checked, there is a manned nav beacon station there, but when I looked the station had been off the air for seven hours
This Mysterious Oil Company Just Got A License To Drill In Crimea
By Irina Slav - Mar 08, 2017, 6:00 PM CST
The news about Novye Proekty was published by Kommersant earlier this week, sparking speculation, since according to some sources cited by the daily, the company was linked to fugitive Ukrainian energy and media businessman Serhiy Kurchenko, who is wanted by the Ukrainian authorities for the so-called “Kurchenko scheme”, which included fake oil deliveries and a number of other dubious enterprises. Kurchenko, according to Kommersant, currently lives in Moscow.
EU and U.S. sanctions against Russia have targeted entities and individuals from the energy industry, restricting their freedom of movement, access to funding, and generally making their life difficult. Yet, nobody seems to have heard about Novye Proekty. The company has no assets to its name and no activity. Its owner, with 99 percent, is Glavneftservis, a company run by entrepreneur Anton Dornostup, who is close not just to Kurchenko but also to the former head of Russia’s federal subsoil resources management agency Rosnedra.
By the look of it, Novye Proekty is a classic shell company and maybe the time to get it into action has come. It would make sense for Moscow to be wary of putting Rosneft or Gazprom on the line in Crimea, especially when it became clear that the thawing in U.S.-Russian relations will not happen overnight and it won’t involve an acceptance by the Trump administration of the Crimea annexation. A shell company would be the more appropriate vehicle for tapping the Black Sea oil and gas resources of the peninsula.
Full Article:
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/This-Mysterious-Oil-Company-Just-Got-A-License-To-Drill-In-Crimea.html
>>120431 (me)
As Kommersant has learned, the private company New Projects, unknown in the industry, has received a Russian license for the exploration and production of oil and gas on the Crimean shelf. The main owner of the company, according to official data, is entrepreneur Anton Dornostup, who is close to the family of ex-head of Rosnedra Valery Pak, although a number of sources of Kommersant associate "New Projects" with Ukrainian businessman Sergey Kurchenko. At the same time, "New Projects", having received a license under the simplified procedure in force for the Crimea, in 2015 had no assets and did not conduct economic activities.
As Kommersant found out, a new player may appear on the Crimean shelf. LLC "New Projects" at the end of last year informed Rosnedra that in 2017 it intends to draw up a plan for exploration work at the Glubokaya site, the director of the company Anton Dornostup sent a letter to the agency, sources told Kommersant.
Full Article (in Russian)
https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3235138
Translation via Yandex
I'm thinking this guy mentioned in >>120431
Ukrainian energy and media businessman Serhiy Kurchenko, who is wanted by the Ukrainian authorities for the so-called “Kurchenko scheme”, which included fake oil deliveries and a number of other dubious enterprises. Kurchenko, according to Kommersant, currently lives in Moscow.
Here's something you can add to the Ukraine History you're working up
The Odessa National University has had a research station on Snake Island since 2003, with students and scientists conducting ongoing research regarding the flora and fauna, as well as meteorology, geology, hydrobiology and atmospheric chemistry. While the island has long been sparsely populated, in 2007 the Ukrainian parliament, Verkhovna Rada, approved the official establishment of a rural settlement as an extension of Vylkove city, which is located around 50 kilometers away on the mainland. The island’s infrastructure includes roads, satellite television, cellular phone and internet access, a post office, bank and first-aid station, as well as a lighthouse equipped with a radio beacon providing a signal for GPS and GLONASS navigation systems.
Although the lighthouse serves a modern purpose, it also has historical value as it was built by the Russian Empire’s Black Sea Fleet in the fall of 1842 and stands on the site where a temple dedicated to the Greek god Achilles once stood. Records reveal that Snake Island was originally named “White Island” by the Greeks, with the Romans referring to it as Alba, thought to be a reference to the island’s white marble formations. Submerged and exposed Greek and Roman ruins and temples are found on Snake Island, and according to the writings of Greek poet Arctinus of Miletus it is believed that the remains of Achilles and his compatriot, Patroclus, were brought to the island by the sea nymph Thetis. Poets and philosophers Ovid, Strabo and Ptolemy make mention of the island, which is also described in Pliny’s writings on Natural History. A number of ancient inscriptions found on the island support these conclusions.
It was during the times of the Ottoman Empire that the island was named Fidonisi, meaning Snake Island, by the Greeks. In the 18th and 19th centuries a number of battles took place in the vicinity of Snake Island, with ownership changing with each ensuing battle. In 1948 the Soviets claimed the island from Romania and built a Soviet naval and anti-aircraft radar post there. The change of ownership was strongly disputed by Romania and when ownership changed to Ukraine following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Romania continued with its dispute. The matter was finally settled by the International Court of Justice in February 2009 with the conclusion being that Snake Island falls within the jurisdiction of Ukraine.
https://www.ukraine.com/blog/explore-ukraines-snake-island/
Big Bad Bear = Big Bloated Budgets
The military wants to modernize everything, refurbish many things, and get to throw the Defense Budget credit card to the big corporations for the "wet dream weapons"
Bases, bases everywhere with all those civilian employees to do the little stuff like barber shops