Ukraine crisis could hit Russian GDP

15 April 2014 Last updated at 13:50 The increased spending in Crimea could hit growth in Russia The Russian economy may see zero growth this year because of the Ukraine crisis, Russia's finance minister has admitted.

The minister, Anton Siluanov, warned the country's economy faced "the most difficult conditions since the 2008 crisis", Russian news agencies said.

Mr Siluanov said Russia had already seen capital flight of $63bn in the first three months of 2014.

Russia's annexation of Crimea is also set to increase state spending.

Mr Siluanov told a government meeting: "GDP growth is estimated as rather low, 0.5%. Perhaps it will be around zero."

He added that money was leaving the country because of geopolitical instability - understood to mean Russia's involvement in the Ukraine crisis and increased pressure in eastern Ukraine.

The capital flight, according to Mr Siluanov, was the result of the mass conversion of roubles into foreign currencies.

The continued slowdown in growth has also been linked to a dependence on energy exports and an economy in need of modernisation.

"Continuing capital flight lowers the opportunities for economic investment and creates risk of an unbalanced budget. The main reason for capital flight is instability in the way the geopolitical situation develops," said Mr Siluanov.

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To an extent, our difficulties - I emphasise only to a certain extent - are tied to attempts of certain forces to push us into an artificial crisis”

End Quote Dmitry Medvedev Russian Prime Minister Over the past three years, Russia has seen economic growth fall from 4.3% in 2011 to 1.3% in 2013.

'Artificial crisis'

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev recently told residents of Crimea that the government would be increasing salaries and pensions, in addition to putting extra money into the peninsula's infrastructure, following its recent controversial annexation.

Mr Siluanov warned Mr Medvedev not to spend too much in the region, stating that announcements were made "without analysing the real needs of Crimea and Sevastopol".

Mr Medvedev described the Ukraine crisis as "artificial" and said it was only partly responsible for the economy's bleak outlook.

"We of course cannot ignore the political elements of the current period," he said.

"To an extent, our difficulties - I emphasise only to a certain extent - are tied to attempts of certain forces to push us into an artificial crisis."

With pro-Russia forces occupying buildings in cities across eastern Ukraine, and the central government threatening to retake control by force, tension continues to build in the region.

US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew recently urged other countries to contribute more to the economic rescue of Ukraine.

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Map illustrates 'Russian GPS' fault

9 April 2014 Last updated at 16:38 By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News A GLONASS receiver (red dot) on England's east coast gave position fixes in the North Sea (blue triangles) The General Lighthouse Authorities of the UK and Ireland have issued a map illustrating the effects of last week's failure in "Russia's GPS" system.

Satellites of the GLONASS network experienced a half-day outage when bad data was uploaded to spacecraft.

The GLA map shows a GLONASS receiver at Harwich giving corrupted position fixes that were off by more than 50km.

The Authorities say the 2 April event is a timely reminder that alternatives to satellite navigation are essential.

The GLA themselves are supporting a system in the UK and Ireland called eLoran, which transmits long-range position, navigation and timing signals from a ground-based radio network.

Its primary use is for ships and others in the maritime sector, but there is a feeling also that eLoran could provide a robust back-up for GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo when it arrives.

Galileo is the European sat-nav system, which is in the process of roll-out.

A Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) report in 2011 found that the UK was becoming dangerously over-reliant on what are termed Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS).

Use of space-borne positioning and timing data is now widespread, in everything from freight movement to synchronisation of computer networks.

The academy found that too few of these applications were able to lean on alternatives should the primary sat-nav signals go down.

Receivers needed to be capable of switching seamlessly between a variety of data sources, the RAEng expert panel argued.

"GLONASS is used by quite a lot of people, actually; the iPhone-5 can pick up its signals," explained Prof David Last, a consultant engineer and past president of the Royal Institute of Navigation.

"What we saw last week was many people being affected by the GLONASS failure even with receivers that were also picking up GPS.

"The lesson that comes out of this is not just that satellite-navigation systems are vulnerable, but that you don't get a protection by simply plugging in a second satellite-navigation system.

"You need something that is different and doesn't share common modes of failure," he told BBC News.