Russian operator VimpelCom has signed a five-year managed services contract with Ericsson. The Swedish vendor’s first major managed services contract in Russia sees it managing Vimpelcom’s network operations at more than 10,000 sites.

At the end of last year, Russian operator Megafon announced the launch of high-end Samsung Galaxy S III LTE- smartphone priced at RUB 29,990 ($989). This was a predictable and well planned move suggesting that the operator wants to maintain its first mover position in the LTE segment, helping to increase its brand equity and improve market share.

The Russian government has decided to withdraw legal claims against Norwegian operator group Telenor, signaling an end to the long-running dispute over the ownership of affiliate firm VimpelCom. The move allows the international operator, headquartered in Amsterdam but of Russian extraction, to distribute dividends to investors including Russian conglomerate Altimo.

Russian operator VimpelCom will transfer 1,300 staff to Chinese infrastructure vendor Huawei, as part of a five-year managed services deal.

Andrei Ushatskiy, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for leading Russian carrier MTS, is tasked with balancing a network strategy for one of the world’s biggest geographic regions as well as several satellite markets.

Dennis Sverdlov is the CEO of Yota and is speaking on Day Two of the LTE World Summit 2012 taking place on the 23-24 May at the CCIB, Barcelona, Spain. Ahead of the show we speak to him about the challenges the Russian network operator has faced during its transition from WiMAX to LTE, on getting FDD and TD-LTE networks to interoperate and his view on unlimited data tariffs.

The chief executive of second placed Russian carrier VimpelCom, Alexander Izosimov, is to step down at the end of June. Izosimov will be leaving on a high, having engineered the somewhat controversial merger with Orascom Telecom parent Weather, which created the world’s fifth largest mobile carrier.