OREANDA-NEWS. On October 05, 2007  “COMSTAR - United TeleSystems” JSC (“Comstar” or “the Company”) (LSE: CMST) announced the appointment of Irina Matveeva as Chief Financial Officer, with immediate effect. This appointment was approved by the Company’s Board of Directors on October 5, 2007. Ms. Matveeva previously held the position of Chief Financial Officer at Moscow City Telephone Network (MGTS). Irina Matveeva replaces Nikolay Tokarev, who has served as Chief Financial Officer since May 2006 and has left the Company to pursue a different career, including the development of his own investment projects, reported the press-centre of Comstar.

Sergey Pridantsev, President and CEO of Comstar, commented: “We would like to thank Nikolay Tokarev for the part that he has played in the transformation of Comstar into a public multi-service telecommunications group.  Nikolay streamlined the Group finance department, strengthened communications with the investment community and successfully arranged external financing.  The Company has increased its efficiency levels and is ready to move to the next phase of development. Ms. Matveeva has an established track record at Comstar and MGTS and the resulting knowledge of our business is essential to her new role. Irina will be responsible for integrating the finance functions of the Comstar Group of companies and coordinating their activities, according to the role of each operating company, with the objective of increasing Group shareholder value.”

Irina Matveeva has served as CFO of MGTS since July 2006, prior to which she was Director for Financial Planning of Comstar for two years from 2004 and worked at MTU-Inform, a subsidiary of Comstar, in various roles over nine years. Irina holds a degree in Economics from the Moscow Technical University of Communications and Informatics, as well as an MBA from the University of Antwerp.