Russia in Review

I. U.S. and Russian priorities for the bilateral agenda.

Nuclear security agenda:

• This week, U.S. President  Barack Obama has signed into law implementing legislation for treaties that represent legal cornerstones of the global nuclear security architecture. The legislation amends the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism, and two Protocols to the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation. (State.gov, 06.04.15).
• “Cooperation between Russia and the United States in the sphere of peaceful atom has not ended,” Deputy Director General of Rosatom Kirill Komarov said. He said opportunities were being explored for implementation of new joint projects and signing of new deals. (RIA Novosti, 06.01.15).
• Russia’s foreign ministry and Rosatom will keep in contact in their cooperation with IAEA, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. Among areas of cooperation between the foreign ministry and Rosatom Lavrov cited such areas as nuclear security, the system of IAEA guarantees, and promotion of nuclear technologies in various sectors of the economy. (Tass, 06.02.15).
• IAEA called on the global community to do more to protect the world’s nuclear facilities from cyber-attacks. During the first-ever conference on the promotion of nuclear sites' security, the head of the UN's nuclear watchdog, Yukiya Amano, urged the international community to take more steps to secure global nuclear facilities and make them safe from ever-increasing cyber threats. (FNA/Sputnik, 06.02.15).
• "No doubt, some terrorist organizations would be willing to obtain ready nuclear weapons in the form of a specific product or materials for making a dirty bomb,” said Andrei Kokoshin, former secretary of the Russian Security Council. Russia and U.S. “need to work together on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, including on preventing them from falling into the hands of terrorist organizations. We need to work together on any conditions," Kokoshin said. (Interfax, 05.29.15).

Iran:

• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said: “If each of the participants, including the Six, of course, and Iranians, stick to the political framework agreed a couple of months ago, then we are perfectly within the timeframe announced as a target by the end of June, we can do this. If people would try at the eleventh hour to get a bit more than the political framework provides, then of course it might not be possible to finish by the end of June."(Bloomberg, 06.02.15).
• Full-scale work on construction of the Bushehr-2 nuclear power plant in Iran will start up this year, Rosatom chief Sergei Kirienko told journalists. "Everything is on schedule. Work is already underway. Full-scale work will begin this year," Kirienko said. (Interfax, 06.01.15).
• Russia will supply its S-300 surface-to-air missile systems to Iran, after the countries agreed to explore an out of court settlement of Tehran's arbitration lawsuit, Sergei Ryabkov, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister said. Russian state arms producer Almaz-Antey said on Tuesday it would supply Iran with S-300s once a commercial agreement is reached. “Preparations for the delivery are underway and the deal will be effected soon,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters following a meeting with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, on Thursday. (RBTH, 06.01.15, Moscow Times, 06.02.15, PressTV, 06.05.15).

NATO-Russia relations:

• Russia poses no immediate threat to NATO countries and the military alliance still hopes bilateral relations will improve, its Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday. But Stoltenberg also said that Russia had been willing to use force to change borders in Europe. “What we see is more unpredictability, more insecurity, more unrest … [But] I believe we don't see any immediate threat against any NATO country from the east," he said. (Reuters, 06.04.15, RFE/RL, 06.04.15).
• U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter is gathering two dozen U.S. military leaders and diplomats based in Europe, on Friday to assess the effectiveness of NATO strategy toward Russia in response to the Ukraine. "The … primary purpose is to assess and strategize on how the United States and key allies should think about heightened tensions with Russia over the past year," said a U.S. defense official (Reuters, 06.04.15).
• The US 6th Fleet has made public a video which is described as showing the Russian jet interaction with the USS Ross warship in the Black Sea on Sunday. The guided missile destroyer departed the Black Sea on Wednesday after an 11-day cruise of the region. On Monday and Tuesday Ross trained with the Ukrainian Navy’s flagship Hetman Sahaydachny. (Russia Today, USNI News, 06.03.15).

Missile defense:

• “We are concerned by U.S. policies in the region, especially since every day it becomes increasingly focused on a systemic containment of Russia and China,” Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said at the Shangri-La Dialogue summit. “Despite our concerns about the U.S. global missile defense architecture, they continue a policy of disrupting strategic stability, adding a regional segment of an anti-missile 'shield' in the Asia-Pacific.” (RBTH, 06.01.15).

Nuclear arms control:

• The Obama administration is weighing a range of aggressive responses to Russia's alleged violation of the INF treaty, including deploying land-based missiles in Europe that could pre-emptively destroy the Russian weapons. This "counterforce" option is among possibilities the administration is considering. It is unclear whether Russia has actually deployed the suspect missile or whether Washington would make any military move if the Russians stopped short of deployment. For now, administration officials say they prefer to continue trying to talk Moscow into treaty compliance. (AP, 06.04.15).
• The Kremlin has paid close attention to media reports on U.S. intentions to deploy ground-based missiles targeting the Russian nuclear potential either in Europe or in Asia and will analyze these reports in detail, Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov has said. (Interfax, 06.05.15).

Counter-terrorism agenda:

• A senior U.S. State Department official said “We all recognize the urgency of the situation, particularly as extremist groups – not just ISIL but also the Nusrah Front – are making gains, and as the regime looks ever more fragile. This is something that is tremendously urgent for the coalition and for the entire international community. It’s why Secretary Kerry went to see President Putin and has continued those discussions. It’s why my colleague Daniel Rubinstein has gone to Moscow.” (State.gov, 06.01.15).
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said: “We have been providing weapons to Syrian government to increase both Syrian and Iraqi ability to fight terrorists on the ground. Everyone understands and publicly admits that just airstrikes are not going to do the trick.”(Bloomberg, 06.02.15).
• Tajikistan has issued an international arrest warrant for a top Tajik police commander who joined the Islamic State group. (RFE/RL, 06.03.15).
• Kazakhstan national Dias Kadyrbaev, who is a friend of convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev who was found guilty of obstructing a police investigation into the deadly 2013 attack, has been sentenced to six years in prison. (RFE/RL, 06.02.15).

Cyber security:

• Former CIA officer and NSA contractor Ed Snowden has accused Russia of ‘arbitrarily passing’ new anti-privacy laws. The sideswipe struck an odd note in an otherwise triumphant op-ed published in the New York Times Friday, in which Snowden celebrated recent moves by Congress and the U.S. courts to end the NSA’s call-tracking program, which Snowden said followed “nearly every phone call in the United States.” (Time, 06.05.15).
• The IRS and its watchdog said Tuesday that the thieves who stole the personal information of 104,000 taxpayers are operating a worldwide criminal syndicate that originates not just in Russia but in many other countries.  In a separate development Obama administration on Thursday announced what appeared to be one of the largest breaches of federal employees’ data, involving at least four million current and former government workers in an intrusion that officials said apparently originated in China. (Washington Post, 06.02.15, New York Times, 06.04.15).

Energy exports from CIS:

• Oil producers Russia and OPEC are trying again to find common ground as they both pump flat out amid a global glut that has helped keep energy prices low. But Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak has signaled that Russia won't do what some OPEC hard-liners want: cut its own production. Russian oil output remained unchanged in May at a post-Soviet high of 10.71 million barrels per day (bpd), Energy Ministry data showed on Tuesday, three days before OPEC meets to decide on output levels. With 10.7 million barrels of production a day, Russia outpaces even Saudi Arabia in output and would boost the cartel's muscle by nearly a third if they joined forces. (Wall Street Journal, 06.03.15, Reuters, 06.02.15).
• Russia's Gazprom plans to start building a pipeline to Turkey this month to get gas to Europe without going through Ukraine, company sources said, although it has no firm agreement with Ankara and faces opposition from the European Union. (Reuters, 06.03.15).
• Russian state gas company Gazprom says China has started construction on the Power of Siberia pipeline to bring Russian gas to China. (RFE/RL, 06.02.15).
• Russia's second largest gas producer, Novatek, said Thursday that it had signed a long-term contract with Royal Dutch Shell to supply about 0.9 million tons of LNG annually for more than 20 years. (Reuters, 06.04.15).
• Ukraine has agreed to pump enough natural gas into its storage facilities to maintain pressure in the system so Russian gas can reach Europe in winter, Russian Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak has said. (RFE/RL, 06.04.15).

Bilateral economic ties:

• Western Union services to CIS are now available in 22,000 post offices under an agreement with the Russian national postal service. The transfer service had previously been available only in 3,000 post offices. (Moscow Times, 06.02.15).
• Russian steelmaker Evraz said on Thursday it had temporarily halted work at its North American Pueblo production plant due to weaker demand. (Reuters, 06.04.15).

Other bilateral issues:

• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said: “Frankly speaking, Kerry's visit to Sochi likely de-facto meant that there is an understanding in Washington that we need to build bridges and end this unfortunate period in our relations, which is not bringing anything good to us, or to the United States, or the rest of the world. There remains a mutual interest in fighting terrorism.”(Rossiya 24 TV, 05.29.15).
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said: “If you take 2014, the year of the crisis in Ukraine, which was used by some people to try to derail the relations between Russia and the West, last year John Kerry and I, we met 17 times.”(Bloomberg, 06.02.15).
• Valentina Matviyenko, speaker of the Federation Council, has been invited to the Fourth World Conference of Speakers of Parliament, due to take place in the United States in late August. (Interfax, 06.05.15).
• After Russia annexed Crimea last year, Congress passed legislation that forced the Pentagon to stop buying Russian rocket engines. Only five months after the ban became law, the Pentagon is pressing Congress to ease tithe Pentagon says that additional Russian engines will be needed for at least a few more years to ensure access to space for the country's most delicate defense and intelligence technology. (New York Times, 06.04.15).
• The U.S. Air Force June 2 launched a competition to develop a new rocket propulsion system, citing an "urgent need" to end reliance on Russian engines to launch military and intelligence satellites. (RFE/RL, 06.03.15).
• Russia jailed a U.S. business consultant for two weeks for an alleged visa violation, the latest sign of troubled relations between the countries .Scott Blacklin, a former president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Russia, has been held in the provincial city of Nizhny Novgorod since May 20. Russian officials said Mr. Blacklin will remain in custody until Friday, when he will be deported. (Wall Street Journal, 06.04.15).
• During a routine passport inspection at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Airport, a U.S. citizen who had lived in the city for more than two decades was informed he was no longer welcome in Russia, local news site Fontanka.ru reported Tuesday. (Moscow Times, 06.03.15).
• The FBI's investigation of bribery and corruption at FIFA includes scrutiny of how soccer's governing body awarded World Cup hosting rights to Russia and Qatar, a U.S. law enforcement official said. (Reuters, 06.03.15).

II. Russia news.

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

• Russia's Central Bank intends to keep accumulating reserves for years to come, until they reach a "comfortable" level up to $500 billion, the bank's governor, Elvira Nabiullina, said Thursday. (Reuters, 06.04.15).
• Russia's service sector activity expanded in April for the second month in row, growing at the fastest rate in 17 months thanks to a strengthening of demand and orders, the HSBC/Markit purchasing managers index (PMI) showed on Wednesday. (Reuters, 06.03.15).
• Former Finance Minister Aleksei Kudrin says the Russian economy is in a "full-blown crisis" fueled by capital flight and low economic growth.(RFE/RL, 06.03.15).
• Figures published by Russia’s state statistics bureau Rosstat show that 16 million people, or 11 percent of the population, found themselves below the poverty line in 2014. (RBTH, 06.04.15).
• Russia has increased its competitive edge in the nuclear plant construction market through the serial production of new reactors, the head of NIAEP-JSC ASE said. (World Nuclear News, 06.03.15).
• Rosatom is to restructure its Rusatom Overseas subsidiary into a trio of new companies to develop, manage and promote Russian nuclear technology internationally.(Rosatom, 06.02.15).

Defense and Aerospace:

• In an interview with Russian news media, Mikhail Ulyanov, the Director of the Department for Non-Proliferation and Arms control at the Russian Foreign Ministry, said that Russia could deploy nuclear weapons to Crimea. “Russia obviously retains the right if needed to deploy its nuclear weapons anywhere on its national territory, including on the Crimean Peninsula,” Ulyanov said. (NI, 06.01.15).
• Since bringing the country back from the brink of bankruptcy a decade and a half ago, Putin has increased defense spending more than 20-fold in ruble terms. (Bloomberg, 06.02.15).
• Moscow's breakup with Ukraine has forced the Russian navy to suspend construction of a variety of next-generation warships. Russia's shipbuilding industry is working to substitute 186 types of components and equipment, "in particular gas turbine engines," Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said.  (Moscow Times, 06.03.15).

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• Moscow State University philosophy student Varvara Karaulova, who planned to join the Islamic State extremist organization, has been detained in Turkey. (Interfax, 06.05.15).
• This week, the Islamic State militant group achieved a new milestone, publishing the first edition of its new Russian-language digital magazine, Istok. (RFE/RL, 05.31.15).
• Masked men ransacked the offices of one of the few human rights groups working in Russia's troubled Chechnya region. More than 30 people have been arrested and brought to police stations across the city of Grozny following the incident. (Interfax, 06.03.15, Wall Street Journal, 06.03.15).
• Human rights activists from the Memorial Center believe there are about 50 political prisoners in Russia. (Interfax, 06.05.15).
• The father of a Russian opposition activist who mysteriously fell ill in Moscow last week says he believes his son was poisoned. Vladimir Kara-Murza said on June 4 that he came to the conclusion that his son was poisoned after doctors were unable to determine the exact cause of his sudden illness. (RFE/RL, 06.04.15).
• The police have found a handgun which probably killed opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, a source familiar with the situation has told Interfax. (Interfax, 06.03.15).
• Russia's Federal Security Service says it has broken up a ring that was smuggling firearms into the country from Latvia. (AP, 06.04.15).
• The long-awaited trial of alleged Russian ultranationalist leader  Ilya Goryachev accused of high-profile, murderous hate crimes has begun. (RFE/RL, 06.02.15).
• A Russian court has extended the pretrial custody of an Estonian security officer who faces more than 20 years if convicted of espionage and whose case is at the center of a bitter dispute between Moscow and Tallinn. (RFE/RL, 06.02.15).
• Germany has deported a man convicted of spying for Moscow. Federal prosecutors said the man, known by the name Andreas Anschlag, was freed from prison on June 3 and deported back to Russia. (RFE/RL, 06.03.15).

Foreign affairs and trade:

• U.S. President Barack Obama will urge EU leaders at the upcoming Group of Seven summit to maintain economic sanctions against Russia over its involvement in eastern Ukraine. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has once again said it is "inconceivable" for Russia to rejoin the Group of Seven after its annexation of Crimea. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper says Russia should not be allowed back into the Group of Seven as long as Vladimir Putin is president. (RFE/RL, 06.05.15, RFE/RL, 06.04.15).
• German  foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a Social Democrat, highlighted on Thursday that “we should have no interest in seeing the G-8 turning permanently into the G-7.” “We urgently need Russia,” he said, to help solve conflicts in Iraq, Libya and Syria and over the Iranian nuclear program. Yet the West, he added, could not ignore that Russia had broken international law. (New York Times, 06.05.15).
• Hours after Germany's foreign minster on Thursday suggested that Russia could be readmitted to the G8, a senior Russian official appeared to rebuff the notion, saying Moscow would rather work with emerging economies than the rich nation's club, from which it was suspended last year following the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.  (Moscow Times, 06.04.15).
• The European Union is looking to roll over its broad economic and targeted sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine crisis until late January, according to a number of senior officials and diplomats. Under the current plans, the bloc would take a political decision at a summit on June 25-26 to extend the economic sanctions to the end of January, officials said. The plans would also see the bloc extend next month the targeted travel bans and asset freezes on individual Russians and Ukrainian separatists from the current mid-September expiry date probably to the end of January, some of the officials said.  (Wall Street Journal, 06.03.15).
• Researchers at Oxford Economics currently peg a 60% chance to economic sanctions on Russia remaining in place throughout 2016. “In spite of the cease-fire, we believe fighting in eastern Ukraine will continue to flare up on a regular basis, following the existing pattern of waves of escalations and cease-fires," they said. (Wall Street Journal, 06.01.15).
• Russia should be invited to rejoin a summit of the Group of Seven industrial powers next weekend, the heads of two German business lobby groups were quoted as saying on Sunday. (Reuters, 05.31.15).
• Russia's decision on whether to extend its ban on Western food imports will depend on whether sanctions imposed on Moscow are prolonged Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said. (Reuters, 06.02.15).
• Moscow has banned the import of processed fish, such as canned sprats, from Estonia and Latvia starting Thursday, citing contamination by toxins. (Moscow Times, 06.04.15).
• The European Parliament has restricted access of the Russian delegation to the assembly in a jab at Moscow for banning 89 EU politicians from entering Russia. The E.U. on Saturday said that, after repeated requests, the Russian authorities had shared a confidential "stop list" with 89 names of Europeans who are banned from traveling to Russia.  An unnamed official from Russia's Foreign Ministry told the Russian Interfax news agency that "it was done as a response to the campaign of sanctions that has been unleashed against Russia by some of the European Union states, with Germany at the head."(Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, 06.01.15, Moscow Times, 06.03.15).
• Plant and machinery exports from Germany to Russia plummeted 28% in the first quarter from last year as. Total German exports to Russia declined 18% last year to €29 billion ($31.64 billion) and imports dropped 7% to €38 billion, according to the federal statistics office. (Wall Street Journal, 06.01.15).
• The European Union will maintain sanctions against three people tied to Ukraine's former President Viktor Yanukovych after Ukrainian authorities moved in recent days to advance investigations against them. The decision involves former Justice Minister Olena Lukash; former Education Minister Dmytro Tabachnyk; and Serhiy Klyuyev, a metals and property tycoon and the brother of Andriy Klyuyev, who was Mr. Yanukovych's last chief of staff. (Wall Street Journal, 06.05.15).
• Russia and Tunisia have signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy. (World Nuclear News, 06.02.15).

Russia's neighbors:

• At least 6,417 people have died in the conflict  in Eastern Ukraine and abuses that may amount to war crimes continue to be committed by both sides, the United Nations said Monday. Nearly 16,000 people have also been injured since fighting broke out between Ukraine and pro-Russian separatists in the region in April 2014. (New York Times, 06.01.15).
• Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dodged questions about whether President Vladimir Putin may ask Russia's parliament to authorize military involvement in Ukraine, saying that the president is free to exercise any of his rights. Earlier The speaker of the Federation Council, the upper chamber of Russia's parliament, has told lawmakers to “not go far” during the summer break because the chamber may need to convene for an emergency session. (Moscow Times, 06.04.15, 06.05.15).
• The decentralization and a “deoligarchization” campaign aimed at reducing the power and influence of Ukraine's wealthiest businessmen would be a priority for Ukrainian leaders, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said during an address to Parliament on June 4 almost a year after he came to power. He was inaugurated on June 7. (Kyiv Post, 06.04.15).
• Ukraine's parliament has adopted a bill on the deployment of foreign troops for peace and security purposes based on UN and EU mandates.  The bill prohibits the use of troops from the aggressor country in these operations. Earlier, the Verkhovnaya Rada has to scrap a series of bilateral agreements on military cooperation with Russia, including a key provision that allows Moscow to send forces by land across Ukraine to the breakaway region. The move effectively cuts off Russian access to the around 1,500 soldiers it maintains in Transdniester. (RFE/RL, 05.30.15,RAPSI, 06.04.15).
• Fighting broke out Wednesday between separatist forces and Ukrainian soldiers in the town of town of Maryinka, killing at least 19 people. The rebel minister of defense, Vladimir Kononov, said 15 separatist fighters and civilians had been killed. An adviser to President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine, Yuri Biryukov, said three Ukrainian soldiers had been killed, while a local official in Dnepropetrovsk, another city in eastern Ukraine, said one civilian had been killed there. Poroshenko said  Ukrainian forces repelled an attack by about 1,000 pro-Russian separatist fighters in Maryinka. Maryinka is strategic because it lies along the main access road for civilian traffic into Donetsk. International observers reported Thursday that Russia-backed rebels moved large numbers of heavy weapons toward Ukrainian government positions hours before the  outbreak of deadly fighting in Maryinka.  (New York Times, 06.05.1, Wall Street Journal, 06.04.15).
• Russia has accused Kyiv of aggravating tensions in eastern Ukraine following the biggest upsurge of fighting between Ukrainian government troops and pro-Russian separatists in months. “The Ukrainian side has taken steps to aggravate tensions many times in the past in the run-up to some major international events," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on June 4. (RFE/RL, 06.04.15).
• Ukrainian President Petro O. Poroshenko said there was still a major risk the crisis could escalate. “There is still the colossal threat of a resumption of widespread fighting," he said. He said there were 9,000 Russian troops currently in eastern Ukraine. Russia has denied it has troops in Ukraine. (Wall Street Journal, 06.04.15).
• A separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine is revealing increasing evidence, but not yet conclusive legal proof, of Russian state involvement, senior United Nations human rights officials have said. (Reuters, 06.02.15).
• With the help of the volunteers and the Ministry of Defense, Ukraine now has at least 50,000 equipped Ukrainian fighters involved in the war, almost 10 times more than a year ago.  (Kyiv Post, 06.04.15).
• The Russian maker of the Buk surface-to-air missile system says it has concluded that the Malaysian Airlines jet that crashed in eastern Ukraine last summer was hit by a version of the missile that is used by Ukraine but not by Russia. (RFE/RL, 06.02.15).
• A team of independent investigators from Britain has determined that Russia's Defense Ministry released doctored satellite photos with falsified dates as evidence to support its claim that Ukrainian government forces shot down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine in July 2014. (RFE/RL, 05.31.15).
• President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine on Saturday appointed the former president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, as governor of the Odessa region.  (New York Times, 05.31.15).
• In 2014, of 2,985 Ukrainian asylum applicants whose cases were processed in the European Union, only 150 were given full refugee status; 2,335 were rejected; and the rest got other forms of protection — an acceptance rate of only 22 percent. (New York Times, 06.01.15).
• Ukraine will win out over foreign bondholders by sealing write-downs in restructuring talks, according to the majority of economists in a Bloomberg survey. The government will achieve a 30 percent reduction in the amount it owes, on top of cuts in coupon payments and extensions to bond maturities, according to the average estimate of 13 of 15 analysts in the survey. Ukraine must restructure its debt before the International Monetary Fund decides on disbursement of the nation’s next loan tranche in June. (Bloomberg, 06.01.15).
• Georgia’s new defense minister Tina Khidasheli  said Georgia wants a “Membership Action Plan” at NATO’s July 2016 summit in Warsaw. But some NATO members question whether Georgia has democratized enough, and they worry about extending their mutual-defense guarantee to a country that neighbors Russia and whose territory is partly controlled by it. (Wall Street Journal, 06.02.15).
• Tajikistan authorities say they have opened an investigation into a high-ranking U.S.-trained police official who allegedly has joined the Islamic State group in Syria. (RFE/RL, 05.30.15).
• A banking swindle in Moldova has been so enormous that it cost this impoverished Eastern European nation the equivalent of an eighth of its annual economic output. Relative to the modest size of Moldova’s economy, the disappearance of hundreds of millions of dollars from three lenders, now insolvent, could rank among the world’s biggest bank thefts. (New York Times, 06.05.15).
• Charities funded from abroad will have to register as "foreign agents" if they encroach into politics in Kyrgyzstan, under a Russian-style law that passed its first reading in the parliament of the Central Asian state on Thursday. (Reuters, 06.04.15).

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