Russia in Review

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

Nuclear security agenda:

The U.S. nuclear power industry should prepare for big—if uncommon—disasters such as earthquakes and terrorist acts, a panel of experts said Thursday in releasing an analysis of the impact of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that crippled Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant. Congress had asked the National Academies of Sciences to evaluate the lessons the U.S. should learn from the Japanese event. (Wall Street Journal, 07.24.14).
Madelyn Creedon was confirmed by the Senate on Wednesday, July 23, 2014, as the Department of Energy’s Principal Deputy Administrator for the National Nuclear Security Administration. (NNSA, 07.23.14).

Iran nuclear issues:

P5+1 and Iran have agreed to extend the Sunday deadline toward Iran dismantling parts of its nuclear-development program. Negotiators agreed to a four-month extension this weekend in Vienna, extending the so-called Joint Plan of Action reached in November in which Iran agreed to scale back its nuclear program in exchange for the easing of some sanctions. (Fox News, 07.19.14).

NATO-Russia relations, including transit to and from Afghanistan:

While the Russian president said there was no "direct military threat to the sovereignty and integrity" of Russia, Vladimir Putin lashed out at NATO and the West, saying Russia would "increase its defense capabilities" in response to NATO activity close to its borders. (The Moscow Times, 07.22.14).

Missile defense:

Russia voiced concern on Thursday over a U.S. proposal to station elements of a missile defense shield in South Korea, saying the move could provoke an arms race in the region. (Reuters, 07.24.14).

Nuclear arms control:

No significant developments.

Counter-terrorism cooperation:

Azamat Tazhayakov was convicted Monday of trying to protect college friend and Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev by agreeing with another friend to get rid of a backpack and disabled fireworks they took from his dorm room three days after the attack. (Washington Post, 07.22.14).

Cyber security:

A St. Petersburg resident who is suspected of selling about $10 million worth of e-tickets that he stole by hacking into users' accounts has been detained in Spain and faces extradition to the United States. (Moscow Times, 07.22.14).
Russia's Interior Ministry is offering nearly 4 million rubles ($114,000) for research on ways to get data on users of the anonymous web surfing network Tor. (Moscow Times, 07.24.14).

Energy exports from CIS:

If the standoff with Russia and the West reaches a point where the EU has to completely cut trade with Russia, oil prices could soar above $200 per barrel, sparking a global economic crisis, says Adam Slater, senior economist at Oxford Economics. (Russia Today, 07.23.14).
The European Union should not give Russia technical help to develop Arctic oil and gas fields if Moscow fails to help to defuse the Ukraine crisis, EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said on Wednesday. (Reuters, 07.23.14).

Bilateral economic ties:

The Russian steel maker Severstal said on Monday that it had agreed to sell two steel facilities in the United States to two of its American rivals, Steel Dynamics and AK Steel, for more than $2.3 billion. (New York Times, 07.21.14).
Oil field service provider Schlumberger, which drills with Rosneft on the Russian island of Sakhalin, said there was no "real impact" on its business in Russia, two days after the United States slapped sanctions on Rosneft. (Reuters, 07.20.14).
Russia is planning to complain to the World Trade Organization, or WTO, about sanctions imposed by the U.S. over Russia's perceived failure to help de-escalate the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, media reports said. (The Moscow Times, 07.20.14).
To avoid paying the security deposit and fines for interruption of service, Visa and MasterCard must find a Russian payment system deemed "of national importance" to process their transactions by Oct. 31. (Moscow Times, 07.22.14).

Other bilateral issues:

Russia's Foreign Ministry announced Saturday that it was expanding its list of Americans barred from the country, including a congressman and several senior military officers. Russia was adding to a list started last year of barred American officials connected to the prisons at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba and Abu Ghraib in Iraq. Also, in response to American sanctions against members of the Russian Parliament, Moscow banned entry to Representative James P. Moran, a Democrat of Virginia. (New York Times, 07.20.14).
The Obama administration is prepared to expand a new set of economic sanctions against Russia if the country doesn't take steps to end Ukraine's conflict with pro-Russia separatist fighters, a senior administration official said. Under the new sanctions program, the Treasury Department could expand the number of institutions affected and expand the limitations placed on the Russian firms, the senior administration official said. (Wall Street Journal, 07.23.14).
Mr. Obama lost ground in Russia, where he wasn’t particularly well thought-of to begin with, according to a Pew Global Attitudes survey. Only 15 percent of people there have confidence in the American president’s handling of international affairs, down from 29 percent last year, according to the poll. (New York Times, 07.22.14).

II. Russia news.

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday signed a law to allow the president to appoint 17 senators, thus boosting the composition of the Federation Council by 10 percent. (Moscow Times, 07.22.14).
Vladimir Putin made a point of saying Tuesday that he had no intention of "cracking down" to thwart forces that threaten “the unity of our country.” Nikolai Patrushev, a member of the Russian Security Council told reporters Tuesday that the opposition had an important place in Russia. (Washington Post, 07.22.14).
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law that increases the punishment for public calls for separatism. (RFE/RL, 07.22.14).
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law increasing the punishments for people who violate the rules for organizing and holding street protests. (RFE/RL, 07.22.14).
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law reestablishing "standard" winter time in the Russian Federation. (RFE/RL, 07.22.14).
President Vladimir Putin's approval rating is currently at 83 percent, the highest it has been since he left office for the first time in 2008, according to a recent survey of Russians by the respected U.S. pollster Gallup. The new poll reveals a 29 percent increase in Putin's popularity since 2013.
Russia's economy grew 0.1% in the second quarter, meaning the country has avoided slipping into a technical recession, the economy ministry said Friday. (Wall Street Journal, 07.25.14).
Russian government could increase VAT by 2 percent as early as next year in an attempt to tackle the rapidly deepening budget deficit in the Russian regions. The Finance Ministry estimates that the regions' total budget deficit will reach 857 billion rubles ($25 billion) in 2014 — 33.5 percent higher than in 2013. (Moscow Times, 07.24.14).
Growth in Russian banks' consumer lending portfolios has nearly halved, falling from 13.7 percent in the first half of 2013 to 6.8 percent this year, the report said.(The Moscow Times, 07.24.14
Russia will discover next week how much it may be asked to pay for the confiscation a decade ago of Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s Yukos Oil Co., then the country’s biggest oil producer. The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague will rule on July 28 on a $103 billion damages claim the company’s former owners filed against Russia in 2007. (Bloomberg, 07.23.14).
The U.S sanctions against state-owned oil giant Rosneft may impact the planned privatization of a 19.5 percent share in the company, Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said Saturday. (The Moscow Times, 07.20.14).
"The sanctions in their current format don't have a macroeconomic effect," Andrei Belousov, the Kremlin's top economic adviser, told journalists. "My assessment is that we're in the vicinity of 1 percent (gross domestic product growth) and will stay there until the end of the year." (Reuters, 07.22.14).
Trade Minister Denis Manturov said the measures by the West could not drive Russia into the isolation of Soviet times. "What sanctions? A holy place is never empty: if one market closes, another opens," he told journalists. "What's happening today is peanuts compared to what was then." (Reuters, 07.22.14).
Russia’s former finance minister Alexei Kudrin issued a stern warning that Russia’s stand-off with the west would hurt the country’s economic and political modernisation. (FT, 07.22.14).
Russia's Justice Ministry added five Russian nongovernmental organizations to the registry of "foreign agents" operating in the country Monday. (The Moscow Times, 07.21.14).
The Rossita, a radioactive waste transport ship donated to Russia by Italy in 2011, has completed its first mission. (World Nuclear News, 07.22.14).
Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced plans to establish a BRICS "energy association" that will include a fuel reserve bank and an energy policy institute. (World Nuclear News, 07.21.14).
Russia plans to start construction of three BN-1200 sodium-cooled fast neutron reactors before 2030, the director general of Rosenergoatom, Evgeny Romanov, said on 21 July (World Nuclear News, 07.22.14).

Defense:

The Russian cabinet has signed off on a measure that would increase Russian defense spending to 21 percent of the country's overall budget by 2017, from 17.5 percent today. According to the Kremlin's official numbers, the military budget will continue to rise, reaching approximately $83.7 billion in 2015 and $93.9 billion in 2016. (Foreign Policy, 07.23.14).

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

A Moscow City Court has found two Russian opposition activists, Sergei Udaltsov and Leonid Razvozzhayev, guilty of organizing mass disorder, and sentenced them sentenced them to four and a half years in a prison colony (RFE/RL, 07.24.14, New York Times, 07.25.14).

Foreign affairs and trade:

European officials Friday put off discussion about imposing sanctions on members of President Vladimir Putin's inner circle but pressed ahead with plans to deliver sector-wide economic sanctions on Russia next week, officials said. The EU on Thursday added 18 entities to its sanctions list. Also targeted were 15 individuals, including senior officials from the Federal Security Service. (Wall Street Journal, 05.25.14).
French President Francois Hollande said Paris would not terminate the sale of the first craft, which has already been paid for, but he left open the option of canceling the second ship if Russia did not change course. (Washington Post, 07.22.14).
Russia on Monday toughened conditions for imported animal products that transit across the European Union. (Moscow Times, 07.21.14).
The U.K. government on Tuesday announced an inquiry into the 2006 death by poisoning of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London. (Wall Street Journal, 07.22.14).
An Italian-Russian project to build a new generation small submarine has been suspended because of the "political situation" following Western sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine crisis. (Reuters, 07.25.14).
Canada broadened its economic sanctions against the Kremlin, in response to the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. (Wall Street Journal, 07.24.14).
The prime minister of Australia, currently presiding over the G20, has hinted the Russian president could be dropped from the next summit in Brisbane over the MH17 crash in Ukraine. (Russia Today, 07.20.14).

Russia's neighbors:

Ukraine's parliament adjourned for a two-week break Friday without accepting the resignation of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, creating uncertainty about who holds the key position at a critical moment in Ukraine's offensive against separatists in the east. Yatsenyuk issued a decree naming Volodymyr Groisman, a deputy prime minister and minister of regional development, as his successor. (Washington Post, 07.25.14).
A U.N. Security Council resolution, which passed unanimously Monday, demanded that international inspectors be given immediate, full access to the crash site and that "those responsible for this incident be held to account." (Washington Post, 07.22.14).
The United States has found no direct link between the Russian government and the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 last week, three senior US intelligence officials said Tuesday. The officials repeated their belief that pro-Russian separatists fired the missile that took out the jetliner over Ukraine, but they said they could not say definitively that the separatists did it. “(NBC, 07.22.14).
A piece of wreckage from the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 that was shot down in eastern Ukraine last week bears telltale marks of small pieces of high-velocity shrapnel that apparently crippled the jet in flight. (New York Times, 07.22.14).
The Dutch and Australian governments are exploring a plan to send an armed multinational protection force to a pro-separatist enclave in eastern Ukraine to secure the site where Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 crashed. (Foreign Policy, 07.25.14).
Human Rights Watch issued a report late Thursday accusing the Ukrainian government of killing at least 16 civilians and wounding many more in four attacks on Donetsk between July 12 and July 21 by firing unguided rockets into insurgent-controlled areas of the city. (Wall Street Journal, 07.25.14).
Two Ukrainian Sukhoi Su-25 warplanes were shot down Wednesday over rebel-held eastern Ukraine in the same vicinity as a Malaysian airliner that was downed last week. (Washington Post, 07.23.14)
Ukrainian Finance Minister Oleksandr Shlapak warned parliament Thursday that the military was swiftly running out of money to pay for its offensive in the east. “As of Aug. 1, we'll have nothing to pay the military," Shlapak said. (Washington Post, 07.25.14).
Barack Obama on Tuesday called for Vladimir Putin to ''pivot away'' from the rebels in Ukraine, linking him directly to their abuse of the crash site. (Washington Post, 07.22.15).
"Russia will do everything possible to shift the current conflict in eastern Ukraine from today's current military stage to the state of discussion at the negotiation table and the resolution by exclusively peaceful and diplomatic means," Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday. (Wall Street Journal, 07.20.14).
“We are being urged to influence the separatists in eastern Ukraine. Everything that is in our power, I repeat, of course we will do it," Vladimir Putin told a meeting of Russia's Security Council on Tuesday, adding, however, that "even that is not enough" to stop the conflict in Ukraine. To resolve the situation, he said, the West would have to put pressure on Kiev to get the new authorities to stop shelling areas in the east. (The Moscow Times, 07.22.14).
At the Pentagon, spokesman Col. Steven H. Warren said that "we now know that the Russians have been firing artillery from Russia.” Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the Russian government "has made the conscious decision to use its military force inside of another sovereign nation to achieve its objectives."I think it does change the situation," he said. (Washington Post, 07.25.14).
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday that Russia had in fact trained the separatists in how to use the missile, while Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, went even further, raising the possibility that the Russian military had actually fired the missile. (Washington Post, 07.21.14).
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said: “This is the moment of truth for Russia and for Mr. Putin, where they need to stop just saying things and they need to make sure that they happen.” (The Moscow Times, 07.21.14).
Russia's Defense Ministry on Monday presented its first detailed account of the final moments of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, saying Russian radar had spotted a second aircraft in the vicinity shortly before the crash and that satellite imagery showed Ukraine had moved missile systems into the area before the incident. Russian air space control systems detected a Ukrainian Air Force plane. (Wall Street Journal, Reuters, 07.21.14).
The Russian Defense Ministry cited data that showed that the Ukrainian armed forces were using phosphorus-containing ammunition during the hostilities in southeast Ukraine, Maj. Gen. Viktor Poznikhir of the Main Operative Directorate of the Russian Army General Staff said on Friday. (Interfax, 07.25.14).
In Moscow, Aytech M. Bizhev, a deputy commander of Russia's antiaircraft forces, sought to rebut allegations that Ukrainian separatists had shot down the Malaysian airliner. Bizhev said they would not have known how to launch such a missile, adding that ''an entire military ensemble'' of various specialized officers is needed to fire such a weapon and that they would have had no opportunity to train in the ''wartime conditions'' in eastern Ukraine. (New York Times, 07.20.14).
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry agreed in a phone call to try to get both sides in Ukraine to reach a consensus on peace, Russia's Foreign Ministry said. (Reuters, 07.21.14).
The Ukrainian government said Friday it regained control of the separatist stronghold of Lysychansk. (Wall Street Journal, 07.25.14).
The Ukrainian military says 325 soldiers and officers have been killed since the "antiterrorist" operation was launched in the country's eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk more than two months ago. (RFE/RL, 07.25.14).
Interpol has put the leader of Ukraine's ultranationalist group Right Sector, Dmytro Yarosh, on an international wanted list at Russia's request. (The Moscow Times, 07.25.14).
Russia's food safety watchdog slapped a blanket ban on all imports of dairy and dairy-containing products from Ukraine beginning Monday. (The Moscow Times, 07.25.14).
Moscow has prepared and sent the list of potential risks posed to the Russian economy by Ukraine's association with the EU. (RIA Novosti, 07.23.14).
IMF said because of the conflict in eastern Ukraine, it now expects the country's economy to shrink 6.5 percent instead of 5 percent and the government's fiscal deficit to reach 10.1 percent of gross domestic product, up from 8.5 percent forecast in April. (Washington Post, 07.23.14).
German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke to Vladimir Putin on Saturday, urging his cooperation. Merkel's foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, told Bild am Sonntag newspaper: "Moscow may have a last chance now to show that it really is seriously interested in a solution." (Reuters, 07.21.14).
Ukrainian parliament speaker Oleksandr Turchynov announced that the Communist Party, who occupy 23 seats in the Verkhovnaya Rada, would be dissolved. (RIA Novosti, 07.23.14).
An Uzbek human rights group says that six people have been sentenced to long prison terms for being members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) as part of a large ongoing trial of some 66 suspects accused of terrorism. (RFE/RL, 07.23.14).
Four people in the Kazakh city of Zhezqazghan have been sentenced for recruiting fighters to the Islamic insurgency in Syria. (RFE/RL, 07.22.14).
One person was killed and at least three injured when their car hit a mine in the Kashatagh Province of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh on July 22. (RFE/RL, 07.22.14).
International mediators in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict have voiced "serious concern" over the increase in tensions and violence in the region, including “the targeted killings of civilians.". (RFE/RL, 07.24.14).
Russia’s agricultural watchdog, Rosselkhoznadzor, says a ban that it announced on July 18 against imports of fruit from Moldova has gone into effect immediately. (RFE/RL, 07.19.14).
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili has reshuffled his cabinet, saying it needed new "energy" and "efficiency." (RFE/RL, 07.21.14).
Kyrgyzstan says it will join the Russia-led Customs Union in 2015 but will need five years to fully complete the process. (RFE/RL, 07.25.14).
Former Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev has been sentenced to life in prison in absentia for involvement in the 2010 killing of protesters during the uprising that ousted him. (RFE/RL, 07.25.14).

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Russia in Review: a digest of useful news from U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism for July 18-25, 2014

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

Nuclear security agenda:

· The U.S. nuclear power industry should prepare for big—if uncommon—disasters such as earthquakes and terrorist acts, a panel of experts said Thursday in releasing an analysis of the impact of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that crippled Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant. Congress had asked the National Academies of Sciences to evaluate the lessons the U.S. should learn from the Japanese event. (Wall Street Journal, 07.24.14).

· Madelyn Creedon was confirmed by the Senate on Wednesday, July 23, 2014, as the Department of Energy’s Principal Deputy Administrator for the National Nuclear Security Administration. (NNSA, 07.23.14).

Iran nuclear issues:

· P5+1 and Iran have agreed to extend the Sunday deadline toward Iran dismantling parts of its nuclear-development program. Negotiators agreed to a four-month extension this weekend in Vienna, extending the so-called Joint Plan of Action reached in November in which Iran agreed to scale back its nuclear program in exchange for the easing of some sanctions. (Fox News, 07.19.14).

NATO-Russia relations, including transit to and from Afghanistan:

· While the Russian president said there was no "direct military threat to the sovereignty and integrity" of Russia, Vladimir Putin lashed out at NATO and the West, saying Russia would "increase its defense capabilities" in response to NATO activity close to its borders. (The Moscow Times, 07.22.14).

Missile defense:

· Russia voiced concern on Thursday over a U.S. proposal to station elements of a missile defense shield in South Korea, saying the move could provoke an arms race in the region. (Reuters, 07.24.14).

Nuclear arms control:

· No significant developments.

Counter-terrorism cooperation:

· Azamat Tazhayakov was convicted Monday of trying to protect college friend and Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev by agreeing with another friend to get rid of a backpack and disabled fireworks they took from his dorm room three days after the attack. (Washington Post, 07.22.14).

Cyber security:

· A St. Petersburg resident who is suspected of selling about $10 million worth of e-tickets that he stole by hacking into users' accounts has been detained in Spain and faces extradition to the United States. (Moscow Times, 07.22.14).

· Russia's Interior Ministry is offering nearly 4 million rubles ($114,000) for research on ways to get data on users of the anonymous web surfing network Tor. (Moscow Times, 07.24.14).

Energy exports from CIS:

· If the standoff with Russia and the West reaches a point where the EU has to completely cut trade with Russia, oil prices could soar above $200 per barrel, sparking a global economic crisis, says Adam Slater, senior economist at Oxford Economics. (Russia Today, 07.23.14).

· The European Union should not give Russia technical help to develop Arctic oil and gas fields if Moscow fails to help to defuse the Ukraine crisis, EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said on Wednesday. (Reuters, 07.23.14).

Bilateral economic ties:

· The Russian steel maker Severstal said on Monday that it had agreed to sell two steel facilities in the United States to two of its American rivals, Steel Dynamics and AK Steel, for more than $2.3 billion. (New York Times, 07.21.14).

· Oil field service provider Schlumberger, which drills with Rosneft on the Russian island of Sakhalin, said there was no "real impact" on its business in Russia, two days after the United States slapped sanctions on Rosneft. (Reuters, 07.20.14).

· Russia is planning to complain to the World Trade Organization, or WTO, about sanctions imposed by the U.S. over Russia's perceived failure to help de-escalate the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, media reports said. (The Moscow Times, 07.20.14).

· To avoid paying the security deposit and fines for interruption of service, Visa and MasterCard must find a Russian payment system deemed "of national importance" to process their transactions by Oct. 31. (Moscow Times, 07.22.14).

Other bilateral issues:

· Russia's Foreign Ministry announced Saturday that it was expanding its list of Americans barred from the country, including a congressman and several senior military officers. Russia was adding to a list started last year of barred American officials connected to the prisons at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba and Abu Ghraib in Iraq. Also, in response to American sanctions against members of the Russian Parliament, Moscow banned entry to Representative James P. Moran, a Democrat of Virginia. (New York Times, 07.20.14).

· The Obama administration is prepared to expand a new set of economic sanctions against Russia if the country doesn't take steps to end Ukraine's conflict with pro-Russia separatist fighters, a senior administration official said. Under the new sanctions program, the Treasury Department could expand the number of institutions affected and expand the limitations placed on the Russian firms, the senior administration official said. (Wall Street Journal, 07.23.14).

· Mr. Obama lost ground in Russia, where he wasn’t particularly well thought-of to begin with, according to a Pew Global Attitudes survey. Only 15 percent of people there have confidence in the American president’s handling of international affairs, down from 29 percent last year, according to the poll. (New York Times, 07.22.14).

II. Russia news.

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

· President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday signed a law to allow the president to appoint 17 senators, thus boosting the composition of the Federation Council by 10 percent. (Moscow Times, 07.22.14).

· Vladimir Putin made a point of saying Tuesday that he had no intention of "cracking down" to thwart forces that threaten “the unity of our country.” Nikolai Patrushev, a member of the Russian Security Council told reporters Tuesday that the opposition had an important place in Russia. (Washington Post, 07.22.14).

· Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law that increases the punishment for public calls for separatism. (RFE/RL, 07.22.14).

· Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law increasing the punishments for people who violate the rules for organizing and holding street protests. (RFE/RL, 07.22.14).

· Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law reestablishing "standard" winter time in the Russian Federation. (RFE/RL, 07.22.14).

· President Vladimir Putin's approval rating is currently at 83 percent, the highest it has been since he left office for the first time in 2008, according to a recent survey of Russians by the respected U.S. pollster Gallup. The new poll reveals a 29 percent increase in Putin's popularity since 2013.

· Russia's economy grew 0.1% in the second quarter, meaning the country has avoided slipping into a technical recession, the economy ministry said Friday. (Wall Street Journal, 07.25.14).

· Russian government could increase VAT by 2 percent as early as next year in an attempt to tackle the rapidly deepening budget deficit in the Russian regions. The Finance Ministry estimates that the regions' total budget deficit will reach 857 billion rubles ($25 billion) in 2014 — 33.5 percent higher than in 2013. (Moscow Times, 07.24.14).

· Growth in Russian banks' consumer lending portfolios has nearly halved, falling from 13.7 percent in the first half of 2013 to 6.8 percent this year, the report said.(The Moscow Times, 07.24.14

· Russia will discover next week how much it may be asked to pay for the confiscation a decade ago of Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s Yukos Oil Co., then the country’s biggest oil producer. The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague will rule on July 28 on a $103 billion damages claim the company’s former owners filed against Russia in 2007. (Bloomberg, 07.23.14).

· The U.S sanctions against state-owned oil giant Rosneft may impact the planned privatization of a 19.5 percent share in the company, Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said Saturday. (The Moscow Times, 07.20.14).

· "The sanctions in their current format don't have a macroeconomic effect," Andrei Belousov, the Kremlin's top economic adviser, told journalists. "My assessment is that we're in the vicinity of 1 percent (gross domestic product growth) and will stay there until the end of the year." (Reuters, 07.22.14).

· Trade Minister Denis Manturov said the measures by the West could not drive Russia into the isolation of Soviet times. "What sanctions? A holy place is never empty: if one market closes, another opens," he told journalists. "What's happening today is peanuts compared to what was then." (Reuters, 07.22.14).

· Russia’s former finance minister Alexei Kudrin issued a stern warning that Russia’s stand-off with the west would hurt the country’s economic and political modernisation. (FT, 07.22.14).

· Russia's Justice Ministry added five Russian nongovernmental organizations to the registry of "foreign agents" operating in the country Monday. (The Moscow Times, 07.21.14).

· The Rossita, a radioactive waste transport ship donated to Russia by Italy in 2011, has completed its first mission. (World Nuclear News, 07.22.14).

· Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced plans to establish a BRICS "energy association" that will include a fuel reserve bank and an energy policy institute. (World Nuclear News, 07.21.14).

· Russia plans to start construction of three BN-1200 sodium-cooled fast neutron reactors before 2030, the director general of Rosenergoatom, Evgeny Romanov, said on 21 July (World Nuclear News, 07.22.14).

Defense:

· The Russian cabinet has signed off on a measure that would increase Russian defense spending to 21 percent of the country's overall budget by 2017, from 17.5 percent today. According to the Kremlin's official numbers, the military budget will continue to rise, reaching approximately $83.7 billion in 2015 and $93.9 billion in 2016. (Foreign Policy, 07.23.14).

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

· A Moscow City Court has found two Russian opposition activists, Sergei Udaltsov and Leonid Razvozzhayev, guilty of organizing mass disorder, and sentenced them sentenced them to four and a half years in a prison colony (RFE/RL, 07.24.14, New York Times, 07.25.14).

Foreign affairs and trade:

· European officials Friday put off discussion about imposing sanctions on members of President Vladimir Putin's inner circle but pressed ahead with plans to deliver sector-wide economic sanctions on Russia next week, officials said. The EU on Thursday added 18 entities to its sanctions list. Also targeted were 15 individuals, including senior officials from the Federal Security Service. (Wall Street Journal, 05.25.14).

· French President Francois Hollande said Paris would not terminate the sale of the first craft, which has already been paid for, but he left open the option of canceling the second ship if Russia did not change course. (Washington Post, 07.22.14).

· Russia on Monday toughened conditions for imported animal products that transit across the European Union. (Moscow Times, 07.21.14).

· The U.K. government on Tuesday announced an inquiry into the 2006 death by poisoning of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London. (Wall Street Journal, 07.22.14).

· An Italian-Russian project to build a new generation small submarine has been suspended because of the "political situation" following Western sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine crisis. (Reuters, 07.25.14).

· Canada broadened its economic sanctions against the Kremlin, in response to the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. (Wall Street Journal, 07.24.14).

· The prime minister of Australia, currently presiding over the G20, has hinted the Russian president could be dropped from the next summit in Brisbane over the MH17 crash in Ukraine. (Russia Today, 07.20.14).

Russia's neighbors:

· Ukraine's parliament adjourned for a two-week break Friday without accepting the resignation of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, creating uncertainty about who holds the key position at a critical moment in Ukraine's offensive against separatists in the east. Yatsenyuk issued a decree naming Volodymyr Groisman, a deputy prime minister and minister of regional development, as his successor. (Washington Post, 07.25.14).

· A U.N. Security Council resolution, which passed unanimously Monday, demanded that international inspectors be given immediate, full access to the crash site and that "those responsible for this incident be held to account." (Washington Post, 07.22.14).

· The United States has found no direct link between the Russian government and the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 last week, three senior US intelligence officials said Tuesday. The officials repeated their belief that pro-Russian separatists fired the missile that took out the jetliner over Ukraine, but they said they could not say definitively that the separatists did it. “(NBC, 07.22.14).

· A piece of wreckage from the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 that was shot down in eastern Ukraine last week bears telltale marks of small pieces of high-velocity shrapnel that apparently crippled the jet in flight. (New York Times, 07.22.14).

· The Dutch and Australian governments are exploring a plan to send an armed multinational protection force to a pro-separatist enclave in eastern Ukraine to secure the site where Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 crashed. (Foreign Policy, 07.25.14).

· Human Rights Watch issued a report late Thursday accusing the Ukrainian government of killing at least 16 civilians and wounding many more in four attacks on Donetsk between July 12 and July 21 by firing unguided rockets into insurgent-controlled areas of the city. (Wall Street Journal, 07.25.14).

· Two Ukrainian Sukhoi Su-25 warplanes were shot down Wednesday over rebel-held eastern Ukraine in the same vicinity as a Malaysian airliner that was downed last week. (Washington Post, 07.23.14)

· Ukrainian Finance Minister Oleksandr Shlapak warned parliament Thursday that the military was swiftly running out of money to pay for its offensive in the east. “As of Aug. 1, we'll have nothing to pay the military," Shlapak said. (Washington Post, 07.25.14).

· Barack Obama on Tuesday called for Vladimir Putin to ''pivot away'' from the rebels in Ukraine, linking him directly to their abuse of the crash site. (Washington Post, 07.22.15).

· "Russia will do everything possible to shift the current conflict in eastern Ukraine from today's current military stage to the state of discussion at the negotiation table and the resolution by exclusively peaceful and diplomatic means," Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday. (Wall Street Journal, 07.20.14).

· “We are being urged to influence the separatists in eastern Ukraine. Everything that is in our power, I repeat, of course we will do it," Vladimir Putin told a meeting of Russia's Security Council on Tuesday, adding, however, that "even that is not enough" to stop the conflict in Ukraine. To resolve the situation, he said, the West would have to put pressure on Kiev to get the new authorities to stop shelling areas in the east. (The Moscow Times, 07.22.14).

· At the Pentagon, spokesman Col. Steven H. Warren said that "we now know that the Russians have been firing artillery from Russia.” Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the Russian government "has made the conscious decision to use its military force inside of another sovereign nation to achieve its objectives."I think it does change the situation," he said. (Washington Post, 07.25.14).

· U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday that Russia had in fact trained the separatists in how to use the missile, while Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, went even further, raising the possibility that the Russian military had actually fired the missile. (Washington Post, 07.21.14).

· U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said: “This is the moment of truth for Russia and for Mr. Putin, where they need to stop just saying things and they need to make sure that they happen.” (The Moscow Times, 07.21.14).

· Russia's Defense Ministry on Monday presented its first detailed account of the final moments of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, saying Russian radar had spotted a second aircraft in the vicinity shortly before the crash and that satellite imagery showed Ukraine had moved missile systems into the area before the incident. Russian air space control systems detected a Ukrainian Air Force plane. (Wall Street Journal, Reuters, 07.21.14).

· The Russian Defense Ministry cited data that showed that the Ukrainian armed forces were using phosphorus-containing ammunition during the hostilities in southeast Ukraine, Maj. Gen. Viktor Poznikhir of the Main Operative Directorate of the Russian Army General Staff said on Friday. (Interfax, 07.25.14).

· In Moscow, Aytech M. Bizhev, a deputy commander of Russia's antiaircraft forces, sought to rebut allegations that Ukrainian separatists had shot down the Malaysian airliner. Bizhev said they would not have known how to launch such a missile, adding that ''an entire military ensemble'' of various specialized officers is needed to fire such a weapon and that they would have had no opportunity to train in the ''wartime conditions'' in eastern Ukraine. (New York Times, 07.20.14).

· Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry agreed in a phone call to try to get both sides in Ukraine to reach a consensus on peace, Russia's Foreign Ministry said. (Reuters, 07.21.14).

· The Ukrainian government said Friday it regained control of the separatist stronghold of Lysychansk. (Wall Street Journal, 07.25.14).

· The Ukrainian military says 325 soldiers and officers have been killed since the "antiterrorist" operation was launched in the country's eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk more than two months ago. (RFE/RL, 07.25.14).

· Interpol has put the leader of Ukraine's ultranationalist group Right Sector, Dmytro Yarosh, on an international wanted list at Russia's request. (The Moscow Times, 07.25.14).

· Russia's food safety watchdog slapped a blanket ban on all imports of dairy and dairy-containing products from Ukraine beginning Monday. (The Moscow Times, 07.25.14).

· Moscow has prepared and sent the list of potential risks posed to the Russian economy by Ukraine's association with the EU. (RIA Novosti, 07.23.14).

· IMF said because of the conflict in eastern Ukraine, it now expects the country's economy to shrink 6.5 percent instead of 5 percent and the government's fiscal deficit to reach 10.1 percent of gross domestic product, up from 8.5 percent forecast in April. (Washington Post, 07.23.14).

· German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke to Vladimir Putin on Saturday, urging his cooperation. Merkel's foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, told Bild am Sonntag newspaper: "Moscow may have a last chance now to show that it really is seriously interested in a solution." (Reuters, 07.21.14).

· Ukrainian parliament speaker Oleksandr Turchynov announced that the Communist Party, who occupy 23 seats in the Verkhovnaya Rada, would be dissolved. (RIA Novosti, 07.23.14).

· An Uzbek human rights group says that six people have been sentenced to long prison terms for being members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) as part of a large ongoing trial of some 66 suspects accused of terrorism. (RFE/RL, 07.23.14).

· Four people in the Kazakh city of Zhezqazghan have been sentenced for recruiting fighters to the Islamic insurgency in Syria. (RFE/RL, 07.22.14).

· One person was killed and at least three injured when their car hit a mine in the Kashatagh Province of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh on July 22. (RFE/RL, 07.22.14).

· International mediators in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict have voiced "serious concern" over the increase in tensions and violence in the region, including “the targeted killings of civilians.". (RFE/RL, 07.24.14).

· Russia’s agricultural watchdog, Rosselkhoznadzor, says a ban that it announced on July 18 against imports of fruit from Moldova has gone into effect immediately. (RFE/RL, 07.19.14).

· Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili has reshuffled his cabinet, saying it needed new "energy" and "efficiency." (RFE/RL, 07.21.14).

· Kyrgyzstan says it will join the Russia-led Customs Union in 2015 but will need five years to fully complete the process. (RFE/RL, 07.25.14).

· Former Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev has been sentenced to life in prison in absentia for involvement in the 2010 killing of protesters during the uprising that ousted him. (RFE/RL, 07.25.14).

If you wish to either unsubscribe from or subscribe to Russia in Review, please e-mail Simon Saradzhyan at simon_saradzhyan@hks.harvard.edu.

Russia in Review: a digest of useful news from U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism for July 18-25, 2014

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

Nuclear security agenda:

The U.S. nuclear power industry should prepare for big—if uncommon—disasters such as earthquakes and terrorist acts, a panel of experts said Thursday in releasing an analysis of the impact of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that crippled Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant. Congress had asked the National Academies of Sciences to evaluate the lessons the U.S. should learn from the Japanese event. (Wall Street Journal, 07.24.14).
Madelyn Creedon was confirmed by the Senate on Wednesday, July 23, 2014, as the Department of Energy’s Principal Deputy Administrator for the National Nuclear Security Administration. (NNSA, 07.23.14).

Iran nuclear issues:

P5+1 and Iran have agreed to extend the Sunday deadline toward Iran dismantling parts of its nuclear-development program. Negotiators agreed to a four-month extension this weekend in Vienna, extending the so-called Joint Plan of Action reached in November in which Iran agreed to scale back its nuclear program in exchange for the easing of some sanctions. (Fox News, 07.19.14).

NATO-Russia relations, including transit to and from Afghanistan:

While the Russian president said there was no "direct military threat to the sovereignty and integrity" of Russia, Vladimir Putin lashed out at NATO and the West, saying Russia would "increase its defense capabilities" in response to NATO activity close to its borders. (The Moscow Times, 07.22.14).

Missile defense:

Russia voiced concern on Thursday over a U.S. proposal to station elements of a missile defense shield in South Korea, saying the move could provoke an arms race in the region. (Reuters, 07.24.14).

Nuclear arms control:

No significant developments.

Counter-terrorism cooperation:

Azamat Tazhayakov was convicted Monday of trying to protect college friend and Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev by agreeing with another friend to get rid of a backpack and disabled fireworks they took from his dorm room three days after the attack. (Washington Post, 07.22.14).

Cyber security:

A St. Petersburg resident who is suspected of selling about $10 million worth of e-tickets that he stole by hacking into users' accounts has been detained in Spain and faces extradition to the United States. (Moscow Times, 07.22.14).
Russia's Interior Ministry is offering nearly 4 million rubles ($114,000) for research on ways to get data on users of the anonymous web surfing network Tor. (Moscow Times, 07.24.14).

Energy exports from CIS:

If the standoff with Russia and the West reaches a point where the EU has to completely cut trade with Russia, oil prices could soar above $200 per barrel, sparking a global economic crisis, says Adam Slater, senior economist at Oxford Economics. (Russia Today, 07.23.14).
The European Union should not give Russia technical help to develop Arctic oil and gas fields if Moscow fails to help to defuse the Ukraine crisis, EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said on Wednesday. (Reuters, 07.23.14).

Bilateral economic ties:

The Russian steel maker Severstal said on Monday that it had agreed to sell two steel facilities in the United States to two of its American rivals, Steel Dynamics and AK Steel, for more than $2.3 billion. (New York Times, 07.21.14).
Oil field service provider Schlumberger, which drills with Rosneft on the Russian island of Sakhalin, said there was no "real impact" on its business in Russia, two days after the United States slapped sanctions on Rosneft. (Reuters, 07.20.14).
Russia is planning to complain to the World Trade Organization, or WTO, about sanctions imposed by the U.S. over Russia's perceived failure to help de-escalate the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, media reports said. (The Moscow Times, 07.20.14).
To avoid paying the security deposit and fines for interruption of service, Visa and MasterCard must find a Russian payment system deemed "of national importance" to process their transactions by Oct. 31. (Moscow Times, 07.22.14).

Other bilateral issues:

Russia's Foreign Ministry announced Saturday that it was expanding its list of Americans barred from the country, including a congressman and several senior military officers. Russia was adding to a list started last year of barred American officials connected to the prisons at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba and Abu Ghraib in Iraq. Also, in response to American sanctions against members of the Russian Parliament, Moscow banned entry to Representative James P. Moran, a Democrat of Virginia. (New York Times, 07.20.14).
The Obama administration is prepared to expand a new set of economic sanctions against Russia if the country doesn't take steps to end Ukraine's conflict with pro-Russia separatist fighters, a senior administration official said. Under the new sanctions program, the Treasury Department could expand the number of institutions affected and expand the limitations placed on the Russian firms, the senior administration official said. (Wall Street Journal, 07.23.14).
Mr. Obama lost ground in Russia, where he wasn’t particularly well thought-of to begin with, according to a Pew Global Attitudes survey. Only 15 percent of people there have confidence in the American president’s handling of international affairs, down from 29 percent last year, according to the poll. (New York Times, 07.22.14).

II. Russia news.

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday signed a law to allow the president to appoint 17 senators, thus boosting the composition of the Federation Council by 10 percent. (Moscow Times, 07.22.14).
Vladimir Putin made a point of saying Tuesday that he had no intention of "cracking down" to thwart forces that threaten “the unity of our country.” Nikolai Patrushev, a member of the Russian Security Council told reporters Tuesday that the opposition had an important place in Russia. (Washington Post, 07.22.14).
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law that increases the punishment for public calls for separatism. (RFE/RL, 07.22.14).
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law increasing the punishments for people who violate the rules for organizing and holding street protests. (RFE/RL, 07.22.14).
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law reestablishing "standard" winter time in the Russian Federation. (RFE/RL, 07.22.14).
President Vladimir Putin's approval rating is currently at 83 percent, the highest it has been since he left office for the first time in 2008, according to a recent survey of Russians by the respected U.S. pollster Gallup. The new poll reveals a 29 percent increase in Putin's popularity since 2013.
Russia's economy grew 0.1% in the second quarter, meaning the country has avoided slipping into a technical recession, the economy ministry said Friday. (Wall Street Journal, 07.25.14).
Russian government could increase VAT by 2 percent as early as next year in an attempt to tackle the rapidly deepening budget deficit in the Russian regions. The Finance Ministry estimates that the regions' total budget deficit will reach 857 billion rubles ($25 billion) in 2014 — 33.5 percent higher than in 2013. (Moscow Times, 07.24.14).
Growth in Russian banks' consumer lending portfolios has nearly halved, falling from 13.7 percent in the first half of 2013 to 6.8 percent this year, the report said.(The Moscow Times, 07.24.14
Russia will discover next week how much it may be asked to pay for the confiscation a decade ago of Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s Yukos Oil Co., then the country’s biggest oil producer. The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague will rule on July 28 on a $103 billion damages claim the company’s former owners filed against Russia in 2007. (Bloomberg, 07.23.14).
The U.S sanctions against state-owned oil giant Rosneft may impact the planned privatization of a 19.5 percent share in the company, Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said Saturday. (The Moscow Times, 07.20.14).
"The sanctions in their current format don't have a macroeconomic effect," Andrei Belousov, the Kremlin's top economic adviser, told journalists. "My assessment is that we're in the vicinity of 1 percent (gross domestic product growth) and will stay there until the end of the year." (Reuters, 07.22.14).
Trade Minister Denis Manturov said the measures by the West could not drive Russia into the isolation of Soviet times. "What sanctions? A holy place is never empty: if one market closes, another opens," he told journalists. "What's happening today is peanuts compared to what was then." (Reuters, 07.22.14).
Russia’s former finance minister Alexei Kudrin issued a stern warning that Russia’s stand-off with the west would hurt the country’s economic and political modernisation. (FT, 07.22.14).
Russia's Justice Ministry added five Russian nongovernmental organizations to the registry of "foreign agents" operating in the country Monday. (The Moscow Times, 07.21.14).
The Rossita, a radioactive waste transport ship donated to Russia by Italy in 2011, has completed its first mission. (World Nuclear News, 07.22.14).
Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced plans to establish a BRICS "energy association" that will include a fuel reserve bank and an energy policy institute. (World Nuclear News, 07.21.14).
Russia plans to start construction of three BN-1200 sodium-cooled fast neutron reactors before 2030, the director general of Rosenergoatom, Evgeny Romanov, said on 21 July (World Nuclear News, 07.22.14).

Defense:

The Russian cabinet has signed off on a measure that would increase Russian defense spending to 21 percent of the country's overall budget by 2017, from 17.5 percent today. According to the Kremlin's official numbers, the military budget will continue to rise, reaching approximately $83.7 billion in 2015 and $93.9 billion in 2016. (Foreign Policy, 07.23.14).

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

A Moscow City Court has found two Russian opposition activists, Sergei Udaltsov and Leonid Razvozzhayev, guilty of organizing mass disorder, and sentenced them sentenced them to four and a half years in a prison colony (RFE/RL, 07.24.14, New York Times, 07.25.14).

Foreign affairs and trade:

European officials Friday put off discussion about imposing sanctions on members of President Vladimir Putin's inner circle but pressed ahead with plans to deliver sector-wide economic sanctions on Russia next week, officials said. The EU on Thursday added 18 entities to its sanctions list. Also targeted were 15 individuals, including senior officials from the Federal Security Service. (Wall Street Journal, 05.25.14).
French President Francois Hollande said Paris would not terminate the sale of the first craft, which has already been paid for, but he left open the option of canceling the second ship if Russia did not change course. (Washington Post, 07.22.14).
Russia on Monday toughened conditions for imported animal products that transit across the European Union. (Moscow Times, 07.21.14).
The U.K. government on Tuesday announced an inquiry into the 2006 death by poisoning of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London. (Wall Street Journal, 07.22.14).
An Italian-Russian project to build a new generation small submarine has been suspended because of the "political situation" following Western sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine crisis. (Reuters, 07.25.14).
Canada broadened its economic sanctions against the Kremlin, in response to the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. (Wall Street Journal, 07.24.14).
The prime minister of Australia, currently presiding over the G20, has hinted the Russian president could be dropped from the next summit in Brisbane over the MH17 crash in Ukraine. (Russia Today, 07.20.14).

Russia's neighbors:

Ukraine's parliament adjourned for a two-week break Friday without accepting the resignation of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, creating uncertainty about who holds the key position at a critical moment in Ukraine's offensive against separatists in the east. Yatsenyuk issued a decree naming Volodymyr Groisman, a deputy prime minister and minister of regional development, as his successor. (Washington Post, 07.25.14).
A U.N. Security Council resolution, which passed unanimously Monday, demanded that international inspectors be given immediate, full access to the crash site and that "those responsible for this incident be held to account." (Washington Post, 07.22.14).
The United States has found no direct link between the Russian government and the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 last week, three senior US intelligence officials said Tuesday. The officials repeated their belief that pro-Russian separatists fired the missile that took out the jetliner over Ukraine, but they said they could not say definitively that the separatists did it. “(NBC, 07.22.14).
A piece of wreckage from the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 that was shot down in eastern Ukraine last week bears telltale marks of small pieces of high-velocity shrapnel that apparently crippled the jet in flight. (New York Times, 07.22.14).
The Dutch and Australian governments are exploring a plan to send an armed multinational protection force to a pro-separatist enclave in eastern Ukraine to secure the site where Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 crashed. (Foreign Policy, 07.25.14).
Human Rights Watch issued a report late Thursday accusing the Ukrainian government of killing at least 16 civilians and wounding many more in four attacks on Donetsk between July 12 and July 21 by firing unguided rockets into insurgent-controlled areas of the city. (Wall Street Journal, 07.25.14).
Two Ukrainian Sukhoi Su-25 warplanes were shot down Wednesday over rebel-held eastern Ukraine in the same vicinity as a Malaysian airliner that was downed last week. (Washington Post, 07.23.14)
Ukrainian Finance Minister Oleksandr Shlapak warned parliament Thursday that the military was swiftly running out of money to pay for its offensive in the east. “As of Aug. 1, we'll have nothing to pay the military," Shlapak said. (Washington Post, 07.25.14).
Barack Obama on Tuesday called for Vladimir Putin to ''pivot away'' from the rebels in Ukraine, linking him directly to their abuse of the crash site. (Washington Post, 07.22.15).
"Russia will do everything possible to shift the current conflict in eastern Ukraine from today's current military stage to the state of discussion at the negotiation table and the resolution by exclusively peaceful and diplomatic means," Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday. (Wall Street Journal, 07.20.14).
“We are being urged to influence the separatists in eastern Ukraine. Everything that is in our power, I repeat, of course we will do it," Vladimir Putin told a meeting of Russia's Security Council on Tuesday, adding, however, that "even that is not enough" to stop the conflict in Ukraine. To resolve the situation, he said, the West would have to put pressure on Kiev to get the new authorities to stop shelling areas in the east. (The Moscow Times, 07.22.14).
At the Pentagon, spokesman Col. Steven H. Warren said that "we now know that the Russians have been firing artillery from Russia.” Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the Russian government "has made the conscious decision to use its military force inside of another sovereign nation to achieve its objectives."I think it does change the situation," he said. (Washington Post, 07.25.14).
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday that Russia had in fact trained the separatists in how to use the missile, while Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, went even further, raising the possibility that the Russian military had actually fired the missile. (Washington Post, 07.21.14).
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said: “This is the moment of truth for Russia and for Mr. Putin, where they need to stop just saying things and they need to make sure that they happen.” (The Moscow Times, 07.21.14).
Russia's Defense Ministry on Monday presented its first detailed account of the final moments of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, saying Russian radar had spotted a second aircraft in the vicinity shortly before the crash and that satellite imagery showed Ukraine had moved missile systems into the area before the incident. Russian air space control systems detected a Ukrainian Air Force plane. (Wall Street Journal, Reuters, 07.21.14).
The Russian Defense Ministry cited data that showed that the Ukrainian armed forces were using phosphorus-containing ammunition during the hostilities in southeast Ukraine, Maj. Gen. Viktor Poznikhir of the Main Operative Directorate of the Russian Army General Staff said on Friday. (Interfax, 07.25.14).
In Moscow, Aytech M. Bizhev, a deputy commander of Russia's antiaircraft forces, sought to rebut allegations that Ukrainian separatists had shot down the Malaysian airliner. Bizhev said they would not have known how to launch such a missile, adding that ''an entire military ensemble'' of various specialized officers is needed to fire such a weapon and that they would have had no opportunity to train in the ''wartime conditions'' in eastern Ukraine. (New York Times, 07.20.14).
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry agreed in a phone call to try to get both sides in Ukraine to reach a consensus on peace, Russia's Foreign Ministry said. (Reuters, 07.21.14).
The Ukrainian government said Friday it regained control of the separatist stronghold of Lysychansk. (Wall Street Journal, 07.25.14).
The Ukrainian military says 325 soldiers and officers have been killed since the "antiterrorist" operation was launched in the country's eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk more than two months ago. (RFE/RL, 07.25.14).
Interpol has put the leader of Ukraine's ultranationalist group Right Sector, Dmytro Yarosh, on an international wanted list at Russia's request. (The Moscow Times, 07.25.14).
Russia's food safety watchdog slapped a blanket ban on all imports of dairy and dairy-containing products from Ukraine beginning Monday. (The Moscow Times, 07.25.14).
Moscow has prepared and sent the list of potential risks posed to the Russian economy by Ukraine's association with the EU. (RIA Novosti, 07.23.14).
IMF said because of the conflict in eastern Ukraine, it now expects the country's economy to shrink 6.5 percent instead of 5 percent and the government's fiscal deficit to reach 10.1 percent of gross domestic product, up from 8.5 percent forecast in April. (Washington Post, 07.23.14).
German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke to Vladimir Putin on Saturday, urging his cooperation. Merkel's foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, told Bild am Sonntag newspaper: "Moscow may have a last chance now to show that it really is seriously interested in a solution." (Reuters, 07.21.14).
Ukrainian parliament speaker Oleksandr Turchynov announced that the Communist Party, who occupy 23 seats in the Verkhovnaya Rada, would be dissolved. (RIA Novosti, 07.23.14).
An Uzbek human rights group says that six people have been sentenced to long prison terms for being members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) as part of a large ongoing trial of some 66 suspects accused of terrorism. (RFE/RL, 07.23.14).
Four people in the Kazakh city of Zhezqazghan have been sentenced for recruiting fighters to the Islamic insurgency in Syria. (RFE/RL, 07.22.14).
One person was killed and at least three injured when their car hit a mine in the Kashatagh Province of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh on July 22. (RFE/RL, 07.22.14).
International mediators in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict have voiced "serious concern" over the increase in tensions and violence in the region, including “the targeted killings of civilians.". (RFE/RL, 07.24.14).
Russia’s agricultural watchdog, Rosselkhoznadzor, says a ban that it announced on July 18 against imports of fruit from Moldova has gone into effect immediately. (RFE/RL, 07.19.14).
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili has reshuffled his cabinet, saying it needed new "energy" and "efficiency." (RFE/RL, 07.21.14).
Kyrgyzstan says it will join the Russia-led Customs Union in 2015 but will need five years to fully complete the process. (RFE/RL, 07.25.14).
Former Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev has been sentenced to life in prison in absentia for involvement in the 2010 killing of protesters during the uprising that ousted him. (RFE/RL, 07.25.14).

If you wish to either unsubscribe from or subscribe to Russia in Review, please e-mail Simon Saradzhyan at simon_saradzhyan@hks.harvard.edu.