Russia in Review

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

Nuclear security agenda:

U.S. Undersecretary of State Rose Gottemoeller believes it is in the best interests of the United States to continue doing nuclear security work in Russia. The Republican-led House Armed Services Committee last week approved legislative language that would prevent the U.S. Energy Department from using fiscal 2015 funds "for any contract, cooperation, or transfer of technology" between the United States and Russia until the Ukraine crisis has been resolved. Gottemoeller suggested that such a prohibition would be tantamount to shooting "ourselves in the foot," however. (GSN, 05.12.14).

Iran nuclear issues:

Iran and six world powers have failed to achieve progress at negotiations on Tehran's nuclear program in Vienna, but the sides agreed to resume talks in the near future, Russia’s deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Friday. (Voice of Russia, 05.16.14).

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

The U.S. moved some 600 troops to NATO's eastern flank to reassure the allies of the U.S. commitment to their security. “We’ll re-evaluate at our NATO summit in Wales whether conditions have improved such that we can scale back," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland said. (Wall Street Journal, 05.14.14).
Britain will offer to deploy more fighter jets in the Baltic states to reassure its NATO allies in the face of Russian tension with the West over Ukraine, Prime Minister David Cameron said Tuesday. (Reuters, 05.13.14).
It is clear that certain forces in NATO are preparing the ground to rescind the 1997 Russia-NATO Founding Act, which starts with the statement that Russia and the alliance have stopped being adversaries, Russian Permanent Representative to the North Atlantic Alliance Alexander Grushko said. (Interfax, 05.14.14).

Missile defense:

No significant developments.

Nuclear arms control:

No significant developments.

Counter-terrorism cooperation:

According to a new report by the Woodrow Wilson Center's Gabriel Weimann, YouTube "has become a significant platform for jihadist groups and supporters," while "Twitter has recently emerged as terrorists' favorite Internet service, even more popular than self-designed websites or Facebook, to disseminate propaganda and enable internal communication." (GSN, 05.15.14).
The Boston FBI agent who fatally shot a Chechen friend of Tamerlan Tsarnaev in Florida last year had a brief and troubled past at the Oakland Police Department in California. (Boston Globe, 05.14.14).

Cyber security:

Maxim Ksenzov, deputy head of the Russian government's telecommunications watchdog, Roskomnadzor, called Twitter a "political" tool that undermines the state's authority. "We can block Twitter or Facebook tomorrow for several minutes," Ksenzov said. "We do not see any risks in that." (Washington Post, 05.16.14).

Energy exports from CIS:

In a letter to European leaders on Thursday, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said that Ukraine's gas debt had ballooned in the last month and that after June 1 gas deliveries will be limited to the amount prepaid by the Ukrainian company. People familiar with the discussions said Ukraine could pay $500m-$1bn of the $3.5bn Gazprom says it is owed as part of a deal that might avoid the move to prepayment. However, the two sides are still far from reaching an agreement. Ukraine’s deputy energy minister, Igor Didenko, said the country was ready to pay $4 billion for gas to Gazprom by the end of May, but only at $268.50 for 1,000 cubic meters (New York Times, Financial Times, 05.16.14)
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on May 14 that Russia could also consider revising the high price increase it put on gas sold to Ukraine, saying "it is possible." A provisional price for Russian gas could be agreed with Ukraine by the end of the month in an effort to avoid a disruption of gas supplies, the European Union's energy chief said Wednesday. (RFE/RL, 05.15.14, Wall Street Journal, 05.14.14).

Bilateral economic ties:

U.S. energy giant ExxonMobil has no plans to pull out of the Sakhalin-1 project in Russia, an ExxonMobil official said on Friday in response to a Russian media report. The Kommersant newspaper reported on Friday that ExxonMobil might have to pull out of the project to develop the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas field in Russia's far east if U.S. sanctions against Russia are toughened because of the Ukraine crisis. (Reuters, 05.16.14).
Russia has offloaded a fifth of its holdings of U.S. Treasury debt in March at a time of heightened speculation that its assets would be frozen as part of sanctions over the crisis in Ukraine. It was the largest seller during the month. A decline of $25.8bn in Russia’s Treasury holdings to $100.4bn involved the selling of short-term bills. (Financial Times, 05.16.14).
New legislation placing foreign payment service providers under the thumb of Russian regulators is so damaging to Visa and MasterCard that the two U.S. companies might be better off abandoning the Russian market, according to investment bank Morgan Stanley. (Moscow Times, 05.15.14).
Russian steel company OAO Severstal on Wednesday confirmed it is "considering a range of strategic options in relation to Severstal North America," after The Wall Street Journal reported last Friday it has put its two U.S. mills, in Michigan and Mississippi, on the block. (Wall Street Journal, 05.13.14).

Other bilateral issues:

The U.S. and its European allies agreed Thursday that Russia should face broader economic and industrial sanctions if the Kremlin meddled in Ukrainian presidential elections on May 25th. A senior State Department official made clear that threatened sanctions on what President Obama has said would be "sectors" of the Russian economy — including mining, defense, energy and banking — are not likely to be imposed across the board, as in Iran. Instead, the official said, they would focus on "new investment" in sanctioned sectors. British Foreign Secretary William Hague hosted a meeting in London on Ukraine with his counterparts from the United States, Germany, France and Italy to discuss possible sanctions. (Washington Post, 05.16.14. Reuters, 05.15.14).
- One option being discussed by US, UK, Germany, and France is to prevent western companies from exporting high-end energy technologies to Russian companies if the Kremlin attempts to undermine the presidential vote. But the plans may face opposition from Italy, while EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels remained divided over the trigger for moving to the third phase of sanctions. (Financial Times, 05.13.14).
"If the West continues these absolutely non-professional hysterical policies, we would have to think what we can do in return," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said of Western sanctions. (RIA Novosti, 05.14.14).
Russia is to deny the US use of the International Space Station beyond 2020 and will bar export of critical rocket RD-180 engines to the US. Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s deputy prime minister, announced the measures in response to US sanctions. Rogozin also said 11 GPS ground stations in Russia would be temporarily switched off on June 1, unless the US agrees to its request to establish a similar station for its own satellite position system Glonass in the US. (Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, 05.15.14).
Russian manufacturer of liquid propellant rocket engines, Energomash, is carrying out a contract on delivering RD-180 rocket engines to the U.S. “We are supposed to manufacture five engines and deliver them to the U.S. this year,” Energomash CEO Vladimir Solntsev said. Sergey Gugkaev, chief executive of Sea Launch, a Russian-controlled, US-based satellite launch contractor, said: “Replacing in particular the Atlas V RD180 with a US domestic engine will take, I would say, five to eight years.” NASA intends to have the new US-made vehicle ready for a test flight in 2017 and to fly crews into deep space by 2021. (Financial Times, 05.15.14, Interfax, 05.15.14).
U.S. senators have introduced a bill that would scrap planned U.S. purchases from the Russian state-owned arms exporter, Rosoborononexport, under previous $1.1 billion contracts, and would ban any future deals on taxpayers' money. (Moscow Times, 05.15.14).
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has begun searching for luxury hidden assets belonging to Russians who have had sanctions imposed on them over the situation in Ukraine. (The Moscow Times, 05.15.14).
Further sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine crisis could affect indebted Russian miner Mechel's U.S. coal business Bluestone, Mechel said in its annual report on Friday. (Reuters, 05.16.14).
Russia accused U.S. lawmakers of hosting "a propaganda event" last week to examine its biological-weapons potential. (GSN, 05.13.14).
The Obama administration faces a looming deadline to respond to U.S. lawmakers calling for fresh sanctions against alleged Russian rights abusers, a move that supporters say can ratchet up pressure on the Kremlin over its recent actions in Ukraine. (RFE/RL, 05.16.14).
Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin's annexation of Crimea was "a done deal" and that President Barack Obama was "in a tough spot." "We really have very few tactical options," the secretary said. "There is no real military option. And in the short term, there's not a lot we can do." (Wall Street Journal, 05.12.14).

II. Russia news.

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

The approval level of Vladimir Putin's work as the Russian president is up for the fifth month in a row and reached a new maximum of 85.9 percent in early May, the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center said.(Interfax, 05.15.14).
President Vladimir Putin has dismissed Aleksandr Khloponin, whom then-President Dmitry Medvedev had appointed in January 2010 to head the new North Caucasus Federal District, and named to replace him Interior Ministry Lieutenant General Sergei Melikov, the commander of the Combined Group of Forces in the North Caucasus. Khloponin in his capacity as a deputy prime minister will, however, oversee a new ministry for the North Caucasus. (RFE/RL, 05.13.14).
Longtime head of the Russian Office of Presidential Affairs, Vladimir Kozhin, was dismissed from his job on Monday. His replacement is Alexander Kolpakov, former department head at the Presidential Security Service. Kozhin will become a presidential aide overseeing military-industrial cooperation, the Kremlin said. (The Moscow Times, 05.13.14).
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has instructed the Finance Ministry to prepare and submit proposals by July 1, 2014 to lay off 10% of public servants. (Itar-Tass, 05.14.14).
Hit by the geopolitical crisis in neighboring Ukraine, Russia's economy contracted by 0.5% in the first quarter from the fourth quarter. According to preliminary Russian economy ministry estimates, gross domestic product may contract by 0.1% in the second quarter. (Wall Street Journal, 05.13.14).
The geopolitical stand-off between Russia and Ukraine is having a “severe” effect on the two economies, EBRD warned. By far the biggest downgrades in the EBRD’s latest regional forecasts were for Ukraine, forecast to contract 7 per cent this year – against a 1.5 per cent growth forecast in January – and Russia, whose growth forecast was cut from 2.5 per cent to zero, on the bank’s central scenario.(Financial Times, 05.14.14).
Russian consumers’ demand for foreign cash in Russia grew almost 1.5 times from February to March, reaching $14.3 billion, the highest level since January 2009, according to the Central Bank. (MT, 05.12.14).
A number of big hedge funds that invest in Russia and nearby countries have suffered steep losses amid escalating tensions in Ukraine. The main RTS equity index is still down 13% since the end of 2013 and the ruble has weakened about 6% against the dollar over the same period, adding to the hedge funds' losses in dollar terms. (Wall Street Journal, 05.15.14).
President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday Russia's defense industry should stop relying on foreign components and become self-sufficient following Western sanctions imposed on Moscow over the crisis in Ukraine. (Reuters, 05.14.14).
As a tit-for-tat sanctions war vaporizes U.S.-Russian space cooperation, the Russian government has boosted the budget of its Federal Space Agency by $52 billion to modernize and expand its existing infrastructure and capabilities by 2020. A Russian Proton-M rocket with an advanced satellite on board crashed outside of Kazakhstan's territory on Friday. (Moscow Times, Russia Today, 05.15.14).
Keen to dodge threatened Western sanctions against its companies over the Ukraine crisis, Russia said on Wednesday it was looking at ways to make its major state-owned exporters such as energy giants receive payment in rubles. (Reuters, 05.14.14).
"At the Finance Ministry level we are so far not ready to remove all the links to ratings [of internationals agencies], but it's is a question of time," said Deputy Russian Finance Minister Sergey Storchak. (Russia Today, 05.14.14).
The dismantling of equipment at the shutdown units 1 and 2 of the Beloyarsk nuclear power plant in Russia has started. Decommissioning of the two prototype reactors is expected to take 18 years to complete. (WNN, 05.14.14).
The director of Russia's Federal Drug Control Service, Viktor Ivanov, has said there have been at least 500,000 deaths in Russia caused by the use of Afghan heroin since 2000. (Interfax, 05.15.14).
WHO statistics rank Russia fourth worldwide in terms of alcohol consumption. (Moscow Times, 05.15.14).
The Levada Center, an independent research organization, found that a record high 85 percent of Russians would likely not take part in political protests. (The Moscow Times, 05.14.14).

Defense:

Russia will quadruple its arsenal of long-range precision delivery platforms in the next seven years to strengthen the country's strategic deterrent, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Thursday. (RIA Novosti, 05.08.14).

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

Three police officers were killed and seven others injured in a shootout in Dagestan’s central district of Gunib on May 15. (RFE/RL, 05.15.14).
A police officer has been found shot dead in Russia's North Caucasus republic of Ingushetia.(RFE/RL, 05.13.14).
A man from Russia's North Caucasus Republic of Dagestan has been killed by security forces in Yemen on May 8. (RFE/RL, 05.09.14).
Russian police in Moscow Oblast have charged 57 people with hooliganism and drinking alcohol in public after they took part in a violent antimigrant rally fueled by the death of a local man. (RFE/RL, 05.16.14).

Foreign affairs and trade:

Vladimir Putin plans to visit China on May 20. During that visit Gazprom hopes to sign a gas contract after years of talks to supply Beijing with 38 bcm per year — volumes comparable to deliveries to Germany, its biggest gas client. Anatoly Yanovsky, Russia's deputy energy minister, said that the gas contract was "98 percent" ready. (Reuters, 05.13.14).
Russian military officials say the Russian and Chinese navies will each commit six ships to joint exercises scheduled in the East China Sea before the end of May. (RFE/RL, 05.13.14).
Russia has criticized the European Union for expanding sanctions over the Ukraine crisis on Monday and urged the EU to respect self-rule votes in two eastern Ukrainian provinces. The expanded EU list includes Vyacheslav Volodin, first deputy chief of staff of Russian President Vladimir Putin; Vladimir Shamanov, commander of the Russian Airborne Troops; Vladimir Pligin, head of the Duma Constitutional Law Committee; and Pyotr Jarosh, acting head of the Federal Migration Service office for Crimea. European partners of Russia's gas giant Gazprom have convinced the Council of the EU not to place the company's CEO Alexey Miller on the sanctions list Among the companies that stood for Miller were German, French and Italian oil and gas corporations.(RFE/RL, Reuters, 05.13.14, Vedomosti/Voice of Russia, 05.15.14).
In her talk with German vice-chancellor Sigmar Gabriel Angela Merkel reported that during consultations about next round of sanctions many EU partners are most interested in talking about how to secure exceptions for their own economies. Others are trying to avoid the subject entirely. (Der Spiegel, 05.12.14).
Canada broke with the U.S. and did not impose sanctions on Sergei Chemezov and Igor Sechin, two key allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin because the pair had Canadian business interests. Canada has added 12 more Russians and Ukrainians to its list of individuals facing economic sanctions and travel bans. (The Moscow Times, 05.13.14, Reuters, 05.15.14).
France said it would proceed with the $1.2 billion sale of two warships to Russia, despite U.S. objections that the sale runs counter to sanctions against Moscow. The contract supports 1,200 French jobs. (NYT, Financial Times, 05.12.14).
Romania's president has invited the government for a lesson on foreign policy after the prime minister said he had personally closed national airspace to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin. Rogozin on Friday attended the Victory Day parade in Moldova's self-proclaimed Transdnestr republic, and left with more than 30,000 signatures from locals demanding unification with Russia. (The Moscow Times, 05.11.14, AP, 05.13.14).
Oil major Total SA Chairman and Chief Executive Christophe de Margerie confirmed on Friday that he plans to attend a conference later this month in St. Petersburg. (Wall Street Journal, 05.16.14).
Russia will apply to the United Nations next year to affirm borders of its economic zone in the Arctic. Evidence will be presented to prove that 1.2 million square kilometers of water area.(Itar-Tass, 05.14.14).
Moscow and Managua are to cooperate over the next few years on the construction of the so-called Interoceanic Grand Canal, a new alternative to the Panama Canal. (RBTH, 05.14.14).

Russia's neighbors:

A runoff is scheduled for June 15 if no candidate wins a majority in the first round of the May 25^th presidential elections in Ukraine. Polls show billionaire Petro Poroshenko ahead of former premier Yulia Tymoshenko. The ex-premier was forced to cancel a visit to Washington in late April after U.S. senators declined to meet with her. A mere two percent of Ukrainians say that they would vote for Svoboda’s candidate, Oleh Tyahnybok, and only 0.9 percent would support Right Sector’s candidate, Dmytro Yarosh.” Separatists in eastern Ukraine are closing down local electoral commissions in an attempt to scupper crucial presidential elections scheduled for May 25. (Financial Times, 05.16.14, Foreign Affairs, 05.11.14, Washington Post, 05.16.14, Moscow Times, 05.15.14).
Pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine who organized referendums on two regions’ links with Kiev claimed resounding victories on Monday, saying about 90 per cent of voters backed greater self-rule. In a statement on Monday, the Kremlin said: “Moscow respects the choice of the people.” Oleksandr Turchynov, acting president of Ukraine, said the votes would have no legal validity. Kremlin said Russia respects results of the referendum. (Financial Times, Gazeta.ru, 05.12.14).
Russia's foreign minister softened his tone toward Ukraine, saying his country "can do business" with any elected president and warning that fighting in the country's east risks undermining a ballot's legitimacy. "If there is somebody who emerges as a figure with the support of the majority of Ukrainians, of course it's easier to have such an interlocutor than self-appointed people," Sergei Lavrov said. Not holding the upcoming presidential elections in Ukraine would be worse for the country than holding them, Russian State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin said. (RIA Novosti, Bloomberg, 05.14.14.)
Reports from eastern Ukraine say government forces and separatist rebels were engaged in combat early on May 16, with government forces firing artillery at separatist positions on the outskirts of Slovyansk. Ukrainian government forces have earlier this week eliminated two rebel bases in the towns of Slovyansk and nearby Kramatorsk. And Ukraine's Defense Ministry said Tuesday that six soldiers had been killed and eight wounded in an attack by separatists on a convoy near Kramatorsk. (Bloomberg, 05.15.14, RFE/RL, 05.16.14, Wall Street Journal, 05.14.14).
Steelworkers employed by eastern Ukraine's top tycoon Renat Akhmetov helped police keep order in some disputed cities Friday as an uneasy calm prevailed over the beleaguered country ahead of nationwide elections scheduled for May 25. (Washington Post, New York Times, 05.16.14).
Ukraine's government launched a "national dialogue" of politicians and civic groups Wednesday aimed at keeping the country together, but the roundtable talks didn't include rebel leaders who have declared independent republics in two eastern regions, and it produced no concrete results. The participants agreed to hold another meeting, but it wasn't clear when or where. OSCE on Monday named Wolfgang Ischinger, a former German diplomat, as co-mediator of talks. (Financial Times, 05.14.14, Wall Street Journal, 05.15.14).
The OSCE is setting up a fund to finance a disarmament program that would get armed groups to give up their weapons and release hostages and buildings in Ukraine. It is also prepared to bolster its 200-member mission in Ukraine. The OSCE will also field 1,000 monitors for presidential elections on May 25 in Ukraine. (AP, 05.13.14, Wall Street Journal, 05.14.14).
The Ukrainian parliament will not restart discussions on holding a decentralization referendum alongside presidential elections on May 25, Ukrainian lawmaker Andriy Senchenko said. The Ukrainian government proposed a bill last week to hold a nationwide referendum on decentralization simultaneously with the presidential election (RIA Novosti, 05.14.14).
If a referendum on Ukraine's accession to NATO were held next Sunday, 41.6 per cent of Ukrainians would vote against, 36.7 per cent for, 6.4 per cent would not vote at all, according to an opinion poll conducted by the Razumkov Centre. The survey also showed that most Ukrainians, 53.4 per cent, believe that their country should join the EU, while 33.4 per cent say it should not. (Interfax, 05.13.14).
Approximately 68 percent of Ukrainians consider Russians a friendly people, while 22.8 percent said they do not, according to the findings of a poll conducted by the Razumkov Center said. (Interfax, 05.14.14).
"We don't consider ourselves foreigners [in Ukraine]," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, citing more than 300 years of common history and the countries' shared Slavic heritage. (RIA Novosti, 05.14.14).
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday there were no new international talks planned for now on Ukraine and that progress in de-escalating the crisis was possible only if the rival sides in Ukraine held direct talks. Lavrov also said Ukraine is on the brink of civil war and that a solution was urgently needed that would take in to consideration the needs of all the country's regions. (Wall Street Journal, 05.14.14, Reuters, 05.13.14).
The secretary of the Committee on National Security and Defense in Ukraine’s parliament introduced a bill suggested reestablishing Ukraine as a nuclear power. (RIA Novosti, 05.06.14).
Berkut police commandoes did not shoot at protesters during tragic events in Ukraine's capital, Kiev, last February. The Ukrainian parliamentary interim investigative committee came to this conclusion after analyzing cartridges and bullets used by snipers. (Itar-Tass, 05.13.14).
Europe is partly to blame for the crisis in Ukraine although this is no excuse for Russian behavior towards the former Soviet republic, German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said. (Reuters, 05.14.14).
Germany’s Bild am Sonntag is reporting that German intelligence has unconfirmed reports that 400 Americans appear to be aiding the interim Ukrainian government in its fight against pro-Russian separatists. "We've told Bild and other outlets that these stories are nonsense," Caitlin Hayden, the national security spokeswoman for the White House, said. (McClatchy, 05.14.14).
Armed groups are increasingly undermining the rights and basic freedoms of people in eastern Ukraine, the United Nations said Friday, expressing concern at the rising number of killings, abductions, beatings and detentions of journalists, politicians, and local activists. (NYT, 05.17.14).
The United Nations expressed concern Wednesday over footage purporting to show Ukrainian troops using a helicopter painted with the organization's colors and insignia. (NBC, 05.14.14).
Ukraine's government said on its website Wednesday that it is setting out plans to raise $1 billion from a sale of five-year bonds that will be backed by the U.S. (Wall Street Journal, 05.14.14).
Ukraine and the European Union have signed a memorandum of understanding and a bilateral loan agreement aimed at granting Kiev a one billion euro macrofinancial aid. (Interfax, 05.13.14).
Russia’s Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said that the federal budget would have to fork out from 160 billion rubles ($4.5 billion) to 200 billion rubles each year starting from 2014 to support Crimea. (Moscow Times, 05.14.14).
Hungary is not demanding that the ethnic Hungarian minority in western Ukraine be given territorial autonomy. (Reuters, 05.14.14).
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas will visit Ukraine this month and meet with leaders of the protest movement that forced out the country's pro-Russian president. (AP, 05.14.14).
The White House has brushed aside questions about whether the involvement of Vice President Joe Biden's son in a Ukrainian natural gas company raised ethical issues at a time when the administration is promoting energy diversity in the country. (Reuters, 05.14.14).
Georgia and Moldova are to sign a key trade and political pact with the European Union in Brussels on June 27. Zurab Abashidze, the Georgian prime minister's special representative on relations with Russia, said he sees no obstacles to Georgia's having a free trade zone both with the European Union and Russia. (Interfax, 05.14.14, RFE/RL, 05.14.14).
French President Francois Hollande is urging the EU to find a way to enter into an Association Agreement with Armenia despite Yerevan’s plans to join a Russian-led Customs Union. Hollande visited Yerevan after a visit to Baku and talks there with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev. After completing talks with Armenian officials in Yerevan on May 13, Hollande travelled to Tbilisi for talks with Georgian officials. (RFE/RL, 05.12.14).
President Alexander Lukashenko said on Friday that Belarus would not block the signing of a deal creating a Eurasian Economic Union after resolving a dispute with Russia over oil product duties. (Reuters, 05.09.14).
The Kyrgyz government has approved a draft version of the road map for Kyrgyzstan to join a Russia-led customs union. (RFE/RL, 05.12.14).
Kyrgyz officials say 19 residents of the country's southern region of Jalal-Abad are thought to be fighting with Islamic insurgent groups in Syria. (RFE/RL, 05.13.14).
A NATO bureau on ties and cooperation with Central Asian countries has officially opened in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent. (RFE/RL, 05.16.14).
Amnesty International says torture remains widespread in many parts of the world three decades after the adoption of the United Nations' Convention Against Torture. It says that in many former Soviet republics, torture remains prevalent as corrupt and underfunded police forces use abuse as the easiest way to get confessions and convictions -- as well as to extort money from victims. (RFE/RL, 05.13.14).

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