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Russia in Review

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Russia in Review: a digest of useful news from U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism for May 3-10, 2013.

Russia in Review: a digest of useful news from U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism for May 3-10, 20

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

Nuclear security agenda:

  • Replacement of the umbrella Cooperative Threat Reduction agreement -  that expires on June 17 – was discussed during the meeting of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Moscow. Both MFA and State Department sources confirmed that the sides “advanced far” in negotiations on replacement for this treaty. A Russian Ministry of Defense source said that there is no doubt that the sides will find other countries to share their CTR experience with. “The Nunn-Lugar program has been an example of productive bilateral cooperation, especially given all the differences that have been emerging between USA and Russia.”(Kommersant, 05.07.13).
  • Russia is pressing other nations to convene a previously scuttled gathering to discuss banning weapons of mass destruction from the Middle East this year. (GSN, 05.06.13).
  • Canada is ending its participation in two programs intended to provide peaceful civilian opportunities for ex-Soviet scientists with expertise in weapons of mass destruction. (GSN, 05.08.13).

Iran nuclear issues:

  • No significant developments.

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

  • Russia needs a clear strategy to protect Russia's interests in the face of the likely exacerbation of the situation in Afghanistan and neighbouring countries, President Putin told a meeting of the Russian Security Council on 8 May which discussed the situation in and around Afghanistan. (Rossiya TV, 05.08.13).

Missile defense:

  • The head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency says the Obama administration has discussed declassifying key data on U.S. missile defense in order to provide it to Russia. "There has been a discussion on the capability of the current missiles we are building and the velocity [once fuel has been expended]," Missile Defense Agency Director Vice Admiral James Syring said. (RFE/RL, 05.09.13).
  • The head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency on Wednesday said he did not presently need an additional $250 million proposed by Republican lawmakers for work on a third interceptor site. (GSN, 05.09.13).
  • The Defense Department wants congressional approval to reallocate nearly $160 million for a number of antimissile activities including a live interception trial for the troubled Ground-based Midcourse Defense system. (GSN, 05.07.13).
  • The creation of Russia’s airbase on the territory of Belarus has no relation to missile defence; threats can be neutralized in a different way, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a joint news conference with his German and Polish counterparts Guido Westerwelle and Radoslaw Sikorski on Friday. (Itar-Tass, 05.10.13).

Nuclear arms control:

  • President Obama on Thursday asked senators to confirm a key State Department arms control official to a post she has filled on a provisional basis for more than a year. The administration in February 2012 announced it had tapped Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance Rose Gottemoeller to also serve as the department's acting undersecretary for arms control and international security, succeeding Ellen Tauscher in that role. (GSN, 05.10.13).
  • More than 100 nations concluding a round of global nuclear talks Friday expressed alarm that many nuclear weapons are kept at a high-alert level and are still being modernized, despite a promise to get rid of them. (AP, 05.03.13).

Counter-terrorism cooperation/Boston bombings:

  • During their meeting in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry discussed a statement on counter-terrorism cooperation that Presidents Putin and Obama may sign on sidelines of the G-8 summit in Northern Ireland in June. (Kommersant, 05.07.13).
  • The F.B.I. director Robert S. Mueller III met with Russian law enforcement and intelligence officials in Moscow on Tuesday to discuss the bureau's investigation of the Boston Marathon bombings. US embassy in Moscow said: “FBI Director Robert Mueller visited Moscow today for productive meetings with his Russian counterparts.” (RIA Novosti, 05.07.13, New York Times, 05.08.13).
  • Circa 2007 U.S. and Russian security services sent each other  about 800 requests annually for information or assistance on financial crimes, cyberattacks and organized crime, as well as terrorism. (Washington Post, 05.09.13).
  • “He already had jihad views when he came; I think because he was Chechen, he was rooting for his homeland,” Zaur M. Zakaryayev, member of a Salafi advocacy organization, the Union of the Just in Dagestan, said of Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Magomed Kartashov, head the Union of the Just, and Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s cousin, said he had spent hours trying to stop Mr. Tsarnaev from “going to the forest,” or joining one of the militant cells scattered throughout the volatile region, locked in low-level guerrilla warfare with the police.  “My presumed theory is that he evidently came here, he was looking for contacts, but he did not find serious contacts, and if he did, they didn’t trust him,” said Habib Magomedov, a member of Dagestan’s antiterrorism commission.(New York Times, 05.09.13, 05.10.13).
  • While Tamerlan Tsarnaev did find a circle of friends in Makhachkala, some congregants at the city’s Salafist mosque dismissed him as strange. An official from the Anti-Extremism Center, a federal agency under Russia’s Interior Ministry, confirmed that operatives had filmed Mr. Tsarnaev during visits to the Makhachkala mosque that Tsarnaev attended on Kotrova Street. The mosque was founded by Nadirshakh Khachilaev, who aided the current head of al Qaeda, Ayman Zawahiri, during a 1997 trip to Dagestan. (Wall Street Journal, 05.10.13, New York Times, 05.09.13).
  • In Makhachkala, Tamerlan Tsarnaev met several times with Makhmud Nidal, a member of a rebel group that operated in the area, an official close to the situation said. Mr. Nidal was on the run from Russian police, but Mr. Tsarnaev managed to meet with him secretly at an apartment in the Separatorny neighborhood, said an official who saw the security-service dossier on Mr. Nidal. The dossier reported the date, address and apartment number where the meeting took place, and that an informant reported that the two discussed ways that Mr. Tsarnaev might be able to help his rebel group. The dossier indicated that Mr. Tsarnaev offered to act as a financial go-between for an organization based in the U.S., the official said. (Wall Street Journal, 05.10.13).
  • Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said he had no intention of defending the Tsarnayev brothers." I can say with full responsibility that Tamerlan and Dzhokhar are very real devils, the very worst devils,” he said. (Interfax, 05.06.13).
  • ''On the logistics and communications to facilitate what the F.B.I. is doing, we have seen a very cooperative Russian government, because they understand we have a common interest in getting the full details in this investigation,'' said a senior United States official. (New York Times, 05.07.13).
  • Boston’s police chief Edward Davis his department was never told about a Russian intelligence warning about one of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings. (RFE/RL, 05.10.13).

Cyber security:

  • When visiting Moscow in April, White House cyber security coordinator Michael Daniel and State Department coordinator for cyber issues Christopher Painter initialed a number of bilateral agreements on confidence-building measures and establishment of a bilateral working group on cyber security in the U.S.-Russian Presidential Commission. These agreements might be ready for Presidents Putin and Obama to sign during their G-8 summit in June. (Kommersant, 05.07.13).

Energy exports from CIS:

  • No significant developments.

Bilateral economic ties:

  • Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov bought $100 million worth of Apple shares, calling the company a "very promising investment" despite fears that the company is waning. (Moscow Times, 05.06.13).

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s May 7-8, 2013 visit to Moscow:

  • Meeting with  with Russian President Vladimir Putin:
    • Kerry huddled in the Kremlin for several hours with Putin.
    • Putin told Kerry: "I hope to soon meet with [Obama] in person. We will have opportunities to do so several times this year"I feel it is very important that our key ministries, including our foreign ministries, are working jointly to resolve the most difficult problems in the world today.”
    • Kerry told Putin: “We share some very significant common interests with respect to Syria - stability in the region, not having extremists creating problems.”
  • Meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
    • The two ministers agreed that Russia and U.S. would seek to convene an international conference aimed at ending the civil war in Syria – both sides will push the government of al-Assad and the Syrian opposition to attend by the end of this month. Both US and Russia wanted to hold the conference “as soon as practical, possibly, hopefully as soon as the end of this month,” Kerry said.
    • Lavrov said that “special services will maintain a closer contact so as to clearly understand what is happening, specifically with regard to incoming reports about the use of chemical weapons or toxic agents in this or that part of Syria.” The special services of the Russian Federation and the United States have agreed to cooperate on reports about the presumable use of chemical weapons or toxic agents in Syria.
    • Kerry suggested U.S .may not need to arm rebels if Syrian political transition moves forward.  Kerry also said: "[I]t's impossible for me as an individual to understand how Syria could possibly be governed in the future by the man who has committed the things that we know have taken place. But ... I'm not going to decide that tonight, and I'm not going to decide that in the end."
    • Lavrov said of the situation in Syria: “I would like to emphasize we do not, we are not interested in the fate of certain persons.”
  • Kerry met with leading Russian human rights activists amid concerns about a crackdown by Russian authorities on civil society groups

(Kommersant, New York Times, RIA Novosti, Interfax, Itar-Tass, CMS, Gazeta.ru, 05.07.13, RFE/RL, Cable 05.08.13)

Other bilateral issues:

  • President Vladimir Putin’s reply to U.S. President Barack Obama’s message should be ready before the upcoming G8 summit to be held on June 17-18, presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said. Putin’s reply to Obama’s letter would be delivered to Washington by Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev personally. (Itar-Tass, 05.06.13).
  • During their meeting on sidelines of the G-8 summit in Northern Ireland in June, Presidents Putin and Obama may announce resumption of 2X2 format meetings between the two countries’ defense and foreign policy chiefs. The two leaders may also announce establishment of a new consultive mechanism at the level of vice president and prime minister to advance economic cooperation. (Kommersant, 05.07.13).
  • The White House pressed Russia on Thursday not to move ahead with a suspected sale of S-300 ground-to-air missile systems to Syria that would significantly boost Damascus's ability to stave off an external attack. -Russia's foreign minister said on Friday Moscow had no new plans to sell S-300s’ al-Assad, but left open the possibility that it could ship such systems to Damascus under an existing contract. (Wall Street Journal, Reuters, 05.10.13).
  • Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Frank A. Rose said: “Under the capable chairmanship of our distinguished colleague Victor Vasiliev of the Russian Federation, the GGE (UN Group of Governmental Experts) offers an opportunity to advance a range of voluntary TCBMs (transparency and confidence-building measures) that might mitigate dangers and risks to space security.”(US State Department, 05.07.13).
  • Russian and U.S. specialists will discuss on Friday the issues surrounding an emergency spacewalk by NASA astronauts from the International Space Station (ISS) to establish the ammonia leak site, Vladimir Solovyev, director of the Russian ISS flight program. (Interfax, 05.10.13).
  • The U.S. Navy destroyer Lassen has docked at the Pacific Fleet's main base at Vladivostok in a friendly visit aimed at developing cultural relations between Russian and American sailors. (Moscow Times, 05.07.13).
  • Russian strategic bombers conducted flights within the U.S. defense zone close to northern Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. (Washington Free Beacon, 05.06.13).

II. Russia news.

 

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

  • Russian President Vladimir Putin, addressing the annual Victory Day military parade on Moscow's Red Square, vowed Russia will do "everything in its power so that no one will ever dare unleash a new war."  (RFE/RL, 05.0913).
  • Russia's deputy prime minister, Vladislav Surkov, resigned Wednesday, becoming the third leading cabinet official to leave Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's year-old government. Medvedev appointed first deputy government chief of the staff Sergei Prikhodko acting government chief of staff  to replace Surkov. The Kremlin said in a statement that President Vladimir Putin had accepted Surkov's resignation, one day after Putin reprimanded the government for failing to carry out all of his presidential orders and decrees. (Washington Post, Interfax, 05.09.13).
  • President Vladimir Putin has signed into law a second ban on government officials owning bank accounts and other assets abroad. (Moscow Times, 05.08.13).
  • Thousands of protesters crowded a square in central Moscow on Monday to demand political freedoms and an end to corruption, in an attempt to inject new life into Russia's flagging opposition movement. Organizers said nearly 30,000 people attended the rally on Monday, close to their expectations and the limit allowed under the permit for the gathering. Interfax said turnout was closer to 8,000. (Washington Post, New York Post, 05.07.13).
  • Levada Center, the country's only independent national pollster, must register as a foreign agent or face stiff fines after prosecutors determined that it was the recipient of foreign funding. (Moscow Times, 05.07.13).
  • Russia’s capital is home to 64 billionaires (in U.S. dollars), according to London-based analytic agency WealthInsight. (RBTH, 05.08.13).

Defense:

  • The Chkalov State Flight Testing Center in Akhtubinsk, Astrakhan region, will obtain the first mass-produced fifth-generation fighter in 2016, Russian Air Force Commander Lt. Gen. Viktor Bondarev said. (Interfax, 05.07.13).
  • The Russian Ministry of Defence has announced that the famous Tamanskaya and Kantemirovskaya divisions have been recreated. (BBC, 05.04.13).

Security and law-enforcement:

  • Five militants have been killed in Russia's North Caucasus republic of Dagestan and one in Kabardino-Balkaria.  (RFE/RL, 05.09.13).
  • The Moscow City Court has sentenced Yusup Temerkhanov, an ethnic Chechen, to 15 years in prison for the murder of former Russian Army Colonel Yury Budanov. (RFE/RL, 05.07.13).

Foreign affairs and trade:

  • Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that scenarios for the positive development of the situation in Syria and possible joint steps in this area were discussed at British Prime Minister David Cameron's initiative during bilateral talks. (BBC, 05.10.13).
  • Negotiators are in the final stage on reaching an agreement on the liberalization of visa regime between Russia and the European Union, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday.  (RIA Novosti, 05.10.13).

Russia's neighbors:

  • Ukraine's foreign minister says he will urge U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to look beyond the case of Ukraine's jailed former prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, and focus on areas of cooperation between the countries. (RFE/RL, 05.09.13).
  • Ukraine is working to become an energy hub, producing its own gas, developing storage and importing from both the European Union and Russia, Ukraine's energy minister said. (Reuters, 03.05.13).
  • The president of Belarus says his country is "constantly at gunpoint in an undeclared Cold War." (RFE/RL, 05.09.13).
  • French troops in Dushanbe who have been performing repair and maintenance on NATO aircraft on route to or from Afghanistan will leave Tajikistan by July 1. (RFE/RL, 05.07.13).
  • Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili harshly criticized Georgian government's statements on possible resumption of natural-gas imports from Russia.  (RFE/RL, 05.07.13).

 

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