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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 March 22-29, 2013.

Russia in Review: a digest of useful news from U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism for March 22-29, 2013

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

Nuclear security agenda:

  • The White House has endorsed a plan to relax long-held standards for cleaning up radioactive material released by a nuclear power plant disaster or act of terrorism, a group of federal officials say in a new draft report. (GSN, 03.25.13).

Iran nuclear issues:

  • No significant developments.

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

  • Russia wants play a role in keeping Afghanistan stable after the withdrawal of most NATO combat troops by maintaining government military hardware on Afghan soil, said Sergei Koshelev, the Russian military's point man for foreign ties.  (Reuters, 03.27.13).
  • A group of U.S. Democratic and Republican lawmakers is urging Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to ignore a legal loophole that would allow him to green-light the purchase of Russian-made helicopters for Afghanistan’s military, arguing that Moscow is arming the Syrian military. (Defense News, 05.25.13).

Missile defense:

  • U.S. National Security Adviser Thomas Donilon will visit Moscow next month to discuss issues including missile defense.  Donilon will meet his Russian counterpart, Nikolai Patrushev and has also asked for a meeting with Putin. (Bloomberg, 03.25.13).
  • Russian and U.S. defense chiefs signaled on Monday their intention to reconvene long-stalled missile defense talks, following a change in U.S. missile defense plans for Europe. The Pentagon said Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu expressed a desire to reconvene the talks, and that U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel assured him they would continue and would be carried forward by the Pentagon's policy chief, Jim Miller. (Reuters, 03.25.13).
  • “I do not think the most efficient way would be to have a unified, integrated (missile defense) system,” NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said, adding that “the right way forward would be to have a Russian system and a NATO system, but to make sure that these two systems work together.” (RIA Novosti, 03.27.13).
  • The 2013 GAO annual “Assessments of Selected Weapon Programs” says the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense national missile defense program costs nearly $41 billion. (Mostlymissiledefense, 03.29.13).

Nuclear arms control:

  • The Obama administration aims to see both U.S. ratification of a treaty to end atomic testing and new nuclear-weapon reductions with Russia, Anita Friedt, the State Department’s principal deputy assistant secretary for Nuclear and Strategic Policy, said. (GSN, 03.27.13).

Counter-terrorism cooperation:

  • No significant developments.

Cyber security:

  • A massive cyber attack targeting a European spam-fighting group that slowed some global Internet traffic to a crawl appears to have been launched by a gang of hackers from Russia and neighboring countries, says the head of a Russian firm specializing in defending against such attacks. (Wall Street Journal, 03.29.13).

Energy exports from CIS:

  • The Russian Ministry of Energy believes, in the event that liquefied natural gas exports from Russia are freed up, the European market must be closed to independent producers, and their gas should be sold only to the Asia-Pacific region in addition to Gazprom supplies, said Energy Minister Alexander Novak. (RBTH 03.29.13).

Bilateral economic ties:

  • Russia's largest bank, OAO Sberbank, said on Monday that it and Italy's Fiat SpA are reconsidering a plan to build a factory to produce Jeep sport-utility vehicles and may turn to a struggling Russian manufacturer for assembly. (Wall Street Journal, 03.25.13).

Other bilateral issues:

  • Russia said on Friday that heightened military activity near North Korea was slipping into a "vicious cycle" that could get out of control, implicitly criticizing U.S. bomber flights that followed threats from Pyongyang.   (Reuters, 03.29/13).
  • Obama administration officials are debating how many Russian officials to ban from the United States under a new law meant to penalize Moscow for alleged human rights abuses. Representative James McGovern, wrote to Obama on Monday, enclosing over 230 names he said could potentially be included. "I expect a fairly small list, in the 20-something range, will end up on this submission to Congress," he said.(Reuters, 03.29.13).
  • The Foreign Ministry "hopes" that U.S. officials are properly investigating an adopted teenager's claims that his U.S. adoptive mother abused him, Interfax reported Thursday, citing a ministry source.  (Moscow Times, 03.29.13).
  • In 2012, Russians took more than 250,000 trips to the U.S. – a 15% increase over 2011, which itself was a record-breaking year. (M-mcfaul.livejournal.com, 03.25.13).
  • U.S. State Department representative Victoria Nuland said the U.S. administration was concerned by the ongoing checks of non-governmental organizations in Russia and that the checks resemble a witch hunt. (The Moscow Times, 03.29.13).
  • The United States has deported Russian citizen S. Satarinov, who is accused of attempting to organize a steady supply chain of cocaine from the United States to Russia. (Interfax, 03.27.13).

II. Russia news.

 

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

  • Russian President Vladimir Putin staged a televised meeting on Friday with a loyal support group called the People's Front, suggesting he may promote it as an alternative power base. Putin told the supporters that “a total of 30% Russians lived at breadline level in 2000 and now their share stands at 11.2%," he said. (Reuters, Interfax, 03.29.13).
  • Amid widespread speculation that the State Duma will be dissolved for new elections, Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin assured deputies that the lower house would fulfill its duties until the end of its current term in 2016. (Moscow Times, 03.24.13).
  • State Duma has passed in a third and final reading a bill that would grant regional authorities the right to cancel direct gubernatorial elections. (Moscow Times, 03.24.13).
  • Russia is moving away from its totalitarian past but it is unclear what kind of political system it is heading for, justice minister Alexander Konovalov said.  (Interfax, 03.25.13).
  • President Vladimir Putin will hold his annual televised call-in show in April. (Moscow Times, 03.24.13).
  • The Moscow Helsinki Group on Thursday became the latest NGO inspected in a massive government campaign that has hit hundreds of non-state groups in 25 regions. The Moscow offices of Human Rights Watch, Transparency International Russia and Amnesty International have also been inspected. Officials have inspected a total of about 2,000 NGOs nationwide in the past month.   (Moscow Times, 03.28.13, 03.29.13).
  • Russia's largest banks said Thursday their clients' exposure to losses in Cyprus so far appears modest, while there were few other signs of immediate fallout for Russian business.  The deal between Cyprus and European lenders was backed by the Kremlin on Monday and Russia will begin working on restructuring a 3.2 billion loan given to Nicosia in 2011. (The Moscow Times, 03.26.13, Wall Street Journal, 03.29.13).
  • In a first brief detailing of the circumstances surrounding the death of the exiled Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, a British police officer said on Thursday that the former tycoon was found lying on his bathroom floor with a “ligature around his neck and a piece of similar material on the shower rail above him.”  Detective Inspector Mark Bissell said foul play cannot be completely ruled out.(Wall Street Journal, Moscow Times, 03.29.13).
  • The Russian economy will not be able to reach 5% growth or higher in the coming years, Deputy Economic Development Minister Andrei Klepach said. (Interfax, 03.29.13).

Defense:

  • President Vladimir Putin has surprised Russian military leaders by issuing a snap order to initiate immediate Black Sea war games – which experts say is a sign that the country's armed forces are becoming capable of defending the country on, literally, a moment's notice. (CSM, 03.28.13).
  • The Russian Northern Fleet has started large-scale exercises at the Kola Peninsula in Russia's northwestern Murmansk Oblast. (Xinhua, 03.27.13).

Security and law-enforcement:

  • No significant developments.

Foreign affairs and trade:

  • During his visit to Russia, Chinese President Xi Jinping met with President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. Xi described Putin as his "old, good friend" and said the decision to make Russia his first foreign visit was a sign of the "strong and special nature" of Chinese-Russian ties. Xi became the first foreign statesman to visit Russia’s Strategic Command (Moscow Times, 03.24.13, National Interest, 03.26.13).
  • Russia has agreed to supply China with natural gas in a deal that could see China surpass Germany as the largest importer of Russian gas. Officials on Friday signed a raft of other energy deals, including one to double Russian oil supplies to China and hand Chinese state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. a stake in Russian oil fields. The corporation will join with Rosneft in exploring three offshore Arctic areas for oil. Chinese President Xi Jinping called the accords a "breakthrough." (Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, 03.25.13).
  • Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping have said their countries would coordinate steps against missile dangers and the spread of ballistic missile technology. (Interfax, 03.26.13).
  • Russia, China, Brazil, India and South Africa on Wednesday agreed to set up a council that seeks to facilitate joint business projects. (Moscow Times, 03.28.13).
  • President Bashar al-Assad of Syria beseeched the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa on Wednesday to help halt the Syrian conflict. (New York Times, 03.28.13).
  • Russia said on Monday that Western nations had muscled U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon into broadening an investigation into the alleged use of chemical arms in Syria and accused them of trying to use the probe to push President Bashar al-Assad from power. (Reuters, 03.25.13).
  • The U.N. conference on the Arms Trade Treaty is the first yet insufficient move toward the solution to the global problem of uncontrolled weapons proliferation, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Friday.  (Xinhua, 03.29.13).
  • Germany complained to Russia on Tuesday about a series of tax raids on nongovernmental organizations, including two German think tanks, saying the action could harm bilateral ties already strained by the Cyprus crisis. (Reuters, 03.28.13).
  • “Let us face it: Russia is still perceived in the majority of European countries as something external and separate from the rest of Europe,” Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told a Moscow conference he attended together with European Commission Chairman Jose Manuel Barroso.  (RBTH, 03.25.13).

Russia's neighbors:

  • The Georgian parliament has unanimously approved limits to the president's powers at an extraordinary session. The constitutional amendments remove the president's right to fire or appoint a prime minister or cabinet without the parliament's approval.  (RFE/RL, 03.25.13).
  • Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian has signaled his readiness for a dialogue with his hunger-striking presidential election challenger, Raffi Hovannisian. (RFE/RL, 03.25.13).

 

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