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Russia in Review

Published: March 8, 2013

Russia in Review: a digest of useful news from U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism for March 1-8, 2013.

Russia in Review: a digest of useful news from U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism for March 1-8, 2013

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

Nuclear security agenda:

  • Ignoring threats of retaliation, the United Nations Security Council ordered new economic sanctions against North Korea on Thursday for its third nuclear test last month, unanimously approving a resolution that the United States negotiated with China.  The 15-to-0 Security Council vote places potentially painful new constraints on North Korean banking, trade and travel, pressures countries to search suspect North Korean cargo and includes new enforcement language absent from previous measures. (New York Times, 03.07.13).
  • The White House plans in coming months to eliminate tens of millions of dollars in planned Defense Department spending aimed at securing and destroying weapons of mass destruction at home and around the world. Among the likely victims of the budget sequester are projects to secure or destroy nuclear warheads and other unconventional arms left behind by the former Soviet Union. (GSN, 03.04.13).
  • A U.S. delegation has visited the Siberian Chemical Combine in the Tomsk region to survey work done within the framework of the HEU-LEU program. This program is to be completed at the combine in 2013. (Rosatom, 03.06.13).
  • A newly imposed, across-the-board budget cut and other spending restrictions are likely to diminish the responsiveness and reliability of the nation's nuclear deterrent if they remain in place, the head of U.S. Strategic Command told lawmakers on Tuesday. (GSN, 03.05.13).
  • A House spending bill introduced on Monday would meet the fiscal 2013 funding request for sustaining the U.S. nuclear arsenal even while restricting spending across most of the federal government. (GSN, 03.05.13).
  • The Obama administration has completed its strategic review of a program intended to prevent the smuggling of nuclear-weapon material across international borders but it is so far the results are unclear. (GSN, 03.07.13).

Iran nuclear issues:

  • No significant developments.

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

  • Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov has discussed the situation in Afghanistan with U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Lynne Tracy and U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense David Sedney. (Interfax, 03.03.13).

Missile defense:

  • Russian General Staff Chief Gen. of the Army Valery Gerasimov has invited U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey to Moscow to discuss missile defense. Gerasimov said the Russian military plans to hold an international conference in Moscow in May. “We have invited the defense ministers from Europe, the United States, Canada and other countries and chiefs of international organizations - NATO, the EU, the CSTO and the OSCE," Gerasimov said. (Interfax, 03.06.13).
  • “The main issue is that Russia has no guarantees, from the United States to start with, that the system being created is not aimed at strategic nuclear means in Russia," Russian Permanent Representative to NATO, Alexander Grushko, said. It is necessary to adopt new approaches in the military sphere, which demand changes in the whole philosophy on common threats, the Russian diplomat said. (Interfax, 03.07.13).

Nuclear arms control:

  • The drive to upgrade the Russian strategic nuclear forces has been completed, and Russia is not interested in reducing its stockpiles of new weapons, a measure proposed by the United States, Russian presidential chief-of-staff Sergei Ivanov said.  "When I hear our American partners say: 'Let's reduce something else,' I would like to say to them: 'Excuse me, but what we have is relatively new,'" Ivanov said. (Interfax, 03.05.13).
  • The United States on Tuesday reaffirmed their opposition to a special global meeting for pursuing nuclear disarmament initiatives outside a multilateral arms control forum that has remained in deadlock for 16 years. Russia also voiced opposition to the group on Tuesday. Moscow indicated it would not participate in the effort. (GSN, 03.06.13).

Counter-terrorism cooperation:

  • No significant developments.

Cyber security:

  • Alec Ross, the U.S. Secretary of State's senior adviser for innovation, said China and Russia have been buying powerful surveillance technologies in a bid to “control” Internet communications.  (RFE/RL, 03.08.13).

Energy exports from CIS:

  • Russia is on course to send an unprecedented 25 percent of its crude exports to eastern markets by 2015 as rising demand from China and other Asian consumers attracts sales at the expense of Europe.  (Bloomberg, 03.07.13).
  • Bulgaria's parliament has voted to scrap a pipeline deal to carry Russian oil to Greece. (RFE/RL, 03.07.13).

Bilateral economic ties:

  • Neftegaz America Shelf LP, an indirect independent subsidiary of Russian state oil company Rosneft, is acquiring 30 percent interest in 20 deepwater exploration blocks in the Gulf of Mexico held by Exxon Mobil, under an agreement signed Wednesday, Rosneft's chief Igor Sechin told reporters in Houston. (RIA Novosti, 03.06.13).

Other bilateral issues:

  • US President Barack Obama will visit Saint Petersburg for September's G20 summit and will also hold a meeting with President Vladimir Putin at the G8 summit in Northern Ireland in June. (AFP, 03.01.13).
  • US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul denied Thursday that hundreds of Russian legislators may be blacklisted for US entry for supporting a ban on adoptions of Russian children by Americans. (Philippines News Agency, 03.08.13).
  • The Russian President’s special envoy to the Middle East, Mikhail Bogdanov, and the US Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, met on Thursday. The two diplomats stressed the need for an immediate initiation of a political transition process to launch dialogue between the warring Syrian sides. (Voice of Russia, 03.08.13).
  • Supporters of a Russian law banning adoptions by Americans reacted with renewed fury and derision on Saturday after Texas officials said that so far they had found no reason to file criminal charges against the adoptive mother of a 3-year-old boy from Russia who died under mysterious circumstances in January. (New York Times. 03.03.13).
  • Yelena Milashina, a reporter for the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, will be awarded a prestigious human rights prize by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at a ceremony in Washington on Friday, International Women's Day. (Moscow Times, 03.07.13).
  • Russia and the United States, two of the five countries where polar bears live, are now the main allies pushing for greater protection for the bears under a global treaty on endangered species. (New York Times, 03.04.13).
  • Nikolai Vlasov, deputy head of Russia’s Federal Veterinary and Phytosanitary Inspection Service, warned that women grow mustaches if they drink certain types of American-produced milk. (Moscow Times, 03.07.13).

II. Russia news.

 

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

  • In a statement on March 6, the Federation Council said Nikolai Olshansky gave up his seat. Last week, Federation Council Chairwoman Valentina Matviyenko said some senators holding bank accounts outside Russia were considering the possibility of vacating their seats. Also three parliamentary deputies have quit their seats since mid-February after President Vladimir Putin submitted a bill banning senior Russian officials, their spouses, and underage children from holding bank accounts or property abroad. (RFE/RL, 03.06.13).
  • Moscow State University regained a spot among the world's 50 most reputable institutions of higher learning, according to Times Higher Education magazine's annual college ratings, released Monday. (Moscow Times, 03.04.13).
  • Facebook investor Alisher Usmanov retained the title of Russia's richest man with a net worth of $17.6 billion in a new Forbes ranking Monday.  (Moscow Times, 03.03.13).
  • Russia ranked 63rd in the world for travel and tourism industry competitiveness, finishing between Saudi Arabia  and South Africa, in a ranking released by the World Economic Forum. (Moscow Times, 03.08.13).
  • A study, called the Global Burden of Diseases Study 2010, says that while global life expectancy increased by nearly five years from 1990 to 2010, in Russia it grew by only a few months. Premature death due to alcohol consumption spiked by 40% from 1990 to 2010, possibly contributing to the lower life expectancy of Russian men. (Moscow Times, 03.06.13).
  • Thousands of people hit Moscow’s streets Saturday for the first major political marches in nearly two months. The larger rally consisted of pro-Kremlin demonstrators supporting the Russian ban on U.S. child adoptions, and a smaller gathering deplored rising utility prices, low pensions, and student stipends. (Moscow Times, 03.03.13).
  • As Russia prepared to mark the 60th anniversary of Joseph Stalin’s death on March 5, 49 percent of Russians still see the Soviet dictator’s role in Russian history as positive, while 32 percent believe he played a negative role.  (RBTH, 03.04.13).
  • A Russian court will start the posthumous trial of dead anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky next week. (Reuters, 03.04.13).

Defense:

  • Russian nuclear forces conducted a major exercise last month that tested the transport of both strategic and tactical nuclear weapons near Europe. (Washington Times. 03.05.13).
  • Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday he plans to control implementation of a plan to rearm the armed forces that he said was a "historic chance" for Russia. (RIA Novosti, 03.06.13).
  • Nearly 250,000 Russian citizens dodged the military draft in 2012. (Interfax, 03.06.13).

Security and law-enforcement:

  • President Vladimir Putin has introduced a bill to authorize the Federal Security Service (FSB) to send advisers to foreign countries for indefinite periods to help them fight trans-border crime. (Interfax, 03.03.13).
  • President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that all government investigations into businesses must first be cleared with prosecutors to prevent "extortion often masquerading as state service.” (Moscow Times, 03.05.13).
  • A militant from Russia's Chechnya region, who goes by the name of Omar Abu al-Chechen, commands  Brigade of Migrants, an opposition group of foreign fighters in Syria. Seventeen fighters from the North Caucasus were killed in fighting outside Aleppo last month. (Reuters, 03.06.13).
  • Agents from Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) have detained 10 people in St. Petersburg on suspicion of being involved with the banned Nurjular Islamic group.  (RFE/RL, 03.03.13).
  • Russian forces have  killed Adam Khushalayev, leader of one of the rebel Chechen groups, and two other militants.  (RFE/RL, 03.07.13).
  • Russia on Thursday filed fraud charges against William Browder, head of London-based investment fund Hermitage Capital Management, over dealings a decade ago in shares in state gas firm Gazprom. (Reuters, 03.07.13).

Foreign affairs and trade:

  • Russia will "absolutely not" tell Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down to end the civil war and make way for a political transition, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in comments published on Friday. (Reuters, 03.08.13).
  • Germany and Luxembourg have agreed to allow Russian civil servants to enter the country without a visa, Spanish Ambassador Jose Ignacio Carbajal told the media on Wednesday. (RAPSI, 03.06.13).
  • Signaling an eagerness to maintain cozy ties with Venezuela, President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday called for even stronger relations and praised the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as “a close friend of Russia.” (Moscow Times, 03.07.13).
  • The first supplies of Russian weapons to Iraq will start before the beginning of the summer, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said. (Interfax, 03.04.13).
  • The BRICs group of emerging nations are likely to offer to countries such as the U.S. and the U.K. a stake of up to 45% in a development bank they are planning to set up. (Wall Street Journal, 03.07.13).
  • Russia may pivot to Asia should the proposed U.S.-European Union free-trade agreement hurt its businesses, said Kirill Dmitriev, the Chief Executive Officer of the $10 billion Russian Direct Investment Fund.  (Bloomberg, 03.07.13).
  • Andrei Borodin, a fugitive Russian bank chairman, has been granted political asylum in the UK. (Financial Times, 03.02.13).
  • An airplane carrying Maxim Vintskevich, the first Russian citizen extradited by the UK authorities, arrived in Moscow from London at around midnight. (Interfax, 03.08.13).

Russia's neighbors:

  • Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych said Monday that his country was holding talks on cooperating with the Russia-led customs union. Yanukovych made the statement during his meeting with Vladimir Putin in Russia. (Moscow Times, 03.04.13).
  • A third witness has testified on the killing of Ukrainian lawmaker Yevhen Shcherban in 1996, telling the court that he has no doubts former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko ordered the murder.  (RFE/RL, 03.04.13).
  • Sergey Vlasenko, lead defender of Ukraine's jailed former prime minister, Yulia V. Tymoshenko, was stripped of his seat in the Ukrainian Parliament on Wednesday by the country's top administrative court, despite stern warnings by Western officials who said the case was a matter of political retribution. (New York Times, 03.07.13).
  • Georgian officials say Moscow has so far granted nearly 40 wine companies permission to export their products to Russia.  (RFE/RL, 03.06.13).
  • Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin met with Georgia’s special representative for relations with Russia in Prague on Friday to discuss bilateral ties following a “significant improvement” recently. (Moscow Times, 03.03.13).
  • The Georgian Parliament has reaffirmed the country's commitment to its European and Euro-Atlantic foreign-policy course. (RFE/RL, 03.08.13).
  • The Moldovan Parliament has dismissed the country's pro-Western government led by Prime Minister Vlad Filat.  (RFE/RL, 03.05.13).
  • Armenia's main opposition party said Monday that the country's president had rigged the result of a February election, and it called on the Constitutional Court to rule that its candidate won. (Moscow Times, 03.05.13).

 

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