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Press Release

Russia in Review

Published: November 2, 2012

Russia in Review: a digest of useful news from U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism for the week of October 26 - November 2, 2012

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

Nuclear security agenda:

  • "The Russia-U.S. cooperation (over nuclear security) has been unfolding more and more in third countries," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said. Moscow considers preventing nuclear materials from falling into the hands of "potential malefactors" a priority, he said (Xinhua, 10.29.12).
  • The National Nuclear Security Administration announced the successful removal of 72.8 kilograms of highly enriched uranium (HEU) spent fuel from the Institute of Nuclear Physics (INP) in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.  The announcement marks the 50th shipment under NNSA’s cooperative program with Russia to return Russian-origin HEU. Since the program began 10 years ago, NNSA and its Russian counterparts have closely cooperated to successfully repatriate to Russia more than 1,900 kilograms of Russian-origin HEU, enough material for more than 75 nuclear weapons, and completely removed all Russian-origin HEU from six countries.  (NNSA, 11.01.12).
  • Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Countryman said: “In the two years since the Washington Summit, we have converted the HEU equivalent of 3,000 nuclear weapons in Russia and the United States to harmless Low Enriched Uranium.” (State Department, 10.26.12).
  • Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Countryman said: “From its initial focus twenty years ago on Russia and the newly independent states, the Nunn-Lugar program has withstood the test of time, expanding to other parts of the world and evolving toward a focus on biological threat reduction. In the years ahead, I am confident that both the United States and Russia will maintain the political will necessary to complete this important, unfinished business.” (State Department, 10.26.12).
  • Russia’s Federal Drug Control Service (FKSN) and Federal Security Service have raided a drug lab in Moscow that FKSN said contained plutonium-contaminated soil from Chernobyl. (RIA Novosti, 11.01.12).
  • The United States submitted a declaration of its civilian plutonium stock as of the end of 2011, which says the country had 44.7 tonnes of separated plutonium described as "held elsewhere", 4.6 tonnes - in unirradiated MOX fuel, and less than 0.05 tonnes - held in the fuel fabrication process The United States also has an estimated 564 tonnes of plutonium in spent fuel stored at civilian reactor sites and 12 tonnes of plutonium in spent fuel elsewhere. (IPFM Blog, 10.30.12).
  • The security guards at a U.S. nuclear weapons plant who failed to stop an 82-year-old nun from reaching a bomb fuel storage building earlier this year were also cheating on a recertification exam.  (New York Times, 10.31.12).

Iran nuclear issues:

  • No significant developments.

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

  • No significant developments.

Missile defense:

  • No significant developments.

Nuclear arms control:

  • "All talks over the control and reduction of military potential always take into account the worst case scenario," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said. (Xinhua, 10.29.12).

Counter-terrorism cooperation:

  • No significant developments.

Cyber security:

  • No significant developments.

Energy exports from CIS:

  • No significant developments.

Access to major markets for exports and imports:

  • Boeing is selling 35 of its redesigned 737 aircraft to a Russian state-run leasing company in a deal that would be worth $3 billion, if sold at current list prices. (AP, 10.30.12).

Other bilateral issues:

  • Matt Romney, a son of the Republican presidential nominee, traveled to Moscow this week seeking Russian investors for his California-based real estate firm. While in Moscow, Mr. Romney told a Russian known to be able to deliver messages to Mr. Putin that despite the campaign rhetoric, his father wants good relations if he becomes president, according to a person informed about the conversation.  (NYT, 11.01.12).
  • Senior State Duma deputy Sergei Zheleznyak  has called on Europe to ban Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott for refusing to allow election observers from Russia and other OSCE member states to monitor the presidential vote next week. (Moscow Times, 10.31.12).

II. Russia news.

 

Domestic Politics, Economy and Energy:

  • Russian President Vladimir Putin gave his blessing on Monday to a plan to invest tens of billions of dollars to tap a new natural gas field in Siberia and build a new pipeline to the nation’s Pacific coast for exports to Asia. (AP, 10.29.12).
  • Vladimir Putin’s press secretary has confirmed the Russian President is suffering from an old sports trauma, but dismissed allegations that Putin’s state of health is affecting his work schedule. (Russia Today, 11.01.12).
  • Currently 67% of Russians support the efforts of Vladimir Putin as president while 32% don't and the rest are undecided, according to a Levada Center nation-wide poll conducted in October. (Interfax, 10.31.12).
  • Billionaire Mikhail D. Prokhorov announced on Saturday that he was setting aside his business interests altogether to devote his attention to politics.  (New York Times, 10.29.12).
  • Russia’s natural population decline appears to have so far levelled off for 2012. (WP, 11.01.12).
  • Russia’s leading pollster, Levada Centre, said the number of Russians who think about emigration jumped to 22%, up from 17% in July 2008.  (Moscow Times, 10.30.12).
  • Rosneft announced a dramatic expansion into the domestic market Thursday with the signing of an $80 billion contract to provide gas to state-owned electricity provider Inter RAO for 25 years.(Moscow Times, 11.01.12).
  • Rosneft's net profit for the third quarter tripled to 181 billion rubles ($5.77 billion), from 56 billion rubles in the same period of 2011. (Wall Street Journal, 11.01.12).
  • The latest annual report on “country brand index” has just been posted by the branding firm Future Brand. Russia was No 83. (WP, 10.27.12).

Defense:

  • Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces will continue deploying silo-based and mobile ballistic missile launchers in the future, SMF Deputy Commander Lt. Gen. Valery Mazurov said on Thursday. (RIA Novosti, 11.01.12).
  • A preliminary state spending plan calls for Russia to spend nearly $3.2 billion on its atomic arsenal before 2015 concludes, Russian Duma defense panel head Vladimir Komoedov said in a statement reported by Vedomosti on Thursday. (RFE/RL, 10.29.12).
  • The Russian armed forces have successfully carried out live firing tests of the Army's Pantsyr-S short-range gun-missile air defense system against cruise missile targets for the first time at the Pemboi range in the country's northern Komi republic. (Voice of Russia, 10.30.12).

Security and law-enforcement:

  • The Federation Council on Wednesday passed amendments to the law on treason that could make it possible for law enforcement officials to target people collaborating with international organizations. (Moscow Times. 11.01.12).
  • A court in Moscow has sanctioned the pre-trial detention of two suspects as part of a major embezzlement case involving the Oboronservis company which is affiliated with the Russian Defense Ministry. Khamovniki District court ordered the arrest of Yekaterina Smetanova and her partner Maksim Zakutailo who reportedly are close friends of another suspect – the former head of the Defense Ministry’s property department Yevgeniya Vasilyeva. (Russia Today, 11.02.12).
  • A Muslim cleric was shot dead in Dagestan on Tuesday in the fifth murder of a religious leader in the North Caucasus republic this year. (Moscow Times, 10.31.12).
  • Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed five police generals. Four of the fired generals were top officers at Russia's Interior Ministry and led the ministry's major departments.  (RFE/RL, 10.30.12).
  • The Russian law aimed at the protection of children from harmful web content ¬ the so-called internet blacklist ¬ has come into effect. From now on, authorities will be able to force certain web pages offline, even before a trial.  (Russia Today, 11.01.12).
  • A court on Thursday confirmed an earlier ruling to reduce the prison sentence of Platon A. Lebedev in what that could result in Mr. Lebedev’s release in July. (New York Times, 11.01.12).

Foreign affairs:

  • Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov warned the West against trying to predetermine a future leadership of Syria. (AP, 11.02.12).
  • Russia is in contact with Turkey to recover a cargo confiscated by Ankara from a Moscow-Damascus passenger plane but so far no progress has been made, a senior foreign ministry official said Wednesday. (AFP, 10.31.12).
  • Six Russian sailors and one Estonian who were being held hostage by Nigerian pirates were freed Thursday.(Moscow Times, 11.01.12).

Russia's neighbors:

  • With nearly 100 percent of the votes counted,  Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s ruling Party of Regions has received 30 percent, while the United Opposition, led by imprisoned opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko’s Fatherland party, has pulled in 25.5 percent. The nationalist All-Ukrainian Union “Freedom” party, meanwhile, won about 10 percent in a surge that surprised many observers. Commentators expect Regions to keep a majority in the 450-seat assembly with support possibly from communists and some independents. (RIA Novosti, 11.02.12)
  • Ukraine's parliamentary elections appeared to have been fair and transparent, a CIS election observer mission said Monday. (Moscow Times, 10.30.12).
  • U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called Ukraine's weekend parliamentary elections "a step backward" and urged the country's leadership to curb what she called "the backward slide." (RFE/RL, 10.30.12).
  • Observers from the OSCE cited shortcomings in the fairness of the campaign and voting, calling the elections a backward step for Ukrainian democracy. In a joint written statement, EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton and the EU commissioner for enlargement, Stefan Fuele, noted the OSCE’s findings, which they said presented a "mixed picture with several shortcomings.” (RFE/RL, 10.30.12).
  • Imprisoned former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has vowed to continue her hunger strike despite recommendations from doctors that she needed to start eating again.  (RFE/RL, 11.01.12).
  • Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko, who was released from a California prison, is now in the custody of U.S. immigration authorities.  (RFE/RL, 10.02.12).
  • Georgia's new Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili says he will not restore diplomatic ties with Russia until Moscow reverses its decision to recognize the independence of two Georgian breakaway regions.  (RFE/RL, 11.01.12).
  • Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili introduced on November 1 a new post of Special Representative for Relations with Russia and appointed to the post Georgia's former ambassador to Moscow Zurab Abashidze. (Civil Georgia, 11.01.12).
  • Georgia's reintegration minister Paata Zakareishvili said Tbilisi should recognize identification documents issued by the authorities of the country's two breakaway regions. (RFE/RL, 10.02.12).
  • Georgia's new prosecutor-general is vowing to start investigating high-profile cases, including the death of Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania in February 2005.  (RFE/RL, 10.30.12).
  • In an unprecedented move, the country of Georgia has published two photos of a Russia-based hacker who, the Georgians allege, waged a persistent, months-long campaign that stole confidential information from Georgian government ministries, parliament, banks and NGOs. (Techworld, 10.30.12).