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Press Release

Russia in Review

Published: October 26, 2012

Russia in Review: a digest of useful news from U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism for the week of October 19-26, 2012

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

Nuclear security agenda:

  • The National Nuclear Security Administration announced that it has closed its Transparency Monitoring Office in Novouralsk, Russia, ahead of schedule. The early closure was made possible by the successful use of U.S.-designed unattended monitoring technology in Russia and will save U.S. taxpayers approximately $1 million.  (NNSA, 10.22.12).
  • The Russian government is poring over its finances to see where it can shift monies to continue disarmament projects in light of its stated intention not to renew the expiring Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program with the United States. An unidentified Russian Defense Ministry insider told Kommersant that the Russian government would have to find between $300-$400 million annually to carry on CTR-related activities without U.S. assistance. (GSN, 10.19.12).

Iran nuclear issues:

  • There are plans to sign the act to commission the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) in Iran in March of next year, the general contractor said. (Interfax, 10.19.12).

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

  • President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday appointed Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko as Russia's new envoy to NATO. He is the first career diplomat to hold the post. (The Moscow Times, 10.25.12).
  • A Russia-NATO Council meeting at the ministerial level should take place by the end of 2012, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. (RI Novosti, 10.10.12).

Missile defense:

  • The U.S. Missile Defense Agency has successfully conducted its largest and most complex missile defense flight test ever, involving the simultaneous engagement of five ballistic missile and cruise missile targets. (RIA Novosti, 10.26.12).
  • Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said his government views the Collective Security Treaty Organization as an efficient mechanism of countering U.S. antimissile activities in Europe.  (GSN, 10.24.12).

Nuclear arms control:

  • The United States on Wednesday briefed a visiting Russian delegation on systems upgrades at a 25-year-old facility designed to exchange nuclear treaty information with Moscow. The United States on Wednesday briefed a visiting Russian delegation on systems upgrades at a 25-year-old facility designed to exchange nuclear treaty information with Moscow, the State Department announced. (GSN, 10.25.12).  (GSN, 10.25.12).

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:

  • No significant developments.

Other bilateral issues:

  • The Russian Foreign Ministry on Monday issued a 56-page report in Russian and English titled, "On the Human Rights Situation in the United States." The report portrays the U.S. as being beset by growing social inequality and racial and religious discrimination. It says the U.S. commits human rights abuses in other countries and applies the death penalty to underage and mentally disabled offenders. (LA Times, 10.22.12).
  • With the departure of Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking Republican Richard Lugar, Tennessee's Bob Corker is next in line. Corker's foreign-policy views are often much more cautious than those of the Senate GOP caucus as a whole.  His vote for New START was attacked by the conservative Heritage Foundation. He authored an amendment to the Magnitsky bill that would have placed sunsets on the penalties for Russian human rights violators. He later withdrew that amendment.  (Foreign Policy, 10.24.12).
  • More than 10 Russian lawmakers are set to monitor the U.S. presidential elections. (Moscow Times, 10.23.12).

II. Russia news.

 

Domestic Politics, Economy and Energy:

  • President Vladimir Putin has met with a group of political scientists and economic experts known as the Valdai Club. Several participants said Putin was looking at the present situation in the country and the Kremlin’s policies simply as a continuation of his past successes. Putin’s subjects ranged from commenting on the Rosneft-BP deal to an in-depth evaluation of the euro crisis. Russia and China, Putin said, need to be moving to increase their turnover to $100 billion. And the Eurasian Union is taking European experience in account and thus does not want to introduce a single currency until the economic conditions and practices in its parts are more even. (RIA Novosti, 10.25.12).
  • President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Russia must change its energy policy to account for growing Chinese demand for oil and gas, as gas export monopoly Gazprom launched a huge Arctic field that will supply Europe. (The Moscow Times, 10.23.12).
  • Russia Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev approved plans to raise 270 billion rubles ($8.6 billion) from asset sales next year, including sales of stakes in Rosneft, the second-largest bank VTB Bank and diamond producer Alrosa. (Wall Street Journal, 10.24.12).
  • The country’s gross domestic product grew 2.5 percent in annual terms in September, compared with 2.8 percent seen in August, Deputy Economic Development Minister Andrei Klepach said. (Reuters, 10.22.12).
  • BP has agreed to sell its half of a troublesome but lucrative joint venture in Russia to the state-controlled firm Rosneft for nearly $28 billion in cash and stock, the company announced on Monday. The two-step deal will leave BP with $12.3 billion in cash, a 19.75 percent stake in Rosneft, Russia’s biggest oil company, and two seats on Rosneft’s nine-person board.  (AP, 10.22.12).
  • Russia climbed six places in the past year in the World Bank's ease-of-doing-business ranking released Tuesday but still occupied 112th place. (Moscow Times, 10.23.12).
  • The Levada Center, a Moscow-based opinion research group, told Interfax on Wednesday that 67 percent of respondents in a poll this month - compared with 63 percent in a survey in August - said they approved of President Vladimir Putin's policies. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's activities had the support of 61 percent of those questioned compared with 57 percent in August. (Interfax, 10.24.12).
  • The Kremlin has dismissed talk that President Vladimir Putin has a back problem that prompted him to postpone foreign visits and might require surgery. (Reuters, 10.26.12).
  • The Kremlin is hoping to restore national pride in Russia with the creation of a new agency in charge of promoting patriotism.  (RFE/RL, 10.24.12).
  • The protest movement in Russia has now got its own coordination body, expected to draft a unified strategy of the Opposition and to organize rallies. (Itar-Tass, 10.24.12).

Defense:

  • Presidential press service said of the last week exercise held by Russia’s strategic nuclear triad: “The strategic nuclear forces’ exercises of such scale were conducted for the first time in Russia.  …Vladimir Putin personally participated in testing automated communication management systems, new algorithms of managing strategic nuclear forces through practically accomplishing test tasks involving all of the nuclear forces’ components, namely long-range aircraft, sea- and land- based nuclear systems.” (Kremlin.ru, 10.20.12).
  • Strategic Missile Forces have successfully test-fired a prototype of an upgraded nuclear-capable long-range missile from a lorry to test new technologies making it capable of overcoming missile defense shields. (DPA, 10.25.12).

Security and law-enforcement:

  • Russia’s security services have killed 49 rebels and captured dozens more in a counterterrorism offensive that officials called a “considerable” blow to the insurgency in the North Caucasus region, the Russian National Anti-Terrorism Committee announced on Sunday.  (AP, 10.21.12).
  • Two Islamist gunmen killed in a special operation in Kazan were planning a major terrorist attack in the city on an upcoming Muslim holiday, the Federal Security Service said. (The Moscow Times, 10.26.12).
  • Russia’s lower house of parliament on Tuesday approved a new bill widely expanding the definition of high treason. Current law describes high treason as espionage or other assistance to a foreign state damaging Russia’s external security. The new bill expands it to include moves against Russia’s “constitutional order, sovereignty and territorial and state integrity.” (AP, 10.23.12).
  • Russian investigators have officially charged Sergey Udaltsov, one of the main leaders of street opposition, with a conspiracy to organize mass riots in Russia. The activist denies all the charges. The case is complicated by claims of kidnapping and torture made by one of the suspects, Leonid Razvozzhayev. A Ukrainian Interior Ministry spokesman said Thursday that Razvozzhayev was abducted last week in Kiev, likely not by "criminal elements" but by "security forces of other countries." (Russia Today, The Moscow Times, Washington Post, RFE/RL, 10.26.12).
  • Russia’s top investigative agency on Thursday launched a criminal probe into alleged fraud in the selloff of Defense Ministry assets. (AP, 10.25.12).

Foreign affairs:

  • Russia’s chief military officer Gen. Nikolai Makarov said Syrian rebels have acquired portable air defense missiles, including U.S.-made Stinger missiles. (AP, 10.24.12).
  • The work on the draft Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism will be completed in the coming weeks, Chairman of the Sixth Committee of the 67th session of the U.N. General Assembly Yuri Sergeyev said. (Itar-Tass, 10.19.12).
  • Nigerian authorities seized a ship and arrested its 15 Russian crew members on suspicion of arms smuggling, after they found several guns and about 8,500 rounds of ammunition on the boat. (Reuters, 10.23.12).

Russia's neighbors:

  • Georgia's parliament has confirmed a new government led by billionaire-turned-politician Bidzina Ivanishvili. Georgia's new prime minister reiterated before the parliament that he planned to quit politics in just 18 months. Ivanishvili told journalists that he would continue President Mikheil Saakashvili's pro-Western foreign policy, including pursuing European Union and NATO membership. He also said trading and cultural relations between Georgia and Russia may be restored soon. (RFE/RL, Itar-Tass, 10.25.12).
  • Georgia's new foreign minister, Maia Panjikidze, said Georgia will continue a policy of refraining from formal diplomatic relations with Moscow until Russia ends its "occupation" of two breakaway Georgian regions. The new government's position on Abkhazia and South Ossetia would "remain unchanged,” she said. (RFE/RL, 10.23.12, 10.26.12).
  • Georgia’s new prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili stated that the war in South Ossetia in 2008 had been initiated by President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili and his party United National Movement (Black Sea Press, 10.24.12).
  • A number of Georgia's top officials have left Georgia after billionaire-turned-politician Bidzina Ivanishvili's Georgian Dream bloc defeated President Mikheil Saakashvili's ruling United National Movement party at the general elections. (RFE/RL, 10.22.12).
  • U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and EU foreign-policy chief Catherine Ashton have expressed concern over political trends in Ukraine ahead of general elections in a joint opinion piece in the "International Herald Tribune.”  (RFE/RL, 10, 25.12).