Russia in Review

Russia in Review: a digest of useful news from U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism for the week of March 2-9, 2012

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

Nuclear security agenda:

National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Administrator Thomas D’Agostino said of President Obama’s FY 2013 budget request: “The $569.5 million committed to the MOX and related activities this year will lead to the permanent elimination of enough plutonium for at least 8,500 nuclear weapons, which will be matched by similar commitments by the Russian Federation.” (NNSA, 03.06.12).
“Russia together with other countries is concerned with still existing threats to physical nuclear security in the world,” Russian Ambassador to South Korea Konstantin Vnukov said. He went on to say that the IAEA’s information on the illegal circulation of nuclear and radiological materials deserves special attention. (Korea Times, 03.04.12).

Iran nuclear issues:

Iran needs to enter into a “serious dialogue” aimed at resolving long-standing concerns about Iran's nuclear program, the U.S., China, Russia, France, the U.K., and Germany said in a joint statement during a governor's meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency. (Wall Street Journal, 03.08.12).
“I would like to underscore Russia's interest in the Iranian side and the 'group of six' reaching agreement on a date and site for the resumption of the negotiations process as quickly as possible,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said. (Reuters, 03.06.12).
President Barack Obama's said: “Some of you will recall, people predicted that Russia and China wouldn't join us to move toward pressure. They did.” (AP, 03.04.12).

NATO-Russia cooperation, including transit to Afghanistan:

NATO's top official plans to meet with Russian President-elect Vladimir Putin to discuss ties that have deteriorated over the alliance's plan to deploy a missile shield. He said NATO expects continued cooperation with Russia on Afghanistan, counter-piracy, and other operations after the election. (AP, 03.08.12, 03.05.12).

Counter-terrorism cooperation:

No significant developments.

Missile defense:

The Russian Defense Ministry will hold an international conference on missile defense on May 3-4. (RIA Novosti, 03.07.12).
The Russian president is unlikely to attend a NATO summit in Chicago if the missile defense issue is not on its agenda, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said. (RIA Novosti, 03.06.12).
The Obama administration is continuing negotiations begun under former President George W. Bush on a defense technical cooperation agreement with Moscow that could include limited classified data, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Brad Roberts said. (Reuters, 03.06.12).
“We've also made it clear that we would love to cooperate on missile defense against mutual threats with Russia,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said. (RIA Novosti, 03.07.12).

Nuclear arms control:

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:

Barack Obama acknowledged the result of the presidential elections in Russia, noting that a Group of 8 meeting in May at Camp David would “give me a chance to spend time with Mr. Putin, the new Russian president.” (NYT, 03.06.12).
White House press secretary Jay Carney said President Barack Obama has not yet called Vladimir Putin to congratulate him on the election, but that the two will speak eventually. He said the U.S. will keep working with Russia now that Putin has won the presidency because it’s in U.S. interests to do so. (AP, 03.08.12).
A senior Obama administration official said Washington would be looking for concrete proof of Russia’s intentions. “Privately they have said to us at the highest levels that the change in president will not mean a change in their policy toward the United States,” this official said. “Now we get to test that proposition.” (NYT, 03.06.12).
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Vladimir Putin was the “clear winner” of the vote, and that Washington is prepared to work with Putin during his upcoming third presidential term. Clinton also called for an independent investigation of electoral irregularities. “We urge the Russian Government to conduct an independent, credible investigation of all reported electoral violations,” the State Department said (RFE/RL, 03.09.12, AP, 03.06.12).
Russia rebuked the U.S. ambassador via Twitter on Tuesday after he tweeted his concern at the detention of protesters who challenged Vladimir Putin's presidential election victory. (Reuters, 03.06.12).
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said:“We have no doubts about preserving continuity in our relations with the United States. Everything that has been achieved in recent years… has been achieved through consensus. Moscow unequivocally reaffirms its commitment to this work; there will be no revaluation of values - that would be at odds with the country’s interests.” (RIA Novosti, 03.06.12).
Russia wants the U.S. to respect the human rights of a soldier accused of the largest leak of classified information in American history, a senior Foreign Ministry official said Thursday. (Xinhua, 03.08.12).
U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul said: “We do not support opposition groups here. That's just completely false.” (NPR , 03.03.12).
Presidential candidate Mitt Romney said: “Instead of stating that it ‘congratulates the Russian people on the completion of the presidential elections,’ as the Obama administration has done, it should have condemned the flagrant manipulation and media restrictions that marred this election. With the dimming of democracy in Russia, a better label for President Obama’s Russia policy is ‘set back’ rather than ‘reset.’ “ (Voice of Russia, 03.07.12).
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has been scrutinising a Russian billboard company controlled until last year by News Corp. (Financial Times, 03.06.12).
Russian and American paratroopers finalized a plan for an upcoming anti-terror drill during the Russian Airborne Troops commanders' visit to Fort Carson, Colorado, from May 14 to June 1, 2012. (Interfax, 02.21.12).

II. Russia news.

Domestic Politics, Economy and Energy:

Russia's Central Election Commission on Wednesday released the final results of the March 4 presidential election, saying that incumbent Prime Minister Vladimir Putin won the election with 63.6 percent of the votes. The Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov took the second place with 17.18 percent of the votes, while independent billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov secured 7.98 percent. About 6.22 percent of the votes went to Liberal Democratic leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky and 3.85 percent for A Just Russia leader Sergei Mironov. (Xinhua, 03.08.12).
“I promised you we would win, and we won,” a teary-eyed Putin told some 100,000 supporters who gathered by the Kremlin to celebrate his victory Sunday evening. “Glory to Russia! We have won in an open and honest battle. We proved that no one can force anything on us.” (Moscow News, 03.06.12).
Vladimir Putin’s spokesman defended the arrest of hundreds of demonstrators protesting the election returning the autocratic leader to the presidency, saying police were professional and effective. (AP, 03.06.12).
The League of Voters refused to recognize the results of Sunday's presidential election won by Vladimir Putin citing “widespread violations.” Another election monitoring group, Golos, said Putin received 50.15 percent of the votes. Russian activists said they will keep protesting the country's presidential election until the inauguration of Vladimir Putin in May. (Hindu, 03.08.12, UPI, 03.09.12).
OSCE observers found fewer violations in the presidential election than in the parliamentary race, but they categorized one-third of the polling stations visited as “bad” or “very bad” and noted procedural irregularities, including cases of group, proxy, and multiple voting (NYT, 03.05.12, MT, 03.06.12).
Russia's RTS index lost 4.4 percent after police in Moscow arrested hundreds of opposition protesters and rating agency Fitch warned that it could review its outlook for the country. Fitch calculated that Vladimir Putin's election promises to boost public spending would cost about 1.3 percent of GDP a year on average over the new president's six-year term. (Financial Times, 03.07.12).
According to Forbes magazine that published a list of the richest people in the world, 78 people with billion-dollar fortunes currently live in Moscow, 58 - in New York and 39 – in London. (Itar-Tass, 03.08.12).
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday ordered the country’s prosecutor-general to review the conviction of Mikhail Khodorkovsky. (AP, 03.05.12).
On the eve of the first anniversary of the Fukushima disaster Rosatom said it no longer plans to complete a decades-old reactor construction project at Kursk Nuclear Power Plant (NPP). (Bellona, 03.06.12).

Defense:

The chief of Russia's General Staff, Gen. of the Army Nikolai Makarov, has had a meeting with NATO's supreme allied commander for transformation, Gen. Stephane Abrial who is on a working visit to Moscow. (Itar-Tass, 03.05.12).
Russia will not modernize its Project 941 Akula-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines due to financial considerations. (Itar-Tass, 03.07.12).

Security and law-enforcement:

Authorities say five Russian police officers were killed and two others wounded when a female suicide bomber attacked a police checkpoint in Dagestan. (RFE/RL, 03.06.12).
Three police officers have been killed in Dagestan when unknown gunmen attacked near a polling station. (RFE/RL, 03.04.12).

Foreign affairs:

Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Russia isn’t discussing granting political asylum to Syrian President Bashar Assad. (AP, 03.07.12).
A new U.S.-drafted U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria is only slightly different from a draft Moscow vetoed last month and needs to be more balanced, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said. (Reuters, 03.05.12).
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is battling al Qaeda-backed “terrorists” including at least 15,000 foreign fighters who will seize towns across Syria if government troops withdraw, a Russian diplomat said on Thursday. (Reuters, 03.08.12).
Russia demanded that NATO apologize for civilian casualties during the uprising in Libya last year and accused the Libyan government of supporting a training center for Syrian rebels. (AP, 03.07.12).
Konstantin Kosachev, the outgoing first deputy chairman of the Russian State Duma, said of Vladimir Putin’s third presidential term: “We will see continuity in the foreign policy, and this can easily be explained: Russia's foreign policy is largely based on the protection of our national interests, and our national interests have not changed.” (Interfax, 03.04.12).
The European Union's chief diplomat Catherine Ashton said: “The EU takes note of the preliminary results of the presidential elections and the clear victory of Vladimir Putin. The EU looks forward to working with the incoming Russian president.” (RFE/RL, 03.05.12).
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said Vladimir Putin's re-election is “not in doubt.” (RFE/RL, 03.05.12).
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said his government would like to cooperate with Vladimir Putin “constructively and in a trusting way.” Westerwelle said he hopes Russia will recognize that it's on “the wrong side of history” and rethink its stance on Syria now that its presidential election is over. (AP, 03.05.12, AFP, 03.05.12).
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian and his Russian counterpart Mikhail Bogdanov, in their meeting on Tuesday, declared Tehran and Moscow's support for continuation of reforms in Syria. (Thai News Service, 03.09.12).
Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, the top U.S. military commander in the Middle East, said Syria's air defense system, which includes advanced surface-to-air missiles from Russia and other nations, would make a no-fly zone “challenging.” (LA times, 03.06.12).
Legislators in the United Kingdom's lower house of parliament have called on the government to impose visa bans and freeze the assets of some 60 Russians connected to the 2009 prison death of anticorruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
·(RFE/RL, 03.08.12).
The Kremlin says President Dmitry Medvedev has dismissed Russia's ambassador to Qatar in the wake of an altercation between Ambassador Vladimir Titorenko and airport authorities in that small Gulf state. (RFE/RL, 03.09.12).

Russia's neighbors:

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has rejected the terms of a Russian offer for the two sides to restore diplomatic relations, saying that Moscow must first recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia are part of Georgia. (RFE/RL, 03.03.12).
Kazakh customs officials say a 55-year-old U.S. national has been detained in Almaty after “radioactive” measurement devices were found in his luggage. (RFE/RL, 03.06.12).
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said that Belarus's leaders need to commit more strongly to economic reforms before it lends the country money. (RFE/RL, 03.05.12).