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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 November 5-12, 2015

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

Nuclear security:

  • There have been four attempts in the past five years by Moldovan residents to smuggle dangerous nuclear materials into the hands of unscrupulous buyers. The resulting international probe into one of the cases has sparked fresh, and previously unreported worries, that thieves inside of Russia somehow made off years ago with a full bomb’s worth of highly enriched uranium. Five current or former U.S. officials who have tracked nuclear smuggling, and who declined to be named because this assessment is classified, said it is now a consensus view within the intelligence community. (Center for Public Integrity, 11.12.15).

Iran’s nuclear program and related issues:

  • Russia's most senior arms executive Sergei V. Chemezov said Monday that a contract to supply Iran with powerful S-300 air defense missiles was now active. Russia is expected to deliver the S-300 missile defense systems to Iran no later than March 2016. Also Iran will be loaned $5 billion by the Russian government, and another $2 billion from the Russian infrastructure bank VEB. (New York Times, 11.10.15, Sputnik, 11.12.15, Russia Today, 11.12.15).

NATO-Russia relations:

  • U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said: “We do not seek a cold, let alone a hot war with Russia. We do not seek to make Russia an enemy. But make no mistake; the United States will defend our interests, and our allies, the principled international order, and the positive future it affords us all….We’re taking a strong and balanced approach to deter Russia’s aggression, and to help reduce the vulnerability of allies and partners.” Carter has also accused Russia of endangering world order, citing its incursions in Ukraine and loose talk about nuclear weapons. Carter also said the United States was modernizing its nuclear arsenal, investing in new technologies such as drones and a new long-range bomber, as well as lasers, an electromagnetic railgun and new systems for electronic warfare. (AP, AFP, Times of Israel, 11.08.15, RFE/RL, 11.08.15, CNS News, 11.09.15).
  • Senior U.S. military leaders have proposed sending more forces into Europe on a rotating basis to counter potential Russian interference with troop transfers in the event of a crisis with Moscow. Gen. Philip Breedlove, the supreme allied commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, said he would like to see more brigades committed to Europe as rotational forces. Decisions on the proposal, he said, will be made “in the next couple of months." “For two decades we haven't thought about the fact that we are going to have to fight our way across the Atlantic,” he said. Gen. Mark Milley, the chief of staff of the U.S. Army, said the Army is refining its training to ensure the U.S. military is able to face threats posed by Russian forces, learning to counter hybrid war. “The challenge here is to deter further aggression without triggering that which you are trying to deter," Gen. Milley said. “It is a very difficult proposition."  (Wall Street Journal,11.08.15).
  • NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg says that the alliance must counter a Russian military buildup from the Baltic to the  eastern Mediterranean that could enable Moscow to control key areas in a crisis. (RFE/RL, 11.06.15).
  • The U.S. National Defense Authorization Act provides for a base Pentagon budget (of $548 billion, larger than any year since the end of the Cold War. On top of the base budget, the funding bill includes $50.9 billion for “overseas contingency operations,” that will pay for ongoing military interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere, down from $64.2 billion in the last fiscal year. Together with a few smaller increments, this brings the total in military spending to $607 billion for the fiscal year that began October 1. (Global Research, 11.12.15).

Missile defense:

  • President Vladimir Putin says Russia will counter NATO's missile-defense program by deploying new offensive weapons that can penetrate the shield. He said Washington is attempting to gain a "decisive military superiority" over Russia but that Moscow will developing "strike systems capable of piercing any missile defenses." Putin said companies in the "military-industrial complex" in the last three years "have created and successfully tested a number of prospective weapons systems that are capable of performing combat missions in a layered missile-defense system." (RFE/RL, 11.10.15).

Nuclear arms control:

  • U.S.. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Anita E. Friedt said: “President Obama has made clear our willingness to negotiate further reductions of deployed strategic nuclear weapons by up to one-third below the level set by the New START Treaty. Let me underscore: that offer remains on the table and it is a good one. Progress will require a willing partner in the Russian Federation and a conducive security environment.” (State.gov, 11.01.15).

Counter-terrorism:

  • Russia's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Monday that a bomb may have downed the passenger jet that crashed in Egypt, Moscow's strongest acknowledgment yet that it may have been a terrorist attack. Russian President Vladimir V. Putin on Friday suspended all flights from Russia to Egypt, until the cause of the crash that killed 224 people over the Sinai Peninsula can be established. A source in the staff of the Russian government said the ban could last “years.” There were an estimated 80,000 Russians staying in Hurgada and Sharm el-Sheikh as of last week. More than half of Russians, who were vacationing in Egypt at the moment of the suspension of flights on November 6, returned to Russia, Vice President of the Russian Union of Travel Industry Yuri Barzykin said. (Russia Today, 11.06.15, BBC, 11.07.15, New York Times, 11.07.15, Kommersant, 11.10.15, Interfax, 11.11.15, Wall Street Journal, 11.09.15).
  • The Sinai Province of the Islamic State is the prime suspect in suspected downing of the Russian airliner, according to British and American officials. U.S. spy agencies now believe the preponderance of intelligence about last week's crash of a Russian passenger plane over Egypt points to a terrorist bombing as the cause, U.S. officials said Sunday. Six U.S. intelligence and military officials told The Daily Beast that they hoped an ISIS attack on Russian civilians would force Vladimir Putin to finally take the gloves off and attack the group, which the U.S. has been trying to dislodge from Iraq and Syria for more than a year, without success. Russian and Egyptian officials have not accepted an offer of assistance from the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation in investigating the crash of a Russian airliner in late October (Daily Beast, 11.12.15, Newsweek, 11.09.15).
  • Russian Prosecutor-General Yury Chaika says 650 criminal investigations have been launched against Russian citizens suspected of fighting alongside Islamist militants abroad (RFE/RL, 11.10.15).
  • Russia's National Antiterrorism Committee (NAK) said the man killed by security forces in the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria, Nalchik, on November 10, was identified as Robert Zankishiyev, aka Abdullah, who "had vowed loyalty to the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq" earlier this year.  (RFE/RL, 11.10.15).
  • A court in Russia's northwestern city of Arkhangelsk has sentenced a Tajik man to three years in prison on "terrorist propaganda" charges. Investigators say that Shahboz Azimov had placed materials on the Internet calling on Muslims in Russia to launch jihad against non-Muslims and to join Islamic militants in Iraq and Syria. (RFE/RL, 11.11.15).
  • A suspected Taliban militant previously placed on Interpol's wanted list has been detained in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg, а regional Interior Ministry spokesman told news agency RIA Novosti on Monday. (Moscow Times, 11.09.15).
  • Moscow's police force is on high alert amid the threat of a terrorist attack in the capital, Moscow police chief Anatoly Yakunin said. (Moscow Times, 11.11.15).

Cyber security:

  • In the last two years, cyberattacks have hit Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Defense and the presidential administration. Military communications lines and secure databases at times were compromised, according to Ukrainian presidential and security officials. “We consider that there is only one country in the world that would benefit from these attacks, and this is Russia," said Vitaliy Naida, Ukraine's head of counterintelligence. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied the accusations, calling them “absurd" and noting that Russian computers are also regularly attacked by hackers. (Wall Street Journal, 11.09.15).
  • Billing it as the largest hacking case ever uncovered, federal prosecutors in Manhattan described a global, multiyear scheme to steal information on 100 million customers of a dozen companies in the United States and use the data to advance stock manipulation activities, illicit online gambling and fraud. One of the accused, American Joshua Aaron is believed to be in Russia. (New York Times, 11.12.15).
  • Moscow has warned Twitter that it must store Russian users' data in Russia under a new law that took effect in September, news organizations reported on November 11. (RFE/RL, 11.12.15).

Energy exports from CIS:

  • Turkmenistan's state media reports that President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov has ordered state companies to begin the construction of a pipeline carrying gas from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. It is estimated that the 1,800-kilometer Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline will cost more than $10 billion. Berdymukhammedov arrived in China on November 12 for a visit that the country's state media say is aimed at promoting the ongoing construction of natural gas pipelines between the two countries.  (RFE/RL, 11.07.15, RFE/RL, 11.12.15).
  • Saudi Arabia has started shipping crude to traditional Russian markets like Poland and Sweden, but supplies to Europe from the world’s largest exporter won’t increase by enough to reduce prices, said Texas-based consultant Stratfor. In contrast, a surge in Iranian exports after the lifting of sanctions could erode the value of Russian shipments to the region as soon as next year, according to KBC Advanced Technologies. (Bloomberg, 11.11.15).
  • In November, Russia is set to launch test trading of its new domestic-produced benchmark oil. It is expected to drive up the price for Russian oil and end its dependence on Brent pricing. That may result in trading Russian oil in rubles.(Sputnik, 11.12.15).
  • Ukrainian and the Baltic leaders have criticized a planned second Nord Stream pipeline to funnel natural gas from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea. The project would cost Ukraine $2 billion a year in lost revenues as it takes away business from the land-based pipeline that transits Ukraine and Poland, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said. Poland and Slovakia would also lose $300 million and $800 million, respectively, in annual pipeline revenues, he said. (RFE/RL, 11.06.15).

Bilateral economic ties:

  • No significant developments.

Other bilateral issues:

  • U.S. President Barack Obama could have an informal conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the upcoming G20 meeting in Turkey, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said in a briefing on Monday. (Sputnik, 11.10.15).
  • Members of the Russian-U.S. commission on POWs and missing persons met in Moscow to discuss issues relating to the development of the information exchange system. (Interfax, 11.09.15).
  • The police in Washington DC here said on Saturday that the department was continuing an investigation into the death of Mikhail Lesin, a former media aide to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Mr. Lesin, who the police said was 59, was found with no signs of life about 11:30 a.m. in a room at the Dupont Circle Hotel. (New York Times, 11.08.15)

II. Russia news.

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

  • Official government statistics released in Moscow on November 12 show that Russia’s economy shrank by 4.1 percent during the third quarter of 2015. The preliminary figures released by the state statistical agency, Rosstat, represent a slight improvement of government forecasts of a 4.3 percent fall compared to the third quarter of 2014. (RFE/RL, 11.12.15).
  • Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has for the first time definitively supported the future raising of the retirement age without saying when this decision may be made. At present, the retirement age in Russia is 60 years for men and 55 years for women.(Interfax, 11.11.15).
  • High alcohol and tobacco consumption mean most Russians will never reach the age of 71, with the average life expectancy in Russia lagging almost 10 years behind the average in developed countries — the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said in a report published Wednesday. (Moscow Times, 11.05.15).
  • Russian president Vladimir Putin has ordered a thorough investigation into the alleged doping currently rife among athletes of the Russian Federation.  A report on what has been described as a systematic, ‘state-supported’ doping program in Russia was published this week by the World Anti-Doping Agency, which has also recommended the country be banned from athletics competition in the aftermath. (Russia Today, 11.12.15).
  • Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov has refuted a report by Reuters claiming that Katerina Tikhonova, a billionaire acrobatic rock'n'roll dancer, is Russian President Vladimir Putin's daughter. A Reuters news agency report published Tuesday identified Tikhonova — head of the Innopraktika Company at Moscow State University and self-proclaimed “spouse” of Kirill Shamalov — as Putin's younger daughter. (Moscow Times, 11.11.15).

Defense and Aerospace:

  • A Russian document shown on state-run television confirmed that Moscow is developing a high-speed drone submarine capable of delivering a nuclear warhead. The secret weapon was shown on a document during several Tuesday Russian television broadcasts of President Vladimir Putin announcing plans for new strike weapons capable of defeating missile defenses. (Free Beacon, 11.11.15).
  • Russia is developing two new types of nuclear submarines to replace its Project 949A Oscar-class and Project 945 Sierra-class vessels. The new vessels are a generation beyond Russia’s Project 955 Borey-class ballistic missile submarine and Project 855M Yasen-class guided-missile submarines. (National Interest, 11.09.15).
  • Russia’s Defense Ministry has announced plans to develop a line of small-scale mobile nuclear reactors that can be deployed from trucks and sleds in the country’s far north, a ministry spokesman confirmed to Bellona by telephone today.  (Bellona, 11.05.15).

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

  • Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) says a Moscow Regional Court has convicted a former employee of Russia's Interior Ministry on charges of high treason as a spy for the United States. The FSB's press center said on November 12 that Yevgeny Chistov, who worked for the Interior Ministry's branch for the Moscow region, was sentenced to 13 years in prison. (RFE/RL, 11.12.15).
  • Russia's Justice Ministry has accused the prominent nongovernmental organization Memorial of "undermining the foundations of the constitutional order of the Russian Federation" and of calling for "a change of political regime" in the country. (RFE/RL, 11.10.15).
  • Lawyer Vadim Prokhorov said on November 9 that Ruslan Mukhutdinov, a member of the Sever battalion of Chechnya’s Interior Ministry, was charged in absentia with organizing the killing of Boris Nemtsov near the Kremlin (RFE/RL, 11.09.15).
  • A Norwegian appeals court has upheld a ruling that the former chief of Russian telecoms provider Vimpelcom, Jo Lunder, should be released from custody during an ongoing police investigation into allegations of corruption. (RFE/RL, 11.11.15).

Foreign affairs and trade:

  • Syria:
    • Western and Gulf Arab nations have dismissed a Russian plan for peace and reform in Syria and said it will not form the basis for talks in Vienna this weekend. Russian diplomats have emphasized that the plan presents Moscow's "vision" and "ideas," and that Russia was open to alternative proposals from the 20 or so countries participating in the peace talks on November 14 in the most significant international effort to date to end the four-year Syrian war. Russia's plan, which was seen by the AP and Reuters news agencies, called for drafting a new Syrian constitution that would be voted on and followed by an early presidential election.(RFE/RL, 11.12.15).
    • Qadri Jamil of Syria’s People’s Front for Change and Liberation confirmed on Thursday that Russia has made a proposal on the constitutional process in Syria that could take up to 1.5 years.(Tass, 11.12.15).
    • Russian airstrikes continued to support regime ground operations in Aleppo, Hama, Homs, Idlib, and Dera’a from November 9 - 10. Pro-regime forces relieved several hundred regime soldiers besieged by ISIS in the Kuweires Airbase east of Aleppo City on November 10 with air support provided by Russian warplanes. (Institute for Study of War, 11.11.15).
    • The Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), a group of Russian investigative bloggers, published a report on Sunday to claim that social media had been used to geolocate three Russian serving or former soldiers in Syria. Russia’s military jets are based in Latakia in western Syria, far from where the three men were geolocated, which included locations near Hama, Aleppo and Homs. (Daily Mail. 11.09.15).
    • In the past week, the Islamic State released dozens of pictures allegedly depicting the aftermath of recent Russian airstrikes in Syria. At least two photosets focus on the city of Raqqa, the de facto home of the “caliphate.” The images from Raqqa show buildings reduced to rubble, pummeled vehicles, cratered roads and demolished bridges. ( Long War Journal, 11.06.15).
    • Ajnad Kavkaz, or Soldiers of the Caucasus, has released a short video claiming to show gear its fighters captured from Russian forces in Syria’s coastal Latakia province. The group is predominately comprised of Chechens and other jihadists from the North Caucasus.( Long War Journal, 11.06.15).
    • In the fourth Republican debate on Tuesday, Jeb Bush clashed with Donald Trump over Middle East policy. Trump said he is happy to see Russia disable the Islamic State terrorist group with a bombing campaign in Syria. Bush warned against outsourcing leadership in the region to Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose relationship with the United States has become tense in recent years. (Washington Post, 11.12.15).
  • Other countries:
    • Sino-Russian bilateral trade in the first ten months of 2015 touched $55.9 billion, a fall of 29 percent from the same period a year ago. (RBTH, 11.10.15).
    • E-commerce between Russia and China is growing, head of the Europe and Central Asia Department of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce Lin Zhi said, adding that about 24 million Russians already buy Chinese goods online. (Moscow Times, 11.11.15).
    • Russia’s Federal Security Service rejected media reports that Russia has  transferred 4.7 square kilometers of land to China in the Far East.(RIA Novosti, 11.09.15).
    • The BRIC era is coming to an end at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The bank’s asset-management unit folded its money-losing BRIC fund, which invests in Brazil, Russia, India and China, and merged it last month with a broader emerging-market fund. (Bloomberg, 11.08.15).
    • During the first eight months of this year, Russia’s imports have declined by 39 percent while exports have dropped by almost 30 percent.  (National Interest, 11.12.15).
    • Poland's conservative Law and Justice party has announced its new government, with a moderate, Beata Szydlo, as prime minister but a lineup of ministers that analysts say reflects a deeply ideological world view that is pro-American and suspicious of Russia. (RFE/RL, 11.09.15).
    • Poland will sue Russia for withholding the wreckage of a Polish jet that crashed over Russia in 2010, killing the Polish president, the country's foreign minister-designate said on November 10. (RFE/RL, 11.11.15).
    • The three Baltic countries say they will "scientifically" calculate losses caused by nearly five decades of Soviet occupation and seek compensation from Russia. (RFE/RL, 11.06.15).
    • Moscow awaits Brussels decision regarding the prolonging of sanctions against Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday. The current EU economic sanction regime, introduced over claims of Russian support for an eastern Ukraine rebellion against coop-imposed Kiev authorities, expires January 31, 2016. (Sputnik, 11.09.15).
    • Details of property owned by the Russian government overseas have been made secret due to national security concerns and the “unfriendly” policies of certain foreign countries. (Moscow Times, 11.09.15).
    • Russia and Korea have signed a contract to carry out research on experimental fuel rods irradiated in the BOR-60 fast research reactor. (World Nuclear News, 11.06.15).
    • France says Russian President Vladimir Putin will attend the United Nations climate conference in Paris on November 30.(RFE/RL, 11.08.15).
    • Russian President Vladimir Putin will not go to Manila to attend an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit; Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev will go to the Philippines instead. (Interfax, 11.12.15).
    • Russian military delegation arrived in Pyongyang on Monday to conduct a military-to-military dialogue with the command of the Korean People’s Army TASS reports. (Diplomat, 11.11.15).

Russia's neighbors:

  • Ukraine:
    • Foreign Ministers from Ukraine, Russia, Germany, and France agreed to try to complete a withdrawal of heavy weaponry from the front lines in eastern Ukraine, Germany's foreign minister said on November 6. (RFE/RL, 11.07.15).
    • Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says it is clear that deadlines on political reforms in Ukraine under the Minsk agreements need to be extended into 2016. (RFE/RL, 11.06.15).
    • Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told a session of the National Security and Defense Council in Kyiv on November 11 that attempts by the Russian-backed separatists in parts of Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions to "foil the Minsk agreements" and to "provoke the Ukrainian military with acts of sabotage" are endangering national security. (RFE/RL, 11.11.15).
    • Ukraine's military says it has finished a withdrawal of light weapons from frontlines with Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, where clashes erupted in recent days despite a cease-fire. (RFE/RL, 11.07.15).
    • U.S. Congress has passed a defense policy bill that appropriates $300 million to help Ukraine in its fight against Russian-backed separatists. That includes $50 million for lethal weaponry such as antiarmor weapon systems, mortars, grenade launchers, small arms, and ammunition. The White House said hours after the $607 billion bill was passed by the Senate on November 10 that President Barack Obama was likely to sign the legislation. (RFE/RL, 11.10.15).
    • A Ukrainian court on Tuesday opened preliminary hearings in the trial of two Russian men captured in combat in eastern Ukraine and suspected of serving as active-duty members of the Russian military. Both men, Yevgeny Yerofeyev and Aleksandr Aleksandrov, told the court they were unemployed, not soldiers, the local news media reported. (New York Times, 11.11.15).
    • Russia is exploring strategies to try to block the International Monetary Fund’s next loan payment to Ukraine as a dispute between the two countries over a $3 billion bond comes to a head, according to a person familiar with the matter. (Bloomberg, 11.10.15).
    • Ukraine's federal parliament voted on November 10 to set November 29 as the date for local elections in the eastern city of Mariupol and the nearby town of Krasnoarmiisk. (RFE/RL, 11.11.15).
    • A monument commemorating the millions of Ukrainians who perished in the Holodomor -- the Ukrainian famine of the 1930s -- has been unveiled in the U.S. capital. (RFE/RL, 11.08.15).
  • Other neighbors:
    • Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Masimov says his country will sign an expanded partnership agreement with the European Union next month. (RFE/RL, 11.11.15).
    • The United States has expressed deep concern over a Georgian court decision to change the management at the country's largest independent television station, Rustavi-2. (RFE/RL, 11.07.15).
    • Human rights defender Arif Yunus, whose case attracted worldwide attention when he and his wife were arrested in Azerbaijan in 2014 on suspicion of spying for Armenia, has been released from jail due to his deteriorating health. (RFE/RL, 11.12.15).

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