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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 August 7-14, 2015

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

Nuclear security:

  • President Barack Obama will host next spring a gathering of world leaders aimed at stemming the global spread of nuclear weapons. The White House said Mr. Obama will host the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit on March 31 and April 1.  (Wall Street Journal, 08.10.15).
  • The ceremony of signing an agreement to create an international bank for low-enriched uranium in Kazakhstan will take place on August 27th. (Interfax, 08.14.15).

Iran’s nuclear program and related issues:

  • Russia has rejected statements by the United States that a senior Iranian general subject to a United Nations travel ban visited Moscow in late July, a senior Foreign Ministry official told reporters on Friday. Sergei A. Ryabkov, the deputy foreign minister who was the point person for Russia in negotiating the Iran nuclear pact, said he was surprised that reports suggesting that the Iranian, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, had traveled to the Russian capital continued to percolate. The United States says it will raise the issue at the United Nations.   (New York Times, 08.15.15, RFE/RL, 08.13.15).

NATO-Russia relations:

  • A series of classified exercises over the summer has raised concerns inside the U.S. Defense Department that its forces are not prepared for a sustained military campaign against Russia, two U.S. defense officials said. (Daily Beast, 08.14.15).
  • Gen. Ray Odierno, the outgoing U.S. Army chief of staff, said Wednesday that Russia is the top military threat to the U.S. "I believe Russia is the most dangerous," he said at a Pentagon briefing.  (The Hill, 08.12.15).
  • The increase in the scale and number of military exercises by Russian and NATO is making armed conflict in Europe more likely, according to a new policy brief by the London-based European Leadership Network. (RFE/RL, 08.12.15).

Missile defense:

  • Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov urged the United States on Friday to scrap plans to station parts of a missile shield system in Europe now that Iran has reached an agreement with world powers to limit its nuclear program.  (Reuters, 08.14.15).

Nuclear arms control:

  • Russia has "tested" a state-of-the-art ground-launched cruise missile at ranges capable of threatening most of European continent and US allies in Northeast Asia, namely Japan and South Korea, a US State Department official claimed on Wednesday. The White House is blocking the release of a Pentagon risk assessment of Russia’s violation of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, according to Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee. Russia’s Foreign Ministry said the US claims that Moscow is violating provisions of the INF treaty are totally ungrounded and Washington pursues the goal of discrediting Russia. (Free Beacon, 08.11.15, Tass, 08.13.15).
  • The United States is preparing to spend almost $704 billion over the next several decades on its nuclear arsenal, according to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.  (Nukes of Hazard, 08.12.15).

Counter-terrorism:

  • The leader of the self-proclaimed Caucasus Emirate, Magomed Suleimanov, was killed in a special operation in Russia's North Caucasus region of Dagestan on August 11. Russia's National Antiterrorist Committee said that Suleimanov was among four militants killed by security forces in Dagestan’s Untsukul district. (RFE/RL, 08.11.15).
  • Russia's security services claim to have established the identity of the main recruiter of Russian nationals to the Islamic State militant group. The man in question is a 30-year-old Chechen nicknamed One-Legged Akhmet. (RFE/RL, 08.10.15).
  • The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) is not only allied to the Islamic State (IS) group, it now considers itself part of it. In a 2-1/2 minute video viewed by RFE/RL on August 6, IMU leader Usmon Ghazi and his fighters are shown taking an oath of allegiance, in Arabic, to IS and its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. (RFE/RL, 08.06.15).
  • Uzbek nationals may lose citizenship if found guilty of mercenary activities, terrorism, inciting racial, ethnic, or religious hatred, and other crimes "against peace and security." (RFE/RL, 08.11.15).
  • The United Nations says two UN contractors from Ukraine were among 12 people killed when suspected Islamic militants seized a hotel used by the staff of the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali. (RFE/RL, 08.08.15).
  • A U.S. jury convicted former Russian military tank commander Irek Hamidullin of planning and leading a Taliban attack on U.S. forces in Afghanistan in 2009. He faces up to life in prison. (RFE/RL, 08.08.15).
  • A U.S. jury has convicted Uzbek man Fazliddin Kurbanov on terrorism-related charges for gathering explosive materials at his Idaho apartment and seeking to support the banned Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. (RFE/RL, 08.13.15).

Cyber security:

  • A group of mainly U.S.-based stock traders, computer hackers in Ukraine and traders in countries including Russia made as much as $100 million in illegal profits over five years by conspiring to use information stolen from thousands of corporate press statements before their public release, U.S. authorities said on Tuesday. (Reuters, 08.12.15).
  • U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday he believed that Russian and Chinese hackers read his emails. “It’s very possible,” Mr. Kerry said in an interview with CBS Evening News. “I certainly write things with that awareness.” (Wall Street Journal, 08.11.15).

Energy exports from CIS:

  • Ukraine expects to hold a new round of talks with the European Commission and Russia about natural gas supplies at the end of August in Vienna. (Reuters, 08.10.15).
  • The cost of the four-line Turkish Stream pipeline will amount to €11.4 billion ($12.6 billion) without VAT. Experts estimate costs including VAT will be €13.6 billion ($15.1 billion).  (RBTH, 08.13.15).

Bilateral economic ties:

  • American coffeehouse chain Starbucks Coffee celebrated the opening of his 100th Russian branch in Tuesday.  (Moscow Times, 08.11.15).

Other bilateral issues:

  • U.S. President Barack Obama said:  “I have been encouraged by is that the Russians are now more interested in discussions around what a political transition - or at least framework for talks - would look like inside of Syria.” (CNN, 08.09.15).
  • The speaker of the State Duma — Russia's lower house of parliament — Sergei Naryshkin penned an article accusing the United States of plotting "provocations" against Russia and trying to bankrupt the country. (Moscow Times, 08.10.15).
  • The sanctions that the United States have been imposing on various sectors of Russia's economy have not achieved their result but are further destroying bilateral relations, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in commenting on the U.S.' decision to expand sector sanctions against the Russian economy on the Yuzhno-Kirinskoye oil and gas field in the Sea of Okhotsk. The addition means that no U.S. origin items or non-U.S. origin items containing more than 25 percent U.S. content can be exported or re-exported to the field without a Commerce Department license, which he said was not likely to be issued. (Interfax, Reuters, 08.07.15).

 

II. Russia news.

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

  • Russia’s gross domestic product shrank by 4.6% in the second quarter compared with a year earlier, after falling by 2.2% in the first three months of the year, preliminary data from the Federal Statistics Service showed Monday. (Wall Street Journal, 08.10.15).
  • The ruble has depreciated by 23 percent against the dollar in the past three months. (Bloomberg, 08.13.15).
  • Russian banks and companies, which are cut off from global capital markets by Western sanctions, will have to pay back $61 billion in the last four months of the year, according to the debt repayment schedule. But the central bank said that in fact Russian lenders and non-financial institutions will have to reimburse only up to $35 billion by the end of the year. (Wall Street Journal, 08.10.15).
  • In Russia, labor productivity — measured by the gross domestic product valued in U.S. dollars divided by the total number of hours worked by the country’s workforce — stood at 25.9 in 2014. Russia's level of labor productivity is just over half the average European rate of 50. (Moscow Times, 08.10.15).
  • The minimum monthly income a household needs to make ends meet, according to the average Russian, is 22,755 rubles ($350) per person — nearly 2.5 times more than the official minimum cost of living in Russia, a survey by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center revealed. (Moscow Times, 08.12.15).
  • Acceptance tests have been started at unit 3 of Russia's Rostov nuclear power plant, state nuclear corporation Rosatom announced. (World Nuclear News, 08.11.15).

Defense and Aerospace:

  • The major design works on developing the advanced PAK DA strategic bomber are due to start after 2021, the commander-in-chief of Russia’s Aerospace Forces, Victor Bondarev, said on Wednesday. (Tass, 08.12.15).
  • The Russian Navy has sent two Russian warships—the Volgodonsk and Makhachkala—to the Anzali port in northern Iran. (National Interest, 08.10.15).
  • Russia has been marking 15 years since the Kursk nuclear submarine sank in the Barents Sea, with the deaths of all 118 men on board. (BBC, 08.12.15).

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

  • The former top commander of Russia's land forces, General Vladimir Chirkin, has been sentenced to five years in jail for bribe-taking. (RFE/RL, 08.14.15).

Foreign affairs and trade:

  • With President Bashar al-Assad of Syria facing battlefield setbacks, diplomats from Russia, the United States and several Middle Eastern powers are engaged in a burst of diplomatic activity, trying to head off a deeper collapse of the country that could further strengthen the militant group Islamic State. Senior American officials say Russian officials have appeared to be more open in recent weeks to discussions about replacing Bashir Assad. (New York Times, 08.11.15).
  • Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the United States is "unprepared" for including the Syrian government in international plans to counter extremist Islamic State (IS) militants. Lavrov said he discussed President Vladimir Putin's proposal on coordinating efforts against IS during a recent meeting in Qatar with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. (RFE/RL, 08.09.15).
  • Speaking a day after meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Syrian National Coalition president Khaled Khoja said that "the Russian leadership isn't clinging to Bashar Assad" and is focusing on the need to preserve Syria's territorial integrity. (AP, 08.14.15).
  • Russia and Saudi Arabia failed in talks on Tuesday to overcome their differences on the fate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. (Reuters, 08.12.15).
  • Speaking in Moscow this week, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said: “Intensive contacts are taking place between the military delegations and specialists from both countries and a wide range of intended types of armaments from Russia are being discussed, including Iskander missile systems.” (National Interest, 08.12.15).
  • Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has said that Albania, Montenegro, Iceland, and Lichtenstein have been added to its import ban list for foreign food. Russia has also burned flowers from Holland in a battle against Western imports that saw the destruction of hundreds of tons of food in retaliation for sanctions over Ukraine.(RFE/RL, 08.13.15, Voice of America, 08.13.15).

Russia's neighbors:

  • On Monday Ukraine accused pro-Russian rebels of carrying out the heaviest artillery attacks on government positions in six months. The military said 400 rebel fighters supported by tanks had attacked government forces around the village of Starohnativka. The rebels denied attacking government troops.  On Wednesday the Ukrainian government and pro-Russian separatists accused each other of attempting to break a six-month-old peace agreement, with a rebel official warning of the threat of ''a big war'' if the cease-fire crumbles. Ukraine's military reported the heaviest rebel artillery attacks in six months and fresh fighting near the strategic port city of Mariupol. A military spokesman in Kyiv said on August 12 that clashes north of Mariupol had killed one soldier and injured three.  (Reuters, 08.10.15, Reuters, 08.12.15, RFE/RL, 08.13.15).
  • The Kremlin press service says Russian President Vladimir Putin has held an “operative meeting” on August 12 with the members of the Russian Security Council about escalating violence in eastern Ukraine. (RFE/RL, 08.12.15).
  • U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry expressed "grave concern" to his Russian counterpart on Thursday over a sharp rise in separatist attacks in eastern Ukraine and urged an immediate ceasefire, the State Department said. (Reuters, 08.14.15).
  • Four armored vehicles belonging to the Special Monitoring Mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe were destroyed during the night in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk. (RFE/RL, 08.09.15).
  • By July the number of foreign military trainers on Ukraine’s soil had increased to 1,800 soldiers. By the end of the program about 500 Ukrainian National Guards are to be trained by the U.S. military. British veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were planning to train more than 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers by the end of this year. (Daily Beast, 08.13.15).
  • Ukraine’s state security agency has released a new video purporting to show a Russian army officer who was detained last month in eastern Ukraine appealing to President Vladimir Putin to secure his release.  Russia has repeatedly denied its soldiers are fighting in Ukraine. (RFE/RL, 08.13.15).
  • Dutch investigators probing the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine are examining parts recovered in the area that are suspected to be belong to a sophisticated antiaircraft missile. . (Dow Jones, 08.12.15).
  • Ukraine and a group of its largest creditors said on Friday debt restructuring talks would continue after they held detailed discussions in San Francisco. The latest statement gave no indication if the two sides had moved any closer to an agreement. Crucial debt payment deadlines looming for Ukraine are a $60 million coupon on Aug. 23 and a $500-million bond maturing on Sept. 23. (Reuters, 08.14.15).
  • In the first six months of this year, Ukraine's nuclear power units had a capacity or load factor of 74%, which was 3% more than in the same period of 2014. (World Nuclear News, 08.12.15).
  • Kyrgyzstan has become a full-fledged member of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union after it formally abolished customs controls along its border with Kazakhstan. (RFE/RL, 08.12.15).
  • U.S. authorities are asking European counterparts to seize about $1 billion in assets related to a wide-ranging criminal probe of alleged corruption by three global telecom companies and intermediaries close to the daughter of Uzbekistan's president, according to court documents and people with direct knowledge of the criminal investigation. (Wall Street Journal, 08.13.15).
  • A Baku court has sentenced Azerbaijani human rights activists Leyla Yunus to 8 1/2 years in jail and her severely ailing husband Arif to seven years after judging them guilty of economic crimes. (RFE/RL, 08.13.15).
  • The European Union and several human rights groups have called on authorities in Azerbaijan to conduct a full and transparent investigation into the death of journalist Rasim Aliyev. (RFE/RL, 08.11.15).
  • Russia's 5th Garrison Military Court located in Gyumri, Armenia, has found Pvt. Valery Permyakov, a former serviceman of the Russian military base in Armenia, guilty of desertion, stealing a weapon, and illegally carrying it and sentenced him to 10 years in prison. (Interfax, 08.13.15).

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