Russia in Review

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

Nuclear security agenda:

Russian State Duma has passed a law in first reading that expands the list of individuals who would be placed under administrative supervision upon being released from prisons and remains under that supervision for several years. The expanded list includes individuals convicted of terrorist crimes as well as stealing and/or trafficking nuclear and radioactive substances. (Moskovsky Komsomolets, 02.17.15).

Iran nuclear issues:

Russia’s U.N. envoy, Vitaly Churkin offered a warning that Russia’s cooperation on matters of vital importance to Washington, like the Iranian nuclear negotiations, should not be taken for granted. “Russia is a very responsible member” of the international community, said Churkin, noting that Moscow had worked very hard to have the Iranian nuclear talks succeed. “It would not take much for Russia to do some mischief in those talks, to make agreement even more difficult.” (Foreign Policy, 02.19.15).

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

No significant developments.

Missile defense:

No significant developments.

Nuclear arms control:

Moscow and Washington have agreed on the number of launches of intercontinental or submarine-based ballistic missiles whose telemetric data will be exchanged in 2015. (Interfax, 02.20.15).

Counter-terrorism agenda:

Speaking at the Summit on Countering Violent Extremism U.S. President Barack Obama called on Americans and more than 60 nations on Wednesday to join the fight against violent extremism, saying they had to counter the ideology of the Islamic State and other groups making increasingly sophisticated appeals to young people around the world. (New York Times, 02.19.15).
Intelligence sharing between Russia and the United States regarding the Islamic State (IS) group is "quite possible," the head of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), Aleksandr Bortnikov, said. "Current events are of such a serious nature that we need to unite, "Bortnikov said in comments to reporters in Washington, D.C., where he is part of a Russian delegation at the Obama administration's anti-extremism conference in Washington. Bortnikov said his working visit to the United States is not only a professional, but also a political signal. "Political problems can't be solved," without the capabilities, "my colleagues and I have," he said. The FSB director said professional cooperation of special services should continue even now, when the Russian-American relations are at a new low. He said American counterparts have a similar mindset. “We are interested not only in information exchanges, but also in joint work," Bortnikov told journalists. (Tass, RFE/RL, 02.20.15).
About 1,700 Russians are fighting in Iraq where the Islamic State terrorist group is waging a war against the authorities, director of the Federal Security Service Alexander Bortnikov told a summit on extremism in Washington. He also said international counterterrorism initiatives should be implemented under United Nations supervision, Bortnikov said (Moscow Times, 02.20.15, Sputnik, 02.20.15).
With foreign dignitaries gathered in Washington for President Barack Obama’s conference on extremism, Russia’s U.N. envoy, Vitaly Churkin accused the United States of failing to seek Moscow and other capitals’ views on the event’s agenda, and said it snubbed Russia’s close allies, including Serbia, which was not invited to the conference. Churkin said the “possibility” of Russia and the United States, “working together is out there.” (Foreign Policy, 02.19.15).
The White House did not invite the most senior American official charged with preventing terrorist attacks -- the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey -- to the three-day conference this week on countering violent extremism in the United States and abroad because the administration did not want the event too focused on law enforcement issues, according to senior American officials. (New York Times, 02.20.15).

Cyber security:

Russia's intelligence services are not concerned by the discovery of an advanced cyber-espionage ring discovered by the Moscow-based security software maker Kaspersky Lab. Cyber researchers and former operatives said Monday that the cluster of spying programs discovered by Kaspersky Lab shows that the U.S. National Security Agency has figured out how to hide spying software deep within hard drives made by Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba and other top manufacturers, giving the agency the means to eavesdrop on the majority of the world's computers. (Reuters, 02.17.15).
Vladimir Drinkman, a Russian accused of helping mastermind the largest international data breach ever prosecuted in the U.S., has pleaded not guilty, following his extradition from the Netherlands, the U.S. Department of Justice said. (Reuters, 02.18.15).

Energy exports from CIS:

No significant developments.

Bilateral economic and financial ties:

Russia jettisoned $22 billion worth of U.S. treasury bonds in December. The sale means that Russia currently holds just $86 billion of U.S. government debt, the lowest level since 2008 (Reuters, 02.190.15).
Visa Inc. will transfer the processing of transactions made on its cards in Russia to a local payment system, Russia's central bank and the company said Thursday. The international credit and debit card company follows MasterCard Inc., its peer, who signed a similar agreement at the end of December. (Wall Street Journal, 02.20.15).
The Russian communications watchdog (Roskomnadzor) has received documents from the CNN television channel for obtaining a universal license to broadcast across Russia, agency spokesman Vadim Ampelonsky told Interfax on Tuesday. (Interfax, 02.17.15).
Russia’s most popular search engine Yandex NV said Wednesday it asked the state antimonopoly watchdog to investigate Google for possibly violating Russian antitrust laws. (Wall Street Journal, 02.18,.15).

Other bilateral issues:

In the eyes of Americans, Russia has surpassed North Korea as the main enemy of the United States, a new Gallup poll reveals. Russia led the pack of named U.S. foes, having been singled out by 18 percent of Americans. Russia's leading position represented a significant leap from last year's poll, when only 9 percent of respondents to the same question picked Russia. Nearly half of all Americans, 49 percent, view Russia's military forces as a critical threat to U.S. security, up 32 percent from the previous year. The poll also revealed that 72 percent of Americans view Russian President Vladimir Putin in a negative light. Only 13 percent said they harbor good opinions of him. (Moscow Times, 02.16,.15).
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush on Wednesday promised to chart his own course on foreign policy — even as he announced a campaign brain trust associated, in part, with the most contentious policies of his brother's and father's presidencies. Bush credited Obama for his plans to deploy U.S. military forces to the Baltic States to help counter Russia's aggression in Ukraine and his plans to develop a new economic and military partnership with Central American countries that have seen citizens flee to the United States. (Washington Post, 02.19.15).
A man has been detained in Moscow after trying to break into the U.S. Embassy completely naked, a news report said Thursday. (Moscow Times, 02.19.15).

II. Russia news.

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

Central Bank's First Deputy Governor Ksenia Yudayeva said the peak of ruble volatility had ended. The ruble fell to a record-low of 80 rubles per dollar in mid-December, but has recovered since and has been trading mostly between 60 ruble and 70 rubles this month. (Reuters, 02.20.15).
The fall in oil prices could have been orchestrated in order to undermine the Russian economy, but it will only last a few months, Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich says. (Sputnik, 02.17.15).
Unemployment reached 5.5 percent of the workforce in January and the Economy Ministry expects it to rise to 6 percent this year (Reuters, 02.20.15).
The influx of migrant workers into Russia has declined by 8 percent since the ruble began sinking in value several months ago, the Federal Migration Service said Monday. (Moscow Times, 02.16.15).
Most Russians say they have noticed an increase in the cost of basic foods in the last two months, according to a poll released by state-run Russian Public Opinion Research Center. (The Moscow Times, 02.19.15).

Defense:

One of Russia's most prominent military shipbuilders, Sevmash in Severodvinsk, has set a post-Soviet production record for the most submarines built at one time, with four atomic-powered boats under construction in their yards.. (Moscow Times, 02.18.15).
A Russia-India joint cruise missile research group will develop the world's first hypersonic cruise missile by 2023, the company's CEO said. (Moscow Times, 02.18.15).
RBC quoted sources in the Finance Ministry as saying Russian defense would miss out on 26.9 billion rubles this year, a cut of only around 1 percent but a reversal of a trend of big annual increases under Vladimir Putin. (Reuters, 02.20.15).
Sixty-eight percent of Russian citizens recently interviewed by the All Russian Center for Public Opinion Studies (VTsIOM) believe that their country faces a real military threat from outside, as compared with 52 percent of respondents in 2014, and 49 percent in 2000. At the same time, 49 percent of respondents gave positive assessments of the Russian Armed Forces, as compared with 24 percent in 2014, and 14 percent in 2009. (Interfax, 02.20.15).

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

Four Russian Navy servicemen have been convicted of high treason and have already begun serving out their sentences. "Senior naval officers Zakhary Agapishvili, Sergei Danilchenko and two other servicemen — Levan Charkviani and Konstantin Yashin — have been sentenced to prison time," a spokesperson for the Supreme Court said. (The Moscow Times, 02.19.15).
The relatives of a man being held in southern Russia on treason charges say they have not been allowed to see him for nearly a year. Pyotr Parpulov, a former employee of the international airport in the resort city of Sochi, was arrested in March 2014 and charged with treason. (RFE/RL, 02.16.15).
The Moscow City Court has ruled that the arrest of Svetlana Davydova, a woman from Vyazma who is accused of treason, was unlawful. (RFE/RL, 02.16.15).
"Reports of my agency's death have been greatly exaggerated," Viktor Ivanov, the head of Russia's drug control agency, told reporters on Tuesday. (Moscow Times, 02.18.15).
A Russian court on Tuesday ended house arrest terms for Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny and upheld a suspended three-and-a-half-year prison term for the protest leader in a theft case he says is politically motivated. (Reuters, 02.17.15).
Police in the Chechen Republic have released the names of four individuals they say are fighting in Syria. A spokesman for Chechnya's Interior Ministry told the Caucasian Knot website that three of the men -- named as Hussein Baliyev, Lom-Ali Magomadov, and Surkho Elmurzayev -- went to Syria in the summer of 2014. All three are from the village of Valerik in the western Achkhoi-Martanovsky district. The fourth man, named as Movsar Murtazaliyev, is from the village of Gikalo, south of the Chechen capital, Grozny, and has been allegedly fighting in Syria since fall 2013.(RFE/RL, 02.18.15).
Russian Duma Deputy Aleksandr Khinshtein has officially asked Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev to explain why police across the country have apparently been banned from visiting most foreign countries. (RFE/RL, 02.16.15).

Foreign affairs and trade:

New sanctions against Russia are an option if a peace deal to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine is violated, though that is not the goal, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday. (Reuters, 02.20.15).
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said an economic war with Russia was in no-one's interests and that imposing sanctions on Moscow over the crisis in Ukraine was "hypocritical." (Reuters, 02.18.15).
Germany will overhaul its security strategy in coming years in response to Russian attempts to use "power politics and military force" to assert its interests, Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday. (Reuters, 02.18.15).
The European Union included two Russian deputy defense ministers in its latest Ukraine sanctions list Monday Anatoly Antonov and Arkady Bakhin. (Defense News, 02.16.15).
The French president says he and the German chancellor are “more convinced than ever” that the Minsk agreements aimed at putting an end to fighting in Ukraine should be fully implemented. Francois Hollande made the remarks at a joint press conference in Paris with Angela Merkel on February 20. (RFE/RL, 02.20.15).
The German, Russian, Ukrainian and French foreign ministers are expected to meet next week to pursue peace moves in Ukraine . (Reuters, 02.20.15).
British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said Russia posed a "real and present danger" to Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia and NATO was preparing for possible attacks against the Baltic States. Britain also says it has scrambled fighter jets to shadow two long-range Russian Bear bombers that were flying near England's southern coast, the second such incident this year. (RFE/RL, 02.19.15, 02.20.15).
The Kremlin sees the British defense secretary's remark comparing Russia to Islamic State as devoid of common sense. “The person who could say this is unlikely to understand what kind of substance he is talking about," Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said in commenting on British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon's remark to the effect that Russian President Vladimir Putin poses, "as great a threat to Europe as Islamic State." (Interfax, 02.20.15).
Russian President Vladimir Putin offered Hungary's Kremlin-friendly government more favorable terms for natural-gas supplies during a visit to Budapest that underscored Europe's challenge in defying Moscow over Ukraine amid reliance on Russia for energy. Under a new deal, Hungary will pay Russia only for the gas it actually consumes, as opposed to the volume it contracts, lowering costs for Hungarian authorities. (Wall Street Journal, 02.17.15).
Russia and Hungary have signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in the training of nuclear energy personnel. (World Nuclear News, 02.18.15).
A plan for central European countries to produce their own nuclear fuel using Russian technology has become another flash point in the debate over the continent's reliance on Moscow for its energy at a time of frayed relations over the conflict in Ukraine. To its advocates in the Czech and Hungarian governments, the proposal to construct a fuel-assembly plant somewhere in the region would help countries in the European Union's east build more nuclear power plants, reduce their carbon emissions and take more control over power production.(Wall Street Journal, 02.20.15).
The EU Committee of the House of Lords says the European Union and Britain are guilty of "sleepwalking" into the crisis in Ukraine. (RFE/RL, 02.20.15).

Russia's neighbors:

The Ukrainian military on Thursday said that the casualties in Debaltseve were substantially worse than initially announced, with at least 13 soldiers killed, 157 wounded, more than 90 captured and at least 82 missing. Witnesses said the number of dead would likely grow considerably higher. In a statement defending his decision to order the withdrawal, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that 2,475 soldiers were safely pulled out, along with 200 military vehicles. (New York Times, 02.20.15).
Eduard Basurin, an official of the defense ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, later said “the situation is stabilizing along the entire line of contact.” (RFE/RL, 02.20 15).
In Kiev, large crowds headed for Independence Square, called locally the Maidan, in the heart of the capital to mark the first anniversary of the shootings of about 100 protesters and the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovich, who fled to Russia soon after the killings. Reuters, 02.20.15).
“If Russia is actually interested in peace as it claims, it has to support this resolution that would authorize the peacekeeping forces in Ukraine,” Ukrainian Ambassador Olexander Motsyk said. (Foreign Policy, 02.19.15).
Ukraine should focus on implementing its part of the Minsk agreement and not “speculate" about other options like bringing in United Nations peacekeepers, the European Union's enlargement negotiations chief Johannes Hahn said on Friday. (Wall Street Journal, 02.20.15).
Russia has rejected a Ukrainian government call for a United Nations peacekeeping force in eastern Ukraine, after pro-Russian separatists overran a strategic railway hub despite a ceasefire agreement. (Vatican Radio, 02.20.15).
The rebels denounced Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s call for peacekeepers, saying their presence would "violate" the cease-fire, negotiated in marathon talks by France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine in the Belarussian capital Minsk late last week. (Reuters, 02.19.15).
Russia started supplying gas to rebel-held eastern Ukraine on Thursday after Kiev suspended supplies because of damage to the networks from heavy fighting, which is continuing despite a cease-fire. (Reuters, 02.19.15).
Kiev accused Russia on Friday of sending more tanks and troops into eastern Ukraine and said they were heading towards the rebel-held town of Novoazovsk on the southern coast, expanding their presence on what could be the next key battlefront. (Reuters, 02.20.15).
The Ukrainian military said in September that during partial mobilizations in 13 regions in 2014, 85,792 of those summoned didn’t report to their draft offices and 9,969 were proven to be illegally avoiding service. (Foreign Policy, 02.18.15).
A battalion of around 600 American paratroopers will be heading to Ukraine next month to train national guard troops there, a Pentagon spokesman said. (Fox News, 02.11.15).
Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed the U.S. is supplying Kiev with lethal weapons, telling reporters that the conflict in Ukraine will not be resolved through military escalation. "According to our intelligence, [U.S.] weapons are already being delivered," Putin said on Tuesday, when asked if a shipment of lethal hardware from Washington to Kiev would fan the flames of war in eastern Ukraine. (Moscow Times, 02.18.15).
The U.S. has said it is "gravely concerned" by fighting in and around Debaltseve in eastern Ukraine that flared up after a cease-fire agreement, and that it is closely monitoring reports of a new column of Russian military equipment moving toward the region (Reuters, 02.17.15).
The International Monetary Fund needs greater assurance from Ukraine's other international lenders before it can approve its portion of a new $40 billion emergency financing package, a fund spokesman said on Thursday. (Wall Street Journal, 02.19.15).
Ukraine's government expects the country's consumer-price inflation to hit 26% in 2015, a notch higher than in 2014, but twice as much as expected earlier, the prime minister said on Saturday. (Wall Street Journal, 02.14.15).
Russia regards the breach of a covenant on Ukrainian eurobonds purchased by Russia as "force majeure." Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak said on Tuesday. (Reuters, 02.17.15).
More than 900,000 citizens from the south-east of Ukraine (Donbas) are staying in Russia now, Head of the Federal Migration Service Konstantin Romodanovsky said. A FMS official said almost 300,000 Ukrainian citizens have asked Russia either for temporary asylum or a refugee status (Tass, RFE/RL, 02.16.15).
Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenka says his country is ready for a "constructive dialogue" with NATO. Speaking to top Belarusian military officials in Minsk on February 19, Lukashenka said: "As a sovereign state we are open, in particular, to constructive dialogue with NATO on parity and transparency principles." (RFE/RL, 02.19.15).
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko's hosting of Ukraine peace talks may have a side effect at home — helping thaw relations with EU. "I believe we have window of opportunity," Latvia's Edgars Rinkevics said Thursday as he headed off for what he said would be discussions on EU-Belarus relations. (Reuters, 02.20.15).
Kazakhstan's ruling Nur-Otan party has backed a proposal by the Kazakhstan People's Assembly to hold an early presidential election. The assembly also said Nursultan Nazarbaev needs another term to steer Kazakhstan through the ongoing economic crisis. (RFE/RL, 02.16.15).
Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev said the nuclear threat remains one of the most serious problems of today’s world. “I would like to re-emphasize the relevance of our initiative to develop a new universal Treaty on comprehensive horizontal and vertical non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, he said. (Kazakhstan Government News, 02.17.15).
A court in Kazakhstan's central city of Temirtau has sentenced two followers of radical Islam to lengthy jail terms on charges of plotting terror attacks. Dmitry Nikolayev, a Kazakh citizen, and Adilet Temirkanov, a Kyrgyz citizen, were sentenced to 11 and 8 years in jail respectively. Nikolayev spent some time in Egypt before joining Islamist fighters in Syria. Investigators say the two men sought to recruit Kazakh men and women to fight alongside Islamist militants in Syria. (RFE/RL, 02.20.15).
Kyrgyz officials say a suspected leader of the banned Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir has been detained in the country's northeastern city of Karakol. (RFE/RL, 02.18.15).
Russia and Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia have signed a "border agreement" opposed by Tbilisi. (RFE/RL, 02.18.15).
Georgia has condemned a "state border" agreement signed by Moscow and the Georgian breakaway South Ossetia region. (RFE/RL, 02.19.15).
There should be no borders between Russia and Abkhazia, Russian president’s aide Vladislav Surkov said on Monday after a meeting with Abkhazian leaders. "The border should be cancelled in the long run. There should be no borders between us, and this is provided in the new Treaty on Allied Relations and Strategic Partnership,” he said. (Rustavi2, 02.17.15).
Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian has recalled from parliament protocols on the normalization of ties and the establishment of diplomatic relations with neighboring Turkey. (RFE/RL, 02.16.15).
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland has held talks with Armenia's Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian in Yerevan. On February 17, she held talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Baku. (RFE/RL, 02.18.15).
Tbilisi has urged Ukrainian authorities to extradite former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. (RFE/RL, 02.17.15).
Moldova’s parliament has approved a new pro-EU prime minister, 38-year-old businessman Chiril Gaburici (RFE/RL, 02.18.15).

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