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Press Release

Russia in Review

Published: October 24, 2014

Russia in Review: a digest of useful news from U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism for October 17-24 , 2014

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

Nuclear security agenda:

  • No significant developments

Iran nuclear issues:

  • In his meeting with his Iranian counterpart Ali Shamkhani Secretary of Russia's National Security Council Nikolai Patrushev underscored Tehran's right to use nuclear energy for civilian purposes. "It is Iran's inalienable right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes and the existing issues in this case should be resolved through political negotiations with the Group 5+1," Patrushev said during the meeting in the Iranian capital. (Thai News Service, 10.24.14).

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

  • Russia is finalizing the fulfillment of contacts with the U.S. government for the delivery of Mil Mi-17V-5 military transport helicopters to Afghanistan. The last three helicopters will be sent to the customer on October 29. (Interfax, 10.22.14).

Missile defense:

  • No significant developments.

Nuclear arms control:

  • Russia insists on continued nuclear disarmament but without the double standards favoring the leaders in the field of high-precision weapons, President Vladimir Putin said on Friday at a session of the Valdai international discussions club. "We insist on the continuation of talks on the reduction of nuclear arsenals because the fewer nuclear weapons the world has, the better," he said. Russia is preparing for a most detailed discussion of the problem of nuclear disarmament, Putin said adding: "I mean what I say serious discussion, without double standards."(Tass, 10.24.14).

Counter-terrorism cooperation:

  • No significant developments.

Cyber security:

  • Russia has mounted an effort in recent weeks to bring the root infrastructure of the Internet under control of state-affiliated bureaucracies, both internationally and at home. (MT, 10.23.14).

Energy exports from CIS:

  • Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday he hoped a deal would be reached next week with Ukraine to end a long-running dispute in which Moscow has halted natural gas supplies to Kiev.   (Reuters, 10.24.14).
  • German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed the importance of reaching an agreement on gas supplies to Ukraine in a telephone call, the Kremlin said Friday. (Reuters, 10.24.14).
  • Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said in a televised interview on Saturday that Ukraine had agreed on a price of $385 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas until the end of March. "Ukraine will have gas, Ukraine will have heating," he said.(WSJ, 10.20.14).

Bilateral economic ties:

  • President Vladimir Putin has signed a law giving Visa and MasterCard a five-month reprieve on paying a massive security deposit to Russia's Central Bank, in effect setting a deadline for the creation of Russia's much-touted national payment system, which is poised to take over processing of the foreign systems' transactions. (MT, 10.23.14).
  • The U.S. Department of Commerce will terminate a 15-year-old deal sheltering Russian flat-rolled steel producers from high import duties, it said in a letter to Russian authorities. (Reuters, 10.21.14).

Other bilateral issues:

  • Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday he did not think the U.S. was a threat to Russia but added that he thought Washington's policies were harmful to his country. "I don't think that the United States poses a threat to us," Putin told the Valdai international discussions club.  (Reuters, 10.24.14).
  • Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the United States on Friday of endangering the international order by trying to "remake the whole world" for its own, exclusive interests, and he predicted that Ukraine would not be the last conflict to embroil the major powers. Washington is also trying to find "a new Soviet Union" which could serve as an enemy image that would split up the world, Putin noted. “It does not matter who takes up the place of the Soviet Union, the chief opponent, in the eyes of the US propaganda - be it Iran, a country that is working to create a nuclear technology, or China, a country with the world's strongest economy, or Russia, a nuclear superpower," the Russian President said. (WP, Tass, 10.24.14).
  • One influential Russian speaker at he Valdai club said the Western reaction to Ukraine had rallied the Russian population around Mr. Putin and that support for him now was unprecedented. "The attacks against Putin are attacks against Russia," he said.(WSJ, 10.23.14).
  • "The current period in our relations will last a long time," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said  at an open lecture given under United Russia's Civil University project on Monday. (Interfax, 10.20.14).
  • The U.S. and Russia are joining forces to block a European plan to raise the protection of nuclear reactors against natural disasters after the meltdowns at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi power plant, diplomats say.  (Bloomberg, 10.23.14).
  • Eighty-two percent of Russians  questioned by independent pollster Levada Center said they viewed relations with the U.S. as tense or hostile, while 66 percent said the same of Russia's relations with the EU. Those numbers are by far the highest since Levada pollsters began asking that question more than a decade ago. The number of Russians who believe that their country has shared interests with the West in issues such as fighting international terrorism, solving economic problems or developing cultural or scientific ties has dropped to 8 percent from 44 percent four years earlier. (MT, 10.22.14).
  • Well-known Russian attorney Andrei Stolbunov who has accused powerful regional officials of corruption is seeking asylum in the United States, saying he fears being imprisoned in Russia on "trumped-up charges." (RFE/RL, 10.21.14).

II. Russia news.

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

  • Russia intends to continue moves to a floating exchange rate and will not "burn" through its foreign exchange reserves, President Vladimir Putin said Friday. (Reuters, 10.24.14).
  • Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukaev said GDP growth in the first nine months of this year was 0.7%, unchanged from the rate reported for the first eight months of the year, Russian news agencies reported Wednesday. That result would keep Russia’s economy on track for its weakest performance since the recession of 2009.The State Statistics Service reported Wednesday that consumer price inflation reached an annual rate of 8.3% in the third week of October, the highest level this year, driven by a rise in food prices. (WSJ, 10.21.14).
  • Russia's Central Bank said Friday it had shifted the ruble's trading band by 40 kopeks a day earlier, the largest daily shift in the ruble's trading band so far this year, following market interventions to curb the pace of currency's decline. As of Oct. 23, the ruble's new floating corridor extended from 37.70 to 46.70 against a dollar-euro basket, compared to 37.30 to 46.30 previously.  (Reuters, 10.24.14).
  • Russia may need to cut its budget spending for the next three years if Western sanctions persist, the country’s finance minister said Friday. The Kremlin expects the Russian economy to grow by 1.2% in 2015 and by 2.3% in 2016, but the World Bank sees growth rates of only 0.3% and 0.4%, respectively. (WSJ, 10.24.14).
  • Russians pulled 52.6 billion rubles ($1.3 billion) out of ruble deposits in September as Moscow battled to keep its currency afloat amid plummeting oil prices, high capital outflows and Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis, business daily Vedomosti reported Tuesday, citing data from the Central Bank. (MT, 10.21.14).
  • Companies and investors have pulled $95.9 billion out of Russia this year through September, according to the Institute of International Finance. But some money is trickling in the other direction. Mutual funds and exchange-traded funds that buy Russian stocks and bonds have received a net $538 million since the beginning of August, according to EPFR Global. (WSJ, 10.21.14).
  • Russian Audit Chamber head Tatiana Golikova says the country's Reserve Fund could be depleted if the current "negative tendencies" affecting the economy continue in 2015. (RFE/RL, 10.19.14).
  • Moody’s Investors Service on Friday downgraded Russia’s debt one notch to Baa2, citing the country’s fiscal uncertainty due to the Ukraine crisis and the expanded international sanctions stemming from that conflict. The downgrade puts the country’s rating two notches above junk status—and brings Moody’s rating in line with those of the other two major ratings firms, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings. (WSJ, 10.17.14).
  • Sanctioned Russian oil giant Rosneft will get much less than the 2 trillion rubles ($49 billion) in financial aid it has requested from the state, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said Friday (MT, 10.24.14).
  • The Baltiysky Zavod in St Petersburg is on schedule to deliver the first floating nuclear power plant to its customer, Russian nuclear power plant operator Rosenergoatom, in September 2016, the shipyard's general director Aleksey Kadilov said today. (WNN, 10.23.14).
  • Ahead of President Vladimir Putin's speech at the 11th-annual Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi on Friday, deputy chief of staff Vyacheslav Volodin took to the stage to tell international analysts and Russia-watchers that "there is no Russia today if there is no Putin." Later Putin has voiced disagreement with Volodin’s statement that "if there’s no Putin, then there’s no Russia."(MT, 10.23.14, Tass, 10.24.14).
  • Russia’s Atomenergoproekt has been placed under the executive control of another Rosatom subsidiary in order to consolidate Russia's nuclear power engineering expertise into a single division. (WNN, 10.22.14).
  • Russia has completed testing of the TVS-5 fuel assembly with mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel containing nitrides, the prototype fuel for the pilot demonstration BREST-OD-300 reactor that is to be built at the site of the Siberian Chemical Combine in Tomsk. Construction work is to start in 2016 and be completed in 2020.(WNN, 10.22.14).
  • Russia's national operator for radioactive waste management aims to build by 2024 an underground research laboratory tasked with studying the possibility of final waste disposal of high-level radioactive waste in the Nizhnekansky Granite Massif in Krasnoyarsk. (WNN, 10.17.14).

Defense:

  • Russia's plans to militarize its Arctic territories gained pace on Wednesday with the opening of a new military base on Wrangel Island. (MT, 10.22.14).

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

  • Three alleged militants have been killed by security forces in Russia's volatile North Caucasus region. (RFE/RL, 10.24.14).
  • A Russian court on Friday ruled to extend the arrest of three suspects held over the plane crash that killed Christophe de Margerie, the CEO of French oil major Total.  (MT, 10.24.14).
  • A French appeals court has agreed to a request by Russia to extradite former finance minister of the Moscow region Aleksei Kuznetsov who is accused of embezzlement. (RFE/RL, 10.18.14).
  • A Moscow court postponed to next week a ruling on a move to take control of Bashneft, an oil company, from tycoon Vladimir Yevtushenkov. (RFE/RL, 10.23.14).
  • Russian activist Lyudmila Bogatenkova who sought to document the deaths of soldiers believed to have been sent covertly to fight in Ukraine was released from custody on Monday for health reasons, according to an advocacy group.(NYT, 10.21.14).

Foreign affairs and trade:

  • Russia is not seeking global leadership or any exceptional role, Russian President Vladimir Putin told a session of the Valdai discussion club on Friday. "An argument that Russia wants to be exceptional is absolutely wrong. We are no seeking any special place under the Sun," the Russian leader stressed. In his speech Putin t didn't rule out new serious conflicts involving world powers.  (Tass, 10.24.14).
  • A cease-fire between Ukrainian troops and Russia-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine isn’t being fully observed and thus European Union sanctions against Russia must remain in place, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters early Friday morning. (WSJ, 10.23.14).
  • The Swedish authorities said Friday that a military team that had included minesweepers, helicopters and ships had been called off after a weeklong search for an enigmatic vessel that never materialized. Swedish officials said they suspected that a Russian submarine had infiltrated Swedish waters. The Russian government has emphatically denied having any vessel in the area. (NYT, 10.25.14).
  • Moscow has denied claims of an incursion by a Russian military plane into Estonia's airspace. (RFE/RL, 10.23.14).
  • Poland's former prime minister, Donald Tusk, has denied that Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested that Russia and Poland carve up Ukraine. The claim was made by former foreign minister Radek Sikorski who said in an interview with the U.S. internet magazine Politico on October 19 that the offer was made in a one-on-one meeting between Tusk and Putin in Moscow in 2008. But Sikorski later backed away from the allegation, saying his memory had failed him. (RFE/RL, 10.24.14).
  • At Thursday evening's high-level meeting in Russia's resort town of Sochi, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin meet Syrian Finance Minister Ismail Ismail. Syria has applied to be part of a free trade zone with Russia. The proposal will be discussed at a Eurasian Economic Commission’s session, scheduled for December 23. (Russia Today, 10.24.14, MT, 10.23.14).
  • Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin met Friday and agreed to maintain dialogue, Japanese officials said. (Reuters, 10.17.14).
  • Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has lashed out at Germany for what he says is discrimination against his racehorses in a strongly worded manifesto titled "Horse Politics of Berlin!"  (MT, 10.20.14).

Russia's neighbors:

  • The United Nations says the death toll from the armed conflict between government forces and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine has reached 3,707.  (RFE/RL, 10. 18.14).
  • The United Nations says the conflict in Ukraine has forced more than 800,000 people from their homes. (RFE/RL, 10.24.14).
  • Russia will recognize Ukraine's parliamentary elections due October 26, Russian presidential administration chief Sergey Ivanov said Thursday. (Tass, 10.23.14).
  • Moscow will ban imports of all fruits and vegetables from Ukraine starting Wednesday, Russia's agriculture watchdog said. (WSJ, 10.22.14)
  • Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Russia helped Ukraine's former president Viktor Yanukovych to flee to Russia in February after he was toppled in violent street protests in Kiev. (Reuters, 10.24.14).
  • "We've seen a pretty good withdrawal of the Russian forces from inside Ukraine but, make no mistake, there remain Russian forces inside eastern Ukraine," U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove told reporters at NATO's military headquarters near Mons in Belgium. (Reuters, 10.24.14).
  • International watchdog Human Rights Watch has accused the Ukrainian army of violating "the laws of war" through the use of so-called cluster munitions in separatist-held areas of eastern Ukraine.  Human Rights Watch says the rebels have most likely used cluster weapons in the conflict as well, a detail that The New York Times could not independently verify.  (NYT, 10.21.14, RFE/RL, 10.21.14).
  • Amnesty International documented execution-style killings perpetrated by both pro-Russian fighters and pro-Kiev forces in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions -- though not on the scale described by Ukrainian and Russian authorities.  (FP, 10.20.14).
  • Four civilians were killed and nine wounded by shrapnel during fighting on Saturday and Sunday in eastern Ukraine's separatist stronghold city of Donetsk, local officials said. (Reuters, 10.20.14).
  • "Spiegel Online" reported that Germany's foreign intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst has concluded unambiguously that "it was pro-Russian separatists" who shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine. The separatists were firing a BUK air-defense missile system that they had seized from a Ukrainian military base, the BND said. (RFE/RL, 10.19.14).
  • Russia's human rights ombudswoman Ella Pamfilova has accused the European Union of "ignoring human suffering" in eastern Ukraine. She added that Europe's media "are simply fulfilling the order to brand and to accuse Russia of everything."(RFE/RL, 10.20.14).
  • Ukraine dismissed 39 high-ranking officials y as a new law on "power purification" came into effect. The list includes the first deputy head of Ukraine's State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate Mikhail Gashev. (WNN, 10.17.14).
  • Georgian Prime Minister Irakly Garibashvili says attempts by Tbilisi to normalize political relations with Russia have thus far been unsuccessful. Garibashvili made his comments one day after Russia announced it would sign an "alliance and integration" treaty with the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia. (RFE/RL, 10. 17.14).
  • A Georgian court has sentenced former Defense Minister Bacho Akhalaia to 7 1/2 years in prison for torturing convicts in 2006. (RFE/RL, 10.22.14).
  • Former Georgian Prime Minister Vano Merabishvili has been sentenced to three years in prison in connection with the 2006 killing of Georgian banker Sandro Girgvliani. (RFE/RL, 10.20.14).
  • Concerns remain about the way some criminal prosecutions of former government members have been handled in Georgia, U.S. State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said. (RFE/RL, 10.24.14).
  • The European Union has welcomed an amnesty announced by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev last week. (RFE/RL, 10.21.14).
  • Police in Tajikistan have reportedly arrested 20 alleged Islamist militants for plotting to blow up two road tunnels. (RFE/RL, 10.19.14).
  • The son of former Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiev has been sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment for embezzling millions of dollars of state funds. (RFE/RL, 10.22.14).
  • Taking an old-school approach to battle the woes of modern capitalism, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko has endorsed a legislative ban on unemployment. (MT, 10.21.14).
  • An appellate court in the French city of Lyon has authorized the extradition of fugitive Kazakh banker Mukhtar Ablyazov. (RFE/RL, 10.24.14).

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