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

Nuclear security and safety:

• Retired Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly was picked Dec. 12 by President-elect Donald Trump to be homeland security secretary. The Department of Homeland Security has an intelligence arm and an office dedicated to preventing nuclear terrorism. Trump has also tapped former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to lead the Energy Department. More than half of the department's annual budget of around $30 billion goes to protecting the nuclear arsenal and cleaning up nuclear waste and contamination sites around the U.S. (Dow Jones, 12.13.16, AFP, 12.12.16)
• The U.S. National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2017 authorized $340 million for continuing construction of the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) at the Savannah River Site. (IPFM, 12.02.16)
• Russia opened its first ever repository for low- and medium-level nuclear waste last week in a major benchmark for the country’s radioactive-waste handler, facilitated by consultation from Bellona. The 48,000 cubic meter facility in the Sverdlovsk region’s closed nuclear city of Novouralsk lies at shallow depth and operates as a repository for what state nuclear corporation Rosatom classifies as type 3 and 4 wastes. (Bellona, 12.14.16)

Iran’s nuclear program and related issues:

• Whatever the new U.S. administration decides on implementing the nuclear deal with Iran, “it will find Europe and Russia on the same side [with one another],” EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini has said. She said Iran might not be the only issue on which the U.S. could face opposition from Russia and Europe if Washington decides to go it alone—the Middle East peace process and possibly the role of the U.N. were other examples. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded on Dec. 15 to Mogherini’s remarks by saying Moscow is not interested in cooperating with the EU to the detriment of third-party countries, including the United States. (TASS, 12.15.16, Wall Street Journal, 12.14.16, Wall Street Journal, 12.15.16)
• Russian companies including Gazprom signed nine initial agreements with Iran, in industries ranging from energy to railways, that could lead to contracts worth billions of dollars, as Energy Minister Alexander Novak outlined Russia’s ambition to become a major investor in the Persian Gulf nation. One of these included a $1.6 billion agreement for construction of a new thermal power station in Iran, with funding and contractors to come from Russia. (Bloomberg, 12.13.16, Al-Monitor, 12.14.16)

Military issues, including NATO-Russia relations:

• Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., head of U.S. Pacific Command, has cited North Korea, a “revanchist Russia and an increasingly assertive China” as significant challenges. “Both Moscow and Beijing have choices to make,” he said. “They can choose to disregard the rules-based international order or they can contribute to it as responsible stakeholders.” He said the United States would “cooperate where we can and be ready to confront where we must.” (New York Times, 12.14.16)
• Israel has received the first of its $5 billion order of U.S.-made F-35 jets on Dec. 12. "As far as we know, nobody has flown the F-35 against the S-300s [Russian-made surface-to-air missiles] But we don't see this as a big challenge for the F-35," an Israeli Air Force commander said. (The Washington Post, 12.13.16)
• Two Trump transition sources said that a representative of the transition team met late last month with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels and delivered a private but deliberate message: The incoming administration would like Stoltenberg to replace Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller. (The Washington Post, 12.13.16)
• U.S. Navy and NATO forces are attempting to track down one—possibly two—Russian nuclear-powered submarines in the Mediterranean. At least one of the submarines is thought to be a Project 949A Antey—perhaps better known by its NATO codename Oscar II—guided-missile submarine. (The National Interest, 12.10.16)
• Montenegro’s defense minister says the small Balkan country will decide whether to join NATO in a parliamentary vote and not a popular referendum, as sought by the opposition and Russia. Meanwhile, Nemanja Ristic, a man wanted in Montenegro on suspicion he took part in an alleged coup plot to overthrow Montenegro’s pro-Western government, was photographed standing near Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov this week in Serbia at an official event. (AP, 12.14.16, AP, 12.15.16)
• A report released by the Nuclear Threat Initiative recommends steps to reduce the likelihood of accident or miscalculation leading to a nuclear exchange between the U.S. and Russia, which it says is “now higher than any period since the end of the Cold War” in 1991. (AP, 12.14.16)
• EU leaders agreed on Dec. 15 to increase their spending on defense, ostensibly shaken by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s skepticism toward NATO and an increasingly assertive Russia. (Los Angeles Times, 12.15.16)

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms control:

• No significant developments.

Counter-terrorism:

• Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has “suppressed the activity of a terrorist group consisting of citizens of the Republic of Tajikistan and a citizen of the Republic of Moldova” in Moscow, an FSB source told Interfax on Dec. 15. The FSB claims that the group was taking orders from an emissary of an Islamic State cell in Turkey who is wanted by law enforcement authorities in Tajikistan. (The Moscow Times, 12.15.16)

Conflict in Syria:

• The dramatic evacuation of Syrian civilians and rebels from besieged eastern Aleppo was thrown into chaos Dec. 16 as Russia signaled that the convoys were ending even as thousands of people waited to be ferried to safer ground. Opposition fighters remaining in the embattled city, meanwhile, remanned positions in preparation for a possible renewal of battles. (The Washington Post, 12.16.16)
  • Russia’s Center for Reconciliation of Opposing Sides in Syria had said on Dec. 15 it is preparing to withdraw the remaining militants and their family members from eastern Aleppo to the city of Idlib, and Syria’s authorities guarantee their safety. On Dec. 14, the Reconciliation Center said the rebels controlled no more than 2.5 square kilometers of territory in Aleppo. On Dec. 12, the Russian Defense Ministry estimated that the Syrian government had regained control of 96% of Aleppo’s territory. Russia’s military cleared 45 buildings of explosive devices and demined 16 hectares in eastern Aleppo over the past 24 hours, the Reconciliation Center said Dec. 14. (TASS, 12.15.16, TASS, 12.12.16, TASS, 12.14.16)
• Russia and the U.S. traded blame over the Islamic State’s recapture of the Syrian city of Palmyra over the weekend and the crisis in Syria overall, with Russian President Vladimir Putin saying Dec. 16 that the fault lies with the U.S.-led international coalition for its refusal to coordinate with Damascus and Moscow, while President Barack Obama blamed “the Assad regime and its allies, Russia and Iran.” On Dec. 15 coalition aircraft destroyed heavy weaponry seized by IS in Palmyra. A day earlier U.S. Army Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend had said that the weapons IS seized likely included armored vehicles, guns and possibly air-defense equipment or other heavy weaponry. He said he hoped Russia or Syria would quickly retake Palmyra and neutralize the threat but said the U.S. stands ready to strike if needed. One video released by IS’s Amaq News Agency trumpeted the capture of a Russian base inside Palmyra. It is unclear how long the Russian base had been abandoned before the Islamic State's arrival. (Newsweek, 12.16.16, The Washington Post [transcript of Obama’s end-of-year press conference], 12.16.16, AFP/Yahoo, 12.16.16, RFE/RL, 12.15.16, Long War Journal, 12.13.16, RFE/RL, 12.13.16, The Washington Post, 12.13.16)
• Russian special-operations forces—the same elite troops that carried out Moscow’s surprise annexation of Crimea in 2014—have played a pivotal part in the Syrian ground offensive to retake Aleppo, a role shielded by secrecy about their operations there, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. On Dec. 11, Russian state-run television ran a segment showing what appears to be one of Russia’s most elite military units fighting in Syria. In the video, some of the Russian Special Operations troops can be seen with red-dot weapon sights, thermal imaging devices, laser range finders and modern bolt-action sniper rifles. Elite Russian units in Syria take part in search and rescue operations, assassinations of key rebel figures and coordination of air strikes. Groups of heavily armed soldiers were shown coordinating sniper attacks, using robotic tanks and inspecting rebel corpses. (Wall Street Journal, 12.16.16, The Washington Post, 12.13.16, AP, 12.11.16)
• The total number of Russian military servicemen killed in Syria, with some measure of official confirmation, is now 24. (RBC, in Russian, 12.16.16)
• Twelve Chechen soldiers serving in Russian Defense Ministry units at a base in Khankala, east of Grozny, have been dismissed for refusing to deploy to Syria. (The Moscow Times, 12.13.16)
• Negotiations with ISIS via Kurdish middlemen went on for over a month to return the body of Russian Special Operations Forces (spetsnaz) officer Alexander Prokhorenko, who died in March near Palmyra and was posthumously awarded the Hero of the Russian Federation honor. (Gazeta.ru, 12.13.16)
• German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande expressed horror regarding the Syrian government’s Russian-backed advance on Aleppo, with the French president blaming Russia for the humanitarian crisis there. On Dec. 15 Hollande accused Russia of reneging on its pledges in Syria, as the mayor of Aleppo appealed to Europe to send monitors to help ensure the safety of civilians. However, even as EU leaders prepared to roll over economic penalties imposed on Russia over Ukraine at their summit on Dec. 15, they sent divergent signals on whether to widen sanctions against the Kremlin in response to Russia’s bombing of civilians in Syria. (Bloomberg, 12.13.16, AP, 12.15.16, Bloomberg, 12.15.16)
• U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says the Syrian government’s bombardment of Aleppo amounts to "war crimes" and has called for the Syrian government’s allies, Russia and Iran, to help end it. Kerry also urged Russia on Dec. 10 to "show a little grace" in allowing civilians and opposition fighters to safely evacuate their fast-shrinking eastern Aleppo enclave, even as U.S. officials scrambled to figure out which rebels want to leave and which may insist on staying to fight on in a battle now effectively lost. (The Washington Post, 12.10.16, RFE/RL, 12.10.16)
• The United States is sending 200 additional troops to Syria, nearly doubling the Pentagon’s presence there, to help thousands of Kurdish and Arab fighters massing for an assault on Raqqa, where the Islamic State has a stronghold, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said on Dec. 10. (New York Times, 12.10.16)
• Not long after Palmyra fell to Islamic State fighters, the United States and Russia both scrambled warplanes on Dec. 14 to attack militant targets there. This was exactly the kind of scenario the Pentagon had feared: Russian and American fighters streaking toward each other in Syrian air space, raising the danger of a midair catastrophe. But it is also why the two countries, despite their disputes, set up a special hotline last year to help prevent disasters in the air. A look at how it works. (New York Times, 12.15.16)
• Last week, two top leaders of the Syrian civilian opposition quietly visited Washington to meet with lawmakers and experts with connections to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team. Their mission was as simple as it was urgent: to convince Trump that he needs Syria’s rebels as much as they need him. They also said that they want to help the Trump administration work with Russia and against the terrorists. (The Washington Post, 12.11.16)
• "I think the world will be in a different place, because the most important thing is the relation between Russia and the United States," said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, according to a transcript published by Russia Today. "If he [Trump] goes towards that relation, most of the tension around the world will be pacified. That's very important for us in Syria." (The Washington Post, 12.15.16)

Cyber security and allegations of Russia’s interference in U.S. elections:

• U.S. President Barack Obama on Dec. 16 blamed the “highest level of the Russian government” for cyber meddling in U.S. affairs, saying “not much happens in Russia” without the approval of President Vladimir Putin. He vowed retaliation in a “thoughtful, methodical” way that would not necessarily be publicized. Speaking a day earlier, Obama had said “we need to take action” and “we will.” His comments suggest the president may pursue either sanctions or a cyber response against Russia in his remaining weeks in office. The White House’s delayed response has been explained in part by Obama’s desire not to be blamed for politicizing intelligence. Asked earlier about the CIA’s assessment of Russian hacking in favor of Donald Trump, Obama had said this wasn't new information. He also noted that Russia's trying to influence elections goes back to the Soviet Union and that email hacking wasn't especially fancy espionage. There is a bigger issue, he said: "What is it about the state of our democracy where the leaks of what were frankly not very interesting emails, that didn't have any explosive information in them, ended up being an obsession? And the fact that the Russians were doing this was not an obsession?" (Financial Times, 12.16.16, Wall Street Journal, 12.16.16, The Washington Post, 12.15.16, New York Times, 12.14.16, The Washington Post, 12.13.16)
• U.S. intelligence officials now believe with "a high level of confidence" that Russian President Vladimir Putin became personally involved in the covert Russian campaign to interfere in the U.S. presidential election, senior U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News. Two senior officials with direct access to the information say new intelligence shows that Putin personally directed how hacked material from Democrats was leaked and otherwise used. The intelligence came from diplomatic sources and spies working for U.S. allies, the officials said. (NBC, 12.15.16)
• “This is amusing rubbish that has no basis in fact,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said of the Putin-related allegations on Dec. 15. “I think it’s clear that it’s stupid and absolutely pointless to try to convince anyone of this,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on the same topic.(Bloomberg, 12.15.16)
• U.S. President-elect Donald Trump returned to Twitter on the morning of Dec. 15, again questioning the CIA’s conclusion that Russia inserted itself into the election to help the Republican nominee win. “If Russia, or some other entity, was hacking, why did the White House wait so long to act? Why did they only complain after Hillary lost?” he tweeted. (New York Times, 12.15.16)
• FBI Director James Comey and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper Jr. are in agreement with a CIA assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election in part to help Donald Trump win the presidency, according to U.S. officials. Comey’s support for the CIA’s conclusion—and officials say that he never changed his position—suggests that the leaders of the three agencies are in agreement on Russian intentions, contrary to suggestions by some lawmakers that the FBI disagreed with the CIA. (The Washington Post, 12.16.16)
  • According to earlier reports, there was skepticism within the American government, particularly at the F.B.I., that the existing evidence adds up to proof that the Russians had the specific objective of getting Donald Trump elected president. A senior American law enforcement official said the F.B.I. believed that the Russians probably had a combination of goals, including damaging Hillary Clinton and undermining American democratic institutions. Whether one of those goals was to install Trump remains unclear to the F.B.I., he said. The F.B.I., which has both a law enforcement and an intelligence role, is held to higher standards of proof in examining people involved in the hacking because it has an eye toward eventual criminal prosecutions: "The FBI briefers think in terms of criminal standards—can we prove this in court," one of the officials said. "The CIA briefers weigh the preponderance of intelligence and then make judgment calls to help policymakers make informed decisions. High confidence for them means 'we're pretty damn sure.' It doesn't mean they can prove it in court." (New York Times, 12.11.16, The Washington Post, 12.10.16)

• Hillary Clinton said on Dec. 15 that the hacking attacks carried out by Russia against her campaign and the Democratic National Committee were intended “to undermine our democracy” and were ordered by President Vladimir Putin “because he has a personal beef against me.” (New York Times, 12.16.16)
• The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter.(The Washington Post, 12.12.16, The Washington Post, 12.09.16)
  • A Russia Matters round-up of this story is available in this week’s earlier special edition of Russia in Review.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman on Dec. 13 issued a blunt denial of U.S. allegations that the Kremlin intervened to help Donald Trump win the presidency, and expressed hope that Moscow will be able to "reset" its relationship with the new administration. In an interview with RT, Dmitry Peskov dismissed the notion that Moscow had aided Trump—or that it was interfering in other elections—as "absolute nonsense." (The Washington Post, 12.13.16)
• President-elect Donald Trump said in an interview broadcast on Dec. 11 that he did not believe American intelligence assessments that Russia had intervened to help his candidacy, casting blame for the reports on Democrats, who he said were embarrassed about losing to him. "I don't believe they interfered. … Any time I do something, they say, 'Oh, Russia interfered. It could be Russia. And it could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey. I think the Democrats are putting it out because they suffered one of the greatest defeats in the history of politics in this country,’” Trump said. His transition team said: “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s now time to move on and ‘Make America Great Again.’” (The Washington Post, 12.09.16, The Washington Post, 12.09.16, The Washington Post, 12.09.16. New York Times, 12.11.16, New York Times, 12.11.16)

• Obama's counterterrorism and homeland security adviser, Lisa Monaco said that the entry of a foreign power into a national election was a historic moment—a threat to the electoral system that would have to be addressed by future administrations. (The Washington Post, 12.09.16)
• Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said Congress will investigate the CIA's conclusions that the Russian government used computer hackers to help President-elect Donald Trump win the election. The Republican leader of the House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, also backed the idea of having his chamber's Intelligence Committee examine cyber threats to the U.S. electoral process. On Dec. 16, the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee said it will investigate “the cyber activity directed against our nation by the Russian Government, both as it regards the 2016 Election and more broadly.” (RFE/RL, 12.12.16, Buzzfeed, 12.16.16)
• Some key Republican lawmakers have continued to question the quality of evidence supporting Russian involvement. One of them is Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a member of the Trump transition team: "There's a lot of innuendo, lots of circumstantial evidence, that's it." Nunes sent a letter to National Intelligence Director James Clapper demanding to know why lawmakers weren’t told about conflicting reports on Russian hacking before the media. (The Washington Post, 12.12.16, The Washington Post, 12.09.16)
• John Bolton, a former UN ambassador reportedly being considered for deputy secretary of state in the Trump administration said: “It's not at all clear to me just viewing this from the outside that this hacking into the DNC and the RNC computers was not a false flag operation. The question that has to be asked is, why did the Russians run their smart intelligence service against Hillary's server but their dumb intelligence services against the election? … I do think it's critical to answer the question I posed: If you think the Russians did this, then why did they leave fingerprints?" (The Washington Post, 12.12.16)

• CIA briefers told U.S. senators in the week of Nov.27-Dec.3 that it was now “quite clear” that electing Donald Trump was Russia’s goal, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters. It is unclear why the CIA did not produce this formal assessment before the election, although several officials said that parts of it had been made available to President Obama in the weeks before the vote. The CIA presentation to senators about Russia's intentions fell short of a formal U.S. assessment produced by all 17 intelligence agencies. A senior U.S. official said there were minor disagreements among intelligence officials about the agency's assessment, in part because some questions remain unanswered. For example, intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin "directing" the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks, a second senior U.S. official said. Those actors, according to the official, were "one step" removed from the Russian government, rather than government employees. (The Washington Post, 12.09.16, The Washington Post, 12.09.16, New York Times, 12.11.16)
• Some American intelligence officials believe that Russia also penetrated databases housing Republican National Committee data, but chose to release documents only on the Democrats. The committee has repeatedly denied that it was hacked. RNC head Reince Priebus, who will be Trump's chief of staff in the White House, said: "The Russians didn't tell Hillary Clinton to ignore Wisconsin and Michigan. She lost because her ideas were bad. Donald Trump won in an electoral landslide that had nothing to do with the Russians." (The Washington Post, 12.11.16, RFE/RL, 12.11.16, New York Times, 12.11.16, New York Times, 12.10.16)
• Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) have said: "Recent reports of Russian interference in our election should alarm every American.” McCain, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Dec. 12 that there was “no doubt about the hacking” by Russian intelligence services into Democratic campaign accounts, which he called “another form of warfare.” Graham took issue with President-elect Donald Trump on Russian interference in the U.S. elections and disclosed that Moscow had hacked his campaign. (RFE/RL, 12.15.16, RFE/RL, 12.11.16, New York Times, 12.12.16, The Washington Post, 12.11.16)

• Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), a member of President-elect Donald Trump’s national security team has said: “Russia’s recent hacks and attacks should be a wake-up call and a call to action. There needs to be consequences to these actions. On the international stage, if we don’t respond and show them that there are consequences, the bad behavior will continue,” McCaul said. (Free Beacon, 12.07.16)
• Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said the public evidence alone made it clear that Moscow had intervened to help the “most ostentatiously pro-Russian candidate in history.” (New York Times, 12.11.16)
• Sen. James Lankford (Okla.) said: "Cybersecurity investigation of Russian interference can't be partisan.” (The Washington Post, 12.12.16)
• In August 2015 Russian hackers penetrated the highest levels of the U.S. military by seizing the email system used by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, their former chairman has revealed. General Martin Dempsey said it took the intruders just an hour to take over the unclassified email system used by the Pentagon's Joint Staff after a phishing email was opened by one of the 3,500 workers in the section. (The Independent, 12.16.16)
• A federal agency that helps select U.S. voting systems may have been breached by a Russian-speaking hacker. The FBI is investigating. (The Hill, 12.16.16)
• In the course of the 2016 election campaign in Florida a handful of Democratic House candidates became targets of a Russian influence operation that made thousands of pages of documents stolen by hackers from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in Washington available to Florida reporters and bloggers. (New York Times, 12.15.16)
• The Russians’ first major attack was detected on Oct. 7, 1996, when a computer operator at the Colorado School of Mines discovered some nighttime computer activity he could not explain. Investigators gave it a name—Moonlight Maze—and spent two years, often working day and night, tracing how it hopped from the Navy to the Department of Energy to the Air Force and NASA. In the end, they concluded that the total number of files stolen, if printed and stacked, would be taller than the Washington Monument. (New York Times, 12.13.16)
• A new poll by YouGov finds a majority of Republicans viewing the WikiLeaks organization favorably. In the summer of 2013, WikiLeaks was viewed more negatively than positively by Republicans by a 47-point margin; Democrats, by a 3-point margin, also viewed it negatively. Now, Republicans view WikiLeaks favorably by a 27-point margin, a 74-point swing; Democrats have swung against it by just 25 points. (Bloomberg, 12.14.16)

• U.S. national Joshua Aaron, whom U.S. prosecutors have accused of organizing the largest known cyberattack on Wall Street, has been deported from Russia to the United States. (RFE/RL, 12.15.16)
• Moscow is to launch the second stage of a facial recognition experiment that will work on the identification of individuals using street cameras. (RBTH, 12.12.16)

Energy exports from CIS:

• President Vladimir Putin has warned German Chancellor Angela Merkel of a threat to the gas supplies that Russia sends to Europe via Ukraine, the Kremlin said on Dec. 13. Putin told Merkel in a telephone call that Ukraine has been reluctant to sign a contract on Russian gas supplies for the coming winter and that it "threatens transit to Europe." Moscow has warned that Ukraine could siphon off Russian gas intended for European consumers. (RFE/RL, 12.14.16)
• The price of oil soared on world markets after a landmark deal by Russia and other non-OPEC members in which they agreed to reduce their production in a bid to slash the huge supplies of oil that had lowered prices. The U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate was up $2.28 at $53.78 per barrel early on December 12 while Brent crude was up $2.29 at $56.62 per barrel. (RFE/RL, 12.12.16)
• Russia’s Rosneft has agreed to pay as much as $2.8 billion to buy up to 35% of a natural-gas project off Egypt, joining Eni and BP in the largest discovery in the Mediterranean Sea. (Bloomberg, 12.12.16)

Bilateral economic ties:

• No significant developments.

Other bilateral issues:

• Vladimir Putin said that he was "ready at any moment" to meet with Donald Trump. However, he said that "it seems to me that it's necessary to give the president-elect a chance to put together his administration and take office." (RFE/RL, 12.13.16)
• U.S. President-elect Donald Trump touted Rex Tillerson, his pick to become secretary of state, as a "great diplomat" who will "reverse years of foreign policy blunders" while being a "fierce advocate" for U.S. interests. "Rex is friendly with many of the leaders in the world that we don't get along with, and some people don't like that," Trump said, adding: "We need a new direction. … Instead of jumping recklessly from one intervention to another, my administration will build a long-term strategy for stability, prosperity, peace and rebuilding our own country." (RFE/RL, 12.14.16)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman has praised Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson as a professional and shrugged off suggestions that Tillerson’s ties with Russia and Putin might affect his conduct if he becomes U.S. secretary of state. Other Russian officials—including Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and presidential aide Yuri Ushakov—likewise welcomed the nomination. Ushakov said Tillerson had “good relations” with Putin and that Putin and other officials see him as a “solid and very professional person.” (RFE/RL, 12.12.16, TASS, 12.15.16, The Moscow Times, 12.13.16)
• Rex Tillerson’s nomination for secretary of state faces bipartisan resistance in Congress over his ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Republicans will control 52 seats in the Senate to 48 held by Democrats and the two independents who caucus with them. That means Tillerson can lose no more than two GOP votes in the Senate if all Democrats oppose him. (Wall Street Journal, 12.13.16, Wall Street Journal, 12.11.16)
• Rex Tillerson visited the White House repeatedly as sanctions were imposed on Russia in 2014 to make sure his company’s competitors didn’t gain an edge in the way they were enforced. (Bloomberg, 12.12.16)
• Speaking to the Committee of 100 on Dec. 14, Henry Kissinger dismissed criticism that Rex Tillerson’s work winning contracts with Russia for Exxon disqualifies him for the State Department job: “I pay no attention to the argument that he is too friendly to Russia," Kissinger said. "As head of Exxon it’s his job to get along with Russia. He would be useless as the head of Exxon if he did not have a working relationship with Russia.” (Bloomberg, 12.14.16)
• President-elect Donald Trump was three weeks into his search for a secretary of state when former Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived at his New York office for a private talk. The former Pentagon chief offered a name that was on no one's radar, and one whose company happened to be one of his clients: Exxon Mobil Corp. head Rex Tillerson. Four days later, Trump held his first interview with Tillerson and was "blown away," a transition official said, adding: "That sort of reshuffled the deck." Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also talked up Tillerson as a top executive and as the "best in that breed." (Financial Times, 12.14.16, Wall Street Journal, 12.14.16)
• Senate Democrats are powerless to stop Donald Trump from easing sanctions against Russia after he takes office. Incoming White House chief of staff Reince Priebus on Dec. 13 declined to say whether Trump would keep them in place, telling MSNBC that “you have to just wait and see.” The best-known vehicle for Democrats to push Trump on sanctions is a bipartisan bill that passed the House in September. It would convert sanctions set up in 2014 into laws, making them harder for any president to undo while Putin maintains his annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. (Politico, 12.13.16)
• Iconic computer font Times New Roman has become the latest victim of Western sanctions against Russia, the Kommersant newspaper reported Dec. 12. (The Moscow Times, 12.12.16)
• Stephen Bannon, the alt-right ideologue tapped to be a senior adviser in Donald Trump's White House, praised VladimirPutin's ethno-nationalism in a 2014 speech. While not condoning what he deemed Putin's "kleptocracy," Bannon told a gathering of European conservatives that "we, the Judeo-Christian West, really have to look at what [Putin]'s talking about as far as traditionalism goes—particularly the sense of where it supports the underpinnings of nationalism." (The Washington Post, 12.14.16)
• A new poll by YouGov finds that there's been a 56-point positive shift among Republicans in their views of Putin; his net negative rating is now just 10 points. While Clinton voters view Putin negatively by 72 points, Trump voters do so by a slim 16-point margin. In the summer of 2014, his net negative rating with Democrats was 54 points; with Republicans, it was 66 points. (Bloomberg, 12.14.16)

II. Russia’s domestic news

Politics, economy and energy:

• President Vladimir Putin has again floated the idea of amending Russia’s draconian “foreign agent” law for non-profits, asking his government to review propositions that could lighten its impact on muzzled environmental organizations. (Bellona, 12.12.16)
• Prominent Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny has announced he intends to run for president in March 2018, potentially setting up a contest against longtime leader Vladimir Putin. (RFE/RL, 12.13.16)
• About 20 allies of murdered Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov have broken off from their People’s Freedom Party, or PARNAS, led by ex-prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov. (Vedomosti, in Russian, 12.16.16)
• Only 16% of polled Russians told the Levada Center that Russia should have a special path and a special state apparatus for developing the country, down from 24% the previous year. (The Moscow Times, 12.12.16)
• "The Soviet Union cannot be restored," Mikhail Gorbachev has said. "But a new Union can be established." (The Washington Post, 12.13.16)
• When it comes to fundamentals in emerging markets, China is on a downward slide, while Russia is making a comeback. That’s according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s latest ranking of developing-nation economies based on financial stability scores for everything from growth and inflation to fiscal vulnerability. Russia overtook China for the first time since the ranking began in 2009, to sit closely behind South Korea in second place. (Bloomber, 12.14.16)
• A Moscow district court has seized property owned by Alexei Ulyukaev, the former economy minister who is under house arrest following his on bribery accusations last month. (Financial Times, 12.16.16)
• The Moscow Arbitration Court ruled on Dec. 12 that the RBC media company must pay 390,000 rubles ($6,375) in damages to Rosneft. It must also publish a retraction of an article it wrote about the state-controlled oil company's CEO, Igor Sechin. (The Moscow Times, 12.12.16)

Defense and aerospace:

• Vladimir Shamanov, chairman of the defense committee in Russia’s lower house of parliament, says Russia will draw on the checkered recent experience of its only aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, when it builds a new carrier. (RFE/RL, 12.14.16)
• Russia has carried out a test of a revolutionary unmanned nuclear submarine, according to U.S. intelligence sources. U.S. intelligence agencies said the submarines, given the code name “Kanyon” by the Pentagon, would be equipped with the largest nuclear weapons in existence. (The Independent, 12.10.16)

Security, law enforcement and justice:

• Russian law enforcement officials claim to have identified 3,000 foreign drug dealers who have attempted to enter Russia as migrant laborers in the past year. (The Moscow Times, 12.14.16)
• The owner of Volgograd Steel Works Red October Dmitry Gerasimenko has been detained in Cyprus on charges of fraud, the Kommersant newspaper reported Dec. 15.Russia’s Interior Ministry suspects Gerasimenko’s involvement in the theft of a $65 million loan from VTB Bank. (The Moscow Times, 12.15.16)
• Soviet-era dissident Vladimir Bukovsky went on trial in Britain on Dec. 12 on charges of creating and possessing indecent images of children. Though he denies the charges against him, he told the court he collected the images as “a hobby,” after researching issues of internet censorship. Bukovsky earlier told the New York Times that “he was the victim of … kompromat, the fabrication and planting of compromising or illegal material,” ostensibly by Russian security services. The trial has been adjourned until Jan. 19 after Bukovsky, 73, was taken to the hospital with pneumonia. (RFE/RL, 12.12.16, BBC, 12.12.16, New York Times, 12.09.16, BBC, 12.14.16)

III. Foreign affairs, trade and investment

General developments and relations with “far abroad” countries:

• German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande backed extending economic sanctions against Russia, citing a lack of progress on ending the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine. Leaders of the 28 EU governments meeting Dec. 15 in Brussels are expected to approve extending the sanctions, which expire on Jan. 31 unless they’re renewed. The measures, which target Russia’s finance, energy and defense industries among others, were imposed in 2014 in response to Russia’s backing for rebels in Ukraine. During their meeting the EU leaders also discussed a special statement Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte is trying to secure in the hope that it will enable the Netherlands to ratify an agreement on EU-Ukraine political and trade ties despite its rejection by Dutch voters in an April referendum. (Bloomberg, 12.13.16, RFE/RL, 12.15.16)
• European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini expressed skepticism that the U.S. would strike a grand bargain with Russia on issues like Ukraine and Syria, cutting the Europeans out. She said Republican lawmakers "might be more worried than the Europeans" about the incoming president's plans to improve ties with President Vladimir Putin. (Wall Street Journal, 12.14.16)
• The leaders of Russia and Japan began talks at a summit in western Japan on Dec. 15 on a territorial dispute that has divided their countries for 70 years. “We had in-depth discussions on a peace treaty,” Abe told reporters. On Dec. 16 Tokyo announced bilateral economic deals worth ¥300 billion ($2.5 billion) in sectors such as energy, health care and transport. The two sides also said they may expand visa-free travel for Japanese former residents of the islands and agreed on a joint study into the possibility of joint economic development of the territory. Moreover, Japan and Russia will create a $1 billion fund to invest in joint energy and infrastructure projects over the next five years. (AP, 12.15.16, Wall Street Journal, 12.16.16, The Washington Post, 12.16.16)
• Japan may allow U.S. military bases on two islands in the southern Kuril chain should the islands once again come under Tokyo’s governance. According to the Japanese newspaper Asahi, the idea was raised in a Nov. 9 meeting in Moscow with the General Secretary of Japan’s Security Council Shotaro Yachi and Russian Security Council Head Nikolai Patrushev. (The Moscow Times, 12.14.16)
• Amid rising tensions between Serbia and Croatia, Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic has said that Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic will visit Moscow later this month to discuss the possible donation of four MiG-29 jets and other unspecified military equipment. (RFE/RL, 12.13.16)
• Sweden’s strategic Baltic Sea island of Gotland has turned down a Russian request to rent harbor space after the government warned it could harm the Scandinavian country’s defense and political interests. (AP, 12.15.16)
• New strict instructions from the EU are forcing European nations to refer to Crimea as an "annexed" peninsula, Russia's Foreign Minister has claimed. (The Moscow Times, 12.13.16)
• A group of intelligence experts, including a former head of MI6, has cut ties with fellow academics at Cambridge university, because of concerns over what they fear could be a Kremlin-backed operation to compromise the group. (Financial Times, 12.16.16)

Ukraine:

• Ukraine's Defense Ministry says its website was temporarily knocked out of service by cyberattacks that appeared to be aimed at preventing the release of news about Kiev’s conflict with Russia-backed separatists in the country’s east. Ukrainian authorities are also still looking for culprits nearly a week after troublesome cyberattacks against official financial institutions that appeared to be designed to inflict maximum chaos on end-of-the-year payments. On Dec. 16 media reported cyber breaches at Ukraine’s Infrastructure Ministry and State Aviation Service; other attacks this month have reportedly hit Ukraine’s railways, treasury department, Finance Ministry and Pension Fund. (RFE/RL, 12.13.16, RFE/RL, 12.12.16, NewsRu, in Russian, 12.16.16)
• Alexander Hug, deputy chief of the OSCE's monitoring mission to Ukraine, has said: “The conflict in the east is far from frozen, it's the opposite. Weapons are moving, troops are moving and there are ceasefire violations. We can only see a fraction of what is happening, we see the tip of a large, dangerous iceberg. The situation is static but unpredictable, very volatile and very kinetic.” (DW, 12.12.16)
• President-elect Donald Trump will encounter sharp opposition in Congress from both parties if he seeks to cut a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin that jeopardizes Ukraine’s sovereignty or the security of NATO allies in Eastern Europe, Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware said on Dec. 9. (Foreign Policy, 12.09.16)
• A Dec. 15 vote in the European Parliament has brought the goal of visa-free travel to EU Schengen Zone countries one big step closer to reality for citizens of Ukraine and Georgia. The parliament approved a mechanism that would allow for the suspension of visa-free regimes with Ukraine and Georgia under certain circumstances once they are in place. (RFE/RL, 12.15.16)
• A Dutch court has ruled that a collection of gold artifacts from Crimea that were on loan to a Dutch museum when Russia occupied the peninsula must be returned to Ukraine. (RFE/RL, 12.14.16)

Russia’s other post-Soviet neighbors:

• Former parliament speaker Vadim Krasnoselski was declared the winner of the presidential vote in Moldova's breakaway territory of Transnistria held Dec. 12 with 62% of the ballot. Incumbent President Evgeniy Shevchuk came second with 28%. Both men enjoy close ties to Russian power circles. (Wall Street Journal, 12.14.16)
• The European Council has prolonged the mandate of an EU monitoring mission established after the 2008 war between Georgia and Russia for another two years. (RFE/RL, 12.12.16)
• The State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament, has ratified an agreement between Russia and Armenia on creating a regional united air defense system. (TASS, 12.14.16)
• Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko approved the draft of an international agreement on the participation of Belarusian Special Forces units in counter-terrorism operations on Russian territory. (The Moscow Times, 12.12.16)
• Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev has held talks with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Astana. Several documents related to visa-free travel, aviation communications, agricultural cooperation, anticorruption efforts and other issues were signed after the discussions.(RFE/RL, 12.14.16
• Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev has enacted an amnesty for tens of thousands of people who are behind bars in the Central Asian nation. (RFE/RL, 12.13.16)
• France's highest administrative court has canceled an extradition order to send Kazakh tycoon and opposition leader Mukhtar Ablyazov to Russia. (RFE/RL, 12.09.16)
• The Georgian Prosecutor-General's Office has charged one man and opened a criminal case against a second in connection with the so-called "photographers' case," in which four photojournalists were found guilty of spying for Russia. (RFE/RL, 12.12.16)

News items for this digest curated by Simon Saradzhyan, director of the Russia Matters Project.