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

Nuclear security:

• No significant developments.

Iran’s nuclear program and related issues:

• No significant developments.

Military issues, including NATO-Russia relations:

• Standing with the president of Romania last week, U.S. President Donald Trump at last confirmed his commitment to NATO’s mutual defense pact, Article 5. Trump said he was “committing the United States to Article 5.” Trump will visit NATO ally Poland before he heads to Germany for the Group of 20 (G20) summit in July. (AP, 06.10.17, RFE/RL, 06.09.17)
• U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis declared North Korea the “most urgent and dangerous threat to peace and security.” However, Mattis still identified Russia as a threat, along with China, Iran and terrorist organizations. Russia and China, he said, are both “resurgent and more aggressive” and have placed the “international order under assault.” Mattis said there was no indication that Russia wanted a positive relationship with the United States, saying it had chosen to be a strategic competitor. (The Washington Post, 06.12.17, Reuters, 06.12.17)
• The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff says Russia is "each and every day" undermining the credibility of the U.S. commitment to NATO and its ability to respond to the alliance. (RFE/RL, 06.15.17)
• Britain’s defense minister Michael Fallon said on June 15 that Russian aggression toward NATO is increasing and the alliance was right to have agreed to a “very high readiness taskforce.” (AP, 06.15.17)

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms control:

• No significant developments.

Counter-terrorism:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused the U.S. of supporting the most violent insurgency in post-Soviet Russia, during an interview with American director Oliver Stone. Putin did not say at which point he thought the West had backed the “terrorists.” However, he seemed to endorse a theory frequently espoused by the current Chechen regional leader, who switched allegiances during the conflict to join Moscow’s ranks, that the U.S. was enmeshed in the conflict. (Newsweek, 06.13.17)

Conflict in Syria:

• Russia is verifying intelligence that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed near Raqqa, Syria, during a bombing raid conducted by its forces in May, Russia’s Defense Ministry said. Al-Baghdadi could be among some 30 Islamic State commanders killed in an attack on a meeting of the group in the early hours of May 28, the ministry said. Russian President Vladimir Putin has chaired a meeting of his security council to discuss the Russian military’s claim. A spokesman for the U.S.-led anti-Islamic State coalition said: “We cannot confirm these reports at this time.” (Bloomberg, 06.16.17, AP, 06.16.17)
• The U.S. military has moved mobile artillery-rocket launchers into southern Syria for the first time, as American troops in the area face increasing dangers from Iran-backed forces. Iran's best-known military commander, meanwhile, was photographed praying with allied fighters in Syria, a visit seen by some U.S. officials as a public taunt by Tehran. Worried that the situation may spiral out of control, top U.S. military commanders are pressing Moscow to step in. (Wall Street Journal, 06.15.17)
• Russia has demanded that the U.S. stop attacking forces that support the Syrian government as they overtake positions held by the Islamic State militant group on the country's border with Iraq. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reportedly made the comments June 10 on a phone call with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, responding to three U.S. air strikes in the past few weeks against forces battling ISIS and other insurgent groups on behalf of Russian-backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. (Newsweek, 06.12.17)
• Officials from the United States and Russia are quietly holding talks on creating a "de-escalation" zone in Syria, Western diplomats and regional officials say. The U.S. and Russian special envoys to Syria, Michael Ratney and Aleksandr Lavrentiev, and other officials have met at least twice in the past two weeks and will meet again. (RFE/RL, 06.10.17)
• Maps of de-escalation areas and security zones on Syria are ready, the approval process is nearly complete, Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi, chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff, said last week. A U.N. investigative commission for Syria said on June 14 that last month’s “de-escalation” agreement has reduced violence in only one of the four zones included in the deal and has not led to greater humanitarian access to besieged areas. (Interfax, 06.09.17, AP, 06.14.17)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin told a call-in show on June 15 that the Russian military has gained “priceless” experience in Syria. The experience allowed engineers to polish weapons designs and has given a “new quality” to the Russian military, he said. (AP, 06.15.17)
• The Russian navy is beefing up its Mediterranean presence. Recently, it announced its intent to increase the contingent from 10 to 15 ships. (Russian Defense Policy,  06.12.17)
• Intensified airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition have caused a "staggering" loss of civilian life around the Islamic State's Syrian stronghold of Raqqa, a United Nations investigator said June 14. (The Washington Post, 06.14.17)
• U.S.-backed Syrian militias advanced deeper into the Islamic State’s Syrian stronghold of Raqqa from the east on June 12, reaching the walls of the Old City, a war monitor and a militia spokesman said June 12. (AP, 06.12.17)

Cyber security:

• Russia’s cyberattack on the U.S. electoral system before Donald Trump’s election was far more widespread than has been publicly revealed, including incursions into voter databases and software systems in almost twice as many states as previously reported. In all, the Russian hackers hit systems in a total of 39 states, according to a person with direct knowledge of the U.S. investigation into the matter. A top Texas elections official says Russian hackers attempted to access voter registration rolls in Dallas County before November's presidential election. (Bloomberg, 06.13.17, AP, 06.16.17)
• Hackers allied with the Russian government have devised a cyber weapon that has the potential to be the most disruptive yet against electric systems that Americans depend on for daily life, according to U.S. researchers. The malware, which researchers have dubbed CrashOverride, is known to have disrupted only one energy system—in Ukraine in December. In that incident, the hackers briefly shut down one-fifth of the electric power generated in Kiev. (The Washington Post, 06.12.17)
• The Russian Defense Ministry has drawn up a draft law allowing it to ban soldiers from posting certain personal data on social networks, something that reporters and researchers have used in the past to monitor Russia's activities in Syria and Ukraine. (Reuters, 06.14.17)

Russia’s alleged interference in U.S. elections:

• U.S. President Donald Trump appeared to confirm June 16 that he is under investigation for obstruction of justice, claiming that he is being investigated for firing FBI Director James Comey by the man who told him to do it. “I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt,” the president wrote in his tweet. It wasn't clear whether the president was basing his tweet on direct knowledge that he is under investigation, or on reports this week that special counsel Robert Mueller is examining whether the president obstructed justice by firing Comey last month amid the ongoing Russia investigation. A bipartisan Senate Judiciary Committee is also probing Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey. (AP, 06.16.17, Bloomberg, 06.16.17)
• Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, plans to interview Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers about whether U.S. President Donald Trump sought their help to get the FBI to back off a related probe of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, according to three people familiar with the inquiry.  Trump's reaction to the new turn in Mueller's inquiry came early on June 15 in the form of a tweet. "They made up a phony collusion with the Russians story, found zero proof, so now they go for obstruction of justice on the phony story. Nice," Trump wrote. Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Trump's personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, denounced the revelation in a statement. (Bloomberg, 06.14.17,  Wall Street Journal, 06.14.17)
• The leaders of the House of Representatives intelligence committee's investigation of Russia and the 2016 U.S. election said last week they had written to former FBI director James Comey to request any notes or memoranda related to discussions with U.S. President Donald Trump. The U.S. Secret Service says it does not have any audio recordings or transcripts of U.S. President Donald Trump's White House conversations. Trump suggested last month after firing former FBI Director James Comey that he had recorded their private conversations. (RFE/RL, 06.13.17, Reuters, 06.09.17)
• U.S. Vice President Mike Pence has hired outside legal counsel to help with both congressional committee inquiries and the special counsel investigation into possible collusion between U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia. (AP, 06.15.17)
• U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said he never spoke with Russian officials concerning “any type of interference” with the 2016 presidential campaign and called any suggestion he colluded with Russia during the election an “appalling and detestable lie.” Sessions also defended himself against Democratic allegations that he gave misleading testimony about his contacts with Russian officials during his confirmation hearing. “That is false,” Sessions said. (Bloomberg, 06.13.17)
  • Sessions said he learned after the fact that Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak was at a reception held in conjunction with a foreign policy speech then-candidate Trump gave at Washington’s Mayflower Hotel in April 2016 that Sessions attended. However, Sessions said he does not remember Kislyak being there and has no recollection of interacting with him at the event. Sessions has acknowledged two other exchanges with the ambassador, yet his failure to initially disclose those encounters during his confirmation hearing helped prompt his recusal from the Russia probe. (Bloomberg, 06.13.17)
  • White House representative Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump was not able to watch much of Sessions’ testimony but from what he did see and hear, thought the attorney general “did a very good job.” (Bloomberg, 06.13.17)
  • Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico repeatedly said Sessions’ answers amounted to “obstructing” the congressional probe and his refusal to answer was without justification. In a response to Maine independent Sen. Angus King, the attorney general suggested he wanted to keep the president’s options open. (Bloomberg, 06.13.17)
  • National Security Agency chief Mike Rogers met behind closed doors on June 12 with the Senate Intelligence Committee, one day before Sessions was to appear publicly before the panel to explain his role in the firing of FBI Director James Comey and contacts that he and associates of Trump had with Russian officials. (Bloomberg, 06.12.17)
  • Russian State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin said that Western sanctions against Russia and Belarus are the result of its contempt towards ethnic Slavs, the Interfax news agency reported June 14. “The is no foundation [for this dislike],” said Volodin. “You have to ask them why they so genetically dislike [Slavic] peoples.” (The Moscow Times, 06.14.17)
• Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy, who is friend of U.S. President Donald Trump, says Trump is considering “terminating” special counsel Robert Mueller. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told a congressional panel on June 13 that he would not follow an order to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller if he deemed it illegal. (AP, 06.12.17, Wall Street Journal, 06.13.17)
  • During his testimony, Attorney General Jeff Sessions was pressed on whether he has confidence in special counsel Robert Mueller, who was appointed to lead the Russia probe and is still building his investigative team. Sessions said he did, though he added that he has “no idea” if Trump does since he is not kept abreast of the probe. In testimony earlier on June 13 to a different Senate subcommittee, Rosenstein clarified that only he, not the president, can fire the special counsel. He said there would need to be “good cause” to dismiss Mueller. (Bloomberg, 06.13.17)
  • White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters on Air Force One that Trump doesn’t plan to remove Robert Mueller. “While the president has the right to, he has no intention to do so,” she said. (Bloomberg, 06.13.17)
• In a statement, Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, wrote that “Americans should exercise caution before accepting as true any stories attributed to anonymous ‘officials.’” Rosenstein’s statement followed two articles by The Washington Post, including one saying that Robert Mueller’s investigation had widened to include whether Trump committed obstruction of justice. (New York Times, 06.16.17)
• Senators asked U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis about the alleged Russian meddling in last year’s U.S. presidential election. On Russia, Mattis said: “This sort of misbehavior has got to face consequences, and not just by the United States but more broadly.” He added that the Trump administration is working on a comprehensive cyber defense strategy, but in the meantime, the U.S. has enough understanding of Russia’s cyber actions to defend against them. (AP, 06.13.17)
• Referring to Russia’s role in last year’s presidential race, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said June 14 that he agrees “with the sentiment that has been conveyed by several members from both parties that Russia must be held accountable for its meddling in U.S. elections.” (Bloomberg, 06.14.17)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin joked that he’s willing to offer former FBI Director James Comey asylum, comparing him to Edward Snowden, the ex-National Security Agency contractor who took refuge in Russia after being accused in the U.S. of leaking classified information. (Bloomberg, 06.15.17)

Energy exports from CIS:

• No significant developments.

Bilateral economic ties:

• No significant developments.

Other bilateral issues:

• The U.S. Senate voted 98-2 on June 15 to approve a sweeping sanctions bill that punishes Iran and Russia. The measure calls for strengthening current Russia sanctions and imposing new ones on a broad range of people, including Russians engaged in corruption, individuals responsible for human rights abuses and anyone supplying weapons to Assad. Broad new sanctions would be imposed on Russia’s mining, metals, shipping and railways sectors. The bill would also put into law sanctions previously established by Obama’s executive orders, including some on Russian energy projects. The bill stipulated mandatory sanctions on any “person” (i.e., individual or entity) “that engages in a significant transaction with a person that is part of, or operates for or on behalf of, the defense or intelligence sectors of the Government of the Russian Federation.” At the same time the bill allows NASA to continue using Russian-made rocket engines. The bill also brings energy projects in which Russian companies are involved—regardless of where they are located—under the purview of sanctions, and it requires the U.S. government to impose sanctions on foreign firms that make significant investments in next-generation Russian oil projects. While most sanctions in the Senate bill are mandatory, one important measure is discretionary: sanctions on investment in the construction of Russian energy export pipelines. (RFE/RL, 06.16.17, AP, 06.15.17,  Euroactiv, 06.16.17, Atlantic Council, 06.14.17)
  • Existing sanctions against Russia are already effective, the White House said on June 15, after the U.S. Senate voted nearly unanimously for legislation to impose new sanctions on Moscow. (Reuters, 06.15.17)
  • U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has sounded deeply skeptical of such legislation. He said June 14 that Russia should be held accountable for interference in the 2016 campaign but argued that Congress shouldn't tie the president's hands when it comes to applying or lifting sanctions. (Dow Jones, 06.15.17)
  • Germany and Austria said the new punitive measures could expose European companies involved in projects in Russia to fines. This could include the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project. “We cannot accept a threat of extraterritorial sanctions, illegal under international law, against European companies that participate in developing European energy supplies," German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel and Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern said in their statement. (Dow Jones, 06.15.17, Euroactiv, 06.16.17)
  • The European Union on June 16 stressed the need to coordinate with Washington after the U.S. Senate proposed new sanctions against Russia. (Reuters, 06.16.17)
  • Russian President Vladimir Putin told a call-in show on June 15 that the U.S. Senate move to tighten sanctions against Moscow is part of efforts to contain Russia. He described the allegations of Russian meddling in the U.S. election as a reflection of “exacerbating political infighting.” Putin also said that Russia would remove its sanctions on other countries if they removed their sanctions imposed on Moscow. The Kremlin takes an extremely negative view of the proposed new U.S. sanctions, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. (Reuters, 06.15.17, AP, 06.15.17, Reuters, 06.16.17)
  • Gazprom sees no impact from U.S. curbs on Nord Stream 2. Nord Stream 2 is a European project, developed in partnership with European companies that had already provided funding before the latest U.S. bill was approved, according to Alexander Medvedev, the deputy chief executive officer of Gazprom. The project is in compliance with all existing EU regulations, he said. (Bloomberg, 06.15.17)
• U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on June 13 the U.S. relationship with Russia was at an all-time low and the administration was aiming to bring stability to ties: "We have a large placemat of difficult issues with the Russians … our relationship's at an all-time low, and it's been deteriorating further. Our objective is to stabilize that,” he said in the Senate. (Reuters, 06.13.17)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin has voiced hope for normalizing Russia-U.S. ties. Speaking in a live call-in show with the nation June 15, Putin said Moscow and Washington could cooperate in efforts to prevent the proliferation of mass destruction weapons, including the North Korean nuclear and missile problem. He said the two countries could also cooperate in dealing with global poverty and efforts to prevent climate change. Putin also noted that Moscow hopes that the U.S. could play a “constructive role” in helping settle the Ukrainian crisis. (AP, 06.15.17)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman is taking issue with White House criticism of the arrests of hundreds of opposition protesters. White House press secretary Sean Spicer on June 12 said the United States “strongly condemns the detention of hundreds of peaceful protesters,” which he described as an “affront to core democratic values.” But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said June 13 that “We do not agree with such a statement of the question.” (AP, 06.13.17)

II. Russia’s domestic news

Politics, economy and energy:

• “First, I am still in the office,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in response to a question about his potential successor during his annual call-in show on June 15. He then said that only voters could decide who will lead a town, a region or the country. The Russian president did not specify when Russians would select his successor, in 2018 or 2024. (The Moscow Times, 06.16.17)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin told a call-in show on June 15 Russia will pour resources into the development of its vast Arctic region for both economic and military reasons. Putin said the Arctic region would account for an increasing share of energy output and determine the nation’s future. Putin added that a military presence in the Arctic region is also essential for ensuring Russia’s security. (AP, 06.15.17)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin told a call-in show on June 15 that Russia’s economy has overcome a recession. Putin also promised to halt spiraling poverty and ensure people were properly paid. The number of people living below the poverty line rose to 23.4 million last year, up from 15.5 million in 2013, according to the World Bank. (AP, 06.15.17, Reuters, 05.16.17)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin told a call-in show on June 15 that he would allow Moscow’s City Hall to pull down Soviet-era apartment blocks and relocate 1.6 million people. A bill outlining Moscow authorities' controversial demolition program passed its third, and final, reading in the State Duma on June 14. The demolition plans have sparked widespread protests in the city in recent months. (The Moscow Times, 06.14.17, AP, 06.15.17)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin told a call-in show on June 15 that he is willing to work with all politicians who want to help people’s lives, but has dismissed unnamed opposition leaders for “exploiting” Russia’s economic difficulties. (AP, 06.15.17)
• More than 1,000 people were detained across Russia on June 12 as part of the latest wave of anti-corruption protests. According to figures from Russian police watchdog OVD-Info, 866 protesters were detained in Moscow on June 12. Hundreds were arrested in St. Petersburg during similar anti-corruption protests, OVD-Info reported. (The Moscow Times, 06.12.17)
• The Kremlin on June 13 dismissed criticism of the tough police response to demonstrations in Moscow and St. Petersburg that led to hundreds of arrests June 12, and shrugged off the notion that the protest movement spearheaded by anti-corruption crusader Alexei Navalny posed any political threat. (The Washington Post, 06.13.17)
• Former members of Ukraine's special forces, known as Berkut, were sighted working as OMON riot police at the anti-corruption protests in Russia, reported Ukrainian news outlet LB.ua. (The Moscow Times, 06.12.17)
• The ombudsman of Russia's second-largest city, St. Petersburg, has accused city authorities of "provoking" unsanctioned protests. Aleksandr Shishlov wrote on his website that "hundreds of people, including teenagers, journalists, observers and other people who did not impose any social threat" were detained during the anticorruption protests in the city on June 12. (RFE/RL, 06.14.17)
• Two men from Chechnya have told Reuters they were detained by police and subjected to torture and beatings because they were gay, which is considered a crime by some in their deeply conservative region of Russia. (Reuters, 06.14.17)
• Independent Russian news outlet RBC has been bought by oligarch Grigory Berezkin. (The Moscow Times, 06.16.17)
• The Bank of Russia decided to cut its key interest rate to 9.00% per annum. (TASS, 06.16.17)

Defense and aerospace:

• Russia’s space agency says an unmanned cargo ship has been launched en route to the International Space Station. (AP, 06.14.17)
• Russia has destroyed all of its stockpiles of the chemical warfare agent sarin, Col. Gen. Valery Kapashin, the chief of the Federal Directorate for Safe Storage and Destruction of Chemical Weapons, said on June 12. (Interfax, 06.13.17)
• The Russian Ground Forces have started to receive a new modernized version of the Msta-S self-propelled artillery piece. (The National Interest, 06.15.17)

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• A top official for the Russian government’s nanotechnology promotion arm has been detained on fraud charges. The state Investigative Committee announced the arrest of Andrei Gorkov on June 10. He is the managing director for investment of Rusnano. (AP, 06.10.17)
• A gunman who killed at least four people in a village southeast of Moscow has been shot dead in a firefight with security personnel, Russian state media report. (RFE/RL, 06.11.17)
• Lom-Ali Gaitukayev, the man convicted of organizing the 2006 killing of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, has died in prison. (AP, 06.13.17)
• A senior U.K. police officer did not pursue the possibility that a businessman was killed by Russian gangs because he did not want the investigation going off on "a tangent," an inquest has heard. Alexander Perepilichnyy, 44, collapsed and died while jogging near his home in Weybridge, Surrey, in November 2012. Perepilichnyy had been helping an investment firm uncover a £150m Russian money-laundering operation. (BBC, 06.14.17)

III. Foreign affairs, trade and investment

Russia’s general foreign policy and relations with “far abroad” countries:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Arabia's King Salman discussed the Qatar crisis in a phone call on June 13. Putin warned King Salman that the blockade against Qatar by its neighbors would make it harder to reach a peaceful end to the war in Syria. Russia’s foreign minister told his counterpart from Qatar on June 10 that Moscow will make efforts to try to resolve the escalating crisis between Qatar and several Arab countries. (AP, 06.10.17, Aljazeera, 06.13.17, Reuters, 06.13.17)
• Russia's State Atomic Energy Corporation (Rosatom) won approval from Turkey's energy watchdog on June 15 to go ahead with building its $20 billion Akkuyu nuclear power plant in southern Turkey. (Reuters, 06.15.17)
• German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said any Russian interference in his country’s election in September would weaken already strained ties between the two countries. (Bloomberg, 06.15.17)
• U.S. congressional investigators want to know what ex-CIA operative Joseph Assad was doing in Montenegro last fall at the time of an alleged Russian-backed coup plot against NATO's newest member. Montenegrin officials said they are investigating whether Assad was hired to help the alleged perpetrators. (Wall Street Journal, 06.16.17)
• On June 14 and 15, several air assets, including Beriev A-50, Ilyushin Il-22, Sukhoi Su-24, Sukhoi Su-27, Sukhoi Su-34 and Tupolev Tu-160 aircraft, flew close to Finnish airspace, forcing the Finnish Air Force to scramble its F/A-18 Hornet on quick reaction alert in order to intercept the Russian aircraft. (The Aviationist, 06.15.17)

China:

• No significant developments.

Ukraine:

• U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signaled the U.S. could ease off demands that Russia abide by the Minsk agreement to end the conflict in Ukraine, telling lawmakers that the administration doesn’t want to be “handcuffed” if Moscow and Kiev can settle their dispute another way. (Bloomberg, 06.14.17)
• A combat training center that U.S. troops helped establish in Ukraine plans to host brigade-sized rotations beginning in 2018, officials said. (Army Times, 06.08.17)
• A report by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights says the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine recorded 36 conflict-related civilian deaths and 157 injuries from February 16 to May 15—a 48% increase on the previous three months. The report says since the conflict began in eastern Ukraine in mid-April of 2014, at least 10,090 people have been killed—including 2,777 civilians. (RFE/RL, 06.13.17)
• Moldovan intelligence believes five Russian diplomats expelled from Moldova last month were spies who were recruiting fighters for the Moscow-backed insurgency in neighboring Ukraine, a government source and two diplomatic sources told Reuters. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin described the allegations as "idle gossip," saying they were not supported by facts. (Reuters, 06.13.17)
• The National Union of Journalists of Ukraine has requested that the OSCE's Special Monitoring Mission in eastern Ukraine and the International Committee of the Red Cross help locate Stanislav Aseyev, a blogger missing since June 2. (RFE/RL, 06.12.17)
• Ukrainian authorities say they have detained suspects linked to the assassination of former Russian lawmaker Denis Voronenkov. (RFE/RL, 06.16.17)
• On June 11, Ukrainians celebrated the first day of visa-free travel to most EU countries, which Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko welcomed as "a final exit of our country from the Russian Empire." (RFE/RL, 06.11.17)
• Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has signed a law banning the St. George ribbon, which is seen by many Ukrainians as a symbol of Russian aggression. (RFE/RL, 06.12.17)

Russia’s other post-Soviet neighbors:

• Within days of being swept up in a wave of arrests on espionage charges last month, at least four Azerbaijani soldiers and a retired military officer died in custody. The circumstances of their deaths are shrouded in secrecy. (RFE/RL, 06.16.17)
• Fuad Ahmadli, an activist of Azerbaijan's opposition Popular Front Party has been sentenced to four years in prison after a trial that he said was politically motivated. (RFE/RL, 06.16.17)
• Azerbaijani authorities have set June 22 as the date for the start of a high-profile trial against Russian-Israeli citizen Aleksandr Lapshin, an Internet blogger charged with calling for the violation of Azerbaijan's territorial integrity. (RFE/RL, 06.12.17)
• A Tajik law-enforcement official has told RFE/RL that Behruz Halimov, the son of fugitive Tajik police colonel Gulmurod Halimov who joined the Islamic State extremist group in 2015, will face trial for allegedly trying to join his father in Iraq. (RFE/RL, 06.13.17)
• Kazakhstan has introduced a theologians' service in penitentiaries to prevent inmates from being radicalized. (RFE/RL, 06.14.17)
• Valery Vakulchyk, the head of the Belarusian KGB, says Belarusian authorities have arrested eight suspected terrorists since the beginning of 2017. (RFE/RL, 06.13.17)
• Kazakhs have aired their frustration over the Russia-operated space launch facility on their territory after a Kazakh worker was killed clearing up the aftermath of a recent launch. As the TASS news agency reports, an employee of the Russian company tasked with overseeing the areas where the rocket stages of the Soyuz-2 1a launcher fall to Earth was killed while trying to extinguish a fire on the local steppe. (BBC, 06.15.17)

IV. Quoteworthy

• Washington Post reporter Andrew Roth: “I watched Moscow police arrest more than 800 protesters while standing next to men dressed as medieval knights.” (The Washington Post, 06.13.17)