This Week’s Highlights:

• The military and political moves Moscow made in the course of the Ukrainian crisis breathed new life into NATO and helped to resurrect the image of Russia as the military adversary of the West in what became a strategic defeat for Russia, writes Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center. Trenin argues the roots of this mistake can be found in an outdated mode of strategic thinking that assigns excessive importance to geography and strategic depth.
• The crisis in Turkish-Western relations is structural—it predated Erdogan and will outlast him, writes Galip Dalay, a fellow at Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik. However, it is too early to assert that Turkey is joining Russia’s orbit, according to Dalay. Turkey does not see itself making a choice between Russia and the West, but rather believes its interests are better served through a balancing act between ties with the West and recently improving relations with Russia and China, Dalay writes.
• The new Ukrainian government’s main problem is the harsh reality awaiting it, writes journalist Konstantin Skorkin. The majority of the new ministers—progressive young idealists who have studied at Western universities—may not be sufficiently familiar with the conditions of everyday life in Ukraine away from the post-industrial digital economy clusters, Skorkin writes, and a collision with that reality could be a shock, both for the reformers and for change-starved Ukrainian society.
• The perception of Belarus in Washington has changed in a very interesting way, writes journalist Artyom Shraibman. Minsk’s problems in its relations with Moscow have not gone unnoticed, and at the end of last year, a high-ranking U.S. State Department official listed Belarus alongside Ukraine and Georgia as countries whose sovereignty was a “bulwark against Russian neo-imperialism,” acknowledging that Washington had a common interest with Minsk in its desire to stop Moscow expanding in Eastern Europe, Shraibman argues.
• Many fear that a tale of ambitious but unfulfilled pledges will undermine the Kremlin’s promised five-year investment bonanza, which has been billed as the cure to Russia’s economic ills, writes Henry Foy, Moscow bureau chief for Financial Times. But the projects are bogged down, people involved in their implementation told the FT, in tussles over financing and confusion over how private companies should contribute, Foy writes.
• A regime that is built on one man’s popularity is also a regime with a built-in weakness, write Samuel A. Green and Graeme B. Robertson, director of the Russia Institute at King's College, London and a professor of political science at UNC Chapel Hill. Controlling the media is one thing; convincing people that things are going better than their daily experience suggests is hard to do for very long, they argue.

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

Nuclear security:

• No significant commentary.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• No significant commentary.

Iran and its nuclear program:

• No significant commentary.

New Cold War/saber rattling:

“Good Riddance to the INF Treaty: Washington Shouldn’t Tie Its Own Hands in Asia,” Andrew S. Erickson, Foreign Affairs, 08.29.19: The author, a visiting scholar at Harvard’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and a professor of strategy at the Naval War College, writes:

• “If unilateral U.S. adherence to the [INF] treaty was futile in the face of repeated Russian transgressions, it had become outright dangerous in the face of a much more potent adversary—China. During the INF Treaty’s 32-year lifespan, China developed the world’s foremost conventional missile force, brimming with the very weapons that the treaty prohibited the United States from developing: ground-launched cruise and ballistic missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers.”
• “Unshackled from the INF Treaty, what can the United States do to level the playing field? To begin with, it can once again develop and test ground-launched medium- and intermediate-range missiles.”
• “As these new missiles become available, the United States should deploy them in the Asia-Pacific. For now, the most realistic and promising location is the U.S. overseas territory of Guam. Other U.S. territories in the Pacific, Australia, Japan, the Philippines and South Korea are also potential locations.”
• “U.S. withdrawal from the INF Treaty doesn’t close the door on future arms control initiatives. On the contrary, it puts new possibilities on the table: Russia remains free to work with the United States on nonproliferation.”

“The Space Force’s Rocky Start Is Bad News for America,” Namrata Goswami, The Washington Post, 08.30.19: The author, an independent analyst, writes:

• “After a long and confusing bureaucratic process, the U.S. Space Command finally launched last week. Though a ‘Space Command’ may sound sleek and futuristic, the difficulty the administration is having in establishing the related Space Force does not bode well for America's future in the new space race.”
• “Countries such as China and Russia are changing their conceptions of the utility of outer space. Rather than treating space just as a military-force multiplier providing satellite support to their major military services, these nations see space for its own merits.”
• “Trump may be afraid of falling behind China, but his trade wars pale in comparison to the ambition of President Xi Jinping's China space dream. If the Trump administration leaves space strategy in the hands of vested bureaucracies with little interest in understanding this radical new future, space may be less free, and the United States may be poorer and less free as a result.”

NATO-Russia relations:

“After the S-400 Purchase: Where Are Turkish-Russian Relations Heading?” Galip Dalay, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, 09.03.19: The author, IPC-Mercator Fellow at the Center for Applied Turkey Studies at Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), writes:

• “Cooperation in Syria has proved functionally and mutually beneficial for both Russia and Turkey … as illustrated by the tripartite Astana and Sochi processes (also including Iran). … [N]either process would have got off the ground without Russia. But it was Turkey that lent them international legitimacy and acceptance. Without Ankara, they would have been merely gatherings of the pro-regime powers in Syria.”
• “Cooperation between Turkey and Russia is increasingly shifting to industries and areas that create path dependencies … from the TurkStream pipeline project to the construction of the Akkuyu Nuclear power plant and the purchase of the Russian S-400 air defense system.”
• “No longer content with its previously hierarchical relations, Turkey wants recognition from the West as a major regional power. … [T]he crisis in Turkish-Western relations is structural. It predated Erdogan and will outlast him. … [I]t is too early to assert that Turkey is joining Russian orbit. The Turkish elites have always been alert to Russian geopolitical ambitions. Denying Russia a significant presence south of Turkey’s borders has been a consistent position since the Ottoman Empire. … Despite the crisis in Turkish-Western relations, Turkey’s membership in major Western institutions, including NATO, is not going to end any time soon. “
• “Unlike many in the West, Turkey does not see itself making a choice between Russia and the West through its purchase of the Russian S-400. Instead Turkey is giving up the idea that its relations with the West in general and the United States in particular are indispensable."
• “Turkey believes that its interests are better served through a balancing act between traditional ties to the West and recently improving relations with countries like Russia and China. This in turn means that instead of joining the Russian orbit, the next phase of Turkish foreign policy will be ad-hoc, transactional, issue-based and lacking any overarching framework or orientation.”

Missile defense:

• No significant commentary.

Nuclear arms control:

• No significant commentary.

Counter-terrorism:

“Remembering Beslan 15 Years Later,” Tanya Lokshina, The Moscow Times, 08.30.19: The author, associate Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, writes:

• “On Sept. 1, 2004, a group of three dozen Chechen-led armed militants took more than 1,100 local residents hostage at Beslan School #1, located in Russia’s North Caucasus. Demanding the withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya, they put the hostages—most of them women and children—through hell for 52 hours … The death toll was 323 hostages, including 186 children. Most were killed during the storming [of the building by Russian troops].”
• “For years, local activists have argued in Russian courts that the authorities were responsible for the deaths of many hostages. When Russia’s judicial system failed them, they sought justice at the European Court of Human Rights. In April 2017, the court … [found] the Russian government responsible for violating the right to life, including ‘the use of lethal force by security forces,’ and for failing to provide victims an effective legal remedy.’”
• “The court concluded that the government failed to take adequate ‘preventive measures,’ despite having had sufficient information about an allegedly planned attack. It also found that while preparing and carrying out the intervention, the authorities did not prioritize minimizing harm to the hostages … Nor did they provide ‘satisfactory and convincing explanation’ of the use of force and the circumstances of the deaths and injuries of the hostages. … For the nightmare of Beslan never to be repeated, its lessons must be learned.”

Conflict in Syria:

• No significant commentary.

Cyber security:

• No significant commentary.

Elections interference:

• No significant commentary.

Energy exports from CIS:

“Heading For (Another) Ukraine-Russia Gas Fight?” Steven Pifer, Brookings Institution, 08.30.19: The author, a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings, writes:

• “Gazprom now transits a significant amount of gas to European destinations via Ukrainian pipelines. The volume totaled 87 billion cubic meters (bcm) in 2018, one-third of Russian gas exports to Europe. However, the contract that governs this gas transit expires at the end of 2019. Kyiv wants to replace the current agreement with another long-term contract, preferably for 10 years. Moscow, on the other hand, wants just one year.”
• “Seeking to avoid another gas fight, the European Union hopes to broker a new agreement between Kyiv and Moscow. EU Commission officials have suggested a 10-year contract providing for a minimum transit volume of 60 bcm per year through Ukrainian pipes.”
• “This would be a good arrangement for Kyiv, though Russian agreement appears unlikely. … Russia has proposed a one-year agreement, apparently to bridge from the end of 2019 to the beginning of 2021 when it hopes to have Nord Stream 2 and Turk Stream operating at full capacity. At that point, Gazprom could all but end gas transit via Ukraine.”
• “If Kyiv rejects a one-year agreement, which looks quite possible, negotiations could quickly hit an impasse, and the possibility of another disruption in gas flows to Europe will arise. Finding a solution to avert such an outcome confronts EU negotiators with a tough challenge.”

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant commentary.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

“Trump's Bewildering History Lesson on Obama and Crimea,” Aaron Blake, The Washington Post, 08.26.19: The author, a senior political reporter for the news outlet, writes:

• “Trump has pushed a strange theory about why it [Russia] was excluded [from G8] … It wasn't because Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea from Ukraine in an illegal fashion, as the United States and its allies have said for years; instead, Trump contends, it was because Putin outsmarted President Barack Obama.”
• “It's a lesson on Trump's foreign policy, in a nutshell. When a country such as Russia does something nefarious, it's not because it's a bad actor; it's because we were too weak to stop it. Just as he's been reluctant to denounce Russia's 2016 election interference, which he apparently regards as fair game in geopolitics, he's saying much the same about Russia's annexation of Crimea.”

II. Russia’s relations with other countries

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

“20 Years of Vladimir Putin: How Russian Foreign Policy Has Changed,” Dmitri Trenin, The Moscow Times/Carnegie Moscow Center, 08.28.19: The author, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, writes:

• “Since 1999 … the president has pursued two main goals: To preserve the unity of Russia and to restore its status as a great power in the global arena. He has achieved this.”
• “First, let’s look at the successes. It is undeniable that under Putin Russia restored real sovereignty. … It is equally clear that … Russia effectively reclaimed for itself the status of a great power.” 
• “The eastern course of foreign policy under Putin acquired for the first time a significance and status … The Putin era has seen the beginnings of what we might provisionally call Russia’s Asian policy. … The new quality of Russian foreign policy—its dynamic balance—was demonstrated most vividly in the Middle East, especially with the start of military operations in Syria in 2015. … The final opportunity that has appeared under Putin is the Arctic, which … has turned into a new arena for the development of relations with the outside world and a new front for confrontation with its rivals.”
• “A number of Putin's ambitions have not stood the test of time. … Putin’s obsession with the idea of changing the existing global order, i.e. making active efforts to eliminate the global hegemony of the U.S., is harmful. … The absence of a long-term strategy and the gusto for cunning opportunism and tactical maneuvering condemns foreign policy to substantial risks.”
• “The fundamental error of Russian foreign policy since the mid-1990s has been the fixation on the problem of NATO expansion. … The military and political moves Moscow made in the course of the Ukrainian crisis breathed new life into NATO and helped to resurrect the image of Russia as the military adversary of the West. The rebirth of this image … is a strategic defeat for Russia. The roots of this mistake can be found in an outdated mode of strategic thinking that assigns excessive importance to the factor of geography and strategic depth.”

“Reading the RT Leaves: Foreign Policy Lessons from Russian International Media Coverage of Venezuela,” Sean P. Steiner and Sarah Oates, Wilson Center, 08.29.19: The authors, a contractor for the U.S. State Department and a professor at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism, write:

• “While the crisis in Venezuela has not provoked foreign military intervention, it remains a significant part of Russia's war of words with the West. This narrative is evident on RT, Russia’s foreign broadcaster. … It can be difficult to predict Russia’s actions abroad, but analysis of RT’s English-language coverage of Venezuela provides important insights into its foreign policy.”
• “Demonstrating Russia’s status as a great power is one of Moscow’s key domestic and foreign policy objectives. By presenting Russia as an equal partner of other great nations, Moscow earns valuable prestige among Russians and potential allies, meaning that expending financial resources for relationships that project Russian greatness is likely money well spent. Great power identity also gives Moscow justification to defend friendly governments from regime-toppling uprisings.”
• “RT’s coverage of the Venezuelan political crisis confirms the outlet’s operational purpose. Though its stories discuss the same news as other sites, they represent Russia’s consistent message to Americans: Do not intervene in Venezuela. … RT met each escalation in the crisis with additional warnings about U.S. regime change. This story line is likely the most common because RT could easily remind readers of past U.S. interventions.”
• “It may be tempting to dismiss RT, which is not a force in the U.S. media sphere, as a marginal venue for false information of little value. Further, Russia’s messages often defy traditional understanding of soft power because they distract and confuse rather than attract readers towards an ideal. However, recognizing RT as a foreign policy instrument that broadcasts Russian global intentions is useful for gaining a more detailed and timely understanding of the Kremlin’s ambitions and actions on the world stage.”

China-Russia: Allied or Aligned?

• No significant commentary.

Ukraine:

“Ukraine’s New President: Servant of the People, or Father of the Nation?” Konstantin Skorkin, Carnegie Moscow Center, 08.27.19: The author, an independent journalist based in Moscow, writes:

• “Under President [Volodymyr] Zelensky, the decision-making center is being dislodged to make way for the president himself and the circle of people close to him. The role of the government will be reduced to that of technical implementation, while the new parliament, with its single-party majority and weak opposition, will also lose a lot of its former influence. This style of ruling is more akin to a super-presidential republic than the parliamentary-presidential model customary for Ukraine.”

“Idealism vs. Reality: Ukraine’s New Government Prepares for Challenges,” Konstantin Skorkin, Carnegie Moscow Center, 09.02.19: The author, an independent journalist based in Moscow, writes:

• “The new Ukrainian government’s main problem is the harsh reality awaiting it. The majority of the new ministers—progressive young idealists who have studied at Western universities, founders of successful startups—may not be sufficiently familiar with the conditions of everyday life in the country away from the post-industrial digital economy clusters. A collision with that reality could be a shock, both for the reformers themselves and for Ukrainian society, which is desperate for immediate change.”
• “Back in his time, Poroshenko sacrificed the reformers on the altar of the business interests of his entourage. Now it may turn out that Zelenskiy will do the same thing for the sake of the people’s affection that is so important to him.”

“The Way to Resolve the Conflict in Eastern Ukraine Is to Arrange a Credible People’s Vote in the Donbass,” Leonid Bershidsky, Bloomberg/The Moscow Times, 08.29.19: The author, a columnist and veteran Russia watcher, writes:

• “The Berlin-based Center for East European and International Studies (ZOiS) has just published a report on how sentiment in both Ukrainian and separatist-controlled parts of eastern Ukraine. The report is based on in-person interviews with 1,200 residents of the Kyiv-controlled part of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and telephone interviews with 1,200 people in the unrecognized ‘people’s republics.’”
• “The first, most striking result of this survey is that on both sides of the border, ‘Ukrainian citizen’ isn’t the primary self-identification. In the Kyiv-controlled areas, only 26 percent of respondents identified primarily as Ukrainian citizens, down from 53 percent in 2016. … No identity dominates on either side of the separation line.”
• “Another important positive finding for Ukraine is that people in the ‘people’s republics’ have been crossing the line into the Kyiv-controlled part of the country more often than in 2016 …The direction and frequency of the traffic means the separatist experiment hasn’t succeeded in cutting off parts of the Donbass. … People in the separatist areas haven’t acquired a belief in their separate statehood, and only a minority wants them to join Russia.”
• “Based on the German think tank’s findings, Zelenskiy’s strategy in any negotiations going forward should be to insist on a popular vote. … Based on the ZOiS findings … such a referendum should return a plurality (about 40 percent) for the region’s reunification within Ukraine without any special autonomous status; the second most popular result (with about 31 percent) would be autonomy within Ukraine.”
• “After five years of war and more than 13,000 deaths, it’s finally time to ask the people of eastern Ukraine how they’d like to proceed. The ZOiS findings show they’ll probably make a reasonable decision. Germany, France and the U.S. should help Ukraine and Russia agree on a democratic solution to the crisis.”

“Ukraine's New President Needs to Let His Diplomats Do Their Job,” Maksym Eristavi, The Washington Post, 08.28.19: The author, a Ukrainian journalist and research fellow at the Atlantic Council, writes:

• “Zelenskiy is sidelining Ukraine's most skilled diplomats in the belief that he can instead rely on his strong charisma instead. How many more diplomatic blows the Ukrainian president needs to suffer before realizing that this was a bad idea is unclear. But there's still time to fix the mess.”
• “First, rather than neglecting key diplomatic talents, the new Ukrainian leadership should support them by reinforcing key missions in Berlin, Brussels, Paris and Washington.”
• “Second, Zelenskiy should spare the Ukrainian diplomatic corps from his reformist zeal; successful diplomacy depends on continuity.”
• “Third, Ukraine has to be bold in reinventing foreign policy in the region and work closer with diplomats representing democracies. Such moves might include conducting regular summits with Ukraine's allies and creating shared ‘situation rooms’ with like-minded countries to coordinate responses to the Kremlin's aggressive policies.”

“Ukraine’s Democracy Is (Almost) All Grown Up,” Alexander J. Motyl, Dennis Soltys, Foreign Policy, 08.28.19: The authors, a professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark and a professor in the department of public administration and international development at KIMEP University in Kazakhstan, write:

• “If Zelenskiy can effectively navigate the obstacles and opportunities ahead of him and build on Poroshenko’s institutional legacy, the new president may just succeed in furthering Ukraine’s economic growth, reducing corruption and drawing Ukraine still closer to the West. In that case, Ukraine could really reach a breakthrough, becoming an Eastern European tiger. If, alternatively, Zelenskiy fails to deliver the promised big bang, he will—barring some catastrophe involving Russia—likely revert to the pattern of sustained evolutionary reform pursued by Poroshenko.”

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

“Official Visit Symbolizes New US Attitude to Belarus,” Artyom Shraibman, Carnegie Moscow Center, 09.03.19: The author, a journalist and political commentator for the Belarusian portal Tut.by, writes:

• “Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton became the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Belarus in more than twenty-five years. … Minsk’s problems in its relations with Moscow have not gone unnoticed, and at the end of last year, then assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs A. Wess Mitchell listed Belarus alongside Ukraine and Georgia as countries whose sovereignty was a ‘bulwark against Russian neo-imperialism.’”
• “Bolton did not beat around the bush, saying that what the people of Belarus want should determine their relationship with Russia, and that his impression was that Belarusians want independence. … [T]he United States is announcing publicly that it will not buy the version that Belarusians are unanimously desperate to become part of Russia, just in case anyone should wish to use that argument to justify depriving Minsk of its sovereignty.”
• “Two other key issues that were mentioned by both Bolton and Minsk were China and nonproliferation. … The task was to plant flags and hint to the local elites that Washington would not be pleased to see the countries providing a bridgehead for Chinese expansion into Europe. … Bolton also said he had raised the ‘significant issue’ with Lukashenko of nonproliferation.”
• “The first version is that Bolton was referring to the delivery or planned delivery of weapons from Belarus to enemies of the United States … The alternative version is that Bolton wanted to be sure that … Belarus will not allow new Russian military equipment or troops onto its territory.”
• “The visit of Trump’s national security adviser will go down in Belarusian history as a symbol of the United States’ new attitude to the country and the region as a whole. But those who interpret this introductory visit as anything bigger—either with trepidation or in hope— are mistaken.”

“The Failure of Atambayev’s Planned Power Transition,” Temur Umarov, Carnegie Moscow Center/Diplomat, 08.23.19: The author, a consultant at the Carnegie Moscow Center, writes:

• “With an arsenal that included the largest party in the country, popular media and his supporters, Almazbek Atambayev was confident things would turn out the way he wanted. But his successor Sooronbay Jeenbekov chose not to accept the challenge publicly, focusing instead on behind-the-scenes but effective bureaucratic moves. Unlike in Russia and Kazakhstan, an effort in Kyrgyzstan to carefully orchestrate the transition of power backfired.”
• “Atambayev was the first popularly elected Kyrgyz president who managed to relinquish power without revolution, yet he ultimately still couldn’t avoid bloodshed. Now he will likely disappear from the country’s political life. His departure will create new opportunities for other political forces.”
• “Opposition politician Omurbek Babanov has already returned to the country. He put up a respectable fight against Jeenbekov in the 2017 presidential election, getting 34 percent of the vote, despite having no administrative resources at his disposal. Without pressure from Atambayev, Babanov’s results could be even more impressive next time around. Kyrgyzstan is in no danger of becoming a traditional Central Asian autocracy, and while its political life will remain tumultuous it will also remain competitive.”

III. Russia’s domestic policies

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

“Putin’s Power Depends on His Popularity. That Makes Him Vulnerable,” Samuel A. Greene and Graeme B. Robertson, The Washington Post/Monkey Cage, 08.27.19: The authors, the director of the Russia Institute at King's College, London and a professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, write:

• “The notion that Putin’s power is largely, even exclusively attributable to oppression and violence—and heavy-handed propaganda that renders people unable to think for themselves—is understandable.”
• “What Putin can’t seem to do, however, is keep people off the streets. A string of weekly rallies calling for fair local elections … have seen tens of thousands of peaceful protesters face down police batons. More than 2,500 have been detained, some charged with incitement to mass disorder. But the YouTube images of broken bones and gut punches have only galvanized the solidarity of those growing increasingly weary of Putin’s rule.”
• “In general, public opinion plays an underappreciated role in Russian politics. The regime does sometimes rig elections: Indeed, the Kremlin’s effort to exclude its critics from the city council ballot in Moscow is what’s driven people into the streets this summer. But most of the time, Putin’s Kremlin goes to extraordinary lengths to win, through persuasion, the votes of ordinary Russians.”
• “This reliance on popularity makes Putin vulnerable. Being too harsh on protesters could easily lead to a backlash in public opinion. But being too soft might encourage even more demonstrations against the evident corruption and mismanagement across Russia. As a result, the Kremlin often acts tough, then backs off.”
• “A regime that is built on one man’s popularity is also a regime with a built-in weakness. Controlling the media is one thing; convincing people that things are going better than their daily experience suggests is hard to do for very long.”

“Putin’s Nightmare: The Ballot Box,” Michael Khodarkovsky, New York Times, 09.03.19: The author, a professor of history at Loyola University Chicago, writes: “The Kremlin understands that genuine democracy would mean the end of Putinism, and so it leaves those who desire change through democratic means with no options. But does Mr. Putin really want to turn Red Square into a Russian Tiananmen Square?”

“Why Corporations Are the Kremlin’s Best Friends,” Pavel Luzin, The Moscow Times/Riddle, 09.02.19: The author, an expert on Russian foreign and defense policy, writes:

• “It is … worth considering that 5.8 million people receive salaries from Russia’s overall state budget; these are state employees such as teachers, doctors, social workers and so on. These groups might be considered the social base of Russian authoritarianism; taken together, they number approximately 11-12 million. … [T]he support of these groups might just be enough to rule, even without the support of the rest of society.”
• “There is another, much larger group of beneficiaries of the Kremlin’s authoritarian rule. These are employees of Russia’s large state-owned companies and enterprises, as well as those of large formally private corporations. … These companies provide work for several million more people, bringing the total number of Russians working directly or indirectly for the state up to more than 24 million people, or 30 percent of all working citizens.”
• “[T]his network also includes several enterprises which, while formally private, are in fact firmly under the Kremlin’s political control. … Russia’s corporations do not only buttress the legitimacy of the country’s authoritarian status quo on a federal level; this large conglomeration of enterprises and businesses also ensures the stability of regional governance.”
• “Relying on large corporations … offers the Kremlin several clear advantages, allowing it to maintain stability and keep hold of levers of influence over the country’s political and socio-economic situation, even in conditions of weakening state institutions.”
• “It is highly probable that Putin’s successor could be somebody from one of the aforementioned corporations, unencumbered by reputational problems but aided by experience in public service and, importantly, in managing crisis situations.”

“Russians Skeptical of Putin’s Grand Projects as Economy Founders,” Henry Foy, Financial Times, 09.02.19: The author, Moscow bureau chief for the news outlet, writes:

• “You can learn a lot about Russia’s struggling economy, and the Kremlin’s much-trumpeted 25.7 trillion ruble ($390 billion) spending plans to kick-start it, from a wander around Moscow’s Kazansky railway station. … No more than eight trains run from the capital to regional city Kazan each day, taking roughly 12 hours to trundle along the 750 kilometer route. To fix that, President Vladimir Putin has promised to build a 1.7 trillion ruble ($25 billion) high-speed line reducing the journey to three and a half hours. … But those clutching suitcases on the platform have heard it all before: Mr. Putin first made such a promise six years ago.”
• “Many fear that a similar tale of ambitious but unfulfilled pledges will undermine the Kremlin’s promised five-year investment bonanza, which has been billed as the cure to Russia’s economic ills: from tepid growth and low productivity, to falling real incomes and a heavy reliance on exports of oil, gas and other natural resources. But projects … are bogged down, people involved in their implementation told the FT, in tussles over financing and confusion over how private companies should contribute.”
• “Cash is available. Years of hawkish budgets and a decision to balance state spending means Russia’s reserves have risen by 45 per cent since 2015 to $518 billion midway through this year. But implementation is already lagging behind schedule.”

“Russians Struggle Under Burden of Soaring Consumer Loans,” Max Seddon, Financial Times, 08.29.19: The author, Moscow correspondent for the news outlet, writes:

• “Total consumer debt grew by 25 percent in the past year to about 16 trillion rubles, according to the central bank … Half of that figure is due to a boom in unsecured loans … GDP growth, which dipped to 0.9 percent so far this year, would likely have been zero if not for the rise in lending, according to Russia’s central bank.  In response to those figures, Economy Minister Maxim Oreshkin recently claimed Russia would likely enter another recession in 2021 unless it tackled the ‘bubble.’”
• “About 7 million people earning less than 50,000 rubles a month, the median wage, spend more than half their earnings on paying off loans … Since Russia passed a new personal bankruptcy law, the number of people filing for insolvency has risen from 20,000 in 2016 to 44,000 in 2018, according to state registry Fedresurs. Almost 29,000 Russians have filed for bankruptcy so far this year—a 52 percent year-on-year increase.”
• “‘A growing number are having to borrow to maintain their previous lifestyle and to cover such basic spending as education and healthcare costs,’ said Chris Weafer, partner at Moscow-based consultancy Macro Advisory. ‘The problem is that this debt comes with a high double-digit interest rate and this is now starting to lead to additional unsecured high-rate debt to cover the service cost of previous debt.’”

“When Conservatism and Nationalism Form the Spurs of Kremlin Ideology,” Andrei Scherback, PONARS Eurasia, August 2019: The author, an associate professor of political science at the Higher School of Economics, writes:

• “[A]n analysis of recent trends reveals at least one emergent conclusion: over the long run, touting nationalism may prove to be not a blessing for the leadership but a curse. Segments of the population, particularly minority groups, have been irritated by Moscow’s ‘pro-Russian’ policies, and Tatarstan and Dagestan, for example, have recently experienced ethnicity-related conflicts with Moscow. Russia’s post-Crimean nationalities policy is showing its limitations, with one weak point being its attachment to President Vladimir Putin’s legitimacy. If that decreases, the government’s vision and version of nationalism will find less support.”

Defense and aerospace:

• No significant commentary.

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• No significant commentary.