This Week's Highlights

• U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis wants Congress to amend sanctions against Russia, saying the legislation is hindering new alliances and inadvertently helping Moscow by “boxing us in.” The law may derail the arms purchases of U.S. allies around Asia, experts say.

• French President Emmanuel Macron has said his bet is that Trump "will get rid of this deal on his own, for domestic reasons," and because of his "campaign commitment" to withdraw from the deal.

• The U.S. is on course to be the top exporter of crude and oil products in 2019, according to Citigroup.

• In a closed door meeting at NATO headquarters on April 27, new U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and fellow foreign ministers forged a consensus on the need for a response to “Russian aggression.”

• The Trump administration on April 21 labeled Russia and China threats to global stability, saying that their poor human rights records put the countries, the United States' principle strategic rivals, in the same ranks as Iran and North Korea.

• Russia has aggressively engaged in information warfare against the West for a decade, according to a U.S. House Intelligence Committee report released on April 27. The roughly 250-page redacted report on Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election lays out Republicans’ conclusion that they had found no evidence that the Trump campaign aided Moscow’s efforts.

• Russian President Vladimir Putin is planning a roughly $162 billion increase in spending on health care, education and infrastructure, hoping to kick-start sputtering economic growth in his new presidential term.

• Putin’s trust levels dropping from a high of nearly 59 percent in January to 48.4 percent on April 15.

• Four of every 10 Russian families are struggling to afford food and clothing, according to a survey conducted by the Higher School of Economics. Tired of trying to live off official wages, many Russians are turning to day trading.

• Russia’s central bank held interest rates steady on April 27 following seven straight months of cuts as the pressure from tough new U.S. sanctions on the ruble has created new inflation risks.

• A former Russian chemical engineer who worked on developing the Novichok family of poisons believes U.K. authorities' assertion that a nerve agent called A-234 was used against the Skripals, but said he is puzzled by the lack of the basic symptoms of A-234 poisoning.

• Armenia’s protest leader said on April 25 he had met a Russian official and got reassurance that Moscow would not intervene in Armenia's political crisis.

• Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska will resign from En+ Group and agreed to cut his stake in it to less than 50 percent. Deripaska’s aluminum giant, Rusal, will overhaul its board and management in hopes of persuading the United States to lift sanctions

• A year ago, obtaining a U.S. tourist visa in Russia could take less than a week. Now, it comes with an eight-month delay.

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

Nuclear security and safety:

• No significant developments.

 North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• The leaders of North and South Korea on April 27 pledged to work for the “complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula” at the first inter-Korean summit in more than a decade. But their commitments were short on specifics and failed to clear up key questions about Pyongyang’s intentions. The declaration from the meeting between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un included a promise to pursue phased arms reduction. In a dramatic gesture just days before the summit, Kim announced North Korea would suspend nuclear and long-range missile tests and dismantle its only known nuclear test site. The Kremlin called the summit very positive news and said President Vladimir Putin had long advocated direct talks between the two countries. Asked about the prospect of Trump also meeting with Kim, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Moscow welcomed any steps that would ease tensions. (Reuters, 04.27.18, Reuters, 04.26.18, Reuters, 04.27.18)
• A large part of North Korea’s underground nuclear test facility is unusable due to the collapse of a mountain cavity after the latest test-detonation occurred, according to Chinese seismologists involved in a soon-to-be-published study. (Wall Street Journal, 04.25.18)

Iran’s nuclear program and related issues:

• Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said that there is no alternative to the Iran nuclear deal and that the agreement should be observed by all who signed it. Meanwhile G7 ministers discussed the deal and efforts to seek a supplemental agreement that would satisfy U.S. President Donald Trump’s demand to "fix" what he sees as flaws in the deal. On April 24 Trump signaled willingness to consider what visiting French President Emmanuel Macron called "a new deal with Iran" that would address shortcomings in the existing nuclear pact, even as he continued to criticize the agreement as "insane." Macron later said his bet is that Trump "will get rid of this deal on his own, for domestic reasons," and because of his "campaign commitment" to withdraw from the deal. A top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader said on April 26 Tehran would not accept any change to its nuclear deal. (RFE/RL, 04.23.18, RFE/RL, 03.23.18, The Washington Post, 04.24.18, RFE/RL, 04.26.18, Reuters, 04.26.18)
• See also “Conflict in Syria” section below.

Military issues, including NATO-Russia relations:

• New U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went to NATO headquarters on April 27 in what European allies saw as strong support for the institution. In a closed door meeting, Pompeo and fellow foreign ministers forged a consensus on the need for a response to “Russian aggression,” a U.S. official said, adding that Pompeo pressed allies to raise military budgets. (Reuters, 04.27.18)
• On April 27 Pompeo warned of the “seriousness of U.S. concerns” in a meeting with his Turkish counterpart in Brussels over Ankara’s decision to buy Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile batteries, which are not compatible with NATO’s defenses. (Reuters, 04.27.18)
• U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis wants Congress to add national security waivers to the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, which bars U.S. arms sales to any nation that buys Russian arms. The law is hindering new alliances, inadvertently helping Russia, as it’s “boxing us in,” according to Mattis. The law inhibits deals with India, Vietnam and Indonesia, which he said are “trying to shift to more of our airplanes, our systems. But they’ve got to do something to keep their legacy military going,” Mattis said. U.S. sanctions on Russian military exports have already put the brakes on a $6 billion deal with India and may derail the arms purchases of other U.S. allies around Asia, experts say. (Defense News, 04.26.18, Reuters, 04.23.18)

Missile defense:

• See “Conflict in Syria” section below.

Nuclear arms control:

• No significant developments.

Counter-terrorism:

• Russia’s domestic security service said on April 27 it had thwarted an Islamic State plan to carry out a series of high-profile attacks in the Moscow area, where World Cup soccer matches are due to take place this summer. The Federal Security Service, or FSB, said that four members of the suspected IS “sleeper cell” were detained in the Moscow region after they traveled from Novy Urengoi in western Siberia. The FSB said the men were receiving orders from IS members in Syria via the Telegram messaging app. Twenty people were detained in Novy Urengoi on suspicion of aiding the group. (Reuters, 04.27.18, AP, 04.27.18)
• Russia said on April 21 it had killed nine militants who had been plotting a terrorist act in Derbent, the second biggest city in the Muslim-majority republic of Dagestan. Separately, the FSB said it had killed an Islamic State militant in the neighboring Stavropol region. The militant had allegedly planned an attack on regional government buildings. (The Moscow Times, 04.21.18)

Conflict in Syria:

• Syria will receive new missile defense systems in the near future and Russian experts will teach Syrians to use them, Russian Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi said at a briefing on April 25. Rudskoi had said earlier that Russia was ready to review the possibility of providing the S-300 systems to Damascus. On April 23 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow had not yet made a decision on whether to deliver the systems to Syria. (TASS, 04.25.18, RFE/RL, 03.23.18)
• Israel's Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said April 24 that his country would attack Russian S-300 air defense systems in Syria if they were used against Israeli targets. (Daily Star, 04.24.18)
• Chemical weapons inspectors collected samples from Douma on April 21. The site visit, confirmed by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, would allow the agency to proceed with an independent investigation to determine what chemicals, if any, were used in the April 7 attack there. (AP, 04.21.18)
• Russia and Syria presented more than a dozen unharmed people from Ghouta, Syria, at the OPCW on April 26 to support claims that there was no chemical attack in the city earlier this month. Some of the people resembled victims seen in a video allegedly taken after the attack. Britain dismissed the move as a stunt, and said allied powers including France and the United States had boycotted the closed-door briefing. Russia and Syria later brought some 15 Syrians to a news conference in the Hague who said they had not seen any evidence of chemical weapons being used in Ghouta. (Reuters, 04.26.18, RFE/RL, 04.26.18)
• Syria and Russia are winning back Damascus. The Islamic State has reportedly agreed to surrender its only stronghold south of Damascus, but the Syrian military and its allies continue to battle the jihadis as the two sides attempt to negotiate the return of the neighborhoods to the Syrian government. (Newsweek, 04.23.18)
• Western countries are reportedly planning to bypass Russia's veto at the U.N. Security Council by referring concerns about the suspected use of chemical weapons in Syria to the U.N. General Assembly. Russia has used its veto 12 times to block U.N. action targeting the regime of its ally. (Guardian, 04.24.18)
• Foreign ministers from the G7 called on Moscow to help resolve the conflict in Syria. EU foreign-policy chief Federica Mogherini has called on Russia, Iran and Turkey to do more to scale down the fighting in Syria. She said the three countries shared a "special responsibility" to ensure the conditions for a cease-fire and to pressure Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government to return to the negotiating table. (RFE/RL, 04.25.18, Independent, 04.23.18)
• EU foreign-policy chief Federica Mogherini has called on Russia, Iran and Turkey to do more to scale down the fighting in Syria. She said the three countries shared a "special responsibility" to ensure the conditions for a cease-fire and to pressure Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government to return to the negotiating table. (RFE/RL, 04.25.18)
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will meet with his Turkish and Iranian counterparts in Moscow on April 28 to discuss Syria and the Iran nuclear deal. (Reuters, 04.26.18)
• U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on April 26 that he expected a “re-energized” effort against Islamic State militants in eastern Syria in the coming days and that the United States would “probably regret” not keeping a holding force in Syria to ensure that Islamic State militants did not re-emerge, the latest sign that a total U.S. withdrawal was unlikely. (Reuters, 04.26.18, Reuters, 04.26.18)
• Between 712 and 1,229 civilians were allegedly killed by Russian airstrikes in March in Syria, according to Airwars, the U.K.-based nonprofit organization that tracks reports of civilian deaths in Iraq and Syria caused by airstrikes. (The National, 04.24.18)
• Alexander Efimov, Russia's current ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, will take over as ambassador to Syria. (Al-Monitor, 04.23.18)
• Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has said he’s ready to increase the number of Chechens fighting in Syria. (RFE/RL, 04.24.18)

Cyber security:

• U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Paul Nakasone was confirmed by the Senate on April 24 to be the next director of the National Security Agency and the leader of U.S. Cyber Command. (The Washington Post, 04.24.18)

Elections interference:

• Russia has aggressively engaged in information warfare against the West for a decade, according to a U.S. House Intelligence Committee report released on April 27. The roughly 250-page redacted report on Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election lays out Republicans’ conclusion that they had found no evidence that the Trump campaign aided Moscow’s efforts. The report accuses the intelligence community of “significant intelligence tradecraft failings,” suggesting that Russia’s main goal was to sow discord in the United States and not to help U.S. President Donald Trump win the election. Democrats on the committee have accused the Republicans of prematurely closing the investigation and failing to conduct it with the rigor that the subject called for out of a desire to protect Trump. The committee also released dissenting views from the Democrats. Trump told reporters that, "We were honored" by the report, which he called "conclusive," ''strong" and "powerful." (Reuters, 04.27.18, New York Times, 04.27.18, The Washington Post, 04.27.18, AP, 04.27.18)
• Trump twice gave former FBI director James Comey an alibi for why a salacious report about the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow couldn’t be true, according to Comey’s memos: He never spent the night in Russia during that trip. Based on flight records, however, Trump flew to Moscow from North Carolina on a private jet on Nov. 7, 2013. The jet landed in Moscow on Nov. 8. The next day, Nov. 9, Facebook posts showed Trump at Moscow’s Ritz Carlton hotel during the day, and in the afternoon he tweeted that he’d gotten a tour of Moscow. That evening, he attended the Miss Universe pageant, followed by an after-party whose scheduled start time was 1 a.m.—by that time, Nov. 10. The jet took off from Vnukovo airport at 3:58 a.m. Moscow time. Trump on April 26 said he had spent the night in Moscow the night before the Miss Universe contest in 2013 and accused Comey of lying in the memos detailing their conversations. "I went to Russia for a day or so," Trump said in an interview on Fox & Friends. "Of course I stayed there." (Bloomberg, 04.24.18, The Hill, 04.26.18)
• Trump vowed April 21 that his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, will not "flip" and cooperate against him in the special counsel investigation into his campaign's connections to Russia, attacking a New York Times story examining his relationship with Cohen as part of a "witch hunt" against him. The story cited other former Trump campaign aides, including Sam Nunberg and Roger Stone, as saying Trump has long treated Cohen abusively by insulting him and threatening to fire him. A lawyer for Trump said April 25 that the president is ready to help recommend what materials seized from Cohen should be withheld from federal investigators because of attorney-client privilege. (The Washington Post, 04.21.18, AP, 04.25.18)
• Special counsel Robert Mueller and FBI agents seized tens of thousands of items from the home of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort last July and have also reviewed testimony that he gave in a civil lawsuit about a protracted business dispute with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Mueller disclosed his review of the Deripaska-related testimony in a court filing April 23 that defended an FBI raid on Manafort’s home. The disclosure shows the depth of Mueller’s interest in the links between Manafort and Deripaska. (Bloomberg, 04.23.18)
• A federal judge in Washington has thrown out a civil lawsuit brought by Manafort that sought to challenge the authority of the special counsel in the Russia investigation. (AP, 04.27.18)
• Trump said the hands-off approach he has taken to the U.S. Justice Department given the probe into possible collusion between his campaign and Russia could change, comments that could reignite concerns that he might move to impede the investigation. (Reuters, 04.26.18)
• Newly released emails show that Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya worked with Russia’s chief legal office to thwart a U.S. Justice Department civil fraud case against a well-connected Russian firm. Veselnitskaya also appears to have recanted her earlier denials of Russian government ties. During an interview to be broadcast April 27 by NBC News, she acknowledged that she was not merely a private lawyer but a source of information for a top Kremlin official, Yuri Chaika, the prosecutor general. The previously undisclosed details about Veselnitskaya rekindle questions about who she was representing when she met with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort and others at Trump Tower in Manhattan in June 2016. (New York Times, 04.27.18)
• The chairman of the Democratic National Committee on April 22 defended a new multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the Russian government, the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks. "I don't know when Director Mueller's investigation is going to end, so we need to file now to protect our rights," Tom Perez said. (The Washington Post, 04.22.18)
• For West Virginia’s congressional primaries in May, the National Guard will be on the lookout for Russian interference. West Virginia’s top election official, Republican Secretary of State Mac Warner, has embedded a member of the Air National Guard in his office to scour election networks daily. (Bloomberg, 04.24.18)
• The U.S. State Department’s Global Engagement Center, or G.E.C., got tasked with countering Russian disinformation, but ultimately “tried to do too much with too little in the way of resources and with too little in the way of vision,” according to a former State official in the Obama administration familiar with the situation. (Vanity Fair, 04.23.18)

Energy exports:

• With American production surging to unprecedented levels as OPEC continues curbing output, the U.S. is on course to be the top exporter of crude and oil products in 2019, according to Citigroup. American exports of crude oil and petroleum products rose to a record 8.3 million barrels a day last week. That compares with top exporter Saudi Arabia’s 9.3 million barrels a day in January, and Russia’s 7.4 million barrels a day. (Bloomberg, 04.26.18)
• Russian gas giant Gazprom is currently shipping as much as 580 million cubic meters of gas a day to Europe—volumes comparable with winter supplies when heating demand soars. (Bloomberg, 04.26.18)

Bilateral economic ties:

• See “Other bilateral issues” below.

Other bilateral issues:

• The Group of Seven (G7) industrialized nations remain determined to oppose Russia’s efforts to "destabilize" nations around the world. The meeting of the G7 foreign ministers in Toronto started with a focus on Russia’s actions in Ukraine. On Ukraine, the ministers “reaffirmed the importance of full implementation of the Minsk agreement” and, on Syria, Japan’s Taro Kono “stressed that the political solution through the Geneva process is the only option.” The G7 has also decided to create a working group to address what British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson called Russia's "malign behavior."  (RFE/RL, 04.23.18, Bloomberg, 04.23.18, RFE/RL, 04.24.18)
• President Donald Trump is seeking a “detente” with Russia and wants to work with his counterpart Vladimir Putin to achieve this, according to the U.S. ambassador in Moscow. (Bloomberg, 04.25.18)
• The Trump administration on April 21 labeled Russia and China threats to global stability, saying that their poor human rights records put the countries, the United States' principle strategic rivals, in the same ranks as Iran and North Korea. ''The Russian government continues to quash dissent and civil society even while it invades its neighbors and undermines the sovereignty of Western nations,'' the acting secretary of state, John J. Sullivan, said as the State Department released its annual report on global human rights in 2017. (New York Times, 04.21.18)
• The U.S. softened its position on sanctions against Russian metals giant United Co. Rusal, sparking a record plunge in aluminum prices. For the first time, the U.S. Treasury discussed a path for lifting the sanctions on Rusal, saying it would provide relief if Oleg Deripaska relinquished control. It also extended the deadline for companies to wind down dealings with the Russian aluminum producer by almost five months. Moscow is holding off on taking retaliatory measures against the United States for imposing sanctions on Rusal, hoping the EU can persuade Washington to ease restrictions against Rusal further. (Bloomberg, 04.21.18, Reuters, 04.25.18)
• Russia’s biggest van manufacturer, GAZ Group, risks losing contracts with Western partners and vital supplies of foreign parts because of new U.S. sanctions. GAZ and its co-owner, tycoon Oleg Deripaska, were both sanctioned and the measures could also affect German carmakers Volkswagen and Daimler as well as U.S. firm Cummins, which all have contracts with GAZ. (Reuters, 04.27.18)
• Russian users are experiencing difficulty accessing Google services such as Gmail and YouTube after authorities blacklisted some of the tech giant's IP addresses in their battle with messaging service Telegram. (The Moscow Times, 04.23.18)
• Russia said on April 21 the United States was trying to fence off Russians with a "visa wall" after two Bolshoi ballet dancers were refused visas to perform in New York. A year ago, obtaining a U.S. tourist visa in Russia could take less than a week. Now, it comes with an eight-month delay. (Reuters, 04.21.18, The Washington Post, 04.22.18)
• The U.S. Senate on April 26 confirmed outspoken foreign policy hawk Mike Pompeo, the former CIA director, as the nation’s 70th secretary of state. In the end, the 57-to-42 tally lacked the drama of other nail-biting confirmation votes in the Trump era. The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee earlier approved Pompeo’s nomination on April 23 on a party-line vote, with all 11 Republicans backing him and nine Democrats opposed. (New York Times, 04.26.18, RFE/RL, 04.24.18)
• U.S. national security advisor John Bolton has appointed commerce official and former Boeing executive Mira Ricardel, a fellow hawk, as his deputy. Her experience on Russia includes almost four years as a senior Pentagon official responsible for or advising on Russia and Eurasia policy. (The Washington Post, 04.23.18, Russia Matters, 04.23.18)

II. Russia’s domestic news

Politics, economy and energy:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin is planning a roughly 10 trillion-ruble ($162 billion) increase in spending on health care, education and infrastructure, hoping to kick-start sputtering economic growth in his new presidential term. Putin is expected to formalize the six-year plan in a decree to be signed just after his May 7 inauguration. (Bloomberg, 04.23.18)
• There would not currently be any economic growth in Russia without investment generated by preparations for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said. (The Moscow Times, 04.25.18)
• As Russia limps out of the longest recession of Vladimir Putin’s 18-year rule, nearly four of every 10 families are struggling to afford food and clothing, according to a survey conducted by the Higher School of Economics. Tired of trying to live off official wages, many Russians are turning to day trading. The Moscow Exchange opened 250,000 new day trading accounts for citizens last year, taking the total to almost 1.4 million. Individual traders are behind about 37 percent of equity volumes and 7 percent of currency turnover. (Bloomberg, 04.26.18)
• According to a report by Dozhd, Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov is set to leave the government in the coming weeks, with rumors circulating that he'll take up a post at Moscow State University. Presidential aide Andrei Belousov has been floated as a replacement. (Vedomosti, 04.24.18)
• Moscow City Hall has given anti-Kremlin left-wing activist Sergei Udaltsov permission to hold a demonstration the day before Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inauguration. Udaltsov, leader of Left Front, this week filed paperwork to hold a rally of up to 2,000 people north of central Moscow’s Garden Ring. (The Moscow Times, 04.26.18)
• The trust that Russians have for President Vladimir Putin has dropped to below 50 percent since his election victory last month, according to the weekly state-run VTsIOM pollster, which registered Putin’s trust levels dropping from a high of 58.9 percent on Jan. 21 to 48.4 percent on April 15. (The Moscow Times, 04.20.18)
• Russia’s central bank held interest rates steady on April 27 following seven straight months of cuts as the pressure from tough new U.S. sanctions on the ruble has created new inflation risks. (Financial Times, 04.27.18)
• Russia’s poor start to spring means farmers may struggle to collect a wheat crop that’s near to last year’s record. Russian output is expected to be at least 9 percent smaller than in 2017. (Bloomberg, 04.25.18)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed new legislation allowing authorities to block websites that publish defamatory information about public figures. (The Moscow Times, 04.24.18)
• Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska will resign from En+ Group, a holding company that owns almost half of Russian aluminum giant United Co. Rusal and which was among the firms targeted by the U.S. Treasury on April 6. Deripaska also agreed to cut his stake in EN+ to less than 50 percent. Rusal will overhaul its board and management in hopes of persuading the United States to lift sanctions but it may be forced to suspend aluminum exports if the plan fails, sources close to the company said. Russia’s government could take over Rusal temporarily to save it from the impact of sanctions, Industry Minister Denis Manturov said. Workers at one of Russia's biggest aluminum smelters say their Siberian town of Sayanogorsk is doomed unless Moscow mitigates U.S. sanctions against Rusal. Along with earlier losses, Deripaska’s net worth has dropped by $4.7 billion this year, the most of any wealthy Russian. (Financial Times, 04.27.18, Bloomberg, 04.27.18, Reuters, 04.27.18, Reuters, 04.27.18,  Bloomberg, 04.26.18, Bloomberg, 04.25.18, Reuters, 04.23.18, Bloomberg, 04.24.18)
• Russian gas giant Gazprom said on April 26 its net profit totaled 714 billion rubles ($11.38 billion) in 2017, down from 952 billion rubles a year earlier. (Reuters, 04.26.18)
• "The correspondence of citizens in messaging apps does not constitute privacy that is protected by law, for which the FSB would need a court order," a representative of the security services was cited as saying. (The Moscow Times, 04.24.18)
• Roskomnadzor temporarily blacklisted the IP addresses of Twitter, Facebook, as well as Russian search engine Yandex and social media website VKontakte. “We don’t consider this situation normal,” Interfax quoted Yandex spokesman Ochir Mandzhikov as saying. “Restricting access to global and Russian internet services will primarily harm the Russian Internet.” The Russian Libertarian Party has announced a demonstration in support of the embattled Telegram messaging service in central Moscow on April 30. (The Moscow Times, 04.27.18, The Moscow Times, 04.27.18)
• Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he still uses Telegram despite the app’s ban. “It works for me and there’s nothing to it,” the RBC business portal cited Peskov as saying on April 26. His words echoed earlier comments by Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, who was quoted as saying that Telegram “still works for me.” (The Moscow Times, 04.26.18)
• Russia's Supreme Court has upheld opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his brother's fraud convictions despite a European court ruling that their right to a fair trial had been violated. The European Court of Human Rights said last year that Russia had violated Alexei and Oleg Navalny’s rights in the 2014 embezzlement case by using an extended interpretation of criminal law to sentence them. (The Moscow Times, 04.25.18)
• Reporters Without Borders said their 2017 World Press Freedom Index also reflects the growing influence of “strongmen,” who are beginning to reach across borders. “After stifling independent voices at home, Vladimir Putin’s Russia (148th [out of 180]) is extending its propaganda network by means of media outlets such as RT and Sputnik.” (RFE/RL, 04.25.18)
• Local lawmakers in the town of Volokolamsk in the Moscow region have set a date for a referendum on the closure of a garbage dump that has been emitting toxic fumes and prompting protests by residents for months. The referendum on the Yadrovo landfill's closure will be held on June 17. (RFE/RL, 04.27.18)
• French fries at McDonald's restaurants from Moscow to Murmansk will be Russian from now on, as the chain turns to homegrown potatoes to deal with ruble volatility caused by fluctuating oil prices and Western sanctions. (Reuters, 04.26.18)

Defense and aerospace:

• Russia’s Space and Air Defense Forces successfully used a Proton-M launcher from Baikonur to launch the Blagovest communication satellite (No. 12) produced at the Reshetnev ISS enterprise in Zheleznogorsk. (Russian Forces, 04.19.18)

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• Domestic violence complaints have shot up in Moscow since Russia adopted a law decriminalizing abuse in the family last year, said the city’s human rights ombudswoman. Familial abuse appeals have grown by 27 percent since 2016 and make up over half of all physical abuse complaints. (The Moscow Times, 04.24.18)
• On April 16, local law enforcement in Tatarstan arrested the designer of Russia’s first armed drone. The charges against Alexander Gomzin, the general director and chief designer for the OKB Simonov Design Bureau, include “abuse of authority, misappropriation of budgetary funds and fraud.” One analyst speculated that the unusual case could be a localized shakedown or punishment for cost overruns and program delays, but that, in any case, it could slow down Russia’s military drone development. (Defense One, 04.25.18)
• Police are conducting searches in the regional parliament building of Russia's Far Eastern Sakha-Yakutia region. The searches are being conducted in the offices of three lawmakers—Yury Nikolayev, Aleksandr Uarov and Dmitry Savvin—who are suspected of alleged bribe-taking. (RFE/RL, 04.26.18)
• A criminal investigation is underway in Siberia’s Krasnoyarsk region to identify two prison guards who were filmed beating prisoners. (The Moscow Times, 04.26.18)

III. Foreign affairs, trade and investment

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

• French President Emmanuel Macron has warned against showing any weakness toward Vladimir Putin while insisting he wants to work with the Russian president. "He's strong and smart. But don't be naive. He's obsessed by interference in our democracies," Macron said in an interview ahead of a state visit to the U.S. "That’s why I do believe that we should never be weak with President Putin. When you are weak, he uses it," he told Fox News. Macron added that Putin "made a lot of fake news. He has a very strong propaganda, and he intervenes everywhere around Europe and the U.S. to fragilize our democracies. Because he thinks it's good for his country." (RFE/RL, 04.22.18)
• The world will most likely never know the precise origins of the deadly nerve agent used to poison former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in England last month, says Vladimir Uglyov, a former Russian chemical engineer who worked on developing the Novichok family of poisons. Although Uglyov believes U.K. authorities' assertion that a nerve agent called A-234 was used against the Skripals, he said he is puzzled by the lack of the basic symptoms of A-234 poisoning—uncontrollable urination and defecation. Such symptoms, he said, should appear if a person is exposed to something approaching half the median lethal dose. (RFE/RL, 04.26.18)
• Russia’s Foreign Ministry said it was ready to facilitate cooperation between North and South Korea, including in the fields of railway transportation, gas and electrical energy. (Reuters, 04.27.18)
• Data from Russia’s Federal Customs Service shows Berlin’s close energy ties with Moscow might be paying off after Germany paid less for natural gas from Russia than most other buyers. Only the U.K., which produces most of its own gas, had lower import costs among the biggest offtakers. (Bloomberg, 04.25.18)
• Britain’s parliament is set to consider anti-money-laundering legislation on May 1 that would force tax havens in Britain’s overseas territories, such as the British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands, to reveal the identities of those benefiting from assets held under their jurisdictions, including Russian oligarchs. (The Times, 04.25.18)
• Iraq has reportedly sentenced two Russian women to life in prison for ties to Islamic State a week after handing life sentences to two other wives of suspected IS fighters. Fifty-seven Russian women and around 100 of their children have been held in a female prison in Baghdad as of March. (The Moscow Times, 04.26.18)
• A retired Norwegian border inspector arrested in Russia last year on suspicion of spying probably had been acting as a courier for a Norwegian intelligence agency, his attorney said. Frode Berg has been in jail in Moscow since December. (The Washington Post, 04.24.18)
• China, Russia and Saudi Arabia led a chorus of disapproval at a World Trade Organization meeting against the EU’s new rules against countries dumping cheap goods on its market. (Reuters, 04.26.18)
• Iranian authorities have canceled a license that allowed local internet providers to host content by messaging app Telegram. Iran's move comes after a court in Russia last week ordered Telegram, set up by Russian entrepreneur Pavel Durov, to be blocked after the company refused to share its encryption data with the country's security services. Iranian authorities last month said Iran would block Telegram, thought to be used by an estimated 40 million Iranians, by the end of April, for reasons of national security. (RFE/RL, 04.26.18)
• A pro-Putin paper called De Andere Krant (The Different Paper) which was distributed in the Netherlands over the past few weeks was financed by a wealthy organic farmer from Brabant. Hugo Jansen, who also campaigns against “the Jewish elite,” donated 6,500 euros to fund a 50,000 print run for the paper. (DutchNews.nl, 04.25.18)

China:

• Russian gas giant Gazprom said on April 27 that China will not provide the company with advance payments for gas supplies. The company added that the efficiency of its gas supplies to China will be on par with that of its exports to Europe. (Reuters, 04.27.18)

Ukraine:

• U.S. Acting Secretary of State John Sullivan met with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin on April 21, on the margins of the G7 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Toronto. Sullivan reaffirmed the United States’ ironclad support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression. He urged Ukraine to redouble reform efforts and adhere to IMF programs by adopting legislation to establish a truly independent anti-corruption court and raising gas tariffs to import parity levels. (U.S. State Department, 04.21.18)
• Since 2014, at least 1,000 Ukrainian combat veterans have committed suicide due to post-traumatic stress disorder. (Kyiv Post, 04.24.18)
• Ukraine's industrial production grew 2.4 percent in January-March 2018. (Ukrinform, 04.24.18)
• During the first two months of 2018, exports of Ukrainian goods grew to $7.4 billion, up 17.9 percent compared to last year. (Ukraine Business Journal, 04.23.18)
• Car production in Ukraine plunged by over 98 percent over a decade. (UNIAN, 04.24.18)
• The CIS Executive Committee has not received an official notice from Ukraine on its withdrawal from the CIS, Sergei Lebedev, chairman of the CIS Executive Committee and CIS Executive Secretary, said. (Kyiv Post, 04.23.18)
• Ukraine marked the 32nd anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster on April 26 with a memorial service and a series of events in remembrance of the world's worst-ever civilian nuclear accident. (RFE/RL, 04.26.18)

Russia’s other post-Soviet neighbors:

• The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) says it is withdrawing from the governing coalition, as demonstrations erupted on the streets of Yerevan calling for the Republican Party (HHK) to cede its long-held power. Dashnaktsutyun is the junior partner with the HHK in parliament with seven seats. The HHK has 58 in the 105-seat parliament, meaning that it could still hold power if it has no defections among its members. Opposition lawmaker and protest leader Nikol Pashinian on April 25 launched a fresh demonstration after the cancelation of planned talks between Pashinian and acting Prime Minister Karen Karapetian, a senior HHK member. Pashinian said on April 27 he would continue to call for anti-government protests, and led supporters on another march through Yerevan on April 26. Pashinian said that although Serzh Sargsyan resigned on April 23 from the post of the prime minister as a result of massive protests, "the Republicans must also be deprived of their power," so that Sargsyan cannot rule Armenia as de facto head of a "shadow government." The Kremlin said on April 24 it did not regard political tumult in Armenia, a close Russian ally, as a Ukraine-style revolution. Pashinian said on April 25 he had met a Russian official and got reassurance that Moscow would not intervene in Armenia's political crisis. Moscow has two military bases in the ex-Soviet republic. Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke to the acting prime minister on April 26 and made it clear Moscow was watching and did not want mob rule. The Russian Foreign Ministry said on April 26 that Moscow hoped that Armenia’s ruling party and the opposition can solve their problems via dialogue. Armenia's parliamentary speaker says lawmakers will vote on May 1 for the country's next prime minister, with Pashinian shaping up as the favorite. (RFE/RL, 04.24.18, The Moscow Times, 04.24.18, Reuters, 04.27.18, The Moscow Times, 04.26.18, RFE/RL, 04.26.18, Reuters, 04.26.18, RFE/RL, 04.26.18 Reuters, 04.26.18)
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov discussed the settlement of the Azeri-Armenian conflict around Azerbaijan's breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region with his Azeri counterpart in a phone call on April 27. (Reuters, 04.27.18)
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held talks in Moscow on April 26 with his Armenian counterpart Eduard Nalbandian. (Reuters, 04.26.18)
• Latvia's parliament voted on April 26 to scale back domestic banks' ties with risky shell firms under laws aimed at tackling money laundering, but pressure will remain on the Baltic state to do more. (Reuters, 04.26.18)
• On the 103rd anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes took time to mark the occasion and use that word to describe the massacre of more than 1 million Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Turks. But U.S. President Donald Trump carefully avoided the word "genocide” in his official statement marking the anniversary. In Armenia, Armenian President Armen Sarkisian and acting Prime Minister Karen Karapetian visited the memorial complex to the victims. (Interfax, 04.24.18, Fresno Bee, 04.24.18)
• Georgia’s former prime minister and richest man, Bidzina Ivanishvili, is making a political comeback and will chair the ruling Georgian Dream party. (Reuters, 04.26.18)
• Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov has visited Uzbekistan's western region of Khorezm, which neighbors Turkmenistan, on the last day of his official visit. Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev told journalists following the two presidents' talks that Tashkent is ready to take part in the construction of the planned Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) natural-gas pipeline. (RFE/RL, 04.24.18)
• A new Kyrgyz government has been sworn in in parliament less than a week after the previous government was dismissed. Members of the new cabinet led by Mukhammedkalyi Abylgaziev were sworn in just hours before lawmakers approved Otkurbek Jamshitov, who was nominated by Kyrgyz President Sooronbai Jeenbekov, as prosecutor-general. (RFE/RL, 04.25.18)
• Former Kyrgyz Prime Minister Sapar Isakov has been elected as a deputy chairman of the Social Democratic Party (KSDP) led by ex-President Almazbek Atambaev. (RFE/RL, 04.27.18)
• Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev says he will relocate most of the country's cabinet ministers to the provinces so they can experience firsthand the hardships ordinary people face in their everyday lives. (RFE/RL, 04.27.18)

IV. Quoteworthy

• No significant developments.