This Week’s Highlights

• The Czech Republic has become the first NATO country to contribute tanks to Ukraine while the U.K. said it will be providing Ukraine with heavily armored troop carriers. The latest $800 million package from the U.S. will include armored vehicles as well as laser-guided rocket systems and drones, according to WP. All in all, 32 countries had provided Ukraine with military equipment by March 30, according to Jane's. Additionally, the Pentagon will resume direct training of the Ukrainian military, as will British troops. 
• The missile cruiser Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet sank April 14 after being hit by Ukrainian missiles, according to CNN. The Moskva, was the biggest warship by tonnage to sink during conflict since World War II, WP reports.
• As the economic fallout of the war in Ukraine spreads, the IMF plans next week to downgrade growth expectations for 143 countries, FT reports. Ukraine’s economy is forecast to nearly halve this year, while Russia will see an 11.2% decline in GDP, MT and RFE/RL report.
• “I have to say that what happened is unprecedented. This is still not an arrest [of Russia’s foreign currency reserves], but a freeze. … Everyone told us that the probability of that was very low,” Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Central Bank Ksenia Yudaeva said, Kommersant reports.
• The surplus in Russia’s current account for the first three months of 2022 rose to $58.2 billion, from $22.5 billion during the first quarter last year, according to the central bank, Axios reports. The surplus in part reflects the fact that imports have fallen sharply.
• In 2022, January-March trade turnover between Russia and China reached $38.17 billion, a 28.7% increase compared with the same time last year, MT reports. Meanwhile Huawei has furloughed its Russian staff for at least one month after suspending new orders as Beijing faces potential secondary sanctions. Huawei has also disabled support for cards of Russia’s Mir payment system in its AppGallery app store, according to MT and RB.ru. 
• The Levada Center’s March 24-30 national poll revealed that the share of Russians with a positive attitude towards China increased from 70% in February to a historical record of 83%, while the share of respondents who hold a negative view decreased from 18% to 8%.

 

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

Nuclear security and safety:

• No significant developments.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• No significant developments.

Iran and its nuclear program:

• No significant developments.

Humanitarian impact of the Ukraine conflict:

• WHO said April 5 that it had verified 103 attacks on Ukrainian health care sites and ambulances since Feb. 24. (NYT, 04.09.22)
• The European Commission on April 9 said that a global fund-raising effort called “Stand Up for Ukraine” had raised 9.1 billion euros for people fleeing Ukraine. (NYT, 04.09.22)
• French investigators arrived in Ukraine to probe suspected Russian atrocities in the Kyiv area while the EU earmarked 2.5 million euros to ICC for future Ukraine cases. Some 1,000 people are now investigating the alleged crimes in Bucha. The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor visited Bucha on April 13. (MT/AFP, 04.13.22, WSJ, 04.12.22, MT, 04.11.22)
• The Ukrainian government conducted a prisoner exchange with Moscow, with 12 Ukrainian soldiers and 14 civilians returning home. (RFE/RL, 04.09.22)
• Almost 200 children have been killed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Ukraine’s prosecutor-general has said. Nearly two-thirds of all Ukrainian children have been forced from their homes. (FT, 04.13.22, WP, 04.12.22)
• The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is "concerned" about unconfirmed reports of use of chemical weapons in Mariupol and Ukrainian authorities are investigating whether phosphorous munitions might have been used there. (RFE/RL, 04.13.22)
• "Yes, I called it genocide," said U.S. President Joe Biden. "It's become clearer and clearer that Putin is just trying to wipe out the idea of even being able to be a Ukrainian,” he said. French President Emmanuel Macron declined to call the actions of Russian troops in Ukraine "genocide," saying that "an escalation of rhetoric" would not help stop the war. Biden’s claims of a genocide in Ukraine were “unacceptable,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. (FT, 04.13.22, MT/AFP, 04.13.22)
• Russia broke international humanitarian law by deliberately targeting civilians during its invasion of Ukraine, experts from the OSCE determined. (WP, 04.13.22)
• At least 20 journalists from around the world have been killed during Russia’s war in Ukraine. (MT/AFP, 04.13.22)
• Experts with the OSCE say they found "clear patterns" of violations of international humanitarian law by Russian forces in Ukraine. (RFE/RL, 04.14.22)
• A total of 2,557 people were evacuated from Ukrainian cities through humanitarian corridors on April 14. (RFE/RL, 04.15.22)

Military aspects of the Ukraine conflict and their impacts:

• According to Jane's, 32 countries had provided Ukraine with military equipment by March 30. (WP, 04.08.22.)
• The Czech Republic has become the first NATO country to contribute tanks to Ukraine while the U.K. said it will be providing Ukraine with heavily armored troop carriers and that British troops will help train the Ukrainians in their operation. The latest package from the United States includes laser-guided rocket systems, Puma drones and armored high-mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles. (WP, 04.09.22)
• Russia reorganized the command of its offensive in Ukraine on April 9, selecting for the mission commander of its Southern Military District Aleksandr V. Dvornikov, a general accused of ordering strikes on civilian neighborhoods in Syria. (NYT, 04.09.22)
• About 70 percent of the Ukrainian air force is still operating. (NYT, 04.09.22)
• Josep Borrell wrote on Twitter on April 9: “This war will be won on the battlefield.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Borrel's statement represents "a very serious U-turn" in Western policy towards Russia. (RM, 04.09.22, AA.Com.Tr, 04.11.22)
• “The question of a possible resumption of the enemy’s attack on the capital will depend on the fighting that will play out in Donetsk and Luhansk regions,” said Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesperson Oleksandr Motuzyanyk. (FT, 04.11.22) 
• On April 13, Russia's Defense Ministry said 1,026 service members of Ukraine's 36th Marine Brigade, including 162 officers, had surrendered to Russian forces in Mariupol. (WSJ, 04.13.22)
• In seven weeks of fighting in Ukraine, Russia has lost an estimated three dozen unmanned aircraft, according to Dutch warfare research group Oryx. (Defence Blog, 04.14.22)
• Biden announced that the Pentagon would send $800 million in additional military aid to Ukraine. Included are 11 Mi-17 helicopters, 18 howitzers, 40,000 artillery rounds, 300 Switchblade drones, and 12 radar systems. The new pledge will bring the total U.S. assistance since the beginning of the war to $2.5 billion. (FT, 04.13.22)
• The Pentagon says it will resume direct training of the Ukrainian military, but no decision has been made on the location of the new training. (WP, 04.14.22)
• CIA chief William Burns recounted his own interactions in Moscow with Putin in November 2021. Putin seemed to think at the time the winter offered a "favorable landscape" for invasion and that Ukrainians weren't likely to mount an "effective resistance." Putin also judged that the Russian military was "capable of a quick, decisive victory at minimal cost." (WP, 04.14.22)
• Russia's Defense Ministry warned on April 15 that it will intensify attacks on Kyiv after accusing Ukraine of targeting Russian border towns. (RFE/RL, 04.15.22)
• The missile cruiser Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet sank April 14. A senior U.S. defense official said two Ukrainian Neptune missiles hit the Moskva. The Moskva, which was over 600 feet long and more than 12,000 tons, was the biggest warship by tonnage to sink during conflict since World War II. (WSJ, 04.15.22, WP, 04.15.22, CNN, 04.15.22)
• The Russian military moved into the center of the southern city of Mariupol this week. The remaining Ukrainian forces are holed up at a steel plant and at the city’s port. For the first time since they invaded Ukraine, Russian forces have used long-range bombers in Mariupol. (NYT, 04.13.22, NYT,  04.15.22, The Hill, 04.15.22)
• Ukrainians have run more than 8,600 facial recognition searches on dead or captured Russian soldiers. The country's IT Army says it has used those identifications to inform the families of the deaths of 582 Russians. (WP, 04.15.22)
• Earlier this week, Russia sent a diplomatic note to the U.S. warning that American and NATO shipments of the "most sensitive" weapons systems to Ukraine could bring "unpredictable consequences" and were "adding fuel" to the volatile conflict. (NBC, 04.15.22)
• The Russian defense ministry said April 15 that in Kyiv, a plant that made and repaired Ukrainian missiles was targeted. Powerful explosions were also heard April 15 in Kramatorsk, in Ukraine’s east, Kherson in the south and in the northeastern city of Kharkiv. (LA Times, 05.15.22)

Punitive measures related to Ukraine and their impact globally:

• Russia has revoked the registration of 15 foreign organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Moscow Carnegie Center, Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, the Aga Khan Foundation and the Wspolnota Polska Association. (RFE/RL, 04.09.22)
• Russia has declared Chatham House an "undesirable" organization. (RFE/RL, 04.09.22)
• Citizens of Russia and Belarus locked out of the global banking system have opened nearly 12,000 accounts in Kazakh banks since Feb. 24. (BNE, 04.09.22)
• When the West launched sanctions against Russia, Russian oligarchs scrambled to find a haven for their private jets. They are flocking to Dubai, but once they get there, they effectively can't leave. (WSJ, 04.09.22)
• S&P Global Ratings said on April 9 it had downgraded Russian foreign debt to "selective default." (RFE/RL, 04.09.22)
• Ukraine’s economy is forecast to nearly halve this year due to Russia’s invasion, according to World Bank. (RFE/RL, 04.11.22)
• Moscow will start legal proceedings if it is declared in default by the West, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said. (MT/AFP, 04.11.22)
• Russia will see an 11.2% decline in GDP, World Bank said. (MT/AFP, 04.11.22)
• State-owned Russian Railways was declared in default of a bond obligation. (WSJ, 04.11.22)
• Société Générale would take a hit of $3.3 billion in a deal to sell the company’s controlling stake in Rosbank, a Moscow-based lender, to Interros Capital. (NYT, 04.11.22)
• BNY Mellon, which has ceased new business with Russia, said it may lose as much as $200 million in revenue. (NYT, 04.11.22)
• JPMorgan Chase’s chief executive, Jamie Dimon, told shareholders that the bank could lose $1 billion “over time” because of its exposure to Russia. (NYT, 04.11.22)
• Shell said in an update to shareholders that its decision to leave Russia would cost the company $4 billion to $5 billion in this quarter alone. (NYT, 04.11.22)
• Volvo said it was setting aside about $423 million to make up for losses it anticipated in the first quarter because of Russian exposure. (NYT, 04.11.22)
• Italy’s financial police have seized a €100 million villa in Sardinia belonging to billionaire Dmitry Mazepin and his son Nikita. (FT, 04.11.22)
• Telecom giant Nokia has announced it is pulling out of Russia. The decision to leave would affect about 2,000 workers. (RFE/RL, 04.12.22)
• Aleksei Kudrin, who heads Russia's Audit Chamber, said on April 12 that Russia’s GDP would fall by more than 10 percent this year. (RFE/RL, 04.12.22)
• Twenty-one airlines licensed in Russia, including Aeroflot, Pobeda, S7, Rossiya, UTair and Ural Airlines, have been blacklisted by the EU over safety concerns. (RFE/RL, 04.12.22)
• According to EU data, three quarters of Russian commercial aircraft are built in the European Union, the United States and Canada. (RFE/RL, 04.12.22)
• Biden has asked Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi not to accelerate purchases of Russian oil. (RFE/RL, 04.12.22)
• A total of 206 Russian individuals, including the 178 "separatists," six oligarchs, close associates and employees and an additional 22 individuals were put on the U.K.’s sanctions list. Pavel Ezubov, a cousin of Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, and Nigina Zairova, the executive assistant to banker Mikhail Fridman, and Maria Lavrova, the Russian foreign minister's wife, were subjected to a travel ban and asset freeze. (RFE/RL, 04.13.22)
• A court in the Channel Island of Jersey has imposed an order freezing more than $7 billion in assets belonging to Roman Abramovich. (FT, 04.13.22)
• Cyprus has started the process of stripping citizenship from four Russian billionaires, Mikhail Gutseriyev, Alexander Ponomarenko, Vadim Moshkovich, and Alexei Kuzmichyov, and 17 members of their families. (RFE/RL, 04.14.22)
• U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres released a report, saying that because of the war “1.7 billion people—one-third of whom are already living in poverty—are now highly exposed to disruptions in food, energy and finance systems.” (RFE/RL, 04.14.22)
• Russia introduced sanctions against 398 U.S. Congressmen and 87 Canadian senators in retaliation against measures announced by Washington over Ukraine. The sanctions include entry bans. (RFE/RL, 04.13.22)
• The American rights owner of fonts Times New Roman and Arial has restricted access to Russian users. (MT/AFP, 04.14.22)
• IMF head Kristalina Georgieva said the economic fallout of the war in Ukraine is spreading. In its economic forecasts next week, the IMF would downgrade growth expectations for 143 countries around the world, representing 86 percent of global GDP. (FT, 04.14.22)
• Citigroup’s profits were hit in the first quarter by the fallout from the war in Ukraine as the U.S. bank set aside $1.9 billion for potential loan losses. (FT, 04.14.22)
• German authorities announced that a $588 million yacht, “Dilbar,” has been frozen. Previously owned by Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov, the yacht is ultimately owned by Usmanov’s sister, Gulbakhor Ismailova. (Forbes, 04.13.22)
• Moody's Investors Service said April 14 that Russia "may be considered in default" if it does not pay two bonds in U.S. dollars by May 4. (MT/AFP 04.15.22)
• CIA’s Burns recounted his interactions with Putin in November 2021, noting Putin seemed to think that he had made the Russian economy "sanctions-proofed by a war chest of foreign currency reserves.” (WP, 04.14.22)
• “I have to say that what happened is unprecedented. This is still not an arrest [of Russia’s foreign currency reserves], but a freeze... It's unprecedented at this size. Everyone told us that the probability of that was very low,” Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank Ksenia Yudaeva said. (Kommersant, 04.14.22)
• Russia's communications regulator has blocked access to the Russian-language website of The Moscow Times. (RFE/RL, 04.15.22)
• North Macedonia has declared six Russian diplomats personae non gratae for violating diplomatic norms. (RFE/RL, 04.15.22)
• Britain has sanctioned Chelsea Football Club director Eugene Tenenbaum and another Abramovich business associate, David Davidovich, imposing a freezing order on $10 billion worth of assets linked to the two men. Davidovich will also face a travel ban. (RFE/RL, 04.15.22)
• The U.S. Commerce Department has identified seven Boeing 737 planes operated by Belarusian national carrier Belavia that are in apparent violation of U.S. export controls. (RFE/RL, 04.15.22)

Ukraine-related negotiations:

• Speaking on April 12, Putin said that peace talks have reached a "dead end." (FT, 04.13.22, Kremlin.ru, 04.12.22)
• Lavrov on April 11 brushed aside any possibility of a ceasefire in Ukraine, saying Moscow is open to resuming peace talks with Kyiv but that does not mean the war will be halted. (Hindustan Times, 04.11.22)

Great Power rivalry/new Cold War/NATO-Russia relations:

• British Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in what Downing Street called a "show of solidarity.” (RFE/RL, 04.09.22)
• Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said he was "deeply disappointed and saddened" by the behavior of his old friend Putin over the Ukraine invasion. (AFP, 04.09.22)
• Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer says he held "direct, open and hard" talks with Putin over Moscow's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. A statement from Nehammer's office said the meeting in Moscow on April 11, which lasted just over an hour, was not "a visit of friendship." (RFE/RL, 04.11.22)
• “Our special military operation is designed to put an end to the reckless expansion and the reckless course toward the total dominance of the United States—and the rest of the Western countries under them—in the international arena,” Lavrov said. (MT/AFP, 04.11.22)
• Nearly half, 48%, of Americans polled on April 2-4 said “my country’s government has a responsibility to protect and defend Ukraine from Russia.” A recent YouGov poll, commissioned by The Economist, suggests that roughly half of American respondents under 30 do not sympathize more with Ukraine in the current conflict. The rest either are unsure, do not sympathize with either side, or sympathize more with Russia. (Boston Globe, 04.10.22, MorningConsult.com, 04.11.22)
• Speaking on April 12, Putin vowed to achieve his “noble” objectives in Ukraine and said that “there is no doubt that we will definitely attain the goals set.” “The main goal is to help the people of Donbas,” he said. “We could no longer tolerate that genocide. … This is the first point. Second, Ukraine was being turned into … an anti-Russia bridgehead,” Putin said. (FT, 04.13.22, Kremlin.ru, 04.12.22)
• The presidents of Poland and all three Baltic states visited the town of Borodyanka, northwest of Kyiv, on April 13 in a show of support for Ukraine. (RFE/RL, 04.13.22)

• German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on April 13 ruled out a visit to Kyiv in the near future as a diplomatic spat between Germany and Ukraine worsened over sluggish weapons delivery and slighted president Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Scholz is dragging his feet on sending 100 armored vehicles to Ukraine, saying that Germany must not “rush ahead.” (NYT, 04.12.22, NYT, 04.13.22)

• Germany’s foreign intelligence service last year shunned an offer to meet former Wirecard executive Jan Marsalek in Moscow, fearing that the invitation to talk to the fugitive was a trap set up by the FSB. (FT, 04.13.22)
• Russian and Belarusian trucks are backed up for more than 40 kilometers in Poland and have been waiting to leave as hauliers try to get out of the bloc before a ban on their vehicles comes into force on April 16. (FT, 04.15.22)

China-Russia: Allied or aligned?

• In 2022, January-March trade turnover between Russia and China reached $38.17 billion, a 28.7% increase compared with the same time last year. Russian imports from China rose 25.9% to $16.44 billion, while its exports to China jumped 31% to $21.73 billion in the first quarter of the year. (MT/AFP, 04.13.22)
• Chinese telecoms giant Huawei has furloughed its Russian staff for at least one month after suspending new orders as Beijing faces potential secondary sanctions for doing business with Moscow. Huawei has disabled support for cards of Russia’s Mir payment system in its AppGallery app store. (MT/AFP, 04.11.22, RB.ru, 04.12.22)
• China on April 14 defended its stance on the Ukraine conflict. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian insisted China's stance was "objective and impartial," saying "Russia's legitimate security concerns should also be respected." (MT/AFP, 04.14.22)
• The Levada Center’s March 24-30 national poll revealed that the share of Russians with a positive attitude toward China increased from 70% in February to a historical record of 83%, while the share of respondents who hold a negative view of the country decreased from 18% to 8%. (RM, 04.15.22)

• The Russian Chess Federation will change its association. The Supervisory Board unanimously decided to leave the European Chess Association and join the Asian Chess Federation. (Kommersant, 04.14.22)

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms

• Finland's Prime Minister Sanna Marin says Helsinki is moving toward a decision on applying to join NATO "within weeks.” Marin's Swedish counterpart, Magdalena Andersson, said the assessment of Sweden’s security needs would be “thorough but quick.” “Sweden and Finland are discussing the possibility of joining NATO with bestial seriousness,” Dmitry Medvedev wrote in his Telegram channel. “If Sweden and Finland join NATO, the length of the alliance’s land borders with Russia will more than double,” Medvedev wrote. “In this case, it will no longer be possible to talk about any non-nuclear status of the Baltic—the balance must be restored,” he wrote. (FT, 04.14.22, RM, 04.14.22, RFE/RL, 04.13.22)
• "Given the potential desperation of President Putin and the Russian leadership, given the setbacks that they've faced so far, militarily, none of us can take lightly the threat posed by a potential resort to tactical nuclear weapons or low-yield nuclear weapons,” Burns said on April 14. "We're obviously very concerned. I know President Biden is deeply concerned about avoiding a third world war, about avoiding a threshold in which, you know, nuclear conflict becomes possible," Burns said. (RFE/RL, 04.15.22)
• Zelensky told CNN April 15 that “all of the countries of the world” should be prepared for the possibility that Putin could use tactical nuclear weapons in his war on Ukraine. (CNN, 04.15.22)
• A report released by the Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor said the world’s nine nuclear-armed states had a combined arsenal of 12,705 nuclear warheads at the beginning of 2022. The usable-stockpiles figure was up from a low point of 9,227 warheads in 2017, the report said. (NYT, 04.11.22)
• A slim majority (54%) of U.S. voters believe it’s likely that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine leads to World War III, which is a down 10 points from early March. (Morningconsult.com, 04.11.22)

Counterterrorism:

• No significant developments.

Conflict in Syria:

• No significant developments.

Cyber security:

• Ukraine said on April 12 Russian hackers sought to attack and disable Ukraine's electricity grid for a second time last week but were thwarted. (RFE/RL, 04.12.22)
• In 5,000 different attempts, a Crimea-based group of hackers nicknamed Armageddon has unleashed ever more effective malware, hidden within cleverly engineered emails to spy on Ukrainian government bodies. (FT, 04.13.22)
• Putin created an interdepartmental commission of the Security Council meant to ensure Russia’s technological sovereignty in the development of IT infrastructure. It will be headed by Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev. (Kommersant, 04.14.22)
• Russia has arrested Dmitry Pavlov, alleged co-founder of dark web platform Hydra, on charges of drug trafficking, a week after U.S. and German authorities said they shut down Hydra. (MT/AFP 04.15.22)

Energy exports from CIS:

• Putin acknowledged that Western sanctions have stymied Russia's energy industry and that it will need to reorient oil and gas sales from markets to Asia. “The most urgent problem here is the disruption of export logistics,” he said. Putin also blamed the West for what he called "defaults on export deliveries of Russian energy resources.” Russia is facing infrastructure problems at its more than 150,000 oil fields, many of which are old. The IEA forecast that, starting in May, almost 3 million barrels a day in Russian production will be turned off. That would reduce output to fewer than 9 million barrels a day. (WSJ, 04.14.22, Kremlin.ru, 04.14.22, MT/AFP, 04.13.22, RFE/RL, 04.14.22)

Climate change:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• Russia and Ukraine are the world's largest sellers of pig iron, and in most years, the U.S. steel industry is the world's biggest buyer. Two-thirds of the 6 million metric tons of pig iron imported by the U.S. last year came from Ukraine and Russia. (WSJ, 04.12.22)

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

• A Russian appeals court has sent former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed’s nine-year prison sentence back to a lower court, ruling that he was not allowed to properly review case materials.  (RFE/RL, 04.12.22)
• The U.S. Justice Department charged Russian lawmaker Alexander Babakov, and two of his staff members—Alexander Vorobev and Mikhail Plisyuk—with conspiracy. The indictment alleges that the defendants used a nonprofit organization based in Russia as a front for the alleged foreign influence campaign. (RFE/RL, 04.15.22)
• The Levada Center’s March 24-30 national poll revealed that the share of Russians with a positive view of the U.S. declined from 31% in February to 17% in March, while the share of Russians with a negative view of America increased from 55% to 72% over the same period. (RM, 04.15.22)

 

II. Russia’s domestic policies

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

• The surplus in Russia’s current account for the first three months of 2022 rose to $58.2 billion, from $22.5 billion during the first quarter last year, according to the central bank.  The Institute of International Finance projects that Russia will post a record $250 billion surplus this year. The surplus in part reflects the fact that imports have fallen sharply. (Axios, 04.12.22)
• Investors fled Russia, as net capital outflows soared by 270% compared to the prior year. About $64.2 billion in capital headed for the exits, according to the central bank. (Axios, 04.12.22)
• The Diskurs and Kholod online newspapers said on April 9 that their websites had been blocked at the request of the Prosecutor-General's Office over coverage of Moscow's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. (RFE/RL, 04.09.22)
• At least 214 people were detained for staging anti-war protests in 18 Russian cities over the weekend, according to OVD-Info. (MT/AFP, 04.11.22)
• The FSB raided Aeroflot’s Moscow office after its former top deputy CEO Andrei Panov urged colleagues to “sabotage” Russia’s war in Ukraine. (MT/AFP, 04.13.22)
• Russian readers are increasingly buying up copies of “1984” along with self-help and psychology books in the wake of their country’s invasion of Ukraine. (MT/AFP, 04.13.22)
• A court in Moscow has replaced the 18-month parole-like sentence handed to opposition politician Lyubov Sobol to actual prison time. (RFE/RL, 04.14.22)
• Alexei Navalny has called on Western leaders and tech giants to fight Russian state propaganda with a massive social media campaign about Russia’s war in Ukraine. (MT/AFP 04.15.22)

Defense and aerospace:

•  Russia will resume its moon-exploration program, Putin said. (WSJ, 04.12.22)

• See section Military aspects of the Ukraine conflict and their impacts above.

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• Andrei Soldatov, an expert on Russia's security services, tweeted that Col. Gen. Sergei Beseda, head of the Fifth Service of the FSB, had been taken to Lefortovo prison. Beseda along with his deputy had been placed under house arrest in March, Soldatov had previously said, as officials investigated whether moles leaked intelligence on Russia's invasion. Other FSB officials have also been detained for supposedly “reporting false information to the Kremlin about the situation in Ukraine before the invasion,” according Bellingcat. (Business Insider, 04.08.22, Daily Mail 04.11.22).
• Putin's one-time “Grey Cardinal” Vladislav Surkov has been arrested, former Russian Duma deputy Ilya Ponomarev has claimed. According to Ponomarev, the case allegedly brought against Surkov relates to embezzlement in Donbas from 2014 onwards. Peskov denied knowledge of Surkov’s arrest. (BNE, 04.13.22, Interfax, 04.13.22)

 

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

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

• A Polish government special commission has again claimed that a Russian assassination plan was behind the plane crash that killed President Lech Kaczynski and senior members of his administration in 2010. (RFE/RL, 04.12.22)
• A German court has handed a Russian scientist a one-year suspended sentence for spying after he admitted to supplying publicly available information on a European rocket program to a Russian consular official. (RFE/RL, 04.13.22) 
• The Levada Center’s March 24-30 national poll revealed that the share of Russians who have a negative attitude toward the EU increased from 48% in February to 67% in March. The same period saw the share of respondents with a positive attitude toward the EU decline from 37% to 21%. (RM, 04.15.22)
• Russia on April 15 announced that 18 EU diplomats would be considered “persona non grata” in the country after 19 Russian diplomats to the EU and European Atomic Energy Community were expelled. (The Hill, 04.15.22)

Ukraine:

• Israel has expressed repeated support for Ukraine, sent humanitarian aid, set up a field hospital in western Ukraine and voted to suspend Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council. But it has not sent military equipment or enforced formal sanctions on Russian oligarchs. (NYT, 04.10.22)
• Ukrainian special forces have captured the leader of a pro-Russian political party Viktor Medvedchuk, who fled in late February while out on bail. (RFE/RL, 04.12.22) 
• The Levada Center’s March 24-30 national poll revealed that the share of Russians with a positive attitude toward Ukraine declined from 35% in February to 30% in March, while the share of respondents who have a negative attitude increased from 52% to 57%. (RM, 04.15.22)

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

• Pope Francis will visit Kazakhstan in September. (RFE/RL, 04.12.22)
• In the first quarter of 2022, the number of Russian nationals who applied for permanent residence in Kazakhstan reached 1,055 people, almost triple the number in an average quarter. (RFE/RL, 04.14.22)
• A runoff in the de facto presidential election in Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia has been set for April 28. (RFE/RL, 04.15.22)

 

IV. Quotable and notable

• Bill Clinton wrote: “Throughout it all, we left the door open for Russia’s eventual membership in NATO, something I made clear to Yeltsin and later confirmed to his successor, Vladimir Putin.” (The Atlantic, 04.07.22.)
• “As soon as the Russian-Ukrainian war is over and has been settled by a peace treaty, I will call for the implementation of a strategic rapprochement between NATO and Russia," Marine Le Pen said April 13. (WP, 04.14.22)
• In his first public speech as director of the CIA, Burns said: "The crimes in Bucha are horrific. The scenes of devastation in Mariupol and Kharkiv are sadly reminiscent of the images I saw in Grozny, in Chechnya, as a young diplomat in the winter of 1994-95.” (WP, 04.14.22)
• "Russian elites and oligarchs are probably some of the best in the world at hiding their wealth," said a senior U.S. Treasury official involved in directing sanctions policy. (WP, 04.11.22)
• "The world’s attitude towards China and its willingness to embrace further economic integration may well be affected by China’s reaction to our call for resolute action on Russia," U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said. (MT/AFP, 04.14.22, RFE/RL, 04.13.22) 
• “From day one everything is on the table . . . on sanctions, on oil, we have a long playbook. And in that playbook, several pages have not been read out,” said Jose Fernandez, U.S. under-secretary for economic growth, energy and the environment. (FT, 04.15.22)
• “What we are finding is that we are double sanctioned,” Dmitry Aleshkovsky, one of the founders of OK Russians and a former civil society leader from Moscow, tells me from the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. “We are enemies of the state within Russia and we are enemies of the world outside Russia.” (FT, 04.14.22)