This Week’s Highlights:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered a quid pro quo response to the U.S. test of a cruise missile previously prohibited by the now defunct INF Treaty, Reuters reports. Russia accused the U.S. of provoking an “uncontrolled” arms race during a U.N. Security Council meeting called for by Russia and China following the U.S. test, according to RFE/RL.
• Prior to this weekend’s G7 summit, U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated his call for Russia to be allowed to rejoin the group. "But I think it's much more appropriate to have Russia in. It should be the G8 because a lot of the things we talk about have to do with Russia," Trump said, according to The Washington Post. The EU and Canada have voiced their opposition to Trump’s proposal, Reuters reports.
• Russia is a European country, French President Emmanuel Macron said following talks with Putin. Macron played up efforts “to tie Russia and Europe back together” and underscored his belief that “Europe stretches from Lisbon to Vladivostok,” according to The Moscow Times.
• Seventeen countries owe Russia a total of $27 billion, with most of the country’s lending made through arms deals or unreported political loans, according to a tally by Russia’s RBC news website, The Moscow Times reports.
• The explosion that killed five Russian scientists during a rocket engine test earlier this month was followed by a second blast two hours later, the likely source of a spike in radiation, according to Norway's nuclear test-ban monitor. The second explosion was likely from an airborne rocket powered by radioactive fuel, Reuters reports.
• Russia’s oil and petroleum sales to the U.S. have reached six-year highs, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data analyzed by the RBC news website, with 61.75 million barrels of crude oil and petroleum products imported from Russia in January-May 2019 and oil sales to the U.S. that have reached nearly $3 billion during the first half this year, The Moscow Times reports.
• A court in Kyiv has ordered Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau to launch a probe against former President Petro Poroshenko and former Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin on charges of abuse of power, RFE/RL reports.

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

Nuclear security and safety:

• Four Russian nuclear-monitoring stations went silent days after the Aug. 8 military test accident in Nyonoksa, an official from the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) said Aug. 19, heightening concerns among observers that Russia is attempting to conceal evidence from the explosion. On Aug. 20 the radioactive-particle sensors of at least one of the four Russian monitoring stations in question were transmitting again, according to the CTBTO. Nuclear experts interviewed by The Moscow Times agreed that Russia’s monitoring stations likely went offline to keep other countries, primarily the U.S., from finding out exactly what had exploded in the accident. (Wall Street Journal, 08.19.19, Reuters, 08.20.19, The Moscow Times, 08.20.19)
  • The Kremlin said on Aug. 20 that there was nothing to worry about after the Russian radiation monitoring stations were reported to have stopped transmitting data. It would be impossible for modern-day Russia to cover up an accident the size of Chernobyl, the Kremlin said on Aug. 23.  (Reuters, 08.20.19, Reuters, 08.20.19, The Moscow Times, 08.23.19)
• Kremlin press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, on Aug. 20 said it was wrong for the CTBTO to have issued a map charting the potential path across Russia of the plume from the Aug. 8 accident. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov also asserted that reporting on the accident was beyond the expertise of the organization and that Russia wasn’t legally bound to share information with the group. (Wall Street Journal, 08.20.19)
• The explosion that killed five Russian scientists during a rocket engine test earlier this month was followed by a second blast two hours later, the likely source of a spike in radiation, Norway's nuclear test-ban monitor said Aug. 23. The second explosion, detected only by infrasonic air pressure sensors and not by the seismic monitors that pick up movements in the ground, was likely from an airborne rocket powered by radioactive fuel, the Norsar agency said. (Reuters, 08.23.19)
• Two of the Russian specialists killed in the explosion a died not of traumatic injuries from the blast itself but of radiation sickness before they could be taken to Moscow for treatment, the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported Aug. 21. (The Washington Post, 08.21.19)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin said the explosion occurred during the test of a promising weapons system and cast the Russian personnel who perished as national heroes. Putin said on Aug. 19 there was no risk of increased radiation levels after the Aug. 8 blast. (Wall Street Journal, 08.21.19, Reuters, 08.19.19)
• A Russian doctor has publicly confirmed that his colleagues were forced to treat radiation victims after a deadly nuclear explosion earlier this month without basic equipment or knowledge of the accident. Igor Semin, a cardiovascular surgeon at the Arkhangelsk Regional Clinical Hospital, wrote a post on the Vkontakte social media network dated Aug. 14, criticizing the authorities for their handling of the incident. Doctors said that all staff who worked with the patients directly were asked by Federal Security Service agents on Aug. 9 to sign non-disclosure agreements. (The Moscow Times, 08.23.19, The Moscow Times, 08.16.19)
• The Arkhangelsk hospital had to be decontaminated after traces were found of the radioactive isotope cesium-137, an unnamed medical worker involved in initial relief efforts told the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper. The Arkhangelsk regional administration said Aug. 23 that 110 medical workers who helped treat victims of the blast have undergone checks and one man was found with a low amount of radioactive cesium-137 in his muscle tissue. It said the man’s health isn’t in danger and argued that he could have got the radioactive isotope with food. (The Moscow Times, 08.22.19, AP, 08.23.19)
• Cryptocurrency mining equipment was discovered connected to the Internet at a Ukrainian nuclear power plant, putting the planet’s security at risk. (UNIAN, 08.21.19)
• Russia's first floating nuclear power plant, the Akademik Lomonosov, set sail Aug. 23 from the Arctic port of Murmansk on a 5,000 kilometer (3,100 mile) journey, sparking environmental concerns. (The Moscow Times, 08.21.19)
• Block 4 of Russia’s Beloyarsk nuclear power station in the Urals mountains was switched off on Sunday following a “false” response by the safety system, a subsidiary of state nuclear corporation Rosatom said. (Reuters, 08.18.19)
• On the night of Aug. 8, the last of 120 reactor compartments from Cold War-era submarines were docked and brought safely into the storage pad in Saida Bay on the Kola Peninsula. (The Barents Observer, 08.20.19)

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• The U.S. is ready to restart nuclear negotiations with North Korea, a senior U.S. diplomat said Aug. 21, a day after U.S. and South Korean militaries ended their regular drills that North Korea calls an invasion rehearsal. (AP, 08.21.19)

Iran’s nuclear program and related issues:

• Iran has debuted a new, locally built long-range missile system as it continues its defiant stance against the U.S. amid heightened tensions between the two countries. Iran’s state TV earlier reported that the Bavar-373 is a long-range surface-to-air missile system able to recognize up to 100 targets at a same time and confront them with six different weapons. The system could be a competitor to Russia’s S-300 missile system. (RFE/RL, 08.22.19, AP, 08.21.19)
• Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says talks with French President Emanuel Macron aimed at rescuing a 2015 international deal to curb Tehran’s nuclear program were "productive." (RFE/RL, 08.23.19)
• If the U.N. allows an arms embargo on Iran to expire in October 2020, Tehran will be “unshackled to create new turmoil,” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Aug. 20. (RFE/RL, 08.20.19)

New Cold War/saber rattling:

• Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Aug. 22 that a possible U.S. deployment of missiles in the Asia-Pacific region would pose a threat to international security. (Reuters, 08.22.19)

Military issues, including NATO-Russia relations:

• No significant developments.

Missile defense:

• The Pentagon is pulling the plug on a billion-dollar, technically troubled Boeing project to build a better weapon that would destroy incoming missiles. One indication of broader concern is the Pentagon’s statement that it will now invite industry competition to develop a “new, next-generation interceptor”—potentially a weapon that could take on hypersonic missiles being developed by China and Russia. (AP, 08.21.19)

Nuclear arms control:

• Russia and China accused the U.S. on Aug. 20 of stoking military tensions by testing a ground-launched cruise missile, but the Russian Foreign Ministry said it would not be drawn into an arms race. The Pentagon said Aug. 19 it had tested a conventionally-configured cruise missile that hit its target after more than 500 kilometers (310 miles) of flight, its first such test since the demise of the INF Treaty this month. The Kremlin said on Aug. 20 the test showed that Washington had long prepared to leave the INF Treaty and that the U.S., not Russia, was to blame for the pact’s demise. (Reuters, 08.20.19, Reuters, 08.20.19)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin on Aug. 23 ordered a quid pro quo response to a recent U.S. missile test. Putin told his Security Council that Russia could not stand idly by, and that U.S. talk of deploying new missiles in the Asia-Pacific region "affects our core interests as it is close to Russia's borders." (Reuters, 08.23.19)
• Russia has accused the U.S. of provoking an “uncontrolled” arms race during a U.N. Security Council meeting called for by Russia and China following the U.S. test of a cruise missile on Aug. 18. Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Dmitry Polyansky, told reporters Aug. 21: “We are on eve of the new arms race. We want to discuss this issue.” Acting U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Jonathan Cohen countered that Moscow had long ago decided to break its INF Treaty obligations  (The Moscow Times, 08.23.19, RFE/RL, 08.23.19, AP, 08.22.19)
• According to the 2019 U.S. arms control compliance report, the U.S. determined that in 2018, Russia continued to be in violation of its obligations under Articles I, IV and VI of the INF Treaty not to possess, produce or flight-test a ground-launched cruise missile with a range capability of 500 kilometers to 5,500 kilometers, or to possess or produce launchers of such missiles. The Russian missile in question is the SSC-8 Screwdriver, which the U.S. assesses to be designated by Russia as the 9M729. The U.S. assesses that Russia’s decision to violate the INF Treaty was born out of years of frustration with being prohibited from possessing ground-launched intermediate-range missiles even as perceived threats within these ranges were increasing around its borders. (U.S. State Department, 08.19.19)
• According to the 2019 U.S. arms control compliance report, in 2018, the U.S. continued to refute false Russian allegations of U.S. noncompliance with the INF Treaty. The U.S. side explained how its actions related to the use of ballistic target missiles fully comply with U.S. obligations under the INF Treaty and explained how and why the Aegis Ashore missile defense system is likewise fully in compliance with the INF Treaty. (U.S. State Department, 08.19.19)
• According to the 2019 U.S. arms control compliance report, the Russian charge that armed UAVs violate the INF Treaty is unfounded as they perform as any other aircraft, where they launch, fly a mission and return to base upon completion. (U.S. State Department, 08.19.19)
• According to the 2019 U.S. arms control compliance report, all U.S. activities during the reporting period were consistent with the obligations set forth in the New START Treaty. (U.S. State Department, 08.19.19)
• According to the 2019 U.S. arms control compliance report, the U.S. assesses that Russia has not adhered to its nuclear testing moratorium in a manner consistent with the U.S. “zero-yield” standard. The U.S., including the intelligence community, has assessed that Russia has conducted nuclear weapons tests that have created nuclear yield. (U.S. State Department, 08.19.19)

Counter-terrorism:

• U.S. President Donald Trump has said that other countries must take up the battle against the Islamic State, citing Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Russia as examples. Asked by reporters whether he is concerned about the reemergence of the group in Iraq, Trump told reporters on Aug. 21 that U.S. forces had “wiped out the caliphate 100 percent.” (RFE/RL, 08.21.19)

Conflict in Syria:

• The Syrian military on Aug. 22 captured a strategic northern town held by rebels for the past five years, as the Russian-backed Assad regime continued its military push to retake the last opposition stronghold after more than eight years of conflict. Antigovernment rebels and militants formerly linked with al Qaeda withdrew from Khan Sheikhoun ahead of the regime’s capture of the town in Idlib province. (The Washington Post, 08.22.19, Wall Street Journal, 08.20.19)
• Russia has military servicemen stationed on the ground in Syria’s Idlib and is following the situation there closely, Interfax cited Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying on Aug. 20. Lavrov was quoted as saying that any attacks carried out by Islamist militant groups in the de-escalation zone in Idlib would be forcefully suppressed. (Reuters, 08.20.19)
• Air strikes have killed more than two dozen civilians in northwestern Syria in the last two days in an escalation of a Russian-backed offensive against the last major rebel stronghold, a war monitor and local activists said on Saturday. (Reuters, 08.17.19)
• Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan told Russia's Vladimir Putin on Aug. 23 that Syrian army attacks in northwest Syria are causing a humanitarian crisis and threaten Turkey's national security, the Turkish presidency said. (Reuters, 08.23.19)

Cyber security:

• No significant developments.

Elections interference:

• Rick Gates, a key cooperator in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation has begun testifying in the foreign lobbying trial of prominent Washington attorney Greg Craig. Craig was charged in April with willfully concealing material facts from the Justice Department about work he performed for the Ukrainian government that also involved Gates and then-business partner Paul Manafort. (AP, 08.22.19)

Energy exports:

• Russia’s Rosneft, one of the world’s top oil producers and exporters, has notified customers that future tender contracts for oil products will be denominated in euros not dollars. (Reuters, 08.21.19)
• Russia’s largest oil producer Rosneft posted on Aug. 21 a 15 percent fall in second quarter net profit hit by lower prices and weak oil production due to a domestic crude contamination crisis. Rosneft’s daily oil output also fell 2.7 percent in the second quarter from the previous three months. (Reuters, 08.21.19, Reuters, 08.20.19)
• Europe’s two biggest suppliers of pipeline gas, Norway’s Equinor and Russia’s Gazprom, have lost market share for the first time in at least four years amid a tripling in liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports into the region over the past 10 months. (Reuters, 08.19.19)

Bilateral economic ties:

• Russia’s oil and petroleum sales to the U.S. have reached six-year highs, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data analyzed by the RBC news website. The U.S. imported 61.75 million barrels of crude oil and petroleum products from Russia in January-May 2019, up from 56 million barrels in January-May 2018. Russia’s Federal Customs Service, according to RBC, says oil sales to the U.S. have reached nearly $3 billion during the first half this year versus $1.6 billion over the same period last year. (The Moscow Times, 08.21.19)

Other bilateral issues:

• U.S. President Donald Trump on Aug. 20 reiterated his call for Russia to be allowed to rejoin the Group of Seven industrial nations. "But I think it's much more appropriate to have Russia in. It should be the G8 because a lot of the things we talk about have to do with Russia," Trump said. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Russia would need to receive a formal, tangible proposal before considering a return to the group. "It is necessary to move the discussion of this topic from the sphere of public entertainment to the professional one if the Group of Seven wants to position itself as a serious format," Interfax quoted her as saying. Senior Russian lawmaker Konstantin Kosachev balked at the idea of reviving the G8 and instead offered to include China and India into a G10. (The Washington Post, 08.20.19, The Moscow Times, 08.21.19)
• U.S. President Donald Trump says the No. 2 official at the U.S. State Department, Deputy Secretary of State John J. Sullivan, may be his next ambassador to Russia. U.S. envoy on North Korea Stephen Biegun said on Aug. 21 he will not take up the post of ambassador to Russia but will remain focused on the denuclearization of North Korea. (AP, 08.20.19, Reuters, 08.20.19)
• The U.S. on Aug. 21 reiterated its concern over reports that Russian-backed authorities in the Georgian-breakaway region of South Ossetia are again erecting a fence near the administrative boundary line. (RFE/RL, 08.22.19)
• According to the 2019 U.S. arms control compliance report, Russia continues to raise questions about U.S. compliance with the Biological Weapons Convention. During the reporting period, Russia again questioned the activities of the Lugar Center for Public Health Research in Tbilisi, Georgia, alleging that work at the center “carries out double purpose research activities in the field of highly dangerous infectious diseases.” (U.S. State Department, 08.19.19)
• According to the 2019 U.S. arms control compliance report, in 2018, the U.S. continued to assess that Russia was in violation of the Open Skies Treaty. (U.S. State Department, 08.19.19)
• Former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, held in Russia on suspicion of spying, said on Aug. 23 that prison authorities in Moscow had injured him, as a court ruled to extend his detention by two months. (Reuters, 08.23.19)
• Russia doesn’t “shop” for foreign territories, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s idea to buy the resource-rich Danish territory of Greenland. (The Moscow Times, 08.22.19)
• Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov agreed to sell his remaining stake in the Brooklyn Nets basketball team and full ownership of Brooklyn's Barclays Center sports arena to Joe Tsai, the co-founder of the Alibaba e-commerce company, for $2.35 billion—an American sports record. (The Moscow Times, 08.19.19)
• Overstock.com’s chief executive, Patrick Byrne, resigned Aug. 22, after the company issued a bizarre statement last week in which the former CEO referred to the “Deep State,” called federal agents “Men in Black” and confirmed a journalist’s stories detailing his relationship with Maria Butina, a gun-rights activist who was sentenced to prison for being an unregistered agent of Russia. (AP, 08.22.19)

II. Russia’s domestic news

Politics, economy and energy:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin said citizens have “the right to peaceful protest” but that riots would not be tolerated in Moscow, in his first comments on five weeks of rallies that have rocked the Russian capital. Russian opposition members were banned from running for Moscow’s legislature because they had submitted “falsified” signatures, Putin has said, playing down the election protests. (Financial Times, 08.19.19, The Moscow Times, 08.22.19)
• Russia’s lower house of parliament on Aug. 19 set up a commission to examine alleged cases of foreign interference in connection with the protests against the Moscow city council election, while Russian President Vladimir Putin defended the harsh police crackdown on some of the demonstrations. The commission holds its first session on Aug. 30. (AP, 08.19.19)
• Alexei Kudrin, the head of Russia’s Audit Chamber and a longtime adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Sergei Chemezov, the CEO of Rostec and a close ally of Putin, have spoken out this week against police violence in Moscow’s largest protests in years. (The Moscow Times, 08.21.19)
• Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny on Aug. 23 used his first statement after being released from jail to predict that opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin and protests against the authorities would only grow. (Reuters, 08.23.19)
• Russian opposition activists staged a string of pickets in central Moscow to call for open elections and for charges against protesters detained at recent rallies to be dropped. (The Moscow Times, 08.19.19)
• Over 550 Russian academics and scientists accused the Kremlin on Aug. 22 of waging a campaign of repression against activists who have staged some of Russia's biggest anti-government protests in years. In an open letter, they demanded that criminal cases be dropped against more than a dozen people who face up to eight years in jail for what police have said was mass unrest at a recent opposition protest over a local election next month. (Reuters, 08.23.19)
• The Moscow City Court on Aug. 21 rejected an appeal by opposition politician Dmitry Gudkov to overturn the refusals by two election commissions to register him as a candidate in Sept. 8 municipal elections in the Russian capital. (RFE/RL, 08.21.19)
• Lyubov Sobol, a prominent opposition figure who has been disqualified from Moscow’s upcoming municipal elections, says local authorities have refused to issue a permit to hold a protest in the Russian capital on Aug. 31. (RFE/RL, 08.22.19)
• Members of two infamous pro-Kremlin groups, the National Liberation Movement (NOD) and SERB, have stormed a human rights NGO’s seminar on how to deal with law enforcement at protests, saying they don’t want a repeat of the 2014 Ukrainian revolution in Russia. (The Moscow Times, 08.22.19)
• One in five Russians say they believe they can personally influence the Russian government’s decision-making, according to results of a Levada Center poll published on Aug. 22. Thirty-one percent of respondents say they can influence decisions at the regional, municipal and district levels. (The Moscow Times, 08.22.19)
• A majority of Russians, 62 percent, believe that conditions in their country make it hard to plan for the long-term future, according to a survey by state-run FOM polling agency published on Aug. 20. Another 28 percent held a positive view of long-term planning, while 11 percent had no answer. The portion of respondents who had a pessimistic view pointed to instability (20 percent), low wages and living standards (12 percent) as well as rising prices (10 percent). Respondents were more likely to say that Russia will become less safe, socially protected, educated and trusting over the next 20 years than they were to say the opposite. The economy was the only exception, with 25 percent of Russian respondents expecting it to get better in 20 years versus 22 percent who expected it to get worse. (The Moscow Times, 08.20.19)
• Russia’s federal anti-monopoly service said on Aug. 20 it fined a media group that broadcasts CNN International in Russia 200,000 rubles ($3,000) for breaking volume regulations in its programming. (Reuters, 08.20.19)
• Russian state development bank VEB will receive about 173 billion rubles ($2.60 billion) in capital from deals related to Sviaz Bank’s debt, Interfax cited sources as saying on Aug. 20. (Reuters, 08.20.19)
• Russia’s forest authority estimates that forest fires across Siberia and other regions have cost approximately 7 billion rubles ($106 million) so far this year, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency has reported. (The Moscow Times, 08.22.19)
• Russian state-controlled bank VTB has asked President Vladimir Putin to help it create a Russian grain champion to curb the role of foreign traders and give the state greater control over exports, a letter seen by Reuters shows. (Reuters, 08.23.19)
• Yandex, a Russian equivalent to Google, said it is considering expanding its fleet of self-driving cars to up to 1,000 within the next two years in order to speed up tests on the fledgling technology. (Reuters, 08.19.19)
• Russian social media company Mail.ru has acquired car sharing service YouDrive, as it targets the Moscow drive app market leader and its biggest rival Yandex. (Financial Times, 08.22.19)
• Women in Russia will in 2021 be able to work in more than 350 job positions they’d previously been barred from under largely unchanged Soviet-era labor restrictions. (The Moscow Times, 08.20.19)
• Moscow and St. Petersburg have been ranked the world’s two best cities for work-life balance, according to research on commuting published by the vehicle finance provider Moneybarn. (The Moscow Times, 08.20.19)

Defense and aerospace:

• Russia and seven of its allies, including China and India, will send 128,000 soldiers to train in mass anti-terrorism drills next month, the country’s Defense Ministry has announced. Russia’s Defense Ministry announced that 20,000 pieces of equipment, 600 aircraft and up to 15 warships will be rolled out across eight Russian training grounds for the Tsentr-2019 (Center-2019) exercises in September. (The Moscow Times, 08.20.19)
• Russia has sent a humanoid robot to the International Space Station as part of tests on a new rocket that is expected to replace the current vehicle. The Soyuz capsule was launched by a new Soyuz 2.1a rocket which has only been used to launch unmanned vehicles. The new booster rocket is expected to replace the Soyuz-FG rocket next year. (AP, 08.22.19)
• The Russian military has unveiled footage of a reconnaissance drone, which it claims can fly for over 24 hours, performing its first flight. (The Moscow Times, 08.20.19)

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• Ilya Yashin, a rejected opposition candidate in the Moscow City Duma elections, has been detained for the fourth time after his release from a third consecutive stint in jail. (The Moscow Times, 08.19.19)
• Thirteen police officers in Russia’s republic of Ingushetia will stand trial for refusing to disperse protesters during clashes over a contentious land-swap deal, the MBKh Media news website has reported. (The Moscow Times, 08.21.19)
• Dennis Christensen, a Danish Jehovah’s Witness jailed in Russia on extremism charges, has accused prison guards of “planting” a knife and then filming its discovery in his cell, the religious organization said. (The Moscow Times, 08.22.19)

III. Foreign affairs, trade and investment

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

• Russia is a European country, French President Emmanuel Macron has said following talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Macron hosted Putin in France on Aug. 19, where the French leader played up efforts “to tie Russia and Europe back together” and underscored his belief that “Europe stretches from Lisbon to Vladivostok.” (The Moscow Times, 08.20.19)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin rebuked French counterpart Emmanuel Macron on Aug. 19, saying he did not want “yellow vest” protests spring up like in France, after Macron urged the Russian leader to abide by democratic principles following weeks of protests in Moscow. (Reuters, 08.19.19)
• The Kremlin's website has corrected translations of some statements by French President Emmanuel Macron after the meanings of statements he made on elections while at a joint news conference with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin were reversed. (RFE/RL, 08.22.19)

• The EU is against making any unconditional invitation to Russia to let it rejoin talks among the G7 world leaders, a senior official with the bloc said of an idea floated by U.S. President Donald Trump. The Canadian government also remains opposed to Russia rejoining the group, Canada’s foreign minister said on Aug. 22. (Reuters, 08.22.19, Reuters, 08.22.19)

• During Aug. 21’s meeting with Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia will back Venezuela and others in their efforts to “oppose any illegitimate unilateral methods of blackmail and pressure.” The Russian Foreign Ministry later said the talks confirmed “readiness to continue joint work on projects in the spheres of economy, science, technologies, culture and military-technical cooperation.” (AP, 08.21.19)
• Seventeen countries owe Russia a total of $27 billion, with most of the country’s lending made through arms deals or unreported political loans, according to a tally by Russia’s RBC news website. Belarus remains the runaway leader with $7.5 billion in unpaid loans. Ukraine is Russia’s second-largest debtor, with $3.7 billion owed, followed by Venezuela, Cuba, and Bangladesh. (The Moscow Times, 08.20.19)
• Russia and Turkey held urgent talks in July on connecting Turkish companies and lenders to the Russian central bank’s alternative to the SWIFT financial messaging system. Russian Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseev confirmed the talks took place after details of the meeting emerged from a government document that was found dumped in a landfill near Moscow. (The Moscow Times, 08.21.19)
• Russia’s ambassador to Serbia, Aleksandr Botsan-Kharchenko, says Belgrade is expected to sign a free-trade pact with the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union on Oct. 25. (RFE/RL, 08.21.19)
• Deutsche Bank has agreed to pay $16.2 million to settle civil allegations that for years it hired the relatives of government officials in order to win business in China and Russia. (Financial Times, 08.22.19)
• Germany’s federal prosecutor has charged a Russian citizen for crimes against the foreign trade law because he allegedly exported technology and chemicals to Russia that fall under an embargo. Prosecutors in Karlsruhe said Aug. 21 that Vladimir D., whose full name and age were not given, exported goods worth 1.832 million euros ($2.03 million) to Russia between 2014 and 2018. (AP, 08.21.19)
• State run energy companies from Russia, China and South Korea are among seven groups interested in becoming strategic investors in Bulgaria’s Belene nuclear power project. (Reuters, 08.20.19)
• Eighty years after the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed a non-aggression treaty dividing Europe into spheres of influence, Russia has put the original Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and its secret protocol on public display at an exhibition that seeks to turn spotlight on West’s behavior in 1930s. (The Guardian, 08.23.19)
• Russia’s Embassy in Cameroon said the three Russians were among eight seamen captured by suspected Nigerian pirates aboard a German-owned cargo ship. (The Moscow Times, 08.19.19)

China:

• Russia opened a showroom Aug. 23 selling its first post-Soviet luxury limousine under the Aurus brand, a type of car used by Russian President Vladimir Putin at his inauguration last year. "We expect a similar showroom will appear in China in 2020-2021," Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov said. (The Moscow Times, 08.23.19)

Ukraine:

• Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy backed leading European powers on Aug. 22 in opposing the readmission of Russia to the Group of Seven advanced economies, saying Moscow still occupied Crimea and was frustrating peace in eastern Ukraine. (Reuters, 08.23.19)

• Russia and Ukraine have agreed to exchange as many as 66 prisoners held in both countries as soon as next week, including 24 Ukrainian sailors captured off the coast of Crimea last year, media outlets have reported. (The Moscow Times, 08.23.19)

• The Kremlin said on Aug. 20 that no date had been set for Normandy format talks on the Ukraine crisis after Russian President Vladimir told his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron a day earlier he saw no alternative to such negotiations. Russia’s readmission to the Group of Seven nations depends on progress in Ukraine peace talks, a French diplomatic source said, responding to comments by U.S. President Donald Trump that Moscow should be allowed to rejoin the group. (Reuters, 08.20.19, Reuters, 08.21.19)
• German Foreign Minister Heiko Mass said “direct and open dialogue” is needed with Moscow to resolve the Ukraine crisis. (RFE/RL, 08.21.19)
• A court in Kyiv has ordered Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau to launch a probe against former President Petro Poroshenko and former Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin on charges of abuse of power. (RFE/RL, 08.21.19)
• Pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine have rejected newly published evidence of Russia’s military involvement in one of the deadliest battles of Ukraine's five-year conflict. The London-based Forensic Architecture research agency on Sunday released satellite images of Russian-armed convoys in Ukraine and documented sightings of Russian-owned T-72B3 tanks at the time of the battle. (The Moscow Times, 08.19.19)
• Ukraine, preparing for a possible cut in Russian gas supplies, has agreed with neighboring Moldova to modernize their border gas metering stations so it can receive gas from Romania, Ukraine’s gas transport company Ukrtransgaz said. (Reuters, 08.19.19)
• Russia is appealing an international arbitration court's ruling that has awarded Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank $1.3 billion in damages for assets it lost after Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014, Russian media report. (RFE/RL, 08.22.19)
• The head of Ukraine's presidential office is suing an investigative journalism program of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service for libel, the government says. A news release on the government's judicial web portal says the lawsuit was filed on Aug. 20 in a Kyiv court to defend Andriy Bohdan's "honor, dignity and business reputation." Bohdan was formerly billionaire Ihor Kolomoyskiy's personal lawyer. (RFE/RL, 08.22.19)
• The former head of Ukraine’s energy regulator, Dmytro Vovk, is being placed on an international wanted list for alleged involvement in a multimillion-dollar electricity price-fixing scheme. (RFE/RL, 08.22.19)

Russia’s other post-Soviet neighbors:

• Belarus is seeking to buy U.S. oil for its refineries for the first time as it strives to diversify supplies away from its more powerful, energy-rich neighbor Russia. (RFE/RL, 08.22.19)
• Aug. 23 marks 30 years since the Baltic Way protest, when 2 million people in Soviet Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania joined hands to create a 600-kilometer “human chain.” The peaceful protest was held on the 50th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact to demand independence from the Soviet Union. (The Moscow Times, 08.23.19)
• Lithuania says it expects to receive more than 4 million iodine tablets, estimated to be worth 900,000 euros ($1 million), ahead of the planned launch of neighboring Belarus's first power plant later this year. (RFE/RL, 08.19.19)
• Lithuania has urged American online retailer Amazon to stop selling clothing featuring the hammer and sickle and other Soviet symbols, which it says are offensive to victims of Soviet-era persecution. (RFE/RL, 08.22.19)
• Georgia’s Rustavi-2 television station has fired several prominent journalists and producers, raising concerns by some critics that a former opposition media outlet could be muzzled. (RFE/RL, 08.20.19)
• Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev has discussed ways to develop cooperation with the U.S. during a meeting with visiting Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale, the presidential office says. Hale was scheduled to attend a summit of five Central Asian countries known as the C5+1 format in Nur-Sultan on Aug. 21. (RFE/RL, 08.21.19, RFE/RL, 08.19.19)
• A village near the Kazakh capital, Nur-Sultan, is under quarantine after lab tests confirmed anthrax infections in several people. (RFE/RL, 08.19.19)
• Apple, Google and Mozilla have taken steps to block the rollout of a controversial encryption software to Kazakh Internet users issued by the government, which critics say web users are obliged to install as part of a government move to monitor their online activities. (RFE/RL, 08.22.19)
• Former Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambaev's pretrial detention has been prolonged until Oct. 26. (RFE/RL, 08.20.19)
• One of former Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambaev's closest allies, lawmaker Irina Karamushkina, has been placed under house arrest on charges of hostage taking during a violent standoff between law enforcement and Atambaev's supporters earlier in August, and being an accomplice to a crime. (RFE/RL, 08.23.19)
• Former Kyrgyz Prosecutor-General Indira Joldubaeva has been placed under house arrest on a corruption charge. (RFE/RL, 08.22.19)
• Kyrgyzstan's Supreme Court has canceled the guilty verdicts against jailed opposition politicians Omurbek Tekebaev and Duishonkul Chotonov. The court on Aug. 21 sent the case back to the Birinchi Mai district court in Bishkek, citing "newly revealed circumstances." (RFE/RL, 08.21.19)
• Uzbek authorities say they have opened criminal proceedings against Gulnara Karimova, the elder daughter of late President Islam Karimov who has been jailed in a Tashkent prison since March, over embezzlement allegations. (RFE/RL, 08.19.19)

IV. Quoteworthy

• No significant developments.