3 Things to Know

1. Ukraine and Russia both lack the military assets to mount major offensives against each other, the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency said in new assessments that suggest the two sides are headed toward stalemate, according to Bloomberg. Nonetheless, the Armed Forces of Ukraine’s (AFU) incursion into Russia’s Kursk region and Russia’s offensive in eastern Ukraine have continued this week. “If anything, Russia’s advance has accelerated” in eastern Ukraine, with Russian troops now about eight miles from the center of Pokrovsk,¹ the Economist and NYT reported on Aug. 22. Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces claimed to have expanded their control of territory in the Kursk region from 444 square miles on Aug. 15 to 483 square miles on Aug. 22, averaging 5.6 square miles a day, according to Bloomberg. Despite AFU’s incremental advances, the Russian command appears to have refrained from ordering a major diversion of forces from the Pokrovsk area to the Kursk region. Thus, if Kyiv did want the Kursk incursion to serve the dual purpose of obtaining leverage vis-à-vis Moscow and stopping steady Russian offensives in Ukraine’s east, then the latter objective has so far not been achieved.*
2. Four inmates in Prison Colony No. 19 of Russia’s Volgograd region have captured and killed four servicemen of this facility in what has become a second deadly hostage-taking attack to be staged by ISIS sympathizers in Russia’s correctional system this year. The four assailants reportedly described themselves as “mujahideen of the Islamic State” and said they were avenging suspected ISIS sympathizers who staged a deadly raid on the Moscow region’s Crocus City Hall in March of this year. Armed with knives, hammers and what looked like a suicide vest imitation, the four inmates reportedly seized at least eight penal colony employees and four fellow inmates. They ended up killing four of the captured prison officials and injuring at least three of the inmates before being killed by commandos, according to NBC and Meduza. This is not the first time ISIS sympathizers have staged a deadly hostage-taking in a Russian prison this year. On June 16, Russian special forces freed two prison guards and shot dead six inmates linked to the Islamic State militant group who had taken them hostage at a detention center in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, Reuters reported. 
3. Moscow and Kyiv have continued to trade accusations of endangering safety at the Zaporizhzhia and Kursk NPPs this week. First, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova claimed on Aug. 17 that the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), which were reported to have advanced within 30 km of the Kursk NPP in the course of their incursion into western Russia, are planning to attack that energy facility. Then Vladimir Putin alleged on Aug. 22 that the AFU actually attempted such an attack. Ukraine denied these allegations and in its turn accused Russian troops of damaging one of the two power lines supplying the Russian occupied Zaporizhzhia NPP. The incident prompted IAEA chief Rafael Grossi to express concern. Grossi also said he is taking “very seriously” the risk that the Kursk NPP could be damaged during Ukraine’s incursion, and that he plans to visit this facility next week, according to FT.

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

Nuclear security and safety:

• Safety at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia NPP in southern Ukraine is deteriorating after a drone strike on Aug. 17, IAEA monitors warned. On that day a drone exploded close to essential cooling water sprinkler ponds about 100 meters from the only remaining 750 kilovolt line providing a power supply to the plant, IAEA monitors said in a statement. (Bloomberg, 08.18.24)
• On Aug. 17, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova claimed that Ukraine was planning to attack Russia’s Kursk NPP, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry. Zakharova provided no evidence to back her claim. Chief of Russia’s Rosatom Alexey Likhachev and the head of the IAEA Rafael Grossi spoke on Aug. 17 to examine the situation around the Kursk and Zaporizhzhia NPPs, according to Rosatom. (RM, 08.17.24)
• On Aug. 22, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that the Ukrainian military attempted to attack the Kursk NPP. “The International Atomic Energy Agency has been informed, and they have promised to visit and send specialists to assess the situation. I hope this will eventually be done on their part,” Putin said. (Meduza, 08.22.24)
• On Aug. 22, Grossi said he would visit the Kursk NPP next week, noting that he is taking “very seriously” the risk that the facility could be damaged during Ukraine’s incursion into the region. Grossi said the Kursk plant was “technically within artillery range” of Ukrainian positions. Two of the Kursk NPP’s units in operation use the same so-called RBMK technology that melted down during the notorious 1986 accident in Chernobyl. Unlike modern nuclear reactors, the two units operating near the fighting don’t have extra layers of protection to contain radiation in the event of an accident. The escalating risk surrounding the Kursk nuclear power plant is of “enormous concern,” Grossi said. (FT, 08.22.24, Bloomberg, 08.22.24)
• On Aug. 22, Energoatom accused Russian troops of damaging one of the two power lines supplying the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), bringing the plant to the brink of a blackout, RBC.ua reported. Grossi weighed in on the incident, expressing concern, but didn’t blame either side. (RM, 08.23.24)
• On Aug. 23, Russia claimed it brought down a Ukrainian drone around the Kursk nuclear power plant. A drone was detected near the spent nuclear fuel storage facility, state-owned Tass news agency reported, citing “a source” in a law enforcement agency. (Bloomberg, 08.23.24)
• The Machine-Building Plant in Elektrostal, one of Russia’s nuclear fuel manufacturing plants, announced the procurement of services to conduct vulnerability analysis and evaluation of physical protection effectiveness for the transportation of nuclear materials, according to Russian nuclear security expert Dmitry Kovchegin’s Aug. 22 Substack post. (RM, 08.22.24)
• IAEA has released its annual nuclear power data publications which show that electricity production from nuclear power rose by 2.6% in 2023 compared with 2022, with nuclear power generating almost 10% of the world's electricity and a quarter of all low carbon electricity. (WNN, 08.22.24)

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• North Korea plans to send about 500 workers to Svobodny, a town near Russia's Vostochny Cosmodrome. (Daily NK, 08.23.24)

Iran and its nuclear program:

• No significant developments.

Humanitarian impact of the Ukraine conflict:

• More than 30 people were killed and 143 residents were injured as a result of the Ukrainian Armed Forces offensive in the Kursk region as of Aug. 21. (TASS, 08.21.24)
• As of Aug. 22, around 20,000 Russian civilians remained in border areas of the southwestern Kursk region, authorities said, coming after more than 133,000 people were evacuated amid clashes between Ukrainian and Russian forces. (MT/AFP, 08.22.24)
• Hospitals and shops in Ukrainian-held areas of Russia are not working, and civilians are facing shortages of food and water, according to a senior adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. (RFE/RL, 08.20.24)
• Ukrainian lawmaker Roman Kostenko told RFE/RL on Aug. 20 that no evacuation of local residents from parts of Russia's Kursk region that is controlled by Kyiv's armed forces to Ukraine is under way. (RFE/RL, 08.20.24)
• Ukraine's Prosecutor-General's Office has opened an investigation into the alleged beheading of a Ukrainian soldier participating in the Russia incursion. A video circulating on social media on Aug. 16 showed a Russian soldier beside a pole with a severed head, allegedly of a Ukrainian soldier. (RFE/RL, 08.18.24)
• A Ukrainian prison in Sumy, where Russian conscripts captured during Ukraine’s incursion into the Kursk region were held, has processed 320 prisoners of war so far, 80% of them conscripts. After processing, prisoners are sent west, farther from the fighting. On Aug. 16, the prison held 71 prisoners of war, packed into basement cells, where they are safeguarded from potential airstrikes, the Ukrainian military says. (NYT, 08.17.24)
  • In all, Ukraine has taken 2,000 prisoners, Ukrainian official claimed. (WSJ, 08.17.24)
• Important Stories has established the names of 129 conscripts who went missing or were captured as a result of fighting in the Kursk region (45 captured and 84 missing). Most of them are soldiers from the 17th and 18th battalions of the 488th motorized rifle regiment, based in the Bryansk region. There are also fighters from the 252nd motorized rifle regiment from the Voronezh region. (Istories, 08.23.24)
• Dozens of Ukrainian refugees, many of whom are children, spent the night sleeping on the street in Hungary after a government-approved legal change revoked their access to state-subsidized accommodation. (RFE/RL, 08.22.24)
• The U.S. embassy in Kyiv has warned of an "increased risk" of Russian air attacks in the coming days as Ukraine prepares to celebrate its Independence Day on Aug. 24. (RFE/RL, 08.22.24)

For military strikes on civilian targets see the next section.

Military and security aspects of the Ukraine conflict and their impacts:

• Ukraine and Russia both lack the military assets to mount major offensives against each other, the Pentagon’s intelligence agency said in new assessments that suggests the two sides are headed toward stalemate. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessments conclude that Ukraine still doesn’t have the munitions to match Russia’s ability to fire some 10,000 artillery rounds a day. Ukrainian forces remain capable of defensive operations but won’t be able to launch large-scale counteroffensives for at least six months. Russia, on the other hand, has adopted a strategy of exhausting Ukraine and will be able to maintain a buffer zone its troops captured — but doesn’t have enough strength “to threaten a deeper advance into Ukrainian-held territory, such as Kharkiv city,” said DIA in one observation. The DIA assesses that recent U.S. military assistance to Ukraine will "almost certainly" be insufficient in helping Ukraine match or overcome Russia's artillery advantage in Ukraine and the estimated Russian daily fire rate of 10,000 artillery rounds. (ISW, 08.21.24, Bloomberg, 08.20.24)
• Ukraine’s plan to invade part of Russia did not come from a happy place. In early July, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s newly appointed top commander, was under pressure. Several scenarios were considered for an offensive push at the weakest points in the Russian line: a strike in Bryansk region in the north; a strike in Kursk region; a combination of the two; or more. Syrskyi kept his plans under wraps. Reinforcements were brought to the forests near the border under the pretext of defending against a supposed Russian attack on Sumy. The army’s intelligence did much of the reconnaissance, rather than leaving it to HUR, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency The main objective was to draw troops away from the Donbas stranglehold, and to create bargaining chips for any future negotiation. (The Economist, 08.18.24)
• In the spring of this year, Moscow’s new military appointee Col. Gen. Alexander Lapin overseeing security in the Kursk province dismantled a council tasked with protecting the vulnerable border region. Lapin said the military alone had the strength and the resources to protect Russia’s border. (WSJ, 08.21.24)
• The unforeseen invasion of Kursk has exposed the ongoing intelligence failures of the Russian military. Militarily, from the Russian perspective, Kyiv’s gambit has also created an opportunity to further deplete Ukraine’s own limited forces and make gains in other areas of the front. That could turn a short-term political victory for Zelenskyy into a strategic defeat, Russian military analysts said. After being initially heralded as a brilliant military stroke, the Kursk operation could end up becoming a trap for the Ukrainian Army, those analysts noted. (NYT, 08.21.24)
• Kyiv’s forces have in two weeks seized more land in Russia than Moscow has in Ukraine all year — transforming perceptions about their capabilities and boosting morale among Ukrainians. Ukraine is believed to have about 6,000 troops active in the Kursk region, according to Western estimates, as well as 4,000 troops in support roles in the Sumy area, across the border in northern Ukraine. As a result, Russia likely would need more than 20,000 properly trained personnel to retake the Ukrainian-held territory in the Kursk region, according to a U.S. official. (WSJ, 08.20.24, FT, 08.20.24)
• Progress of Ukraine’s incursion has slowed and the outlines of a new front line are emerging. It is unclear whether troops can dig in or are overcommitted at the cost of front lines elsewhere. The biggest danger is around Pokrovsk, in the Donbas inside Ukraine where Kremlin forces are gaining ground fast. (The Economist, 08.18.24)
  • This week, Russian forces have captured three more villages near Pokrovsk, according to DeepState, an analytical group with close ties to the Ukrainian Army, expanding their hold on the area. Moscow's troops are now about eight miles from the center of Pokrovsk. (NYT, 08.22.24
  • The crossroads town of Pokrovsk, population 59,000, has had a front-row seat on the full-scale Russian invasion since 2022. But it is only in the past month that its future has come under serious threat. Russia views its capture as a strategic goal, opening up advances toward the big cities of Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia. Ukraine’s great hope was that a surprise Kursk offensive would relieve the pressure. If anything, Russia’s advance has accelerated. (The Economist, 08.23.24)
• One Ukrainian artillery brigade commander in eastern Ukraine told the Financial Times that part of the reason for the Russian advance there was Kyiv moving its scarce resources north. His troops were back to rationing shells for their canons — the first time since U.S. aid to Ukraine was held up by Congress — because ammunition had been reallocated for the incursion into Russia’s Kursk region. Ukraine has also moved upward of 10,000 troops, including many of its elite airborne forces and mechanized brigades, from Donetsk and Kharkiv regions, where the fiercest battles are under way, according to officials involved with the operation. At least 20 Ukrainian units are confirmed to be involved in the Kursk incursion, according to military analysts. (FT, 08.20.24)
• Nearly two weeks after Ukrainian troops smashed through thin border defenses and stormed into Russia’s Kursk region, Moscow has still not assembled the kind of overwhelming force needed to repel Kyiv’s incursion. It has instead cobbled together units from around the country and from less active parts of the Ukrainian front, while deploying young conscripts performing their obligatory military service. Russian conscripts, estimated to number 300,000, are almost the only significant reserve available to the Kremlin. (FT, 08.18.24)
  • Due to personnel shortage in the ground forces of the Russian Federation, the offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kursk region is being repelled by a rifle regiment formed out of personnel of the Aerospace Forces from all over Russia. According to Russian investigative journalism media, the Russian top brass has sent personnel from the Russian early warning system radar stations to defend the Kursk Region. (Istories, 08.18.24, Russian nuclear security expert Dmitry Kovchegin’s Substack, 08.22.24, RM, 08.22.24)
  • The Kremlin believes the fighting to repel Ukraine's incursion into Russia's Kursk region will last for months and is trying to prepare the public for this "new normal," sources close to the Russian presidential administration and the government have told the Meduza and Verstka news websites. (RFE/RL, 08.21.24)
• On Aug. 17, 11 days after Ukrainian forces crossed into the Kursk region, soldiers patrolled the region’s town of Sudzha's damaged streets with bright blue tape on their arms, scanning the sky for incoming drones. (WP, 08.20.24)
• On Aug. 18, Ukrainian drones attacked an oil storage facility in Russia's southern Rostov region, sparking a large fuel fire, the local governor said. (MT/AFP 08.18.24)
• On Aug. 19, Zelenskyy said Ukraine now controlled about 480 square miles[2] of Russian territory. If confirmed, that would represent roughly the same amount of land that Russian forces seized in Ukraine from January through July of this year, according to the Institute for the Study of War. (NYT, 08.20.24) 
• On Aug. 19, Zelenskyy said that Ukraine’s surprise offensive into western Russia shows the West that its fears about attacks on Russian territory are unfounded and should be abandoned. “The whole naïve, illusory concept of so-called red lines regarding Russia, which dominated the assessment of the war by some partners, has crumbled these days somewhere near Sudzha,” Zelenskyy said. The situation on the eastern front is so dire, he added, that “any further delay by our partners in terms of long-range capabilities is becoming de facto, perhaps, the most effective support for Russia’s offensive potential.” Zelenskyy’s remarks were some of his harshest critiques yet of Western allies. (NYT, 08.20.24)
• On Aug. 19, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke to his Ukrainian counterpart, Rustem Umerov, about the operation's objectives. ''The secretary did get a better understanding from Minister Umerov of what they're trying to accomplish there,'' Sabrina Singh, the deputy Pentagon press secretary, told reporters without elaborating. Singh said that the Americans were still seeking additional details from the Ukrainian military. (NYT, 08.19.24)
• On Aug. 19, more than 40 firefighters were injured while battling a major blaze at an oil storage facility in southern Russia’s Rostov region, officials said, a day after a Ukrainian drone attack in the area. (MT/AFP, 08.19.24)
• On Aug. 19, Russia's Defense Ministry said it had "liberated" the town of Artemovo, which is called Zalizne in Ukraine, describing it as one of the area's "major population centers.” (MT/AFP, 08.19.24)
• On Aug. 20, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed that its troops had captured the eastern Ukrainian town of Niu-York. The Ukrainian military said it still held about 20% of the town on that day. (NYT, 08.20.24)
• On Aug. 20, Ukrainian forces were reported to have recently struck three bridges in Russia's Kursk region, delivering a blow to Russian efforts to retake the area and suggesting that Kyiv plans to hold the territory for the long term. All three of the bridges were located to the west of the territory that Ukraine holds. (WSJ, 08.20.24)
• On Aug. 20, Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov announced the creation of a border defense group consisting of three branches: Kursk, Bryansk and Belgorod. (Istories, 08.20.24)
• On Aug. 20, Syrskyi said that Kyiv now controls 1,263 square kilometers (488 square miles) of Kursk region territory. (Bloomberg, 08.20.24)
• On Aug. 20, Ukrainian forces continued efforts to strike Russian pontoon bridges and pontoon engineering equipment west of the current Kursk Oblast salient over the Seim River in Glushkovo Raion. (ISW, 08.20.24)
• On Aug. 20, Russian authorities were reported to have re-deployed Russian units from the Chasiv Yar direction to the Kursk region. (ISW, 08.20.24)
• On Aug. 20, Russian forces advanced east and southeast of Toretsk amid continued offensive operations in the area. (ISW, 08.20.24)
• On Aug. 20, Ukrainian air-defense systems repelled a missile strike on Kyiv, the fifth missile attack by Russia's military on the Ukrainian capital this month. (RFE/RL, 08.20.24)
• On Aug. 21, Russia said that Moscow had come under a sizable drone attack overnight, as Kyiv presses on with a cross-border offensive far from the capital that has rattled the Kremlin. Moscow’s mayor, Sergey Sobyanin, said in a statement that 10 Ukrainian attack drones had been destroyed by the city’s air defenses. “This is one of the largest ever attempts to attack Moscow with drones,” Sobyanin wrote on social media. (NYT, 08.21.24)
• On Aug. 21 and 22, Ukrainian forces targeted Russian air bases hosting tactical and strategic bombers in mass drone strikes, including the Marinovka military airfield in the southwestern Volgograd region. Hours after a Ukrainian drone attack targeted the Olenya air base in Russia's Murmansk region—located some 2,000 kilometers (1,242 miles) from the Ukraine border—multiple explosions were reported at Marinovka, a Russian Aerospace Forces air base in the village of Oktyabrsky in the Kalachevsky district. (Newsweek, 08.22.24)
• On Aug. 21, Ukrainian special forces said that they destroyed several Russian military pontoon bridges along a river in the Kursk region, coming days after authorities in Russia said Kyiv’s military blew up three bridges spanning the waterway. (MT/AFP, 08.21.24)
• On Aug. 22, Ukrainian forces were reported to claim to have expanded their control over more than 1,250 square kilometers (483 square miles) of Russian territory. The claims couldn’t be independently verified. (Bloomberg, 08.22.24)
• On Aug. 22, Ukraine’s military was reported to have claimed to recaptured some territory in the eastern region of Kharkiv, where Russia launched an offensive in the spring. (AP, 08.22.24)
• On Aug. 22, Ukraine’s OSINT group DeepState reported on Telegram that the Armed Forces of Ukraine achieved some success near Novovodiane. Meanwhile, the Russian forces advanced in the areas of the following settlements: Novohrodivka, Zavitny, Toretsk and Ptiche. (RM, 08.23.24)
• On Aug. 22, Ukrainian troops said they were moving to encircle an estimated 3,000 Russian troops that are hemmed against a river in Russia’s Kursk province, seeking a fresh blow against Moscow in the third week of a surprise incursion. Ukraine’s military said it used U.S.-supplied HIMARS rocket systems and explosive drones to strike pontoon crossings and bridging equipment as Russia scrambled to prevent the encirclement of its forces between the Seym river and the Ukrainian border. (WSJ, 08.22.24)
• On Aug. 22, Zelenskyy visited his top general in a northeastern region bordering the area of Russia where his troops are fighting to expand the territory they’ve controlled for more than two weeks after a surprise attack. Kyiv’s forces took another settlement in Russia’s Kursk region and have increased the number of captured Russian soldiers for later exchange, Syrskyi said, according to a post on Zelenskyy’s Telegram channel. NATO allies have cited the risk that the incursion could divert badly needed troops from a fragile front line, according to Western officials. (Bloomberg, 08.22.24)
• On Aug. 22, a Ukrainian government source was quoted by The Economist as saying that military activity in Donbas has decreased since Aug. 16, with the exception of an offensive toward Pokrovsk, a strategic hub in Donetsk province. The Economist has not yet found any clear signs of attacks easing up on Ukrainian positions in Ukraine. (The Economist, 08.22.24)
• On Aug. 22, Ukraine used aerial drones to attack an air base in Russia's Volgograd region. Ukraine's main security and intelligence agency, known as the SBU, said the strike had targeted warehouses containing fuel and glide bombs to degrade Russia's air power. (WSJ, 08.22.24)
• On Aug. 22, Russia’s drive toward Pokrovsk, a stronghold in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, was reported to be gaining momentum. In recent days, Moscow’s troops have seized at least three settlements and reached the outskirts of a town along a railroad to Pokrovsk. “The loss of Pokrovsk would be fairly significant to Ukraine’s ability to maintain defenses overall in Donetsk,” said Michael Kofman, a senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia program at CEIP. To the northeast of Pokrovsk, around the towns of Toretsk and Niu-York, Russian forces have been slowly but steadily gaining ground. (NYT, 08.22.24)
• As of Aug. 22, the incursion of Ukrainian forces into the Kursk region hasn’t shifted the dynamic on the war’s main battlefields in eastern Ukraine, where Russia is advancing toward Pokrovsk, a key Ukrainian logistical hub, and Toretsk, a city on strategically important high ground. On Aug. 22, Ukraine was stretching the breadth of its incursion into the Kursk region rather than seeking a deeper advance that would be easier to cut off, said Mick Ryan, a military strategist and retired major general in the Australian Army. (WSJ, 08.22.24)
• On Aug. 22, Commander of the Lithuanian Armed Forces Raimundas Vaikšnoras said that there is currently a noticeable reduction of Russian ground troops in the Kaliningrad Oblast of the Russian Federation. He links this to the successful offensive of Ukrainian forces in Kursk. (Ukrainska Pravda, 08.22.24)
• On Aug. 22, Ukrainian forces sank a Russian ferry carrying fuel tanks in a missile strike on a port in Russia's southern Krasnodar region, Russian officials said. Fyodor Babenkov, the district head of the Russian town of Temryuk, was quoted by Reuters as saying the ferry was carrying 30 fuel tanks. (RFE/RL, 08.22.24)
• On Aug. 23, an oil depot in Russia's Rostov region, which has been on fire for several days following a Ukrainian drone strike, was hit again. The reported targets of the Aug. 23 strike were kerosene tanks, which had escaped the first strike undamaged. (RFE/RL, 08.23.24)
• On Aug. 23, Ukrainian air defense systems shot down 14 out of 16 attack drones that Russia launched overnight at four of its regions (RFE/RL, 08.23.24)
• On Aug. 23, Russian pro-war Telegram channel Rybar claimed in its report on developments in the Kursk region that fighting was underway in the Korenevsky and Sudzha districts of this western province. The dispatch contained no claims of changes in territorial control in the Kursk region. (RM, 08.23.24) 
• The Russian military command recently redeployed elements of at least one Russian airborne (VDV) regiment from western Zaporizhzhia Oblast in response to Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk Oblast, possibly in an effort to stabilize the lines and improve command and control over Russian conscripts. Also, the Russian military command reportedly heavily committed elements initially intended for the Russian offensive effort in northern Kharkiv Oblast to the defense of Kursk Oblast. (ISW, 08.22.24)
• Russia’s inability to push out Ukrainian forces that have now been occupying parts of its southwest for two weeks has exposed the severity of its manpower shortage. U.S. officials say Russia will need at least 20,000 properly trained personnel to retake the Ukrainian-held land, which exceeds 400 square miles. It has failed to do so even after shifting part of its invasion force from Ukraine to aid the effort. With no end date for their military service, Russian recruits are stuck indefinitely on the front lines. Desperate for a reprieve, some 50,000 have deserted or refused orders to fight, say rights activists and groups that help soldiers flee. (WSJ, 08.19.24)
• Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Russia has launched over 9,600 missiles against Ukraine. Ukrainian defenders have shot down nearly 2,500 of them, according to the speech of Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi, at the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities. (RBC.ua, 08.20.24)
• So far this year, Ukraine says that it has successfully attacked more than 30 Russian oil installations, some deep inside Russia. The latest estimates are that about 17% of Russia’s (admittedly ample) oil-refining capacity has been damaged to some extent by the strikes. But more broadly, Russia continues to export huge volumes of oil and even a fair bit of natural gas, ensuring that oil revenues continue to fuel its war machine despite the odd million spent here and there to repair damaged crackers and condensers. (FP, 08.21.24)
• During its Kursk incursion Ukraine has so far lost at least 51 pieces of valuable military equipment, including German Marder vehicles, U.S.-made Stryker vehicles and HIMARS rockets, compared with 27 such losses on the Russian side, according to the open-source intelligence researcher Naalsio. (FT, 08.20.24)
• Ukrainian Col. Pavlo Fedosenko said Ukrainian troops, outnumbered 4:1, aren’t getting any rest. Some stay on the front lines for 30 or 40 days at a time, cramped in foxholes inches from death. (The Economist, 08.23.24)
• In early September, the Verkhovna Rada will consider a bill prohibiting the mobilization of 18-25-year-olds during martial law. This was reported by People's Deputy Oleksiy Goncharenko on Telegram on Aug. 21. (Korrespondent.net, 08.21.24)
  • Some 1,000 male workers at one Ukrainian mine have been drafted, or about a fifth of the total work force. To help make up for the shortage, the mine has hired some 330 women. (NYT, 08.20.24)
  • Ukrainian law-enforcers exposed a large-scale scheme for evading mobilization in the Odessa region, according to Korrespondent.net. The SBU said the head of the local district’s department of the State Migration Service and two of his subordinates, as well as an official of the regional division of the Center for the Provision of Administrative Services, were detained. The cost of their services to draft-dodgers  ranged from $500 to $2,500, according to Korrespondent. (RM, 08.23.24)

Military aid to Ukraine: 

• Frustration is mounting on Capitol Hill as the Biden administration has failed to meet a deadline to provide Congress with a detailed written report of its strategy for the war in Ukraine, with at least one lawmaker seeking to suspend aid to Kyiv altogether until the document is provided. The strategy report was due to be submitted to Congress in early June as a requirement of the multibillion-dollar package of military aid for Ukraine and other U.S. allies, which was passed in April after significant delays. (FP, 08.21.24)
• The Biden administration will send about $125 million in new military aid to Ukraine, U.S. officials said Aug. 22. U.S. officials said the latest package of aid includes air defense missiles, munitions for HIMARS, Javelins and an array of other anti-armor missiles, counter-drone and counter-electronic warfare systems and equipment, 155mm and 105mm artillery ammunition, vehicles and other equipment. (AP, 08.23.24)
• Ukraine’s military says it used GBU-39 high-precision glide bombs provided by the United States to carry out strikes in Russia’s Kursk region. (AP, 08.22.24)
• Washington has reportedly indicated it is "open" to supplying Ukraine with longer-range cruise missiles that have the ability to significantly impact the war with Russia. But experts say their high cost will limit how the missiles are used. (RFE/RL, 08.20.24)
• In one of his last major appearances before he leaves office in five months, U.S. President Joe Biden spoke at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) of the work that still lies ahead: supporting Ukraine against its invasion of Russia; securing a cease-fire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas to end the devastating war in Gaza; and bringing home wrongfully detained Americans. (WP, 08.20.24)
• In a historic speech at the DNC, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris promised to continue military support for Ukraine and strengthen NATO as she accepted the party’s nomination for the 2024 presidential race. “As President, I will stand strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies,” Harris, said on Aug. 22 during the 40-minute speech. She also said that as president she would ensure “America, not China, wins the competition for the 21st century.” (RFE/RL, FT, 08.23.24)
• Zelenskyy renewed calls for urgent help from allies as his forces launched a surprise incursion into Russian territory this month. The president, who has lamented that fresh U.S. weapons supplies were taking too long to reach the front, reinforced the plea for faster deliveries this week. “There are no vacations in war,” Zelenskyy said in an address to the nation Aug. 18. “Decisions are needed, as is timely logistics for the announced aid packages. I especially address this to the United States, the United Kingdom and France.” (Bloomberg, 08.20.24)
• A number of Ukraine’s NATO allies are falling short on pledges to accelerate deliveries of air-defense systems and other military equipment to fend off Russia’s offensive, according to people familiar with the matter. Several NATO allies have yet to follow through with commitments they reaffirmed at the alliance’s summit in Washington last month, the people said on condition of anonymity. Those include pledges to send at least five additional long-range systems, they said. (Bloomberg, 08.20.24)
• Germany will continue to support Ukraine in its defense against Russia’s invasion for as long as necessary, following concerns that budget issues will cause one of Kyiv’s biggest backers to pull back. “We are still standing shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine,” Fabian Leber, a finance ministry spokesman, said in Berlin on Aug. 19. He was responding to a weekend report in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper that said spending constraints mean that financing for additional aid for Ukraine — on top of what has already been earmarked — won’t be available from the federal budget.  Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Germany’s support for Ukraine won’t let up as he sought to blunt concerns that budget tightening within his coalition will halt funding to the war-battered nation. “We will continue to support Ukraine as long as necessary,” Scholz told reporters during a trip to Moldova. (Bloomberg, 08.21.24, Bloomberg, 08.19.24)
• Czech authorities announced Aug. 20 that they plan to use a portion of the interest earned on frozen Russian assets held in the European Union to purchase ammunition for Ukraine’s military. (MT/AFP, 08.20.24)

Punitive measures related to Russia’s war against Ukraine and their impact globally:

• The United States on August 23 added nearly 400 individuals and entities in and outside of Russia to its sanctions list as part of the U.S. effort to disrupt Russia's international supply chains, metal procurement, and financial services that support its war effort in Ukraine. The sweeping action targets networks, individuals, and entities across 16 jurisdictions, including in China, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. (RFE/RL, 08.23.24)
  • Russia’s MMC Norilsk Nickel PJSC said difficulties with cross-border payments contributed to lower profits, shortly before the US on Friday slapped sanctions on its copper unit and other affiliates that provide services to the miner. (Bloomberg, 08.23.24)
• The U.S. Department of Commerce has blacklisted 123 foreign companies, including 64 Russian companies, one of which is registered in Crimea, and 42 Chinese companies. According to a report from the Bureau of Industry and Security, part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, 48 blacklisted Russian legal entities are allegedly end users of military products from Russia and Belarus. (TASS, 08.23.24)
• The U.S. is warning countries trading with Russia that they risk secondary sanctions if they allow Russian banks to set up local branches to finance the supply of goods for Vladimir Putin’s war machine. Wally Adeyemo, U.S. deputy Treasury secretary, told the Financial Times that Washington was now prepared to pursue countries that let Russian banks set up branches in their jurisdictions to evade Western sanctions — even if the bank itself was not under sanctions. (FT, 08.23.24)
  • Major banks in Kyrgyzstan have suspended money transfers to Russia via their mobile apps following U.S. sanctions, local media reported Aug. 21. (MT/AFP, 08.21.24)
• Kazakhstan’s exports to Russia rose from $40m in 2021 to $298m in 2023. Kazakhstan is one of several countries where trade with Russia and Europe has been mysteriously booming since Ukraine’s invasion. Others include Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and the other four countries of Central Asia. Exports from the European Union to these countries increased by €46bn in 2023, up 50% from 2021. That was equivalent to three-quarters of the drop in Europe’s exports to Russia from 2021 to 2023. The economies of Central Asia and the Caucasus seem to be benefiting from the war. Collectively, the economies of the five Central Asian republics grew by 6% in 2023, up from 4% in 2022, while Armenia’s economy expanded by 8%, up from 5% in 2022. (The Economist, 08.20.24)
• The office of Russia's Prosecutor General on Aug. 19 said it had banned a foundation launched by American movie star George Clooney and his human rights lawyer wife Amal Clooney. (RFE/RL, 08.19.24)
• Switzerland is giving companies more time to apply for an exemption from a ban on operating in Russia, as many Western companies continue to do business there despite international sanctions. The cabinet extended the deadline until the end of the year, the latest reprieve from the original deadline of September 2023. (Bloomberg, 08.21.24)
• Ukraine needs a real mechanism that will enable Russian frozen assets to work for the country in the coming months, Zelenskyy said. (RFE/RL, 08.21.24)
• Russia is planning for decades of Western sanctions, a senior foreign-ministry official, Dmitry Birichevsky, said last week. (The Economist, 08.20.24)

For sanctions on the energy sector, please see section “Energy exports from CIS” below.

Ukraine-related negotiations: 

• Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said this week that holding peace talks with Kyiv would be impossible so long as Ukrainian forces continue their offensive in the southwestern Kursk region and occupy parts of Russian territory. According to the aide, Putin’s proposals for a ceasefire “have not been canceled, but at the moment it would be completely inappropriate for there to be a negotiation process.” The timing of possible future negotiations would “depend on the situation, including on the battlefield,” Ushakov added. (MT/AFP, 08.19.24)
• Prior to his visit to Ukraine, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reinforced his message that the war in Ukraine can only be resolved diplomatically ahead of his first visit to Kyiv since Russian forces invaded in 2022. The Indian leader told a group of Indians living in Poland that “this is not the era of war.” “No solution can be found on the battlefield,” Modi said in Poland on Aug. 22. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said India could play a crucial role in restoring peace in Ukraine following his meeting with Modi in Warsaw. (Bloomberg, 08.22.24, Bloomberg, 08.22.24) 
• During his visit to Ukraine, Modi on Aug. 23 again called for peace as he met with Zelenskyy during a historic first visit to Kyiv. "We have stayed away from the war with great conviction. This does not mean that we were indifferent," Modi, seated alongside Zelenskyy, said in remarks to the media posted on his X account. "From day one, we were not neutral. We have taken one side, and we stand firmly for peace."  I want to assure you and the world of India’s respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Modi told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy during their meeting, which lasted well longer than scheduled. “Solutions can be found through dialog and diplomacy — and we must move in that direction with both sides with no time to waste,” he said. “I spoke my mind clearly that the solution to any problem cannot be found on the battlefield,” Modi said of his recent meeting with Putin in Moscow. (Bloomberg, 08.23.24, (RFE/RL, 08.23.24)
• Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto was the highest-level official in NATO so far to openly criticize Ukraine’s incursion into Russia, which he called an escalation that would push a ceasefire “further and further away.” But the comments drew a swift rebuke from his boss, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose government said Italy’s pursuit of a truce didn’t alter Rome’s full support of Kyiv. (Bloomberg, 08.624)
• Ukraine and Russia were set to send delegations to Doha this month to negotiate a landmark agreement halting strikes on energy and power infrastructure on both sides, diplomats and officials familiar with the discussions said, in what would have amounted to a partial cease-fire and offered a reprieve for both countries. But the indirect talks, with the Qataris serving as mediators and meeting separately with the Ukrainian and Russian delegations, were derailed by Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russia’s western Kursk region last week, according to the officials. The possible agreement and planned summit have not been previously reported. (WP, 08.17.24)

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

• Geilenkirchen in north-west Germany, the home of NATO’s AWACS aerial reconnaissance fleet, sent all non-essential personnel home on Aug. 22 as part of a security lockdown of the base over intelligence warnings of a potential sabotage attack by Russian agents. It was the second such incident at a military site on German territory in less than two weeks. (FT, 08.23.24)

China-Russia: Allied or aligned?

• Putin and Chinese Premier Li Qiang discussed deepening bilateral economic and trade relations in Moscow on Aug. 21. Putin stated that Russia and the PRC have jointly developed large-scale economic and humanitarian plans, and Li stated that the PRC is ready to develop a multifaceted mutually beneficial cooperation with Russia. Li also met with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin on Aug. 21, and they signed a joint communique that includes a plan for Russian–PRC investment cooperation and 15 other unspecified intergovernmental and interdepartmental documents. (ISW, 08.21.24)
  • Premier Li said China is ready to work with Russia to strengthen “all-round practical cooperation” between the two countries. Li also pledged to push Beijing’s comprehensive strategic partnership with Moscow “to a new level,” Xinhua reported citing remarks he made during a visit to Moscow. (Bloomberg, 08.21.24)
  • Russia and China have agreed to strengthen and develop the payment and settlement infrastructure, including through opening correspondent accounts and bank branches and subsidiaries in both countries, a communique, adopted at the end of the 29th regular meeting of the two heads of government, said. (Interfax, 08.22.24)
  • Russia and China have agreed to boost cooperation in the Arctic and to promote the use of the Northern Sea Route for international maritime logistics, a communique adopted at the end of the 29th regular meeting of the two heads of government said. (Interfax, 08.22.24)
  • The next regular meeting between prime ministers of Russia and China will be held in China in 2025. (TASS, 08.22.24)
• Russian Ground Forces Commander Oleg Salyukov and his Chinese counterpart Li Qiaoming have discussed military cooperation and projects aimed at bolstering the combat preparedness of both countries' armed forces. Relations between Russia and China have reached an unprecedented high level of cooperation, Salyukov said. "China is our strategic partner,” he said. (TASS, 08.22.24, Interfax, 08.22.24)
• U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan will travel to China Aug. 27-29 for meetings aimed at keeping up a dialogue with a key adversary even as tensions remain high over trade and Chinese support for Russian forces fighting in Ukraine. The trip will be Sullivan’s first to China as Biden’s top national security aide, and will feature meetings with Foreign Minister Wang Yi. (Bloomberg, 08.23.24, Axios, 08.23.24)

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms

• Biden approved in March a highly classified nuclear strategic plan for the United States that, for the first time, reorients America’s deterrent strategy to focus on China’s rapid expansion in its nuclear arsenal. The “Nuclear Employment Guidance” seeks to prepare the United States for possible coordinated nuclear challenges from China, Russia and North Korea. The emerging partnership between Russia and China, and the conventional arms North Korea and Iran are providing to Russia for the war in Ukraine have fundamentally changed Washington’s thinking. Already, Russia and China are conducting military exercises together. Intelligence agencies are trying to determine whether Russia is aiding the North Korean and Iranian missile programs in return. (NYT, 08.20.24)

Counterterrorism:

• Four inmates in Prison Colony No. 19 of Russia’s Volgograd region have killed four servicemen of this facility in what has become a second deadly hostage-taking attack to be staged by ISIS sympathizers in Russia’s correctional system this year. The four assailants reportedly described themselves as "mujahideen of the Islamic State” and said they were avenging suspected ISIS sympathizers who staged a deadly raid on the Moscow region’s Crocus City Hall in March of this year. Two of the hostage-takers were reportedly natives of Central Asia and three of them have been serving sentences for peddling drugs. Armed with knives, hammers and what looked like a suicide vest imitation, the four inmates seized at least eight penal colony employees and four fellow inmates. They ended up killing four of the captured prison officials, including the prison’s security chief, and injured at least three of the inmates. Eventually National Guard commandos stormed a facility on the territory of the colony where the assailants had holed up, killing all four assailants, according to NBC and Meduza. The incident in the Volograd region is the second time ISIS sympathizers stage a deadly hostage-taking in a Russian prison this year. On June 16, Russian special forces freed two prison guards and shot dead six inmates linked to the Islamic State militant group who had taken them hostage at a detention center in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, Reuters reported. (RM, 08.23.24)
• A Russian court on Aug. 16 extended the custody of four Tajik men suspected of carrying out the deadliest terrorist attack on Russian soil in two decades. More than 140 people were killed when gunmen stormed the Crocus City Hall venue on March 22. (RFE/RL, 08.16.24)

Conflict in Syria:

• No significant developments.

Cyber security/AI: 

• Cyber specialists from the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine attacked several Russian TV channels. Videos about the war in Ukraine were shown on Russian television, according to the sources in the intelligence services. (RBC.ua, 08.22.24)
• The FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies have confirmed Iran was responsible for recent attempted hacks into the Trump and Biden-Harris presidential campaigns, the agencies said in a joint statement Monday. "Iran and Russia have employed these tactics not only in the United States during this and prior federal election cycles but also in other countries around the world," Monday's statement said. (WP, 08.20.24)

Energy exports from CIS:

• The US has placed on its sanctions list companies and vessels that are linked to Russia’s liquefied natural gas “dark fleet” activities, as Washington further aims to squeeze the country’s energy sector.Among the vessels included in the sanctions are two vessels, Pioneer and Asya Energy, that recently loaded LNG from the US-sanctioned Arctic LNG 2, as well as a third vessel that is currently headed in the direction of the facility.An Indian company which manages the vessels, Ocean Speedstar Solutions, have been put on the sanctions list as well. (FT, 08.23.24)
• Russian gas producer Novatek PJSC seems to be pushing ahead with an expansion project at its Arctic LNG 2 plant despite Western energy sanctions. A small fleet of tug vessels towing a second production train has approached the site of the plant on Saturday, according to ship-tracking data. The platform left the construction site near Murmansk on July 25, taking a three-week journey across the eastern Arctic to arrive to the productions area, where the first train is already operating, the ship-tracking data shows. (Bloomberg, 08.17.24) 
• A third liquefied natural gas tanker appears to be heading to the Arctic LNG 2 export plant in northern Russia that’s subject to US sanctions, with Moscow ramping up efforts to circumvent Western restrictions. The Everest Energy, part of a suspected “dark fleet” of vessels assembled by Moscow to take gas to willing buyers, has halted in the Barents Sea northeast of Norway. Two other LNG vessels stopped at the same spot recently. Satellite images later revealed that the ships were actually docking at the Arctic facility, suggesting that they were faking their transponder signals. (Bloomberg, 08.22.24)
• Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk lashed out at Germany on Aug. 17 after a nearly two-year German investigation found that a team of Ukrainians sabotaged the world’s largest offshore pipeline system in September 2022. Tusk took aim at the “initiators and patrons” of Nord Stream 1 and 2, the twin pipelines that ran in parallel on the Baltic seabed, carrying Russian gas to Western Europe. “The only thing you should do today about it is apologize and keep quiet,” he said. (WSJ, 08.20.24)
  • August Hanning, a former head of German foreign intelligence, told the Die Welt newspaper this week that the attack must have been carried out with the support of Poland and with approval from the highest levels in Ukraine and Poland. Tusk didn’t directly address allegations of Polish involvement, saying only that “initiators and patrons” of Nord Stream should apologize and “keep quiet.” (Bloomberg, 08.17.24)
    • Suggestions that Ukrainian authorities supported by Poland were behind planning and executing the sabotage attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines in 2022 are groundless, said Mieszko Pawlak, head of the international policy bureau at the office of Polish President Andrzej Duda. (RFE/RL, 08.18.24)
• India surpassed China as the largest buyer of Russian oil last month. Russian crude exports to India in July reached a record 2.07 million barrels per day (bpd) compared with 1.76 million bpd to China, the news agency said. India imported 12% more Russian crude than last year, while the world’s largest crude oil importer, China, imported 7.4% less over the same period. (MT/AFP, 08.22.24)
• Three oil tankers that are under British sanctions for transporting Russian petroleum are sailing under the flag of a nation that bases its operations in London. The Galaxy, the Liberty and the Rigel, all of which moved barrels for Moscow this year, have switched to sail under the flag of Barbados, one of the world’s more-reputable vessel-registration nations, industry data show. (Bloomberg, 08.22.24)
• Russia's seaborne oil flows continued a steady decline, driven by a hefty loss of barrels from its Sakhalin Island terminal in Asia. The nation’s four-week average crude exports edged lower in the week to Aug. 18, dropping by 25,000 barrels a day compared with the previous period. Its weekly shipments, which are far more volatile, fell 360,000 barrels a day. (Bloomberg, 08.20.24)
• Hungary said refiner Mol Nyrt. is discussing a workaround to receive crude from Russia’s Lukoil PJSC via Ukraine, possibly in the coming months, though that’s expected to result in increased transport costs. (Bloomberg, 08.22.24)
• Germany is likely to extend its trusteeship over the local subsidiaries of Russia’s state energy giant Rosneft PJSC for a fourth time in order to give Moscow more time for the sale of the seized entity. The state’s temporary trusteeship over Rosneft Deutschland and RN Refining & Marketing GmbH will expire on Sept. 10, and will be prolonged until March 2025. The trusteeship can be extended every six months. (Bloomberg, 08.23.24)
• Russia has more than 100 years worth of coal at current and higher production capacities, the Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Alexander Kozlov said Aug. 23. (MT, 08.23.24)

Climate change:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

• The Russian FSB has opened criminal cases against CNN correspondent Nick Walsh and Ukrainian journalists Olesya Borovik and Diana Butsko who filmed in the area of the city of Sudzha in the Kursk region of the Russian Federation after it was taken under control by Ukrainian troops. (Ukrainska Pravda, 08.22.24)
  • The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Aug. 20 that it had summoned the U.S. Embassy's Deputy Chief of Mission Stephanie Holmes to protest what it called "provocative" reports by U.S. journalists from the Kyiv-controlled part of Russia's Kursk region who "illegally" crossed the Russian border. (RFE/RL, 08.20.24)
  • The U.S. Embassy in Moscow on Wednesday rejected Russian accusations of U.S. involvement in Ukraine's Kursk incursion, after the Foreign Ministry summoned Chargé d'Affaires Stephanie Holmes to protest the "provocative actions" of American journalists who reported from the Russian region of Kursk under Ukrainian control. (WP, 08.22.24)
• This month, FBI agents searched the homes of two prominent figures with connections to Russian state media: Scott Ritter, a former United Nations weapons inspector and critic of American foreign policy, and Dimitri K. Simes, an adviser to former President Donald J. Trump's first presidential campaign in 2016. Prosecutors have not announced charges against either of the men. The investigation so far has focused on potential violations of the economic sanctions imposed on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine and a law that requires the disclosure of lobbying efforts on behalf of foreign governments. (NYT, 08.21.24)
  • Mr. Ritter said in a telephone interview that an hours long search of his house in Delmar, N.Y., seemed to be an effort to intimidate him for expressing his political views about the United States, Russia and the war in Ukraine. (NYT, 08.21.24)
  • In the interview on Sputnik, Mr. Simes said that he did not know the reason for the search, but speculated that it was an attempt to stifle anyone who would improve relations between Russia and the United States. (NYT, 08.21.24)
• Since 2022, a Russian network of fake personas on the social-media platform now called X sought to interact with billionaire and X Corp. owner Musk and conservative political and media figures including Donald Trump Jr. and Tucker Carlson, pushing divisive content and narratives that sought to weaken international support for Ukraine.New data shared with the Journal by researchers from Clemson University offer an exclusive look at how the Russian government is positioning its online influence armies ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November. The Clemson researchers were able to use the list of accounts shared by the Justice Department and cross-reference it with historic data. They collected nearly 1,300 posts from more than 200 accounts tied to the network. (WSJ, 08.22.24)
• A court in Russia's Far East city of Vladivostok on Aug. 19 rejected the appeal filed by the lawyer of U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Gordon Black against his sentence of three years and nine months in a general regime penal colony on charges of theft and threat to kill. (RFE/RL, 08.19.24)
• Russian law enforcement authorities detained an Israeli-Canadian racecar driver and entrepreneur wanted by the U.S. for allegedly defrauding investors of millions of dollars through an illegal online stock trading scheme, media reported Tuesday. Joshua Cartu, 45, was detained at St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo International Airport by the Interior Ministry’s Interpol bureau on Monday. (MT/AFP, 08.20.24)
• Russia’s Defense Ministry on Monday published an interview with a former Massachusetts city councilman who is wanted in the United States on child pornography charges, an apparent confirmation of previous reports that he fled the U.S. and enlisted in the Russian army. Wilmer Puello-Mota, a former city councilman in Holyoke, Massachusetts, is believed to have fled the United States in January in violation of a court order while awaiting trial in Rhode Island for possession of child pornography. (MT/AFP, 08.19.24)

II. Russia’s domestic policies 

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

• Russian banks’ net profit surged by more than a third (36%) month-on-month in July, reaching RUB306 billion ($3.3 billion) putting the sector on course to have another strong year, according to preliminary data released by the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) on Aug. 23 (BNE, 08.23.24)
• Anna Tsivileva is wielding influence in Putin’s inner circle, and is the first relative publicly granted a government job by the Russian leader. The 52-year old daughter of Putin’s late cousin, according to five people close to the Kremlin, was named state secretary for the military at the weekend, after the president appointed her a deputy minister in June. (Bloomberg, 08.21.24)
• Putin signed a decree on Aug. 19 further codifying a vague Russian state ideology into Russian law without concretely modifying the Russian Constitution. Putin's effort to codify a specific ideology may be intended to counter the Russian ultranationalist community's own efforts to establish an accepted national ideology. (ISW, 08.19.24)
• Putin signed a decree allowing foreign citizens and stateless individuals to apply for temporary residency in the country if they share “traditional Russian spiritual and moral values,” even in cases when a person does not speak Russian. (MT/AFP, 08.20.24)
• The head of Russia’s consumer protection watchdog said Monday that “traditional” values will help the country avoid an outbreak of the infectious viral disease mpox, which spreads through close physical and sexual contact. (MT/AFP, 08.19.24)
• Instead of weakening the Kremlin’s grip on power, Ukraine’s incursion may eventually cause more Russian citizens to rally around the flag, analysts said. The Kursk invasion “is certainly a blow to the Kremlin’s reputation,” Tatiana Stanovaya, a Russian political scientist, wrote on social media on Tuesday. But “it is unlikely to spark a significant rise in social or political discontent among the population, nor will it lead to an elite rebellion.” (NYT, 08.21.24)
• Putin flew into Chechnya on Tuesday and met its leader Ramzan Kadyrov on his first visit to the North Caucasus region since 2011. Putin then visited the North Caucasus city of Beslan ahead of the 20th anniversary of the Beslan school siege. A video released by the Kremlin showed Putin laying flowers, kneeling and crossing himself at the City of Angels memorial cemetery in honor of the victims. (MT/AFP, 08.20.24, MT/AFP, 08.20.24)
• Over the past 25 years, Russian human rights activists have assigned the status of “political prisoner” to one and a half thousand people. (Verstka, 08.23.24)
• A Russian court on Aug. 21 sentenced exiled opposition politician and former parliamentary deputy Dmitry Gudkov to eight years in prison in absentia for his criticism of Russia's military offensive in Ukraine. (RFE/RL, 08.21.24)
• Russia’s Supreme Court on Aug. 20 extended the pretrial detention of three lawyers who once represented slain Russian opposition politician, Aleksei Navalny, and are now facing charges of extremism. Vadim Kobzev, Igor Sergunin, and Aleksei Liptser were arrested in October in a case widely seen as a means to ramp up pressure on Navalny. (RFE/RL, 08.20.24)
• A Moscow court on Aug. 23 issued an arrest warrant for Nina Volokhonskaya, a producer at the Navalny LIVE YouTube channel who is currently outside of Russia. (RFE/RL, 08.23.24)
• Russian universities admitted almost twice as many veterans of the Ukraine war and their children for the upcoming academic year compared to 2023–24. For the 2024–25 academic year, Russian universities enrolled 14,900 veterans and their children under the presidential quota, almost double the 8,500 enrolled in 2023. (MT/AFP, 08.22.24)
• The Russian Central Election Commission said on Aug. 21 that it has postponed local elections scheduled for September in seven districts of the Kursk region, parts of which have been under the control of Ukrainian armed forces since early August. (RFE/RL, 08.21.24)
• Russians spent a record 19.3 billion rubles ($211 million) on contraceptives in the first half of 2024, the Vedomosti business daily reported Friday, citing market research. (MT/AFP, 08.23.24)
• Negative feelings about President Vladimir V. Putin have appeared to increase across Russia since Ukrainian troops pushed into Russian territory two weeks ago, according to a firm that tracks attitudes in the country by analyzing social media and other internet postings. Many of the online postings, according to the analysis by FilterLabs AI, say Ukraine's advance is a failure of the Russian government and, more specifically, Mr. Putin. (NYT, 08.22.24)
• When asked what they feel responsible for, 87% Russians said they feel responsible for what happens in their families. Least of all, respondents talk about a sense of responsibility for what happens in their city/district and country—37% and 35% respectively. (Levada 08.23.24)
• The All-Russian poll of the Levada Center was conducted from July 25 to 31, 2024. It revealed that over the past three years, the overall level of importance of rights and freedoms in the minds of Russians has decreased. If in 2021 Russians on average noted the importance of nine items out of 17 proposed rights and freedoms, then in 2024 on average, only six items from the same list were marked already. (Levada, 08.15.24)
• Some 21% of Russians questioned by the Levada Center in July said that mass protests of the population against a decline in their living standards are “quite possible” while 73% of the respondents said the probability of such protests is low. If such protests do take place, then 22% of the respondents said they are likely to participate in them, according to Levada’s July poll. In contrast, some 73% said they were unlikely to participate in such protests. Levada pollsters also asked respondents whether they expected protests, during which political demands would be made. Some 15% said such political protests were possible. (RM, 08.23.24)

Defense and aerospace:

• Aug. 23 was the first anniversary of the death of several key Wagner Group leaders, including its owner Yevgeny Prigozhin and founder Dmitry ‘Wagner' Uktin, who were killed in a plane crash almost certainly due to an explosion on board. Since then, the Wagner Group has become increasingly fragmented, with many surviving senior figures leaving the group. In comparison to its peak personnel count of around 50,000 in 2023, Wagner now highly likely maintains around 5,000 total personnel across its residual deployments in Belarus and Africa. (UKMOD, 08.23.24)
  • Large portraits of Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin, the deceased founders of Russia's Wagner mercenary group, appeared in Narym park in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk on Aug. 23, the first anniversary of their deaths in a suspicious plane crash. (RFE/RL, 08.23.24)
• A court in Russia on Aug. 22 annulled a contract between the Defense Ministry and a Danish citizen, who claims he was duped into joining Russian troops invading Ukraine. (RFE/RL, 08.22.24)
•  See section Military aspects of the Ukraine conflict and their impacts above.

Security, law-enforcement, justice and emergencies:

• Five men who took part in last year’s airport storming in the North Caucasus republic of Dagestan were handed varying jail sentences, court authorities said Friday. Hundreds of people descended on Dagestan’s Makhachkala International Airport in late October as they searched for Israeli citizens rumored to be onboard a flight arriving from Tel Aviv. (MT/AFP, 08.23.24)
• A former Russian defense official held in pretrial detention on corruption charges will remain behind bars, a Moscow court decided on Aug. 21 in a ruling that rejected an appeal against his arrest. General Dmitry Bulgakov was detained in Moscow last month pending an investigation and trial. Bulgakov is charged with large-scale embezzlement. (RFE/RL, 08.21.24)
• Vazhnye Istorii cited sources familiar with the Russian security services as claiming that Federal Security Service Head Alexander Bortnikov will "leave his post this year" and theorizing that his potential replacement may be Vladislav Menshchikov, head of the FSB's counterintelligence service, or Sergei Korolev, Bortnikov's first deputy. (ISW, 08.19.24)

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

Russia’s external policies, including relations with “far abroad” countries:

• Mercenaries from the Wagner Group are becoming more violent and killing more people one year after the death of the paramilitary group’s leader. Since Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin died in a plane crash in Aug. 2023, there’s been an 81% increase in violence involving Russian mercenaries in Mali, one of the West African countries where the group has deployed fighters, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (Bloomberg, 08.22.24)
• Russia opened a criminal probe on Saturday into two Italian journalists who reported on Ukraine's offensive in the Kursk region, accusing them of crossing the border illegally. (MT/AFP, 08.18.24)

Ukraine:

• Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, on Aug. 21 ratified the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court (ICC), lawmakers Yaroslav Zheleznyak and Oleksiy Honcharenko reported. (RFE/RL, 08.21.24)
• The Ukrainian parliament has approved legislation banning religious organizations with ties to Russia, paving the way for Kyiv to end the activities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate on its soil. (FT, 08.20.24)
• 76% of Ukrainians are convinced that Russians do not perceive Ukraine as an independent state, according to a nationwide poll by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation, together with the sociological service of the Razumkov Center from Aug. 8 to 15, 2024. (Ukrainska Pravda, 08.22.24)
• A fund focused on buying junk bonds has crushed just about all of its competitors by loading up on debt from corporations in Ukraine. The Eastern European nation, which is battling a full-scale Russian invasion for the third year, became the biggest country allocation for the $470 million Emerging Markets Corporate High Yield Debt Fund run by Arkaim Advisors, which has returned 12% this year and beaten 99% of peers. (Bloomberg, 08.22.24)
• Some 250 judges have been recently appointed in Ukraine to firmly establish the rule of law and finally dismantle a Soviet legacy of corruption and impunity. Their appointments were stalled by political tussles even before Russia's invasion. But the European Union has insisted on a judicial overhaul. Some 70% of Ukrainians distrust the judicial system, according to a recent survey by a Kyiv think tank. (Reuters, 08.23.24)
• The Verkhovna Rada, has summoned Energy Minister German Galushchenko to deliver a report on the fight against corruption in Ukraine's energy sector. Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau has served three ministry officials with notices that they are suspected of crimes over the past month. (Ukrinform, 08.21.24)

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

• Belarus has deployed nearly one-third of its troops to the border with Ukraine, the country’s authoritarian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka said on Aug. 18. He said the decision was made in response to Ukraine allegedly maintaining 120,000 soldiers near the border with Belarus and amassing more forces. (RFE/RL, 08.18.24)
• Sanctions-hit Belarus has announced that it will sign a free trade deal with China for services and investment, as well as agreements to strengthen cooperation in security, energy, and finance. The new pact was announced in a joint statement released on Aug. 23, a day after a visit by Chinese Premier Li Qiang to Minsk where he met with Belarusian Prime Minister Raman Halouchanka and authoritarian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka. (RFE/RL, 08.23.24)
• The Belarusian National Academy of Sciences will open a branch in China, under a document signed during Chinese State Council Premier Li Qiang's visit to Minsk, the BelTA state news agency reported on Thursday (Interfax, 08.22.24)
• Putin said after talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Baku on Aug. 19 that Moscow is ready to get involved in the process of signing a peace treaty between Azerbaijan and Armenia on the basis of trilateral agreements reached after the 44-day war between the two South Caucasus nations in 2020. The head of the Baku-based Institute of Political Management, Azer Qasimli, told RFE/RL that major issues discussed between Putin and Aliyev were related to Baku’s regaining control over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh in September last year, which led to the dissolution of the region’s separatist ethnic Armenian government. (RFE/RL, 08.19.24)
• Azerbaijan has formally applied to become a member of BRICS. (Bloomberg, 08.20.24)
• The government of Afghanistan announced on Aug. 17 that it has finalized trade and investment deals worth $2.5 billion with neighboring Uzbekistan. (MT/AFP 08.18.24)

IV. Quotable and notable

• No significant developments.

Footnotes

1. Russia views capture of this hub as a strategic goal, opening up advances toward the big cities of Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia, according to the Economist.
2. For comparison, the total area of Russia’s second largest city, St. Petersburg, is 541 square miles, and the total area of Los Angeles is about 500 square miles.

The cutoff for reports summarized in this product was 11:00 am East Coast time on the day it was distributed.

*Here and elsewhere, the italicized text indicates comments by RM staff and associates. These comments do not constitute an RM editorial policy.

Slider photo by Ukraine's Ministry of Defense/92nd Assault Brigade shared under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license.