6 Things to Know

1. In a first, the PLA’s army, air force and navy will participate in the same Russian wargame. Army and air force units of China’s People’s Liberation Army have already arrived in Russia for Russia’s annual strategic exercise, while its naval forces will rendezvous with Russian warships at sea, Chinese media reported Aug. 24. The Aug. 30 to Sept. 5 drill, which will take place in eastern Russia, will become the first Russian wargame in which three branches of the PLA will participate at the same time. Troops from India, Mongolia, Tajikistan and Belarus will also participate in the drill, which the Kremlin will, no doubt, use as part of its campaign to demonstrate the tenacity of Western claims about Russia’s isolation over Ukraine.
2. 149 girls, 175 boys and 38 children whose sex is yet unknown are among 5,587 civilians that have been killed since Russia invaded Ukraine, according to the U.N. The civilian casualties include 3,015 killed on Ukrainian-controlled territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and 302 killed on territory controlled by Russian armed forces and affiliated armed groups in those regions. The U.N. also estimates that Ukraine might never fully regain the population lost to death and mass displacement since Russia’s invasion in February, BNE reported.
3. Stalemate on the front as Putin orders a hike in MoD personnel: "I would say that you are seeing a complete and total lack of progress by the Russians on the battlefield," a senior Pentagon official said this week. Speaking at a meeting of SCO defense ministers, Sergei Shoigu admitted that the Russian offensive has slowed down. However, the Ukrainian military also does not seem to be in position to execute a large-scale offensive, according to WP. Shoigu’s admission came shortly before Putin announced that the total number of the Defense Ministry’s soldiers will rise by 137,000 to 1.15 million in 2023 (a 13.5% increase) in a clear sign that the Russian leader sees a long war in Ukraine.
4. Russia sees no prospects for a diplomatic solution yet, in the view of Gennady Gatilov, Russia’s permanent representative to the U.N. in Geneva. There would be no direct talks between Putin and Zelensky, Gatilov told FT. Both sides are so dug in that “there are no prospects for peace at all—only a ceasefire,” a person close to the Kremlin told FT. “Putin won’t be ready” for peace talks  “until Russia has all of Donetsk,” which it hopes to accomplish by winter, the person said.
5. Both of Zaporizhzhia NPP’s operational rectors were temporarily cut off from Ukraine’s power grid because of fires at a nearby coal-powered plant on Aug. 25, according to Energoatom. The plant was able to meet its own demand for electricity needed to ensure its safe functioning during disruption, according to Energoatom, which operates all of Ukraine’s NPPs. Both reactors were subsequently reconnected to the grid and reported normal functioning on Aug. 26. Meanwhile, the IAEA said it is “very, very close" to securing access to the Ukraine-operated, Russian-occupied six-reactor plant in southern Ukraine.
6. Poll shows no signs of Ukraine fatigue in U.S.: A just-completed Chicago Council Survey shows majorities of Americans continue to support U.S. economic and diplomatic sanctions against Russia (80%), providing additional arms and military supplies to the Ukrainian government (72%) and giving economic assistance to Ukraine (71%). By a six-to-four ratio, Americans say the United States should support Ukraine for as long as it takes, according to the Chicago Council.

 

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

Nuclear security and safety:

• A large caliber bullet had pierced an outer wall of Reactor No. 4 at Zaporizhzhia NPP (ZNPP) in early March but, most worrying, an artillery shell had struck an electrical transformer at Reactor No. 6, which was filled with flammable cooling oil, plant employees subsequently learned. Both reactors were active. (NYT, 08.23.22)
• On Aug. 21, satellite imagery indicated that Russia maintained an enhanced military presence at ZNPP, with armored personnel carriers deployed within 60 meters of reactor number five, according to the British Defense Ministry. (British Defense Ministry's twitter account, 08.25.22)
• On Aug. 22, Ukraine reported that a strike damaged transformers at a non-nuclear power generator near the reactors, severing the link to the nuclear plant. (NYT, 08.23.22)
• On Aug. 22, U.S. President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged military restraint around ZNPP and called for inspectors with IAEA to be allowed to visit the plant as soon as possible. In a separate statement, Macron warned Aug. 26 against the use of civilian nuclear facilities as an instrument of war in Ukraine. "Civil nuclear power must be fully protected."  (RFE/RL, 08.22.22, WSJ, 08.26.22)
  • Biden should take urgent action to make the deteriorating situation at the ZNPP an administration priority and demand an immediate inspection by the IAEA before its occupation causes a transnational radiological disaster, according to a private bipartisan letter from dozens of former senior government officials and nonproliferation experts.(WSJ, 08,.25.22)
• "The armed forces of Ukraine continue basically every day to shell the territory of the NPP and the town of Enerhodar, and this creates a real risk of a radiation accident," Russian Ambassador to the U.N. Vasily Nebenzya said at a Russia-called session of the UNSC on Aug. 23. Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine's ambassador, countered that Russia is responsible for the risk and must pull its troops away and allow IAEA inspectors into the plant. (MT/AFP, 08.24.22)
  • Ukraine and Russia have earlier accused each other of plotting false flag operations at ZPNN. However, European intelligence officials say it doesn’t appear that significant strikes have been launched by Russia from within the facility so far. Ukrainian military acknowledged striking positions of Russian forces “near” the NPP with a drone. (WP, 08.20.22,  Bloomberg, 08.18.22, NPR, 08.10.22)
• An employee at ZNPP and his driver were killed in a mortar explosion outside the facility, according to Energoatom which operates Ukrainian NPPs, including ZNPP. (WP, 08.23.22)
• On Aug. 24, Russia’s national guard said it had detained two plant workers for passing information on the location of personnel and equipment to the Ukrainian authorities. More than 500 Russian troops have been deployed to ZNPP. Part of their mission is to weed out the Ukrainian partisans among its staff of 11,000. (WSJ, 08.25.22)
• On Aug. 25, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said Kyiv and Moscow agree that the U.N. watchdog's personnel need to inspect ZPNN. Grossi said talks on gaining access to the facility were making headway and that "we are very, very close" to agreeing on a visit to ZNPP. (WSJ, 08,.25.22, RFE/RL, 08.25.22)
  • Vladimir Rogov, a Russian-installed official in Zaporizhzhia, told TASS on Aug. 26 that the Russian-installed government is ready to welcome the IAEA mission but that the route of the planned visit wasn't being disclosed for security reasons. (WSJ, 08.26.22)
• ZNPP’s last two working reactors suffered temporary, but complete disconnections from Ukraine’s power grid on Aug. 25 as a result of fires that erupted in ash pits of a nearby coal power plant, according to Energoatom. The plant was still able to generate power to meet its own needs and keep essential systems working safely during the disruption, according to Energoatom. The disconnections led to outages in many of the Russia-occupied cities of southern Ukraine as well as suspension of electricity supply to the Ukrainian-controlled territories west of the Dnieper, according to Russian officials. On Aug. 26 Energoatom issued a statement that ZPNN has reconnected with Ukraine’s power grid. On Aug. 26 Alexander Volga, the city's Russian-installed head, said the plant was functioning normally and that "there are no failures." (Energoatom, 08.25.22, Bellona, 08.25.22, Interfax, 08.25.22, WSJ, 08.25.22, FT, 08.25.22, FT, 08.26.22, WSJ, 08.26.22)
  • Prior to the Russian invasion, ZNPP accounted for one-fifth of Ukraine’s annual electricity production. However, only two of its six reactors were operating as of mid-August. At least one of these reactors had Russian fuel replaced with Westinghouse’s fuel in 2019. Energoatom signed a deal with Westinghouse in June 2022 to have Westinghouse supply all the fuel Ukrainian NPPs need. As of June 2022, 7 out of 15 reactors at Ukrainian NPPs were using Westinghouse fuel. (RM, 08.25.22)
• Radioactive waste processing and disposal activities have resumed for the first time at the Chernobyl NPP site since the Russian military occupation of the area earlier this year. The first batch of waste from the plant for disposal was transferred on Aug. 21. (WNN, 08.24.22)

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• No significant developments.

Iran and its nuclear program:

• Macron says it is now up to Iran to decide whether a 2015 nuclear pact can be revived amid signs of momentum toward an agreement. Speaking to reporters during a trip to Algeria on Aug. 26, Macron declined to speculate on the chances of an agreement being reached but said a deal based on the terms presented by the EU would be "better than no agreement." Washington formally responded to Tehran's comments on the draft text two days ago, with Iranian officials saying they are now reviewing the U.S. response. (RFE/RL, 08.26.22)
• An agreement on the Iran nuclear deal is closer than ever, IAEA’s Grossi said Aug. 26. "I think that after months of talks, the parties are closer than ever to reaching an agreement," Grossi said. (TASS, 08.26.22)

Humanitarian impact of the Ukraine conflict:

• Denis Pushilin, head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, told Russian state television Aug. 22 that preparations were nearing completion for the trial of soldiers who were captured after holding out for months at Mariupol's Azovstal steel plant. (WSJ, 08.22.22)
• Four more ships carrying foodstuffs have left Ukrainian Black Sea ports, Turkey's Defense Ministry said on Aug. 21, bringing the total number of vessels to leave Ukraine's Black Sea ports under a U.N.-brokered grain export deal to 31. (RFE/RL, 08.21.22)
• The U.S. plans to purchase 150,000 metric tons of Ukrainian grain for distribution to poor countries through the U.N.’s World Food Program. (RFE/RL, 08.20.22)
• Soaring needs and wealthy countries' focus on Ukraine have left aid agencies with too little money to address the world's other crises, forcing them to cut programs. U.N. agencies and the private groups they work with need $48.7 billion in 2022 to aid more than 200 million people, he said, but more than seven months into the year, they have raised less than one-third of that. (NYT, 08.23.22)
• The U.S. State Department advises U.S. citizens to leave Ukraine now, saying Russia is “stepping up efforts” against civilians. The alert marked the first time since the war began in February that the U.S. has specifically warned that civilian and government buildings could be targeted. (Politico, 08.23.22)
• Six months after Russia invaded Ukraine, the U.N. reported that it had confirmed the deaths of 5,587 civilians, including 149 girls, 175 boys and 38 children whose sex is unknown. The civilian casualties include 3,015 killed on Ukrainian-controlled territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and 302 killed on territory controlled by Russian armed forces and affiliated armed groups in those regions. At least 7,890 civilians were confirmed to be injured, it said. The number of refugees has surpassed 6.6 million. The destruction has already cost Ukraine at least $113.5 billion, and it may need more than $200 billion to rebuild. (NYT, 08.24.22, U.N., 08.22.22)
• "The Russian Federation continues to abduct children from the territory of Ukraine and arrange their illegal adoption by Russian citizens," Ukraine's foreign ministry said in a statement. "Over 1,000 children from Mariupol were illegally transferred to outsiders in Tyumen, Irkutsk, Kemerovo, and Altai Krai" (in Siberia), the statement read. More than 300 Ukrainian children are "held in specialized institutions" in the Krasnodar region, according to the statement. (MT/AFP, 08.24.22)
• Ukraine will never fully regain the population lost to death and mass displacement since Russia’s invasion in February, according to the U.N. The U.N. Population Prospects projections indicate that while the country’s population will recover to some extent from 2023 onwards—assuming the war ends within months—it will never again reach the 43.3 million seen at the beginning of 2022. (BNE, 08.24.22)
• A Russian missile hit a train station in eastern Ukraine, killing at least 22 people, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Aug. 24, in an attack that came as Ukraine celebrated its Independence Day and brought home the harsh reality of the six-month-old war. The attack, which took place in an area about 74 miles east of the city of Dnipro in Ukraine-controlled territory, was one of the deadliest strikes on the country’s railways since April. (NYT, 08.24.22)

• Ukraine remained the biggest recipient of U.K. visas issued under temporary worker schemes, with 14,127 of all grants in the year to June. Data collected between July 20 and Aug. 4, and published on Aug. 26, showed that 42% of people who had entered the U.K. under the Homes for Ukraine and family schemes were in work, up from 9% in April. Almost two-thirds had found a permanent job. (FT, 08.26.22, FT, 08.25.22)
• The Russian military's extensive use of cluster munitions in the war in Ukraine has brought about lasting harm and suffering to hundreds of civilians, Human Rights Watch said in a report released Aug. 25. (RFE/RL, 08.25.22)
• A new report by the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab, a partner in the U.S. Department of State-supported Conflict Observatory, has identified with high confidence at least 21 filtration system locations in and around Donetsk oblast. (Yale, 08.25.22)
• Andriy Yusov, representative of Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, said in a statement that as of July, 573 Ukrainian "defenders" had been released from captivity. (WP, 08.26.22)

Military aspects of the Ukraine conflict and their impacts:

• Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said he was one of the leaders who didn't believe an all-out assault was coming prior to the Russian invasion on Feb. 24. On Feb. 22, Reznikov had spoken over the phone with his counterpart in Belarus, Viktor Khrenin, who promised that Russian forces on Belarusian territory would not invade—offering his word as an officer, the Ukrainian defense minister said. (WP, 08.24.22)
• At the beginning of the "special operation" in Ukraine, Putin did not allow bridges to be bombed. The ban caused bewilderment and hidden dissatisfaction among the Russian military leadership. (Istories, 08.23.22)
• The EU will discuss launching a major training program for Ukrainian forces in neighboring countries, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Aug. 22. (RFE/RL, 08.22.22)
• Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhniy, commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, said that nearly 9,000 soldiers have been killed six months into Russia’s invasion. (FT, 08.22.22)
• A Ukrainian drone found its way to the heavily fortified headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol on Aug. 20. (WSJ, 08.23.22)
• Ukrainian officials have been openly discussing an offensive on the Russian-held strategic port city of Kherson, but there is little evidence along the front lines that Ukraine is prepared to execute an operation that would require large numbers of troops, armored vehicles and powerful close-range weapons to overcome the numerically superior Russian military. (WP, 08.22.22)
• "I would say that you are seeing a complete and total lack of progress by the Russians on the battlefield," a senior Pentagon official said. (WSJ, 08.23.22)
• Ukraine's southern counteroffensive won't be a mass frontal assault on Russian lines, Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelensky, said in an interview. Rather, he said, Ukraine will try to replicate the strategy it used to defend Kyiv: attacking Russian logistics behind the front line, including with guerrilla tactics, to degrade Russia's ability to wage war and force a withdrawal. (WSJ, 08.23.22) Podolyak is essentially confirming what analysts have been saying (and RM digests have been noting) for weeks: Ukraine lacks resources for a large counter-offensive in the south.¹
• Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu at a meeting of the heads of SCO member countries’ defense agencies admitted that the pace of the Russian army offensive in Ukraine has slowed. (Meduza, 08.24.22)
• Nearly $800 million in assistance to Ukraine announced by the U.S. Aug. 19 will include 40 bomb-resistant vehicles equipped with rollers that help detonate mines, as well as lighter howitzers. More importantly, the U.S. will send nearly $3 billion in new weapons and equipment to Ukraine in the largest single tranche of security assistance given by Washington. The package would include six National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems Puma Unmanned Aerial Systems and VAMPIRE Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems, artillery systems and radars.
  • Speaking on Ukraine’s Independence Day on Aug. 24, Biden said the planned supplies of arms are intended to ensure Ukraine “can continue to defend itself over the long term,” a proposition reaffirmed by Undersecretary of Defense Colin Kahl. (FT, 08.24.22, WP, 08.22.22, Defense.gov, 08.24.22, Defense.gov, 08.24.22)
• On Aug. 23, Germany said it will soon ship more than 500 million euros' ($499.3 million) worth of weapons to Ukraine. (RFE/RL, 08.24.22)
• The Moscow-appointed mayor of the Russia-occupied Ukrainian town of Mykhaylivka, Ivan Sushko, has been killed by a car bomb. Earlier this month, the Moscow-installed head of the Kherson region, Vladimir Saldo, was hospitalized in Moscow after what Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed was an attempted poisoning. His deputy Vitaly Gura was shot and killed a day later. (MT/AFP, 08.24.22, RFE/RL, 08.24.22)
• In the six months since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry has lost 12,142 units of military equipment worth $16.56 billion, excluding missiles. Such calculations are given by the Ukrainian version of Forbes magazine. According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Russian army lost 1,924 tanks, 234 aircraft, 199 helicopters, 15 ships and 196 cruise missiles during the six months of war. (Meduza, 08.24.22)
• In the Yaroslavl region, 104 inmates of Correctional Colony No. 2 were recruited by the Wagner Group and sent to Ukraine to fight. When recruiting them, Yevgeny Prigozhin told the inmates the war would last for several years. (Istories, 08.25.22) 
  • Prigozhin, who is believed to run the Wagner paramilitary group, requested an investigation into a recent report by Fontanka about Wagner's recruitment of inmates to fight in Ukraine. (RFE/RL, 08.26.22)
• Ten Russian aircraft have been withdrawn from Crimea to the Russian Federation: six Su-35S fighters and four MiG-31BM interceptors, following Ukrainian attacks at the Saki airdrome. (Charter97/Business Insider, 08.26.22)
• On Aug. 26, the Russian-installed deputy head of traffic police in the port city of Berdyansk, Alexander Kolesnikov, was killed by a Ukrainian-placed improvised explosive device, Russian-installed officials said. Kyiv hasn't commented on the killings. (WSJ, 08.26.22)

Punitive measures related to Ukraine and their impact globally:

• A just-completed Chicago Council Survey shows majorities of Americans continue to support U.S. economic and diplomatic sanctions against Russia (80%), accepting Ukrainian refugees into the United States (76%), providing additional arms and military supplies to the Ukrainian government (72%) and giving economic assistance to Ukraine (71%). By a six-to-four ratio, Americans say the United States should support Ukraine for as long as it takes. (Chicago Council, August 2022)
• The EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell said he is against a blanket ban on EU visas for Russians, following demands from some bloc members to stop issuing travel permits. (FT, 08.22.22)
  • The Czech Republic will suggest to EU members to suspend simplified procedure for issuing Schengen visas to citizens of Russia and Belarus, according to Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky. The proposal will be considered at an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Prague next week. (Meduza, 08.26.22)
  • Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, 998,085 Russian citizens have entered the EU through land border crossing points, according to EU’s Frontex. Most of them arrived via Finland and Estonia. The majority are persons with EU residence permits/visas to the EU or dual citizenship holders. (RM, 08.26.22)
• The Storytell audiobook service is leaving Russia. Russian-language application Storytell, will stop working on Oct. 1. In addition, Irish company Bookmate Limited, which owns the digital book service of the same name, has decided to leave the Russian market. (Meduza, 08.25.22, Meduza, 08.22.22)
• German household appliance manufacturer Bosch has started looking for a buyer for two of its factories in Strelna, a suburb of St. Petersburg. (Meduza, 08.22.22)
• A superyacht formerly owned by sanctioned Russian tycoon Dmitry Pumpyansky sold at auction in Gibraltar on Aug. 23. The yacht was seized and sold after Pumpyansky failed to pay a $20 million debt to JP Morgan. The sale of the yacht, which was once valued at $75 million, is believed to be the first of its kind since numerous superyachts were seized as part of sanctions on Russian oligarchs over Russia's invasion of Ukraine. (Focus, 08.23.22, Axios, 08.23.22)
• IMAX has banned Russian cinemas from screening Russian movies within Russia after leaving the country over its invasion of Ukraine, the head of a major cinema chain said Aug. 23. (MT/AFP, 08.23.22)
• Russia supplied about two-fifths of the coal burned by Polish households. The price of coal in Poland has tripled from an average price of just under 1,000 zlotys ($208) per ton last year to more than 3,000 zlotys per ton. (FT, 08.23.22)
• 1,500 Ukrainian airline pilots have been grounded since Russia invaded Ukraine six months ago. (RFE/RL, 08.23.22)
• Siemens Finance, a Russian leasing company owned by German industrial manufacturing giant Siemens AG, is fielding takeover offers. (BNE, 08.24.22)
• IKEA does not intend to leave the Russian market and expects to reopen its stores within two years, a source close to the company claimed in interview with TASS. (Media Zone, 08.24.22)
• U.K. imports of goods from Russia totaled £33 million in June, down 96% year on year and the lowest since comparable data was first published in 1997, the Office for National Statistics said on Aug. 24. For the first time on record, there were no imports of fuel from Russia. (FT, 08.24.22)
• Citigroup Inc. will wind down its Russian consumer bank after attempts to sell the unit were stymied by Russia's invasion of Ukraine and subsequent sanctions on the nation's financial system. The bank said Aug. 25 that the move would lead to about $170 million in costs over the next 18 months. (WSJ, 08.25.22)
• Steel magnate Alexey Mordashov, who was sanctioned by the U.S., the EU and the U.K. in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, has engaged advisers to work out how he might be able to free up assets and ensure longer-term ownership of some businesses currently restricted by those sanctions. The effort represents an early attempt by a sanctioned Russian oligarch to reach a deal with Western officials to lessen the sting of those restrictions. (WSJ, 08,.25.22)
• The U.S. Defense Department set a ban on procurement of tantalum in Russia, Iran, China and North Korea by the department and its contractors. The relevant notice was posted on Aug. 24 in the Federal Register. (TASS, 08.25.22)
• The real pinch from Western export controls will be felt in 2023, when Russia will lack the semiconductors and spare parts for its manufacturing sector, and its industrial plants will be forced to close, according to Angela Stent and Fiona Hill. (FA, September/October 2022)

Ukraine-related negotiations:

• Shortly after the beginning of the Russian invasion on Feb. 24, head of Zelensky's administration, Andriy Yermak, looked down at his ringing cellphone. He heard the gravelly voice of Dmitry Kozak, the Kremlin deputy chief of staff, who was born in Ukraine but had long ago entered Putin's inner circle. Kozak said it was time for the Ukrainians to surrender. Yermak swore at Kozak and hung up. (WP, 08.24.22.)
• Moscow sees no possibility of a diplomatic solution to end the war in Ukraine and expects a long conflict, Gennady Gatilov, Russia’s permanent representative to the U.N. in Geneva, told FT. There would be no direct talks between Putin and Zelensky, he said.  “And the more the conflict goes on, the more difficult it will be to have a diplomatic solution.” (FT, 08.22.22)
• Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser in Zelensky’s administration who participated in the failed peace talks, said on Aug. 19 that “negotiating with the Russian federation means . . . a fatal ending for everyone.” (FT, 08.22.22)
• Zelensky threatened on Aug. 21 to cut off all negotiations with Russia if Ukrainian prisoners of war are paraded in the captured city of Mariupol and put on what he called “an absolutely disgusting and absurd show trial.” (NYT. 08.22.22)
• Zelensky has vowed his country will fight Russian troops "until the end" as Ukraine marked its independence. “What is the end of the war for us? We used to say: peace. Now we say: victory,” he said in his speech on Ukraine’s Independence Day on Aug. 24. Everything started with Crimea and will end with it—liberation of the peninsula from occupation is necessary, Zelensky said a day earlier during the 2^nd Crimea Platform Summit. (President.gov.ua, 08.24.22, President.gov.ua, 08.23.22, RFE/RL, 08.24.22, Uatv.ua, 08.24.22)
• According to a poll conducted by KIIS in July, even among residents of the south (the Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolayiv, Odesa and Kherson regions), 77% oppose concessions. Among residents of the east (Kharkiv and the Kyiv-controlled parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions)—82% do not accept concessions. (RFE/RL, 08.24.22)
• Both sides are so dug in that “there are no prospects for peace at all—only a ceasefire,” according to a person close to the Kremlin. Any agreement would be likely to codify the largely static front line separating Ukraine and Russia, with almost a fifth of Ukrainian territory in the invader’s control. Russia still hopes to gain control of the remaining part of the Donbas before the winter, according to the person in Moscow. “Putin won’t be ready until Russia has all of Donetsk” region, the person said. “This is going to go on for a long time.” (FT, 08.24.22)

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

• Suspected GRU spy Olga Kolobova lived undercover in Naples as a Peruvian jewelry designer to lure NATO commanders into honeytraps, a new investigation by Bellingcat has revealed. Kolobova fled to Moscow in 2018 after a decade of spying in Europe under the alias “Maria Adela Kuhfeldt Rivera,” after Bellingcat started revealing the network of spies run by Russia’s GRU foreign intelligence service. (Telegraph, 08.26.22)

China-Russia: Allied or aligned?

• Between March and July, China spent $35 billion on Russian oil, gas and coal compared with $20 billion the same time last year, Bloomberg said, citing the latest Chinese customs figures. In July alone, China's spending on Russian energy rose to $7.2 billion, up from $4.7 billion in July 2021. (MT, 08.22.22) 
• China imported $108.8 million worth of Russian gold in July—a 750% increase from June and a 4,800% increase from the same month last year. Market experts interviewed by RBC said they believed Russia, the world’s second-largest gold producer at more than 300 tons per year, is currently selling its gold to China with a discount of up to 30%. (MT/AFP, 08.26.22)
• Army and air force units of China’s People’s Liberation Army have arrived in Russia for Vostok-2022, Russia’s annual strategic exercise, while China’s naval forces are rendezvousing with Russian warships at sea. The Aug. 30-Sept. 5 drill will take place at 13 training ranges of Russia’s Eastern Military District. This is the first time the PLA has sent its army, navy and air force at the same time to an exercise organized by Russia, observers told Chinese media. In addition to the PLA, military units from India, Mongolia, Tajikistan and Belarus will be participating in the drills. (Global Times, 08.25.22, TASS, 08.26.22)

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms control:

• Russian military expert Mikhail Khodarenok has written in his Telegram channel that there is no military need for Russia to use non-strategic nuclear weapons in Ukraine, in his view. NSNWs are designed to destroy large targets and strike large concentrations of the adversary’s forces at the front and immediate rear, according to Khodarenok. Ukraine has no such large concentrations while Russian armed forces can “mop up” two enclaves in the Donbas—Kramatorsk and Slavyansk—without the use of nuclear weapons, in his view. “The use of such weapons in Ukraine is meaningless and does not meet the long-term interests of Russia, either militarily or politically or socially,” Khodarenok wrote. (RM, 08.23.22)
• British conservative leadership frontrunner Liz Truss said she is “ready” to launch nuclear war if she becomes prime minister next month. The foreign secretary told a Tory hustings event in Birmingham that she was willing to hit Britain’s nuclear button if necessary—even if meant “global annihilation.” (Independent, 08.24.22)
• Belarus's authoritarian ruler, Alexander Lukashenko, says his country's Su-24 military planes have been re-fitted to enable them to carry Russian nuclear weapons. (RFE/RL, 08.26.22)
• Dialogue between the “five nuclear weapon states” (Russia, China, Great Britain, the U.S., France) should be intensified, this format could become a prototype of multilateral negotiation process on arms control and disarmament, Russian Deputy Permanent Representative to the U.N. in Geneva Andrey Belousov told reporters. (TASS, 08.25.22)

Counterterrorism:

• No significant developments.

Conflict in Syria:

• U.S. air strikes this week targeted Iran-linked targets in Syria and were carried out to protect and defend American personnel, Biden said. The attack occurred in a town along the western bank of the Euphrates River. (RFE/RL, 08.26.22)
• "We strongly condemned the dangerous practice of Israeli strikes on Syrian territory," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. "We demand that Israel respect the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council and, above all, respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria." (Haaretz, 08.23.22)
• On Aug. 26, at the Russian Foreign Ministry, Russian Special Representative for the Middle East and Africa Mikhail Bogdanov met with Special Envoy of the U.N. Secretary General for Syria Geir Pedersent to discuss the prospects for advancing a comprehensive settlement in the SAR on the basis of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2254. Special attention was paid to the further work of the inter-Syrian Constitutional Committee, as well as to the peacekeeping efforts of the participants in the Astana format. (Russian Foreign Ministry, 08.26.22)

Cyber security:

• No significant developments.

Energy exports from CIS:

• The Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which supplies natural gas from Russia to Europe under the Baltic Sea, will be closed from Aug. 31 to Sept. 2, as its only remaining gas compressor requires maintenance, Gazprom has announced. (RFE/RL, 08.19.22)
• Fresh speculation that the Kremlin is tampering with Kazakhstan’s oil exports has arisen with an announcement that shipments of flows from the CPC pipeline have been disrupted for the fourth time this year. (BNE, 08.23.22)
• Momentum is building among oil producers to cut crude production to stabilize the market, with OPEC's president the latest to back Saudi Arabia's suggestion that the alliance might pump less—comments that pushed the price of a barrel back over $100 earlier this week. (WSJ, 08.26.22)

Climate change:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

• The Russian defense ministry and Kremlin-controlled media outlets have been busy suggesting to audiences around the globe that the monkeypox outbreak was engineered by U.S. military biological laboratories. (FP, 08.21.22)

 

II. Russia’s domestic policies

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

• Industrial production in Russia in July 2022 decreased by 0.5% compared to the same period in 2021, but 1.8% higher than in June 2022. Overall, the first seven months of 2022 saw industrial production in Russia increased by 1% compared to the same period last year.  (Rosstat, 08.24.22)
• Russia is on track for a record wheat harvest of 94.7 million tons, smashing the previous record of 84 million tons set in 2018, but exports are down by a quarter (27%) in the first two months of the new agricultural marketing year, which runs from July 2022 to June 2023, the SovEcon agency says. (BNE, 08.24.22)
• Russia saw a 22% fall in laptop sales in July compared to the same month last year. A total of 222,000 laptops valued at 13.1 billion rubles ($217 million) were sold in Russia in July, Kommersant reported. (MT/AFP, 08.25.22)
• Despite the severe economic headwinds, Russian unemployment fell to a post-Soviet low of just 3.9% in May—far below the European Union average and not far above the U.S. figure of 3.6 %—and remained at the same level in June. (RFE/RL, 08.22.22) One should treat such official estimates with a pinch of salt, perhaps, given, among other things, the Russian government’s pressure on employers to refrain from firing personnel, sending them into unpaid leaves or transferring them to part-time. Real levels of unemployment can be twice as high as officially reported, according to even pro-Kremlin parliamentary leaders such as Sergei Mironov. “It is a social bomb that can explode anytime,” he warned in a 07.25.22 post.
• Moscow residents bought 684 of AvtoVaz’s Lada vehicles in July—enough for the domestic carmaker to reclaim the top spot for the first time since 2009. The runners up were South Korea’s Kia and Hyundai as well as China’s Geely and Chery. (MT/AFP, 08.25.22) Qui bono, when it comes to Western sanctions.
• Yandex, Russia’s largest tech company, has sold its news aggregator, blogging platform and homepage to VK, the state-controlled social media giant. (FT, 08.23.22)
• Young Chechen activist Salman Tepsurkayev who went missing in September 2020 has been killed, Olga Sadovskaya, a lawyer for the Committee Against Torture group, said. (RFE/RL, 08.24.22)
• A Russian court released former Yekaterinburg Mayor Yevgeny Roizman from detention but ordered him not to communicate with anyone without permission. Roizman faces charges of "discrediting the armed forces.” (RFE/RL, 08.25.22)
• Russia's presidential Council for Human Rights said on Aug. 25 that Igor Kalyapin, who is a member of the council, was attacked late the previous evening in the Nizhny Novgorod region. The attacker, it added, tried to stab Kalyapin with a piece of broken glass and then suffocate him. (RFE/RL, 08.25.22)
• Almost 16,500 people have been detained across Russia for protesting the war in the six months since the invasion of Ukraine. (MT/AFP, 08.24.22)
• For almost five years, employees of the Presidential Guard Service (FSO) accompanied Katerina Tikhonova, the daughter of Putin, on personal trips to Europe. This was discovered by Important Stories and Der Spiegel, which received access to the archive of documents from the e-mail of Alexei Skripchak, an employee of the FSO. (Istories, 08.25.22, Currenttime TV, 08.25.22)
• Commander-in-Chief of the Russian National Guard Viktor Zolotov flew to the Seychelles for three years in a row in the company of Boris Vaninsky, who is the main supplier of products for the Guard, of other military personnel and “charming girls.” (Dossier.ru, 08.25.22, RFE/RL, 08.25.22)

Defense and aerospace:

• Sources close to the Russian General Staff also say that decisions on some key appointments in the Defense Ministry are made without taking Shoigu's opinion into account. As an example, they cite the June appointment of Col. Gen. Mikhail Teplinsky as commander of the airborne troops in spite of Shoigu's long-standing hostile attitude toward Teplinsky. (Istories, 08.23.22) Teplinsky is a career paratrooper. He was chief of the 194th regiment of the 76^th airborne division when the unit’s 6^th company was decimated in Chechen mountains in 2000.
• Putin ordered the expansion of the Russian military Aug. 25 as Moscow struggles to fulfill its objectives in Ukraine six months after the invasion of its pro-Western neighbor. As part of the changes, the total number of military and civilian staff in the Russian armed forces will increase from 1.9 million to nearly 2.04 million. The increase will only come from adding new soldiers—not new civilian employees—meaning that the total number of soldiers will rise by 137,000 to 1.15 million (a 13.5% increase). The Russian military will be operating at this new level from the beginning of next year, according to the decree. (MT/AFP, 08.25.22) The timing and scope of the expansion of the Russian military indicate that Putin—who has reportedly rejected the mass mobilization option—(1) sees the war in Ukraine dragging into 2023, and (2) wants to streamline ways in which the Russian military can increase its personnel strength in Ukraine, perhaps downscaling the use of exotic methods such as having an MoD-allied PMC recruit inmates for combat.
• The Army Games closed with a gala ceremony in Nur Sultan in the military center in Kazakhstan, the Russian Defense Ministry said. "Three Army-2022 contests have been held in Kazakhstan since Aug. 13. The contests engaged 26 teams from 15 countries. Winners were decorated at the gala ceremony," it said. The Kazakh team won the Meridian topographic contest followed by China, Belarus and Uzbekistan. (TASS, 08.26.22)
•  See section Military aspects of the Ukraine conflict and their impacts above.

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• Russia’s FSB on Aug. 22 accused Ukraine of organizing the killing of Daria Dugina and said that it had been carried out by a Ukrainian woman who fled to Estonia soon after the car bomb exploded. Estonia, thus accused, said on Aug. 22 that it had received no official request for information or cooperation from Moscow in connection with the attack which killed Dugina, a Russian commentator and the daughter of a prominent ultranationalist. (NYT, 08.23.22)
  • Putin offered his condolences to Dugina's parents in a statement, calling her ''a bright, talented person'' killed in a ''vile, cruel crime'' and posthumously awarding her Russia's Order of Courage. (NYT, 08.23.22)
  • Hundreds of mourners gathered Aug. 23 for the Moscow funeral of Dugina.  
    • During the funeral ceremony Sergei Mironov, the leader of the A Just Russia–For Truth party, claimed the attack was approved by Zelensky himself and called for retaliation. (MT/AFP, 08.23.22)
    • “One country. One president. One victory,” Leonid Slutsky, the head of Russia's nationalist Liberal Democratic Party, said at the ceremony, a statement that observers noted echoes an infamous quote by Hitler. (MT/AFP, 08.23.22)
    • “I am sure we can find professionals willing to admire the famous spires in the vicinity of Tallinn,” the editor-in-chief of the Kremlin-backed RT network  Margarita Simonyan tweeted—an apparent reference to the alibi of the alleged Skripal poisoners, who told RT shortly after returning to Russia that they had been visiting Salisbury to “admire” its cathedral’s spires. (MT, 08.22.22)
• The Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia responded to Kommersant's request about the lack of places in the pre-trial detention center—according to the agency, Russian detention centers are 96% full. (Kommersant, 08.23.22)
• The Lefortovsky district court of Moscow arrested Russian citizen Igor Kondratsky in the case of high treason. A former adviser to the Russian Embassy in France, a diplomat with 18 years of experience, Kondratsky, who worked in the system of the Russian Foreign Ministry from 1992 to 2010, was arrested two months ago in Moscow and is currently in custody in the capital's pre-trial detention center. (Media Zone, 08.23.22, MT, 08.23.22)
• A court in Moscow has issued an arrest warrant for Svetlana Valeryevna Timofeyeva, whose personal data fully coincides with those of a woman detained in Albania on espionage charges. Timofeyeva is known as a photographer who takes pictures of functioning and abandoned plants and factories and places them on her Instagram account. (RFE/RL, 08.26.22)

 

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

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

• Albania said on Aug. 21 that it was investigating why two Russians and a Ukrainian had tried to enter a military factory, and police have also detained four Czech nationals who were close to another military plant. (RFE/RL, 08.21.22)
• Fennovoima has initiated proceedings against various Rosatom entities to claim compensation for damages "arising out of the delays and inability to deliver" the planned Hanhikivi 1 NPP project at Pyhäjoki in northern Finland. It said its claims currently total almost 2 billion euros ($2 billion). (WNN, 08.22.22)
• Russians opened 500 companies in Turkey in the first six months of this year, more than double the number of firms started by Russian nationals in the country in all of 2021, according to data from Turkey's chambers of commerce reviewed by WSJ. Turkey's exports to Russia grew by 75% in July over the previous year, as Russians pivoted to Turkey to replace off-limits European imports. (WSJ, 08.23.22)
• Since April, Russians have become the number one foreign buyers of housing in Turkey, according to government statistics, leapfrogging Iraqis and Iranians as top investors. Russians bought more than 1,000 units of housing in Turkey in July alone, nearly double what they bought in March. (WSJ, 08.23.22)
• Serbia’s Deputy Prime Minister Zorana Mihajlović has accused the Russian foreign minister of “abusing” Serbia’s decision not to impose sanctions on Russia by falsely claiming Serbia supports Russia's invasion of Ukraine. (BNE, 08.26.22)

Ukraine:

• Oleksandr Nakonechny, head of the Kirovohrad region branch of Ukraine’s SBU intelligence service, has been found dead at his home in central Ukraine. (RFE/RL, 08.22.22)
• According to a poll conducted by KIIS in July, a historic 85% of Ukrainians identify themselves above all as citizens of Ukraine, as opposed to residents of their region, representatives of an ethnic minority or some other identifier. As many as 96% of Ukrainians support their country joining the European Union, and 91% now favor joining NATO. Some 92% profess a “bad” attitude toward Russia, while only 2% declare a “good” one. (RFE/RL, 08.24.22)

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

• Well-known Belarusian blogger Andrei Byalyauski has been sentenced to two years in prison for allegedly insulting Lukashenko with his postings on social media. (RFE/RL, 08.22.22)
• Migrant workers from Central Asia hired for seasonal jobs on British farms say they're happy to be in Britain but wish they had more work. Thousands of laborers from Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan came to Britain this year under the U.K. government’s Seasonal Workers Scheme designed to address a severe shortage of farm workers due to Brexit. (RFE/RL, 08.20.22)
• EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the Crisis in Georgia Toivo Klaar wrote on Twitter about "good and substantive discussions" with Armen Grigorian, the secretary of Armenia's Security Council, and Hikmet Haciyev, a foreign-policy adviser to the president of Azerbaijan, "on Armenian-Azerbaijani relations and EU engagement." (RFE/RL, 08.20.22)
• Kazakhstan's Foreign Ministry has summoned Ukrainian Ambassador Petro Vrublevskiy over "inappropriate" comments. In the Aug. 21 video interview, Vrublevskiy answered a question about Russia's war by saying: "We are trying to kill as many of them as possible. The more Russians we kill now, the less of them our children will have to kill." (RFE/RL, 08.23.22)
• The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan have agreed to meet in Brussels on Aug. 31 for talks mediated by the European Union, the Armenian government said on Aug. 25. European Council chief Charles Michel will be present at the meeting. (RFE/RL, 08.25.22)

 

IV. Quotable and notable

• "While the Kremlin continues to slowly chew the usual snot, our respected Ukrainian partners are matter-of-factly destroying everything they can reach," wrote Igor Girkin, a far-right nationalist, after Ukrainian forces struck Russian targets with U.S.-supplied weapons in July. "The failure of the Russian military strategy in Ukraine is obvious," he said earlier this month. (WSJ, 08.22.22)
• "One can literally feel in the air of Crimea that the occupation there is temporary, and Ukraine is returning," Zelensky said Aug. 20. (WSJ, 08.23.22)
• St. Andrews University professor Phillips O’Brien: “I can’t believe the Chinese, who are, by the way, the decisive power for keeping Russia in the war—Russia couldn’t fight without China right now.” (FT, 08.24.22)

 

Footnotes

1. Italicized text is contextual commentary by RM staff.