This Week’s Highlights

• In a phone conversation Putin and Macron expressed concern over the killing of Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani by a U.S. drone. By killing Soleimani, the United States ruined any hope for resolving the problem around the Iranian nuclear program, and now Tehran could expedite the development of nuclear weapons, the Chairman of the Russian Federation Council's Foreign Affairs Committee said. "The Americans have crossed the ‘red line,’" chairman of the Russian State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee Leonid Slutsky said, according to TASS.
• “We have never regarded the need to resolve this problem [Russia’s concerns that some of U.S. delivery vehicles are not being counted in the total] as a precondition for extending the [New START] treaty,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov claimed in an interview in late December. According to U.S. arms expert Kingston Reif, however, the Russian position on this issue did change with this precondition dropped.
• Russian authorities have taken into custody two suspects in connection with a purported plot to carry out terrorist attacks in St. Petersburg on New Year's Eve that was foiled in part based on an intelligence tip from the U.S. The Federal Security Service announced that the men were detained on Dec. 27 based on information from their "American partners." Putin on Dec. 29 spoke by telephone with Trump to thank him for the intelligence, RFE/RL reports. Earlier, Lavrov said that the U.S. and Russia “have held two sessions of talks on counterterrorism, which began a long time ago but were suspended by the administration [of] Barack Obama," according to TASS.
• U.S. military cyber officials are developing information warfare tactics that could be deployed against senior Russian officials and oligarchs if Moscow tries to interfere in the 2020 U.S. elections through hacking election systems or sowing widespread discord, according to current and former U.S. officials. One option being explored would target senior leadership and Russian elites, though probably not Putin, The Washington Post reports.
• Russia’s crude oil and condensate output hit a post-Soviet high in 2019 even as it curbed production under an agreement with OPEC. Russia produced 560.2 million tons of oil in 2019, up 0.8 percent from the previous year, preliminary data from the Energy Ministry show, equivalent to 11.25 million barrels a day, according to Bloomberg.
• The wealth of Russia’s richest people in 2019 surged 21 percent, or by $51 billion, according to an index of the richest 500 billionaires tracked by Bloomberg, RFE/RL reports. 2019 also saw MOEX Russia Index, the main ruble-denominated stocks benchmark, rally over 27 percent while the ruble appreciated almost 11 percent against the U.S. dollar in 2019 and Russia’s foreign-exchange reserves reached $436.1 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal. 
• Alcohol consumption in Russia has halved between 2008 and 2018, according to government statistics. At nine liters of pure alcohol equivalent per year, the average Russian now drinks less than people in France or Germany, according to World Health Organization data, Financial Times reports.

 

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

Nuclear security:

• No significant commentary.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un laid out a new strategy away from talks with the U.S. during a top meeting convened as his year-end deadline for a denuclearization deal passed. Among the highlights of the report was Kim's declaration that "the world will witness a new strategic weapon to be possessed by the DPRK in the near future." Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia's permanent representative to Vienna-based international organizations, tweeted on "alarming developments around the issue of #denuclearization" in reference to Kim's speech. He said "there is urgent need to intensify diplomatic efforts" and called for a "more creative" approach to sanctions. (Newsweek, 01.03.20)

Iran and its nuclear program:

• Iran’s top security and intelligence commander was killed early Jan. 3 in a drone strike at Baghdad International Airport that was authorized by U.S. President Donald Trump, American officials said. The commander, Maj. Gen. Qassim Soleimani, who led the powerful Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, was killed along with several officials from Iraqi militias backed by Tehran when an American MQ-9 Reaper drone fired missiles into a convoy. Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region, the Pentagon said in a statement. In killing Soleimani, Trump took an action that Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama had rejected, fearing it would lead to war between the U.S. and Iran. (New York Times, 01.03.20)
  • In his first comments on the drone strike against Soleimani, Trump suggested that the Iranian commander “got caught” preparing to hit American targets. (New York Times, 01.03.20)
  • U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters that the U.S. had intelligence that Soleimani was preparing a specific, new operation to target Americans in the Middle East, but declined to elaborate. (New York Times, 01.03.20)
  • “Soleimani was an enemy of the United States. That’s not a question,” U.S. Sen. Christopher Murphy wrote on Twitter, using an alternate spelling of the Iranian’s name. “The question is this—as reports suggest, did America just assassinate, without any congressional authorization, the second most powerful person in Iran, knowingly setting off a potential massive regional war?” (New York Times, 01.03.20)
  • U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said: “If we get word of attacks we will take preemptive action as well to protect American forces, protect American lives,” he said. “The game has changed." (RFE/RL, 01.03.20)
  • "President Trump just tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox," former vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said in a statement. "Iran will surely respond. We could be on the brink of a major conflict across the Middle East." (RFE/RL, 01.03.20)
  • Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned of "severe retaliation" against the "criminals" who killed Soleimani, who had led efforts to help Syrian and Iranian troops beat back anti-government forces in both those countries, including Islamic State militants. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in televised remarks that the assassination will make Tehran more decisive in its resistance against the U.S. (RFE/RL, 01.03.20)
  • Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron have expressed concern over the killing of Soleimani by U.S. forces during a phone call on Jan. 3. "Both sides have expressed concern over the death of Commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force Q. Soleimani in a U.S. missile strike at the Baghdad airport," according to the Kremlin press service. (TASS, 01.03.20)
  • "We regard the killing of Soleimani as a result of an American missile strike on the outskirts of Baghdad as a reckless step which could lead to a growth of tensions across the region," the Russian Foreign Ministry said. (RFE/RL, 01.03.20)
  • "We have encountered a new reality—the murder of a representative of the government of a sovereign state, an official in the absence of any legal grounds for these actions," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said. (Interfax, 01.03.20)
  • The killing of Soleimani will lead to an escalation of military-political tensions in the Middle East, negatively affecting the global security system, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement Jan. 3. The ministry has highlighted the contribution of Soleimani to combating the Islamic State in Syria. (TASS, 01.03.20)
  • By killing Soleimani, the U.S. ruined any hope for resolving the problem around the Iranian nuclear program, chairman of the Russian Federation Council's Foreign Affairs Committee Konstantin Kosachev has said. “The last hopes for resolving the problem of the Iranian nuclear program have been bombed. Iran can now accelerate production if of nuclear weapons, even if it has not been planning to do so,” Kosavhev wrote on his Facebook page.  Kosachev has called the killing “the worst-case scenario.” (The Moscow Times, 01.03.20, Interfax, 01.03.20, Kosachev’s Facebook page, 01.03.20)
  • "The Americans have crossed the ‘red line,’ and this time the consequences can be most serious," chairman of the Russian State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee Leonid Slutsky said. (TASS, 01.03.20)
  • Beijing decried "the use of force in international relations" and said Iraqi sovereignty and territorial integrity should be respected. (RFE/RL, 01.03.20)
  • "The cycle of violence, provocations and retaliations which we have witnessed In Iraq over the past few weeks has to stop. Further escalation must be avoided at all cost," European Council President Charles Michel said in a statement. (RFE/RL, 01.03.20)
  • NATO member Turkey said via a Foreign Ministry statement that it was "deeply concerned about the escalating U.S.-Iranian tension" and said the U.S. operation "will increase the insecurity and instability in the region." (RFE/RL, 01.03.20)
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said that the U.S. and the EU should either comply with the terms of the 2015 nuclear agreement with Tehran, or recognize it as nonexistent. Lavrov made the comments on Dec. 30 after meeting in Moscow with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who said that the European signatories to the deal were "not taking any practical steps" to support it. (RFE/RL, 12.30.19)
• Russia, China and Iran launched their first joint naval exercises in the Gulf of Oman on Dec. 27, in a direct challenge to U.S. influence in the Middle East. The naval drills, which will include tactical exercises such as rescuing frigates under attack, began in the port city of Chabahar in southeastern Iran and are due to continue in northern parts of the Indian Ocean. “These exercises show that relations between Iran, Russia and China have reached a new high level while this trend will continue in the coming years,” Iranian Vice Adm. Gholamreza Tahani, a deputy naval commander, said. (Financial Times, 12.27.19)

New Cold War/saber rattling:

• U.S. President Donald Trump has signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), creating the U.S. Space Force, the sixth branch of the armed forces. The Space Force will initially start with 16,000 Air Force personnel and be led by Air Force Gen. John Raymond. (RFE/RL, 12.21.19)
• Norwegian national Frode Berg counted 14 meetings with counterintelligence officers from the FSB while jailed at Moscow’s Lefortovo facility on espionage charges. Rather than pressing him for information, they seemed intent on showing off how much they knew, he said. They even identified the nondescript building in Kirkenes where Norway's military intelligence held secret meetings. (New York Times, 12.28.19)

NATO-Russia relations:

• In a television interview this month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said if the U.S. punishes Turkey for its purchase of a Russian air-defense system, then, "if necessary, we may close Incirlik and Kurecik," installations where the U.S. keeps nuclear weapons and operates critical radar. (Wall Street Journal, 12.25.19)

Missile defense:

• No significant commentary.

Nuclear arms control:

• Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Dec. 22 that U.S. President Donald Trump had sent a short letter about the INF Treaty to Russian President Vladimir Putin, “in which he said that they are ready to continue looking for ways to overcome the problems in our relations,” Interfax cited the minister as saying. The letter was in response to Putin’s offer to introduce a moratorium on the development of missiles banned by the INF Treaty. (Reuters, 12.22.19)
• “We have never regarded the need to resolve this problem [concerns that some delivery vehicles are not being counted in the total] as a precondition for extending the [New START] treaty,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov claimed in a late December interview. According to U.S. arms expert Kingston Reif, however, the Russian position on this issue did “fortunately” change with this preconditioned dropped. (Russia Matters, 12.25.19)
• The Trump administration said that it had formally invited China to begin talks on arms control. The invitation to begin a two-way "strategic security dialogue" was conveyed to the Chinese on Dec. 19 by Christopher Ford, the State Department's top official on arms control. Officials in China repeatedly have said they aren't interested in negotiating a three-way agreement with Moscow and Washington. (Wall Street Journal, 12.20.19)

Counter-terrorism:

• Russian authorities have taken into custody two suspects, Nikita Semyonov and Georgy Chernyshov, in connection with a purported plot to carry out terrorist attacks in St. Petersburg on New Year's Eve that was foiled in part based on an intelligence tip from the U.S. The Federal Security Service announced last weekend that the men were detained on Dec. 27 based on information from their "American partners." Russian President Vladimir Putin on Dec. 29 spoke by telephone with U.S. President Donald Trump to thank him for the intelligence. (RFE/RL, 12.31.19)
• "We have stated that normal cooperation [with the U.S.] has been recovered in various areas, although there are few of them," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Dec. 23 during a session of the Russian Federation Council. "We have held two sessions of talks on counterterrorism, which began a long time ago but were suspended by the administration [of former U.S. President] Barack Obama." "There has been contact between special envoys on Afghanistan involving China and sometimes Pakistan, they will continue," Lavrov said. "We have established contact on Syria between our military and diplomatic missions." (TASS, 12.23.19)
• Islamic State has claimed responsibility for an attack in Russia's North Caucasus region of Ingushetia. Two young men rammed their car into a police officer on Dec. 31, and then attacked other police officers with knives in the Ingush capital, Magas. Regional authorities said one police officer died and three others were wounded in the incident. (RFE/RL, 01.02.20)

Conflict in Syria:

• Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan said on Jan. 2 that up to 250,000 migrants were fleeing toward Turkey from Syria’s northwest Idlib region after weeks of renewed bombardment by Russian and Syrian government forces. Russian-backed Syrian forces launched an offensive on Idlib in December. (Reuters, 01.02.20)
• U.S. President Donald Trump criticized Russia, Syria and Iran for intensifying attacks on the last major rebel stronghold in Syria, which have forced tens of thousands to flee toward the Turkish border. "Russia, Syria and Iran are killing, or on their way to killing, thousands of innocent civilians in Idlib Province. Don't do it!" Trump tweeted. "Turkey is working hard to stop this carnage." (Wall Street Journal, 12.26.19)
• U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said that Russia and China "have blood on their hands" for vetoing a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have extended the delivery of cross-border humanitarian aid to war-torn Syria for a year. Both China and Russia used their veto powers to block the resolution on Dec. 20. The resolution was supported by the other 13 members of the Security Council. A Russian counterproposal to extend the provision of aid to Syria by six months failed to receive the minimum nine votes. (RFE/RL, 12.21.19)
• Russian troops repelled over 50 drone attacks on Russia's facilities in Syria in 2019, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Dec. 24. (Interfax, 12.24.19)
• A U.N. system to prevent attacks on hospitals and other humanitarian sites in insurgent-held areas of Syria has been ignored by Russian and Syrian forces and marred by internal errors, a New York Times investigation has found. The repeated bombing and shelling of these sites has led relief group leaders to openly criticize the U.N. over the system, which is meant to provide warring parties with the precise locations of humanitarian sites that under international law are exempt from attack. Some of these groups have described the system of identifying and sharing sites, known as the “humanitarian deconfliction mechanism,” as effectively useless. (New York Times, 12.29.19)
• The U.S. has praised Kazakhstan for leading the international effort to repatriate citizens, including fighters, from war-torn Syria. Kazakhstan has returned more than 600 of its citizens from Syria, including several dozen terrorist fighters, according to U.S. data. The U.S. has brought back 23 people, including 15 children. (RFE/RL, 12.21.19)

Cyber security:

• U.S. military cyber officials are developing information warfare tactics that could be deployed against senior Russian officials and oligarchs if Moscow tries to interfere in the 2020 U.S. elections through hacking election systems or sowing widespread discord, according to current and former U.S. officials. One option being explored by U.S. Cyber Command would target senior leadership and Russian elites, though probably not Russian President Vladimir Putin. The idea would be to show that the target's sensitive personal data could be hit if the interference did not stop, though officials declined to be more specific. (The Washington Post, 12.25.19)
• Russia completed a series of tests on Dec. 23 checking that its internet services could function if the country were to get cut off from the worldwide web. “The outcomes of the review showed that government agencies and communications operators are ready to respond effectively to threats,” Russia’s Communications Ministry was quoted as saying. A Communications Ministry presentation, however, said that over half of the simulated cyberattacks during the tests had penetrated Russia’s cyber defenses, Vedomosti reported. (The Moscow Times, 12.24.19)
• The lawyer for a Russian man suspected of laundering billions of dollars in digital bitcoin currency says Aleksandr Vinnik's extradition to France from Greece has been postponed. Vinnik, who has been in Greek custody for over two years, launched a hunger strike on Dec. 20 upon news that the Greek Justice Ministry decided to send him to France. The alleged organizer behind a $4 billion bitcoin-laundering ring, Vinnik is one of seven Russians detained or indicted worldwide this year on U.S. cybercrime charges. (RFE/RL, 12.23.19)

Elections interference:

• No significant commentary.

Energy exports from CIS:

• Russia’s crude oil and condensate output hit a post-Soviet high in 2019 even as it curbed production under an agreement with OPEC. Russia produced 560.2 million tons of oil in 2019, up 0.8 percent from the previous year, preliminary data from the Energy Ministry’s CDU-TEK unit show, equivalent to 11.25 million barrels a day. (Bloomberg, 01.03.20)
• U.S. sanctions have temporarily stopped the construction of the $10.5 billion Nord Stream 2 pipeline that is set to increase the flow of natural gas directly from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea. Allseas Group SA, the Swiss-based contractor building the pipeline on behalf of a consortium headed by Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom, said it would suspend activities on Dec. 21, hours after U.S. President Donald Trump signed a bill that included a provision to unleash sanctions targeting any entities working on the subsea link. (Wall Street Journal, 12.21.19)
  • Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia has a "pipe-laying vessel" to complete the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany, Kommersant reported citing unnamed sources, following sanctions imposed by Washington. In 2016, Gazprom bought a special pipe-laying vessel called Academic Cherskiy to be used as a last resort if European companies stopped working on Nord Stream 2. (Reuters, 12.26.19)
  • Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has said the contentious Nord Stream 2 pipeline might be delayed by a couple months due to fresh U.S. sanctions against the project but there's nothing "catastrophic" about the situation. (RFE/RL, 12.23.19)
  • Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has insisted that the Nord Stream 2 and Turk Stream gas pipeline projects will be launched despite recently announced U.S. sanctions. Quoted by Interfax on Dec. 22, Lavrov also said that Russia planned to respond to the new measures. (RFE/RL, 12.22.19
  • In a Dec. 29 phone conversation German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed on the need for further support for Nord Stream 2, according to a Kremlin account of their conversation. A German government spokesman said Putin and Merkel agreed on a further exchange to step up "diplomatic efforts to find a solution" in Libya. They also talked about the ongoing war in Syria. (RFE/RL, 12.29.19)
  • European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Dec. 27 criticized new U.S. legislation that imposes sanctions on European companies building Nord Stream 2. (RFE/RL, 12.27.19)
  • German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokeswoman said Washington was targeting "German and other European companies" in a step that represented "an interference in our internal affairs." Finance Minister Olaf Scholz called them "a severe intervention." (RFE/RL, 12.22.19)
• The U.S. Congress has approved legislation to bolster its security and energy cooperation in the Eastern Mediterranean, where newly discovered, major natural-gas fields have the ability to reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian energy. The bipartisan Eastern Mediterranean Security and Energy Partnership Act, approved on Dec. 19, is the latest piece of U.S. legislation that aims to diversify Europe’s energy sources away from Kremlin-controlled companies. (RFE/RL, 12.21.19)
• Russia and Ukraine have signed a five-year, $7 billion deal on the transit of Russian natural gas to Europe following intense negotiations ahead of a year-end deadline. The deal was confirmed on Dec. 30. The new deal has a "pump or pay" clause, meaning Russia must pay the minimum gas-transit fee even if it doesn't pump the contracted volumes through Ukraine. Ukraine’s energy minister said the agreement foresees shipments of 65 billion cubic meters through Ukraine in 2020 and annual shipments of 40 billion cubic meters thereafter. In addition Gazprom committed to paying $3 billion, already awarded in arbitration to Ukraine, by the end of the year. In return, Kyiv agreed to withdraw its remaining lawsuits and refrain from filing any new claims. (RFE/RL, 12.30.19, RFE/RL, 12.21.19, Meduza, 12.22.19)
• Russia and Belarus have reached an agreement on gas prices for just the first two months of 2020. The two countries also agreed to maintain the amount of gas shipped to Belarus, including for further transit to Europe, at the same level in 2020 as in 2019. (RFE/RL, 12.31.19)
• Russia has halted oil supplies to Belarus amid a disagreement over tariffs, according to officials at a Belarusian oil refinery in the northern city of Navapolatsak. The officials told RFE/RL that the shipments stopped on Jan. 1 and the facility is currently processing only Russian oil delivered before that date. (RFE/RL, 01.03.20)
• U.S. crude-oil futures slid 1 percent to $60.06 a barrel Dec. 31 but were still up 11 percent for the month and 34 percent for the year, their largest annual gain since 2016. (Wall Street Journal, 01.02.20)

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant commentary.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

• Newly appointed U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan has met with his Russian counterpart, Anatoly Antonov, in Washington. "The sides exchanged views on the current status and prospective development of Russian-U.S. relations," the Russian Embassy said in a statement following the Dec. 30 meeting. (RFE/RL, 12.31.19)
• A Moscow court on Dec. 24 extended the detention of former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan until March 29 on espionage charges, Interfax reported. Deputy Chief of U.S. Mission Bart Gorman last week called for Russia to free Whelan, who was detained in December 2018. Whelan says he was set up. In talks with American counterparts on Whelan, Russian officials have mentioned the names of Russians held in the U.S., including Viktor Bout, an arms dealer convicted of aiding a terrorist organization and sentenced to 25 years in prison. (Reuters, 12.24.19, New York Times, 12.28.19)
• U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has repeatedly expressed concern to Washington over U.S. visa delays for officials from Russia and other countries, a U.N. spokesman said after Moscow accused Guterres of turning a blind eye. (Reuters, 12.27.19)

 

II. Russia’s relations with other countries

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

• The arrival of Russian mercenaries in Libya to help eastern warlord Khalifa Haftar started a chain of events that has escalated a battle for Tripoli, and threatened to fuel a regional war over geography, ideology and lucrative oil and natural gas reserves. As Haftar, a dual U.S.-Libyan citizen, marched across the country from his eastern stronghold, Moscow assisted diplomatically and financially. (The Washington Post, 12.21.19)
• U.S. President Donald Trump warned his Turkish counterpart that “foreign interference is complicating the situation in Libya,” after Ankara voted to send troops to the oil-rich North African state. Tripoli made the request for military support from Turkey to help it counter Gen. Khalifa Haftar’s assault last week. Gen. Haftar controls most of Libya and is backed by Turkey’s regional rivals Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as Russia. (Financial Times, 01.02.20)
• British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said, “I am like many people in Western Europe who always hope that we can have better relations with Russia. Always we hope." “We want to have better commercial relations, we want to have more trade, but it is always so disappointing because we have terrible problems," he added. But he also said he “was wrong” about Russia and that he no longer believes it is possible to "reset” relations with Moscow amid many differences separating the two countries. (RFE/RL, 12.22.19, RFE/RL, 12.24.19)
• Trade between Cuba and Russia increased 34 percent to $388 million in 2018, almost all of it exports from Russia, according to Moscow. The forecast for 2019 is $500 million. Trade with China was $2 billion in 2018 and with Spain $1.3 billion, according to the Cuban government. (Financial Times, 01.01.20)

China-Russia: Allied or Aligned?

• "Unauthorized copying of our equipment abroad is a huge problem. There have been 500 such cases over the past 17 years," said Yevgeny Livadny, Rostec's chief of intellectual property projects on Dec. 14. "China alone has copied aircraft engines, Sukhoi planes, deck jets, air defense systems, portable air defense missiles and analogs of the Pantsir medium-range surface-to-air systems." (Nikkei, 12.20.19)
• The port city of Heihe in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province had received over 1 million cross-border tourists in 2019 as of Jan. 3, according to local authorities. Located on the China-Russia border, Heihe is only 100 meters from Blagoveshchensk, capital of the Amur region in the Russian Far East. (Xinhua, 12.21.19)

Ukraine:

• Ukraine swapped dozens of prisoners on Dec. 29 with Russian-backed separatists in the country’s east, the latest sign of a tenuous thaw in relations between Ukraine and Russia. Then Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to discuss another prisoner swap as tensions ease between the two neighbors. Ukraine has confirmation that 100 Ukrainians are still being held captive in the nongovernment-controlled parts of the Donbass. Kyiv believes another 200 Ukrainians are held in captivity but no documentation is available for them. Putin and Zelenskiy also expressed hope to complete the cease-fire agreement reached in Paris "in the near future," the Zelenskiy’s statement said. The two leaders also exchanged holiday greetings. It is the first time in six years that Putin has exchanged holiday greetings with his Ukrainian counterpart. (New York Times, 12.29.19, RFE/RL, 12.31.19)
• Eight months after simplifying the procedure of acquiring a Russian passport for residents of Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region, Russia announced that it has granted over 196,000 citizenships to Ukrainians. (Kyiv Post, 01.03.20)
• Some 50.3 percent of Ukraine’s population is in favor of joining NATO, according to the results of a sociological study regarding changes in public attitudes towards joining NATO. Some 18 percent of respondents support the idea of Ukraine’s non-aligned status, while 9 percent support the military alliance of Ukraine with Russia and other CIS countries and other options, including the creation of a military alliance with the U.S., received 23 percent support. (Interfax, 12.24.19)
• U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has postponed his upcoming travels to Ukraine, Belarus, and two Central Asian nations due to rising tensions in Iraq and the Middle East. Pompeo's visit to Ukraine, scheduled for Jan. 3, would have been the highest level visit to Kyiv amid the ongoing impeachment proceedings in Washington. After Kyiv, he was also scheduled to visit Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Cyprus. (RFE/RL, 01.01.20)
• Kristina Kvien, deputy chief of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Ukraine, has been appointed as the interim charge d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv. Kvien replaced William Taylor, who stepped aside on Jan. 2 after serving in the post since May 18, 2019. (RFE/RL, 01.02.20)
• William Taylor, the outgoing top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, has said that "serious American" companies are studying the possible purchase of Motor Sich, one of the world's top makers of aircraft engines. (RFE/RL, 12.27.19)
• The State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine has approved commercial operation using Westinghouse fuel at unit three of the South Ukraine nuclear power plant. The regulatory authority signed the relevant document after pilot operation of the unit had shown the fuel was "safe, reliable and efficient," Energoatom said on Dec. 28. (World Nuclear News, 12.30.19)
• Speaking on Dec. 26, Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Anatoliy Petrenko said three contracts had been signed in the past three months in connection with the Javelins—two with the U.S. government under the Foreign Military Sales program and one with NATO's Support and Procurement Agency. (RFE/RL, 12.27.19)
• U.S. President Donald Trump's advisers rejected a bid to force his administration to quickly release military assistance for Ukraine early next year, threatening in recent weeks that he would veto must-pass spending legislation if Congress did not remove the directive. According to three officials familiar with the discussions, Democrats ultimately agreed to drop the language, which would have forced the administration to release $250 million in defense aid to Ukraine within 45 days of enactment of the spending package. (New York Times, 12.21.19)
• About 90 minutes after U.S. President Donald Trump held a controversial telephone call with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine in July, the White House budget office ordered the Pentagon to suspend all military aid that Congress had allocated to Ukraine, according to emails released by the Pentagon late Dec. 20. (New York Times, 12.22.19)
• Beginning in July, Elaine McCusker, the acting Pentagon comptroller, sent officials at the White House Office of Management and Budget emails in which she raised concerns about the legality of the hold on nearly $400 million in aid to Ukraine. Though Pentagon officials' frustrations were previously known, the emails, earlier versions of which had been redacted by the Justice Department, offer a new level of detail about McCusker's concerns. (Wall Street Journal, 01.02.20)
• Ukraine’s real GDP growth slowed to 4.1 percent year on year in the third quarter of 2019, down from 4.6 percent the previous quarter, as consumption, one of the main growth drivers, starts to cool. (BNE Intellinews, 12.23.19)
• In Ukraine, industrialist Rinat Akhmetov was the only person listed among the richest 500 billionaires tracked by Bloomberg. He saw his coffers grow by $812 million to more than $6 billion in 2019. (RFE/RL, 12.30.19)

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

• A passenger jet carrying 98 people crashed into a building shortly after takeoff from Almaty International Airport in Kazakhstan, killing at least 12 people and injuring scores more. (New York Times, 12.26.19)
• Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs Alice Wells will travel to Dushanbe from Jan. 6-7, according to the U.S. State Department. Her talks with Tajik officials are expected to focus on "deepening regional security cooperation, expanding economic and energy connectivity and growing people-to-people ties," according to a State Department statement. (RFE/RL, 01.02.20)
• Police in Belarus have made what they are describing as "the largest" heroin bust ever in the Eastern European country, involving more than 500 kilograms of the illegal narcotic. (RFE/RL, 12.23.19)

 

III. Russia’s domestic policies

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

• The wealth of Russia’s richest people in 2019 surged 21 percent, or by $51 billion, according to an index of the richest 500 billionaires tracked by Bloomberg. Twenty-three Russians were listed on the richest index. Vladimir Potanin was listed as Russia's richest person with an estimated net worth of $28.2 billion. (RFE/RL, 12.30.19)
• Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has approved the country’s development plan for its Northern Sea Route. The document builds on President Vladimir Putin’s decrees from May 2018 and the request to boost annual shipments on the Northern Sea Route to 80 million metric tons by 2024. (The Barents Observer, 01.02.20)
• The MOEX Russia Index, the main ruble-denominated stocks benchmark, has rallied over 27 percent so far this year, while the dollar-denominated RTS Index is up over 40 percent. The benchmarks have outstripped most other emerging markets and kept pace with the S&P 500. The ruble appreciated almost 11 percent against the U.S. dollar in 2019. Russia’s foreign-exchange reserves reached $436.1 billion at the end of November. Meanwhile, inflation has dropped below 4 percent. (Wall Street Journal, 12.22.19)
• Alcohol consumption in Russia has halved between 2008 and 2018, according to government statistics. At nine liters of pure alcohol equivalent per year, the average Russian now drinks less than people in France or Germany, according to World Health Organization data.  (Financial Times, 12.27.19)
• Ahead of his New Year’s address to the nation, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a variety of laws that included raising the minimum monthly wage starting next year by 7.5 percent, or to $195. (RFE/RL, 12.30.19)
• According to research by Anna Ochkina, head of a group that tracks protest movements at Moscow's Center of Social and Labor Rights, there were nearly 1,600 protests across Russia in 2016, when she began keeping track, rising to nearly 2,200 in 2018. Through September of this year, there have been 1,444 protests, according to her research. Analysts say that while public-service protests don't pose an imminent threat to the Russian president's rule, social activism could galvanize average Russians with limited experience of protest into broader political activism. (Wall Street Journal, 12.25.19)
• “Never in any situation was I what you could call an oligarch,” Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov said. “All the assets my partners and I bought in Russia were from the secondary market, not in any so-called privatization processes. No one ever gifted anything to me.” (Financial Times, 01.03.20)
• Police and security troops in Russia's northwestern city of Murmansk have raided the homes of Jehovah's Witnesses, a religious group that Moscow has outlawed and labeled as extremist. (RFE/RL, 12.30.19)

Defense and aerospace:

• The Russian military on Dec. 27 said it had deployed the ''Avangard” hypersonic weapon that flies at superfast speeds and can easily evade American missile defense systems. American officials said Dec. 27 they have little doubt that the Russians have a working hypersonic weapon—which sits on top of a modified missile and is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead at speeds faster than 3,800 miles per hour. The strategic missile forces chief, Gen. Sergei Karakayev, said at a meeting later in the day that the new missile was deployed with a military unit in the town of Yasny of the Orenburg region on the border with Kazakhstan. (New York Times, 12.27.19)
• A couple years ago Russia’s Defense Ministry aimed to have 499,000 professional enlisted soldiers—contract servicemen—manning its forces in 2020. That goal has, without notice, dropped to 475,600 by the end of 2025. (Russian Defense Policy Blog, 12.21.19)
• The Russian Navy got a new chief-of-staff and deputy commander-in-chief. They are Adm. Alexander Vitko, who was in command of the Black Sea fleet in 2014, and Vice Adm. Vladimir Kasatonov. (TASS, 12.23.19)
• A Su-57 came down near Komsomolsk-on-Amur in the country’s Far East during a training mission, Russia's United Aircraft Corporation said in a statement on Dec. 24. The crash marks the first loss of a Su-57, Russia’s most advanced fighter plane. (RFE/RL, 12.24.19)

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• The Kremlin on Dec. 23 called a Moscow shooting incident in mid-December in which two officers of Russia's FSB security service were killed by a gunman "a manifestation of madness" of the kind faced by all countries from time to time. (Reuters, 12.23.19)
• A Russian court has declared the country’s richest woman a fugitive over her failure to appear in a criminal libel case. Yelena Baturina, former Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov’s widow, was reportedly sued by her brother’s financial manager this fall. She is alleged to have defamed the manager in an Austrian court dispute between Baturina and her brother Viktor Baturin. (The Moscow Times, 12.30.19)

 

IV. Quoteworthy

• “Can they ramp up sanctions a bit more? Yes,” said Joseph Mouawad, emerging debt fund manager at the French investment firm Carmignac. “But is it a big game changer? No, because what the Russians have been doing is preparing.” (Wall Street Journal, 12.22.19)