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

Nuclear security and safety:

• Yuri Mokrov, a senior executive at Russia’s Mayak nuclear processing plant suspected of being behind a spike of radioactivity over Europe this fall admitted on Dec. 13 that the isotope recorded does emerge as part of the plant’s production cycle but said its levels are negligible. (AP, 12.13.17)
• Donor nations backing the cleanup of Andreyeva Bay, one of Russia’s most deviling Cold War legacy projects, have agreed to put more funding toward removing damaged and broken nuclear fuel rods lurking at the site. (Bellona, 12.12.17)
• President Donald Trump intends to nominate Lisa Gordon-Hagerty of Virginia to be undersecretary for nuclear security at the Department of Energy. Gordon-Hagerty is president of Tier Tech International, Inc., a national security consulting company. (The White House, 12.11.17)

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump discussed the crisis over North Korea's nuclear program in a phone call. The two heads of state discussed "the situation in several crisis zones, with a focus on solving the nuclear issue on the Korean peninsula," the Kremlin said in a Dec. 14 statement, which noted that Trump had initiated the phone call. The White House said the two "discussed working together to resolve the very dangerous situation in North Korea." Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said on Dec. 15 that Putin and Trump "spoke in favor of establishing dialogue and setting up contacts with the North Korean side, and agreed to exchange information and initiatives" regarding such efforts. (RFE/RL, 12.15.17)
• U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson went to the United Nations to call out Russia and China for giving North Korea an economic lifeline, saying their refusal to sever ties raises questions about their commitment to resolving what he called America’s “greatest national security threat.” (Bloomberg, 12.15.17)
• At his annual press conference on Dec. 14, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the U.S. against resorting to a “catastrophic” use of force over North Korea’s nuclear program, urging diplomacy to resolve the crisis. "The [U.S.] has put Russia in the same box as Iran and North Korea, and at the same time wants Russia to solve the problem of North Korea. … It is provoking North Korea … North Korea doesn’t see a solution other than to develop weapons of mass destruction. Both sides need to stop escalating this situation,” Putin said. (Bloomberg, 12.14.17, The Moscow Times, 12.14.17)
• Moscow has welcomed a new U.S. offer of talks with North Korea, with senior Russian officials calling it constructive and the "only correct approach" to tension over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program. The Russian remarks on Dec. 13 came after U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson offered talks with North Korea "without pre-conditions"—a shift from previous U.S. demands that Pyongyang accept giving up its nuclear weapons as the goal of any talks. (RFE/RL, 12.13.17)
• The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Dec. 13 that Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov had held talks with China’s ambassador to Russia Li Hui about Moscow and Beijing coordinating action on North Korea at the U.N. Security Council. (Reuters, 12.13.17)
• Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov said on Dec. 15 that Russia was not ready to sign on to new sanctions on North Korea that would strangle the Asian country economically, the Interfax news agency reported. He was also cited as saying that pressure on North Korea was approaching “a red line” (Reuters, 12.14.17)
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Dec. 8 that he believes the chances of dialogue to resolve the tensions over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program are low. Lavrov also said that the US had indicated to Moscow in September that no more U.S. military exercises around the Korean peninsula were planned until the spring, a message the Russian government took as a signal that Washington was ready to “create the conditions for dialogue” with North Korea. The situation on the Korean Peninsula risks moving into a “hot phase,” Lavrov warned on Dec. 11. (Reuters, 12.11.17, Financial Times, 12.08.17)
• The crisis over North Korea’s weapons programs must be resolved through talks, not war, Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Dec. 14, while U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned of the danger of “sleepwalking” into conflict. (Reuters, 12.14.17)
• Russia sent a military delegation to North Korea this week. Victor Kalganov, vice director of Russia’s National Defense Command Center, was pictured at Pyongyang’s airport alongside three other officials from the country’s defense ministry in an image released by the state-run KCNA news agency. (RFE/RL, 12.15.17, NBC, 12.13.17)

Iran’s nuclear program and related issues:

• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said U.S. threats to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran are hampering efforts to end the nuclear crisis with North Korea. (RFE/RL, 12.09.17)
• The United States has concrete evidence that Iran was supplying weaponry to the Huthi rebels in Yemen, in violation of United Nations sanctions, the U.S. ambassador to the world body has charged. (RFE/RL,12.15.17)

Military issues, including NATO-Russia relations:

• "If we maintain a presence in a Germany that is a part of NATO, there would be no extension of NATO’s jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east,” U.S. Secretary of State James Baker told Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, according to a collection of documents uploaded by the George Washington University’s National Security Archive. That, he made clear, was the concession the Western bloc was offering in exchange for keeping Germany in NATO. Gorbachev replied that, in any case, "a broadening of the NATO zone is not acceptable." "We agree with that," Baker responded. In simultaneous talks, Central Intelligence Agency Director Robert Gates put the same proposal to KGB chief Vladimir Kryuchkov. (GWU’s National Security Archive, 12.12.17, Bloomberg, 12.13.17, National Interest, 12.13.17)
  • As late as March, 1991, six months after Germany became one country, British Prime Minister John Major was still assuring Soviet Defense Minister Dmitri Yazov that NATO was not going eastward, and that he "did not himself foresee circumstances now or in the future where East European countries would become members of NATO." (GWU’s National Security Archive, 12.12.17, Bloomberg, 12.13.17)
• Donald Trump’s “America First” doctrine, to be laid out next week when he unveils his National Security Strategy, holds that nation states are in perpetual competition and the U.S. must fight on all fronts to protect and defend its sovereignty from friend and foe alike. National security adviser H.R. McMaster said the new strategy, the first of Trump’s administration, would identify threats to the United States and its interests from “revisionist powers” like Russia and China, “rogue regimes” like Iran and North Korea, and non-state actors like terrorist groups and criminal enterprises. (AP, 12.14.17)
• This week, national security adviser H.R. McMaster tore into Russia for pioneering “new generation warfare” involving campaigns of “subversion and disinformation and propaganda” to pit Americans against each other and destabilize democracies.  (The Washington Post, 12.13.17)
• The head of Britain’s military, Air Chief Marshal Stuart Peach, says Russia could try to sever undersea communications cables, and protecting them is a defense priority for NATO. (AP, 12.15.17)
• The outgoing U.S. Army Europe commander says America’s continued commitment to European security in the face of Russian aggression is in Washington’s interest. Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges said on Dec. 15 in Wiesbaden that the U.S. wants Russia to be “once again part of the international democratic community,” according to prepared remarks. (AP, 12.15.17)
• NATO on Dec. 12 extended Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s tenure for two more years as the head of the world’s biggest military alliance. (AP, 12.12.17)
• President Vladimir Putin said at his annual press conference that Russia would pay proper attention to the development of its army and navy, but it would not be dragged into a new arms race with the United States. (Reuters, 12.14.17)

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms control:

• The Trump administration is levying new sanctions on Russia it hopes will force it to comply with the INF treaty, according to a senior administration official. Also, the Commerce Department will punish Russian companies that have provided technology to help develop the new weapon, which was outlawed by the treaty. The U.S. State Department said in a statement that” “the United States is taking economic measures relating to the Russian Federation’s INF Treaty-violating ground-launched cruise missile program. Such measures will be tied to entities involved in the development and manufacture of Russia’s prohibited cruise missile system.” The statement said the United States believes Russia has violated the INF Treaty by development of the SSC-8 (9M729) ground-launched cruise missile system. The U.S. has also warned Russia that it will start developing new nuclear missiles unless Moscow returns to compliance with the INF treaty. (Russia Matters. 12.10.17,  Politico, 12.08.17, Financial Times, 12.10.17)
• NATO said on Dec. 15 that it is concerned about a Russian missile system that could carry nuclear warheads, and which it says could violate a landmark Cold War arms treaty. The U.S.-led military alliance said in a statement that “allies have identified a Russian missile system that raises serious concerns.” The concern centers on Russia’s 9M729 missiles. The NATO secretary-general backed a U.S. move to start research into building missiles banned by the INF treaty. "The research activities are not violating the INF Treaty,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said. Some NATO allies, however, have had different views on whether Russia has technically violated the treaty, and it was not clear if NATO as a whole would support the new U.S. campaign. (Wall Street Journal Online, 12.14.17, AP, 12.15.17)
• President Vladimir Putin said at his annual press conference that that Russia would not back out of its commitment to concluding a START III Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with the United States, despite what he said was Washington’s wavering on arms control treaties. “We are now hearing talk about problems with the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles. It appears that conditions are being created, and the appropriate information is being promoted for a possible U.S. withdrawal from this treaty, as well, all the more so as Washington has already withdrawn from it de facto.” (Reuters, 12.14.17, Kremlin.ru, 12.14.17)
• Russia said on Dec. 9 that it was fully committed to a Cold War-era pact with the United States banning intermediate-range cruise missiles, a day after Washington accused Moscow of violating the treaty. Sergei Ryabkov, the Russian deputy foreign minister, said on Dec. 10 that the U.S. claims were “absolutely unsubstantiated.” (Reuters, 12.09.17, Financial Times, 12.10.17)
• Konstantin Kosachyov, head of the foreign affairs committee of the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament, said the Aegis Ashore system was “in gross violation of the INF treaty.” However, a U.S. official said Aegis Ashore did not violate the treaty because it was “not capable of launching a cruise missile.” The official also rejected the Russian claim that tests of rockets for missile defense systems breached the treaty because, he argued, they were explicitly permitted. (Financial Times, 12.10.17)
• Delegations from Russia, the U.S. and other countries marked the 30th anniversary of the signing of the INF Treaty in Geneva, Switzerland on Dec. 12-14, 2017. The occasion was the 31st session of the Special Verification Commission under the treaty. Delegations expressed the view that the INF Treaty continues to play an important role in the existing system of international security, nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, and that they will work to preserve and strengthen it, according to a U.S. State Department statement. (U.S. State Department, 12.14.17)
• The winner of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, has warned that the destruction of humankind is just one "impulsive tantrum away." (RFE/RL, 12.11.17)

Counter-terrorism:

•  The chairman of Russia’s anti-terrorist committee, Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Aleksandr Bortnikov, said a total of 61 terrorist crimes, including 18 terrorist attacks, have been prevented this year, and a total of 56 underground terrorist cells have been quashed. (TASS, 12.12.17)
  • Seven suspected members of Islamic State (IS) were arrested on Dec. 15 for preparing a suicide bombing in St. Petersburg planned for the weekend, the FSB press service announced. Security officials said that the sleeper cell was being directed by IS, a banned terrorist organization in Russia, from abroad using the encrypted Telegram messenger app, the state-run TASS news agency reported. (The Moscow Times, 12.15.17)
  • The FSB said on Dec. 12 that it had prevented terrorist attacks planned by IS. The agency said it has uncovered a terror group comprising people originating from Central Asia who planned to carry out terrorist attacks, particularly involving suicide bombers, during the holiday season and ahead of the presidential election, FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov said on Dec. 12. (TASS, 12.12.17, The Moscow Times, 12.12.17)

• The father of two suspects in a deadly subway bombing in St. Petersburg has lost his Russian citizenship and will be deported to Kyrgyzstan, the Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry says. Akhral Azimov, an ethnic Uzbek from Kyrgyzstan's southern region of Osh, had been informed of the decision by Russian authorities and ordered to leave Russia as soon as possible. (RFE/RL, 12.15.17)
• A court in St. Petersburg has sentenced a Central Asian man arrested in connection with a high-profile April bombing that killed 16 people on a subway train in the city. Obod Abdyraimov from Kyrgyzstan pleaded guilty to recruiting men and women to join the Islamic State extremist organization and was sentenced on Dec. 14 to five years in jail. (RFE/RL, 12.15.17)  
• “One of the main sources of terrorism is a low level of education and living standards. This is such an injustice, and one of the main sources of terrorism to date, and of course, we need to do something about it, we need to solve this problem. … Fighting terrorism in general is all about improving the level of education and well-being,” President Vladimir Putin said at his annual press conference. (Kremlin.ru, 12.14.17)

Conflict in Syria:

• Two U.S. F-22 Raptor stealth fighters intercepted two Russian Su-25 fighter jets Wednesday, conducting multiple maneuvers, firing warning flares and, in one instance, aggressively flying to avoid colliding with one another, U.S. officials told Military.com. “It couldn’t be more complex and crowded in that area,” said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., describing the Euphrates River valley following the incident. (The Washington Post, 12.14.17)
• President Vladimir Putin declared “victory” in Syria and ordered Russian troops to execute a partial withdrawal from this country during a surprise Dec. 11 visit to a Russian airbase in the country, where he was greeted by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. If Islamic State “raise their heads again,” the Russian president said, “we will strike them with a force that they have never previously seen.” Putin said Russia will keep enough forces in Syria to maintain its airbase and a naval port at Tartus. He also said that conditions have been created in Syria “for a political resolution under the auspices of the United Nations.” (The Moscow Times, 12.11.17, Bloomberg, 12.11.17, (AP, 12.11.17)
  • Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Dec. 11 that elements of Moscow’s military contingent to Syria had already begun returning to Russia, the RIA news agency reported. Gen. Sergei Surovikin, the Russian commander in Syria, said the military will pull out 23 warplanes, two helicopter gunships, special forces units, military police and field engineers. The remaining forces will be sufficient to “successfully fulfill the tasks” to stabilize the situation in Syria, he said, but did not specify how many troops and weapons would remain. (Reuters, 12.11.17, AP, 12.11.17)
  • The decision to withdraw Russia’s troops from Syria was not agreed upon in advance with allies, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said on Dec. 11. (TASS, 12.11.17)
  • Russia’s long-range Tupolev-22M3 bombers have flown back home from an airdrome in North Ossetia to their permanent base in the Kaluga Region after completing a mission in Syria, the Russian Defense Ministry said Dec. 12. (TASS, 12.12.17)
  • U.S. officials are voicing skepticism about Russian President Vladimir Putin's announcement of a partial withdrawal of Russian troops from Syria, in particular saying that his declaration of victory against the Islamic State (IS) extremist group seems premature. Army Col. Rob Manning, a Pentagon spokesman, said Russian statements “do not often correspond” with actual troop reductions. He said the withdrawal comments will have no impact on the U.S. and coalition fight against Islamic State extremists. "We think the Russian declarations of [IS's] defeat are premature," a White House National Security Council spokeswoman said. (AP, 12.11.17, RFE/RL, 12.13.17)
• President Vladimir Putin on Dec. 13 submitted a draft treaty to the State Duma that could expand Russia’s naval presence in Syria until 2092. (The Moscow Times, 12.13.17)
• “The United States is turning a blind eye to information provided by Russia about Syrian fighters travelling to Iraq,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Dec. 14 at his annual press conference. “There is no (U.S.) reaction,” Putin said. “Why? Because they (in the U.S.) are thinking that they (fighters) could be used to fight (Syrian President Bashar) al-Assad. This is the simplest thing. But at the same time, the most dangerous thing, including for those who are doing this.” (Reuters, 12.14.17)
• Bashar al-Assad should be allowed to run for re-election, Russia’s top envoy for Syria said, dismissing Western efforts to condition reconstruction aid on the departure of a leader blamed for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of his citizens. “I don’t see why he shouldn’t or wouldn’t run for another presidential term,” said Alexander Lavrentiev, who was appointed by the Kremlin to steer the Syria peace process. “This is entirely up to him.” (Bloomberg, 12.12.17)
• An eighth round of Syrian peace talks ended on Dec. 14 in Geneva without progress in what the United Nations mediator called a "big missed opportunity." U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said neither side actually "sabotaged" the two-week talks. But he placed most of the blame for failure on the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which he said demanded that opposition groups accept the possibility of a role for Assad during a political transition in the country—the same issue that has blocked progress in previous negotiations. (RFE/RL, 12.15.17)
  • The head of the Syrian government delegation at the U.N.-sponsored peace talks in Geneva said Thursday his team will not engage in any dialogue with the opposition as long as it insists on having President Bashar Assad’s removal as its goal. (AP, 12.14.17)
  • The U.N. special envoy for Syria has called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to “have the courage” to push the Syrian government to accept new elections and a new constitution. (AP, 12.14.17)
• Vladimir Putin said on Dec. 11 that he had discussed the possibility of convening a Syrian National Dialogue Congress in early 2018 with Assad earlier in the day. (TASS, 12.11.17)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin said at his annual press conference on Dec. 14 that he supports efforts to repatriate children born to Russian parents who have joined the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq. (AP, 12.14.17)
• Gen. Sergei Surovikin, the Russian commander in Syria, has told Vladimir Putin that 32,000 militants have been killed in Syria over the past seven months. (TASS, 12.11.17)
• The AP obtained a copy of a 47-page contract between Evro Polis—a Russian company reportedly acting as a front for the private military contractor known as Wagner—and Syria’s state-owned General Petroleum Corp., which said the Russian company would receive 25 percent of the proceeds from oil and gas production at fields its contractors capture and secure from Islamic State militants. While the five-year contract could not be authenticated, the St. Petersburg-based website Fontanka reported the same deal in June. (AP, 12.12.17)
• Sophisticated weapons the U.S. military secretly provided to Syrian rebels quickly fell into the hands of Islamic State, according to a study released by Conflict Armament Research on Dec. 14. (USA Today, 12.14.17, Military.com, 12.14.17)

Cyber security:

• If Kaspersky tried to mend its relationship with the U.S. government these past months, then its efforts likely failed. The president has just signed a defense policy spending bill into law, and it includes the government's ban on using the Moscow-based company's anti-virus product. (Engadget, 12.13.17.)
• A court document posted on the Facebook page of a Russian criminal suspect this year shows what appears to be an unusual degree of Kaspersky Labs’ closeness to the FSB, the country's powerful security service. The suspect, Konstantin Kozlovskiy, was arrested in the summer of 2016 in connection with several cyber heists of Russian banks, and he is in a Moscow jail awaiting trial. From his cell, he posted documents related to his case. One of them shows that in April 2015, an FSB agent inside the office of Kaspersky Lab in Moscow gave a company technician a password for a suspected Russian cyber criminal's computer. (The Washington Post, 12.14.17)
• A previously unknown ring of Russian-speaking hackers has stolen as much as $10 million from U.S. and Russian banks in the last 18 months, according to Group-IB, a Moscow-based cyber-security firm that runs the largest computer forensics laboratory in Eastern Europe. (Bloomberg, 12.10.17)
• Greece’s Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a request to extradite Russian cybercrime suspect Alexander Vinnik to the U.S. to stand trial for allegedly laundering billions of dollars using the virtual currency bitcoin. (AP, 12.13.17)
• A human rights lawyer working for the Telegram messaging app has appealed to the U.N. to intervene in the company’s legal battle with Russia’s Federal Security Services over online privacy rights. (The Moscow Times, 12.14.17)

Elections interference:

• President Trump fired off “fake news” attacks on Twitter after CNN incorrectly reported that his campaign received access to hacked emails well before the group WikiLeaks made the files public. (The Washington Post, 12.09.17)
• Intelligence officials who brief the U.S. president play down information about Russia they fear might displease him, current and former officials said. "If you talk about Russia, meddling, interference—that takes the PDB (presidential daily briefing) off the rails," said a former senior U.S. intelligence official. (The Washington Post, 12.14.17)
• In the final days before Donald Trump was sworn in as president, members of his inner circle pleaded with him to acknowledge publicly what U.S. intelligence agencies had already concluded—that Russia's interference in the 2016 election was real. Trump has never convened a Cabinet-level meeting on Russian interference or what to do about it, administration officials said. (The Washington Post, 12.14.17)
• Overall, U.S. officials said, the Kremlin believes it got a staggering return on an operation that by some estimates cost less than $500,000 to execute and was organized around two main objectives—destabilizing U.S. democracy and preventing Hillary Clinton, who is despised by Putin, from reaching the White House. The bottom line for Putin, said one U.S. official briefed on the stream of post-election intelligence, is that the operation was "more than worth the effort." (The Washington Post, 12.14.17)
• "This has all been made up by Trump's opponents to delegitimize him.  […] It shows that these people have no respect for the people who voted for Trump,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said at his annual press conference on Dec. 14, in reference to Russian election meddling. "Our [former] ambassador [Sergei Kislyak] is being accused of having contacts [with the Trump campaign]. Is that banned? Why all the spy mania?” (The Moscow Times, 12.14.17)
• With no firm conclusions yet on whether President Donald Trump’s campaign may have coordinated with Russia, the Senate intelligence committee could delay answering that question and issue more bipartisan recommendations early next year on protecting future elections from foreign tampering. The committee’s Republican chairman, SSen. nator Richard Burr, said the panel has started broad organization of a final report, but suggested the final product is more likely to be a series of findings, rather than a firm conclusion on whether there was collusion. (AP, 12.14.17)
• The House Intelligence Committee is racing to complete its investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.. Iin an indication that Republicans hope to wrap up their probe, the House committee has yet to schedule a single interview after the holidays, according to two committee officials familiar with the schedule. (New York Times, 12.15.17)
  • A planned House Intelligence Committee interview with President Trump’s longtime personal assistant Rhona Graff in New York next week has inflamed long-simmering tensions on the panel, as Democrats accuse Republicans of trying to limit their participation in the investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election. (The Washington Post, 12.14.17)
• FBI officials warned one of President Trump's top advisers, Hope Hicks, earlier this year about repeated attempts by Russian operatives to make contact with her during the presidential transition, according to people familiar with the events. (New York Times, 12.09.17)
• A federal judge on Dec. 11 declined to punish former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort for helping write an opinion article for a newspaper in Ukraine defending his work there. Prosecutors for special counsel Robert Mueller have revealed they know every word Manafort changed in an opinion piece about his involvement in Ukrainian politics (The Washington Post, 12.11.17, AP, 12.09.17)
  • Deutsche Bank AG earlier this year flagged around $30 million in potentially suspicious transactions as part of an internal investigation into its role as a conduit for money involving Paul Manafort or people and entities connected to him, according to a person briefed on the matter. (Wall Street Journal, 12.14.17)
• Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein stood by Robert Mueller in the face of Republican demands to fire him as special counsel or name a second one to investigate what they portrayed as a deep anti-Trump bias within the ranks of the Justice Department and the FBI. (Bloomberg, 12.13.17)
• Senate Republicans are scrambling to shield special counsel Robert Mueller from mounting GOP fury about new evidence that members of his team were biased against President Trump, as factions of the party charge that his entire investigation is tainted. (The Washington Post, 12.15.17)
• Peter Strzok, a senior FBI counterintelligence investigator who was dismissed from the Russia investigation this summer, referred to Donald Trump as an "idiot" in response to an e-mail from another FBI agent, Lisa Page, in August 2015. (RFE/RL, 12.13.17)
• Walid Phares, a former campaign adviser to President Donald Trump, testified to the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee on Dec. 8 in its investigation of possible Russian efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. election. (Reuters, 12.08.17)
• A planned House Intelligence Committee interview with President Trump’s longtime personal assistant Rhona Graff in New York next week has inflamed long-simmering tensions on the panel, as Democrats accuse Republicans of trying to limit their participation in the investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election. (The Washington Post, 12.14.17)
• Four in 10 Americans think the president has done something illegal when it comes to Russia, while an additional 3 in 10 say he’s at least done something unethical, according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. And 68 percent disapprove of his response to the investigations, according to the poll. (AP, 12.15.17)
• Russia-based operatives placed three ads on Facebook in the run-up to Britain’s 2016 referendum on EU membership, spending just 97 cents to raise the issue of immigration, the social media platform said on Dec. 13. Damian Collins, chairman of the British Parliament's culture and media committee has accused Facebook of failing to thoroughly investigate whether Russia attempted to influence last year's vote to leave the European Union after the social media giant said it found only three suspicious adthe Brexit votes. (Reuters, 12.14.17, RFE/RL, 12.13.17)

Energy exports from CIS:

• Worldwide natural gas consumption will rise 53 percent by 2040, with demand catching up with supply in the next two or three years in the world, according to the Gas Exporting Countries Forum. (Bloomberg, 12.14.17)
• An enormous explosion rocked a major natural gas hub in Austria on Dec. 12, killing an employee, injuring at least 18 people and raising concerns about tightening supplies across Europe. The Baumgarten station, Austria's largest entry point for natural gas, receives the product from Russia and Norway for inspection and compression. (New York Times, 12.13.17)

Bilateral economic ties:

• No significant developments.

Analysis and recommendations

• No significant developments.

Other bilateral issues:

• Wess Mitchell, U.S. assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs, said the administration was committed to meeting a February deadline to specify new measures against Russia officials and influential businessmen for Moscow's alleged meddling in the 2016 election. The next deadline is Feb. 2, when the Treasury Department is supposed to release a list of Russian officials and Kremlin-connected business leaders to be targeted for restrictions. (RFE/RL, 12.12.17)
• In its statement on the Dec. 14 phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump, the White House emphasized Trump's gratitude to Putin for defending and praising him at his hours-long yearly press conference held at the Kremlin earlier in the day. "President Trump thanked President Putin for acknowledging America's strong economic performance," it said. (RFE/RL, 12.15.17)
• Donald Trump’s aides attribute Trump's affection for Putin to the president's tendency to personalize matters of foreign policy and his unshakable belief that his bond with Putin is the key to fixing world problems. (The Washington Post, 12.14.17)
•  “I hope… we will eventually normalize our relations to the benefit of the American and Russian people, and that we will continue to develop and will overcome the common and well-known threats, such as terrorism, environmental problems, weapons of mass destruction, crises around the world, including in the Middle East, the North Korean problem, etc. There are many things we can do much more effectively together in the interests of our people than we are doing them now. Actually, we can do everything more effectively together,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said at his annual press conference on Dec. 14. (Russia Matters, 12.14.17, Kremlin.ru, 12.14.17)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin also said at his annual press conference on Dec. 14 that he doubted President Trump would be able to improve relations between their two countries because Trump was being held back by his political opposition. (The Washington Post, 12.14.17)
•  “Look at the (American) markets, how they’ve risen. That shows investors’ confidence in the American economy, it shows they believe in what President Trump is doing,” President Putin said at his annual press conference. (The Moscow Times, 12.14.17)
• “With Trump, we address each other by name, so I do not know. If there were a formal and an informal ‘you’, would we switch to the informal? Most likely, yes,” President Putin said at his annual press conference. (The Moscow Times, 12.14.17)
• Donald Trump’s tweets are interpreted as official statements by the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin’s spokesman told journalists on Dec. 12. (Moscow Times, 12.12.17)
• NASA will continue using Russian spacecraft to take American astronauts into orbit for two more years, despite projections by U.S. government and industry officials that domestic vehicles will be ready to take over the job in 2018. (Wall Street Journal, 12.15.17)
• A capsule carrying a three-man crew from Russia, the United States, and Italy from the International Space Station has landed in Kazakhstan's steppe. (RFE/RL, 12.14.17)
• U.S. consulates in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Vladivostok have resumed processing applications for travel visas, after suspending their work this summer as relations between Washington and Moscow soured. (The Moscow Times, 12.11.17)
• President Trump earlier this year offered to sell the two diplomatic compounds that U.S. seized from Russia in 2016 outside of Washington D.C. and New York. "I told Rex we're not giving the real estate back to the Russians," Trump said at one point, referring to Secretary of State Tillerson, according to participants. Later, Trump marveled at the potential of the two sites and asked, "Should we sell this off and keep the money?" (The Moscow Times, 12.15.17, The Washington Post, 12.14.17)
• Russia’s San Francisco consulate served a unique role in Russian intelligence-gathering operations in the U.S., as an important, and perhaps unrivaled, hub for its technical collection efforts. According to multiple U.S. former intelligence officials, while “strange activities” were not limited to San Francisco, they originated far more frequently from the consulate than any other Russian diplomatic facility in the U.S., including the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C. (Foreign Policy, 12.14.17)
• A Moscow court has charged a Russian citizen suspected of spying for the CIA with high treason. The state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported on Tuesday that Russian national Alexei Zhitnyuk was suspected of giving the CIA sensitive information relating to the Russian Navy. (Moscow Times, 12.12.17)
• "You can't work together with people who've attempted suicide. … It’s a minus that Rodchenkov works with the FBI,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said at his annual press conference on Dec. 14 in reference to Russian doping whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov, who is now exiled in the U.S. “What substances do they give him to make him say what he says?” (The Moscow Times, 12.14.17)
• A company promoting a plan for the U.S. and Russia to jointly build nuclear reactors in the Middle East denied in a letter made public on Dec. 11 that its director received an Inauguration Day text message from incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn saying the project was “good to go.” (Reuters, 12.11.17)
• U.S. prosecutors pushed a federal judge to force Russian-backed company Prevezon Holdings Ltd. to immediately pay up to satisfy a $5.9 million settlement it agreed to earlier this year to resolve a probe into alleged tax fraud and money laundering. (Bloomberg, 12.14.17)
• Global inequality has stabilized at high levels in recent years, according to The World Inequality Report 2018 released on Dec. 15, despite gains among the poor in China and much milder disparities in incomes and wealth in Western Europe. While incomes for the top 10 percent of wealthiest people have soared over the past four decades, the gains have been most dramatic in India, Russia and the U.S. (AP, 12.15.17)
• The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is about to launch a two-year analysis of Russia’s activist foreign and military policies, called “The Return of Global Russia: A Reassessment of the Kremlin’s International Agenda.” (The Washington Post, 12.13.17) 

II. Russia’s domestic news

Politics, economy and energy:

• Vladimir Putin said his reelection campaign would be largely focused on improving the Russian economy and that he would run as an independent, distancing himself from the United Russia political party that he founded and built into the ruling party. He said that it’s not his job to develop opposition contenders, and he criticized activists for simply condemning the authorities rather than offering a genuine alternative. (Bloomberg, 12.14.17, The Washington Post, 12.14.17)
• President Vladimir Putin said at his annual press conference that he faced no credible high-profile political opponents as he prepared to run for re-election in March, but would work to try to create a more balanced political system. Putin said it was too early to set out his electoral program, but named priority issues, aside from helping forge what he called a flexible political system, as nurturing a high-tech economy, improving infrastructure, healthcare, education, productivity and increasing people’s real incomes. (Reuters, 12.14.17)
  • In a new survey published Wednesday by the independent Levada Center, 61 percent of respondents said that they would vote for Vladimir Putin. In a similar survey conducted in late November, that number was 54 percent. (The Moscow Times, 12.13.17)
• Vladimir Putin began his annual news conference on Thursday Dec. 14 with a pledge to bolster incomes as he effectively kicked off his election campaign for a fourth term by assuring Russians that the economy is rebounding after the worst recession in two decades. “Today, there are clear signs of recovery in the economy,” he said. (Bloomberg, 12.14.17)
  • After an upswing following almost two years of contraction, Russia’s recovery sputtered last quarter and gains in industrial output ground to a halt in October. Investment growth halved in the third quarter from the previous three months, with Alfa-Bank estimating that three major state projects accounted for 90 percent of all capital spending this year.  (Bloomberg, 12.13.17)
  • World economic growth rose this year to 3 percent, the strongest rate since 2011, aided by recoveries from recession in Russia, Brazil, Argentina, and Nigeria, the United Nations has estimated. (RFE/RL, 12.12.17)
• Russian lawmakers on Dec. 15 set the presidential election for March 18, a move that sets in motion campaigning for a race that President Vladimir Putin is all but certain to win. (AP, 12.15.17)
• President Vladimir Putin avoids opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s name because of how he views him as a person, the Kremlin spokesman suggested on Dec. 15. (The Moscow Times, 12.15.17)
• Russia will not raise taxes until the end of 2018, President Vladimir Putin said at his annual press conference on Dec. 14. (Reuters, 12.14.17)
• President Vladimir Putin on Dec. 13 signed a decree to increase the salaries of federal civil servants for the first time in four years. (The Moscow Times, 12.13.17)
• Russia's central bank cut its benchmark interest rate to 7.75% from 8.25% Friday, citing lower-than-target inflation. (Dow Jones Newswire, 12.15.17)
• A quarter of Russians pay bribes to officials according to an anonymous survey conducted by the Prosecutor General's Office between Dec. 2016 and Jan. 2017. Russia was rated one of the most corrupt countries in Europe and Central Asia by the Global Corruption Barometer in 2016. (The Moscow Times, 12.12.17)
• Atomflot, Russia’s nuclear icebreaker port, is reportedly in talks with government ministries in an effort to secure two more multibillion dollar icebreakers to add to the three it’s already expecting, according to media reports. (Bellona, 12.13.17)
• Yandex, Russia’s top search company, has finalized a new $1 billion joint venture with state-run banking giant Sberbank that will result in them attempting to tap the country’s $18.8 billion ecommerce market, the companies said on Dec. 13. (Financial Times, 12.13.17)
• Most Russian athletes want to go to next year’s Winter Olympic Games even though they would have to compete as neutrals, an official with the country’s Olympic committee said on Dec. 11. The Russian Olympic Committee has given its blessing for the country’s athletes to compete in the upcoming Winter Olympics despite a ban on Russia over doping violations. (RFE/RL, 12.12.17, Reuters, 12.11.17)
• Russia’s media watchdog Roskomnadzor has added the website of the Open Russia political movement, founded by exiled oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, to its registry of blocked sites. (The Moscow Times, 12.12.17)

Defense and aerospace:

• No significant developments.

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• Alexei Ulyukayev became the first serving minister in Russia to be convicted since the collapse of the Soviet Union. On Dec. 15, he was handed an eight-year prison sentence for soliciting a $2 million bribe from the CEO of Russia’s state-owned oil giant Rosneft. On Dec. 14, radio host Tanya Felgengauer asked Vladimir Putin why Russia seems to have a legal double standard. She cited the case of Igor Sechin, chairman of Russia’s largest oil company, Rosneft, who was allowed to ignore a subpoena Ulyukayev’s trial. “All Russians are equal before the law,” Putin blithely responded. As for Sechin, he said, “the courts will decide.” (The Moscow Times, 12.15.17, Washington Post, 12.14.17)
• A Russian court on Dec. 13 sentenced two of the perpetrators behind the deadly 1995 terrorist attack in Budyonnovsk that left more than 120 people dead and some 500 injured. (The Moscow Times, 12.13.17)

III. Foreign affairs, trade and investment:

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

• European Union leaders have agreed to extend economic sanctions against Russia for six months over Moscow's aggressive actions in Ukraine. The decision, announced on Dec. 14 at an EU summit, will extend current restrictions against Moscow until July 2018. The EU measures, which mainly target the Russian banking and energy sectors, were first imposed in the summer of 2014 and have been extended every six months since then. (RFE/RL, 12.15.17)           
• A study by the German institute IFW shows that Western sanctions resulted in $114 billion worth of lost revenue between early 2014 and the end of 2015, but the pain was shared almost equally between Russia, which lost more than $65 billion and the United States and European Union, which together sustained more than $50 billion in losses. At least 90 percent of those lost exports were borne by members of the EU. “Germany accounts for almost 40 percent of the West’s losses while other geopolitically significant stakeholders such as the United Kingdom, France and the United States are much less affected,” European economists Julian Hinz and Matthieu Crozet wrote in their study. (Washington Post, 12.14.17)
• Russian state-owned oil company Rosneft has reopened a legal challenge against EU sanctions levied against the company, arguing that a March ruling by the European Court of Justice was “illegal, baseless and politicized.” (Financial Times, 12,.13.17)
• Russia and Turkey agree that a U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is destabilizing the situation in the Middle East, President Vladimir Putin said Dec. 11 while visiting Turkey. Putin said the U.S. move “doesn’t help the Mideast settlement and, just the other way round, destabilizes the already difficult situation in the region.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Dec. 8 that the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital by the U.S. runs counter to common sense. (Reuters, 12.11.17, AP, 12.11.17)
  • Russia will offer Turkey partial financing for Ankara’s purchase of S-400 surface-to-air missile systems, the Interfax news agency reported on Dec. 12, citing a Russian presidential aide. (Reuters, 12.12.17)  
• A new suspect has been arrested in connection with the 2016 assassination of Russia’s ambassador to Turkey, according to media reports in the country. Authorities arrested former police officer Ramazan Yucel in the capital, Ankara, after questioning him. (RFE/RL, 12.15.17)
• Vladimir Putin met on Dec. 11 with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo for talks on the two countries' expanding ties and regional issues. Following the meeting, Putin said Russia was ready in principle to resume direct passenger flights to Egypt and an agreement is expected to be signed in the near future; Russia suspended air links two years ago after terrorists blew up a passenger jet. Both leaders had said in a telephone conversation a week earlier that they are satisfied with the progress in eliminating militants in Syria. Russia is to resume flights between Moscow and the Egyptian capital of Cairo in February after more than a two-year hiatus, Russian transportation minister said on Dec. 15 (RFE/RL, 12.11.17, Bloomberg, 12.12.17, TASS, 12.04.17, AP, 12.15.17))
  • Russia is to resume flights between Moscow and the Egyptian capital of Cairo in February after more than a two-year hiatus, Russian transportation minister said on Dec. 15. (AP, 12.15.17)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin said at his annual press conference on Dec. 14 that Moscow backs Iraq’s unity in a dispute over the region of Kurdistan. (AP, 12.14.17)
• Russia says it has temporarily shut its embassy in Yemen and evacuated all of its diplomats. A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said the decision to close the embassy, in the rebel-held capital, Sanaa, was related to the security situation in the country, without elaborating. (AP, 12.12.17)
• Russia is open to working with the United States to try to solve the crisis in Libya, Russia’s ambassador to Libya said. (Reuters, 12.15.17)
• Russia and Saudi Arabia have signed a roadmap for cooperation in the atomic energy sector, Russian state nuclear company Rosatom said on Dec. 14. (Reuters, 12.14.17)
• Chief of the General Staff of Russian Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, warned on Dec. 11 while on a visit to Tokyo that military exercises by Japan, the United States and South Korea aimed at countering North Korea only raise hysteria and create more instability in the region. (Reuters, 12.11.17)
• A Russian court has convicted an Estonian businessman of espionage and sentenced him to 12 years in prison. The case against Raivo Susi was classified as "top secret" and the trial, which ended on Dec.11, was held behind closed doors.  (RFE/RL, 12.11.17)
• Poland's defense minister said on Dec. 14 that a plane crash that killed the nation's president in 2010 in Russia was preceded by two explosions on board, and he called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to "take responsibility for what happened." Antoni Macierewicz was reacting to words by Putin, who denied any explosions took place on board and urged Poland to stop investigating for any potential Russian role in the crash. (AP, 12.14.17)
• The number of journalists jailed around the world in connection with their work has reached a record high of 262, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. After Turkey, with 73 jailed journalists, China, with 41, and Egypt, with 20, the countries with the most journalists in prison were Eritrea (15), Vietnam and Azerbaijan (10 each), Uganda (8), Saudi Arabia and Syria (7 each), Bahrain (6) and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Iran and Russia (4 each). (New York Times, 12.14.16)

China:

• Stronger ties between Russia and China are good for everyone, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at his annual press conference on Dec. 14, adding that Moscow and Beijing would remain long-term strategic partners regardless of the result of Russia’s 2018 presidential polls. Putin also told his annual news conference that China was looking with great interest at Russia’s northern sea route in the Arctic, which could significantly cut the time for shipments of goods between Asia and Europe. (Reuters, 12.14.17)
• “I am fully confident that there is a national consensus in Russia on development of relations with China. … Russia and China will remain strategic partners in the long run.” (Russia Matters, 12.14.17, Kremlin.ru, 12.14.17)
• Russia and China are kicking off a series of joint air defense exercises called Aerospace Security-2017, highlighting the growing strategic partnership between the two great powers. "The militaries of China and Russia will hold a joint anti-missile drill based on computer simulations from Dec. 11 to 16 in Beijing," said Wu Qian, a Chinese Ministry of Defense spokesperson. (The National Interest, 12.11.17)

Ukraine:

• The United Nations says daily cease-fire violations in eastern Ukraine have led to more civilian deaths and "further aggravated a dire human rights and humanitarian situation" as temperatures drop. In a report published on Dec. 12, the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said that increased fighting between government forces and Russia-backed separatists resulted in at least 15 deaths and 72 injuries among civilians from Aug. 16 to Nov. 15. The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights recorded 10,303 conflict-related deaths between April 14, 2014, and Nov. 15, 2017, the report said. In June, that figure was 10,090, including 2,777 civilians. (RFE/RL, 12.12.17)
• More than 8,000 private homes and more than 2,000 apartment houses were badly damaged in Donetsk, according to data provided by its administration. Most of these homes are uninhabitable and cannot be rebuilt. (Reuters, 12.12.17)
• “We don’t want Russia to become a version of Ukraine. We don’t want that [...] I’m sure the majority of Russians don’t want that and won’t allow it,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said at his annual press conference on Dec. 14. (The Moscow Times, 12.14.17)
•  “The Ukrainian government has no desire whatsoever for a peace process ... it is up to authorities in Kiev to reach an agreement with Donbass,” President Putin said at his Dec. 14 press conference. (The Moscow Times, 12.14.17)
• “What Mikheil Saakashvili is doing is spitting in the face of the Georgian people, and of the Ukrainian people. How can you stand it? My heart is bleeding, it’s so sad to see,” President Putin said at his Dec. 14 press conference. (The Moscow Times, 12.14.17)
• On Dec. 12, U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman answered a question on Twitter by saying that Crimea belongs to Ukraine according to international law. "It's not for the U.S. ambassador to determine who Crimea belongs to,” Russian lawmaker Alexei Pushkov said in response. (The Moscow Times, 12.14.17)
• A Pentagon proposal that would pose a direct challenge to Moscow—a plan to deliver lethal arms to Ukrainian forces battling Russia-backed separatists—has languished in internal debates for months. A decision to send arms has to be made by the president, and officials said Donald Trump has been reluctant even to engage. (Washington Post, 12.14.17)
• Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and visiting President Andrzej Duda of Poland discussed bringing in peacekeepers as a step in ending the armed conflict between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. (AP, 12.13.17)
• A Russian court has rejected a claim by German conglomerate Siemens that the sale of power turbines that were delivered to Ukraine's Russian-occupied Crimea region was invalid. (RFE/RL, 12.14.17)
• A court in Kiev rejected a request by prosecutors to place Mikheil Saakashvili—the ex-Georgian leader-turned Ukrainian opposition politician—under house arrest as he fights accusations he plotted to overthrow the government. Saakashvili, who denies accepting funding from an exiled Ukrainian businessman in a bid to seize power, greeted hundreds of his allies gathered outside the courthouse after an almost-eight-hour hearing on Dec. 11 in the Ukrainian capital. A day earlier, thousands of supporters of the former Odessa governor swarmed city streets demanding his release, the impeachment of President Petro Poroshenko and progress to stamp out corruption. Ukraine's general prosecutor said late Friday that Saakashvili faced “likely” extradition to Tbilisi late this year or early 2018. (Bloomberg, 12.11.17, Financial Times, 12.15.17)
• Retired Russian General Nikolai Tkachyov, who was accused in a recent investigation of being a coordinator of separatist forces in eastern Ukraine and of possibly playing a role in the downing of a civilian airliner in July 2014, has said he plans to sue the authors of the report for defamation. (RFE/RL, 12.09.17)

Russia’s other post-Soviet neighbors:

• Istanbul nightclub massacre suspect Abdulkadir Masharipov of Uzbekistan has gone on trial for the gun-and-grenade attack that killed 39 people early on January 1, 2017, which was claimed by the extremist group Islamic State. (RFE/RL, 12.11.17)
• For eight years, Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank has waged a legal war on three continents against former Chairman Mukhtar Ablyazov. It’s a clash that has featured death threats, a hack of Kazakh government computers and at least $4 billion in missing bank assets. Now, court cases playing out on both sides of the Atlantic could pull back the curtain on whether some of those funds wound up in properties developed by former associates of Donald J. Trump. (Bloomberg, 12.11.17)
• New Kyrgyz President Sooronbai Jeenbekov, who took office on Nov. 24, arrived in neighboring Uzbekistan on Dec. 13 for a two-day official visit. (RFE/RL, 12.13.17)

IV. Quoteworthy:

• "Who are the three guys in the world he most admires? President Xi [Jinping] of China, [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan and Putin," one Trump adviser said. "They're all the same guy." (The Washington Post, 12.14.17)
• "Putin has to believe this was the most successful intelligence operation in the history of Russian or Soviet intelligence," said Andrew Weiss, a former adviser on Russia in the George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations who is now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It has driven the American political system into a crisis that will last years." (The Washington Post, 12.14.17)

•  “The election itself does not matter at all,” said Gleb O. Pavlovsky, a political analyst and former Kremlin consultant. The people around the president, he added, “are deciding the question of who they themselves will be after Putin. That is the main motive behind this fight: It is a struggle for a place in the system after Putin is gone.” (New York Times, 12.11.17)