This Week’s Highlights

• On Feb. 12, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that if further EU sanctions are imposed on Russia and they "create risks" to the country's economy, "then yes," relations could be broken off with the EU, RFE/RL reports. "We do not want to be isolated from international life, but we must be ready for this. If you want peace, then you should prepare for war," Lavrov said.
• For the first time in 30 years, Russian Defense Ministry officials opted out of the OSCE Military Doctrine Seminar, held once every five years, “due to unfriendly policies of the West,” The Moscow Times reports.
• Pipe-laying work has resumed on Russia's massive Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, and about 150 kilometers of pipe transiting Danish and German waters must be laid to complete pipeline, according to RFE/RL and The Moscow Times. Meanwhile, it has been revealed that the German government offered Trump's administration financial support of up to 1 billion euros in a bid to prevent Washington from imposing sanctions on the pipeline, according to RFE/RL. 
• The multinational naval exercise Aman 2021 kicked off at the Karachi port in Pakistan on Feb. 12, Interfax reports. Naval forces from 45 countries, including the U.S., China, Russia and Turkey are participating, Anadolu reports. The last time Russian and NATO naval forces took part in a joint exercise was at the Bold Monarch 2011 off the coast of Spain.
• "The time will come, and other people will come," Alexander Lukashenka said on the first day of a congress billed representing all of Belarus. He said a set of constitutional changes would be drafted later this year and put to a nationwide vote in early 2022, RFE/RL reports. "Fraternal Russia" and "great China" will remain strategic partners of Belarus, and not just in the economic sphere, he said.
• Russia’s death toll from COVID-19 in 2020 was nearly three times the level generally cited by the government, catapulting its total number of fatalities from the pandemic to the third-most globally, according to Bloomberg. 
• Russian real incomes have fallen for five of the past seven years, and fell 3.4 percent last year, the Financial Times reports. In 2020, the average Russian had 11 percent less to spend than in 2013. Household consumption fell 8.6 percent last year as the economy shrank by more than 3 percent. Through the first nine months of last year, 19.6 million Russians were living below the poverty line, equivalent to 13.3 percent of the population. 

 

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

Nuclear security:

• No significant developments.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• Iran and North Korea resumed cooperation on the development of long-range missile projects last year, according to a U.N. report. "This resumed cooperation is said to have included the transfer of critical parts, with the most recent shipment associated with this relationship taking place in 2020," an independent panel of experts monitoring international sanctions on North Korea said in an annual report submitted to the U.N. Security Council Feb. 8. (RFE/RL, 02.09.21)

Iran and its nuclear program:

• Russia is calling on the U.S. and Europe to provide economic benefits to Iran for its implementation of the JCPOA on the Iranian nuclear program, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Feb. 11. Ryabkov has also called on Iran to "show restraint" after U.N. inspectors confirmed the country has started producing small amounts of uranium metal in the latest breach of Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. (TASS, 02.11.21, RFE/RL, 02.11.21)
  • United Nations inspectors have found new evidence of undeclared nuclear activities in Iran, including traces of radioactive material that could indicate Iran has undertaken work on nuclear weapons, based on where it was found. (Wall Street Journal, 02.05.21)
• Successful cooperation between Russia and Iran against terrorism in Syria gives grounds to hope for further coordination between the two countries on the regional agenda, Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Feb. 9. (TASS, 02.09.21)

Great power rivalry/New Cold War/saber rattling:

• The Russian military has turned down an invitation to attend a European security seminar for the first time in 30 years amid deteriorating ties with the West, Moscow's arms control delegation in Vienna said Feb. 9. The delegation’s Twitter account said Russian Defense Ministry officials opted out of the OSCE Military Doctrine Seminar, held once every five years, “due to unfriendly policies of the West.” (The Moscow Times, 02.10.21)
• Germany, Sweden and Poland are each expelling a Russian diplomat in a tit-for-tat move after Moscow's expulsion last week of diplomats from the three EU countries for allegedly taking part in protests in support of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. (RFE/RL, 02.08.21)
• Russia says it is expelling an Albanian diplomat in a tit-for-tat move after Tirana told a Russian diplomat to leave for allegedly violating lockdown rules instituted for the coronavirus pandemic. (RFE/RL, 02.08.21)
• Russian military scientists have proposed a pre-emptive strike using manned and unmanned aircraft to counter the United States' multidomain war-fighting strategy against adversaries, according to excerpts cited in an Armed Forces academic journal. The scientists propose countering the U.S. strategy with a comprehensive air operation to disrupt its integrated massive air strike “by causing intolerable damage to the enemy.” (The Moscow Times, 02.09.21)

NATO-Russia relations:

• The unveiling ceremony of the multinational naval exercise Aman 2021 took place at the Karachi port in Pakistan on Feb. 12, the Russian Defense Ministry said. Naval forces from 45 countries, including the U.S., China, Russia and Turkey are participating in Aman 2021 from Feb.11 to 16. The last time Russian and NATO naval forces took part in a joint exercise was at the Bold Monarch 2011 off the coast of Spain. The Russian Defense Ministry had said earlier that Aman 2021 was intended to be a non-bloc exercise, and countries would participate in it independently, at Pakistan's invitation. (Interfax, 02.12.21, Anadolu, 02.10.21)
• U.S. President Joe Biden's administration is maintaining the previous administration’s tough line against NATO member Turkey’s purchase of a major Russian missile-defense system. "Our position has not changed," Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Feb. 5. "We urge Turkey not to retain the S-400 system." The United States has rejected a proposal by Ankara to resolve the dispute. "Our policy vis-a-vis the S-400s has not changed," U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said Feb. 10. (RFE/RL, 02.10.21, RFE/RL, 02.06.21)

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms control:

• No significant developments.

Counter-terrorism:

• Director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service Sergei Naryshkin commented on Feb. 12 on reports by sources in law-enforcement agencies that the terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham had turned its supporters’ focus toward "committing crimes in various cities in Russia in places where mass street actions are held." For this purpose, gunmen from Russia or neighboring countries were being selected and trained, the sources said. Back in October, Naryshkin singled out members of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham among those participating in the Karabakh war, saying they posed a threat to Moscow. (TASS, 02.12.21, Reuters, 10.06.21)
  • The CSTO has no information on the return of militants from the Nagorno-Karabakh region to Syria, CSTO Secretary General Stanislav Zas said Feb. 2. " We viewed it as a threat to our countries and our bloc. It’s hard for me to say where the militants are now and if they are still there," Zas pointed out. (TASS, 02.02.21)
• Alim Begiyev, an organizer of a large community of people financing the Islamic State has been sentenced to 17 years in a high-security penal colony in Russia. (Interfax, 02.08.21)

Conflict in Syria:

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed their countries’ coordination in Syria on Feb. 8. Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi also spoke with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov. The conversation focused on “preventing Iran from attaining nuclear weapons and consolidating its power in the region,” Ashkenazi said in a tweet. (Jerusalem Post, 02.08.21)
• Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz has informed via Twitter that he had a phone call with his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu to discuss continuing coordination between the national military on Syria, humanitarian efforts in the region and the need to maintain opportunities to fight terrorism. (TASS, 02.10.21)
• The Russian army conducted searches in a cemetery near the Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees in Syria, in an attempt to find the remains of two Israeli soldiers who went missing 39 years ago during the first Lebanon war, The Times of Israel reported. (Anadolu, 02.07.21)
• Satellite imagery that The War Zone has obtained of Russia's Khmeimim air base outpost in Syria shows work ongoing to extend one of its two main runways by around 1,000 feet. The extension would allow the base to support more regular deployments of larger and more heavily-laden aircraft, including heavy airlifters and even potentially bombers. (Drive, 02.05.21)
• Russian and Turkish servicemen have conducted drills in Syria’s city of Saraqib ahead of joint patrol missions in Idlib, a spokesman for the Turkish army command said Feb. 11. (TASS, 02.11.21)
• The Turkey-backed rebels unit, known as the Al-Fatah al-Mubin, says it has shot down a Russian Orlan-10 unmanned aircraft over the strategic Zawiya Mountain, in the Jabal al-Zawiya region of Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib. (Defense Blog, 02.08.21)

Cyber security:

• A hacker gained entry to the system controlling the water treatment plant of a Florida city of 15,000 and tried to taint the water supply with a caustic chemical, exposing a danger cybersecurity experts say has grown as systems become both more computerized and accessible via the internet. No suspects have been identified in the Oldsmar attack, and it was unclear on Feb. 8 whether the hackers were in the United States or abroad. (AP, 02.08.21, New York Times, 02.08.21)

Elections interference:

• No significant developments.

Energy exports from CIS:

• Pipe-laying work has resumed on Russia's massive Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, the project's consortium said Feb. 6, following “completed sea tests” in Danish waters. About 150 kilometers of pipe transiting Danish and German waters must be laid to complete the pipeline controlled by Gazprom. (RFE/RL, 02.07.21, The Moscow Times, 02.07.21)
• German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier has cautioned against linking Moscow's treatment of Navalny to the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. (RFE/RL, 02.07.21)
• An environmental and consumer protection group says the German government offered U.S. President Donald Trump's administration financial support of up to 1 billion euros ($1.21 billion) in a bid to prevent Washington from imposing sanctions on Nord Stream 2. (RFE/RL, 02.09.21)
• A delegation of the Afghan Taliban has visited Turkmenistan for talks with the Turkmen Foreign Ministry focusing in part on security issues surrounding the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) natural-gas pipeline project. According to a statement by the Turkmen government, the Taliban representatives expressed complete support for Turkmen infrastructure projects. (RFE/RL, 02.07.21)

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

• George P. Shultz died Feb. 6 in Stanford, Calif., at 100. He served as Ronald Reagan’s guide and ally for 6½ years as Reagan challenged the premises of the Cold War and achieved a constructive relationship with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. As secretary of state, Shultz gained the trust of Eduard Shevardnadze, his Soviet counterpart. They worked together to produce the INF Treaty signed in 1987 by Reagan and Gorbachev, the only U.S.-Soviet treaty that reduced nuclear arsenals instead of stabilizing them at higher levels. (The Washington Post, 02.07.21)
• Russia's media watchdog said Feb. 10 it had fined the Russian-language service of U.S.-funded Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe nearly $150,000 over non-compliance with its controversial "foreign agent" law, in a penalty that could increase. (AFP, 02.10.21)
• The U.S. Coast Guard and the Russia’s Marine Rescue Service have agreed to an updated plan to address maritime pollution across international boundaries in the Chukchi and Bering seas. The agreement comes days after the Coast Guard and Russia’s Border Guard completed a joint patrol of the maritime boundary line between the two countries. (Arctic Today, 02.10.21)
• A court in Moscow has ordered mental assessments for former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed, who was sentenced to 9 years in prison in Russia for assaulting police, a charge he has rejected. (RFE/RL, 02.10.21)
• Russian-born socialite Anna Delvey has been released from U.S. prison after completing a nearly four-year sentence for theft and larceny. (The Moscow Times, 02.12.21)

 

II. Russia’s domestic policies

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

• Russia confirmed 15,089 new coronavirus cases and 507 deaths. on Feb. 12 compared to 15,038 cases and 553 deaths on Feb. 11. (The Moscow Times, 02.11.21, Interfax, 02.11.21) Here’s a link to RFE/RL’s interactive map of the virus’ spread around the world, including in Russia and the rest of post-Soviet Eurasia. For a comparison of the number and rate of change in new cases in the U.S. and Russia, visit this Russia Matters resource.
• Russia’s death toll from COVID-19 in 2020 was nearly three times the level generally cited by the government, catapulting its total number of fatalities from the pandemic to the third-most globally. The Federal Statistics Service reported 44,435 deaths linked to COVID-19 in December in a statement Feb. 8, lifting the full-year total to 162,429. The government’s virus response center, which provides daily updates, reported 57,555 COVID-19 deaths in 2020. In total, 2,124,479 Russians died in 2020, nearly 324,000 more than the previous year, according to the statistics service. Deaths in December were 63 percent higher than in the same month in 2019. (Bloomberg, 02.08.21)
  • Russia’s surge in deaths last year is the “harsh reality” of the global coronavirus pandemic, the Kremlin said Feb. 10 after official data showed a much higher COVID-19 death toll than initially reported. (The Moscow Times, 02.10.21)
• Around 2.2 million Russians have been partially vaccinated against the coronavirus so far—or 1.5 percent of the country’s population. (The Moscow Times, 02.10.21)
• More than one out of every four Russians, or 26 percent, have watched Navalny’s recent investigation into Putin’s alleged $1.3 billion palace, according to a poll by the independent Levada Center published Feb. 8. However, 77 percent of Levada respondents who watched or heard of the investigation said it did not change their existing attitudes toward Putin. (The Moscow Times, 02.08.21)
• A court appearance by Navalny has resumed with a testy exchange with the judge in a slander case involving a World War II veteran, resuming a trial that was interrupted last week. The anti-corruption campaigner has described the slander case as a fabricated Kremlin public-relations campaign meant to harass and discredit him. (RFE/RL, 02.12.21)
• A Russian court has issued an arrest warrant for Leonid Volkov, a close associate of Navalny, just hours after the Investigative Committee added him to the country's wanted list. Volkov, who is currently based outside Russia in an unspecified country, is suspected of calling on minors to take part in unsanctioned mass rallies in late January. (RFE/RL, 02.10.21)
• On Feb. 8, Navalny’s regional network coordinator Leonid Volkov and his Anti-Corruption Foundation executive director Vladimir Ashurkov joined a video call on the EU’s Russia policy, Volkov said on social media. Diplomats from Britain, the United States, Canada and Ukraine were also reportedly involved in the two-hour discussions convened by Poland. (The Moscow Times, 02.09.21)
• Russia has agreed to pay Navalny damages for his 2012 detention during mass anti-government demonstrations that Europe’s human rights court ruled degrading. (The Moscow Times, 02.12.21)
• Yulia Navalnaya, recently detained for taking part in unsanctioned rallies in support of her jailed husband, has left Russia and flown to Germany, Interfax quoted a source as saying. (RFE/RL, 02.10.21)
• A court in Russia's Krasnodar region has sentenced a 63-year-old Jehovah's Witness, Aleksandr Ivshin, to 7 1/2 years in prison, the harshest sentence since authorities launched the campaign against the religious group after it was officially labeled as extremist and banned in the country in 2017. (RFE/RL, 02.11.21)
• Security forces detained several Moscow-based Jehovah's Witnesses during raids in connection with a new extremism investigation into the religious group’s members, authorities announced Feb. 10. (The Moscow Times, 02.10.21)
• Faced with a wave of mass protests, the Kremlin has announced a social package of spending worth 500 billion rubles ($6.7 billion) to reduce the number of disaffected before the elections. At the same time, as bne IntelliNews has reported, the government held a meeting last week and intends to completely overhaul the 12 national projects to speed up spending and shift more of its early efforts into socially orientated programs. (bne IntelliNews, 02.09.21)
• Russian real incomes have fallen for five of the past seven years, and fell 3.4 percent last year. In 2020, the average Russian had 11 percent less to spend than in 2013. Household consumption fell 8.6 percent last year as the economy shrank by more than 3 percent. While that is less than other emerging markets, it means Russia’s gross domestic product per capita is now 30 percent lower than in 2013. Through the first nine months of last year, 19.6 million Russians were living below the poverty line, equivalent to 13.3 percent of the population. (Financial Times, 02.06.21)
• The board of the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) resolved to keep the key interest rate unchanged at 4.25 percent at the first policy meeting of 2021 held on Feb. 12. This makes it the fourth time in a row that the CBR has kept the rate flat since September 2020, after a cutting cycle of 2 percentage points last year. (bne IntelliNews, 02.12.21)
• Global rating agency Fitch affirmed Russia’s investment grade rating at “BBB,” citing its “prudent” fiscal strategy and coronavirus response efforts. (The Moscow Times, 02.07.21)
• A license has been issued by the Russian nuclear regulator Rostechnadzor to the Siberian Chemical Combine for the construction of the BREST-OD-300 reactor at its site in Seversk. It will be the world's first experimental demonstration power unit featuring a lead-cooled fast neutron reactor. (World Nuclear News, 02.11.21)
• Grain harvests in Russia were up by 10 percent last year at 133 million tons and 43 million tons of exports, approaching the record harvest of 2017 of 135.4 million tons. (bne IntelliNews, 02.12.21)
• Russia’s biggest gold producer, Polyus, will power its two biggest mines using hydropower, in a major step towards efforts by private businesses to reduce emissions across the country’s vast industrial sector. (Financial Times, 02.11.21)

Defense and aerospace:

• Russia and its partners are laying the groundwork for the massive Zapad 2021 series of military exercises that will be held in September 2021. The Belarusian defense ministry announced earlier this week that a united Russia-Belarus military command will hold joint staff exercises. (The National Interest, 02.10.21)
• In the final months of 2020, Russia tested its 3M22 Tsirkon anti-ship hypersonic cruise missile multiple times, including a mid-December test in the White Sea. Now it seems that the state trials for the missile platform—also known as the Zircon—could be concluded this year. (The National Interest, 02.06.21) 
• Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexei Krivoruchko told the defense publication Krasnaya Zvezda that the Russian military plans to complete state trials of the next generation S-500 surface-to-air/anti-missile system sometime in 2021, with its introduction into service to follow in the same year. (The National Interest, 02.05.21)
• On Feb. 2, the Russian Space Forces conducted a successful launch of a Soyuz-2.1b. The launcher delivered into orbit a satellite designated Cosmos-2549, which is believed to be a Lotos-S1 electronic reconnaissance satellite of the Liana system. (Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces, 02.02.12)
• A Russian Defense Ministry commission has visited Sudan under a bilateral agreement on setting up a Russian naval logistics station in the country, Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov said. (Interfax, 02.09.21)

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• Russian security agents—including one allegedly linked to the poisoning of Navalny—tailed another Kremlin critic in the days and weeks before his two near-fatal poisoning illnesses, the investigative group Bellingcat said in a new report. The Bellingcat investigation, published Feb. 11, focuses on two incidents in Moscow in which Vladimir Kara-Murza, a veteran opposition activist who has lobbied Western governments for sanctions against Russian officials, nearly died after suffering what his doctors described as toxicity from an “unidentified substance.” (RFE/RL, 02.11.21)
• Two Russian National Guardsmen were detained in the North Caucasus republic of Dagestan on suspicion of fatally shooting an ex-village head over an alleged dispute. (The Moscow Times, 02.07.21)

 

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

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

• Russia says it is prepared to sever ties with the EU if the bloc follows through with threats to implement tough new economic sanctions against Moscow over the detention and jailing of Navalny. Speaking Feb. 12, Lavrov said that if further sanctions are imposed on Russia and they "create risks" to the country's economy, "then yes," relations could be broken off. Lavrov's comments come a day after diplomatic sources suggested the EU was likely to impose travel bans and asset freezes—possibly within weeks—on allies of Putin. "We do not want to be isolated from international life, but we must be ready for this. If you want peace, then you should prepare for war," Lavrov said. (RFE/RL, 02.12.21)
• Russia should be ready for hostile acts from the EU but would not want to sever ties with Brussels, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Feb. 12, commenting on the remarks by Lavrov who said that Moscow is ready cut ties if Brussels chooses to impose sanctions that endanger sensitive sectors of the Russian economy. (TASS, 02.12.21)
• EU foreign-policy chief Josep Borrell has said that relations between the EU and Russia are "at a crossroads" following a visit to Moscow that the diplomat described as "very complicated." In a blog post on Feb. 7, Borrell said the visit had "confirmed that Europe and Russia are drifting apart." "It seems that Russia is progressively disconnecting itself from Europe and looking at democratic values as an existential threat," Borrell wrote. The EU official also "strongly condemned" Russia's Feb. 5 decision to expel three diplomats from EU states for allegedly participating in anti-government rallies. (RFE/RL, 02.07.21, RFE/RL, 02.06.21)
• Secretary of Russia’s Security Council Nikolai Patrushev held talks with France’s Secretary General for Defense and National Security Stephane Bouillon in Moscow on Feb. 12, the Russian Security Council said. "They discussed future cooperation between Moscow and Paris in the security field," the statement says. (TASS, 02.12.21)
• France allegedly rejected Russia’s offer to examine its scientists’ findings that Navalny was poisoned, Putin was reported to have said at a closed meeting Feb. 10. (The Moscow Times, 02.11.21)
• The EU has approved Russia’s application to register its Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine in the bloc. (The Moscow Times, 02.09.21)
• Rosatom's portfolio of foreign orders remains at the level of over $250 billion and, in the 10-year perspective, "hovers around" $140 billion, Director General Alexey Likhachov said Feb. 4 during his meeting with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. (World Nuclear News, 02.05.21)
• The four nuclear power units under construction in Turkey will be commissioned one per year between 2023 and 2026, Anastasia Zoteeva, CEO of the Akkuyu Nükleer AS project company, said. (World Nuclear News, 02.10.21)

China-Russia: Allied or Aligned?

• Russia, China and Iran will kick off a joint naval exercise in the northern Indian Ocean this month, the Kremlin’s ambassador to Iran said Feb. 8. Ambassador Levan Dzhagaryan told Russia’s RIA news agency that the exercises would include search and rescue and shipping safety drills. (Al Monitor, 02.09.21)
• Russia's Atommash has begun the manufacture of major components for the first of two VVER-1200 reactors to be constructed at the Xudabao site in China's Liaoning province. Construction of Xudabao units three and four is expected to begin this year and next, respectively. (World Nuclear News, 02.12.21)
• "One thing is clear, we need to take measures to ensure that, with all due respect to our neighbors [China], we are not completely dependent on them. We have to have fish- processing capability in Russia, capability to supply products to other markets. There's no need to face such threats [the ban on supplies to China]," Russian Deputy Prime Minister and Presidential Envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District Yury Trutnev said. (Interfax, 02.09.21)
• Chinese leader Xi Jinping chaired a long-delayed summit with Central and Eastern European countries. The Feb. 9 virtual meeting that took place via video link focused on access to COVID-19 vaccines and post-pandemic economic recovery as Beijing convened the 17+1 bloc—a format launched in 2012 for China to engage with Central and Eastern European nations, of which 12 are European Union members. (RFE/RL, 02.10.21)

Ukraine:

• Two Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in clashes with Russian-backed separatists, the military said Feb. 12, testing a ceasefire brokered last year that had brought relative calm to the simmering conflict. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's office said 50 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in 2020, exactly half as many as the year before. (AFP, 02.12.21)
• Ukraine's government has banned the registration of vaccines for COVID-19 from "aggressor states," a designation it has applied to Russia since 2015. As of Feb. 11, the number of registered coronavirus cases in Ukraine was 1,258,094, including 24,058 deaths. (RFE/RL, 02.11.21)
• Ukraine is set to receive 12 million doses of coronavirus vaccines developed by AstraZeneca and Novavax, Zelenskiy's office announced Feb. 5. The first deliveries are expected in Ukraine this month. (RFE/RL, 02.06.21)
• The European Investment Bank increased its new investments in Ukraine last year by 50 percent year on year, to more than 1 billion euros, bringing total EIB investment in Ukraine to 7.5 billion euros, Jean-Erik de Zagon, the bank’s resident representative for Ukraine, told reporters at the start of February. (bne IntelliNews, 02.07.21)
• European Union diplomats are considering removing several of the 10 remaining Ukrainians—including Oleksandr Yanukovych, the son of former Ukrainian President Minister Viktor Yanukovych—from a list of sanctioned people the bloc believes are responsible for the misappropriation of Ukrainian state funds. (RFE/RL, 02.10.21)
• Two Ukrainian tycoons under investigation by the FBI for money laundering are suing the United States for attempting to seize their Texas commercial building worth $23 million, saying the government’s actions violate the sovereignty of their home country. Optima Ventures, a U.S. real-estate holding company controlled by billionaires Ihor Kolomoyskiy and Hennadiy Boholyubov, informed a Florida court on Feb. 5 that it will file for arbitration against the United States in the World Bank’s International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes. (RFE/RL, 02.10.21)

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

• "The time will come and other people will come," Alexander Lukashenko said on the first day of a congress billed representing all of Belarus. He said a set of constitutional changes would be drafted later this year and put to a nationwide vote in early 2022. "Fraternal Russia" and "great China" will remain strategic partners of Belarus, and not just in the economic sphere, he said at the 6th All-Belarusian People's Assembly on Feb. 12. (RFE/RL, 02.12.21, Interfax, 02.12.21)
• Visitors to Armenian-controlled Nagorno-Karabakh now have to get Russian permission ahead of time. The territory's de facto ministry of foreign affairs announced new entry regulations for foreigners on Feb. 8, and one of the provisions was that Russian peacekeeping forces will examine applications "for security purposes" before they are approved. It's not clear what prompted the new regulation, which the de facto authorities say had already been in effect before being announced.(The Moscow Times/Eurasia.net, 02.10.21)
• Yerevan believes that given the changes in the Nagorno-Karabakh status quo, Ankara no longer has any reason to keep its border with Armenia closed, Armenian Foreign Minister Ara Ayvazyan was quoted as saying Feb. 11. (bne IntelliNews, 02.11.21)
• Azerbaijan has filed a lawsuit against Armenia with the European Court of Human Rights, accusing Yerevan of human rights violations during its almost 30-year occupation of the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven adjacent districts, and during the 44-day conflict over the disputed region in 2020. (RFE/RL, 02.09.21)
• The Georgian Defense Ministry has announced that units of the Georgian Defense Forces received modern M2А1 machine guns, MK19 grenade launchers and an additional batch of M249 light machine guns. (Defense Blog, 02.12.21)
• Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov has appointed his son Serdar to the posts of deputy prime minister and chairman of the Supreme Control Chamber, renewing speculation the 63-year-old autocrat is grooming his son to be his successor. State media outlets reported Feb. 12 that according to the presidential decrees signed the day before, Serdar Berdymukhammedov also became a member of the State Security Council. (RFE/RL, 02.12.21)
• Kyrgyzstan's top Muslim cleric, Grand Mufti Maksatbek Hajji Toktomushev, has been detained by police amid a corruption scandal. Kyrgyzstan's State Committee for National Security said late on Feb. 10 that Toktomushev is suspected of being involved in the alleged misuse of funds raised by worshippers for a Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca later this year. Toktomushev also resigned after his accountant was detained on corruption charges. (RFE/RL, 02.11.21, RFE/RL, 02.10.21)
• Uzbekistan plans to fully transition the Uzbek language from the Cyrillic script to a Latin-based alphabet by Jan. 1, 2023. (RFE/RL, 02.12.21)

 

IV. Quoteworthy

• No significant developments.