This Week’s Highlights

• On Jan. 15 Vladimir Putin fired his entire government, including premier Dmitry Medvedev, and initiated a series of amendments to the Constitution meant to enable him to continue steering Russia after his fourth presidential term expires in 2024. Putin then appointed Mikhail Mishustin as the new prime minister, while Medvedev has been appointed deputy chairman of the presidential Security Council, even though the bill to create such a position has not yet been approved.
• While Putin referred to the U.S. and U.S.-Russian relations at least eight times in his 2019 address to the Russian parliament, he failed to explicitly do so in the 2020 address. Meanwhile, new U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan has arrived in Moscow, according a U.S. Embassy twitter account, and is “going to play hockey in Russia, time permitting,” spokesperson Rebecca Ross wrote, adding a #hockeydiplomacy hash tag. Both Putin and new premier Mishustin play hockey in the so-called Night Hockey League, as do some ministers. During his confirmation hearings, Sullivan called for “principled engagement with Russia” and “sustained diplomacy with the Russian government in areas of shared interests … and resolute opposition to Russia where it undermines the interests and values of the United States and our allies and partners.”
• Hackers from the GRU have allegedly targeted a Ukrainian energy firm tied to the impeachment proceedings against U.S. President Donald Trump. Cybersecurity experts found that Burisma Holdings, where Joe Biden’s son sat on the board, was successfully penetrated, and connected the phishing campaign to another phishing campaign targeting a media organization founded by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, RFE/RL reports.
• Early in his administration Trump was eager to meet Putin—so much so, "that during the transition he interrupts an interview with one of his secretary of state candidates" to inquire about his pressing desire: "When can I meet Putin? Can I meet with him before the inaugural ceremony?" he asks, according to a new book by Washington Post reporters Philip Rucker and Carol D. Leonnig.
• Around 350,000 Syrians have fled a renewed Russian-backed offensive in Idlib Province since early December, Reuters reports. The Russian Defense Ministry announced Jan. 12 that it had created three new checkpoints for civilians to leave Idlib and halted air strikes there until a ceasefire agreed with Turkey came into force, The Washington Post reports. On the eve of the ceasefire at least 17 people were killed in Syrian and Russian bombing in Idlib, according to The Moscow Times.
• New documents given to U.S. House of Representatives investigators by Lev Parnas suggest an effort to remove former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch as a favor to Ukraine in exchange for information on the Bidens. Yovanovitch may have been under some kind of surveillance, suggesting the Ukrainians were perhaps more interested in ousting her than were even Rudy Giuliani and company, The Washington Post reports. White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham tried to dismiss the new details, but Ukraine says it has launched two criminal investigations into the possible illegal surveillance of Yovanovitch, RFE/RL reports.

 

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

Nuclear security:

• An IAEA mission will head to Belarus in February to evaluate the preparedness of the country’s national infrastructure for a nuclear power station under construction in the town of Astravets near the Lithuanian border. Belarus expects to have the two 1.2 gigawatt VVER 1200 reactors online this year. (RFE/RL, 01.15.20)

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• Russia's foreign ministry says Moscow is complying with U.N. Security Council sanctions and has returned most North Korean guest workers in the country. There are no North Koreans in employment in Russia at present, the director for the foreign ministry's department for international organizations said. (UPI, 01.16.20)
• Russian oil exports to North Korea fell by more than 54 percent from October to November, down to a monthly total of 619 tons, according to new data made public by the U.N. (NK News, 01.16.20)

Iran and its nuclear program:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron discussed the situation in Iran and called on all parties to show restraint. Then Russia’s acting Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov blamed “aggressive” U.S. policies for heightened global tensions and called on Washington and Tehran to de-escalate their feud. Speaking at his annual round-up news conference on Jan. 17, Lavrov called the downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane by Iranian air defense systems a “very serious red flag” and a warning signal to begin calming the situation instead of resorting to “constant threats.” Lavrov also claimed that Iran shot down the plane because it was spooked by “six F-35 US fighter jets.” He also chided Britain, France and Germany for triggering a dispute mechanism in the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and global powers. (The Independent, 01.17.20, RFE/RL, 01.17.20, TASS, 01.12.20,
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says his country expects a full probe, a full admission of guilt and compensation from Iran after Tehran admitted, after days of denial, it accidentally shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane, killing all 176 aboard. (RFE/RL, 01.11.20)
• Ukraine has asked Canada, France, Sweden, Germany, the United Kingdom and Iran to assign experts to assist in the investigation of the Jan. 8 crash of Ukraine International Airlines flight PS0752 near Tehran. (RFE/RL, 01.17.20)
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy spoke with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Jan. 10 and wrote on Twitter that he was grateful for the valuable support of the U.S. in investigating the causes of the plane crash.” Pompeo said the U.S. believes it's “likely” an Iranian missile downed the plane. It was not immediately clear what details were passed to Zelenskiy. (The Washington Post, 01.12.20)
• Iran said Jan. 14 that arrests have been made in connection with the downing of a Ukrainian airliner by mistake, as the president called for a special court to investigate the crash that set off days of anti-government protests. (The Washington Post, 01.14.20)
• Surveillance video from Iran circulating on social media Jan. 14 appears to show two missiles hitting the Ukrainian passenger jet downed over Tehran. (Wall Street Journal, 01.14.20)

New Cold War/saber rattling:

• Russia denied on Jan. 11 that one of its navy vessels had come dangerously close to a U.S. Navy destroyer in the North Arabian Sea. The U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet said Jan. 10 that a Russian ship had "aggressively approached" U.S. destroyer USS Farragut, which had then sounded five short blasts and requested the Russian ship alter course. (The Moscow Times, 01.13.20)
• Twenty-two foreign aircraft performed reconnaissance along the Russian border over the past week, the Russian Defense Ministry's newspaper reported Jan. 17. (Interfax, 01.17.20)
• “Europe is no longer, so to say, at the center of world events. That is becoming increasingly clear. Europe’s former position at the frontline—you could say we were the interface of the Cold War—came afterwards to an end. That’s why Europe needs to carve out its own geopolitical role and the United States’ focus on Europe is declining. That will be the case with any president,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said. (Financial Times, 01.16.20)

NATO-Russia relations:

• No significant commentary.

Missile defense:

• Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu held a conference call on Jan. 10 with Russian military leaders, whom he told that "it is necessary to conduct a deep analysis of potential military threats and outline measures to improve the Armed Forces." Shoigu called on his personnel to keep an eye on the United States' burgeoning short-to-mid-range missile program. (Newsweek, 01.10.20)

Nuclear arms control:

• “It is the five nuclear powers that bear a special responsibility for the conservation and sustainable development of humankind. These five nations should first of all start with measures to remove the prerequisites for a global war,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in his annual address to the Russian parliament, according to the Kremlin’s transcript of his speech. (Russia Matters, 01.16.20)
• “We are in favor of extending the New START without any preconditions. I hope that the Americans have heard us, as we have said that many times. So far, however, we do not see any clear, intelligible signals from them,” acting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying at his annual press conference on Jan. 17. “The People’s Republic of China has officially stated many times that it will not participate in this kind of negotiations [on trilateral U.S.-Russia-China arms control], explaining that the structure of China’s nuclear forces is different from that of the United States. And we said that we respect this position of the PRC and will not try to make China change this position.” (Russia Matters, 01.17.20)

Counter-terrorism:

• German police raided premises in four states early Jan. 14 on suspicion that a group of Chechens were scouting locations for a possible attack that may have included a synagogue, officials said. (Arab News, 01.14.20)
• A border control mechanism has been put in place to prevent terrorist fighters from migrating from Syria; it includes fingerprinting and the collection of genetic material, Russia’s Federal Security Service said. (Interfax, 01.13.20)

Conflict in Syria:

• Around 350,000 Syrians have fled a renewed Russian-backed offensive in the opposition-held Idlib province since early December, the U.N. said on Jan. 16. The Russian Defense Ministry announced on Jan. 12 that it had created three new checkpoints for civilians to leave Idlib Province and halted air strikes there until a ceasefire agreed with Turkey came into force. On the eve of the ceasefire at least 17 people, mostly women and children, were killed in Syrian and Russian bombing of four main towns in Idlib on Jan. 11. (Reuters, 01.17.20, The Washington Post, 01.13.20, The Moscow Times, 01.13.20)
• "Reports from certain foreign online media outlets alleging U.S. troops hindered a Russian patrol mission in the al-Hasakah province are incorrect," the head of the Russian Center for Reconciliation of Opposing Sides in Syria, Maj. Gen. Yury Borenkov, said at a press briefing. (Interfax, 01.16.20)
• Russia scored a victory for its close ally Syria on Jan. 3, using its veto threat to force the U.N. Security Council to adopt a resolution significantly reducing the delivery of cross-border humanitarian aid and cutting off critical medical assistance to over one million Syrians in the northeast. (AP, 01.10.20)

Cyber security:

• Hackers from the GRU have allegedly targeted a Ukrainian energy firm tied to the impeachment proceedings against U.S. President Donald Trump. Cybersecurity experts at California-based Area 1 Security released a report Jan. 13 that found Burisma Holdings, where the son of presidential front-runner Joe Biden sat on the board, was successfully penetrated. "Area 1 Security has also further connected this GRU phishing campaign to another phishing campaign targeting a media organization founded" by Zelenskiy, the report said. (RFE/RL, 01.14.20)

Elections interference:

• No significant commentary.

Energy exports from CIS:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia will "certainly" be able to complete Nord Stream 2 without foreign assistance. He said the project, which was expected to start in the first half of 2020, will be delayed "several months." (RFE/RL, 01.11.20)

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant commentary.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

• “We’ve talked with the Russians,” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a recent interview. “The Russians want a better relationship with the United States of America.” Of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, he says, “I’ll probably spend a great deal of time with him . . .  as will my colleagues in the cabinet trying to find places where we can work together.” (Wall Street Journal, 01.06.20)
• While Russian President Vladimir Putin referred to the U.S. and U.S.-Russian relations at least eight times in his 2019 address to the Russian parliament, he failed to explicitly do so in the 2020 address. Putin mentioned China twice in his 2019 address to the Russian parliament, but did not refer to China in his 2020 address. (Russia Matters, 01.16.20)
• New U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan has arrived in Moscow, according to the twitter account of U.S. Embassy spokesperson Rebecca Ross. “In fact, he is a hockey fan and I have even heard he is going to play hockey in Russia, time permitting,” she wrote in Russian, adding a #hockeydiplomacy hash tag. Both Russian President Vladimir Putin and new premier Mikhail Mishustin play hockey in the so-called Night Hockey League as do some of the ministers, including defense chief Sergei Shoigu. During his confirmation hearings in the Senate in October, Sullivan called for “principled engagement with Russia” and “sustained diplomacy with the Russian government in areas of shared interests, for example in arms control, nonproliferation and counterterrorism, and resolute opposition to Russia where it undermines the interests and values of the United States and our allies and partners.” (Russia Matters, 01.17.20)Early in his administration U.S. President Donald Trump is eager to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin—so much so, "that during the transition he interrupts an interview with one of his secretary of state candidates" to inquire about his pressing desire: "When can I meet Putin? Can I meet with him before the inaugural ceremony?" he asks, according to a new book by Washington Post reporters Philip Rucker and Carol D. Leonnig. “I have had a two-hour meeting with Putin,” Trump told former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at the G20 summit in Hamburg in July 2017. “That's all I need to know. . . . I've sized it all up. I've got it," according to the book. (The Washington Post, 01.17.20)
• The U.S. accounted for 79 percent of the global arms trade, or an average of $143 billion per year, followed by the EU at 10 percent, Russia at 5 percent and China at less than 2 percent in 2007 to 2017, according to The State Department’s World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers report. (The National Interest, 01.14.20)
• A federal judge on Jan. 16 once again pushed back the sentencing date for U.S. President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn after his legal team moved to withdraw his guilty plea for lying to the FBI in the Russia probe. Flynn originally was scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 28 in a D.C. federal court, but Judge Emmet Sullivan bumped the date back to Feb. 27. (Fox News, 01.17.20)

 

II. Russia’s relations with other countries

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

• Libya's warring leaders held indirect peace talks in Moscow on Jan. 13 with Russia and Turkey urging the rivals to sign a binding truce to end a nine-month-old war and pave the way for a settlement that would stabilize the North African country. Lybian warlord Khalifa Haftar was expecting the Kremlin red carpet in Moscow, but instead he was cooped up in a reception building hoping for an audience with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In the end, the Libyan military commander lost patience and stormed out, leaving Moscow. More talks between Libya’s warring parties are due to happen in Berlin on Jan. 19. (Reuters, 01.13.20, Financial Times, 01.14.20, Bloomberg, 01.15.20)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russian mercenaries, if there are any in Libya, are neither representing the Russian state, nor are they paid by the state. (The Moscow Times, 01.13.20)
• "We have been suggesting to the Gulf countries to think about collective security mechanisms ... starting with confidence-building measures and inviting each other to military exercises," acting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a security conference in Delhi. (Reuters, 01.15.20)
• Russian Deputy Chief of Mission Roman Babushkin on Jan. 17 said that the production of five units of the S-400 air defense missile system has commenced and will be delivered to India by 2025. (APN, 01.17.20)
• The Russian Northern Fleet’s Marshal Ustinov missile cruiser has sailed through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles Straits to enter the Mediterranean Sea, the Defense Ministry’s press office said, and has called at the Cypriot port of Limassol. (TASS, 01.17.20, Interfax, 01.15.20)
• This past week, Polish President Andrzej Duda said he would boycott the 75th anniversary commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz after complaining that he won't be allowed to speak at the event in Israel later this month but Russian President Vladimir Putin will. (Wall Street Journal, 01.11.20)
• Russia does not plan to exchange U.S.-Israeli backpacker Naama Issachar jailed on drug charges ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Israel this month, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Jan. 14. (Reuters, 01.15.20)
• Russian tech giant Yandex plans to expand its car-sharing service to Europe. The company plans to launch a test service of up to 1,000 electric cars in a yet-to-be determined EU city this year. Founded just two years ago, Yandex.Drive claims it is the world’s largest car-sharing service, with more than 21,000 cars operational in Russia. (Financial Times, 01.13.20)
• Japan's intelligence chief Shigeru Kitamura met Jan. 16 with Russian President Vladimir Putin in an apparent bid to break an impasse over stalled talks on a bilateral peace treaty to formally end hostilities dating to World War II. (Asahi, 01.16.20)
• Boris Rotenberg, a Russian businessman under U.S. sanctions due to his close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin and who also holds Finnish citizenship, has lost a discrimination lawsuit he filed in a Finnish court against four Nordic banks over their refusal to allow him to make payments and of violating his right to equal treatment as an EU citizen. (Reuters, 01.13.20)

China-Russia: Allied or Aligned?

• The coordination between Moscow and Beijing in foreign policy has had an "important stabilizing influence on the world," acting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Jan. 17. He said both Russia and China are trying to prevent attempts by Western powers to force unilateral decisions, where consensus is needed. (Xinhua, 01.17.20)
• Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province saw its trade with Russia rise 4 percent year on year to 127.1 billion yuan ($18.5 billion) in 2019.  (Xinhua, 01.17.20)

Ukraine:

• As the U.S. House of Representatives voted to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate, U.S. President Donald Trump said Jan. 16 that his impeachment trial should move “very quickly,” branding his impeachment in his familiar terms as a “hoax.” Trump went on to describe his phone call with Ukraine’s president, an event at the center of the House’s impeachment case, as “perfect.” (The Hill, 01.16.20)
• New documents from Lev Parnas suggest something specific afoot: an effort to remove former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch as a favor to Ukraine in exchange for information on the Bidens—essentially, another quid pro quo. The documents were given to House investigators by Parnas, an associate of U.S. President Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who has been indicted and has since revealed key information about the Ukraine scandal. The most-cited takeaway is that Yovanovitch may have been under some kind of surveillance. It suggests the Ukrainians were perhaps more interested in ousting Yovanovitch than were even Giuliani and company. (The Washington Post, 01.15.20)
  • White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham tried to dismiss the stream of new details emerging about Trump’s pressure campaign on Ukraine via Parnas. Grisham also criticized the House impeachment proceedings and said the White House expected that Trump’s formal response to the charges would prove he did nothing wrong. (New York Times, 01.16.20)
  • Ukraine says it has launched two criminal investigations into the possible illegal surveillance of Yovanovitch before she was recalled from her post last year. The Interior Ministry made the announcement on Jan. 16, two days after investigators at the U.S. House of Representatives released documents showing Parnas communicating about Yovanovitch’s removal. (RFE/RL, 01.16.20)
• The Trump administration didn't have the legal authority to withhold millions in security assistance to Ukraine this summer, the Government Accountability Office found, adding more scrutiny to the funding freeze that led to the impeachment of U.S. President Donald Trump. (Wall Street Journal, 01.16.20)
• Ukrainian Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk has submitted his resignation amid a scandal surrounding an audio recording where he allegedly disparages the economic knowledge and competence of both himself and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. (RFE/RL, 01.17.20)
• China displaced Russia last year as Ukraine’s top single nation trading partner, according to trade statistics for the first 10 months of the year. China-Ukraine trade was $10.5 billion, 21 percent more than Russia-Ukraine trade, which was $8.6 billion. (Ukraine Business News, 01.14.20)
• Ukrainian Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk said about half of the gas stations police inspected—707—were not paying fuel taxes. (RFE/RL, 01.13.20)

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

• Raul Khajimba, leader of the self-proclaimed breakaway Georgian republic of Abkhazia, who resigned following four days of protests in the regional capital, Sukhumi, does not plan to take part in a new election. The leader of the Bloc of the Opposition Forces, lawmaker Aslan Bzhania, said Jan. 13 that he plans to put himself forward as a presidential candidate in the election. (RFE/RL, 01.13.20)
• Belarus says it has asked several European countries to sell it oil in the face of a tariff dispute with Russia, its regular supplier. Belarus has been at odds with Russia over oil-transit prices for some time against a backdrop of increasing pressure by Moscow on Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to deepen integration between the two neighbors. (RFE/RL, 01.14.20)
• Moldovan oligarch and former head of the Moldova's Democratic Party Vlad Plahotniuc has been banned from entering the U.S. "due to his involvement in significant corruption," the U.S. State Department said. Moldovan anti-corruption prosecutors have charged Plahotniuc with organizing a criminal network used to trade illicit goods and with laundering millions of dollars between 2013 and 2015. (RFE/RL, 01.14.20)
• Russia’s acting Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Jan. 16 held talks with Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev and Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Komilov in Tashkent. The issue of upcoming mutual visits of the two countries' top officials was discussed. The Uzbek leader plans to visit Russia on Feb. 5. (RFE/RL, 01.17.20 Regnum, 01.17.20)
• Kyrgyz and Tajik officials have agreed to start the process of a land swap along a disputed segment of the border between the two Central Asian nations after years of sometimes deadly clashes. The talks were held in Tajikistan's Isfara region following another round of violence between Kyrgyz and Tajiks residing near the border. (RFE/RL, 01.15.20)
• Georgi Kutoyan, head of Armenia’s National Security Service from 2016 to 2018, has been found dead with gunshot wound in a Yerevan apartment. (RFE/RL, 01.17.20)

 

III. Russia’s domestic policies

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

• On Jan. 15 Russian President Vladimir Putin fired his entire government, including loyal but  chronically unpopular premier Dmitry Medvedev, and initiated a series of amendments to the constitution meant to enable him to continue steering Russia when his fourth presidential term expires in 2024, perhaps as the chairman of the newly-empowered State Council or as premier. Below is our compilation of news related to these developments. (Russia Matters, 01.17.20)
  • Constitutional amendments that Putin proposed during his Jan. 15 address to parliament include:
    • Tightening restrictions on presidential candidates, including banning them from holding second citizenship or permanent residency abroad and requiring them to have lived in Russia for 25 years;
    • Prioritizing the Russian Constitution over international treaties and other acts;
    • Making the State Council—Putin’s advisory body that he established when he was first elected in 2000—an official governing body;
    • Banning lawmakers, cabinet ministers, judges and other federal-level officials from holding second citizenship or permanent residency abroad;
    • Granting Russia’s lower house of parliament the authority to appoint the prime minister, their deputies and cabinet ministers and barring the president from rejecting these nominations while allowing him to retain the right to pick heads of so-called power agencies;
    • Granting senators the authority to consult the president on appointing the heads of all security and the power to dismiss “dishonorable” onstitutional and Supreme Court judges based on the president’s proposal; 
    • Granting Constitutional Court judges the authority to review draft laws at the president’s request before the head of state signs them;
    • Setting Russia’s minimum wage at or above the poverty line and adjust pensions to inflation every year. (The Moscow Times, 01.16.20)
      • The national vote on Putin’s package of constitutional amendments is expected to be held before May 1, a source in Russia’s upper house of parliament said. (The Moscow Times, 01.16.20)
      • In his address Putin also said: “I don’t consider [the two consecutive term limit] a matter of principle, but I agree with it.” (The Moscow Times, 01.15.20)
  • Putin has never considered relinquishing power, according to two longtime confidants. “He thinks things will collapse without him,” one of them said. “There won’t be serious change in the country without pressure. The majority of people don’t care. Revolutions take place when there is no bread and the shelves are empty.” (Financial Times, 01.15.20)
  • Responding to public discord in his address to the parliament, Putin spelled out social spending measures to counter Russia’s declining population, which he characterized as a "direct threat" to the country’s future. The measures will include increases in minimum wage and "maternity capital" to new mothers. “In 2024, the birth rate should be 1.7 children per woman,” he said. Anton Siluanov, the acting finance minister, said the promises would cost $6.5 billion to $8.1 billion, close to 4 percent of GDP. Putin also said Russia should achieve a higher GDP growth rate than the rest of the world in 2021 and that annual investment growth should be at least 5 percent and its share in the country's GDP should be increased from the current 21 percent to 25 percent in 2024.” (The Moscow Times, 01.15.20, RFE/RL, 01.15.20, The Washington Post, 01.15.20, Bne intellinews, 01.15.20, The Moscow Times, 01.15.20)
  • Putin on Jan. 16 signed a decree appointing Mikhail Mishustin as prime minister, shortly after the former head of the tax service won the backing of parliament. His predecessor Medvedev has been appointed deputy chairman of the presidential Security Council, even though the bill to create such a position has not yet been approved. (Reuters, 01.15.20, Gazeta.ru, 01.16.20)
    • Speaking to lawmakers Mishustin, 53, said he would prioritize raising living standards. Mishustin will now have the task of satisfying the “demand for change” that Putin acknowledged in his annual state of the nation address. Those plans include overseeing a 25.7 trillion ruble ($417 billion) stimulus program of “national projects” aimed at kick-starting Russia’s moribund economy, and a social spending package amounting to between 400 billion rubles and 500 billion rubles. (Financial Times, 01.16.20)
    • As head of the tax office, Mishustin has won praise for improving tax collection processes and more than doubling tax revenues in the past decade, with $331.92 billion collected in the first 11 months of last year. Mishustin has also pursued a technology-driven overhaul of the agency. The revamp—which enables Russia’s tax officials to see every purchase receipt across the country within 90 seconds of a transaction—has won Mishustin, a fluent English speaker, plaudits from tax professionals worldwide. Mishustin was an active member of the OECD’s information-sharing network and collaborated with Western officials on thorny reforms such as adopting to U.S. FATCA regulations on foreign tax compliance.  (Financial Times, 01.16.20, Reuters, 01.16.20)
• Russia's trade surplus fell by 15.7 percent year on year to $161 billion in the first 11 months of 2019, the Russian Federal Customs Service said. (Xinhua, 01.14.20)
• A commission set up by the Russian Academy of Sciences has led to the retraction of at least 869 Russian scientific articles, mainly for plagiarism. (The Washington Post, 01.17.20)
• The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that former Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and business partner Platon Lebedev were denied their right to a fair trial in the case of their conviction by a Russian court for embezzlement and money laundering. (RFE/RL, 01.14.20)

Defense and aerospace:

• "We are not threatening anyone or striving to impose our will [on other countries] … For the first time in all history of nuclear weaponry, including the Soviet period, we aren’t playing catch-up with anyone. Other states have yet to create the weapons that Russia already has,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in his annual address to parliament. (Financial Times, 01.15.20, The Moscow Times, 01.15.20)
• The Russian Defense Ministry prepared technical requirements and will soon begin to create a line of marine vehicles. It will include armored personnel carriers, fire support and transportation vehicles, the Izvestia daily writes. (Navy Recognition, 01.13.20)

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• Russian investigators have launched a criminal case into abuse of power against police officers who detained investigative journalist Ivan Golunov last year. Golunov was arrested in June on drug charges he argued were fabricated and released days later after an unprecedented public outcry. (The Moscow Times, 01.14.20)
• Russia’s lower house of parliament has prepared a wide-reaching amnesty bill intended to mark the 75th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. If passed, the amnesty will cover first offenders of minor crimes from groups including juvenile delinquents, women, people with disabilities, the elderly and veterans. (The Moscow Times, 01.14.20)
• More than 50,000 Muscovites have been evacuated in 2020 so far in the latest wave of bomb threats after more than 1 million evacuations last year. (The Moscow Times, 01.14.20)
• Authorities in Russia are investigating a Nigerian criminal network that allegedly forced women into prostitution after they arrived visa-free during Russia’s football World Cup in 2018. (The Moscow Times, 01.14.20)

 

IV. Quoteworthy

• “Had [U.S. Secretary of State William] Seward's would-be assassin killed him in 1865, for example, Seward would not have negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867. Without that divine protection, Michael Medved claims, the Cold War would have turned out quite differently.” (The Washington Post, 01.09.20)