5 Things to Know

1. Donald Trump will quickly demand peace talks between Russia and Ukraine if he wins November’s U.S. presidential election, and he has developed “well-founded plans” for doing so, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán has claimed after private discussions with the Republican candidate, according to FT. Speaking at the 2024 GOP convention on July 18, Trump said that he “will end every single international crisis that the current administration has created, including the horrible war with Russia and Ukraine,” but gave no details of how he would end the war.
2. Trump’s newly chosen running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, has been one of the leading opponents of U.S. support for Ukraine in the war with Russia. “I’ve got to be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other,” he told Stephen K. Bannon, according to NYT. Vance has also said he opposes sending weapons and money to Ukraine in part because he thinks it degrades the United States' ability to defend itself. "I do not think it is in America's interests to fund an effectively never-ending war in Ukraine," he said. Vance—for whom Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov signaled support this week—has also told fellow senators that Putin "is not Adolf Hitler." For more on Vance’s views on the war in Ukraine, see his op-eds in FT and NYT.Vance did not mention either Russia or Ukraine in his speech at the Republican party convention when accepting the GOP vice-presidential nomination on July 17.*
3. Volodymyr Zelenskyy may be signaling his preparedness to end the hot phase of the Russian-Ukrainian war this year without regaining occupied territories through the use of force. This follows from his interview with the BBC published on July 19, in which he said that Ukraine may end the hot stage of the war by the end of 2024 per a plan that could take the form of a peace summit. “It doesn’t mean that all territories are won back by force. I think the power of diplomacy can help,” according to the Ukrainian-language version of the interview as translated by RBC.ua. In separate comments earlier this week, Zelenskyy said that he plans to invite Russia to a second peace summit in Qatar at the end of July, according to RFE/RL, but the Russian Foreign Ministry has rejected participating in the second summit, according to the Kyiv Independent.
4. In the past month, Russian forces have gained 61 square miles of Ukrainian territory, while Ukrainian forces have re-gained 15 square miles, according to the July 16, 2024, issue of the Russia-Ukraine War Report Card. This week’s territorial losses by Ukraine have included Urozhaine after what Ukrainian OSINT group DeepState described as a “defense collapse” in that village in the eastern region of Donetsk. They have also included the loss of Ukraine’s hard won positions in the village of Krynky on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River, according to NYT. In addition, Russian forces have advanced northwest of Avdiivka in the Donetsk region this week, according to ISW, and they have advanced within four miles of Highway T0504, which, if taken, would lead to the isolation of the Donetsk region’s town of Chasiv Yar. Ukrainian gains this week have included regaining positions south of Toretsk, also in the Donetsk region, according to ISW. In remarks on July 18, U.S. Gen. Christopher Cavoli, who serves as the supreme allied commander for NATO, acknowledged that Ukrainian forces are being slowly pushed back, but insisted the country's overall military strategy is a good one, according to Politico. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán said in a letter to EU leadership that that on the basis of his recent discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the “general observation” was “that the intensity of the military conflict will radically escalate in the near future,” according to FT.
5. The failed attempt on Donald Trump’s life last weekend has elicited a roar of comments by Russian politicians, experts and journalists, with both pro- and anti-Kremlin figures seeing a significant boost for the ex-president’s electoral chances following the July 13 attack. “It was Trump that was being shot at, but it was Biden who got hit,” as Russian self-exiled liberal political scientist Boris Pastukhov put it. Experts on both sides of Russia’s political divide have also noted that the attempt on Trump’s life will contribute to the polarization of America, with some noting the Kremlin will benefit from this trend.   

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

Nuclear security and safety:

• Customs offices in Russia’s Rostov-on-Don and Murmansk port conducted drills to respond to the smuggling of nuclear materials in June 2024. Drill scenarios included the detection of radioactive material. In the Murmansk scenario, nuclear material was hidden under the cargo of mineral fertilizer with a high natural level of radioactivity. (Dmitry Kovchegin’s Nuclear Security Update, 07.15.24)
• Russia’s Baltic shipyard started construction on the new “nuclear service ship,” which is used to reload the fuel of nuclear-powered icebreakers and other surface ships and transport radioactive waste. (Dmitry Kovchegin’s Nuclear Security Update, 07.15.24)
• Power was restored across southern Russia on July 17 after a malfunction at a major nuclear plant the day before led to sweeping outages and emergency restrictions across the region. A power unit at the Rostov nuclear plant automatically shut down on July 16 afternoon due to a “false alarm” in the turbine generator’s safety system, according to state operator Rosenergoatom. (MT/AFP, 07.17.24)

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met with a Russian military delegation visiting Pyongyang in a sign of deepening security ties as tensions between the two Koreas escalated at their border. Kim received the group, led by Vice Minister of Defense Aleksey Krivoruchko, for discussions on military cooperation, in which the North Korean leader pledged Pyongyang’s support for Russia’s operations in Ukraine. (Bloomberg, 07.19.24)

Iran and its nuclear program:

• Iranian President-elect Masoud Pezeshkian published an article in the Tehran Times on July 12 in which he praised China and Russia for standing by Iran during "challenging times.” (ISW, 07.13.24)

Humanitarian impact of the Ukraine conflict:

• Russia and Ukraine exchanged a total of 190 prisoners in a swap mediated by the United Arab Emirates, the sixth such transfer this year. The Defense Ministry in Moscow said it handed over 95 Ukrainian prisoners and received 95 of its own military personnel. The UAE provided “humanitarian mediation” for the exchange. (Bloomberg, 07.17.24)
• Maxim Timchenko, CEO of DTEK, which runs most of Ukraine’s non-nuclear power plants, says that 90% of their generating capacity has been destroyed this year. Pretty much all that is left comes from nuclear power stations, which the Russians have refrained from attacking. (The Economist, 07.15.24)
• Germany will provide Ukraine with 10 million euros ($10.9 million) for the reconstruction of Ukraine's largest children's hospital, the Okhmatdyt, largely destroyed in a Russian missile strike on Kyiv on July 8, Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development Svenja Schulze said (RFE/RL, 07.17.24)
• For military strikes on civilian targets see the next section.

Military and security aspects of the Ukraine conflict and their impacts:

• In the past month, Russian forces have gained 61 square miles of Ukrainian territory, while Ukrainian forces have re-gained 15 square miles, according to the July 16, 2024, issue of the Russia-Ukraine War Report Card. (Belfer Russia-Ukraine War Task Force, 07.16.24)
• On July 13, Ukraine said Russian strikes killed 11 civilians in attacks in the east and south of the country. (RFE/RL, 07.14.24)
• On Julye 13, an oil depot caught fire in Russia's Rostov region after a Ukrainian drone attack. (RFE/RL, 07.13.24)
• On July 14, Russian forces pushed into Urozhaine after a “defense collapse” in that village in the eastern region of Donetsk in what became the latest in a series of slow but steady advances by the Russian army, according to NYT. Moreover, Russian forces are now less than four miles from Highway T0504, which, if taken, would lead to the isolation of the key town of Chasiv Yar, also in the Donetsk region. The situation is not all doom and gloom for Ukraine, however, as its troops have now managed to halt Russian assaults near the city of Kharkiv in the northeast, according to NYT. (RM, 07.15.24)
• On July 15, Russia downed 22 Ukrainian drones in the west of the country and over Crimea, Moscow's Defense Ministry said July 15. (MT/AFP, 07.15.24)
• On July 16, Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi reported that Ukrainian forces struck an S-300 position in occupied Donetsk Oblast and that Ukrainian forces have destroyed 20 S-300 launchers and 15 radar stations total in an unspecified time period. Syrskyi stated on July 16 that Ukrainian forces were systematically destroying Russia's air defense capabilities to set conditions for Ukraine's successful use of strike aircraft and noted that F-16s are arriving "soon." (ISW, 07.16.24)
• On July 16, authorities in southwestern Russia's Belgorod region, which borders Kharkiv, announced that civilian access to 14 Russian border villages would be restricted given the ongoing intensity of Ukrainian cross-border attacks. When asked on July 17 whether that decision signaled Russia's offensive on Kharkiv had failed, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: "No, it doesn't." (MT/AFP, 07.17.24)
• On July 17, Ukrainian military acknowledged its troops have lost a hard-won position in the village of Krynky on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River, near the southern city of Kherson, after months of bloody fighting to hold on to a piece of land in what some Ukrainian soldiers and military analysts have described as a futile operation. (NYT, 07.18.24)
  • Some 788 Ukrainian military personnel went missing during a defensive operation in the village of Krynky. (Meduza, 08.17.24)
  • ''From a military point of view, I find it difficult to find some grounds for this operation,'' said Emil Kastehelmi, a military analyst with the Finland-based Black Bird Group. ''Whatever the initial goals of the operation were, they have most likely not been met.'' (NYT, 07.19.24)
• On July 17, ISW reported that Ukrainian forces recently regained lost positions south of Toretsk amid continued Russian offensive operations in the Toretsk direction. (ISW, 07.17.24)
• On July 17, ISW reported that Russian forces recently advanced northwest of Avdiivka. Geolocated footage published on July 17 shows that Russian forces advanced to a windbreak north of Novooleksandrivka (northwest of Avdiivka). (ISW, 07.17.24)
• On July 17, a young couple was killed in a Ukrainian drone strike while driving in southwestern Russia’s Belgorod region. (MT/AFP, 07.17.24)
• On July 18, Russia's Defense Ministry said it had downed dozens of Ukrainian aerial and waterborne drones targeting the annexed Crimean peninsula in an overnight attack. "Air defense systems on duty destroyed and intercepted 33 aerial drones over ... Crimea," the ministry said. (MT/AFP, 07.18.24)
• On July 18, Ukraine’s OSINT group DeepState assessed that Russian forces have advanced near Stepova Novoselivka, Nevsky and Progress settlements. On July 19, Russian pro-war Telegram channels, such as Rybar, also claimed that Russian forces had captured Ivano-Dar'ivka in the Donetsk region, but this has not been confirmed by the Ukrainian side. (RM, 07.19.24)
• On July 19, a Russian missile strike on the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolayiv hit a playground, killing at least three people, including one child, Zelenskyy said. Russian shelling earlier on July 19 from across the Dnipro River killed an elderly woman in the settlement of Bilozerka in Ukraine's Kherson region, Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin said on Telegram. (RFE/RL, 07.19.24)
• Ukraine, now armed with American-made precision missiles, is for the first time capable of reaching every corner of Crimea—and the missiles are increasingly flying in both directions.  Ukraine’s campaign with the long-range version of the Army Tactical Missile Systems, known as ATACMS, appears meant to force the Kremlin to make difficult choices about where to deploy some of its most valuable air defenses to protect critical military infrastructure. (NYT, 07.13.24)
• Ukraine’s military will be deploying robots to fight against Russia within the next year, part of a strategy to deal with a shortage of readily available human combat troops, the country’s defense industry czar said. (FP, 07.17.24)
• As Ukraine prepares to ramp up military conscription to defend against Russia's invasion—after a key deadline to register with recruitment offices passed this week—some men are dodging the draft preemptively by paying thousands of dollars for help to illegally leave the country. Smugglers who assist with border crossings often charge more than $5,000, according to Ukrainian officials and men who have paid for the service. (WP, 07.17.24)
• The overwhelming majority of Ukrainian citizens - 66% - believe that the aggressor country Russia can be defeated by military means. This is evidenced by data from a survey by the Razumkov Center, conducted from June 20 to June 28, 2024, commissioned by ZN.UA. At the same time, 16% have the opposite opinion, and 18% are undecided. The western Ukraine, which is least ready to negotiate with Russia, believes most in victory by military means - 69%. The south doubts the military strength of Ukraine the most - 25% of residents in this region do not believe in military victory over the enemy. (Korrespondent.net, 07.16.24)
• Over the past 12 months, payments to Russian soldiers fighting and/or wounded and payments to families of Russian servicemen killed in action, amounted to approximately 2.75 to 3 trillion rubles, which equals 1.5% of GDP, according to Re: Russia’s estimates.  (Re: Russia, 07.16.24)
• Cubans are continuing to travel to Russia to join its war on Ukraine despite attempts by the government in Havana to clamp down on recruitment, according to a person familiar with the matter. (Bloomberg, 07.19.24)
• The Russian Federation recently lost its 100th T-90M Proryv tank, which Russian leader Vladimir Putin considers "the best." This was announced by the resource of OSINT combat researchers Oryx. (Korrespondent.net, 07.16.24)
• Satellite imagery collected on May 6 indicates that Russian forces have concentrated at least seven Pantsir-1 medium-range air defense systems around Putin's residence in Valdai, Leningrad Oblast. (ISW, 07.16.24)
• U.S. Gen. Christopher Cavoli, who heads U.S. European Command and serves as the supreme allied commander for NATO, told the annual Aspen Security Forum on July 18: 
  • Although Ukrainian forces are being slowly pushed back in some places along the front, the country's overall military strategy is a good one. “The Ukrainians right now for these past few months have been focused on defending what they have in the east, denying Russia the free use of Crimea and southern Ukraine to attack the rest of Ukraine, preserving their access to the Black Sea and generating force,” the U.S. general said. “I think that they’ve got a great strategy. It is just a matter of prosecuting it. The key part is the force generation,” Cavoli added in a speech at the U.S. security and foreign policy conference. (Politico, 07.19.24)
  • “Ukraine has challenges in how it uses its manpower. There’s a pool of people, who need to work in factories, fields and in military fighting. It is the job of the Ukrainian government to figure out what that balance is. They’ve recently extended the age of conscription, they’re bringing people in at a pretty good clip right now,” Cavoli said at the annual Aspen Security Forum July 18. (Politico, 07.19.24)

Military aid to Ukraine: 

• Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, Donald Trump’s newly chosen running mate, has been one of the leading opponents of U.S. support for Ukraine in the war with Russia. 
  • “I think it’s ridiculous that we’re focused on this border in Ukraine,” he said in a podcast interview with Steve Bannon, the former Trump adviser and longtime ally. “I’ve got to be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other.” 
  • Vance -- who led the battle in the Senate, unsuccessfully, to block a $60 billion military aid package for Ukraine -- told Bloomberg earlier this week that while Russia’s war in Ukraine is “tragic,” the U.S. “doesn’t have the interest to respond to every tragedy that exists in the world.” 
  • Vance has said he opposes sending weapons and money to Ukraine in part because he thinks it degrades the United States' ability to defend itself and meet its own industrial needs. "I do not think it is in America's interests to fund an effectively never-ending war in Ukraine," he said at the Quincy Institute. 
  • Vance has also told fellow senators in April that Putin "is not Adolf Hitler." (Bloomberg, 07.18.24, NYT, 07.15.24, WP, 07.18.24) For more on Vance’s views on the war in Ukraine, see his op-eds in FT and NYT.Vance did not mention either Russia or Ukraine in his speech at the Republican party convention when accepting the GOP vice-presidential nomination on July 17.
    • "Ukraine is in trouble," one senior European official told WSJ in reference to Trump's selection of Vance as his running mate on the first night of the Republican National Convention. (WSJ, 07.17.24) For more on Vance’s views on Ukraine and Russia, see the section on U.S.-Russia relations below.
• The European Commission will make a proposal on its part of a package of $50 billion of loans to support Ukraine “very soon” so as to meet a year-end deadline to complete legislative work, Economy Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni said. (Bloomberg, 07.16.24)
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said July 15 that Ukraine needs 25 Patriot missile defense systems. (RFE/RL, 07.15.24)
• Ukrainian state company Ukroboronservice will work with Czech gunmaker Sellier & Bellot to build an ammunition factory in Ukraine, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said July 16. (RFE/RL, 07.16.24)
• Ukraine received a first installment of 50,000 shells from the Czech Republic, some of which are already at the front. (Korrespondent.net, 07.16.24)
• Ukraine has signed security agreements with the Czech Republic and Slovenia. The signing of the documents took place in the U.K. (Korrespondent.net, 07.18.24)
• At the end of September, 2,100 Ukrainian troops, the equivalent of a French army brigade, will arrive in France for two months of combat training. (Korrespondent.net, 07.18.24)

Punitive measures related to Russia’s war against Ukraine and their impact globally:

• It has become very difficult or even impossible to make direct payments from China to Russia after the latest round of U.S. sanctions, even when using yuan, said top executives at three commodities exporters. (Bloomberg, 07.17.24)
  • Russia’s biggest miner MMC Norilsk Nickel PJSC is weighing several new projects in copper, nickel and palladium in China as sanctions make cross-border payments and shipments increasingly difficult. (Bloomberg, 07.18.24)
• According to data collected by the Kyiv School of Economics and analyzed by Armin Steinbach, a nonresident fellow at the Brussels-based think tank Bruegel, EU and U.S. companies have pulled out around 40% of their Russian assets since February 2022. Foreign assets worth around $194 billion are still in Russia. Of these assets, $32 billion worth are owned by U.S. companies, while $90 billion belong to European companies, the data showed. (FP, 07.12.24)
• The EU will transfer profits from Russian assets to Ukraine for the first time in July. Following the results of the first half of 2024, Euroclear received 3.4 billion euros in the form of interest income from investing blocked Russian assets. (Korrespondent.net, 07.19.24)
• Soon after Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022, freight shipper Hellmann Worldwide Logistics informed staff at its Moscow business it was pulling out of Russia. A Russian-registered firm called Heinrich Tapp Rus (HT Rus) - whose owners at the time included at least two former Hellmann employees - took over the relationship with many of Hellmann’s old clients. Using Russian tax documents for 2023 and 2024, and official corporate registries in Russia and Germany, Reuters found that HT Rus has been providing services to Russian clients placed under international sanctions for supporting the Kremlin's war machine. (Reuters, 07.16.24)
• The U.S. Justice Department said July 17 that a 52-year-old Russian man was sentenced to three years in prison for smuggling large quantities of American-made, military-grade microelectronics to Russia. Maksim Marchenko, who was arrested in September, pleaded guilty in a New York court in February to one count of money laundering and one count of smuggling goods from the United States. (RFE/RL, 07.18.24)
• Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab plans to gradually reduce its operations in the U.S. from July 20, the firm told state-run media on July 15. Kaspersky’s exit comes after the U.S. Commerce Department sanctioned the company in June, banning it from selling and updating its popular antivirus software in the country. (MT/AFP, 07.16.24)
• Finnish President Alexander Stubb on July 16 signed a controversial law allowing the country’s border guards to refuse entry to asylum seekers who cross over from Russia. (MT/AFP, 07.16.24)
• Lithuania will no longer allow passenger vehicles with Belarusian license plates to enter the country. (MT/AFP, 07.17.24)
• A Russian-German couple has been convicted by a court in Stuttgart, Germany, of supplying about 120,000 spare parts for Orlan-10 drones to Russia in violation of EU sanctions. (RFE/RL, 07.17.24)
• Authorities in Russia on July 18 added the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace to the country’s list of “undesirable” organizations. While the listing does not specify why the organization was added, it does cite a decision by Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office from July 1 to designate Carnegie as “undesirable.” (MT/AFP, 07.18.24)
• Authorities in Russia have called on Google to restore more than 200 pro-government YouTube channels that have been blocked since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. (MT/AFP, 07.16.24)
• Russian television will for the first time in 40 years not broadcast the Olympics due to the near-total absence of its athletes, the news outlet sports.ru has reported. (MT/AFP, 07.15.24)
  • More than half of the Russian and Belarusian athletes cleared to compete at the Paris Olympics have links to military agencies or showed support for the war in Ukraine, according to a Hague-based Global Rights Compliance. (Bloomberg, 07.18.24)
• To calculate how many Russian citizens not only left the country, but stayed to live abroad, the Bell contacted the migration and statistical authorities of almost 70 countries. For their calculations, they used data provided in response to the requests, official published figures and statements by officials and diplomats. Based on these data, it turned out that since the beginning of 2022, about 650,000 people have left Russia. As expected, visa-free destinations such as Armenia (110,000 people), Kazakhstan (80,000) and Georgia (74,000) were among the leading countries in terms of the number of Russians who moved there. (The Bell, 07.16.24)

For sanctions on the energy sector, please see section “Energy exports from CIS” below.

Ukraine-related negotiations: 

• Ukraine may end the hot stage of the war. It could happen by the end of 2024, says Zelenskyy in an interview with the BBC. “I believe that if we are united and follow, for example, the format of a peace summit, we can end the hot stage of the war. We can try to do that by the end of this year. The plan will be ready. If it leads to the end of the hot stage of the war, it will be very right and very powerful,” he said. “It doesn’t mean that all territories are won back by force. I think the power of diplomacy can help. By putting pressure on Russia, I think it is possible to agree to a diplomatic settlement,” he said. (RBC.ua, 07.19.24)
• Zelenskyy has outlined three steps he is aiming to take to prepare a peace plan that can be ready before the end of the year to allow a second international peace summit that would include officials from Russia. Speaking at a news conference on July 15 following his trip to the United States for the NATO summit, Zelenskyy said a meeting, most likely to be held in Qatar at the end of the month or in early August, would aim to resolve questions and prepare a plan around energy security. That would be followed later in August by a meeting in Turkey to agree on a "fully developed" plan for food security, Zelenskyy said, with a third meeting, to be held in Canada in September, is intended to create a plan on the exchange of prisoners and the return of children taken from Ukraine to Russia. (RFE/RL, 07.15.24)
  • The Russian Foreign Ministry rejected participating in the second summit, according to the Kyiv Independent. According to MT/AFP, however, the Kremlin on July 16 gave a cautious response to Zelenskyy's apparent invitation to a future peace summit, saying that Russia first needs to understand what Kyiv means before attending talks. (RM, 07.19.24)
• State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said: “Any decisions around diplomatic negotiations are decisions that Ukraine has to make, not the United States, not any other country that’s not party to the conflict. ... [O]ur position with respect to negotiations hasn’t changed. And that’s when – if and when Ukraine is ready to pursue either direct negotiations or direct diplomacy or some other form of diplomacy, we will support them in that decision. ... We want it to be a just peace – not just any peace but a just peace and a lasting peace – and so we’ll support Ukraine in the decisions that they make to try to achieve that just peace.” (State.gov, 07.15.24)
• Trump will quickly demand peace talks between Russia and Ukraine if he wins November’s U.S. presidential election, and he has developed “well-founded plans” for doing so, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán has claimed after private discussions with the Republican candidate. That prospect means the EU should reopen direct diplomatic communication with Russia and start “high-level” negotiations with China to find a peaceful solution to the war in Ukraine, the Hungarian prime minister said in a private letter to EU leaders. Orbán also said in the letter that on the basis of his recent discussions with Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Zelenskyy, the “general observation” was “that the intensity of the military conflict will radically escalate in the near future.” (FT, 07.16.24)
• A former Trump administration ambassador who could take a top role in a second term advocated a Ukraine peace deal that he said would preserve the country’s territory but allow for autonomous zones. Richard Grenell, who was Trump’s ambassador to Germany and acting director of national intelligence, said: “Autonomous regions can mean a lot of things to a lot of people, but you got to work through those details.” (Bloomberg, 07.15.24)
• Prime Minister Viktor Orban said he will continue his self-styled “peace mission” despite criticism from the European Union that he overstepped his nation’s role as the holder of the bloc’s rotating presidency. (Bloomberg, 07.19.24)
  • Speaking at a gathering of European leaders in the U.K. on July 18, Zelenskyy said of Orban: “If someone wants to make some trips to the capital of war, to talk and perhaps promise something against our common interests, or at the expense of Ukraine or other countries, then why should we consider such a person?” (FT, 07.18.24)
• Ukraine’s Razumkov Center polled Ukrainians for the Dzerkalo Tyzhnya news outlet and published the results of that poll July 15. Some 44% of the respondents believe the time has come for official peace talks with Russia, while another 35% think it has not. Some 21% of respondents are undecided on the issue. More than 82% of respondents reject Putin’s demands that Ukraine withdraw troops from the parts of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions Kyiv controls and that Ukraine recognize these regions as parts of Russia. Some 77% of respondents reject Russia’s demand that all Western sanctions on Russia be lifted, while almost 59% reject the demand that Ukraine’s status as a country that is neutral and free of nuclear weapons be codified in its constitution. (RM, 07.18.14)

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

• U.S. Gen. Christopher Cavoli, who heads U.S. European Command and serves as the supreme allied commander for NATO, told the annual Aspen Security Forum on July 18: 
  • “The outcome on the ground [in Ukraine] is terribly, terribly important ... But we can't be under any illusions ... At the end of a conflict in Ukraine, however it concludes, we are going to have a very, very big Russia problem. ... We are going to have a situation where Russia is reconstituting its force, is located on the borders of NATO, is led by largely the same people as it is right now, is convinced that we're the adversary, and is very, very angry." (VoA, 07.18.24)
  • Russia launched its second invasion of its Ukrainian neighbor, and that force-generating process was instantly outdated. NATO had to focus — once again — on collective territorial defense. "We need standing forces, and at standing levels of readiness, geographically focused on specific areas," Cavoli said at the annual Aspen Security Forum July 18. "So, we wrote … operational plans to do this." These plans are for northwest Europe, the center of Europe and in southeast Europe, and they are "classical plans that describe how to defend a certain piece of geography, with what forces and what methods," the general said. "This has led to a huge raft of advances that we're working on in NATO right now." (Defense.gov, 07.18.24)
• Trump said in his 2024 GOP convention speech on July 18:
  • “I will end every single international crisis that the current administration has created, including the horrible war with Russia and Ukraine, which would have never happened if I was president.” “Under President Bush, Russia invaded Georgia. Under President Obama, Russia took Crimea. Under the current administration, Russia is after all of Ukraine. Under President Trump, Russia took nothing.” (NYT, 07.19.24)
  • “Emboldened by that disaster [in Afghanistan], Russia invaded Ukraine.” (NYT, 07.19.24) In his speech on July 18 at the Republican National Convention, Trump referred to Russia nine times and to Ukraine three times. In comparison, he didn’t mention either in his 2020 convention speech.
• U.S. intelligence agencies are warning that Russia might arm Houthi militants in Yemen with advanced antiship missiles in retaliation for the Biden administration's support for Ukrainian strikes inside Russia with U.S. weapons. The White House has launched a confidential push to try to stop Moscow from delivering the missiles to the Iranian-backed Houthis. The administration's diplomatic effort to head off Moscow's transfer of missiles to Yemen involves using a third country to try to persuade Putin not to join Iran in providing weapons to the Houthis, according to U.S. officials, who declined to identify the country. (WSJ, 07.19.24)
• NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced that NATO will open a command center in Germany to oversee and coordinate NATO's military assistance and training projects that support the Ukrainian Armed Forces and that the command center will be operational in September 2024. Stoltenberg stated that 700 personnel will staff the command center and help coordinate NATO member states' support for Ukraine. (ISW, 07.18.24)
• The Kremlin said it views the results of last week’s NATO summit as “threatening” for Russia and signaling no grounds to start talks to end the war in Ukraine. “The alliance is demonstrating its determination to remain an enemy for us,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. (Bloomberg, 07.14.24)
• More than 45 European leaders, including Zelenskyy, met in England on July 18 at the European Political Community summit. “We will face down aggression on this continent together because the threat from Russia reaches right across Europe,” said Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, as he opened the summit while sitting alongside Zelenskyy. (NYT, 07.18.24)
  • Zelenskyy briefed Keir Starmer’s top team in an appearance designed to showcase Britain’s steadfast support for Ukraine in its war against Russia. Zelenskyy became the first foreign leader to attend Britain’s cabinet meeting in person since former U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1997. (NYT, 07.18.24)
  • Dr. Fiona Hill has been appointed by Starmer and Defence Secretary John Healey to co-lead a major Strategic Defense Review of the U.K. Armed Forces. The review will focus on several key areas, including ensuring the U.K.’s continued leadership in NATO, strengthening homeland security, supporting Ukraine against Russian aggression, modernizing and maintaining the nuclear deterrent and adapting military services and equipment programs to meet new challenges. (Durham University, 07.16.24)
• Norway’s prime minister said he doesn’t see any U.S. president pulling its support for Ukraine or abandoning NATO as the defense alliance benefits all its members. “I will not accept the prediction that that will happen,” Premier Jonas Gahr Store said. (Bloomberg, 07.18.24)
• Stoltenberg announced on July 17 that Patrick Turner has been appointed to lead the NATO Representation in Ukraine (NRU). A strong supporter of Ukraine, Turner served in the British Defense Ministry before becoming NATO assistant secretary-general for defense policy and planning from 2018 to 2022. (RFE/RL, 07.17.24)
• Two-and-a-half years after Chancellor Olaf Scholz vowed to overhaul Germany's military, his government's proposed budget for 2025 calls for only a modest increase in defense spending. To live up to that pledge, Boris Pistorius, Germany's defense minister, had asked for an increase of 6.7 billion, or $7.3 billion, over the 52 billion euros, or nearly $57 billion, in this year's budget. He was given only 1.2 billion. (NYT, 07.19.24)
• European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced on July 18 that she hopes to launch a "European Defense Union" during her second term to help address cross-border threats within the EU, beginning with new "European Air Shield" and cyber defense programs. (ISW, 07.18.24)

China-Russia: Allied or aligned?

• Chinese and Russian naval forces began joint drills in the sea off southern China on July 14. China's Defense Ministry said in a brief statement that forces from both sides recently patrolled the western and northern Pacific Ocean and that the operation had nothing to do with international and regional situations and didn't target any third party. Xinhua reported that Chinese and Russian naval forces carried out on-map military simulation and tactical coordination exercises. (RFE/RL, 07.14.24)
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov claimed at a press conference at the U.N. on July 17 that Russia and China are advocating within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Gulf Cooperation Council for the creation of a Eurasian security architecture. (ISW, 07.18.24)

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms:

• Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev said: “We have the moral and legal right to give an adequate, symmetrical or asymmetrical response to direct damage to our security and sovereignty. This is established, among other things, in our Fundamentals of State Policy in the Field of Nuclear Deterrence.” (AiF, 07.17.24) Top Russian officials continue to claim that damage to Russia's sovereignty constitutes a clause for first use of nuclear weapons codified in Russian strategic documents, even though neither Russia's 2014 Military Doctrine nor its 2020 Basic Principles of State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence explicitly refer to such a clause. The latest such claim by Medvedev constitutes another piece of evidence that Russian strategists could be, indeed, busy revising Russian doctrinal documents to lower the threshold for use of nukes.
• Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov did not rule out that Moscow could deploy missiles, including those in a “nuclear equipment,” in response to the deployment of American weapons in Germany. “I do not exclude any options,” Interfax quoted him as saying. Ryabkov did not specify where and what kind of missiles could be deployed. (Meduza, 07.18.24)

Counterterrorism:

• Russia’s FSB said July 19 that it thwarted an attempted terrorist attack at a bus station in the southern Stavropol region. The law enforcement agency said it detained a man who had purchased supplies to make an improvised explosive device, which he allegedly stored in a garage in the city of Yessentuki. Authorities did not reveal the man’s identity, saying only that he was from an unspecified country in Central Asia. In an interrogation video, the man said he had joined the Islamic State and planned to carry out a terrorist act “on its orders.” (MT/AFP, 07.19.24)
• Russia's FSB said on July 18 that a court in the Siberian region of Altai Krai sentenced a 20-year-old university student to nine years in prison for sending a parcel with medicines to the Islamic State in Syria. (RFE/RL, 07.18.24)

Conflict in Syria:

• No significant developments.

Cyber security/AI: 

• The United States designated Yuliya Vladimirovna Pankratova (Pankratova) and Denis Olegovich Degtyarenko (Degtyarenko), two members of the Russian hacktivist group Cyber Army of Russia Reborn (CARR) for their roles in cyber operations against U.S. critical infrastructure.  (Treasury.gov, 07.19.24)
• The U.S. is about to deploy a new ground-based jammer designed to blunt Chinese or Russian satellites from transmitting information about U.S. forces during a conflict, the Space Force disclosed. (Bloomberg, 07.19.24)
• Russia’s Digital Communications Ministry said July 19 that airlines and banks in the country did not appear to have been impacted by a widespread Microsoft outage that has disrupted flights and business across the globe, touting Moscow’s measures against Western sanctions as a shield from the digital disarray. (MT/AFP, 07.19.24)
• Two Russian nationals pleaded guilty to their roles in ransomware attacks in the U.S., Asia, Europe and Africa for a notorious hacking gang known as LockBit. Ruslan Astamirov and Mikhail Vasiliev admitted they helped to deploy the ransomware variant, which first appeared in 2020. (Bloomberg, 07.19.24)
• Finland-based cybersecurity firm WithSecure has warned that the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics "faces a greater risk of malicious cyber activity than previous Olympics." In a report on July 15, the company's director of threat intelligence predicted that “Hacktivists aligned with states that are pro-Russia will almost certainly try to disrupt the Olympics in some way." The report lists "threat actors" in four categories: Russian, Chinese, Iranian and North Korean, and speculates as to their intentions and capabilities. (RFE/RL, 07.15.24)
• The co-founder of Russian tech group Yandex is launching an artificial intelligence venture in Europe mostly staffed with the company’s former employees after its parent this week concluded a deal to exit the country. Arkady Volozh, one of only two prominent Russian businessmen to condemn Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, will head up Nebius Group, an AI infrastructure company and formerly Yandex’s Nasdaq-listed, Netherlands-based parent company. (FT, 07.17.24)

Energy exports from CIS:

• Russia’s four-week average seaborne oil exports, which mainly go to India and China, fell to 3.11 million barrels a day as of July 14, down by almost 600,000 barrels a day from their recent peak in April. (Bloomberg, 07.19.24)
• Russian energy export revenues before the war were about 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) a day, and the whole gamut of sanctions had brought that down to about 660 million euros ($720 million) by this June—but those levels have stayed remarkably steady for the past 18 months. Russia recorded a rare current accounts surplus just last month, a sign of that export health. The sanctions battle, like the war itself, seems to have stalemated. (FP, 07.18.24)
• The U.K. placed sanctions on 11 more oil tankers that are helping Russia to export its supplies to customers, including some that are part of a shadow-fleet. Eight are owned by Russia’s state-run oil tanker business, Sovcomflot PJSC, while three others bear the hallmarks of shadow-fleet vessels, according to an updated sanctions list. (Bloomberg, 07.18.24)
  • About four out of every five barrels of seaborne crude that Russia sells are now carried on shadow tankers. (FP, 07.18.24)
  • There remain some 100-odd unsanctioned ships in the Sovcomflot state-owned fleet that are doing heavy lifting for Russian oil exports. Targeted sanctions on just 15 of the busiest of those tankers would cut into a good-sized chunk of Russia’s oil export earnings with little market impact. (FP, 07.18.24)
• Greece is again extending the naval drills that have largely deterred transfers of Russian oil near its coastline and forced them to other hubs across the world. The activity in the Bay of Laconia, due to end July 15, will continue for two more months — the longest extension to date, according to a notice from the Hellenic Navy Hydrographic Service. (Bloomberg, 07.15.24)
• Oil deliveries to Hungary and Slovakia from Russian oil giant Lukoil have come to a halt due to Ukrainian sanctions, media reported July 18. (MT/AFP, 07.18.24)
• Russian gas is sneaking back into Europe in liquefied form, supercooled and shipped on tankers rather than compressed and routed through pipelines. European Union imports of Russian liquefied natural gas, or LNG, are up 24 % over past year, especially to big Western European countries such as France, Spain and Belgium; the bloc buys half of all Russian LNG exports. (FP, 07.18.24)
• Data compiled by investigative consultancy Data Desk and the Anti-Corruption Data Collective show that public retirement funds, including those managed by the states of Washington, New York and California, have indirectly invested in the specialized ice-class carriers serving Russia’s Yamal LNG. (Bloomberg, 07.19.24)
• Russia’s state-owned Rosatom Corp. is “ahead” in a bid to build Turkey’s second nuclear power plant, in the latest sign of Ankara’s growing energy ties with Moscow. Rosatom already has experience in Turkey’s nuclear sector, starting commissioning work at the nation’s first atomic plant in Akkuyu in April. (Bloomberg, 07.16.24)

Climate change:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

• The failed attempt on Donald Trump’s life has elicited a roar of comments by Russian politicians, experts and journalists, with both pro- and anti-Kremlin figures seeing a significant boost for the ex-president’s electoral chances following the July 13 attack. “It was Trump that was being shot at, but it was Biden who got hit,” as Russian self-exiled liberal political scientist Boris Pastukhov put it. Experts on both sides of Russia’s political divide have also noted that the attempt on Trump’s life will contribute to the polarization of America, with some noting the Kremlin will benefit from this trend. Commenting on Trump’s survival, one pro-Kremlin writer wondered if the heavens intervened to save the ex-president. 
  • Dmitry Drize of the Kommersant publishing house, which is owned by a pro-Putin billionaire, wrote: “In general, the situation is truly alarming; many, again, outside observers draw parallels with the events of a hundred years ago, when Archduke Franz Ferdinand was killed. What happened next is well known, and I don’t want something like that to happen again. But, on the other hand, it is very likely that this very thing has already happened, that is, we are living in conditions of a big war.” “If we discard the staging version, the ex-president was a few millimeters from imminent death. Could it be that higher powers intervened?” Drize asked. (Kommersant Radio, 07.15.24)
  • Dmitry Medvedev, Putin’s deputy at the Russian Security Council, wrote of Trump: “Now he has already won. If they don't kill him.” (RBC.ru., 07.15.24)
  • Boris Pastukhov, a Russian self-exiled liberal political scientist, wrote: “It was Trump that was being shot at, but it was Biden who got hit. A couple of centimeters to one side of Trump’s ear separated Biden from victory. These same couple of centimeters in the other direction now brought him closer to almost inevitable defeat. Carried away from the stage by Secret Service agents, Trump, in whom the political animal never sleeps, managed to wriggle out and create a picture that Biden could not defeat.” (Pastukhov’s Telegram channel/Republic.ru, 07.15.24
  • Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesman, said the U.S. administration “prefers to resolve all issues from a position of strength,” including the “use of force” in international affairs, and “now this violence has spilled inside the country.” The Kremlin condemned the attack and wished speedy recoveries to the injured. Peskov said Putin has no plans to call Trump after the shooting. (WP, 07.14.24)
  • “For obvious reasons, [Putin’s] security has already been boosted regardless of aforementioned events,” Peskov said, replying to a question on the necessity to increase measures on Putin’s protection following attempts on the lives of ex-U.S. President Donald Trump and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico. “The protection of the head of state is ensured at an appropriate level, everything necessary is being done, considering, of course, the international escalation of tensions in general,” the Kremlin official stressed. (TASS, 07.15.24)
  • Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin wrote in a Telegram post entitled “Who and what is behind the assassination attempt on Trump”: “Through its many years of policy, the U.S. has reached the brink of civil war. ... Political opponents in the U.S. and Europe are using an agitated and divided society for their own vested and selfish interests. This is unacceptable. Fundamental changes are needed in the domestic and foreign policies of Washington and Brussels. Otherwise, the West will face big problems.” (Volodin’s Telegram channel, 07.14.24)
  • Maria Zakharova, Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson, said: “This is not only a manifestation of the internal political life of the U.S., but it is also a tradition... There are dozens of such crimes against American presidents and presidential candidates.” (Republic.ru, 07.15.24)
  • Russian online retailers Ozon and Wildberries have begun to sell T-shirts with the image of Trump stained with blood after the assassination attempt. “An oversized t-shirt with the ‘attempt on Donald Trump’s life’ print,” a description of a goods card on Wildberries indicates. All the sizes are available for a 2,000-rubles ($22.8) t-shirt made of cotton and polyester. (TASS, 07.15.24)
  • On July 17, Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov of Russia signaled support for Vance. Mr. Vance is “in favor of peace, in favor of ending the assistance that’s being provided,” Mr. Lavrov said during a news conference following a U.N. Security Council meeting on the Middle East conflict. “And we can only welcome that because that’s what we need — to stop pumping Ukraine full of weapons. And then the war will end, and then we can look for solutions.” (NYT, 07.18.24)
    • “There were many hopes in the first term of the Trump presidency,” said Ivan Timofeev, director general of the Russian International Affairs Council, a research group close to the Russian government. “But even back then, Trump wasn’t able to turn the relationship around.” (NYT, 07.19.24)
• A Russian court has convicted WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich of espionage and sentenced him to 16 years in a high-security penal colony, in a potential prelude to his release in a prisoner exchange. The Sverdlovsky regional court’s verdict on July 19 brought an abrupt end to an unusually rapid trial for Gershkovich, the first U.S. reporter arrested for spying in Russia since the Cold War. (FT, 07.19.24)
  • U.S. President Joe Biden said Gershkovich did not commit any crime and has been wrongfully detained. "We are pushing hard for Evan's release and will continue to do so," Biden said in a statement. "Journalism is not a crime." Newly elected U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer called for Gershkovich’s immediate release and described the sentence as despicable, serving “to underscore Russia’s utter contempt for media freedom.” Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign-policy chief, said the bloc strongly condemned the sentence. (Reuters, 07.19.24, WSJ, 07.19.24)
• A Moscow court on July 15 sentenced Russian-American journalist, writer, and outspoken Kremlin critic Masha Gessen to eight years in prison on a charge of distributing “false” information about Russia’s military. The charge stemmed from Gessen’s interview with Russian journalist Yury Dud about alleged atrocities committed by Russian troops against civilians in Ukraine. (RFE/RL, 07.15.24)
• A Russian court sentenced a U.S. citizen to 13 years in prison for attempting to sell narcotics, the latest in a series of cases against Americans. Michael Travis Leake was found guilty of attempting to sell drugs on a large scale. (Bloomberg, 07.18.24)
• A U.S. citizen jailed in Russia for kicking a police officer two years ago has complained of being tortured by his fellow inmates, local state-run media reported on July 15. Robert Gilman, 30, was sentenced to four years and six months in Russian prison for allegedly kicking a law enforcement officer in October 2022, a sentence that was reduced to three and a half years following an appeal. (MT/AFP, 07.15.24)

• The U.S. has handed a three-year prison sentence to a Russian businessman who admitted to smuggling military-grade electronics to Russia, the U.S. Justice Department announced July 17. Maxim Marchenko, who lived and operated several companies in Hong Kong, was arrested in September and pleaded guilty to smuggling and money laundering in a New York court in March. (MT/AFP, 07.18.24)

• Tara Reade, the U.S. woman who moved to Russia after accusing President Joe Biden of sexual assault, said she has returned to the U.S. to press charges against the incumbent running for re-election. (MT/AFP, 07.15.24) 

II. Russia’s domestic policies 

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

• Analysts polled by the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) in its July macroeconomic survey have again upgraded their outlook on the key rate, inflation and the country’s GDP growth, according to the regulator’s website. The main takeaways are inflation will come in at 6.5%, higher than the previous estimate of 5.6%, and that growth this year will be stronger at 3.2%, more than the 2.8% previously forecast, but less than the 3.6% growth last year. (BNE, 07.18.24)
• Thanks to increased defense spending, industrial output was up in almost 60% of Russian regions by the end of 2023. Chuvashia recorded the second-highest rate, with its factories producing 27% more than the year before, local data shows. (FT, 07.14.24)
• Putin warned on Wednesday that unregulated cryptocurrency mining risks overloading Russia’s electrical grid and causing widespread power outages. Russia’s Energy Ministry estimates that crypto mining consumes, on average, 16 billion kilowatt-hours per year — or almost 1.5% of Russia’s total electricity consumption. (MT/AFP, 07.17.24)
• Putin has signed into law a bill that bans members of parliament from leaving the country without permission, a move likely aimed at curtailing dissent among the country’s elite over his struggling invasion of Ukraine. (RFE/RL, 07.14.24)
• Russia is developing legislation that would ban child adoption by citizens of countries that recognize the right to change gender. (RFE/RL, 07.14.24)
• A Moscow court on July 15 sentenced self-exiled former municipal lawmaker Yelena Kotyonochkina to 7 1/2 years in prison in absentia on a charge of distributing false information about Russia's military. (RFE/RL, 07.15.24)
• A Moscow court on July 16 sentenced self-exiled former lawyer Mark Feigin to 11 years in prison in absentia on a charge of distributing “false” information about Russia’s military. Feigin is an outspoken Kremlin critic who has openly condemned Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine. (RFE/RL, 07.16.24)
• Authorities in Russia have issued an arrest warrant for exiled investigative journalist Andrei Zakharov, the independent news website Mediazona reported Wednesday, citing the Interior Ministry’s database of wanted persons. The database does not specify what criminal charges Zakharov faces, but Mediazona noted that he was previously charged with failing to comply with Russia’s “foreign agent” labeling rules. (MT/AFP, 07.17.24)
• A Russian court on July 18 sentenced Ilshat Ulyabayev -- a supporter of imprisoned Bashkir activist Fail Alsynov -- to five years in prison on charges of participating in mass unrest and attacking a police officer. (RFE/RL, 07.18.24)
• The Russian Interior Ministry on July 18 added journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva to its wanted list on unspecified charges. Prokopyeva left Russia for Latvia in March 2022 after police brutally forced her to a police station and questioned her in a case of allegedly spreading lies about the regional governor of Pskov. (RFE/RL, 07.18.24)
• Russia’s Justice Ministry has added blogger Daria Bogdanova and the VChK-OGPU (Russian Crime Project) Telegram channel to its “foreign agents” register. (RFE/RL, 07.13.24)
• Authorities in Russia on July 19 designated pianist Yevgeny Kissin, Apostolic Orthodox Church priest Grigory Mikhnov-Vaytenko, ex-KGB officer Yuri Shvets and Dmitry Tsibirevas, a former coordinator for the late Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, as “foreign agents,” the latest update to Moscow’s burgeoning list of individuals it deems as enemies of the state. (MT/AFP, 07.19.24)
• Olesya Krivtsova, a university student who fled Russia last year to evade prosecution for criticizing the war in Ukraine, said on July 15 that the Russian authorities canceled her internal passport. (MT/AFP, 07.16.24)
• Russia’s Investigative Committee said on July 16 it had launched an investigation into environmentalist Yevgenia Chirikova on a charge of distributing false information about Russia’s military. (RFE/RL, 07.16.24)
• A court in Russia's Tatarstan region on July 16 fined feminist activist Dina Nurm and her partner, Anastasia Goncharenko, 100,000 rubles ($1,130) each for “propagating LGBT relations.” (RFE/RL, 07.17.24)
• A tenth of all Russians would believe that extra-terrestrials had visited the planet if it were officially announced by Putin, according to a survey conducted by Rambler&Co asked 116,000 Russians about their views about aliens. (BNE, 07.18.24)

Defense and aerospace:

• Russia’s State Statistics Service has excluded the total number of deaths from external causes in its annual report, Meduza reported, citing demographic expert Aleksei Rashka. Russia has historically broken down annual deaths caused by illness from those caused by external factors like murder and suicide. Experts would have been able to use that data to extrapolate the number of Russians killed in the invasion of Ukraine, something the Kremlin has refused to disclose. (RFE/RL, 07.16.24)
• See section Military aspects of the Ukraine conflict and their impacts above.

Security, law-enforcement, justice and emergencies:

• A detained Russian businessman and a Russian military official who were reportedly connected to detained former Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov recently died on the same day. Russian media reported that Igor Kotelnikov, a businessman accused of bribing senior officials in the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD), died of heart failure in a detention facility in Moscow on July 8. (ISW, 07.13.24)
• A military court in Moscow ruled on July 15 to transfer jailed Major General Ivan Popov from pretrial detention to house arrest. The 49-year-old Popov, the former commander of Russia’s 58th Army who once complained about his forces’ lack of support from Moscow, was arrested in May on fraud charges. (RFE/RL, 07.15.24)
• A Moscow court late on July 17 sent Aleksandr Kibovsky, a former member of the Moscow municipal government, to pretrial detention for at least two months on charges of fraud and bribe-taking. Investigators allege Kibovsky accepted more than 100 million rubles ($1.1 million) in bribes while serving as the chief of Moscow's Culture Department between 2015 and 2023 (RFE/RL, 07.18.24)
• Russian investigators said July 19 that they have launched a criminal probe into “attempted murder” following an assault on a federal lawmaker. Mikhail Matveyev, a Communist Party member of Russia’s lower house, the State Duma, said Thursday he had been attacked by “migrants” while attempting to stop them from harassing a passerby in the southern city of Samara. (MT/AFP, 07.19.24)

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

Russia’s external policies, including relations with “far abroad” countries:

• Lavrov met with Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto on the sidelines of the U.N. on July 16 and amplified standard Kremlin narratives about the war in Ukraine, condemned Ukraine’s supposed human rights violations against its “national minorities,” and reiterated that Russian–Hungarian relations will continue to develop. (ISW, 07.17.24)
• European commissioners will boycott informal meetings held by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and instead will send lower-level bureaucrats for the duration of Budapest's six-month rotating presidency of the E.U., the European Commission announced after Orban’s unsanctioned meetings with Russian and Chinese leaders Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. (RFE/RL, 07.16.24)
• Mumbai-based English-language outlet, the Economic Times, reported on July 16 that the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) recently summoned the Ukrainian Ambassador to India and “raised an issue” with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s criticism of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s July 8–9 visit to Russia. (ISW, 07.17.24)
• Journalists at the London Evening Standard have asked senior managers to take a pay cut as bosses prepare to eliminate jobs and stop printing the nearly 200-year-old title’s daily newspaper. The paper, controlled by Russia-born tycoon Evgeny Lebedev, announced in May that it would switch to a weekly print edition following a tough period for free U.K. newspapers. (Bloomberg, 07.18.24)

Ukraine:

• Zelenskyy, whose relationship with Mr. Trump got off to an awkward start after the 2019 phone call that led to then-President Trump’s first impeachment, declared himself “appalled” and said: “Never should violence prevail,” adding, “I wish America emerges stronger from this.” (NYT, 07.14.24)
  • “There are hawks whose messages are more right-wing or more radical,” Zelenskyy said on July 15. “But I want to tell you that the majority of the Republican Party supports Ukraine and the people of Ukraine.” (RFE/RL, 07.15.24)
  • Trump and Zelenskyy have scheduled a phone call on July 19, according to two sources familiar with the plans. (CNN, 07.19.24)
• Zelenskyy said he’s considering a cabinet overhaul as the war-battered nation confronts the fallout of its energy system and slow deliveries to the front line. “We are talking about cabinet replacements,” Zelenskyy told reporters in Kyiv on July 15. He declined to elaborate amid widespread speculation that he may swap out Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal. (Bloomberg, 07.15.24)
• Ukraine and its international bondholders started a new round of official talks on restructuring more than $20 billion of debt as Kyiv is running out of time to reach an agreement or face the risk of a potential default. The east European nation, fighting against Russian aggression, is under pressure to agree a debt overhaul with its creditors as a freeze on payments — agreed two years ago after Moscow’s full-scale invasion — is set to expire on Aug. 1. Ukraine plans to adopt a law allowing the government to impose a moratorium on foreign debt payments as the country and its international creditors wrangle over terms for restructuring more than $20 billion in bonds. (Bloomberg, 07.18.24, Bloomberg, 07.18.24)
• The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved changes to the state budget to increase the expenditure side of the budget by UAH 500.3 billion ($12 billion), of which UAH 495.3 billion will be allocated to the needs of the security and defense sector. (Korrespondent.net, 07.18.24)
• Ukraine detained 30 officials nationwide over alleged embezzlement of funds earmarked for the state’s defense, as Kyiv struggles to assure Western donors that it’s properly using assistance. Those detained are suspects in an investigation into misappropriation of more than UAH 138 million ($3.3 million), Ukraine’s prosecutor general’s office said in a statement on its website. The probe found misuse of funds that had been budgeted for the purchase of various goods, including lumber, electricity, natural gas, furniture and services for the army’s needs, the prosecutor’s office said. (Bloomberg, 07.19.24)
• An unidentified person opened fire on Iryna Farion, a far-right Ukrainian former lawmaker and linguist, in the city of Lviv on July 19, Ukrainian officials reported. A 60-year-old woman was hospitalized with a gunshot injury to the head, according to Ukraine's National Police. Her condition is "extremely serious," the prosecutors said. (Kyiv Independent, 07.19.24)
• The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine has passed a bill in the first reading that proposes allowing corrupt officials to buy their way out of punishment by paying a fine. (RBK-Ukraine, 07.18.24)
• Ukraine’s seaports authority warned shipowners not to rely on a key navigation tool, as satellite communication systems are increasingly being disrupted in the Black Sea. (Bloomberg, 07.19.24)
• Most of Ukraine is experiencing unusually hot summer weather, with temperatures reaching 104 degrees Fahrenheit, or 40 degrees Celsius. It has strained an already hobbled grid, as residents turn on air-conditioners and food businesses use more electricity to cool products. Ukrenergo, the country’s national electricity operator, said on July 15 that current consumption largely exceeds Ukraine’s generating capacity. (NYT, 07.17.24)

Russia’s other post-Soviet neighbors:

• The Turkmen Foreign Ministry has strongly denounced the attempted assassination of Trump, the ministry said. (Orient.tm, 07.15.24)
• U.S. federal authorities have charged the suspected leader of an Eastern European-based neo-Nazi group with harboring plans to have an associate dress up as Santa Claus and hand out candy laced with poison to Jewish and minority children in New York City. Michail Chkhikvishvili, a Georgian national in his early 20s, was indicted on four charges, the Justice Department said. (WP, 07.17.24)
• The U.S. continues efforts to build out a partnership with Armenia, sparking critical reactions from Kremlin officials. U.S. Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights Uzra Zeya traveled to Yerevan, Armenia, on July 13 and announced that the U.S. has allocated roughly $16 million to the formation of a patrol police force in Armenia and is working with Armenia to pursue law enforcement reforms. Zeya also highlighted the joint U.S.–Armenian “Eagle Partner” military exercise, which began on July 16, and confirmed that a U.S. Army resident advisor will soon be attached to the Armenia Ministry of Defense (ISW, 07.18.24) 
• The Vyasna human rights group said on July 19 that the Minsk regional court sentenced German citizen Rico Krieger to death on June 24 on charges of being a mercenary, terrorism, creating an extremist group, intentionally damaging a vehicle, and illegal operations with firearms and explosives. (RFE/RL, 07.19.24)
• Russian ally Belarus has allowed visitors from 35 European countries visa-free access to its territory via land border crossings as the country’s president, Alexander Lukashenko, attempts to strike a friendlier tone in the face of growing tensions with Western neighbors. (Bloomberg, 07.17.24)

IV. Quotable and notable

• “Putin’s strategic calculus is built on this: at some point, Americans will get tired,” said Dmitry Trenin, who now teaches at a Moscow university and described Russia’s war aims as “completely appropriate.” (NYT, 07.19.24)

The cutoff for reports summarized in this product was 11:00 am East Coast time on the day it was distributed.

*Here and elsewhere, the italicized text indicates comments by RM staff and associates. These comments do not constitute an RM editorial policy.

Slider photo by AP Photo/Evan Vucci.