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

Nuclear security and safety:

• The House approved on July 27 a bundle of spending bills. Known as the ''Make America Secure Appropriations Act,'' the House package consists of four of the 12 annual government spending bills. They include such priorities as $182.3 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs and $13.9 billion for nuclear security. The House intends to take up the remaining eight bills in September. (New York Times, 07.27.17)
• Kazakhstan has chosen Aug. 29 for the opening ceremony of the first Low Enriched Uranium Bank being established in Kazakhstan under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency. (EU Reporter, 07.26.17)

Iran’s nuclear program and related issues:

• No significant developments.

Military issues, including NATO-Russia relations:

• Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on July 22 at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado that “Russia … is one of the threats that we face right now, and is the one that is the most militarily capable.” But he added that “we don’t actually have the luxury today of singling out one challenge. Obviously, North Korea today from a sense-of-urgency perspective would be our No. 1 challenge.” (RFE/RL, 07.23.17)
• Russia was ready to cooperate with neutral countries that bordered the Baltic Sea, like Finland, which is not part of NATO. Speaking at a news conference with his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinisto in Finland, Russian President Vladimir Putin said an ongoing joint naval exercise with China in the Baltic Sea was a threat to nobody. (Reuters, 07.27.17)

Missile defense:

• Romania's defense minister confirmed July 26 that the country intends to buy Patriot missiles worth $3.9 billion dollars from the U.S. (AP, 07.26.17)

Nuclear arms control:

• Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov reiterated Russia’s offer to begin talks with the U.S. on extending the 2010 New START Treaty. (Arms Control Now, 07.24.17)

Counter-terrorism:

• Syrian native Abu Wa’el Dhiab and former Guantanamo Bay detainee, who resettled in Uruguay, recently tried to travel to Russia in one of at least four attempts to leave the South American country, an official said July 25. (AP, 07.25.17)
• Two suspects in an investigation into a deadly St. Petersburg metro attack say they were held and tortured in a “secret prison” run by Russia’s Federal Security Service, the Republic news outlet reports. (The Moscow Times, 07.24.17)

Conflict in Syria:

• Cooperation with Russia is becoming a central part of the Trump administration's counter-Islamic State strategy in Syria, with U.S. military planners counting on Moscow to try to prevent Syrian government forces and their allies on the ground from interfering in coalition-backed operations against the militants. According to lines being drawn on a map of the conflict, the U.S. and its proxies would concede Assad's control of most of central and southern Syria to just west of the Euphrates River, with a few agreed deviations, said U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified discussions. In exchange, once Raqqa, the Islamic State's de facto capital, is retaken, U.S.-backed forces would move downriver to control the militant-populated villages alongside it, to the Iraqi border. An east-west "de-confliction" line is being observed south of Raqqa, where U.S. warplanes and advisers are supporting an offensive by American-trained and equipped local proxy forces. (The Washington Post, 07.25.17)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 26 signed an agreement with Syria which will give the Russian military access to an airbase on the Mediterranean for another half a century. (The Moscow Times, 07.27.17)
• Russia's Defense Ministry said July 22 that its officials had signed a deal with moderate Syrian rebels at peace talks in Cairo on how a safe zone near Damascus will function. The agreements for the East Ghouta de-escalation zone in Syria were signed after talks between the Russian military and Syrian opposition in Cairo. Russia’s Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi told a news conference July 24 that Russia set up two checkpoints and four monitoring posts in that zone. Russia also plans to establish a new "de-escalation zone" in the Syrian province of Idlib. (AP, 07.24.17, RFE/RL, 07.22.17, Reuters, 07.24.17)
• The Russian military is reshaping its air campaign in Syria in order to compel the U.S. into partnering with Russia, which cannot destroy jihadists, roll back Iran or set conditions for a desirable settlement to the war. (Institute for the Study of War, 07.22.17)
• Russia says the U.S. and its Western allies rushed to judgment and blamed the Syrian government for using sarin nerve gas in an attack on an opposition-held town in Syria without ever visiting the site and ignoring two witnesses presented by Damascus. (AP, 07.26.17)
• U.S. President Donald Trump has decided to end the CIA’s covert program to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels battling the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Officials said Trump made the decision to scrap the CIA program nearly a month ago, after a meeting with CIA Director Mike Pompeo and national security adviser H.R. McMaster ahead of the July 7 meeting in Germany with Putin. The decision will not affect a separate Pentagon-led effort to work with U.S.-backed Syrian rebels fighting the Islamic State. (The Washington Post, 07.19.17)
  • Trump lashed out at The Washington Post in a string of tweets July 24, saying the newspaper had “fabricated the facts” about his decision to end a covert program aiding Syrian rebels fighting the Assad government. “The Amazon Washington Post fabricated the facts on my ending massive, dangerous and wasteful payments to Syrian rebels fighting Assad,” Trump wrote in one tweet. (AP, 07.25.17)
  • A top U.S. general confirmed on July 21 that the CIA is shutting down its program to equip and train rebels fighting against Assad's army, but denied it is doing so to please Russia. It was a "tough, tough decision" but "absolutely not a sop to the Russians," Gen. Tony Thomas, head of U.S. special operations in Syria, said at a national security forum in Aspen, Colo. (RFE/RL, 07.22.17)
• Syrian rebels and activists are warning that an al-Qaida-linked jihadi group is on the verge of snuffing out what remains of the country’s uprising in northwestern Syria, after the extremists seized control of the opposition-held regional capital, Idlib, last weekend. U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis says he believes that the leader of Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is still alive. (AP, 07.25.17, RFE/RL, 07.21.17)
• Three Iraqi intelligence and investigative officials have told The Associated Press that 26 foreigners have been arrested in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. The sources say some of those arrested were from Chechnya, and the women were from Russia, Iran, Syria, France, Belgium and Germany. They say four German women have been arrested so far—including one each of Moroccan, Algerian, Chechen and German descent. (AP, 07.22.17)

Cyber security:

• National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers on July 22 rebuffed the prospect for a U.S.-Russia cyber unit, a proposal which has been greeted with incredulity by several senior U.S. lawmakers and which President Donald Trump himself appeared to back down from after initially indicating interest. (Reuters, 07.22.17)
• Moscow and Washington are in negotiations to create a joint cyber security working group, Andrei Krutskikh, a special presidential envoy on cybersecurity told Russian news agencies on July 20. (RFE/RL, 07.21.17)
• Russia's Federation Council has approved a bill that would prohibit the use of Internet proxy services—including virtual private networks, or VPNs. The bill approved on July 25 would also ban the anonymous use of mobile messaging services. The bill was adopted in its final reading by the State Duma July 21. (RFE/RL, 07.26.17)
• Local and state government agencies from Oregon to Connecticut say they are using a Russian brand of security software despite the federal government’s instructions to its own agencies not to buy the software over concerns about cyberespionage, records and interviews show. The federal agency in charge of purchasing, the General Services Administration, this month removed Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab from its list of approved vendors. (The Washington Post, 07.23.17)
• At least five Russians have been picked up in Europe as part of U.S. cybercrime prosecutions in the last nine months. (The Washington Post, 07.27.17)
• The wife of an alleged Russian hacker facing extradition from Spain to the United States has told Reuters that her spouse, Peter Levashov, is being held in solitary confinement and that he denies the accusation that he masterminded one of the world's biggest spam networks. (Reuters, 07.22.17)
• A Russian national wanted in the United States on suspicion of masterminding a money laundering operation involving at least $4 billion through bitcoin transactions was ordered held in custody in Greece on July 26 until a U.S. extradition request can be examined. (AP, 07.26.17)

Elections interference:

• Kremlin aide Andrei Krutskikh told Russian news agencies on July 20 that the United States formally asked Moscow for information on its alleged election hacking one week before last year's U.S. presidential vote, and that it replied the next day. (RFE/RL, 07.21.17)
• Russian intelligence agents attempted to spy on French President Emmanuel Macron's election campaign earlier this year by creating phony Facebook personas, according to a U.S. congressman and two other people briefed on the effort. Russia has repeatedly denied interfering in the French election. (AP, 07.27.17)
• Russia's outgoing ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak, told his superiors in Moscow that he discussed campaign-related matters, including policy issues important to Moscow, with Jeff Sessions during the 2016 presidential race, contrary to public assertions by the embattled attorney general, according to current and former U.S. officials. U.S. President Donald Trump on July 24 referred to Sessions as "beleaguered," in one of a series of tweets in which he criticized the current probes of Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Trump has spoken with advisers about firing Sessions. (The Washington Post, 07.23.17, Wall Street Journal, 07.24.17, AP, 07.24.17)
• U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner answered questions from Senate investigators for hours behind closed doors July 24, acknowledging four meetings with Russians during and after Trump’s victorious White House bid and insisting he had “nothing to hide.” A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin says a meeting between Kushner and the chairman of a Russian bank, Sergei Gorkov, did not occur on Kremlin orders. (AP, 07.24.17, AP, 07.25.17)
• Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) was a client of the Russian lawyer at the center of U.S. probes into Moscow's alleged attempts to meddle in the presidential election, media reported on July 21. Russian court documents show that Natalia Veselnitskaya represented a military unit operated by the FSB in a legal dispute over ownership of property in Moscow between 2005 and 2013. (RFE/RL, 07.22.17)
• Paul Manafort, a top campaign aide to U.S. President Donald Trump, took notes at a meeting with a Russian lawyer that he attended during the presidential campaign and has agreed to turn over the documents to Senate investigators. (The Washington Post, 07.25.17)
  • A Senate committee has reached an agreement to receive testimony from Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort and is dropping a subpoena. (AP, 07.25.17)
  • A Ukrainian American Democratic operative named Alexandra Chalupa began looking into Paul Manafort's ties to Viktor Yanukovych, a former pro-Russian president of Ukraine, as a part of her volunteer work in 2014. She apparently received some guidance from the Ukrainian Embassy to locate public documents. (The Washington Post, 07.26.17)
• Former National Intelligence Director James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan harshly criticized President Donald Trump on July 21 for not standing up to Russia for meddling in the presidential election, one of them wondering aloud whether the president’s real aim is to make “Russia great again.” (AP, 07.21.17)
• U.S. President Donald Trump on July 25 blasted the investigation into alleged Russian meddling in last year's U.S. election and raised questions, without offering evidence, about Ukrainian support for his Democratic presidential rival, Hillary Clinton. “Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump campaign – ‘quietly working to boost Clinton.’ So where is the investigation A.G.,” Trump wrote. (Ukrinform, 07.25.17, Reuters, 07.25.17)
• Also see section on other bilateral issues.

Energy exports from CIS:

• Russian Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak says Nigeria and Libya should join an agreement brokered by OPEC, Russia and others to cut oil output as soon as the two countries’ output stabilizes. (RFE/RL, 07.24.17)
• Russia’s energy minister has called on oil producers to show greater discipline in adhering to agreed-upon output cuts designed to raise the price of oil. (RFE/RL, 07.25.17)
• Russian gas giant Gazprom said on July 28 its export arm Gazprom Export intended to take part in auctions for access to the Opal gas link and to secure the pipeline's capacity.  (Reuters, 07.28.17)
• Russia was China's biggest crude oil supplier for a fourth straight month in June, its longest streak ever in the top spot, data from China’s General Administration of Customs showed on July 24. (Reuters, 07.24.17)

Bilateral economic ties:

• U.S. oilfield services giant Schlumberger NV has applied to Russia's anti-monopoly watchdog for approval of a deal to buy a 51% stake in Russian peer Eurasia Drilling Co (EDC), the Interfax news agency reported on July 27. (Reuters, 07.27.17).
• Tech giant Apple said its net sales last year in Russia totaled 124 billion rubles ($2 billion), 1.7 times more than in 2015, the Interfax news agency reports. (The Moscow Times, 07.28.17)

Other bilateral issues:

• The U.S. Senate gave final approval to legislation strengthening sanctions on Russia and giving Congress the power to block President Donald Trump from lifting them, setting up a possible clash with the White House. The measure, passed 98-2 on July 27 by the Senate, has already cleared the House and now goes to the president. Lawmakers say they want to prevent the president from acting on his own to lift penalties imposed by the previous administration for meddling in last year’s U.S. election and for aggression in Ukraine. The House has earlier approved the Russia sanctions bill 419 to 3. Under the bill, the president is required to notify Congress before making any alterations to Russia sanctions policy, and lawmakers then have 30 days in which they can block the president from implementing those changes. House and Senate leaders were unmoved by the Trump administration’s repeated efforts to remove Congress’s 30-day review power from the legislation. Before granting a waiver, ending sanctions on a person or entity or granting a license “that significantly alters United States foreign policy” on Russia, the White House would have to submit a report to Congress describing the proposed action and the reasons for it. (Bloomberg, 07.27.17, AP, 07.27.17)
  • The bill provides sanctions for activities concerning: cyber security, crude oil projects, financial institutions, corruption, human rights abuses, evasion of sanctions, transactions with Russian defense or intelligence sectors, export pipelines, privatization of state-owned assets by government officials and  arms transfers to Syria. Also included in the package, which passed 419 to 3, are new measures targeting key Russian officials in retaliation for alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election, as well as sanctions against Iran and North Korea in response to those nations’ weapons programs. The bill also makes it virtually impossible to return to Russia the diplomatic properties in the U.S. seized by the previous administration. (Congress.gov, 07.24.17, The Washington Post, 07.25.17, Kommersant, 07.28.17)
  • Trump is likely to sign the tough new sanctions bill that includes proposed measures targeting Russia—a remarkable concession that the president has yet to sell his party on his hopes for forging a warmer relationship with Moscow. Two administration officials say that Trump is likely to sign the bill, despite ongoing wrangling over language and bureaucracy. Faced with near-unanimous bipartisan support for the bill in both the House and Senate, the president finds his hands are tied, according to two administration officials and two advisers with knowledge of the discussions. Sen. Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he ''cannot imagine'' Trump rejecting legislation with such veto-proof majorities in Congress. (Bloomberg, 07.27.17, New York Times, 07.27.17)
  • European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker warned July 26 that a U.S. congressional vote to strip Trump of the ability to remove sanctions against Russia could backfire, dealing a blow to transatlantic efforts to curb Russian aggression against Ukraine and sparking a trade war between Europe and the United States. The plans for tighter U.S. sanctions against Russia could harm European companies with energy interests in their giant eastern neighbor and appeared designed to stimulate U.S. energy exports to Europe, a German business forum said on July 27. The bill would give Trump the power to ban investments in certain Russian energy projects, most notably a major Russia-to-Germany gas pipeline under development called Nord Stream 2, and to promote U.S. energy exports instead. A list prepared for EU commissioners shows other projects at risk include the proposed Baltic liquefied natural gas plant, Blue Stream and the CPC pipeline. Germany is holding to its position that sanctions rules mustn’t be used as a tool to influence specific industries, Martin Schaefer, a spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry, said in Berlin July 26. (Reuters, 07.26.17, The Washington Post, 07.26.17, Reuters, 07.27.17, The Washington Post, 07.26.17, RFE/RL, 07.26.17, Financial Times, 07.26.17, Bloomberg, 07.26.17)
• Spurred by the financial sanctions bill now awaiting a signature from President Trump, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and consulates in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Vladivostok should reduce the number of their "diplomatic and technical employees" to 455, in apparent parity with the number of Russian diplomatic staff in the United States. The Foreign Ministry also said it would seize, effective Aug. 1, a Moscow warehouse and dacha, or vacation house, complex used by the U.S. Embassy. Russia has promised additional retaliation against the new sanctions once they are signed into law, possibly by targeting U.S. commercial or trade interests tied to Russia. The restrictions on personnel would take effect Sept. 1, the order said. The U.S. Ambassador to Moscow, John Tefft, has "expressed his strong disappointment and protest" over Russia's decision, a State Department official said July 28. (The Washington Post, 07.28.17, New York Times, 07.28.17)
• A U.S. Embassy spokesman could not immediately say how many people work for the embassy and consulates in Russia, nor what kind of cuts would be required to meet the Russian government's demands. The Reuters news agency, citing an embassy source, said that about 1,100 people work at the U.S. Embassy, which is undergoing a considerable construction expansion, and the three consulates. About 300 U.S. citizens work in the Moscow embassy, the news agency reported. According to Deputy Chairman of the State Duma, Sergei Zheleznyak, the U.S. currently has 1,200 diplomatic employees in Russia. (The Washington Post, 07.28.17, The Moscow Times, 07.28.17)
• Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on July 28 that Russian President Vladimir Putin didn’t wait for Trump’s reaction to the sanctions bill because “the form in which it emerged from the Senate had greater significance.” In effect, he said, it’s “almost final.” Putin said July 27 that Russia would be forced to retaliate if Washington pressed ahead with what he called illegal new sanctions against Moscow, describing U.S. conduct towards his country as boorish and unreasonable. Calling the proposed sanctions "extremely cynical," Putin said the demarche looked like an attempt by Washington to use its "geopolitical advantages … to safeguard its economic interests at the expense of its allies." “Essentially, the possibilities for normalization of relations in the foreseeable future are closed," said Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov. (AP, 07.26.17, Bloomberg, 07.28.17, Reuters, 07.27.17)
• Russia’s pick for its next ambassador to the U.S. has received Washington’s stamp of approval, the pro-Kremlin Izvestiya newspaper reported July 28, citing an anonymous source inside Russian diplomatic circles. Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Anatoly Antonov is Russia’s prospective choice to replace Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, who left his post in Washington July 22. (The Moscow Times, 07.28.17)
• According to two FBI agents, Vladimir Putin’s former media czar, Mikhail Lesin, was murdered in Washington, DC, on Nov. 4, 2015, on the eve of a planned meeting with the U.S. Justice Department. The agents' assertions cast new doubts on the U.S. government’s official explanation of his death. None of these officials were directly involved in the government’s investigation, but said they learned of it from colleagues who were. (Buzzfeed, 07.28.17)
• U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Justice Department’s criminal division, Brian A. Benczkowski, has disclosed to Congress that he previously represented Alfa Bank, one of Russia’s largest financial institutions, whose owners have ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. (New York Times, 07.24.17)
• The U.S. National Archives has released a set of previously withheld documents on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, in which the main highlights are audio interviews with a former KGB officer. The declassified documents include 17 audio files of interviews with Yuri Nosenko, a KGB officer who defected to the U.S. in January 1964. The interviews were conducted in January, February and July 1964. (The Moscow Times, 07.26.17)
• U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry has been fooled by a pair of Russian pranksters impersonating the prime minister of Ukraine. (AP, 07.26.17)

II. Russia’s domestic news

Politics, economy and energy:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin said he has not decided whether to seek re-election in the March 2018 presidential vote. (RFE/RL, 07.21.17)
• The Russian central bank held its key interest rate unchanged at 9% on July 28, citing geopolitical risks and inflationary pressures, but it indicated rate cuts would follow in the coming months. Facing new U.S. sanctions and a recent spike in food prices, the central bank opted for a cautious no-change decision, even though inflation, its key area of focus, has nearly slowed to its 4% target. (Reuters, 07.28.17)
• The number of Russians with assets worth at least $1 million who have declared foreign bank accounts has increased from 10% to 40% since May 2016. (The Moscow Times, 07.26.17)
• Visiting the Republic of Mari El on July 20, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested that ethnic Russians were being forced to learn the languages of minorities in regions that have sizable minority populations. (RFE/RL, 07.21.17)
• Vladimir Litvinenko, a former Putin campaign manager and a St. Petersburg university rector who has said he supervised the Russian president’s dissertation, is now worth more than $1 billion, according to a respected Russian newspaper. (RFE/RL, 07.24.17)
• Russian aluminum maker Rusal on July 27 reported a 4.6% rise in second-quarter sales to 1.0 million tons and a 22% jump in average aluminum prices to $2,087 per ton. (Reuters, 07.27.17)
• Fifty-four percent of Russians aged between 18 and 24 watch government-funded Channel One news casts, according to a poll by the independent Levada Center. (The Moscow Times, 07.28.17)

Defense and aerospace:

• No significant developments.

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• The Russian Prosecutor General's Office approved an indictment against Russian former minister of economic development Aleksei Ulyukayev and sent the case to court, Russian news agencies reported on July 26. (RFE/RL, 07.27.17)
• Russia has by far the biggest proportion of people behind bars in Europe, with an incarceration rate of 434 prisoners per 100,000 people, compared to 143 in the U.K., 130 in Spain, 101 in France, 92 in Italy and 76 in Germany. (Carnegie Moscow Center, 07.24.17)
• Russia’s Federal Security Service says it has detained suspected members of an armed neo-Nazi group in Moscow. (RFE/RL, 07.27.17)

III. Foreign affairs, trade and investment

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

• Turkey has made progress in plans to procure an S-400 missile defense system from Russia and documents have been signed, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on July 25. (Reuters, 07.25.17)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin met on July 25 with Iraqi vice president and former prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, in the town of Strelna near St. Petersburg. Putin said during the talks that Moscow and Baghdad "have a great deal yet to do" to strengthen bilateral economic cooperation. Maliki thanked Russia for assisting Iraq in the fight against terrorism and Moscow's efforts "to accelerate shipments of the arms Iraq and Russia agreed on earlier." The two also discussed supplies of Russian T-90 battle tanks, according to a Russian military official present at the meeting. (RFE/RL, 07.25.17, Reuters, 07.25.17)
• Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin had to scrap a trip to Moldova on July 28 after his plane was barred from entering Romanian and Hungarian airspace. Rogozin is one of the most senior Russian officials with an EU visa ban, which has been in effect since 2014 following Russia’s annexation of Crimea. (AP, 07.28.17)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 27 officially appointed Vasily Nebenzya as Russia’s new permanent representative to the United Nations. (RFE/RL, 07.27.17)
• Russia’s new ambassador to Turkey, Alexey Yerkhov, presented his credentials to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan July 27. (TASS, 07.27.17)
• Relatives of Swedish war hero Raoul Wallenberg filed a lawsuit in a Moscow court on July 26 against Russia's Federal Security Service, seeking access to uncensored documents which they say could provide clues to Wallenberg's fate. (Reuters, 07.27.17)

China:

• Russia and China are holding their first joint naval exercises in the Baltic Sea, in a signal that the countries are bolstering military ties. Three Chinese warships, including a destroyer, frigate and supply vessel, are participating in the Joint Sea-2017, which entered its active phase on July 25, Baltic Fleet official Roman Martov told the TASS news agency. (The Moscow Times, 07.26.17)
• In early June 2017, Russian media reported that another Ground Forces missile brigade received the road-mobile 9K720 Iskander-M missile system. The brigade, the 29th Army’s newly established 3rd Missile Brigade, is based in Russia’s colossal Eastern Military District. Whereas the task of Iskander-M OTRK’s deployment in Russia’s Western Military District is to hold U.S. and allied forces in the Baltics and Poland at risk, the systems stationed in the Eastern Military District appear to primarily serve a different purpose: strengthening both Russia’s conventional and nuclear deterrence against China. (Diplomat, 07.12.17)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow's military cooperation with China was "an element of stability and security in the world." (Reuters, 07.27.17)
• “There’s been a lot of talk about Russia as a competitor, a country that sees the liberal international order as something they don’t necessarily subscribe to, that is actively engaged in trying to undermine U.S. influence in various areas around the world, and that has [the] capability to do it,” Michael Collins, deputy assistant director and head of the CIA’s East Asia mission center, said at a security forum in Aspen, Colo. “I would argue China applies to all three of those as well, and increasingly has more power to do far more about that issue.” (The National Interest, 07.27.17)

Ukraine:

• The German government says Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine have agreed on a number of "immediate measures" to push forward with a peace deal brokered in 2015 to end the bloody fighting in eastern Ukraine. The government in Berlin said late on July 24 that the so-called Normandy Group called for the immediate halt to all violations of the cease-fire in eastern Ukraine, where Russia-backed separatists are fighting forces of the central government in Kiev. A statement after a two-hour phone conversation between the leaders of the four countries said separating Ukrainian troops and Russia-aligned fighters and the withdrawal of heavy weapons are also priorities. (RFE/RL, 07.24.17)
• Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on July 21 blamed Russia for the recent deaths of eight Ukrainian soldiers in its eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, where Moscow-backed separatists have intensified shelling of Ukrainian forces. Poroshenko called Russia "an aggressor country," and claimed that "11,000 Ukrainians were killed" in the ongoing military conflicts in Luhansk and Donetsk, where some districts have been controlled by pro-Russia separatists since April 2014. (RFE/RL, 07.21.17)
• Kurt Volker, the new U.S. special envoy for Ukraine peace negotiations, said he was stunned by the number of cease-fire violations in the ex-Soviet nation’s war-torn east after making his first visit to the region. Volker has told Current Time TV that the White House is considering providing "defensive arms" to Ukraine. Speaking in Paris on July 25, he said such a move would enable Ukraine to defend itself "if Russia were to take further steps against Ukrainian territory." (RFE/RL, 07.24.17, RFE/RL, 07.25.17)
• Ukraine's central bank is to ask the Auditing Chamber of Ukraine to delist the local unit of PwC, a move that would effectively strip the global accounting firm of the ability to audit companies in the country. The move on July 24 comes days after the central bank withdrew PwC's right to audit Ukrainian banks, as punishment for what the central bank says was PwC's failure to flag risky lending practices at the country's largest lender, PrivatBank. PwC audited PrivatBank, which Ukraine took over in December after finding a capital shortfall of more than $5.5 billion. The central bank estimated that 97% of PrivatBank's corporate loans had gone to companies linked to its shareholders, who include tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky, Ukraine's second-richest man according to Forbes magazine. Government spending to shore up PrivatBank recently reached 5% of Ukraine's gross domestic product, according to the National Bank. (Reuters, 07.24.17, Wall Street Journal, 07.21.17)
• Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev described Mikheil Saakashvili being stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship as “tragicomedy” in a Facebook post July 27. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a decree July 26 depriving Saakashvili of his Ukrainian citizenship. Saakashvili, the former Georgian president and Ukrainian governor, may be forced to seek asylum in the United States, a Ukrainian legislator said. (The Moscow Times, 07.27.17, RFE/RL, 07.27.17)
• Separatists in eastern Ukraine claimed July 18 to have founded a new country—Malorossiya, meaning "Little Russia" in English—that they hope will eventually overtake Ukraine. “Overall, the whole hype regarding the declaration of the state of Malorossiya is useful,” said Vladislav Surkov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s point man for Ukraine issues in talks with the U.S. (The Washington Post, 07.19.17, Financial Times, 07.22.17)
• A London court has agreed to a request from Ukraine to suspend judgment in a $3 billion Eurobond case brought by Russia until Kiev's appeal against the verdict is concluded, the Ukrainian finance ministry said July 26. (Reuters, 07.26.17)

Russia’s other post-Soviet neighbors:

• Russian, Kazakh and Iranian naval vessels are in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku ahead of a four-nation "competition" that is to be held off Azerbaijan's coast in the Caspian Sea from Aug. 1 to Aug. 11. (RFE/RL, 07.24.17)
• Kyrgyzstan's president said his country has been threatened by other unspecified nations for its decision to host a U.S. air base for nearly 13 years. (RFE/RL, 07.25.17)
• Uzbekistan has launched a 24-hour television news channel that officials say marks a step away from isolation for the Central Asian country. (RFE/RL, 07.24.17)
• Kazakhstan has announced it will outline a new alphabet by the end of this year as the Central Asian nation plans to change from a Cyrillic-based script to Latin. (RFE/RL, 07.26.17)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a bill into law on Russian-Armenian joint military units, a move meant to provide military security in the Caucasus collective security region (RFE/RL, 07.27.17)
• Uzbekistan is filing criminal charges against the eldest daughter of the country’s late long-time dictator for stealing around $2 billion, revealing her whereabouts after she vanished from public view nearly four years ago. (Financial Times, 07.28.17)
• Azerbaijan's State Security Service says it has arrested suspected members of an international hacking group who stole millions of dollars from banks, including in the former Soviet republic. (RFE/RL, 07.25.17)

IV. Quoteworthy

• Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, writes: “For the foreseeable future, Russia’s relationship with China is of greatest importance and also considerable concern, given China’s huge and growing economic, demographic and military weight and its steadily expanding geopolitical horizon.”  (Carnegie Moscow Center, 07.20.17)
• Alexander Gabuev and Maria Repnikova, a senior associate with the Carnegie Moscow Center and an assistant professor at Georgia State University, respectively, write: “Most Western media refer to alarming figures, some concluding there are two million Chinese, set to reach 10 million by 2050. The latest Russian national census in 2010, however, projected the number of Chinese residents at 30,000. Regional official and academic data we uncovered, in several research trips to the Far East since 2010, estimates the number of Chinese migrants as between 400,000 and 550,000. More than half are in the European part of Russia, where the labor market is bigger and more dynamic than in the east of the Urals. The most Chinese-populated Russian city is Moscow, not Vladivostok or Khabarovsk.” (South China Morning Post/Carnegie Moscow Center, 07.14.17)

 

Teaser photo by Michael Miller, distributed via Flickr under a CC BY 2.0 license.