Russia in Review, June 16-23, 2017

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

Nuclear security and safety:

  • Two psychologists said they were pressured by U.S. security officials to keep devising harsh interrogation techniques. "They kept telling me every day a nuclear bomb was going to be exploded in the U.S. and that because I had told them to stop, I had lost my nerve and it was going to be my fault if I didn’t continue," John Bruce Jessen, one of the psychologists, said. (Newser, 06.21.17)
  • Energy Secretary Rick Perry warned the U.S. could suffer a nuclear disaster like Japan's Fukushima catastrophe if it does not find a nuclear waste solution. (CNBC, 06.20.17)
  • “Our nuclear stations are now capable of withstanding an earthquake of up to nine points, a tsunami of up to 15 meters high, the fall of a heavy transport aircraft onto the reactor dome,” President of Rosatom International Network Alexander Merten told Gazeta.ru. (Russia Matters, 06.17.17)
  • No significant developments.

Military issues, including NATO-Russia relations:

  • A Russian jet flew within five feet (1.5 m) of a U.S. reconnaissance plane's wing tip over the Baltic Sea June 19, U.S. officials say.  The encounter was deemed "unsafe" due to the Russian pilot's "high rate of closure speed and poor control of the aircraft.” (BBC, 06.21.17)
  • A NATO F-16 fighter approached and was then warned away from a jet carrying Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. The NATO jet closed in and began flying parallel to Shoigu's plane. A Russian Su-27 fighter accompanying Shoigu's plane then approached from behind and rocked its wings to show it was armed. Then, the F-16 veered off. (The Washington Post, 06.21.17)
  • In one previously undisclosed incident on July 6, 2016 a Russian military helicopter dropped from the sky to make multiple passes just feet over the hood of a vehicle being driven by the U.S. defense attache, who was accompanied by colleagues, on a stretch of road between Murmansk and Pechenga in northern Russia. The attempt at intimidation was captured on photos the Americans took through the windshield. (The Washington Post, 06.23.17)
  • U.S. and British troops carried out the first large-scale NATO defensive drill on the Poland-Lithuania border, rehearsing for a scenario in which Russia might cut off the Baltic states from the rest of NATO. The frontier runs for 104 km (65 miles) through farmland, woods and low hills, in an area called the Suwalki Gap. (Reuters, 06.18.17)
  • Russia’s defense minister says the security situation near Russia’s borders has worsened because of NATO activities, and the military will form 20 new units along its western frontiers by year’s end. (AP, 06.21.17)
  • The share of Russians who feel NATO is a major threat has declined from 50% in 2015 to 41% in 2017, according to a Pew Research Center survey. (Russia Matters, 06.20.17)
  • At a Brussels summit, the 28 EU leaders—22 of them from NATO member nations—agreed to jointly develop or purchase military equipment such as drones. They also agreed to use EU funds to finance Europe’s battlegroups. (AP, 06.22.17)

Missile defense:

  • No significant developments.

Nuclear arms control:

  • President of U.N. conference that is drafting possible first nuclear weapons ban treaty expressed confidence June 15 that with “the necessary political will” over 130 supporting countries can reach agreement by July 7. (AP, 06.15.17)

Counter-terrorism:

  • U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on June 21 appointed Russia's Ambassador to International Organizations in Vienna, Vladimir Voronkov, to head the newly created U.N. Counterterrorism Office, giving a Russian a top job at U.N. headquarters in New York. (Reuters, 06.21.17)
  • Islamic State militants in Afghanistan threatened to conduct attacks inside Russia in the group’s most recent propaganda video. (The National Interest, 06.22.17)

Conflict in Syria:

  • U.S. Navy F/A-18E Super Hornet shot down Syrian Su-22 June 18 after the Su-22 dropped munitions near U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces fighters near northern Syrian town of Tabqah. The jet was shot down as an act of “collective self-defense of coalition-partnered forces,” according to a U.S.-led coalition statement. (Military.com, 06.18.17, Bloomberg, 06.19.17)
    • Russia warned that it may treat U.S.-led coalition aircraft over Syria as targets following the shooting down of the Su-22. “Russia’s ground and air defenses will track any air targets, including the international coalition’s planes and drones, found to the West of the Euphrates river,” the Russian Defense Ministry said, adding that it is halting the so-called de-confliction coordination with the U.S. aimed at averting air incidents. The ministry said that the coalition had not used the de-conflicting hotline to warn the Russian side. However, despite declaring earlier this week it had stopped using the de-confliction line, Russia told the U.S. beforehand about its massive cruise missile strike from warships in the Mediterranean. (U.S. News, 06.23.17, Bloomberg, 06.19.17, AP, 06.19.17)
    • Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at the BRICS foreign ministers summit in Beijing June 19 said countries involved in Syrian war should respect Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Lavrov said June 20 that Moscow had asked Washington for a “detailed explanation” of the jet’s downing. (The Moscow Times, 06.19.17, AP, 06.20.17)
    • U.S.-led aircraft in Syria may face “destruction” if they threaten the lives of Russian pilots, Viktor Ozerov, Russian defense committee chairman, said June 19. (Bloomberg, 06.19.17)
    • Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in Washington June 19 that the U.S. and Russia continue to communicate and “we’ll work to restore that de-confliction channel.” (Bloomberg, 06.19.17)
    • The U.S. military on June 20 said Russia was not carrying out any actions in Syria that "cause us concern." "Public statements aside, we have not seen the Russians do any actions that cause us concern. We continue to operate, making some adjustments for prudent measures," said Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis. (Reuters, 06.20.17)
    • American-led military coalition in Syria said it repositioned aircraft after Russia threatened to treat its warplanes as targets in response to U.S. downing of Syrian government jet. (Bloomberg, 06.19.17)
    • Australia said June 20 it suspended air strikes into Syria following U.S. downing of Syrian military jet and Russia's subsequent threat against U.S.-led coalition aircraft. (Reuters, 06.20.17)
    • British Prime Minister Theresa May called on Russia to continue use of "de-confliction" measures over Syrian skies to reduce risk of misunderstandings in crowded airspace. (Reuters, 06.19.17)
  • Russia fired cruise missiles from the Mediterranean Sea on Islamic State positions in Syria, the Russian Defense Ministry said June 23. The ministry said two frigates and a submarine launched six cruise missiles on IS installations in Syria’s Hama province, destroying command centers and ammunition depots. (AP, 06.23.17)
    • Despite declaring earlier this week it had stopped using the de-confliction line, Russia told the U.S. beforehand about its massive cruise missile strike from warships in the Mediterranean. (U.S. News, 06.23.17)
  • The Russian Defense Ministry said June 17 it killed two Islamic State field commanders, Abu Omar al-Beljiki and Abu Yassin al-Masri, in air strikes near eastern Syrian city of Deir al-Zor. Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Oleg Syromolotov said June 22 that “according to the Defense Ministry’s information, there is a high probability that [Abu Bakr] al-Baghdadi has been killed when the Russian air force hit militants’ headquarters on the southern outskirts of Raqqa in late May.” (Reuters, 06.17.17, AP, 06.22.17)
  • Reports that Russia is trying to persuade Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan to send troops to Syria have sparked confused and carefully worded denials from those two countries. (The Washington Post, 06.23.17)
  • Moscow hopes the sides involved in Syria peace talks will meet in Astana July 4-5, Russia's deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov said June 17. (Reuters, 06.17.17)
  • The Kremlin has denied accusations that military footage used to showcase the Russian air force in Syria was a repurposed U.S. clip from 2013. (The Moscow Times, 06.21.17)
  • The U.N. children’s agency warned June 16 that a critical funding shortfall is threatening aid to 9 million Syrian children, both in Syria and among refugees in neighboring states. (AP, 06.16.17)
  • Far-right soccer fan group from northern Serbia says member died in Syria as Russian volunteer fighter. (AP, 06.21.17)
  • Russians were divided on the merits of Putin’s intervention in Syria, with 46% saying military involvement should remain at present levels while 34% favored a decreasing role, according to a Pew Research Center survey. Just 25% said keeping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in power should be Russia’s main military objective, compared with 64% who said defeating extremist groups should be the top priority in Syria. (Bloomberg, 06.20.17)
  • Differing from his predecessor, French President Emmanuel Macron said getting rid of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was no longer top priority in Syria. ''My line is clear: One, a total fight against terrorist groups. They are our enemies … We need the cooperation of everyone to eradicate them, particularly Russia. Two, stability in Syria, because I don't want a failed state.'' (New York Times, 06.22.17)
  • Trump administration officials, anticipating the Islamic State’s defeat in Raqqa, are planning for the next stage of the war, a complex fight that will bring direct conflict with Syrian government and Iranian forces contesting control of a vast desert stretch in Syria’s east. (The Washington Post, 06.22.17)
    • American F-15E fighter jet shot down Iranian-made drone over southeast Syria June 20, American officials said. (New York Times, 06.20.17)

Cyber security:

  • Bots airing pro-Kremlin views flooded the Russian-language portion of Twitter, in what Oxford Internet Institute researchers say is an effort to scuttle political discussion and opposition coordination in Russia. Forty-five percent, or 585,000, of a sample 1.3 million accounts tweeting regularly about politics in Russia reviewed by researchers between 2014 and 2015, were bots. (The Washington Post, 06.20.17)
  • Western technology companies, including Cisco, IBM and SAP, are acceding to Moscow’s demands for access to closely guarded product security secrets, at a time when Russia has been accused of a growing number of cyber-attacks on the West. Russian authorities are asking Western tech companies to allow them to review source code for security products such as firewalls, anti-virus applications and software containing encryption before permitting the products to be imported and sold in Russia. (Reuters, 06.23.17)

Russia’s alleged interference in U.S. elections:

  • The CIA told the White House as early as August 2016 that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered interference in the 2016 election with the express purpose of defeating or at least damaging Hillary Clinton’s bid and helping elect Donald Trump. This intelligence was based on Putin’s “specific instructions” from “sourcing deep inside the Russian government.” As part of the U.S. response, Obama approved a previously undisclosed covert measure that authorized planting cyber weapons in Russia's infrastructure, the digital equivalent of bombs that could be detonated if the United States found itself in an escalating exchange with Moscow. Under the rules of covert action, Obama's signature was all that was necessary to set the operation in motion. U.S. intelligence agencies do not need further approval from Trump, and officials said that he would have to issue a countermanding order to stop it. The officials said that they have seen no indication that Trump has done so. (The Washington Post, 06.23.17, The Washington Post, 06.23.17)
  • U.S. officials sought June 21 to underscore for lawmakers Russian threat to 2016 election, outlining efforts to hack into election systems in 21 states and to fill internet with misinformation during divisive campaign season.
    • Jeanette Manfra, acting deputy undersecretary for cybersecurity and communications at DHS, told Congress June 21 that federal investigators had evidence that the Russian government targeted election systems in nearly two dozen states. "As of right now, we have evidence of election-related systems in 21 states that were targeted," said Manfra. (Wall Street Journal, 06.21.17)
    • Former Homeland Secuirty Secretary Jeh Johnson told a congressional panel June 21 there was a delay between the time the FBI first made contact with the Democratic National Committee about Russia hacking its servers and the time he was notified at the DHS. He also said 33 states and 36 cities and counties used his department’s tools to scan for potential vulnerabilities. (Reuters, 06.21.17, AP, 06.21.17)
    • Johnson revealed what appeared to be a breakdown in communications about how severe the threat appeared, and they reported tensions the Obama administration faced in trying to publicly warn of meddling in the face of a skeptical then-candidate Donald Trump. (AP, 06.21.17)
  • On June 22 Trump accused Obama and his administration of not doing enough last year to "stop" Russian interference. "Why did Democratic National Committee turn down the DHS offer to protect against hacks (long prior to election). It's all a big Dem HOAX!" he tweeted. Trump appeared to be referring the June 21 congressional testimony by Jeh Johnson, who said that after the DNC email servers were hacked, the DNC declined an offer by the DHS, which also had been in touch with the FBI, to help identify intruders and patch vulnerabilities. (The Washington Post, 06.22.17)
  • Trump said his threat of possible tapes of his meetings with James Comey--which he now says was a ruse—may have caused Comey to alter his recounting of what happened. (Bloomberg, 06.23.17)
  • Trump isn’t under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller, a member of Trump’s legal team said, despite Trump’s repeated comments on social media that he’s the target of a “witch hunt.” “The president is not and has not been under investigation for obstruction,” attorney Jay Sekulow said. (Bloomberg, 06.18.17)
  • Trump has added John Dowd, veteran Washington lawyer, to the team representing him in the investigations of possible collusion by the Trump campaign with Russia, including the criminal probe being led by Mueller. (Reuters, 06.16.17)
  • Hacking of state and local election databases in 2016 was more extensive than previously reported, including at least one successful attempt to alter voter information, and the theft of thousands of voter records, current and former officials said. In one case, investigators found a manipulation of voter data in a county database, but the alterations were discovered and rectified. Investigators have not identified whether those hackers were Russian agents. (Time, 06.22.17)
  • The Russians “used fake news and propaganda and they also used online amplifiers to spread the information to as many people as possible,” Bill Priestap, the FBI’s top counterintelligence official, told the Senate Intelligence committee. (AP, 06.21.17) 
  • The House Intelligence Committee is supposed to be investigating Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election. But the panel is so riven by partisan mistrust that its members can’t agree on the probe’s mission, its scope or even when to interview key witnesses. (Bloomberg, 06.20.17)
  • Senior U.S. government officials became convinced in January that Michael Flynn had become vulnerable to Russian blackmail. Flynn made an unreported trip to the Middle East in 2015 to work on a U.S.-Russian venture in Saudi Arabia before joining the Trump campaign, possibly having multiple contacts with Saudi officials he failed to disclose when seeking security clearance renewal, according to Democrats seeking detailed records of Flynn’s travels. (New York Times, 06.21.17, ABC, 06.19.17)
  • U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions hired Charles Cooper as his personal lawyer amid an expanding investigation by the special counsel. (Bloomberg, 06.20.17)
  • The House Intelligence Committee plans to interview the digital director for Trump's campaign, Brad Parscale, as it continues to investigate whether any collusion occurred between the campaign and Russia, according to a recent CNN report. (Business Insider, 06.23.17)
  • White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer has yet to discuss with Trump whether he believes Russia interfered in the 2016 election. (AP, 06.20.17)
  • U.S. House Democrats rejected an assertion by Deutsche Bank that privacy laws prevent it from sharing information about Trump's finances. (Reuters, 06.22.17)
  • In August 2016, as tension mounted over Russia's role in the U.S. presidential race, Trump's campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, sat down to dinner with Konstantin Kilimnik, a business associate from Ukraine who served in the Russian army. Kilimnik is of interest to investigators on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said a person familiar with the inquiry. Kilimnik told The Washington Post in his written statement that he has "no relation to the Russian or any other intelligence service." (The Washington Post, 06.19.17)
    • Federal investigators are examining financial transactions involving Manafort and his son-in-law, who embarked on a series of real estate deals in recent years fueled by millions of dollars from Manafort, according to two people familiar with the matter. Many of Manafort’s real estate purchases over the years coincided with his work as a political consultant to Ukraine’s Russia-backed Party of Regions. (New York Times, 06.23.17)

Energy exports from CIS:

  • While the U.K. imports gas from Russia via pipelines from the continent, Moscow-based Gazprom said supplies to Britain soared 61% last year. (Bloomberg, 06.20.17)
  • Poland temporarily halted gas deliveries from Russia via the Yamal pipeline June 21 due to poor quality of the gas, which Russia said was due to a "short-term technical problem." (Reuters, 06.21.17)
  • The takeover of India's Essar Oil by Rosneft can be now considered closed, Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin told a shareholders' meeting June 22. (Reuters, 06.22.17)
  • Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev issued instructions to create four artificial islands in the Kola Bay in the Barents Sea for production and shipment of liquefied natural gas. (RBTH, 06.22.17)
  • The U.S. has a record fracklog, with 5,946 drilled-but-uncompleted wells in U.S. oilfields at the end of May, the most in at least three years, according to estimates by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. (Bloomberg, 06.19.17)

Bilateral economic ties:

  • The Trump Organization sought extensions for trademarks from Rospatent, the Russian government agency in charge of intellectual property. From April to December 2016, Rospatent granted new 10-year terms for the trademarks, agency records show. (New York Times, 06.18.17)

Other bilateral issues:

  • The U.S. Treasury added 38 individuals and entities June 20 to the sanctions list. The Treasury said the move "reinforced" the U.S. sanctions, which "will not be lifted until Russia ends its occupation of the peninsula." Sanctions were imposed against a private military company “Wagner” and Concord catering billionaire Yevgeny Prigozhin. The list also includes Dmitri Utkin, who, according to American authorities, associated with the Wagner group. Earlier, Russian media reported that Utkin organized the group. Russian MC Night Wolves was also sanctioned. (NBC, 06.20.17, Micetimes, 06.20.17, Gazeta.ru, 06.20.17)
    • Putin said new sanctions would damage relations between the two countries, but it was too early to talk about retaliation. (Reuters, 06.17.17)
    • Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said June 21 that the U.S. move wasn’t constructive, adding that “various options are being considered on expert level.” (AP, 06.21.17)
    • Moscow is determined to respond to the new U.S. sanctions, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said. (RBTH, 06.21.17)
    • Russia’s foreign minister has deplored the new U.S. sanctions against Moscow as groundless. Speaking in Moscow June 20 following talks with French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian, Lavrov said he could “only voice regret about the Russo-phobic obsession of our American colleagues … that has gone beyond any limits.” Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that new sanctions imposed by Washington on Russia would damage relations between the two countries and that the idea that sanctions will force Russia to change its policies is “illusory.”  (AP, 06.20.17, Bloomberg, 06.22.17. Reuters, 06.22.17)
    • Russia has already begun contemplating punitive measures to respond to sanctions expansion, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted by Gazeta.ru as saying. Ryabkov also said he has cancelled upcoming talks with U.S. Undersecretary of State Thomas A. Shannon over the sanctions. (Russia Matters, 06.20.17, AP, 06.21.17)
      • "We regret that Russia has decided to turn away from an opportunity to discuss bilateral obstacles that hinder U.S.-Russia relations," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement June 21. (Bloomberg, 06.21.17)
  • House Republicans say they have proposed a way for the Senate to resolve a procedural dispute over a bill to impose sanctions on Russia and Iran, allowing the House to take up the measure passed by the Senate. The legislative language seeks to get around a concern raised by the House that the sanctions bill violates the origination clause of the Constitution requiring revenue-raising legislation to start in the House. (Bloomberg, 06.22.17)
    • On June 20 U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan fell back on a constitutional technicality to stall the measure. The bill violates the Constiution’s origination clause, he argued. On June 22, however, he said he supported efforts to quickly act on the legislation. (Reuters, 06.22.17, Foreign Policy, 06.21.17)
    • White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the administration would not take a position before the bill advanced through the House. “It’s a bill that any administration would hate,” said a congressional source. “It’s a serious insult to the president.” (Reuters, 06.22.17, Foreign Policy, 06.21.17)
  • Tillerson has crafted a three-point framework for future U.S.-Russia relations that takes a narrow view of what can be achieved, but seeks a constructive working relationship with Putin on a limited set of issues. The first pillar of the framework is to convey to Moscow that aggressive actions against the U.S. are a losing proposition that will be counterproductive for both sides. The second pillar is to engage Russia on issues of strategic interest to the U.S., including the long-running civil war in Syria, North Korea's rapidly developing nuclear weapons program and cybersecurity and cyberespionage, a U.S. official said. The third pillar emphasizes the importance of "strategic stability" with Russia. A key difference from Obama-era strategy is that Tillerson’s framework does not expressly commit to building up the "resilience" of Russian neighbors. (BuzzFeed, 06.19.17)
    • Russia is not considering any counter-demands regarding the normalization of U.S.-Russia relations in response Tillerson’s plan, the Russian presidential spokesman said. (TASS, 06.20.17)
  • FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov warned Kremlin officials June 23 that outlets such as CNN and The Washington Post were targeting Russia as part of a Western "information war." (BBC, 06.23.17)
  • Probes into the Trump administration's alleged dealings with Russia are creating a vacuum in U.S. foreign policy and preventing relations from thawing between the two countries, Andrey Kostin, the head of Russia's second-largest bank said June 20. (Wall Street Journal, 06.20.17)

II. Russia’s domestic news

Politics, economy and energy:

  • Russia is considering consolidating its two sovereign wealth funds to create a single treasure chest of $90.7 billion that it can tap as the country digs in for a sustained period of low oil prices. (Bloomberg, 06.19.17)
  • While real wages grew at the same pace of 3.7% in April and May, the most in over three years, retail sales only crawled just above zero after a record 27 months of contraction in Russia. (Bloomberg, 06.20.17)
  • More than half of Russians express great confidence in Putin, though this number has slipped since 2015 from 66% to 58%, according to a recent Pew survey. Also, some 71% of Russians considered rising prices a very big problem, while 58% “describe corrupt political leaders in the same terms,” according to the survey. At least half said they were worried about a lack of job opportunities, the gap between rich and poor and the threat from terrorism. Even so, Washington-based Pew found that Russians “are feeling slightly better about their own lives” with 51% saying their personal economic situation is good compared with 44% in 2015. (Bloomberg, 06.20.17, Pew, 06.20.17)
  • Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been formally barred from standing in Russia’s 2018 presidential election. (BBC, 06.23.17)
  • Share of Russians who might consider leaving their country for another decreased from 19% (2016) to 15% (2017), according to new research by the Levada Center. (RBTH, 06.20.17)
  • Some 63% of Russians questioned by the Levada Center said the Soviet Union would have triumphed in World War II without aid from abroad. (The Moscow Times, 06.22.17)

Defense and aerospace:

  • The Russian Defense Ministry is considering increasing the lower limit for a military pension from 20 to 25 years of service, which would save hundreds of billions of rubles a year. (Kommersant, 06.23.17)

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

  • Since 2003, over two dozen murders or mysterious deaths in multiple countries seem to trace back to Moscow. At least 33 people in the U.K., U.S., Ukraine, Greece, India and Kazakhstan have been murdered or died mysteriously in the last 14 years, according to recent reports by BuzzFeed News and USA Today. (Business Insider, 06.20.17)
  • A Russian law banning gay "propaganda" is discriminatory and encourages homophobia, the European Court of Human Rights said June 20, in a ruling that provoked an angry rebuke from Moscow. (Wall Street Journal, 06.20.17)
  • Botanists at Britain’s Kew Gardens identified the presence of an unknown chemical compound with a potential link to a toxic plant in the stomach of dead Russian whistleblower, Alexander Perepilichnyy. (Financial Times, 06.20.17)
  • Alexei Malobrodsky, the former head of Moscow’s Gogol Center theater, has been detained by police as part of an ongoing fraud investigation. (The Moscow Times, 06.20.17)

III. Foreign affairs, trade and investment

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

  • Russian companies issued almost as much debt in Eurobonds in the first five months of 2017 as throughout the whole of last year, showing foreign investors remain hungry for Russian paper even as they cool on the country’s equities. (Financial Times, 06.19.19)
  • While U.S. energy groups stepped back from Russia in response to new U.S. sanctions, rivals in the EU have held fast, ducking through loopholes in Brussels’ restrictions to keep joint ventures running. (Financial Times, 06.20.17)
  • Rosatom first deputy CEO Kirill Komarov told a nuclear conference in Moscow that Rosatom had an overseas order book of $133 billion for the next 10 years, with almost three times more foreign orders than in 2011. Rosatom plans to sell a 49% stake in the Akkuyu nuclear power plant project to Turkish conglomerate Cengiz-Kolin-Kalyon. (Reuters, 06.19.17, Reuters, 06.19.17)
  • Rosatom and its subsidiaries signed agreements with several governments, companies and universities during the IX AtomExpo International Forum this week in Moscow. The agreements were signed with governments and companies from Belgium, the Czech Republic, South Korea, Armenia, Ethiopia, Sudan and Uganda. (World Nuclear News, 06.20.17, 06.22.17)
  • Dmitry Shugaev, director of Russia's FSMTC agency, which oversees arms exports and imports, told reporters at the Paris Airshow that Russia saw continued demand for military aircraft, accounting for 40-50% of annual arms exports of around $15 billion. He said he expected Russia to maintain its spot as the second largest arms seller in the world behind the U.S. (Reuters, 06.20.17)
  • Russian Foreign Ministry said June 18 that "anti-Cuban" actions recently announced by Washington were regrettable and that Moscow confirmed its solidarity with Havana. (Reuters, 06.18.17)
  • Sweden on June 21 summoned Russia’s ambassador to Sweden after a Russian fighter jet flew close to a Swedish reconnaissance aircraft in international airspace over the Baltic Sea. (AP, 06.21.17)
  • U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned the Trump administration June 20 that if the U.S. disengages from many issues confronting the international community it will be replaced—and that won’t be good for America or for the world. (AP, 06.20.17)
  • Wolfgang Schaeuble, Germany’s veteran finance minister, urged the U.S. to limit Russian and Chinese influence or risk bringing about “the end of our liberal world order.” (Bloomberg, 06.21.17)
  • Germany threatened on June 16 to retaliate against the U.S. if new sanctions on Russia end up penalizing German firms. (Reuters, 06.16.17)
  • A 24-year-old man was convicted of sexual abuse of a child in Berlin in a case Chancellor Angela Merkel cited as an example of Russia attempting to manipulate German public opinion through fake news reports. (AP, 06.20.17)
  • Putin and his Brazilian counterpart Michel Temer signed a statement on “strengthening a strategic dialogue on foreign policy issues” following talks at the Kremlin on June 21. (AP, 06.21.17)
  • While 87% of Russians have confidence in Putin’s handling of world affairs and 59% believe Russia is more important internationally than a decade ago, support has fallen “when it comes to [Putin’s] approach to relations with the EU, China and the U.S.,” according to a survey by the Pew Research Center survey. (Bloomberg, 06.20.17)

China:

  • Climate change, trade and terrorism were high on the agenda June 19 at a Beijing meeting of foreign affairs officials from the BRICS nations. Leaders of the five nations are to meet in the southeastern Chinese city of Xiamen in September. (AP, 06.19.17)

Ukraine:

  • The EU on June 19 extended for another year its trade sanctions on Crimea. EU foreign ministers said that the 28-nation bloc “remains committed to fully implement its non-recognition policy” of Russia’s seizure of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol. The sanctions are now set to run until June 23, 2018, and apply to EU citizens and companies. On June 22, 28 EU heads of state and government agreed to extend the bloc's economic sanctions against Russia by six months until Jan. 31. The extended sanctions, mainly targeting Russia's banking and financial sectors, were first imposed by Brussels in June and July 2014 as a response to Russian aggression in the eastern part of Ukraine and the invasion and later illegal annexation of Crimea. (AP, 06.19.17, RFE/RL, 06.22.17, Reuters, 06.19.17)
  • Ukraine’s leader Petro Poroshenko met with Trump and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence in Washington on June 20. "That's a great honor and a great pleasure to be to be together with you, dear Mr. President, one of the most reliable supporter and strategic partners for Ukraine," Poroshenko told Trump. A brief White House statement said the two discussed "support for the peaceful resolution to the conflict in eastern Ukraine and President Poroshenko's reform agenda and anticorruption efforts." Poroshenko also attended more extensive meetings with Pence and the Trump administration’s top national security advisers. (Bloomberg, 06.20.17, RFE/RL, 06.20.17, The Washington Post, 06.20.17)
  • Poroshenko has said that representatives from Trump’s administration have agreed to visit Kiev "in the near future" and will sign "very important" defense agreements. (RFE/RL, 06.22.17)
  • Poroshenko says he and European Council President Donald Tusk have discussed relations with the EU, as well as U.S. sanctions related to the conflict in eastern Ukraine and Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea. (RFE/RL, 06.22.17)
  • "In your questions that were submitted to you, one of the questions was providing the Ukrainians with legal, lethal defense weaponry with which to defend themselves," Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain told Patrick M. Shanahan, who was nominated in March to be deputy defense secretary. "Inexplicably, you responded by saying you have to look at the issue. It's not satisfactory, Mr. Shanahan." (The Washington Post, 06.20.17)
  • The Ukrainian parliament is preparing a new law on the return of Donbas under Kiev's sovereignty, a senior parliamentary official said June 19. The planned legislation enables Poroshenko to impose martial law in the region if needed, Irina Lutsenko, Poroshenko's representative in the parliament said. “A separate bill is needed because up till now the anti-terrorist operation was led by Ukraine’s Security Service, whereas martial law implies that powers will be handed over to the defense ministry. Both power structures and local authorities on those territories to be under martial law status should subordinate to the military forces,” a source familiar with the matter told Russia’s Nezavisimaya Gazeta. The Kremlin has no detailed information yet if the Minsk Accords are incorporated in Kiev’s plan, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the media. (Xinhua, 06.19.17, TASS, 06.19.17, TASS, 06.20.17)
  • From mid-April 2014 to mid-March 2017, at least 9,940 people have been killed and 23,455 wounded in eastern Ukraine, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. From Jan. 1 to June 15, 2017, 47 civilians have been killed and 222 wounded in eastern Ukraine, according to the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine. At least 1.6 million Ukrainians moved west toward Kiev as a result of fighting in the country’s east, according to the U.N. Russia says 2.6 million Ukrainians moved east. Moscow is alarmed by the escalation of violence in Donbas and the growing death toll among the civilians, the Russian Foreign Ministry said June 14, commenting on a report of the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (New York Times, 06.20.17, UNIAN, 06.17.17, TASS, 06.14.17)
  • The U.S. State Department said on June 22 it was "deeply concerned" about a pattern of violence by Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine targeting unarmed civilians of a European mission monitoring the conflict in region. (Reuters, 06.22.17)
  • Already reeling from a $4.5 billion bill to save its ailing No. 1 lender Privatbank, Ukraine is now bracing for an even costlier rescue, and says audits by PwC’s local office were instrumental in the bank’s failure. The government may have to stump up 38.5 billion hryvnia ($1.5 billion) more to recapitalize Privatbank. (Bloomberg, 06.20.17)

Russia’s other post-Soviet neighbors:

  • Kazakhstan's upper house of parliament has approved a controversial bill allowing authorities to strip "terrorists" of their citizenship. (RFE/RL, 06.22.17)
  • Officials in the South Caucasus region of Nagorno-Karabakh say four of their soldiers were killed in fighting with Azerbaijan. Three of the men were killed June 16 and a fourth on the morning of June 17, according to Nagorno-Karabakh's Defense Ministry. Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry said one of its soldiers was killed June 16. (AP, 06.17.17)
  • Rosatom plans to extend the operating period of unit two of the Metsamor nuclear power plant in Armenia in 2018 and 2019. (World Nuclear News, 06.15.17)
  • EU foreign ministers and their counterparts from the Eastern Partnership countries met in Brussels June 19 to work on the preparations for the Eastern Partnership summit in November 2017.  (The Financial, 06.19.17)
  • Sixty percent of Russians think “there are parts of other neighboring countries that rightly belong to them,” according to a Pew Research Center survey that didn’t specify what areas were meant. Support for that view has been roughly steady over the last 15 years, Pew said. (Bloomberg, 06.20.17)

IV. Quoteworthy

  • Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl would say "if we want to preserve our civilization in this turbulent and rapidly changing world with growing centers of power, most notably not just military power, but also economic and cultural one, Europe and Russia should definitely stay together. I absolutely agree with him,” Putin said. (TASS, 06.21.17)
  • Senior U.S. State Department official: “Right now, U.S.-Russia relations are in the gutter. We want to make sure it doesn’t flush into the sewer.” (BuzzFeed, 06.19.17)