This Week’s Highlights:

• Russia’s Nuclear Safety Institute hosted a U.S. delegation from the National Nuclear Security Administration this week to discuss potential cooperation on enhancing nuclear and radiation safety worldwide, according to a press release from the Moscow-based organization. 
• For many in the Kremlin, the choreographed resignation of Kazakhstan’s leader is a model for President Vladimir Putin to consider, but some in the ruling elite are pressing the Russian leader to remain in office as long as possible, Bloomberg cited three unnamed people close to the Kremlin as saying. There’s no agreed-upon scenario for a transition, the people said.
• The Russian state statistics service has stopped publishing its monthly reports on real incomes after years of declining numbers suggested a fall in Russians’ standard of living, the New York Times reports.
• Russia has wrapped up construction of its first rail bridge to China, connecting the two countries across the Amur River, Russian media reported this week, according to The Moscow Times. The bridge is expected to serve as a channel for transporting goods with an annual shipment volume of 21 million tons when it opens later in 2019.
• In the lead-up to Ukraine’s presidential election on March 31, Ukrainians have less faith in their government than any other electorate in the world, according to Gallup. Just 9 percent of residents have confidence in the national government, the lowest level in the world for the second straight year. This is far below the regional median of 48 percent for former Soviet states and the global average of 56 percent in 2018.
• Around 100 Afghan border police fled their posts in Baghdis province and tried to cross the border into Turkmenistan during a weeklong battle with the Taliban, Al Jazeera quoted Afghan officials as saying. The report said the soldiers weren't allowed to cross into Turkmenistan, but other accounts claim they did.

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

Nuclear security and safety:

• The Nuclear Safety Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences hosted an NNSA delegation on March 20, according to a press release posted on the Moscow-based organization’s website. The statement said the NNSA proposed the meeting and that the American delegation included specialists from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The Russian and U.S. participants noted that it is “possible to start searching for new areas of cooperation to improve nuclear safety worldwide within the framework of inter-academic cooperation between the two countries,” the statement said. (Russia Matters, 03.22.19)

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• This week lawmakers from the Russian legislature’s upper house, the Federation Council, wrapped up a visit to Pyongyang for talks aimed at strengthening DPRK-Russian relations. Among those representing the Russian government were Sergei Kislyak, who formerly served as Moscow’s ambassador to the U.S., and Oleg Melnicheko, chairperson of a regional development committee on the Federation Council. (NK News, 03.21.19)
• The U.S. government has identified the Russian ship suspected of providing fuel to Pyongyang as the Tantal. (Reuters, 03.22.19)

Iran’s nuclear program and related issues:

• Iran's Defense Ministry unit responsible for developing nuclear weapons is poised to restart work and is using front companies to buy materials from Russia and China that could be used to reactivate its banned bomb program, U.S. officials alleged March 22. (Wall Street Journal, 03.22.19)

New Cold War/saber rattling:

• The Kremlin on March 21 complained that flights by U.S. nuclear-capable B-52 strategic bombers across the Baltic Sea near Russia's borders were creating tensions in the region, but Washington said they were needed to deter potential adversaries. (Reuters, 03.21.19)
• On March 18, the Italian air force Typhoons deployed to Iceland to support NATO’s air policing operations, were launched to carry out a VID (visual identification) of two Russian Tu-142 aircraft flying in international airspace in the vicinity of Icelandic borders. (The Aviationist, 03.21.19)

Military issues, including NATO-Russia relations:

• Norway has electronic proof that Russian forces disrupted GPS signals during recent NATO war games, and has demanded an explanation from its eastern neighbor. (Reuters, 03.19.19)
• U.S. President Donald Trump has nominated the top U.S. Air Force general in Europe to serve as the next supreme allied commander in Europe and head the U.S. European Command. The nomination of Gen. Tod Wolters was announced March 15 by acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, who said the NATO alliance had agreed with the pick. (RFE/RL, 03.16.19)
• The German Finance Ministry said March 18 that an extra €2 billion ($2.27 billion) was planned for the military in 2020, but Germany's military spending would drop in 2023 to 1.25 percent of its gross domestic product—well short of NATO's 2 percent target set for 2025 and Germany's promise to meet 1.5 percent by that year. (DW, 03.19.19)

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms control:

• Russia will not destroy its intermediate-range nuclear missiles that the U.S. claims violate an unraveling Cold War-era arms control treaty, its Foreign Ministry said on March 19. “We can’t destroy the 9M729 [missile] complexes, which Washington had declared in violation of the treaty without any reason,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. (The Moscow Times, 03.19.19)
• Amid ongoing disarmament talks in Geneva, U.S. Assistant State Secretary of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance Yleem Poblete asked March 19 how the U.S. could "trust Russian arms control efforts and their seriousness about preventing an arms race in outer space when they have touted the development and completion of a broad array of counterspace capabilities." (Newsweek, 03.20.19)
• Russia is calling on the U.S. and other Western countries to resume joint efforts in the arms control sphere, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a plenary meeting at the Geneva Conference on Disarmament on March 20. (TASS, 03.20.19)
• "We will not use nuclear weapons to prevent a regional armed conflict," Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Antonov was quoted by TASS as saying at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington on March 11. “There exists no concept of a first nuclear strike” in Russia, he said. “Our military doctrine clearly states when and under what circumstances we can use nuclear weapons—if an attack has been conducted against the Russian Federation [and] there is a threat to the existence of the country,” he said. (Russia Matters, 03.22.19)

Counter-terrorism:

• The final ISIS stronghold has been conquered in Syria after they controlled it for four and a half years, according to the White House. The announcement came from U.S. President Donald Trump, who handed out maps to journalists on March 22 showing that ISIS territory was completely eradicated. (American Military News, 03.22.19)
• The Islamic State is growing stronger in northern Afghanistan, and this is a major threat to the regional security of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization member-countries, Sergei Smirnov, First Deputy Director of Russia’s Federal Security Service told reporters. (TASS, 03.15.19)

Conflict in Syria:

• Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on March 22 that a change in the status of the Golan Heights would be a direct violation of U.N. decisions. She was commenting on a statement by U.S. President Donald Trump, who tweeted on March 21 it was time to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Other countries including Syria, Iran, Germany and Turkey, as well as the EU also criticized the statement. (Reuters, 03.22.19, DW, 03.22.19)
• Over a thousand Dagestanis continue fighting in Syria alongside militant groups, regional national guard leader, Magomed Baachilov, told reporters on March 19. (Interfax, 03.19.19)
• Russia's defense minister has traveled to Damascus where he handed a message from Russian President Vladimir Putin to Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and discussed "issues related to fighting international terrorism along with various aspects of Mideast security and post-conflict settlement” with him, the Russian Defense Ministry says. (RFE/RL, 03.19.19)
• No Syrians have been granted asylum in Russia since 2017, an officer from the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Russia told Interfax. (Interfax, 03.14.19)

Cyber security:

• The European Commission has slammed Google for what it says is a lack of action in fighting disinformation ahead of elections to the European Parliament in May. (RFE/RL, 03.16.19)
• Malware dubbed Triton in 2017 almost disabled the industrial-safety software in a Saudi Arabian petrochemicals plant, potentially allowing hackers to control the facility and release toxic chemicals, according to cybersecurity firm FireEye. FireEye suspects state-backed hackers—likely from Russia—for the attack. (Wall Street Journal, 03.22.19)

Elections interference:

• U.S. President Donald Trump called for the public release of special counsel Robert Mueller's final report on his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. In comments to reporters March 20, Trump also repeated his frequent criticism of the two-year probe, calling its very existence "ridiculous." (RFE/RL, 03.21.19)
• U.S. senators on March 20 came to the defense of the late Sen. John McCain, who was belittled by U.S. President Donald Trump in a series of recent tweets and comments. On March 20, Trump blamed McCain for turning over to the FBI a dossier of unverified allegations about his actions in Moscow and connections to Russia, rather than calling Trump when he received it. (Wall Street Journal, 03.20.19)
• Federal authorities began investigating the email accounts of Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, as early as July 2017, only months after U.S. President Donald Trump took office, according to documents unsealed on March 19. (Wall Street Journal, 03.19.19)
• House of Representatives’ Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler said March 18 that he has received tens of thousands of documents after requesting information from U.S. President Donald Trump's confidants, White House officials and business associates. (The Washington Post, 03.18.19)
• Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko told Hill.TV that he has opened a probe into alleged attempts by Ukrainians to interfere in the United States' 2016 presidential election. Lutsenko is probing a claim from a member of the Ukrainian parliament that the director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, Artem Sytnyk, attempted to influence the vote to benefit Hillary Clinton. (The Hill, 03.20.19)

Energy exports:

• Russia will supply gas to Hungary in 2020, regardless of agreements on gas transit between Moscow and Kiev, the RBC news website reported on March 22. The transit agreement between Russia and Ukraine expires at the end of this year. (The Moscow Times, 03.22.19)
• A Ukrainian presidential candidate has traveled to Moscow to meet with the Russian prime minister to discuss gas supplies. Yuri Boyko told Russian premier Dmitry Medvedev that he would like Ukraine to resume gas purchases from Russia, which should lower the skyrocketing utility bills for Ukrainians. (AP, 03.22.19)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin has kicked off the full-scale development of one of Russia’s largest proven gas fields, the Kharasaveyskoye gas field, in the Yamal peninsula, the Kremlin reported on March 20. (The Moscow Times, 03.20.19)
• Saudi Arabia’s energy minister said global oil supplies are expected to grow in the coming months, paving the way for continued efforts by OPEC and Russia to curb supplies that could last through 2019. Budget needs are forcing Saudi Arabia to push for oil prices of at least $70 per barrel this year. (Financial Times, 03.18.19, New York Times, 03.22.19)

Bilateral economic ties:

• No significant developments.

Other bilateral issues:

• American intelligence spending could rise to nearly $86 billion, a 6 percent increase that reflects the Trump administration's proposed boost in defense and national security spending and a renewed focus on threats from Russia and China. (New York Times, 03.19.19)
• “The United States is not our rival. As I have said many times today, we consider the United States as a partner, and it’s up to you to decide who we are for you,” Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov was quoted by TASS as saying at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington on March 11. (Russia Matters, 03.22.19)
• Russia's national flag carrier Aeroflot will cancel its order of 20 Boeing 737 Max planes unless Boeing is able to guarantee the plane's safety after the deadly crash in Ethiopia by November. (Reuters, 03.15.19)
• U.S. investor Michael Calvey wants to steer away from the politicization of his detention on suspicion of multimillion dollar fraud in Russia, he told Russian tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets in an interview. (The Moscow Times, 03.19.19)
• A court in Moscow has returned to the prosecutors a case against American national Gaylen Grandstaff, who faces 20 years in Russian prison for ordering a cleaning product containing a chemical banned in Russia. (The Moscow Times, 03.19.19)
• Mikhail Lesin, the former Russian press minister who turned up dead in a Washington hotel room in 2015, sustained a fracture to a neck bone just below the jaw line "at or near the time" of his death, according to documents released by the city's medical examiner that provide new details about his final days. Multiple forensic pathologists and medical examiners who pored over Lesin’s autopsy results have raised fresh questions about whether the wealthy former Kremlin insider might have been murdered. (RFE/RL, 03.16.19, RFE/RL, 03.21.19)
• Two Mormons who were detained in Russia and accused of violating immigration laws have been released and are returning home to the U.S. (RFE/RL, 03.21.19)
• A group of American and Russian volunteers this week were sealed into a collection of mock space modules in Moscow at the start of a four-month isolation experiment intended to simulate a mission to the moon. (ABC News, 03.20.19)
• Every year, hundreds of pregnant Russian women travel to the U.S. to give birth so that their child can acquire all the privileges of American citizenship. (AP, 03.22.19)

II. Russia’s domestic news

Politics, economy and energy:

• For many in the Kremlin, the choreographed events unfolding in neighboring Kazakhstan—where Nursultan Nazarbayev has stepped down as president, but retains considerable power—are a model for Russian President Vladimir Putin to consider, but some within the ruling elite are pressing the Russian leader to remain president for as long as possible, three people close to the Kremlin said. There’s no agreed scenario for a transition, the people said. (Bloomberg, 03.20.19)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin appointed champion kickboxer Batu Khasikov acting head of Kalmykia. He also accepted the resignation of Chelyabinsk Oblast governor Boris Dubrovsky and named First Deputy Energy Minister Aleksei Teksler as acting governor of the Urals region. Murmansk governor Marina Kovtun also submitted her resignation, as did Orenburg governor Yury Berg. The resignations came as Kommersant reported that six regional governors could be replaced as the Kremlin prepares for gubernatorial elections that will be held in eighteen regions in September. (RFE/RL, 03.19.19, RFE/RL, 03.20.19, RFE/RL, 03.21.19)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a controversial set of bills that make it a crime to “disrespect” the state and spread “fake news” online, Russian media reported on March 18. (The Moscow Times, 03.18.19)
• Russia is now the 68th-happiest place on Earth, wedged between Pakistan and the Philippines, according to the World Happiness Report. It came in at 58th in 2018 and 49th the year before. (The Moscow Times, 03.20.19)
• Average life expectancy rose to more than 73 years in 2018, Olga Tkacheva, the Russian Health Ministry’s chief of geriatrics, told the state-run RIA Novosti news agency. (The Moscow Times, 03.21.19)
• A total of 128 people died in 42 plane crashes and accidents that occurred in Russia in 2018, the Interstate Aviation Committee said in a report published on March 20. In 2017, 51 people died in 39 accidents. (The Moscow Times, 03.20.19)
• The Russian state statistics service has halted its monthly reports on the population’s real income after years of declining numbers suggested a fall in Russians’ standard of living. Economists were already keeping a wary eye on the service after the appointment of a new director in December, just days after Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized what he called the poor quality of state statistics. A flurry of new, optimistic economic data followed. (New York Times, 03.20.19)
• Analysts at Bloomberg Economics estimate that sanctions have knocked as much as 6 percent off Russia’s economy over the past five years. (Bloomberg, 03.17.19)
• Russia's Finance Ministry has swiftly placed $3 billion and €0.75 billion worth of Eurobonds, maturing in 2035 and yielding 5.1 percent and 2025/2.375 percent, respectively—the biggest issue in six years. (BNE Intellinews, 03.22.19)
• The Bank of Russia said it may return to easing monetary policy this year after a currency rally and weak consumer demand helped blunt a spike in inflation. The regulator kept its key rate on hold at 7.75 percent for a second straight meeting. (Bloomberg, 03.22.19)
• FIFA named the 2018 World Cup that Russia hosted over the summer its most profitable championship in history with a revenue of $5.36 billion. (The Moscow Times, 03.18.19)
• A team from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology used a quantum system program to reverse the state of a quantum computer a fraction of a second into the past. (The Moscow Times, 03.18.19)

Defense and aerospace:

• Russia has added a battalion of S-400 missile defense systems in the Kaliningrad region, the country's westernmost enclave, in the latest upgrade to Russia’s presence in the Baltic Sea since 2016. (The Moscow Times, 03.18.19)
• Corruption in Russia’s military has quadrupled to 7 billion rubles ($109.8 million) last year, the top federal military prosecutor said on March 21. (The Moscow Times, 03.21.19)

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• Oyub Titiyev, who runs the office of the Memorial Human Rights Center in the southern Russian region, was sentenced to four years in a penal settlement on March 18 after he was found guilty of possessing illegal drugs. His supporters say he was framed, with the drugs planted in his car. (Reuters, 03.19.19)
  • British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt condemned the sentence handed out to Titiyev by a court in Chechnya, calling it "an awful example of Russia suppressing vital work of human rights defenders." (Reuters, 03.19.19)
• EU citizen Andrzej Oniszczuk has been placed in solitary confinement, denied visitation with his wife and subjected to a grueling daily regimen while awaiting trial in central Russia, the Jehovah’s Witnesses told The Moscow Times. (The Moscow Times, 03.19.19)
• Russian State Duma deputy Vadim Belousov has been detained on suspicion of accepting a 3.2 billion ruble ($49 million) bribe in cooperation with ex-Chelyabinsk region governor Mikhail Yurevich. (The Moscow Times, 03.15.19)
• France has issued arrest warrants for Valentin Balakhnichev, a former president of the Russian athletics federation, and Aleksei Melnikov, an ex-coach of Russia's national long-distance-running team as part of an investigation into doping cover-ups. (RFE/RL, 03.19.19)
• Police in Russia's Sakha-Yakutia region have detained a group of people accused of attacking migrants from Central Asia following the arrest of a Kyrgyz man suspected of raping a local woman. (RFE/RL, 03.20.19)
• Business ombudsman Boris Titov has appealed to federal prosecutors over a group of Russian businessmen currently being held in pre-trial detention. In his letter, Titov complained that businessmen are being held on embezzlement charges without trial for as long as three years. (The Moscow Times, 03.22.19)

III. Foreign affairs, trade and investment

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

• Russia has signed a $2 billion contract for the supply of more than 20 Su-35 fighter jets to Egypt, the Kommersant news daily reported on March 18, citing two senior defense industry officials. (The Moscow Times, 03.18.19)
• Russia's Foreign Ministry said on March 18 it was seriously concerned by what it described as attempts by some opposition forces in Serbia to provoke violence during protests in Belgrade over the weekend. (Reuters, 03.18.19)

• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on March 19 that Moscow supported the Algerian government's initiative to hold talks with the opposition after weeks of protests. Lavrov made the comments after meeting Algeria's Deputy Prime Minister Ramtane Lamamra in Moscow on March 19. (Reuters, 03.19.19)
• Talks between U.S. special representative Elliot Abrams and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov in Rome on how to defuse Venezuela's crisis ended on March 19 with the two sides still at odds over the legitimacy of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said on March 22 that Russia, China and Cuba are responsible for keeping Maduro in power. (Reuters, 03.20.19, Newsweek, 03.22.19)
• Poland has refused to invite a Russian delegation to a ceremony to commemorate 80 years since the outbreak of World War II. (RFE/RL, 03.21.19)
• Attackers on a motorcycle threw a hand grenade at the Russian consulate in Athens early on March 22, causing no injuries and slight damage, police said. (Reuters, 03.22.19)
• The Czech Foreign Ministry has called in Russia's ambassador for talks amid a growing scandal over how Russian diplomatic apartments are being rented out in Prague. (RFE/RL, 03.22.19)

China:

• Russia has wrapped up construction of its first rail bridge to China, connecting the two countries across the Amur River, Russian media reported on March 21. The bridge is expected to serve as an international goods transportation channel with an annual shipment volume of 21 million tons when it opens later in 2019. (The Moscow Times, 03.21.19)
• Russia and China are competitors to the U.S. and both nations are looking to overturn the current rules-based international order, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford, said. (Militaryspot.com, 03.22.19)

Ukraine:

• The EU’s foreign policy chief has marked the fifth anniversary of Russia’s seizure and "illegal annexation" of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula with scathing criticism of the Kremlin. In a statement issued on March 17, a day before what in Moscow's eyes is the fifth anniversary of the day Crimea became part of Russia, Federica Mogherini said the EU “remains steadfast in its commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity." (RFE/RL, 03.17.19)
  • Russia will respond to new EU sanctions, its Foreign Ministry said on March 16, without saying what action it would take. (Reuters, 03.16.19)
• In the lead-up to the presidential election on March 31, Ukrainians go to the polls with less faith in their government than is true for any other electorate in the world. Just 9 percent of residents have confidence in the national government, the lowest confidence level in the world for the second straight year. This is far below the regional median for former Soviet states (48 percent) as well as the global average (56 percent) in 2018. (Gallup, 03.21.19)
• The leader of the Sluha Narodu (Servant of the People) Party, Volodymyr Zelensky, is still ahead of other Ukrainian presidential candidates with 24.9 percent of support, according to a poll by the Rating sociological group. Some 18.8 percent of respondents support ex-PM and Batkivshchyna party leader Yulia Tymoshenko, and 17.4 percent support incumbent President Petro Poroshenko. (Unian, 03.19.19)
• Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who is a leading candidate in the country's March 31 presidential election, has defended her support for Kiev's 2014 decision not to use military force to resist Russia's annexation of Crimea. "At the time that all began, Ukraine had no army and no international support," Tymoshenko said. (RFE/RL, 03.18.19)
• The U.S. State Department has denied an explosive claim by Ukrainian Prosecutor-General Yuriy Lutsenko that U.S. Ambassador to Kiev Marie Yovanovitch gave him "a list of people whom we should not prosecute" during their first in-person meeting. (RFE/RL, 03.21.19)
• A decision about whether to prosecute Gregory B. Craig, who was White House counsel for U.S. President Barack Obama, is expected in the coming weeks. The investigation centers on whether Craig should have disclosed work he did in 2012—while he was a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom—on behalf of the government of Viktor Yanukovych, then the president of Ukraine. (New York Times, 03.19.19)
• Ukraine says one of its soldiers has been killed and two wounded as a result of clashes with Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. (RFE/RL, 03.22.19)
• Canada is set to announce it will extend its 200-member military training mission in Ukraine. (RFE/RL, 03.18.19)
• A Russian court has sentenced ailing 20-year-old Ukrainian Pavlo Hryb to six years in prison after convicting him of "promoting terrorism," a charge he contends was fabricated by the Federal Security Service. (RFE/RL, 03.22.19)
• Ukraine's Security Service says it has seized a shipment of South American narcotics worth some $51 million. (RFE/RL, 03.21.19)
• U.S. authorities have moved to seize a French painting that was taken by Nazi forces from a Ukrainian museum near the end of World War II. (RFE/RL, 03.22.19)

Russia’s other post-Soviet neighbors:

• Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev unexpectedly resigned on March 19 after three decades in power, saying his oil-rich Central Asian nation now needed "a new generation of leaders." (Reuters, 03.19.19)
  • Nazarbayev, who is 78, will remain the chairman of the ruling Nur Otan party and the country’s security council, which after a constitutional change last year has powers as extensive as those of the presidential administration and the government. (Financial Times, 03.19.19)
  • Dariga Nazarbayeva, Nazarbayev’s oldest daughter, was elected Parliament speaker on March 20, fueling speculation that she would succeed her father as the country’s ruler after elections next year. (New York Times, 03.20.19)
  • Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a congratulatory telegram to the new acting president of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, hours after he was named the new leader of the Central Asian country. Tokayev was sworn in as Kazakhstan’s president on March 20. (The Moscow Times, 03.20.19)
  • Police in Astana have arrested about 20 people who protested on March 21 against the decision to rename the city "Nursultan" after Kazakhstan's former president. (RFE/RL, 03.21.19)
• In Afghanistan’s Baghdis province, around 100 Afghan border police fled their posts and tried to cross the border into Turkmenistan during a weeklong battle with the Taliban, Al Jazeera quoted Afghan officials as saying. The report said the soldiers weren't allowed to cross into Turkmenistan, but other accounts claim they did. (Al Jazeera, 03.17.19, New York Times, 03.17.19)
• Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov has pardoned 2,028 prisoners, state media reported on March 21. (RFE/RL, 03.21.19)
• A disputed section of the border between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan reopened on March 18 following the successful conclusion of four days of bilateral talks. The border had been closed following violent clashes between locals on March 13 that left two Tajik citizens dead and three Kyrgyz citizens hospitalized. (RFE/RL, 03.19.19)
• The American mother of one of four foreign cyclists killed in a terrorist attack in Tajikistan last year has said she will seek financial compensation from the Central Asian country. Jea Santovasco, the mother of Jay Austin, said she and an official from New Jersey had met with Ambassador of Tajikistan to the U.S. Farhod Salim and informed him about her intention. (RFE/RL, 03.15.19)
• Around 350 personnel from 24 NATO member states and partner countries started a joint military exercise in Georgia on March 18. The drills, dubbed NATO-Georgia Exercise 2019, will last until March 29 at the Krtsanisi National Training Center, near Tbilisi. (RFE/RL, 03.18.19)
• The EU has welcomed Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s decision to pardon jailed rights activists and political opponents as part of a broader amnesty and said it expects similar moves to follow. (RFE/RL, 03.17.19)
• A Russian soldier charged with beating an Armenian woman to death will remain in custody on the premises of the Russian military base in Armenia's northwestern city of Gyumri, a local court has ruled. (RFE/RL, 03.19.19)
• Belarusian Foreign Ministry spokesman Anatol Hlaz has criticized Russian envoy to Minsk Mikhail Babich's recent public statements about the two countries integration, calling them "artificial and juggled figures." Hlaz told RIA Novosti he "recommends" that Babich "spend more time to understand specifics of the country he works in, get acquainted with its history and have more respect [for it]." (RFE/RL, 03.15.19)
• Belarusian authorities have ordered the expulsion of an Iranian man who has converted to Christianity and is wanted by Tehran for apostasy and alleged murder, despite warnings by international human rights organizations that he would be at risk of torture and the death penalty if sent back. (RFE/RL, 03.15.19)

IV. Quoteworthy

• No significant developments.