This Week’s Highlights:

• Russian Gen. Valery Gerasimov has said that the Russians are building an “automated reconnaissance and strike system.”
• Declassified documents show that in 1993, the U.S. State Department envisioned Russia being admitted to NATO in 2005.
• "If you want to have an arms race we can do that, but I'll win,” Trump reportedly warned Putin by phone on their March 21 call.
• The U.K. shared with its allies intelligence reports that backed London’s claim that Russia has been running an “explicit” state-backed assassination program.
• On expelling Russian diplomats, the French president reportedly said, “Let’s do it on March 26 at 3 p.m.” The French had provided the British with technical assistance on analyzing the poisoning case of ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and come to the same conclusion.
• For the first time, the U.S. government’s $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill stipulates that no U.S. aid “made available by this act may be used to provide arms, training or other assistance to the Azov Battalion,” a controversial ultranationalist militia in Ukraine that has openly accepted neo-Nazis into its ranks.
• In 2013, 1.5 million EU citizens visited Russia. In 2017, that number dropped to 0.4 million, while American visitors to Russia declined from 220,00 to 40,000 in that same time frame. However, the number of Chinese visitors has jumped from 158,000 in 2010 to 1.5 million in 2017.

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

Nuclear security and safety:

• The U.S. Department of Energy has officially given the go-ahead to construct the last three buildings that will make up Y-12 National Security Complex's long-awaited uranium processing facility. (Knoxville News, 03.27.18)

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• Russia is working on setting up meetings about the North Korean issue in Moscow, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, without providing further details. (Reuters, 03.29.18)

Iran’s nuclear program and related issues:

• Iran should strengthen ties with Russia and China to counter the tougher stance expected from the U.S. following the appointment of John Bolton as national security adviser, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said. (Reuters, 03.24.18)
• Leading European powers have launched a push for new EU sanctions on Iran in an effort to stop the U.S. from pulling out of the landmark nuclear deal with Tehran. The proposals by France, Germany and the U.K. and are aimed at pressuring Iran over its ballistic missile program and its role in regional conflict while leaving the accord untouched. (Financial Times, 03.30.18)

Military issues, including NATO-Russia relations:

• If Europe came into conflict with Russia, only several thousand of the more than one million troops in its armies would be ready for rapid deployment. The U.S. wants to ensure that at least 30,000 troops, plus additional aircraft and naval ships, can reach a trouble spot within 30 days of NATO commanders putting forces on alert. (Wall Street Journal, 03.28.18)
• The EU on March 28 unveiled a military-mobility plan—ranging from cutting red tape at national borders to making bridges strong enough for tanks—that may help NATO ensure it can rush troops and equipment across Europe in the event of an incursion on the eastern front. (Bloomberg, 03.28.18)
• U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said he could recall a time when the U.S. and Russian militaries were training together for international peacekeeping missions amid hope of a post-Cold War partnership. "That regrettably, by Russia's choice, is now a thing of the past," he said. "Russia has chosen to be a strategic competitor, even to the point of reckless activity," he said, referring to the poisoning of the Skripals. "They are doing things they think are deniable," he said. "So, they're trying to break the unity of the Western alliance.” (AP, 03.27.18)
• “Today the U.S. commitment to maintaining global dominance and a monocentric world order through every possible means, including military, is critical for the development of the military and political environment in the world. This conflicts with the views of many countries, including Russia, which consider global leadership inappropriate and advocate a just world order,” Chief of Russia’s General Staff Gen. Valeriy Gerasimov said. (TASS/Russian Defense Policy Blog, 03.25.18)
• Declassified documents from U.S. and Russian archives show that U.S. officials led Russian President Boris Yeltsin to believe in 1993 that the Partnership for Peace was the alternative to NATO expansion, rather than a precursor to it. The declassified U.S. record includes new evidence on internal American thinking, such as a specific calendar for expansion in one early September 1993 document from the State Department, up to and including the ultimate admission of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia to NATO in 2005, after the Central and Eastern Europeans and the Baltics. (Wilson Center, 03.16.18)

Missile defense:

• Poland signed a $4.75 billion contract with the U.S. for the first phase of a Patriot air missile-defense system to soothe concerns over a more assertive Russia. (Bloomberg, 03.28.18)

Nuclear arms control:

• U.S. President Donald Trump has reportedly warned Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone that he would win a possible nuclear arms race. "If you want to have an arms race we can do that, but I'll win,” Trump reportedly said to Putin during a March 21 call congratulating the Russian president on his election victory. The Kremlin denied that Trump made mention of an arms race. (The Moscow Times, 03.30.18, Gazeta.ru, 03.30.18)

Counter-terrorism:

• No significant developments.

Conflict in Syria:

• Russian forces in Syria came close to clashing with the United States and U.S.-backed forces east of the Euphrates River in Syria's Deir el-Zour province, but fell back following a phone call between a top Russian general and the top-ranking U.S. military officer. The incident earlier this week came to light March 27 when U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis shared his concerns while talking with reporters. (VOA, 03.28.18)
• Syrian and Russian forces have evacuated most of the remaining rebels from eastern Ghouta and the government now controls 90 percent of the Damascus suburb, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said. In the meantime, U.S. President Donald Trump said March 29 that the United States will end its military presence in Syria “very soon”—contradicting his secretaries of state and defense, who have said U.S. troops should stay for the foreseeable future. (RFE/RL, 03.30.18, Politico, 03.29.18)
• Calling the situation in Syria's eastern Ghouta "a travesty," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley admonished the Russian government March 27 for "deception, hypocrisy and brutality" on behalf of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. (CNN, 03.28.18)
• The Russian Defense Ministry has dismissed media reports claiming that Israeli F-35 fighter jets managed to pierce Russian air defense radar systems in Syria and to do aerial reconnaissance there. (TASS, 03.30.18)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin met with the leader of Qatar in Moscow. Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani expressed condolences to Putin over the deadly fire in Kemerovo at the outset of their meeting, at which they discussed "the situation in Syria" and "boosting bilateral cooperation in various fields." (RFE/RL, 03.27.18)

Cyber security:

• The Czech Republic has extradited to the U.S. Yevgeniy Nikulin, a Russian citizen accused of hacking LinkedIn and Dropbox in 2012 and 2013, a move that may increase diplomatic tensions between Washington and Moscow. During a recent visit to the Czech Republic, U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan said he expected Czech authorities to extradite Nikulin. (Bloomberg, 03.30.18, RFE/RL, 03.28.18)
• Spanish authorities have broken up a cybercrime syndicate of Ukrainian and Russian nationals that allegedly stole more than 1 billion euros ($1.24 billion) from bank accounts over more than four years. (RFE/RL, 03.28.18)

Elections interference:

• The FBI has found that a business associate of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort had ongoing ties to Russian intelligence, including during the 2016 campaign when Manafort and his deputy, Rick Gates, were in touch with the associate, according to new court filings. Prosecutors did not name the Manafort associate, but the detailed description of his role with Manafort matches the Russian manager of Manafort's lobbying office in Kiev, Konstantin Kilimnik. Gates said he knew Kilimnik was a onetime Russian military intelligence officer. The FBI is even more direct: Agents believe Kilimnik has “ties to a Russian intelligence service and had such ties in 2016,” according to the filing. (The Washington Post, 03.28.18, Bloomberg, 03.28.18)
  • In August 2016, Oleg Deripaska’s private jet traveled from Moscow to Newark for less than a day, arriving within hours of a meeting in Manhattan between Paul Manafort, then chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, and Konstantin Kilimnik, who spent over a decade as Manafort’s translator and fixer in Ukraine. Weeks earlier, Manafort had emailed his old associate and told him to extend an offer of "private briefings" to Deripaska, according to The Washington Post. Both Deripaska and Manafort have denied that such briefings took place. (Vice, 03.30.18)
• Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has been questioning witnesses about events at the 2016 Republican National Convention. They have been asking about a convention-related event attended by both Russia’s U.S. ambassador and Jeff Sessions, the first U.S. senator to support Trump and now his attorney general. (Reuters, 03.29.18)
• The U.S. Justice Department inspector general confirmed for the first time that he’s looking into whether FBI and department officials acted properly in obtaining a warrant during the 2016 presidential race to spy on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. (Bloomberg, 03.28.18)
• U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions rejected calls from Republican lawmakers for a second special counsel to look into potential misconduct by the Justice Department and the FBI in past investigations of Hillary Clinton, saying that the issues were already under scrutiny. (Bloomberg, 03.29.18)
• Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort urged a federal judge in Virginia to dismiss tax and bank fraud charges against him, renewing arguments that special counsel Robert Mueller went too far by investigating crimes beyond Russian meddling in the election. Manafort argued March 27 that Mueller exceeded his appointment order to investigate coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. (Bloomberg, 03.27.18)
• The National Rifle Association received foreign funds but didn’t use the money for election purposes, the gun lobby wrote to U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden. Wyden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, has previously written to the NRA to ask about its fundraising efforts. He’s referenced Alexander Torshin, a Russian lawmaker and ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin who attended the group’s annual meeting in 2016. (Bloomberg, 03.27.18)
• Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley and Sen. Dianne Feinstein on March 29 released a request for new emails from two senior Trump campaign aides. They sent a letter earlier this week to the Trump campaign’s attorney seeking emails from Rick Dearborn, and John Mashburn. (Politico, 03.29.18)

Energy exports:

• Germany has approved the construction and operation of the Russia-built Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. The Nord Stream 2 operator said it expected the other four countries along the route of the undersea gas pipeline—Russia, Finland, Sweden and Denmark—will issue permits in the coming months. (Reuters, 03.27.18)
• The cost of Russian gas giant Gazprom’s pipeline project to China has reportedly ballooned to $9.7 billion. (The Moscow Times, 03.27.18)
• Italian oil and gas company Eni has put its Black Sea project with Russia’s Rosneft on hold. (RBC, 03.30.18)

Bilateral economic ties:

• No significant developments.

Other bilateral issues:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin is still ready to hold a summit with U.S. counterpart Donald Trump despite the mass Western expulsions of Russian diplomats in a spy row, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. (RFE/RL, 03.28.18)
• White House Chief of Staff John Kelly has lost some of his clout following recent missteps and wasn’t at U.S. President Donald Trump’s side for recent crucial decisions on staffing and policy moves. Kelly was not on last week’s call when Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin days before the U.S. decided to expel dozens of Russian diplomats. (Bloomberg, 03.29.18)
• Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., Anatoly Antonov, said this week that the “atmosphere in Washington is poison” towards his nation, defending the Kremlin against allegations of attempted murder and election interference in the U.S. (Politico, 03.30.18)
• The Kremlin-run RT news network will go off the air in the U.S. capital because of its “foreign agent” status in the country, its chief editor has claimed. (The Moscow Times, 03.30.18)
• A Soyuz capsule carrying two U.S. astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut has arrived at the International Space Station. (RFE/RL, 03.24.18)
• The number of EU citizens visiting Russia declined from 1.5 million in 2013 to 0.4 million in 2017. The same period of time saw the number of Americans visiting Russia decline from 220,00 to 40,000, according to Russia’s Gazeta.ru news portal. In 2010, 158,000 Chinese citizens visited Russia. By 2017, that number had jumped to 1.5 million, according to Rostourism director Oleg Safronov. (Carnegie Moscow Center, 03.28.18, Russia Matters, 03.28.18)

II. Russia’s domestic news

Politics, economy and energy:

• Russia has launched safety investigations at shopping malls across the nation in the wake of a massive fire that killed scores of children and adults in Siberia. Emergency officials confirmed 41 children and 23 adults were killed in the flames that swept through the mall in Kemerovo on March 25. Thousands of angry protesters took to the streets of Russia to demonstrate against Putin and the "lies" peddled to them following the blaze. Russian President Vladimir Putin on March 27 visited the scene of the fire and hit out at "criminal negligence," which he said was to blame for the high death toll. (The Moscow Times, 03.28.18, The Sun, 03.28.18, The Moscow Times,  03.27.18)
• A state of emergency will be declared in the town of Volokolamsk, northwest of Moscow, where thousands have protested over toxic fumes from a landfill site. Hydrogen sulphide levels in the town's air were at least 10 times above the permitted amount on March 29, although locals said it was far worse than that. There are plans to evacuate mothers with infants to health facilities. (BBC, 03.30.18)
• Sirazhutdin Datsiev, head of Russia’s Memorial human rights group in the Republic of Dagestan, has been attacked in what appears to be a continuing intimidation campaign against activists.  (The Moscow Times, 03.28.18)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, has described actresses who say they were sexually harassed by Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein as "prostitutes," and suggested they should have spoken out earlier. (RFE/RL, 03.30.18)
• Unit one of the Leningrad Phase II nuclear power plant in northwest Russia has entered "experimental industrial operation," the final stage of its commissioning. The VVER 1200 reactor is scheduled to enter commercial operation before the end of this year. (World Nuclear News, 03.26.18)

Defense and aerospace:

• The Russian military will be increasing investment in drones, ground robots and artificially intelligent assistants, as well as space and information warfare, Russian chief of the General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov said. In the event of war, Russia would consider economic and non-military government targets fair game, he said. The Russians are building an “automated reconnaissance and strike system,” he said, describing an AI-driven system. (Defense One, 03.28.18)
• Russia tested its new intercontinental ballistic missile for the second time on March 30, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a tweet. The Sarmat missile will replace the current Soviet-era missile, Veovoda. On March 29, the Russian Defense Ministry posted a video of the second ejection test of the Sarmat missile, which took place at the Plesetsk test site on either March 28 or March 29. (CNBC, 03.30.18, Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces, 03.29.18)
• According to Sergey Karakayev, the commander of the Strategic Rocket Forces, the Nizhni Tagil and Novosibirsk divisions are now fully equipped with new Yars missiles. (Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces, 03.29.18)
• On March 29, the Military Space Forces conducted a successful launch of a Souyz-2.1v launcher from the Plesetsk test site to put Cosmos-2525 into orbit. This satellite has been described as an experimental imaging satellite EMKA, developed at the VNIIEM corporation. (Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces, 03.29.18)

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• Zakhar Kalashov, a notorious Russian criminal boss, has been sentenced to almost a decade in prison on charges of extortion after a deadly shootout outside a Moscow restaurant in 2015. (The Moscow Times, 03.29.18)

III. Foreign affairs, trade and investment

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

• In a broad show of solidarity with London over the poisoning of the Skripals, more than 20 EU and NATO member countries this week expelled up to 150 Russian diplomats who they said were undeclared spies, the largest such wave since Soviet times. U.S. President Donald Trump on March 26 ordered the expulsion of at least 60 Russians from the United States and closed the Russian consulate in Seattle. Simultaneously with the U.S. announcement, more than a dozen EU member states decided to expel Russian diplomats, including France, Germany, Belgium and Ireland. Additionally, Ukraine expelled 13 Russian diplomats, Georgia expelled two Russian diplomats, Canada expelled four diplomats and Australia expelled two Russian diplomats. NATO also expelled seven staff from its Russian missions and said it would deny accreditation requests from three others. (The Moscow Times, 03.26.18, Financial Times, 03.30.18, RFE/RL, 03.29.18, TASS, 03.28.19, Financial Times, 03.27.18, The Moscow Times, 03.26.18)
  • At their summit last week EU leaders agreed that a coordinated response was needed to the poisoning of the Skripals. French President Emmanuel Macron said everyone should go home and consider expelling Russian diplomats. “Let’s do it on March 26 at 3 p.m.,” Macron said, according to one senior official. Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were prominent supporters of Britain’s call for action, having planned tactics with Britain before the dinner. The French had provided the British with technical assistance on analyzing the poisoning case and come to the same conclusion. (New York Times, 03.26.18)
• Russia will expel at least 150 Western diplomats and close the U.S. consulate in St. Petersburg in retaliation for similar actions taken this week by British allies angered at the alleged Kremlin role in the poisoning of an ex-spy on U.K. soil. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced the move on March 29, saying he had summoned the U.S. ambassador to detail the ejections, which include 58 U.S. diplomats in Moscow and two U.S. general consulate officials in Yekaterinburg. The U.S. consulate in St. Petersburg is bigger and far more important to relations than the Russian Consulate in Seattle. On March 30, embassy officials from France, Germany, Italy, Poland, The Netherlands, Croatia, Belgium, Ukraine, Sweden, Australia and the Czech Republic were also seen arriving in their official cars at the Foreign Ministry building in Moscow. The Russian Ministry said it had taken measures against 23 countries that joined in the moves against Russia and that it reserves the right to take measures against four that were spared: Belgium, Hungary, Georgia and Montenegro. The ministry also said that it was taking special measures against Britain: The size of the British diplomatic mission in Russia will be limited to the size of Russia’s mission in Britain. The numbers were not specified. (Financial Times, 03.30.18, The Moscow Times, 03.30.18, New York Times, 03.29.18, The Washington Post, 03.30.18)
• The Austrian government has confirmed that it was issued a demarche by the British government to join a coordinated Western effort to expel Russian diplomats after the poisoning of an ex-spy in southern England. (The Moscow Times, 03.29.18)
• The U.K. shared “unprecedented degrees of intelligence” about the Salisbury nerve agent attack as part of its international drive to secure the biggest diplomatic offensive against Russia since the end of the Cold War, according to a senior British official. The U.K. not only shared detailed scientific analysis of the nerve agent, but also intelligence reports that backed London’s claim that Russia has been running an “explicit” state-backed assassination program. (Financial Times, 03.27.18)
• Following the nerve agent attack on a former spy, British Home Secretary Amber Rudd said her officials will be trawling through the cases of 700 Russians who were given permission to come to the U.K. before 2015 under the investor visa scheme, in which they promise to invest 2 million pounds ($2.8 million) or more. (Bloomberg, 03.28.18)
• British Prime Minister Theresa May has agreed to look into imposing a ban on the city of London from helping Russia sell its sovereign debt, which prop ups the Russian economy. The issue is “extremely important” and officials are monitoring the matter very closely, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on March 29. (Guardian, 03.28.18, Bloomberg, 03.29.18)
• U.S. President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Theresa May in a phone call discussed the need to “dismantle” spying networks and prevent other illegal activities by Russia in their two countries. (RFE/RL, 03.28.18)
• The Kremlin is sensing a crack in European unity as France and Germany seek to maintain ties, even after the West’s unprecedented expulsion of Russian diplomats over the nerve agent attack in the U.K. French President Emmanuel Macron still plans to visit a showcase economic forum in Russia in late May, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said March 29, two days after Germany gave final approval for construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. (Bloomberg, 03.29.18)
• Voicing alarm that the East-West confrontation was spinning out of control, the U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said that the crisis recalled the Cold War, only without the controls and channels of communication established ''to make sure things would not get out of control when tensions rise.'' (New York Times, 03.29.18)
• “Judging by the latest U.S. steps, the potential to deteriorate relations with Russia is still far from exhausted. And the U.S. administration is working in this direction,” Russian Sen. Alexei Pushkov said in response to the decision by the U.S. and a number of other countries to expel Russian diplomats over the poisoning of the Skripals. “I suggest reading the news in this way: ‘The U.S. has decided to expel 60 Russian diplomats from the U.S. and to expel 60 American diplomats from Russia,’” Sen. Konstantin Kosachev, head of the Federation Council's International Affairs Committee, said. (The Moscow Times, 03.26.18)
• British health officials say Yulia Skripal is no longer in critical condition and is "improving rapidly." Her father, Sergei, remains in a critical but stable condition in the hospital. (RFE/RL, 03.29.18)
• After combing through hours of security camera footage and speaking to hundreds of witnesses, British investigators said March 28 they believe that the nerve agent used to poison the Skripals had been applied to the front door of their house. (Wall Street Journal, 03.28.18)
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said March 29 that Russia had called for a meeting on April 3 of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to ''establish the truth'' with respect to what Russia refers to as ''the so-called Skripal case.” (New York Times, 03.29.18)
• The Russian Foreign Ministry said on March 29 that Britain was breaking international law by refusing to provide information on Yulia Skripal. (The Moscow Times, 03.29.18)
• British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has compared Russia to Rodion Raskolnikov, the fictional murderer from Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment,” in the aftermath of the poisoning of a Russian ex-spy in England. (The Moscow Times, 03.29.18)
• Just before 10 p.m. on Feb. 12, Boris Karpichkov’s 59th birthday, the former KGB agent got an unexpected call at his home in the U.K. It was a Russian secret service friend phoning covertly from mainland Europe to warn him of a hit list with eight names on it. Karpichkov, who’d defected to Britain in 1998, was on the list. So was Sergei Skripal, another ex-Russian double agent. (Bloomberg, 03.29.18)
• A spokesman for Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said on March 30 that Russia will be on the agenda at the Group of 7 foreign ministers’ meeting in Toronto next month. (Globe and Mail, 03.30.18)

China:

• No significant developments.

Ukraine:

• A little-noticed provision in the 2,232-page U.S. government spending bill passed last week bans U.S. arms from going to a controversial ultranationalist militia in Ukraine that has openly accepted neo-Nazis into its ranks. House-passed spending bills for the past three years have included a ban on U.S. aid to Ukraine from going to the Azov Battalion, but the provision was stripped out before final passage each year. This year, though, the $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill signed into law last week stipulates that “none of the funds made available by this act may be used to provide arms, training or other assistance to the Azov Battalion.” (The Hill, 03.28.18)
• "They take the insignia off soldiers' uniforms and they go into Crimea. They say they have nothing to do with what's going on with the separatists in eastern Ukraine," U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said. "I'm not sure how they can say that with a straight face," he said, but "they're doing things that they believe are deniable." (RFE/RL, 03.28.18)
• A Moscow court has found Roman Zheleznov, who is currently in Ukraine, guilty of fighting against Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine and sentenced to four years in prison in absentia at a hearing on March 29. (RFE/RL, 03.29.18)
• Ukrainian journalist Roman Sushchenko, whom Russia has charged with espionage in a case seen by rights activists as politically motivated, has entered a not guilty plea as his trial began in Moscow. (RFE/RL, 03.27.18)
• The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine will reintroduce its long-range drone program more than a year and a half after it was dropped due to repeated shoot-downs. (RFE/RL, 03.27.18)
• Amphibious armored-personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles, off-road transport trucks, tanker trucks and trailers were among some 200 objects that have been seized by Ukrainian police after being offered for sale online. (RFE/RL, 03.28.18)

Russia’s other post-Soviet neighbors:

• Following talks in Uzbekistan, more than 20 countries and organizations have declared their support for direct talks between the Kabul government and the Taliban to end the 16-year conflict in Afghanistan. Zamir Kabulov, Russia's special envoy to Afghanistan, has dismissed claims by the Pentagon that Moscow has provided arms to the Taliban during its 16-year war against U.S. forces and the Afghan government. (RFE/RL, 03.30.18, RFE/RL, 03.27.18)
• Visiting U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas Shannon has met with Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev in Tashkent. The Uzbek Foreign Ministry says the sides discussed bilateral ties and international and regional issues at the meeting on March 26. (RFE/RL, 03.26.18)
• Armenia and Greece are facing common security challenges and threats, Greece’s visiting minister for national defense, Panos Kammenos, has said. (RFE/RL, 03.30.18)

IV. Quoteworthy

• No significant developments.