3 Things to Know

1. Russia’s new foreign policy concept declares “an era of revolutionary change” in the world order, but leaves the door open to normalizing relations with the West. To facilitate the formation of a “more just, multipolar world,” Russia will prioritize the “elimination of vestiges of dominance by the U.S.,” according to the new document, which replaces Russia’s 2016 foreign policy concept. The new doctrine accuses the U.S. and its allies of using Russia’s effort “to protect its vital interests” in Ukraine as “a pretext for unleashing ... a new type of hybrid war” against Russia. While full of anti-Western rhetoric, the 2023 concept does leave the door open to normalizing relations with the U.S. and its allies, proclaiming that Russia “does not consider itself an enemy of the West” and that it “is ready for dialogue and cooperation” with the West on the basis of “sovereign equality and respect for each other’s interests.” Overall, the doctrine still keeps Russia focused on pivoting to China, with references to strategic cooperation with Beijing doubled in the 2023 concept compared to its predecessor. However, Russia is “not creating any military alliance with China,” Putin said this week prior to signing off on the new concept on March 31.
2. Putin’s announcement of deploying nukes in Belarus might be an information warfare ploy, but it does raise questions with regard to how much he keeps Xi appraised of his strategic military plans. In his March 25 interview, Putin announced that Russia plans to deploy NSNWs in Belarus, with storage for the warheads, which are designed to be carried by either surface- or air- launched missiles, to be completed by July 2023. The Institute for the Study of War dismissed Putin’s announcement as an “information operation” with little risk of escalation, while Pavel Podvig of the U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research said he doubted Russia would actually move nuclear warheads into Belarus. As I have noted earlier this week, Putin’s revelations were aired only four days after Putin and visiting Xi Jinping signed off on a statement, which declared that “all nuclear powers should not deploy nuclear weapons outside national territories.” If Putin did keep visiting Xi in the dark about his decision to deploy NSNWs in Belarus, it would not be the first time the Russian leader failed to keep his Chinese counterpart appraised of a strategic military decision. Putin reportedly failed to explicitly warn Xi about his plans to invade Ukraine when the two met in China to pledge “no limits” in the bilateral relationship less than three weeks before the launch of Russia’s invasion into Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.  Following the launch, Chinese officials have reportedly dropped the “no limits” phrase from official communications with Russia, while Xi has repeatedly called for an end to nuclear threats over the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
3. The arrest of WSJ’s Gershkovich is the latest signal that the unwritten rules between the U.S. and Russia are being dismantled. Russia’s FSB detained Evan Gershkovich of the WSJ’s Russia bureau in the Urals city of Ekaterinburg on espionage charges on March 29 and then flew him to the Russian capital on the same day so that a Moscow court could rubber stamp his detention on these charges until May 29. Biden and Blinken were among the American officials who joined Western media outlets, journalists’ rights organizations and human rights watchdogs in denouncing the arrest—which Russian officials claim resulted from Gershkovich’s alleged interest in a defense industry enterprise—and demanding his immediate release. It is unlikely that this demand will be heeded. Given recent history, it is unlikely that Russia will agree to exchange Gershkovich for any of the Russian nationals jailed in the U.S. on charges of abetting Russian authorities until he is “tried” and convicted. That Gershkovich has become the first U.S. journalist to be arrested on espionage charges since 1986 indicates that Putin is continuing to dismantle the system of unwritten rules post-Soviet Russia and the U.S. have observed, one of which has been to avoid jailing and prosecuting each other’s accredited journalists on espionage or similar charges.

 

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

Nuclear security and safety:

• Military activity is increasing around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, according to the IAEA.  "There's a significant increase in the number of troops in the region and there is open talk about offensives, counteroffensives,” Rafael Grossi, IAEA director-general said March 29 after a visit to the plant that day. The rising probability of military action is forcing the IAEA to shelve a proposed security zone around the site and instead concentrate on making its reactors more resilient to attack, Grossi said. Employees from Russia’s state-led Rosatom are currently running the plant, and Grossi confirmed he’s in contact with the operators. (Bloomberg, 03.30.23, WSJ, 03.30.23)
  • Prior to Grossi’s visit to ZNPP, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with Grossi on March 27 to discuss the protection of the plant. Zelensky said occupation of the plant was "the worst thing that could happen in the history" of European nuclear energy. (RFE/RL, 03.27.23, NYT, 03.29.23)
  • Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said March 30 that Moscow is in contact with Grossi and had laid out its proposals for what he described as a safety zone around the plant, though nothing had been decided. (WSJ, 03.30.23)
• Petro Kotin, the head of Energoatom, Ukraine’s state nuclear power company, said at least 200 workers of ZNPP were detained by Russian forces and at least 30 remain missing. ZNPP’s staff members were dragged off to a place they called ''the pit,” returning beaten and bruised—if they returned at all, he said. (NYT, 03.28.23)
• “In order to ensure strategic stability ... the Russian Federation intends to prioritize: ... strengthening technical and physical nuclear security at the global level and preventing acts of nuclear terrorism,” Russia’s new foreign policy concept says. (Kremlin.ru, 03.31.23) See the end of this digest for more excerpts from the concept.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• No significant developments.

Iran and its nuclear program:

• Russia is helping Iran gain advanced digital-surveillance capabilities as Tehran seeks deeper cooperation on cyberwarfare, people familiar with the matter said, adding another layer to a burgeoning military alliance that the U.S. sees as a threat. Moscow has likely already shared with Iran more advanced software that would allow it to hack the phones and systems of dissidents and adversaries, the people said. (WSJ, 03.27.23)

Humanitarian impact of the Ukraine conflict:

• Ukraine on March 31 marked one year since Russian forces withdrew from Bucha, leaving behind hundreds of bodies of murdered civilians. Zelensky presided over a ceremony in Bucha that was also attended by leaders of Moldova, Croatia, Slovakia and Slovenia. Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said about 70,000 alleged war crimes had been documented by the national police so far but gave no details of the allegations. Russia denies its troops have committed atrocities. (RFE/RL, 03.31.23, Reuters, 03.31.23)

• More than 4,300 Ukrainian children, many of them orphaned, have been forcibly deported to Russia or Russian-occupied Ukraine, a top Ukrainian official said March 28, adding to reports that have prompted an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin. (NYT, 03.29.23)
• At least 4,000 elderly Ukrainians with disabilities have been forced into state institutions since the beginning of the war, according to an Amnesty International report. (WP, 03.25.23)
• When Russian troops left Kherson, they took with them 2,500 Ukrainian convicts from local prisons. What followed over the next several months was a bizarre journey that took some of the convicts more than 4,000 miles through five prisons and five countries. (NYT, 03.31.23)
• Britain and Poland will build two temporary villages in western and central Ukraine to provide housing for those forced from their homes by Russia's invasion, London said, pledging 10 million pounds ($12.3 million) in funding. (Reuters, 03.28.23)
• The Biden administration is calling for the creation of a joint tribunal in which Ukraine and international allies would try Russian leaders for crimes of aggression, but some human rights lawyers worry the plan has a fatal flaw: It might shield Putin from prosecution. By establishing clear limits on how far the administration is willing to go, Beth Van Schaack, the State Department's ambassador at large for global criminal justice,  acknowledged its reluctance to create a precedent that could pave the way for a similar court to prosecute American leaders. (NYT, 03.29.23)
• The war crimes charges against Putin brought by the International Criminal Court mean that the Russian leader, in theory, is unable to travel to two-thirds of the globe without risking arrest in the 123 countries that are parties to the United Nations treaty underpinning the court's operations and therefore obligated to detain him. (WP, 03.25.23)
• A court in Ukraine has sentenced a Russian soldier to 12 years in prison on a charge of violating of the laws of war, the Ukrainian Prosecutor-General's Office said on March 30. The soldier, whose identity was not disclosed, was found guilty of intimidating and victimizing Ukrainian civilians near Kyiv as they fled the area in early March 2022. (Current Time, 03.30.23)
• “I welcome the IMF approval of a $15.6 billion economic program for Ukraine...he program’s policies and reforms will support economic growth, strengthen good governance and anti-corruption efforts, and set the foundation for longer-term reconstruction,” Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen said. (Treasury.gov, 03.31.23)

Military aspects of the Ukraine conflict and their impacts:

• The week of March 22-28 resulted in no major changes on frontlines as the battlefield stalemate continued, according to the March 28 issue of the Russia-Ukraine War Report Card. (Belfer Russia-Ukraine War Task Force, 03.28.23)
• On March 26 the commander in chief of Ukraine's armed forces, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, said the front lines around the eastern city of Bakhmut were stabilizing after months of grueling combat, as Western officials and analysts say Russia's offensive there is losing momentum. (WSJ, 03.25.23)
  • Zelensky warned that unless his nation wins a drawn-out battle in Bakhmut, Russia could begin building international support for a deal that could require Ukraine to make unacceptable compromises. (RFE/RL, 03.29.23, AP/Bloomberg, 03.29.23)
    • Allowing Putin to keep territory he has seized since the invasion could prove politically fatal for Zelensky. A poll last week released by the International Republican Institute showed 97% of Ukrainian respondents think Ukraine will win, unchanged from April of last year, while 74% said Ukraine will maintain all territories it held in 1991 as a result of the war. (WSJ, 03.27.23)
  • Defending Bakhmut is a "military necessity," Ukraine's ground forces commander, Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, said after visiting the embattled city. Ukraine's efforts to exhaust and deplete Russian forces in Bakhmut will help it reclaim other territory in the country, he said. (WP, 03.27.23, WSJ, 03.28.23)
• On March 26, Russian air defenses halted a Ukrainian drone attack on a Russian town in which three people were hurt. The Russian ministry said the attack on the town of Kireyevsk, in the Tula region 220 kilometers south of Moscow, involved a Ukrainian Tu-141 Strizh drone. (Reuters, 03.26.23)
• On March 27, Russia launched 15 Iranian-made drones on Kyiv and its surroundings, but Ukraine's air defenses shot down 14 of them and there were no immediate reports of casualties, the Ukrainian military said. (RFE/RL, 03.28.23)
• As of March 29, Russian forces continued efforts to advance in Bakhmut and Avdiivka, but made no substantial gains, according to Ukrainian OSINT Telegram channel “DeepState.ua.” (RM, 03.30.23)
• On March 29, Russian PMC Wagner’s Yevgeny Prigozhin acknowledged that fighting for Bakhmut had inflicted severe damage on his own forces as well as the Ukrainian side. (Reuters, 03.29.23)
  • “They're conducting combat operations right now in Bakhmut primarily. It's probably about 6,000 or so actual mercenaries and maybe another 20 or 30,000 recruits that they get, many of whom come from prisons,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told U.S. lawmakers on March 29 with regard to PMC Wagner. (CNN, 03.29.23)
• On March 30, Ukrainian forces continued to hold their ground on the eastern front over the past day, the military said, repelling dozens of attacks in and around Bakhmut. Allowing Putin to keep territory he has seized since the invasion could prove politically fatal for Zelensky. A poll last week released by the International Republican Institute, a U.S.-based think tank, showed 97% of Ukrainian respondents think Ukraine will win, unchanged from April of last year, while 74% said Ukraine will maintain all territories it held in 1991 as a result of the war (RFE/RL, 03.30.23, WSJ, 03.27.23)
• On March 31, Ukrainian commanders touted their latest successes in holding Russian forces back in Bakhmut. (WSJ, 03.31.23)
• Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said this week that offensive operations were being planned in several parts of the country. "It depends on what the most suitable movement is," he said. "Everything depends on weather conditions. In spring, our land is very wet. Only tracked vehicles," which include tanks, "can be used. I think we can see them in April-May." (WSJ, 03.30.23)
  • Ukraine’s recent drone attacks on Russian-occupied Crimea highlight the importance of neutralizing Moscow’s firepower on the peninsula. Russia has used its numerous military facilities in the territory—including Sevastopol port, home to its Black Sea fleet, and the Saki air base—to launch missile strikes across Ukraine and to support its ground forces in the south and east of the country. (FT, 03.28.23)
  • Even newly supplied with armaments, Ukrainian forces are unlikely to gain a decisive enough battlefield advantage that Kyiv is in position to demand the return of all that ground, according to diplomats. (WSJ, 03.27.23)
• All wars are a series of battles, and if this offensive is seen as critical but does not result in the “100 % liberation of our territory,” then “some people may say this was the last decisive battle and now we have to think of an alternative scenario. For Kyiv, there is no alternative to full restoration of territorial integrity,” according to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. (FT, 03.29.23)
• Ukraine said on March 30 that it had received more than 35,000 applications for a new force it is forming, the Offensive Guard. The plan is to build a network of combat brigades that will work within the interior ministry alongside the regular armed forces. (NYT, 03.31.23)
• Putin said that while Ukraine’s allies can supply Ukraine with 400 tanks, the Russian military-industrial complex will produce and modernize a total of 1,600 tanks. The total number of tanks in the Russian army will exceed the number of tanks in the Armed Forces of Ukraine by three times, he said. Putin also commented on the agreement between 17 EU countries and Norway on the supply of 1 million rounds of ammunition to Ukraine over the next 12 months. He said  Russia will be able to produce three times as many shells over the same period. (RIA, 03.25.23, Kommersant, 03.25.23)
• Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov warned members of Russia’s cultural and political elite at a New Year’s Eve dinner that the war would “take a very, very long time.” (MT/AFP, 03.29.23)
• U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told lawmakers that the Biden administration’s proposed international aid spending in Ukraine and elsewhere is critical to strengthening Washington’s leadership abroad and advancing American security interests. Congressional Republicans said U.S. assistance could be better used for domestic priorities. (Bloomberg, 03.30.23)
  • Rep. Rich McCormick, a Georgia Republican, said “the military equipment has been well accounted for,” but raised concerns about American economic assistance to Ukraine—particularly pension support for officials. “I just don’t think that’s going to be popular. I don’t think it’s going to be sustainable.” (Bloomberg, 03.30.23)
  • Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, criticized western European nations for not supplying Ukraine with as much assistance as the U.S. has. (Bloomberg, 03.30.23)
  • Rep. Nathaniel Moran, a Texas Republican, reiterated past GOP arguments that the U.S. was protecting Ukraine while failing to secure the border with Mexico. Constituents “are rightfully questioning why U.S. taxpayers have sent more than $100 billion to Ukraine to defend its borders when this administration does little to nothing to secure our own borders, particularly the southern border along the state of Texas,” Moran said. (Bloomberg, 03.30.23)
  • Nicole Angarella, Acting Inspector General of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), told hearings at the U.S. Senate that the Office of USAID’s Inspector General has received 178 reports of possible violations related to Ukraine, "which represents a 556% increase in reports from the previous 11-month period." (Yahoo News/European Pravda, 03.29.23)
• To help Ukrainian soldiers quickly distinguish friend from foe, the Pentagon is issuing playing cards with pictures of 52 different NATO weapons systems. (NYT, 03.28.23)
• Last year, foreign volunteers rushed to Ukraine by the thousands, many of them Americans who promised to bring military experience, money or supplies to the battleground of a righteous war. Now, after a year of combat, many of these homespun groups of volunteers are fighting with themselves and undermining the war effort. Some have wasted money or stolen valor. Others have cloaked themselves in charity while also trying to profit off the war, records show. (NYT, 03.28.23)
• Germany’s 18 Leopard tanks are now in Ukraine. A German government official announced the news, confirming an earlier report by the magazine Spiegel. The battle tanks of the model 26A were handed over at the border and will soon be used on the battlefield by Ukrainian troops who were trained in Germany in the past two months. (Bloomberg, 03.28.23)
• A parliamentary finance panel in Germany passed a spending bill on March 29 that includes 8 billion euros of long-term military aid to Ukraine, to be spent over the next decade. Boris Pistorius, Germany’s defense minister, called the aid package, which comes to about $8.67 billion, “a very, very important step to show how serious we are about our long-term commitment to Ukraine in their fight against Putin.” (NYT, 03.30.23)
• The General Staff of North Macedonia has backed the transfer to Ukraine of 12 Mi-24 military helicopters that it purchased from Kyiv two decades ago, Macedonian Defense Minister Slavjanka Petrovska said on March 25. The transfer still must receive government approval. (RFE/RL, 03.26.23)

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

• The EU is planning to launch a project with nine member states to identify gaps in the sanctions regime against Russia and to improve coordination between national authorities when enforcing penalties, EU officials said. The partnership could be a precursor to a new EU body to coordinate sanctions oversight, added the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the discussions are private. (Bloomberg, 03.29.23)
• The European Commission expects to generate returns of around 2.6% from investing assets belonging to Russia’s central bank frozen under EU sanctions, according to a document obtained by Politico. The EU has been looking into the legal options for using Russian foreign reserves frozen in the bloc, including investing them to generate returns that could be used to help fund Ukraine's reconstruction. (Politico, 03.24.23)
  • The EU has already declared its desire to use the Kremlin’s bankroll to pay for reconstruction in Ukraine. Other top officials, in the United States and elsewhere, have sounded more skeptical. After visiting Kyiv last month, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen reiterated her warnings of formidable legal obstacles. The Swiss government declared that confiscating private Russian assets from banks would violate Switzerland’s Constitution as well as international agreements. (NYT, 03.27.23)
• David O'Sullivan, the European Union's special envoy for the implementation of sanctions, has called on Kyrgyzstan and other nations in Moscow's political and economic sphere to avoid assisting Moscow's attempts to evade sanctions imposed on Russia over its ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine. (RFE/RL, 03.28.23)
• Austria’s Raiffeisen is in talks with two potential suitors for the sale of its Russian banking arm, the largest Western-controlled lender left operating within the Kremlin’s territory. The bank’s Russian arm manages assets of just under €27 billion, with a book value of €4.1 billion. In 2022 it generated profits of €2.2 billion—60% of the earnings for the entire Raiffeisen group. (FT, 03.30.23)
• In the span of just two days, the future of Western grain traders in Russia has been quickly rewritten. Major grain trader Viterra said March 30 it will stop shipping crops from Russia starting in July and may shed its assets there. Just one day earlier, Cargill Inc. said it would soon stop exporting grain it sources in Russia, although it can continue buying cargoes from other firms at ports. Cargill said it “intends to continue shipping grain from Russia to destination markets in line with our purpose to nourish the world.” The back-to-back moves appeared to spook other traders as well, with Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. now reviewing its stake in a sweetener and starch venture there. (Bloomberg, 03.31.23, Bloomberg, 03.30.23, Bloomberg, 03.29.23)
• The Russian company that made Putin’s limousine has taken over Japanese car maker Toyota’s St. Petersburg plant, the Russian Trade and Industry Ministry announced. (MT/AFP, 03.31.23)
• Every Western company seeking to leave Russia and sell its assets in the country will now be obliged to make a direct donation to the Russian state, a commission on foreign investments in the country has said. Previously, companies leaving Russia could choose between making a “voluntary contribution” to Russia’s state budget—set at 10% of the value of the sale—or acquiesce to having the payment from the sale deferred by several years. (FT, 03.29.23)
• Kyiv School of Economics’ analytics center, the KSE Institute, reportedly estimates that 207 of 1,400 foreign companies with legal entities in Russia and revenues of at least $5 million a year prior to the war have fully sold their Russian divisions and left the Russian marker. That’s roughly 15%. In contrast, a paper co-authored by Simon J. Evenett of the University of St. Gallen and Niccolò Pisani of MD Business School estimated that only about 4.8% of foreign companies with commercially active equity investments in Russia before the war divested from Russia as late as November. (FT, 03.27.23, RM, 03.28.23)
• Before the invasion, more than 60% of Russia’s payments for its exports were made in what the country’s authorities now refer to as “toxic currencies,” such as the dollar and euro. Now “toxic” currencies have dropped to less than half of export payments. (FT, 03.25.23)
• The U.S. has imposed a new round of sanctions on Belarus, targeting the regime of President Alexander Lukashenko for its continued support of Russia's war in Ukraine and for its crackdown on Belarus's pro-democracy movement. (WSJ, 03.25.23)
• Ukraine wants Russia’s nuclear energy sector and liquefied natural gas to be part of future sanctions packages, Ukraine’s energy minister said. (Bloomberg, 03.28.23)
• Artyom Uss, the Russian entrepreneur accused of smuggling American technologies to Russian arms manufacturers, may have received help from Russian security services to flee house arrest in Italy, Italian newspaper la Repubblica reported. (MT/AFP, 03.28.23)
• Four bankers including the former boss of Gazprombank’s Swiss unit were convicted for failing in their due diligence requirements to properly flag financial transactions made by a cello-playing confidant of Putin. The men were handed suspended sentences subject to two years of probation. They had all been on trial for negligence of their handling between 2014 and 2016 of finances linked to Sergei Roldugin—described by the U.S. Treasury as “a custodian of Putin’s offshore wealth.” (Bloomberg, 03.30.23)
• Georgia has more than tripled its exports of automobiles to Russia in the first months of 2023 amid claims that Tbilisi is helping Moscow skirt Western sanctions. (MT/AFP, 03.31.23)
• The U.S. slapped sanctions on Ashot Mkrtychev, a Slovakian man it said was trying to arrange the sale of more than two dozen kinds of weapons and munitions from North Korea to Russia, the Biden administration said March 30. (FT, 03.31.23)
• A luxury super yacht purportedly belonging to Russian tycoon Andrey Guryev may be headed for auction. In a notice published last week, the government of Antigua and Barbuda said the 267-foot Alfa Nero—complete with hair salon, gym and infinity pool that turns into a helipad—was considered “abandoned” and would be sold off unless it was removed. (Bloomberg, 03.28.23)
• The executive board of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on March 28 recommended allowing Russian and Belarusian athletes to take part in international competitions as neutral athletes, but said it will make a decision "at the appropriate time" on whether to allow them to compete at next year's Paris Olympics. (RFE/RL, 03.28.23)
• Clerics of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) who have been ordered to leave the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra in the Ukrainian capital on March 30 defied the eviction order and refused to allow officials from the Culture Ministry and journalists into the historic Orthodox Christian monastery. (RFE/RL, 03.30.23)

Ukraine-related negotiations:

• China is still “testing the ground” of whether it wants to engage fully in a peace process to end Russia’s war against Ukraine, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said. Kuleba told FT that Beijing had not yet decided whether to invest fully in brokering a negotiated end to the war or to intensify its support for Moscow, including through the supply of weapons. (FT, 03.29.23)
  • "We are ready to see him here,” Zelensky said of Xi. “I want to speak with him. I had contact with him before full-scale war. But during all this year, more than one year, I didn’t have.” Asked whether Xi would accept an invitation from Zelensky—or whether one had been officially extended—Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told reporters she had no information to give. (AP/Bloomberg, 03.29.23)
  • U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said March 28 that some nations’ calls for a cease-fire in Ukraine could be “a very cynical trap” intended to freeze the conflict in place and allow Russia to hold onto seized territory while resting its troops for new offensives. (NYT, 03.29.23)
  • China must play a part in pressing for a "just peace" in Ukraine and its role in the conflict will be vital in shaping relations with the European Union, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. "Any peace plan which would in effect consolidate Russian annexations is simply not a viable plan. We have to be frank on this point," von der Leyen said. "How China continues to interact with Putin's war will be a determining factor for EU-China relations going forward." (Reuters, 03.30.23)
• For peace talks to begin, “we need a neutral and non-bloc status of Ukraine, its refusal to join NATO and the EU and confirmation of Ukraine's nuclear-free status as well as recognition by Kyiv and the international community of new territorial realities,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin said. “In addition, a prerequisite is the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine, the protection of the rights of Russian-speaking citizens, the Russian language and national minorities, free cross-border movement with Russia, the abolition of anti-Russian sanctions by Ukraine and the West and the withdrawal of claims, the termination of prosecutions against Russia, its individuals and legal entities,” he said. Galuzin also said that Russia “will not tolerate the existence of an openly anti-Russian state” on its borders. (RTVI, 03.30.23, AA.com.tr, 03.30.23)
• The share of Russians who follow the situation in Ukraine decreased from 57% in January 2023 to 53% in March, according to the Levada Center. The share of those who support the Russian armed forces’ actions in Ukraine also decreased, from 77% in February to 72% in March, according to Levada. The share of those who believe peace negotiations should be launched decreased from 50% in February to 48% in March, while the share of those who favor the continuation of hostilities dropped from 43% in February to 42% in March, Levada said. (RM, 03.31.23)
• One senior European diplomat said that while there are some discussions among the allies around what a victory or defeat for Ukraine could mean and about elements of a post-conflict settlement, there is no serious diplomatic initiative in the offing. (WSJ, 03.27.23.)
• Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez encouraged Xi on March 31 to talk to the Ukrainian leadership and learn firsthand about Kyiv's peace formula to help bring an end to Russia's invasion. (Reuters, 03.31.23)
• Lukashenko called March 31 for a "truce" in Ukraine and for talks "without preconditions" between Moscow and Kyiv. "We must stop now, before an escalation begins. I'll take the risk of suggesting an end of hostilities ... a declaration of a truce," Lukashenko said. (MT/AFP, 03.31.23)

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

• The Netherlands will integrate the rest of its combat brigades into the German army. “The Russian invasion of Ukraine has catapulted us into a new era of collective European defense,” said Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren March 30 at a joint military ceremony in Germany. (Bloomberg, 03.31.23)
• Military officials Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden have announced the creation of a unified air-defense force to counter the perceived threat from Russia. (Reuters, 03.25.23)
• Finland has cleared the last significant hurdle in its attempt to join NATO after Turkey’s parliament on March 30 approved the Nordic country’s accession to the Western military alliance. Hungary ratified Finland’s NATO membership on March 27 in the latest sign of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán slowly turning away from Russia as the economic benefits of their relationship fade. Fidesz, Hungary’s ruling party, however, continues to withhold approval of Sweden’s attempt despite U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan urging Budapest to ratify both bids “without delay.” (FT, 03.28.23, FT, 03.31.23)
• Sweden's Foreign Ministry said on March 29 it will summon Russia's Stockholm ambassador to complain about an "attempt at interference" with the Swedish NATO application process. (Reuters, 03.29.23)
• The U.S. Senate is poised to vote March 29 on a bill that would repeal decades-old authorizations for use of military force for the Iraq and Persian Gulf wars, legislation the White House has signaled it will back. (WP, 03.29.23).
• Russia's Defense Ministry said March 28 that its navy had fired test anti-ship missiles at mock targets in the Sea of Japan during military exercises. (MT/AFP, 03.28.23)
• When discussing Russia’s new foreign policy concept, Putin told a meeting of his Security Council that Russia will seek to boost ties with “constructive partners” and create “conditions for unfriendly states to abandon their hostile policy toward our country.” (Bloomberg, 03.31.23)
• “Humanity is going through an era of revolutionary change. The formation of a more just, multipolar world continues ... In order to promote the adaptation of the world order to the realities of a multipolar world, the Russian Federation intends to give priority attention to the elimination of vestiges of dominance by the U.S. and other unfriendly states in world affairs,” Russia’s new foreign policy concept says. (Kremlin.ru, 03.31.23)
• “Russia does not consider itself an enemy of the West, does not isolate itself from it, has no hostile intentions toward it [the West] and expects that in the future the states belonging to the Western community ... will return to pragmatic interaction with Russia, guided by the principles of sovereign equality and respect for each other’s interests. On this basis, the Russian Federation is ready for dialogue and cooperation,” Russia’s new foreign policy concept says. (Kremlin.ru, 03.31.23)
  • While discussing the concept, which replaces a 2016 document, at the Security Council meeting on March 31, Lavrov said the document “states the unprecedented level of international tension over the past decade” and recognizes “the existential nature of threats to the security and development of our country, created by the actions of unfriendly states.” The concept introduces “the thesis on use of the armed forces to repel or prevent an armed attack on Russia and its allies,” Lavrov said. He also said the doctrine calls for strengthening ties with Russia’s “great neighbors,” such as China and India. (RM, 03.31.23)

China-Russia: Allied or aligned?

• Russia and China are not creating a military alliance and are hiding nothing in terms of their military cooperation, Putin said. "We are not creating any military alliance with China," Interfax quoted Putin as saying, adding, "Yes, we have cooperation in the sphere of military-technical interaction." (Reuters, 03.26.23)
• U.S. President Joe Biden said he “doesn’t take lightly” the prospect of a growing alliance between China and Russia but countered that the U.S. is making gains in strengthening international opposition to Putin’s war in Ukraine. “We have significantly expanded our alliances. I haven’t seen that happen with China and Russia or anybody else in the world,” Biden said March 31 following Xi’s visit to Moscow that saw the two nations pledge to deepen ties. (Bloomberg, 03.24.23)
• “I wouldn't call it a true full alliance in the real meaning of that word, but we are seeing them [Russia and China] moving closer together, and that's troublesome,” Milley said. “And then if you add in Iran … those three countries together are going to be problematic for many years to come I think, especially Russia and China because of their capability,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told U.S. lawmakers on March 29. (CNN, 03.29.23)
• “Russia aims to further strengthen comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation with the People's Republic of China and prioritizes the development of mutually beneficial cooperation in all areas, providing mutual assistance and strengthening coordination in the international arena in the interests of ensuring security, stability, sustainable development at the global and regional levels as in Eurasia and in other parts of the world,” Russia’s new foreign policy concept says. (Kremlin.ru, 03.31.23)
• Russia was the fourth-largest economy, excluding Hong Kong, for volumes of renminbi trading in February, according to data from the SWIFT global payments system. Before the invasion of Ukraine, more than 60% of Russia’s payments for its exports were made in what the country’s authorities now refer to as “toxic currencies,” such as the dollar and euro, with renminbi accounting for less than 1%. The rise of renminbi trading mirrored Russia’s economic pivot to China, as bilateral trade hit a record of $185 billion in 2022. (FT, 03.25.23)
• In 2022, multiple Chinese companies, including one linked to the government in Beijing, sent parts for body armor manufacturing to Klass, a Russian manufacturer. Armored vests produced by the company are being used by Russian troops in Ukraine. (Politico, 03.28.23)

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms:

• In a March 25 interview on Russian TV, Putin said:
  • Russia plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. (FT, 03.26.23)
  • Work would be completed on building storage units for tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus on July 1. (FT, 03.26.23)
  • Ten aircraft adapted to carry nuclear weapons have been prepared in Belarus. (FT, 03.27.23)
  • Iskander surface-to-surface missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads have also been sent to Belarus. (FT, 03.27.23)
  • Training for Belarussian crews to handle nuclear weapons will begin on April 3. (FT, 03.27.23)
  • “There is nothing unusual here: first of all, the U.S. has been doing this for decades,” Putin said. “They placed their tactical nuclear weapons in six different allied NATO countries in Europe.  . . .  [W]e have agreed to do the same thing, without, I stress, violating our international non-proliferation obligations,” he added. “They have [tactical nuclear weapons] in certain countries, prepare the delivery systems and train the crews. We’re planning to do the same thing.” (FT, 03.26.23)
    • Western sanctions will not affect Moscow's plans to move tactical nuclear weapons into Belarus, Perskov said March 27. (WP, 03.27.23)
    • Russia has as many as 2,000 tactical nuclear weapons, while the U.S. has about 200, according to FAS. (NYT, 03.26.23, RM, 03.26.23)
• Putin’s announcement of plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus:
  • Belarus will control any nuclear weapons placed within its territory, Lukashenko claimed. “We here will operate everything that there is in Belarus,” he said in a televised address to the nation and parliament on March 31, answering a question on who will be in charge of the weapons. Lukashenko’s statement appeared out of sync with the statements of his Foreign Ministry and Putin. Russia is preparing to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus without handing control of the weapons over to local authorities, Putin said last week. (Bloomberg, 03.31.23)
  • Belarus claims it was "forced" to agree to host Russian tactical nuclear weapons on its territory in response to what it called "unprecedented political, economic and information pressure" from the West. A statement placed on the website of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry on March 28 accused the U.S., U.K. and EU of "direct and blatant interference into the internal affairs of an independent state aiming to derail the geopolitical course and change the internal political order of Belarus." (RFE/RL, 03.28.23)
  • Putin’s plan has put him at odds with a pledge he made with Xi just days earlier. Russia and China declared that “all nuclear weapons states should refrain from deploying nuclear weapons abroad” in a joint statement at the end of Xi’s visit to Moscow last week. (FT, 03.28.23)
  • John Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council, said the United States was watching the matter closely, but played down the potential for escalation. “We’ve in fact seen no indication [Putin] has any intention to use nuclear weapons, period, inside Ukraine,” Kirby said. (NYT, 03.26.23)
  • A NATO spokesperson, Oana Lungescu, said March 26 that “we have not seen any changes in Russia’s nuclear posture that would lead us to adjust our own.” But she called Putin’s rhetoric “dangerous and irresponsible.” (NYT, 03.26.23)
  • The EU’s foreign policy chief called hosting Russian nuclear arms in Belarus an “irresponsible escalation” and a threat to European security that could result in more sanctions. (Bloomberg, 03.26.23)
  • Zelensky’s government has called for an urgent meeting of the U.N. Security Council over Russia’s move to station nuclear weapons in Belarus. (Bloomberg, 03.26.23)
  • Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the Ukrainian Security and Defense Council, said the Kremlin has made Belarus “a nuclear hostage” by announcing it will place tactical nuclear weapons in the country for the first time. (Bloomberg, 03.26.23)
  • “Putin is too predictable,” wrote Mikhail Podolyak, a senior adviser in Zelensky’s office. “Making a statement about tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, he admits that he is afraid of losing and all he can do is scare with tactics.” (FT, 03.26.23)
  • Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry condemned Putin’s remarks and claimed that basing Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus would violate the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons. (NYT, 03.26.23)
  • Pavel Podvig, a scholar on Russian nuclear forces, said that Russian deployment of nuclear weapons in Belarus might not go against the letter of the NPT treaty—because Russia would remain in control of the weapons. He also pointed out that Russia has declared that NATO’s “nuclear sharing,” in which American nuclear weapons are based in allied countries like Germany, is a violation of the nonproliferation treaty. “As long as the weapons are in storage the threat is not immediate,” Podvig said. (NYT, 03.26.23)
  • The Institute for the Study of War dismissed Putin’s announcement as an “information operation” with little risk of escalation. (NYT, 03.26.23)
• The U.S. has informed Russia that it will no longer exchange data on its strategic nuclear forces following Moscow's decision to suspend its participation in the New START treaty cutting long-range arms, U.S. officials said March 28. The U.S. decision to halt data sharing was conveyed March 27 to Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov by Bonnie Jenkins, the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security. (WSJ, 03.28.23)
• Russia will no longer give the United States advance notice about its missile tests as envisioned under the New START treaty that the Kremlin has suspended, Ryabkov said. (AP, 03.29.23)
• The Russian Foreign Ministry clarified March 30 that Moscow will continue to notify Washington of any ballistic missile launches, despite a statement March 29 that "all forms of notifications" were terminated as a result of Putin suspending New START. (NYT, 03.30.23)
• “The use of military force in violation of international law, the development of outer space and information space as new areas of military operations, the blurring of the line between military and non-military means of interstate confrontation, the aggravation of chronic armed conflicts in a number of regions increase the threat to global security, increase the risks of clashes between large states, including nuclear powers, increase the likelihood of such conflicts escalating and escalating into a local, regional or global war,” Russia’s new foreign policy concept says. (Kremlin.ru, 03.31.23

Counterterrorism:

• No significant developments.

Conflict in Syria:

• Tehran has condemned U.S. air strikes on Iran-linked forces in Syria that reportedly killed 19 people, which Washington said it carried out following a deadly drone attack on U.S. forces. (AFP, 03.26.23)

Cyber security/AI:

• U.S. adversaries have become more capable of carrying out sophisticated cyberattacks, but the Ukraine war shows how difficult it is to conduct large-scale operations against critical infrastructure, said National Security Agency Director Gen. Paul Nakasone. "Many thought that Russia—which is a sophisticated actor—was going to conduct significant cyberattacks," Nakasone said. "They're not as easy to do." (WSJ, 03.24.23)
• Russian intelligence agencies worked with Moscow-based defense contractor NTC Vulkan to strengthen their ability to launch cyberattacks, sow disinformation and surveil sections of the internet, according to thousands of pages of confidential corporate documents. Officials from five Western intelligence agencies believe the documents are authentic, but they could not find definitive evidence that the systems have been deployed by Russia or been used in specific cyberattacks. Vulkan’s software combs internet networks for targets and intrusion points. One of Vulkan’s clients appears to be Russia’s most notorious hacking group, dubbed Sandworm. (WP, 03.31.23, WP, 03.31.23)
• Brussels must develop “new defensive tools” for sectors such as quantum computing and artificial intelligence as it updates its security policies in the face of an increasingly assertive China, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has said. (FT, 03.30.23)
• Tesla founder Elon Musk, Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak, along with researchers from MIT, Harvard University and Northeastern University are among more than a thousand people who have signed a petition calling for a six-month “pause” in further development of AI systems. The petition calls for AI researchers to use the pause “to jointly develop and implement a set of shared safety protocols for advanced AI design and development that are rigorously audited and overseen by independent outside experts. These protocols should ensure that systems adhering to them are safe beyond a reasonable doubt.” (BG, 03.29.23)
• Amid growing worries about the insidious effects of disinformation from Russia, the prime ministers of eight European countries—including Ukraine, Moldova and Poland—have signed an open letter asking the chief executives of major social media companies to take more aggressive steps to halt the spread of false news on their platforms. (NYT, 03.29.23)

Energy exports from CIS:

• The European Commission told member states that a $60-a-barrel cap on the price of Russian oil is proving effective in hurting the Kremlin’s access to petrodollars while not disrupting the market, and will remain unchanged for now. (Bloomberg, 03.31.23)
• Shipments of diesel-type fuel out of Russia during the first 19 days of March stood at about 1.5 million barrels a day, according to Vortexa Ltd. data compiled by Bloomberg on March 31. If that rate is maintained, this month will see the highest exports in data going back to the start of 2016. (FT, 03.27.23)
• Russia has increased its oil exports to India by a massive 2,200% since sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine cut the country off from its European markets, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said March 28. (MT/AFP, 03.28.23)
• Russia still relies on Western insurers to cover more than half of the tanker fleet that exports its oil, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, and the country’s energy officials are voicing concerns about the situation. Since early December, between 50% and 60% of vessels that have carried Russian oil are protected against shipowners’ liability risks by members of the London-based International Group of P&I Clubs, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.  (Bloomberg, 03.30.23)
• Prior to the invasion of Ukraine, Russia provided around 40% of Italy’s total gas consumption, but that dropped to just 16% last year. (FT, 03.27.23)
• The Kremlin said on March 28 that it would keep demanding an international investigation into explosions that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea last year, after failing to win backing for a probe at the United Nations. (Reuters, 03.28.23)

Climate change:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

• Russia’s security service said it detained WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich in the Russian city of Ekaterinburg on suspicion of spying, in its first arrest of a foreign journalist since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The FSB said on March 30 that Gershkovich, a U.S. national, “is suspected of espionage in the interests of the American government,” a crime that carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. The FSB claimed Gershkovich “was collecting information constituting a state secret about one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex” in Ekaterinburg. Authorities took Gershkovich to Moscow, where he appeared in court with a state-appointed defense attorney and was ordered held in custody until May 29, said the press service of the court according to TASS. (WSJ, 03.30.23, FT, 03.30.23)

• Gershkovich had travelled to Ekaterinburg for a story on the Wagner paramilitary group that is part of the Russian offensive in Ukraine, according to friends. Gershkovich joined the Journal in January 2022. He has worked as a reporter in Russia since 2017, first for The Moscow Times and then for Agence France-Presse. Earlier, he was a news assistant in New York for the New York Times. A graduate of Bowdoin College, he most recently wrote about the impact of Western sanctions on Russia's economy. (WSJ, 03.30.23, FT, 03.30.23)
  • “The Wall Street Journal vehemently denies the allegations from the FSB and seeks the immediate release of our trusted and dedicated reporter, Evan Gershkovich,” the newspaper said. “We stand in solidarity with Evan and his family.” (FT, 03.30.23)

• In Washington, Biden urged on March 31 Gershkovich's release. "Let him go," he said. (WSJ, 03.31.23)

• Blinken condemned Russia for detaining Gershkovich “We are deeply concerned over Russia’s widely reported detention of a U.S. citizen journalist,” Blinken said in a statement. (Bloomberg, 03.31.23)
• ''We condemn the detention of Mr. Gershkovich in the strongest terms,'' Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said in a statement. The State Department, she added, ''has been in direct touch with the Russian government on this matter, including actively working to secure consular access to Mr. Gershkovich.'' (NYT, 03.31.23)
  • The Kremlin quickly backed the FSB’s charges, indicating Gershkovich’s arrest had likely been sanctioned from the top rather than initiated by local security services in Ekaterinburg. Peskov told reporters on March 30 that Gershkovich was “caught red-handed” but declined to give further details. “This is not about suspicions,” he said. (FT, 03.30.23)
  • Maria Zakharova, Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, said Gershkovich’s trip to Ekaterinburg “had nothing to do with journalism.” (FT, 03.30.23)
  • Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said it was too early to speak of an exchange ahead of Gershkovich’s likely conviction. “The exchanges that happened in the past happened with people who were already serving time,” Ryabkov said, according to Interfax. (FT, 03.30.23)
  • Media freedom groups expressed alarm at the arrest and urged Russia to immediately release him. “It’s the first arrest of a foreign reporter since the war began,” said Jeanne Cavelier, head of the eastern Europe and Central Asia desk at Reporters Without Borders. “We know that he was investigating the military company Wagner owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin in Ekaterinburg and he was reporting on the attitude of Russians toward the war.” (FT, 03.30.23)

• The Committee to Protect Journalists is "seriously concerned about Evan Gershkovich's detention," said Gulnoza Said, the New York-based group's program coordinator for Europe and Central Asia. (WSJ, 03.30.23)
• “It looks like they took a hostage,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She said the Kremlin had a list of Russians held in the West who it would like to see released. (FT, 03.30.23)

• The U.S. Justice Department unveiled spying charges March 31 against a Russian who, under a Brazilian alias, studied at a Washington university and then tried to join the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The Justice Department's indictment of Sergey Vladimirovich Cherkasov suggests it will try to contest his extradition to Russia from Brazil, where he is currently jailed on identity fraud charges. Cherkasov was detained at the beginning of April 2022 by Dutch authorities for using fake identity papers. (MT/AFP, 03.25.23)
• A former top executive at Russian natural gas producer Novatek has been convicted of tax evasion in the United States. Mark Gyetvay, who was deputy chairman of Novatek’s management board and its chief financial officer, was convicted of making false statements to U.S. tax authorities. (RFE/RL, 03.29.23)

 

II. Russia’s domestic policies

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

• The Russian government's energy revenue fell by nearly half in the first two months of this year compared with last year, while the budget deficit deepened. The fiscal gap hit $34 billion in those first two months, the equivalent of more than 1.5% of the country's total economic output. The ruble is down over 20% since November against the dollar. (WSJ, 03.28.23)
• The share of Russians who believe that things in the country are going in the right direction slightly decreased from 68% in February to 66% in March, according to Levada. The share of Russians who approve of Putin's performance as president decreased from 83% in February to 82% in March, according to the pollster. When asked an open-ended question to name several politicians they trust most, 41% of respondents picked Putin in March, which is two percentage point less than in February. (RM, 03.30.23)
• Top Russian officials—including lawmakers, governors and senior managers of state-owned companies—have been placed under strict foreign travel restrictions by the Kremlin since the start of the Ukraine war in an apparent attempt to head off defections and hinder the work of foreign intelligence services. (MT/AFP, 03.27.23)
• Members of Russia’s lower house of parliament sent to visit Russian-occupied areas of eastern Ukraine on official business are to be exempted from filing tax returns this year. (MT/AFP, 03.27.23)
• The pro-Kremlin speaker of the lower house of Russia's parliament Vyacheslav Volodin has called for his country to ban the activities of the ICC after it issued an arrest warrant on possible war crimes for Putin. (Reuters, 03.25.23)
• Since the start of the invasion of Ukraine, informers have become a key pillar of support for the Kremlin and a tool of control. People across the country have been reported to authorities for expressing dissenting views in private or in closed settings. Informing was common practice in the Soviet Union: “People begin to behave exactly as they did during the Stalin era,” said Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. (FT, 03.30.23)
• A Moscow court on March 30 sentenced a rail worker to seven years in jail for online posts denouncing the Russian bombing of Ukrainian cities. Mikhail Simonov was detained in the fall for publishing anti-war comments on the Russian social network VKontakte in March 2022. (MT/AFP, 03.30.23)
• A St. Petersburg court has sentenced architect Oleg Belousov to 5 1/2 years in prison for discrediting Russia's armed forces with "fake" social-media posts about the war in Ukraine and calls for extremism. (RFE/RL, 03.29.23)
• A Russian court on March 28 ordered a two-year jail sentence for the single father of a 13-year-old girl who drew an antiwar picture in art class at school, in a case that led to the daughter being seized by authorities and placed in an orphanage. But in a stunning turn, the father, Alexei Moskalyov, escaped from house arrest, but was then detained in Belarus. (WP, 03.28.23, RM, 03.29.23)
• An arrest warrant for exiled Russian activist and Mediazona publisher Pyotr Verzilov has been issued by a Moscow court in absentia on charges of spreading “knowingly false” information about the Russian Armed Forces, Mediazona reported March 27. (MT/AFP, 03.27.23)
• The editor-in-chief of the Novy fokus (New Focus) online newspaper in the Siberian region of Khakasia, Mikhail Afanasyev, went on trial on March 29 charged with discrediting Russia's armed forces. If convicted, he may face up to 10 years in prison. (RFE/RL, 03.29.23)
• The founder of the Gulagu.net human rights group, Vladimir Osechkin, announced that his organization is suspending efforts to help Russian military personnel opposed to the Ukraine war leave Russia. (RFE/RL, 03.29.23)
• A self-exiled former speechwriter for Putin, Abbas Gallyamov, whose name appeared in the Russian Interior Ministry's online registry of wanted persons last week, is suspected of discrediting Russia's armed forces, a charge Russian authorities have been using to stifle any criticism of Moscow's war in Ukraine. (Current Time, 03.31.23)
• Celebrated Soviet and Russian actress Liya Akhedzhakova has resigned from the Moscow theater where she has worked for 46 years following her outspoken criticism of the war in Ukraine. (MT/AFP, 03.30.23)
• Artur Shuvalov, an actor in a theater in the Siberian region of Buryatia, has slashed his veins while on stage to protest the firing of the company's artistic director last year over his stance against Russia's invasion of Ukraine. (RFE/RL, 03.30.23)
• An audio recording of a telephone conversation allegedly taking place between Russian music producer Iosif Prigozhin touched upon frustrations with the current political situation in Russia and the Western sanctions against it. The conversation employs extremely crude language to criticize both Putin and Russia's invasion of Ukraine in an expletive-laden back-and-forth that has already raised eyebrows given the silence of the vast majority of Russia's elites over the war in Ukraine. (MT/AFP, 03.27.23)
• A member of the Pussy Riot protest group in Russia, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, has been added to the Russian Interior Ministry’s wanted list. Media reports cited sources earlier this month as saying that a probe was launched against Tolokonnikova on a charge of "insulting believers' religious feelings." (RFE/RL, 03.29.23)
• The controversial head of Russia's Chechnya region, Ramzan Kadyrov, has been decorated as an "honored human rights defender of the Chechen Republic.” (RFE/RL, 03.25.23)
• Online mysticism courses have experienced a nearly 20-fold surge in popularity among the Russian public, the Vedomosti business daily reported March 28, citing data provided by telecommunications companies. Analysts attribute Russians’ growing interest in mysticism to the stress and uncertainty being caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. (MT/AFP, 03.28.23)

Defense and aerospace:

• The Kremlin is seeking to sign up as many as 400,000 contract soldiers this year to replenish its ranks, according to people familiar with the planning who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss matters that aren’t public. Federal Statistics Service data suggest a net increase in the military last year of approximately 400,000 amid already record-low unemployment, Bloomberg Economics estimates, after Putin ordered the call-up of 300,000 reservists. (Bloomberg, 03.29.23, Bloomberg, 03.24.23)
• On April 1, Russia will begin its regular annual conscription, with 147,000 citizens of ages 18 to 27 expected to be called up. Russian authorities said March 31 that the new conscripts wouldn't be sent to Ukraine. The Institute for the Study of War said the new conscripts wouldn't increase Russian combat power in the short term as they must undergo months of training and service. (WSJ, 03.31.23)
• Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service has offered the state-owned defense conglomerate Rostec the use of inmate labor to boost the production of military equipment for the country's armed forces. (MT/AFP, 03.29.23)
• The mayor of Vorkuta, a coal-mining town in the Arctic republic of Komi, has enlisted in the Russian army to fight in the country’s war against Ukraine. (MT/AFP, 03.28.23)
• “The use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation may be directed, in particular, to repel and prevent an armed attack on Russia and (or) its allies, to resolve crises, to maintain (restore) peace in accordance with decisions of the U.N. Security Council and other structures of collective security with the participation of Russia in their area of responsibility, to ensure the protection of their citizens abroad, to combat international terrorism and piracy,” Russia’s new foreign policy concept says. (Kremlin.ru, 03.31.23)
• See section Military aspects of the Ukraine conflict and their impacts above.

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• The number of murders and attempted murders in Russia last year increased for the first time in 20 years in what some analysts suggest is a knock-on effect of the country’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, Russian business daily Kommersant reported March 28, citing a bar association report. The past two decades had seen a steady decline in the number of murder and attempted murder cases from 32,265 in 2002 to 7,332 in 2021, Kommersant said, citing the Travmpunkt bar association. But 2022 saw a 4% rise to 7,628 cases of murder and attempted murder registered by the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office, according to the report. (MT/AFP, 03.28.23)
• Two men were killed in Chechnya after they attacked a police station in the city of Gudermes, late on March 28. One day earlier, the Interior Ministry in the neighboring region of Ingushetia said unidentified men had opened fire at a police station late in the night on March 27, wounding two police officers. (RFE/RL, 03.29.23)
• Russian authorities have placed Denis Kapustin, who heads the Russian Volunteer Corps fighting alongside the Ukrainian Armed Forces, on their wanted list for terrorism, participating in terrorist activities and the illicit trafficking of explosives. (MT/AFP, 03.27.23)

 

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

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

• India is turning more optimistic about achieving a consensus from G-20 nations on the language used to describe Russia’s war in Ukraine, according to a person familiar with the matter. Representatives from various countries have stayed in the same room in recent meetings, marking a contrast with the regular walkouts during similar talks last year in Indonesia. That has raised hopes for some sort of a compromise similar to that achieved last November on Bali, the person said, adding that any escalation of the war could upset this fragile balance. “The Russia-Ukraine issue cannot hold many other issues back,” Kant told reporters. (Bloomberg, 03.31.23)
• Putin’s top national security adviser, Nikolai Patrushev, met with India’s prime minister Narendra Modin in Delhi on March 29 to discuss their nations’ “mutual interests,” officials said, as Moscow continued its campaign to build stronger alliances. Patrushev was in India for a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which includes India and China. (NYT, 03.30.23)
• “Russia will continue to build up a particularly privileged strategic partnership with the Republic of India in order to raise the level and expand cooperation in all areas on a mutually beneficial basis and pay special attention to increasing the volume of bilateral trade, investment and technological ties, ensuring their resistance to the destructive actions of unfriendly states,” Russia’s new foreign policy concept says. (Kremlin.ru, 03.31.23)
• Turkish President Recep Erdoğan has said that Putin may visit Turkey on April 27 to attend the opening of the Akkuyu nuclear power plant, which has been built by Rosatom. Turkey is not a signatory of the ICC’s Rome Statute. (Ukrainska Pravda/Yahoo, 03.29.23, RM, 03.29.23)
• “There are some who don’t wish us to have relations with an old historical friend,” South Africa’s International Relations and Cooperation Minister Naledi Pandor told journalists in Pretoria. “We have made it clear that Russia is a friend we have had cooperative partnerships for many years,” she said. Russia’s natural resources and environment minister, Alexander Kozlov, appeared alongside Pandor for the start of the 17th bilateral meeting between the countries. (Bloomberg, 03.30.23)
• Russia will assume the presidency of the U.N. Security Council in April for the first time since February 2022. (NYT, 03.31.23)
• King Charles III said in a speech to the lower house of parliament in Berlin that Russia’s “unprovoked” attack had “inflicted the most unimaginable suffering on many innocent people.” “Countless lives have been destroyed; freedom and human dignity have been trampled in the most brutal way,” the king said. “The security of Europe has been threatened, as have our democratic values,” he added. “Even as we abhor the appalling scenes of destruction, we can take heart from our unity—in defense of Ukraine, of peace and freedom.” (Bloomberg, 03.30.23)
• Poland has detained a foreign citizen on charges of spying for Russia, prosecutors said on March 27. "The findings made in the case show that the suspect acted for the benefit of Russian intelligence by obtaining and collecting information ... on critical infrastructure in the Pomeranian and Kuyavian-Pomeranian regions and on the activities of services and bodies responsible for security," they said. (Reuters, 03.27.23)
• “Most European states are pursuing an aggressive policy toward Russia aimed at creating threats to the security and sovereignty of the Russian Federation, obtaining unilateral economic advantages, undermining domestic political stability and eroding traditional Russian spiritual and moral values, and creating obstacles for Russia's cooperation with allies and partners,” Russia’s new foreign policy concept says. (Kremlin.ru, 03.31.23)
• Turkey's overall exports managed to rise 13% last year, according to figures from data provider CEIC, but exports excluding Russia rose 11%. Exports to Russia rose 62%. (NYT, 03.31.23)

Ukraine:

• Ukraine’s tariff-free access to the EU has caused a grain glut in neighboring countries, tanking the regional agricultural sector and leading to complaints that Brussels is paying farmers too little compensation. In late January, Romania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia wrote a joint letter to the EU, calling for an “urgent response” to curb the impact of a “significant increase” on Ukrainian grain on local markets. (FT, 03.30.23)
• The Security Service of Ukraine has exposes a scheme, in which officials of the Odesa region branch of the State Consumer Service allegedly demanded kickbacks from Ukrainian companies that had been exporting grain per the grain deal. The suspects allegedly wanted to collect 40 U.S. cents of each ton of the exported products, according to the SBU. (RM, 03.27.23)
• An Ukrainian court has put Ukrainian MP Shakhov on the country’s wanted list for failing to attend hearings on charges of failing to declare property worth UAH 88 million ($2.4 million) that have been brought against him by Ukraine’s Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office. (New Voice of Ukraine/Yahoo News, 03.31.23)
• Ukrainian National Bank Governor Andriy Pyshniy says the bank has settled its "open conflict" with the government and will avoid the "very dangerous" practice of printing new money to fund the war effort. (RFE/RL, 03.26.23)
• The French parliament has voted to recognize as genocide the starvation of millions in Ukraine in the 1930s under Stalin. French deputies adopted the resolution on March 28 as the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine revives memories of the famine known in Ukraine as the Holodomor. Zelensky hailed the decision on Twitter, thanking French legislators. (RFE/RL, 03.29.23)
• Far-right members of the Austrian Parliament’s the Freedom Party of Austria faction walked out of the legislature during a live video speech by Zelensky on March 30 in protest over Vienna’s backing of Ukraine in the war. (NYT, 03.31.23)

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

• “Russia seeks to transform Eurasia into a single all-continental space of peace, stability, mutual trust, development and prosperity,” Russia’s new foreign policy concept says. (Kremlin.ru, 03.31.23)
• The Baltic states, Armenia and Georgia were among the countries whose leaders participated in Biden’s March 28-30 Summit for Democracy. At the end of the summit, the participants adopted a declaration that called for comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine in line with the principles of the U.N. Charter. Armenian premier Nikol Pashinyan refrained from endorsing one paragraph in the declaration with regard to the war in Ukraine because it “fails to address the fact of Azerbaijan's acts of aggression against the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia and occupation of the certain parts of the sovereign territory of Armenia.” (RM, 03.30.23)
• The Russian Defense Ministry accused Azerbaijan of violating a Moscow-brokered cease-fire agreement by allowing its troops to cross over a set demarcation line. Presidents of the three countries in November 2020 signed a cease-fire agreement to end a war between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces over Azerbaijan's breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Baku and Yerevan have for decades been locked in conflict over the region. On March 25, Azerbaijan stated it had taken control of some roads in the region to prevent Armenian forces from digging a trench. (RFE/RL, 03.25.23)
• The commander of the Iranian army's ground forces has accused Azerbaijan of using Islamic State militants during the Second Karabakh War in 2020. Echoing comments he made in October 2021, Brig. Gen. Kioumars Heydari (Kiumars Heydari) alleged in remarks on March 30 that Azerbaijan was not only harboring Israeli "elements" but had also used "IS fighters" against Armenia. Azerbaijan has denounced Heydari’s comments. (BBC Monitoring, 03.31.23, Reuters, 03.30.23)
• The Armenian Constitutional Court ruled on March 24 that the Rome Statute complied with the Constitution, paving the way for ratification of the founding treaty of the ICC. Russia was quick to respond, threatening its ally with "serious consequences.” (Le Monde, 03.29.23)
• Armenia and Turkey plan to permanently open border crossings between the two countries for the first time in three decades, Armenian officials announced on March 24. (dpa, 03.25.23) 
• The Central Election Commission of Kazakhstan said on March 27 that the ruling Amanat party received 53.9% of the votes to win an allocation of 40 seats of the 69 seats on offer in parliament through the party list distribution system. In addition, according to the commission, candidates nominated by Amanat won 22 of the 29 seats on offer in single-mandate contests. Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev reappointed Alikhan Smaiylov to the prime minister's post on March 30 after the newly elected parliament approved his candidacy. (RFE/RL, 03.27.23, RFE/RL, 03.30.23)
• Police in the North Kazakhstan region say they are investigating a group in the regional capital, Petropavl, called the People's Council. The group announced its creation days earlier saying it promotes "our independence and sovereignty" and "the unbreakable territorial integrity of the sovereign Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic." (RFE/RL, 03.31.23)
• Turkmenistan’s Central Electoral Commission has validated the March 26 elections for the members of a newly unicameral national legislature amid reports of widespread election violations in the authoritarian Central Asian state. None of Turkmenistan's elections has been regarded as free or fair. (RFE/RL, 03.26.23)
• The Belarusian opposition—bolstered by vows of support from Western leaders—marked the country's Freedom Day on March 25 by declaring continued resistance to authoritarian ruler Lukashenko. (RFE/RL, 03.25.23)

 

IV. Quotable and notable

• “They genuinely believe that the war was provoked by the West to finish off Russia, and that once Russia is defeated China will be next,” Zhao Tong, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said in reference to Chinese policymakers. “Russia is China’s most important teammate in the fight with the U.S., so there is no room for abandoning Russia.” (FT, 03.31.23)
• Tamás Menczer, Hungary’s junior foreign minister, said, “World War III has never been as close as now.” (FT, 03.28.23)

 

Excerpts from the Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation, Kremlin.ru, 03.31.23.¹

• The national interests of the Russian Federation in the foreign policy sphere are:

1. protection of the constitutional order, sovereignty, independence, state and territorial integrity of the Russian Federation from destructive foreign influence;
2. maintaining strategic stability, strengthening international peace and security;
3. strengthening the legal foundations of international relations;
4. protection of the rights, freedoms and legitimate interests of Russian citizens and protection of Russian organizations from foreign illegal encroachments;
5. development of a secure information space, protection of Russian society from destructive foreign information and psychological impact;
6. preservation of the people of Russia, developing human potential, improving the quality of life and welfare of citizens;
7. promoting the sustainable development of the Russian economy on a new technological basis;
8. strengthening traditional Russian spiritual and moral values, preserving the cultural and historical heritage of the multinational people of the Russian Federation;
9. environmental protection, conservation of natural resources and rational use of natural resources, adaptation to climate change.

• Russia ... acts as one of the sovereign centers of world development.
• Humanity is going through an era of revolutionary change. The formation of a more just, multipolar world continues. ... The ongoing, generally favorable, changes, however, are rejected by a number of states, accustomed to thinking according to the logic of global domination and neo-colonialism ... narrow group of states seeks to replace it with the concept of a world order based on rules.
• A natural response to the crisis of the world order is the strengthening of cooperation between states subject to external pressure. ... The creative energy of the Russian Federation will be concentrated on the geographic vectors of its foreign policy, which have obvious prospects in terms of expanding mutually beneficial international cooperation.
• In order to promote the adaptation of the world order to the realities of a multipolar world, the Russian Federation intends to give priority attention to the elimination of vestiges of dominance by the U.S. and other unfriendly states in world affairs.
• Viewing Russia’s ... independent foreign policy as a threat to Western hegemony, the United States of America and its satellites have used the measures taken by the Russian Federation to protect its vital interests in the Ukrainian direction as a pretext for unleashing ... a new type of hybrid war [against Russia].
• Russia's course toward the United States is of a combined nature, taking into account the role of this state as one of the influential sovereign centers of world development and at the same time the main inspirer, organizer and executor of the aggressive anti-Russian policy of the collective West, the source of the main risks for the security of the Russian Federation, the international world, balanced, just and progressive development of mankind.
• The Russian Federation is interested in maintaining strategic parity, peaceful coexistence with the United States and establishing a balance of interests between Russia and the United States, taking into account their status as the largest nuclear powers, special responsibility for strategic stability and the state of international security in general. The prospects for the formation of such a model of Russian-American relations depend on the degree of U.S. readiness to abandon the policy of forceful domination and revise the anti-Russian course in favor of interaction with Russia based on the principles of sovereign equality, mutual benefit and respect for each other's interests.
• Most European states are pursuing an aggressive policy towards Russia aimed at creating threats to the security and sovereignty of the Russian Federation, obtaining unilateral economic advantages, undermining domestic political stability and eroding traditional Russian spiritual and moral values, and creating obstacles for Russia's cooperation with allies and partners.
• Russia does not consider itself an enemy of the West, does not isolate itself from it, has no hostile intentions towards it [the West], and expects that in the future the states belonging to the Western community ... will return to pragmatic interaction with Russia, guided by the principles of sovereign equality and respect for each other’s interests. On this basis, the Russian Federation is ready for dialogue and cooperation.
• Russia aims to further strengthen comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation with the People's Republic of China and prioritizes the development of mutually beneficial cooperation in all areas, providing mutual assistance and strengthening coordination in the international arena in the interests of ensuring security, stability, sustainable development at the global and regional levels as in Eurasia and in other parts of the world.
• Russia will continue to build up a particularly privileged strategic partnership with the Republic of India in order to raise the level and expand cooperation in all areas on a mutually beneficial basis and pay special attention to increasing the volume of bilateral trade, investment and technological ties, ensuring their resistance to the destructive actions of unfriendly states. and their associations.
• Russia seeks to transform Eurasia into a single all-continental space of peace, stability, mutual trust, development and prosperity.
• The use of military force in violation of international law, the development of outer space and information space as new areas of military operations, the blurring of the line between military and non-military means of interstate confrontation, the aggravation of chronic armed conflicts in a number of regions increase the threat to global security, increase the risks of clashes between large states, including nuclear powers, increase the likelihood of such conflicts escalating and escalating into a local, regional or global war.

• The use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation may be directed, in particular, to repel and prevent an armed attack on Russia and (or) its allies, to resolve crises, to maintain (restore) peace in accordance with  decisions of the U.N. Security Council and other structures of collective security with the participation of Russia in their area of responsibility, to ensure the protection of their citizens abroad, to combat international terrorism and piracy.
• In the event that foreign states or their associations commit unfriendly actions that pose a threat to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Russian Federation, including ... application of restrictive measures (sanctions) of a political or economic nature or with use of modern information and communication technologies, the Russian Federation considers it lawful to take the symmetrical and asymmetric measures necessary to curb such unfriendly acts, as well as to prevent their recurrence in the future.

• In order to ensure strategic stability ... the Russian Federation intends to prioritize:

1. strategic deterrence, preventing aggravation of interstate relations to a level capable of provoking military conflicts, including with the use of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction;
2. strengthening and developing the system of international treaties in the areas of strategic stability, arms control, prevention of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction;
3. strengthening and developing international political foundations (arrangements) for maintaining strategic stability;
4. preventing an arms race and excluding its transfer to new environments, creating conditions for further phased reduction of nuclear potentials, taking into account all the factors influencing strategic stability;
5. increasing predictability in international relations, implementing and, if necessary, improving confidence-building measures in the military and international spheres, and preventing unintentional armed incidents;
6. fulfillment of security guarantees in respect of the states-participants of regional treaties on nuclear-weapon-free zones;
7. conventional arms control, combating illicit trafficking in small arms and light weapons;
8. strengthening technical and physical nuclear security at the global level and preventing acts of nuclear terrorism;
9. development of cooperation in the field of the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes;
10. strengthening the role of multilateral export control mechanisms in the areas of ensuring international security and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery.

 

Footnotes

1. These excerpts have been translated from Russian into English with the use of machine translation.