This Week’s Highlights:

• The U.S. military has held preliminary discussions about moving THAAD, a powerful missile defense system, to Germany to boost European defenses.
• NATO is planning a huge military maneuver involving 40,000 troops in Norway in October. The war games, called Trident Juncture, will include a live exercise in and around Norway involving some 70 ships and 130 aircraft.
• The first year of special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into alleged Russian election meddling has cost nearly $17 million.
• “This Russia-bashing has to be brought to an end,” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has said.
• Russian submarines are permanently deployed under the ice of the Arctic, says the commander of Russia’s Northern Fleet.
• Software identifying conflicts of interest in Ukraine showed 423 lawmakers have ties directly or through family to about 5,500 companies or organizations.

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

Nuclear security and safety:

• Russian officials have said they conducted a drill in which they thwarted a terrorist attack at a facility storing old radioactive components from nuclear vessels located in the Arctic. The simulated siege was part of Atom-2018, a large-scale exercise meant to prepare workers at the Sayda Bay for the worst—an armed incursion into a sensitive facility within Russia’s vast but fragile nuclear waste storage industry, complete with bombs, hostages and political demands. (Bellona, 05.31.18)

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang on May 31 and invited him to visit Russia. “Come to Russia. We would be very happy to see you," Lavrov, seated across a table from Kim, said. He expressed Moscow's support for the declaration between North and South Korea last month in which they agreed to work for the denuclearization of the peninsula. Kim told Lavrov his commitment to denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula "remains unchanged and consistent and fixed." (The Moscow Times, 05.31.18, RFE/RL, 06.01.18)
• U.S. President Donald Trump on June 1 declared that his on-and-off June 12 summit with North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore is on again. “We’ll see where it leads but we’re going to meet June 12,” Trump said after meeting for more than an hour with one of Kim’s top deputies in the Oval Office. (Los Angeles Times, 06.01.18)
• One of the biggest banks in Latvia—a member of the EU and NATO—built a business from processing illegal money transfers, enabling North Korea to continue to procure missiles, the U.S. government says. (AP, 06.01.18)

Iran’s nuclear program and related issues:

• The threat of U.S. sanctions has prompted Russian oil giant Lukoil to put project plans in Iran on hold while the Indian company that owns the world's largest oil refining complex plans to stop buying oil from Iran. (RFE/RL, 05.31.18)

Military issues, including NATO-Russia relations:

• NATO ambassadors told Russia to put a halt to its "malign activities" in Europe and elsewhere at the first NATO-Russia Council of 2018. Kay Bailey Hutchison, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, said on Twitter on May 31 that the alliance sent a "strong, unified message to Russia: Stop interfering in Ukraine & cease malign activities that seek to divide our Alliance." (RFE/RL, 05.31.18)
• NATO ambassadors briefed their Russian counterparts on a huge military maneuver involving 40,000 troops scheduled for Norway in October. The NATO war games, called Trident Juncture, will include a live exercise in and around Norway, involving some 70 ships and 130 aircraft. It will also include a command-post exercise, mostly in Italy. (RFE/RL, 05.31.18)
• The Kremlin has expressed concern over reports that Poland has requested a permanent U.S. military presence on its soil, saying NATO's expansion toward Russia's borders undermines stability in Europe. A top Polish national security official confirmed the proposal on May 29 and said Warsaw is willing to help Washington defray the costs of stationing troops in Poland by spending up to $2 billion on the necessary infrastructure. On May 28 Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said that he has had talks with U.S. officials about permanently stationing U.S. troops in Poland as a deterrent against Russian aggression. (RFE/RL, 05.30.18, RFE/RL, 05.28.18)
  • Belarus has no plans to allow Russia to base troops on its territory, its foreign minister said on May 31, but could review that if, for example, Poland were to host a permanent U.S. military presence. (Reuters, 05.31.18)
• Czech lawmakers approved plans to increase the number of its troops on foreign missions with NATO allies. Prime Minister Andrej Babis’s ANO party pushed the mandate through over Communist protests on deployments in the Baltics. (Reuters, 06.01.18)          

Missile defense:

• The U.S. military has held preliminary discussions about moving a powerful missile defense system to Germany to boost European defenses, a move that experts said could trigger fresh tensions with Moscow. The tentative proposal to send the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system to Europe predates U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the 2015 Iran nuclear accord, and comes amid a broader push to strengthen Europe's air and missile defenses. (Reuters, 06.01.18)     

Arms control:

• The Open Skies Treaty permits up to 42 over-flights of Russia by state parties. Ideally, the U.S. would execute its entire quota of 16 Open Skies missions over Russian territory in the company of friends and allies, but this isn’t possible with aging aircraft. Of the 16 over-flights planned for 2017, 13 were flown, according to Michael Krepon. (Arms Control Wonk, 05.23.18.)

Counterterrorism:

• British national Husnain Rashid’s Telegram channel was called the “Lone Mujahid,” and he posted instructions on how to make poison and bombs. A propaganda magazine he produced under the same name suggested attacks on the World Cup in Russia this year. (The Washington Post, 05.31.18)

Conflict in Syria:

• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have spoken by telephone for the first time since Pompeo was sworn into office on April 26. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the two discussed “issues and concerns” related to U.S.-Russian relations and the wars in Ukraine and Syria. Pompeo told Lavrov that achieving better relations “will require Russia to demonstrate that it is prepared to take concrete actions to address our concerns,” including Russian interference in “U.S. domestic matters.” (RFE/RL, 05.30.18)
• Four Russian military personnel were killed in fighting in eastern Syria's Deir el-Zour province. The fighting erupted after several groups of rebels attacked an artillery battery of the Syrian army. (Reuters, 05.27.18)
• According to a report by the London-based Asharq al-Awsat newspaper, Israel and Russia have agreed that it is necessary to remove Iranian forces from southern Syria. The understanding was reportedly reached after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone and Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman met with his Russian counterpart. (Haaretz, 06.01.18)
• A Russian arms company has announced plans to develop new electronic warfare systems in three years after analyzing U.S. Tomahawk missiles recovered following a recent coalition strike in Syria. (The Moscow Times, 05.29.18)
• Over 60 of Russia’s serial and prospective arms were tested in real combat in Syria. Cruise missiles were fired by the fifth-generation T-50 aircraft created by the Prospective Airborne Complex of Frontline Aviation (PAK FA) project (Su-57), the Russian Defense Ministry said. (TASS, 05.29.18)
• Georgia says it will sever diplomatic relations with Syria over its decision to recognize the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent countries. The Georgian response came shortly after a separatist official in Abkhazia and an entity in South Ossetia announced Syria's recognition of independence. The U.S. has condemned Syria's decision. (RFE/RL, 05.29.18, RFE/RL, 05.30.18)
• The U.N. is investigating attacks on hospitals and clinics in Syria carried out after their locations were disclosed to Russia, the U.N. aid chief says. “We are investigating a number of cases of medical facilities being attacked shortly after having been deconflicted," Mark Lowcock, the U.N. under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said. (RFE/RL, 05.29.18)
• Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has issued a call for mass DNA tests in the North Caucasus republic to help repatriate Russian children from war-torn Syria and post-war Iraq. (The Moscow Times, 05.28.18)
• Syrian President Bashar al-Assad warned in comments broadcast May 31 that he would wage war to expel U.S. troops from northeastern Syria if dialogue fails to bring the area back under government control. (The Washington Post, 05.31.18)

Cyber security:

• Karim Baratov, a Kazakhstani-born computer hacker who U.S. prosecutors say unwittingly worked with a Russian spy agency in a massive Yahoo data breach, has been sentenced to five years in prison and fined $250,000. (RFE/RL, 05.30.18)

Elections interference:

• Former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe wrote a confidential memo last spring recounting a conversation that offered significant behind-the-scenes details on the firing of James Comey. In the document, whose contents have not been previously reported, McCabe described a conversation with Rod Rosenstein, during which the deputy attorney general said the president had originally asked him to reference Russia in the memo that rebuked Comey over his handling of an investigation into Hillary Clinton. (New York Times, 05.30.18)
• U.S. President Donald Trump sought May 31 to undercut a central focus of the Russia investigation, tweeting that he didn't fire former FBI director James Comey to shut down the probe. "Not that it matters, but I never fired James Comey because of Russia!" Trump wrote. (Wall Street Journal, 05.31.18)
• When Attorney General Jeff Sessions arrived at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in March 2017, the president objected to his decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation. Trump, who had told aides that he needed a loyalist overseeing the inquiry, berated Sessions and told him he should reverse his decision, an unusual and potentially inappropriate request. (New York Times, 05.29.18)
• U.S. President Donald Trump broadened his condemnation of the Russia probe with a tweet May 29 accusing it of being a partisan exercise that could unfairly tip the midterm elections in favor of Democratic congressional candidates. (Wall Street Journal, 05.29.18)
• In a series of tweets on May 27, U.S. President Donald Trump repeated his accusation that the FBI had put an informant inside his 2016 presidential campaign—a reference to the revelation that the FBI, concerned about allegations of Russian meddling, used a confidential informant to talk to people on the Trump campaign about their dealings with Russia. There is no evidence that the FBI had an informant inside Trump’s campaign. Only days after it emerged that Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner had sat for another round of questioning by Mueller’s investigators, Trump tweeted that the Russia probe was destroying lives. (Financial Times, 05.27.18)
• A possible meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un next month could delay the decision on whether the president will agree to an interview with special counsel Robert Mueller, said Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani. (Wall Street Journal, 05.27.18)
• Friends of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort have launched a legal-defense fund to defray his attorney fees as he fights tax fraud, conspiracy and money-laundering charges filed by special counsel Robert Mueller. (The Washington Post, 05.31.18)
• Special counsel Robert Mueller's investigators have obtained a presentation prepared by Israel-based private intelligence firm Psy-Group that outlines ways in which Donald Trump's 2016 election was helped by fake news and fake social-media accounts. (Wall Street Journal, 05.25.18)
• For the second time in six days, special counsel Robert Mueller has moved to begin the process for sentencing a cooperating defendant in his investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, this time a California man charged with a Russian internet trolling operation in February. Richard Pinedo pleaded guilty Feb. 12 in Washington to creating hundreds of bank accounts, often using stolen identities, and selling some to unidentified offshore users, including suspects connected to the Russia probe. (The Washington Post, 05.29.18)
• Special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe has cost U.S. taxpayers nearly $17 million, according to a newly released Justice Department expense report. (MarketWatch, 06.01.18)

Energy exports:

• Kuwait and Iran are leading a faction in OPEC that is upset about an agreement struck between Saudi Arabia and Russia last week to ease up on oil-production cuts. Those cuts—among OPEC's 14 members and a group of 10 outside the cartel led by Russia—drained a global oil glut and have helped oil prices rise by 60 percent to over $80 a barrel since November 2016. (Wall Street Journal, 05.30.18)
• Russian gas giant Gazprom said on June 1 its gas output for the first five months of 2018 was up 9.5 percent year-on-year, at 217.3 billion cubic meters. (Reuters, 06.01.18)
• Gazprom says it has signed a protocol with the Turkish government on the land-based part of the transit leg of the TurkStream gas pipeline. (RFE/RL, 05.27.18)
• Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki says Russia's planned natural-gas pipeline, Nord Stream 2, is a weapon of hybrid warfare that Moscow wants to use to undermine European energy security and the solidarity of the EU and NATO. (RFE/RL, 05.28.18)
• Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has instructed the country’s state gas company to seize overseas assets of Gazprom along with shares in the controversial Nord Stream gas pipeline, as the country seeks to enforce a Stockholm tribunal ruling against the Russian energy giant. (Financial Times, 05.30.18)
• Russia’s Rosneft is increasingly challenging domestic rival Gazprom in international gas markets, from West Africa to Turkey and even Europe. Last week, Rosneft won a multi-billion dollar contract in Ghana that had been targeted by Gazprom. It also signed a gas fields and pipeline deal in Iraqi Kurdistan aimed at supplying gas to Turkey and Europe—Gazprom's core markets. (Reuters, 06.01.18)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin and Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed of the United Arab Emirates signed a declaration on a strategic partnership on June 1, which included an agreement to continue cooperation in the oil and gas sphere. (Reuters, 06.01.18)

Bilateral economic ties:

• No significant developments.

Other bilateral issues:

• U.S. sanctions imposed against Russian aluminum producer Rusal threaten the lucrative flow of dividends from mining company Norilsk Nickel, amid concerns over doing business with the company and its oligarch owner Oleg Deripaska. On June 1, the U.S. Office for Foreign Asset Control, which oversees Washington’s sanctions policy, said on its website that “paying dividends to a blocked person” would result in secondary sanctions being imposed on the payer if the office “determines that such a transaction is ‘significant.’ ” (Financial Times, 05.31.18)
• The U.S. State Department’s 2017 International Religious Freedom Report notes that in Russia, although the constitution provides for religious freedom and the right to worship and profess one's religion, "the government prosecuted individuals of many denominations for unauthorized missionary activity under the amendments to antiterrorism laws passed in 2016, known as the Yarovaya Package.” The report singles out the situation of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, whose activity was criminalized, after the Russian Supreme Court ruled in April 2017 that the sect was an extremist organization and prohibited them from operating in the country. (RFE/RL, 05.29.18)
• Telegram CEO and founder Pavel Durov says Apple has prevented the popular messaging service from updating globally since Russian authorities "ordered" the U.S. mobile-phone giant to remove Telegram from its app store. Durov made the announcement on his official Telegram channel on May 31, days after Russia's communications regulator said it had asked Apple to help it block Telegram. (RFE/RL, 05.31.18)
• Russian senators have called on Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to provide expert testimony on privacy, weeks after Zuckerberg spoke to U.S. and European lawmakers on regulating social networks. (The Moscow Times, 05.30.18)
• American mixed-martial arts fighter Jeff Monson has joined the roster of foreign celebrities that have been naturalized as Russian citizens. (The Moscow Times, 05.29.18)
• See also “Conflict in Syria” section above.

II. Russia’s domestic news

Politics, economy and energy:

• This week, Russian President Vladimir Putin made six changes in Russia’s latest regional government reshuffle. On May 28, the president appointed Aysen Nikolayev as acting governor of the Sakha republic and Sergei Nosov as acting governor of Magadan. On May 29, Putin made Alexander Moor acting Tyumen governor. At age 30, newly appointed acting governor of the Yamal-Nenets region, Dmitry Artyukhov, made history as Russia’s youngest regional leader. Putin also made Vasily Orlov and Viktor Tomenko governors of the Amur and Altai regions, respectively. (The Moscow Times, 05.30.18)
• Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin has announced he will seek another term in the Russian capital's election set for Sept. 9. (RFE/RL, 05.27.18)
• Regional officials have reportedly been warned that they better be at the office on June 7, when Vladimir Putin holds his next marathon live call-in show. Sources tell the magazine RBC that this year’s show will feature live conference calls with governors and members of his Cabinet. (Meduza, 06.01.18)
• A record 2.3 million Russians have been banned from traveling abroad over unpaid debts, a measure that Russia’s bailiffs say has helped recover almost $300 million in outstanding debt. (The Moscow Times, 05.31.18)
• Sberbank, Russia’s state-run banking giant, posted a 27 percent increase in quarterly net profit year-on-year to 212 billion rubles ($3.4 billion) in the first quarter of 2018, continuing to thrive despite fears over U.S. sanctions. (Financial Times, 05.30.18)
• Moscow State University has been named 33rd in a ranking of the world’s most reputable higher learning institutions, slipping three spots since last year. Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the government in 2012 to ensure that at least five Russian universities get into the world's top rankings by 2020. (The Moscow Times, 05.31.18)
• Out of 77 cities with high costs of living, St. Petersburg placed 51st and Moscow placed 54th in the latest “Prices and Earnings 2018” survey by Switzerland’s UBS Bank. When including rent prices, Moscow jumps to the world’s 47th costliest city, leaving St. Petersburg at 53rd. (The Moscow Times, 05.30.18)
• A judge in Russia's Chechnya region has extended until July 9 the pretrial detention of activist Oyub Titiyev, according to Memorial, the Russian human rights group that Titiyev heads in Chechnya. (RFE/RL, 05.31.18)

Defense and aerospace:

• Russian submarines are permanently deployed under the ice of the Arctic, Nikolay Yermenov, the commander of Russia’s Northern Fleet, said on May 31. (Xinhua, 06.01.18)
• Russian press quotes a defense industry source as saying that the Borey-B project that was considered for some time was not included in the 2018-2027 State Armament Program. Instead, Sevmash is expected to build six more Project 955A/Borey-A strategic submarines. (Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces, 05.21.18)
• Russia plans to arm its most advanced nuclear submarines with hypersonic missiles by 2027. The Husky-class attack submarines will be equipped with Zircon hypersonic missiles. (The National Interest, 05.31.18)
• In his first major interview on how he reformed the Russian military Anatoly Serdyukov said Russian military vehicles were so unreliable during the 2008 war with Georgia that commanders had to position repair crews every 20-30 kilometers along the roads used by the Russian army to advance. He also said so many Russian officers were overweight that Russia's military budget used to have a separate line item (40 million rubles) to finance customizing uniforms for those who could not fit into regular ones. (Russia Matters, 05.29.18)
• India and Russia have pledged to jointly create a plan to deal with U.S. sanctions on Russia that are hampering defense deals between New Delhi and Moscow. (Defense News, 05.29.18)

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• No significant developments.

III. Foreign affairs, trade and investment

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

• Russia has rejected calls at the U.N. to accept responsibility for the downing of Flight MH17 over Ukraine after an investigation found that a Russian army missile caused the explosion that killed all 298 people on board. At a U.N. Security Council meeting on May 29, Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok called on Moscow to accept the findings of a Dutch-led investigative team that the airliner was shot down by a Russian-made Buk missile provided by Russia's 53rd Antiaircraft Missile Brigade based in the city of Kursk. (RFE/RL, 05.30.18)
• “This Russia-bashing has to be brought to an end,” Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, was quoted as saying by The Guardian on May 31. Noting that the bloc will “never accept” the 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine and Kiev’s conflict with Moscow-backed separatists in the east, Juncker still stressed, “we have to reconnect with Russia.” (The Moscow Times, 06.01.18)
• Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, the owner of the Chelsea soccer team who has found himself without a visa to Britain, took Israeli citizenship on May 28 and will move to Tel Aviv where he has bought property. The Chelsea team has halted plans to build a 500 million-pound stadium in southwest London after Abramovich withdrew his application to obtain a U.K. investor visa. (Reuters, 05.29.18, Financial Times, 05.31.18)
• Poland's government has asked Moscow to explain why Russia has refused entry to the head of Poland's Institute of International Affairs, Slawomir Debski. (RFE/RL, 05.30.18)
• Alexander Vavilov and his older brother Timothy were born in Toronto to Andrei Bezrukov and Yelena Vavilova, who operated in the U.S. under stolen identities since the 1980s. The Canadian government has appealed to the country's Supreme Court to annul Alexander's citizenship. (The Moscow Times, 05.28.18)
• A group of British lawmakers recently singled out law firm Linklaters for its work on the London float of En+, owned by sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, and called for a crackdown on “corrupt” Kremlin-connected tycoons. (Financial Times, 06.01.18)
• Medical workers in Britain who treated former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia initially feared that they would be inundated with civilian casualties from a lethal, Soviet-developed nerve agent and that their colleagues had been exposed. (New York Times, 05.29.18)
• U.S.-born British fund manager and Kremlin critic Bill Browder was arrested in Spain on a Russian Interpol arrest warrant on May 30 before being released later in the day. (The Moscow Times, 05.30.18)
• A Russian war pilot presumed to be shot down in Afghanistan in the 1980s has reportedly turned up alive. Officially, 417 Soviet soldiers were declared missing or prisoners of war in the 1979-1989 conflict that saw over 15,000 Soviet military losses. (The Moscow Times, 06.01.18)
• Russia's Rosatom and the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission have signed a strategic document on partnership in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Rosatom said the document "gives a new impetus" to cooperation between the two countries and "expresses their mutual intention" to develop cooperation in energy efficiency and renewable energy. (World Nuclear News, 05.29.18)

China:

• Zhang Hanhui, China's assistant foreign minister, said the bilateral trade volume of China and Russia is likely to surpass $100 billion this year. "China has been Russia's largest trade partner for eight years, and Russia is China's largest source of crude oil as well as a major source of coal," Zhang added. (Xinhua, 05.30.18)
• Beijing and Moscow have agreed to enhance bilateral military ties, China’s Ministry of National Defense announced on May 31 following the 20th round of strategic consultations between the People’s Liberation Army and the Russian armed forces. (Jane’s, 06.21.18)

Ukraine:

• Borys Herman, the man suspected of overseeing a plot to assassinate journalist Arkady Babchenko, has been kept in custody by order of a Kiev court. Herman is alleged to have promised $40,000 to a would-be assassin for the killing. Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) says it thwarted the plan, allegedly organized by Russia's secret services, by working together with Babchenko to fake his death on May 29. Russia’s Foreign Ministry denounced the staged killing as "the latest anti-Russian provocation," but both Russia and Ukraine have reportedly deployed such tactics in the past. (RFE/RL, 05.31.18, RFE/RL, 06.01.18)
• Using data from open sources, the "Hidden Interests" software can identify possible conflicts of interest in Ukraine by checking political leaders' decisions or voting records against a list of companies or organizations linked to them or their relatives. The data showed 423 lawmakers have ties directly or through family to about 5,500 companies or organizations. (Reuters, 06.01.18)        
• Ukraine’s prime minister has urged parliament to approve plans for an anti-corruption court, after delays held up international funding and dismayed Kiev’s Western backers. Volodymyr Groysman said his embattled country “very badly” needed a “fair judiciary” to win the confidence of the public and foreign partners as it seeks to release frozen International Monetary Fund financing and prepares for elections next year. (Financial Times, 05.29.18)
• The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine has confirmed that 10 civilians have been killed and 25 injured in Donbass in May 2018 alone. (UNIAN, 06.01.18)
• The deployment of a U.N. peacekeeping mission to Donbass could help implement the Minsk Agreements, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in Kiev. (Interfax, 05.29.18)
• A sophisticated multimedia presentation has recreated the deaths of three protesters at Kiev’s Instytutska Street during the 2014 revolution using three-dimensional laser scans of the streetscape, ballistics analysis and autopsy reports. In all three cases, individual officers can be seen aiming and firing their rifles during the moments leading to the victims’ deaths. (New York Times, 05.30.18)
• During the 2014 demonstrations in Kiev, former U.S. President Barack Obama asked Russian President Vladimir Putin not to dissuade his Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Yanukovych from signing an agreement with the opposition, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on May 29. (Interfax, 05.29.18)
• The Javelin anti-tank missile systems that Ukraine received from the U.S. operate under the "fire-and-forget" principle, and will be used by the Ukrainian military for purely defensive purposes, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said. (Interfax, 05.29.18)
• U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on May 29 called on Russia to withdraw from Ukraine and acknowledge its alleged role in the 2014 downing of a commercial plane, following a recent flare-up of violence in the conflict. (CNN, 05.29.18)
• The foreign ministers of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine may meet to discuss Ukraine in June. (Reuters, 06.01.18)   
• Ukrainian filmmaker Oleh Sentsov, who opposed Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea and is now on hunger strike in a Russian prison, has agreed to receive medical treatment. (RFE/RL, 05.29.18)
• Russian prosecutors are seeking a 14-year prison term for Ukrainian journalist Roman Sushchenko, who is on trial in Moscow on espionage charges in a case viewed by Kiev and rights activists as politically motivated. (RFE/RL, 05.28.18)
• The jailed head of RIA Novosti-Ukraine, Kirill Vyshinsky, has appealed to both the Russian and Ukrainian presidents for assistance in his case and declared that he has given up his Ukrainian citizenship. (RFE/RL, 06.01.18)
• Russia has relocated up to 1 million people to the annexed Ukrainian region of Crimea, according to Mustafa Dzhemilev, the longtime leader of the Crimean Tatars and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's envoy for Crimean Tatar affairs. (RFE/RL, 05.27.18)
• Exiled politician Mikheil Saakashvili is calling on European nations to impose sanctions on Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and his inner circle for allegedly violating his human rights. (RFE/RL, 05.30.18)
• See also “Conflict in Syria” and “Russia’s general foreign policy and relations with ‘far abroad’ countries” sections above.

Russia’s other post-Soviet neighbors:

• Kazakhstan signed a contract for another batch of Russia’s Sukhoi Su-30SM multirole fighters on May 24 and has also ordered four more Mil Mi-35M combat helicopters. (Janes, 05.25.18, Jane’s, 05.30.18)
• Kyrgyzstan appears to be waging a major battle on its own soil against alleged members of "international terrorist organizations." In less than 12 months, there have been at least 28 security operations that resulted in apprehending suspects who Kyrgyz authorities say were connected to terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq. (RFE/RL, 05.25.18)
• Kyrgyz authorities have charged former Prime Minister Sapar Isakov of corruption in a case related to modernization work at a power plant in the capital, Bishkek. (RFE/RL, 05.30.18)
• Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said Belarus was ready to bring back border controls with Russia after 20 years of free movement if a recent re-imposition of spot checks by Moscow proved to be long-lasting. Belarus launched a five-day, visa-free regime for 80 countries, including EU citizens, in February 2017, and may extend this to 15 days. (Reuters, 06.01.18)
• The EU and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe have strongly condemned the reported secret executions of two Belarusians whose appeals had been rejected by the country's Supreme Court. “Two new executions in Belarus, of Viktar Liotau and Alyaksey Mikhalenia, have reportedly taken place in secret in mid-May 2018," the EU foreign policy chief's spokeswoman, Maja Kocijancic, said. (RFE/RL, 05.30.18)
• Thousands of Georgians gathered in Tbilisi to protest what they said was political influence in the trial of teens allegedly involved in the stabbing death of two teenage boys in a brawl in December. The protests began late on May 31 after a Tbilisi court failed to find anyone guilty for the killing of one of the teens and ordered a reduction in charges for one of the brawl’s participants, whose father previously served in the Prosecutor-General's Office. (RFE/RL, 06.01.18)
• Azerbaijan's military has advanced further into a no man's land on the border with Armenia, local media have reported; Armenia's military leadership has tried to downplay the advance, while Azerbaijan has been silent. France plans to intensify efforts to find a solution to the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has said in Baku. (Eurasianet.org, 05.30.18, EURACTIV, 05.28.18)

IV. Quoteworthy

• “Everyone is playing football, but they’re applying the rules of judo,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said of the U.S. “That’s neither a football game nor judo, it’s just chaos. That’s where we’re going.” (Financial Times, 05.25.18)
• After hearing that Bulgaria’s prime minister said Russia, like an “elder” brother, should forgive Bulgaria for its decision to abandon support for Russia’s South Stream pipeline, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he was “very bewildered” by talk of “who’s elder, who’s younger, meaning to say that the elder one is always being nudged to pay” the bill. (Russia Matters, 05.31.18)