This Week's Highlights

• June 3 marked the 100th day of fighting in Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Russian forces now control 20% of his country, The Washington Post reports. British defense officials note that Russia appears to have the initiative over Ukraine in the battle for the Donbas, in the east, according to the BBC, with Russian forces edging closer to seizing the last major city in the Luhansk region not yet under their control, per the New York Times.
• Just 38% of Americans say they have something in common with people of another race, ethnic background or political party, but that's 10 points higher than six months ago, a new poll has found—and researchers cited by Axios say that opposition to Russia's invasion of Ukraine may be one factor bringing Americans together.
• U.S. President Joe Biden laid out his Ukraine strategy in a New York Times op-ed published late May 31. While promising more advanced weaponry, Biden reiterated that the U.S. would not put troops on the ground in Ukraine, will not try to bring about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ouster and is “not encouraging or enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders. We do not want to prolong the war just to inflict pain on Russia,” Biden wrote.
• U.S. military hackers have conducted offensive operations in support of Ukraine, U.S. Gen. Paul Nakasone, head of U.S. Cyber Command, has told Sky News. FBI director Christopher Wray, meanwhile, has said: "We've seen the Russian government taking specific preparatory steps toward potential destructive attacks, here and abroad," RFE/RL reports.
• Damage done to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant during Russia’s occupation amounts to more than $135 million, including the loss of irreplaceable software that made it possible to monitor radiation levels across the exclusion zone, The Washington Post cites local officials as saying.
• A flurry of diplomatic activity has focused this week on getting much-needed stocks of Ukrainian and Russian grain and fertilizers to market, with Putin meeting the leader of the African Union, U.N. officials holding "constructive discussions" in Moscow and offering “comfort letters” to shipping and insurance companies and Russia’s foreign minister heading to Turkey for talks.
• As EU leaders reached a landmark political agreement this week to ban 90% of the bloc’s sea-borne Russian oil imports by year’s end, Energy Intelligence reported on the proliferation of obscure trading outfits operating on the sidelines and sometimes in the shadows to purchase Russian oil.
• Prosecutors investigating war crimes cases in Ukraine are examining allegations of the forcible deportation of children to Russia as they seek to build a genocide indictment, the country’s top prosecutor said in an interview with Reuters. UNICEF says more than two children a day have been killed in Ukraine on average since Russia invaded, The New York Times reports. Meanwhile, Russian state TV marked the International Day for the Protection of Children with an extravagant gymnastics festival honoring Putin’s rumored mistress Alina Kabaeva, according to the New York Post.

 

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

Nuclear security and safety:

• Yevhen Kramarenko, the director of the Chernobyl exclusion zone estimates the cost of replacing what was destroyed or stolen during Russia’s occupation of the nuclear power plant at more than $135 million. The software that was lost had been custom-made for the station and is irreplaceable. Mykola Bespaly, director of the site’s Central Analytical Laboratory, said some of his laboratory’s most important work—monitoring radiation levels across the exclusion zone for signs of spikes—is nearly impossible without it. (WP, 06.02.22)
• Russian state nuclear agency Rosatom this week closed the door for further nuclear-safety cooperation with Norway, ending nearly three decades of partnership that saw Norway give Russia more than 2 billion euros to help it secure its nuclear dump sites and improve safety at icebreakers and power plants. (MT, 06.02.22)

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• No significant developments.

Iran and its nuclear program:

• Iran says a May 30 report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog on traces of nuclear material found at three undeclared sites “does not reflect the reality of the negotiations” between Iran and the IAEA. The IAEA said its long-running efforts to get Iranian officials to explain the presence of nuclear material at the sites had failed to provide answers. (RFE/RL, 06.01.22)

Humanitarian impact of the Ukraine conflict:

• Some 15,000 dead and far more wounded. Half of businesses closed and 4.8 million jobs lost. At least $100 billion in damage to infrastructure. One hundred days into Russia’s invasion, Ukraine is still counting the cost. (NYT, 06.03.22)
• The U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, estimates that about 6.8 million people have been driven out of Ukraine during the conflict. But since fighting subsided in the area near Kyiv and elsewhere, and Russian forces redeployed to the east and south, about 2.2 million have returned to the country, it says. The U.N.’s International Organization for Migration estimates that as of May 23 there were more than 7.1 million internally displaced people, down from over 8 million in an earlier count. (AP, 06.03.22)
• More than two children a day have been killed in Ukraine on average since Russia invaded the country and more than four wounded, mostly in attacks involving explosives, the United Nations children’s fund said on Wednesday. (NYT, 06.01.22)
• Prosecutors investigating war crimes cases in Ukraine are examining allegations of the forcible deportation of children to Russia as they seek to build a genocide indictment, the country’s top prosecutor said in an interview. International law defines forced child transfers as genocide. Russia says that it is providing humanitarian aid to people fleeing and that a quarter million children have arrived from Ukraine. (Reuters, 06.03.22)
  • Zelensky accused Russia of forcibly deporting hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians from occupied territories, calling the continuing campaign “one of Russia’s most heinous war crimes.” Speaking to the nation in his nightly address June 2, he said that more than 200,000 children had been deported since the war began. (NYT, 06.02.22)
• The developing global food crisis, president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said, is “only the fault of Russia.” She said Russia was blocking 22 million tons of grain in Ukraine, bombarding houses where the wheat is stored and mining the fields. (NYT, 05.31.22)
• The leader of the African Union met with Putin on June 3 and urged him to release much-needed stocks of grain that are stuck in Ukraine as many countries across Africa and the Middle East face alarming levels of hunger and starvation. Russia said it was not to blame for the global food crisis, with Putin denying both that Russia is preventing shipments of grain from Ukrainian ports and that Ukrainian supplies are as significant as Russia’s detractors claim. (NYT, 06.02.22, Reuters, 06.03.22, TASS, 06.03.22)
• Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said the U.S. supported all efforts to get Ukrainian grain to the open market. The U.S. is willing to write “comfort letters” for shipping and insurance companies reassuring them that Russia’s fertilizers and grains are not under sanctions, she said. (NYT, 05.31.22)
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will visit Turkey next week to discuss the possible release of Ukrainian grain from Black Sea ports, his Turkish counterpart said on Tuesday. (NYT, 05.31.22)
• The United Nations says a senior U.N. official had "constructive discussions" in Moscow on facilitating Russian grain and fertilizer exports to global markets after Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba accused Russia of "playing hunger games" with the world by blocking Ukrainian food exports. (RFE/RL, 05.31.22)
• Kyiv's ambassador to Ankara said June 3 that Turkey is among the countries buying grain that Russia has stolen from Ukraine. Ambassador Vasyl Bodnar also said he has sought help from Turkish authorities and Interpol in investigating who is involved in the shipments of grain transiting Turkish waters. (Reuters, 06.03.22)
• Pope Francis appealed on Wednesday for a resolution to the effective blockade of grain exports from Ukraine. “Please do not use wheat, a staple food, as a weapon of war,” Francis said. (NYT, 06.01.22)
• Russian forces in Mariupol have imprisoned humanitarian aid volunteers and have executed at least one public servant, a Ukrainian official reported Thursday, describing a dark scene in the city occupied two weeks ago. Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko said in a Telegram post that the volunteers, who helped evacuate residents in March and April, are being held in Olenivka, in Russian-controlled territory north of Mariupol. (WP, 06.02.22)
• Russia is responsible for inciting genocide in Ukraine, with the apparent intent of destroying the Ukrainian people, according to a May 27 report by the Washington-based New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy think tank and the Montreal-based Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights. The report’s authors include former war crimes prosecutors, former ambassadors and Canada’s former justice minister. (NYT, 05.27.22)

Military aspects of the Ukraine conflict and their impacts:

• Maps of main Russian movements: New York Times and the Institute for the Study of War
• U.S. President Joe Biden laid out his Ukraine strategy in a New York Times op-ed published late May 31, which doubled down on U.S. support for Kyiv while also underscoring the limits to U.S. involvement in the conflict. Biden reiterated that the U.S. would not put troops on the ground in Ukraine, will not try to bring about Putin’s ouster and is “not encouraging or enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders. We do not want to prolong the war just to inflict pain on Russia,” Biden wrote. (The Hill, 06.01.22, RM, 05.31.22)
  • Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a May 31 interview that “we’re not planning to attack Russia,” while calling for the delivery of rocket systems “with the effective range of fire of over 100 kilometers [62 miles].” U.S. Secretary of State AntonyBlinken said June 1 that Ukraine’s government had given the Biden administration assurances it would not use long-range American missiles to strike inside Russian territory. (The Hill, 06.01.22, NYT, 06.01.22)
• The U.S. will send Ukraine advanced rocket systems and munitions as part of a new $700 million package of military equipment, the White House said May 31. (NYT, 05.31.22)
  • “We believe that the United States is deliberately and diligently ‘pouring fuel on the fire,’” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in response. “Such deliveries do not contribute to … the Ukrainian leadership’s willingness to resume peace talks.” He accused the U.S. of a policy “of fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian.” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said June 1 that the supply of weapons to Kyiv increases the risk of direct confrontation between Russia and the U.S. (WP, 06.01.22, WSJ, 06.01.22)
  • The Biden administration plans to sell Ukraine four MQ-1C Gray Eagle drones that can be armed with Hellfire missiles for battlefield use against Russia, three people familiar with the situation said. (Reuters, 06.01.22)
• As the 100th day of fighting approached, Zelensky said that Russian forces now control 20% of Ukraine. Separately, he again urged the West to speed up weapons deliveries for his outnumbered and outgunned troops as the Kremlin angrily warned that arming Kyiv will "bring more suffering to Ukrainians." Zelensky recently said that as many as 100 Ukrainian servicemen might be dying every day in the fighting. (WP, 06.02.22, RFE/RL, 06.02.22, NYT, 05.31.22)
• Zelensky said defiantly Friday that “victory will be ours,” and noted overnight that 50 foreign embassies had resumed “their full-fledged activities” in Kyiv, a sign of the fragile sense of normalcy that is returning to the capital. (NYT, 06.03.22)
• NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called the conflict in Ukraine a “war of attrition” and said the alliance was preparing for the “long haul” when it came to helping Ukraine fight off Russia. Blinken, too, said on June 1 that “we are still looking at many months of conflict,” emphasizing that though it was difficult to predict how the war would play out, Ukraine would have the United States’ support for as long as it goes on. (WP, 06.02.22, NYT, 06.01.22)
• Russia now appears to have the initiative over Ukraine in the battle for the Donbas, in the country's east, the UK's Ministry of Defense said June 3. The UK said Russia holds 90% of the Luhansk region—about half of the Donbas—and is likely to take complete control of it in two weeks. The ministry said these tactical successes had been achieved "at significant resource cost” to Russia. (BBC, 06.03.22)
• Russian forces on June 3 edged closer to seizing the devastated eastern city of Severodonetsk, the last major city in the Luhansk region of the Donbas not under Russian control. Capturing the Donbas could give Putin a victory to herald to the Russian people. (NYT, 06.03.22)
• This week, after suffering heavy losses, Ukraine began evacuating its troops from Severodonetsk when the besieged city was 70% controlled by Russian forces. “This is not a betrayal,” Serhiy Haidai, governor of the eastern Luhansk region, wrote in a post on Telegram, but part of a retreat “to more advantageous, pre-prepared positions” while awaiting “Western weapons and preparing for de-occupation.” On June 1, Russian and Ukrainian troops traded heavy artillery around the strategic city, a railway hub with a prewar population of about 100,000, as troops battled in the streets. (FT, 06.01.22, NYT, 06.01.22)
  • Russian forces had stormed Severodonetsk (sometimes spelled Sievierodonetsk) from the south, north and east, according to a provincial military official, Haidai said. (NYT, 06.01.22, NYT, 06.01.22)
• Asked what Russia had achieved in Ukraine after 100 days, Dmitri Peskov, the presidential spokesman, said that many populated areas had been “liberated” from the Ukrainian military, whom he described as “Nazi-minded,” doubling down on a false narrative the Kremlin has used to justify the invasion. (NYT, 06.03.22)
• Zelensky called the state of the battle in the Donbas region “very difficult” but emphasized that his troops were having success near the key southern city of Kherson—where they launched a counteroffensive on May 29 to spread Russian forces thin—and also around Zaporizhzhia in the south and Kharkiv in the northeast. (NYT, 06.01.22, NYT, 05.29.22)
• German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Wednesday promised an air-defense system and a tracking radar to Ukraine and defended his government’s record on getting these weapons to Ukraine in a timely fashion. (NYT, 06.01.22)
  • Russia on June 3 accused Germany of throwing European security into imbalance by “remilitarizing,” as Berlin moves to boost its military spending in response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. (Reuters, 06.03.22)
• Speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, a Western official said June 1 that Russia is “still taking casualties, but ... in smaller numbers.” The official estimated that some 40,000 Russian troops have been wounded. (AP, 06.03.22)
• Senior American officials say the Russian military is making the same mistakes in its campaign to capture a swath of eastern Ukraine that forced it to abandon its push to take the entire country. While Russian troops are capturing territory, a Pentagon official said that their “plodding and incremental” pace was wearing them down, and that the military’s overall fighting strength had been diminished by about 20%. (NYT, 05.31.22)
• Ukrainian soldiers who surrendered to Russian forces at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol may face the death penalty, a pro-Moscow separatist official said May 30. (AFP, 05.30.22)
• Four Russian cruise missiles struck the Lviv region in western Ukraine late June 1, wounding five and damaging train infrastructure, according to a Ukrainian official. The missiles, which were launched from the Black Sea, struck the railway facilities in the Stryi and Sambir districts, southwest of the city of Lviv, regional governor Maksym Kozytskyi said in Telegram post. (WP, 06.02.22)
• Ukraine’s Operational Command South warned that Russia’s blockade around Snake Island was intensifying, and that it was deploying antiaircraft missile systems, modernized rocket launchers and electronic warfare stations there. The increased activity on the island could indicate a renewed threat to the coast, officials said. (NYT, 06.02.22)
• Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said June 3 that Russian forces will drastically speed up their offensive in Ukraine following an unspecified change of tactics. Kadyrov said Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu had outlined “new tasks to improve further tactics” on the battlefield during their June 2 meeting in Moscow. (MT, 06.03.22)
• A European cargo ship was ready to set sail for Italy from the Ukrainian port of Mariupol with its load of 15,000 tons of steel slabs in late February. Then Russian soldiers invaded Ukraine. Three months later, there are signs that the ship may be seized by separatists allied with Russia. (NYT, 06.03.22)
• Slovakia will deliver eight self-propelled Zuzana 2 howitzers to Ukraine, Slovakia’s defense minister announced Thursday. (WP, 06.02.22)
• A Turkish drone manufacturer has agreed to donate a Bayraktar TB2 to Ukraine after a fundraiser in Lithuania raised more than $5.4 million within three days. The company requested that the money raised be used for humanitarian aid. (WP, 06.02.22)

Punitive measures related to Ukraine and their impact globally:

• EU leaders reached a landmark political agreement late May 30 to ban 90% of the bloc’s Russian oil imports arriving in the bloc by sea by the end of the year. Hungary and its prime minister, Viktor Orban, had been blocking the measure. To win Hungary’s approval, European leaders agreed to allow pipeline imports. (NYT, 05.31.22)
  • "This immediately covers more than 2/3 of oil imports from Russia, cutting a huge source of financing for its war machine," European Council president Charles Michel tweeted. "Maximum pressure on Russia to end the war." (Axios, 05.31.22)
• The EU’s decision to ban most Russian oil imports by the end of the year will have adverse consequences for both Russia and Europe, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov, in the first official Kremlin reaction to the move. The EU agreement, reached this week, is expected to cost the Kremlin billions of dollars a year in revenue while also strategically decoupling it from Europe. It will likely hit Europe hard, as households and businesses are already facing steeper energy prices. (NYT, 06.01.22)
• Responding to the measures, Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s permanent representative to international organizations in Vienna, said via Twitter that “Russia will find other importers.” In addition to retaining some European markets, Russia could sell some of the oil previously bound to Europe to China, India and other customers in Asia, even though it will have to offer discounts, said Chris Weafer, CEO at consulting firm Macro-Advisory. (CNBC, 05.31.22, AP, 05.31.22)
• The U.K. and EU have agreed a coordinated ban on insuring ships carrying Russian oil, shutting Moscow out of the vital Lloyd’s of London insurance market and sharply curbing its ability to export crude, according to British and European officials. (FT, 06.01.22)
• As Western traders and majors scale back their purchases of Russian oil because of sanctions, a new class of offtakers has emerged on the scene. These include obscure trading outfits such, as well as more familiar players, which operate on the sidelines of mainstream trading—and sometimes in the shadows. (Energy Intelligence, 06.01.22)
• Ukraine has seized assets belonging to Russia's Tatneft oil giant that are in Ukraine along with the assets of companies linked to it. (RFE/RL, 05.31.22)
• Citigroup may retain a banking license and some operations in Russia, chief executive Jane Fraser said, even as it tries to sell its consumer and commercial arms in the country following the war with Ukraine. (FT, 06.01.22)
• The U.S. on June 2 announced a new round of sanctions on Russian officials and elites. Among the prominent Russian figures sanctioned was Sergei Roldugin, whom the Treasury Department called a close friend and money manager to Putin; steel magnate and billionaire Alexey Mordashov; Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova; and God Nisanov, a close associate of Russian officials. (WP, 06.02.22)
• The United States has issued new sanctions targeting yachts linked to Putin, a yacht brokerage and several government officials. The sanctions take further action “to degrade the key networks used by Russia’s elites, including President Vladimir Putin, to attempt to hide and move money and anonymously make use of luxury assets around the globe,” the U.S. Treasury Department said on June 2. (RFE/RL, 06.02.22)
• European Union ambassadors on Thursday approved the bloc’s sixth sanctions package but removed the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, from the list to placate Hungary, according to two EU diplomats. (WP, 06.02.22)
  • The Ukrainian parliament has approved sanctions against Patriarch Kirill and his associates over their support of Russia's aggression against Ukraine. (RFE/RL, 05.31.22)
• The European Parliament has banned lobbyists for Russian companies from its premises, its president Roberta Metsola said in a tweet. (NYT, 06.03.22)
• Chicken is getting more expensive everywhere, with no end in sight. Feed accounts for roughly 70% of the input cost of poultry and is in short supply due to a string of bad harvests from climate change-induced droughts and floods, a surge in post-COVID demand and, of course, the war in Ukraine. Malaysia this week joined a growing list of countries nationalizing food supplies by suspending exports of live chickens to cool down local prices that have skyrocketed since Russia invaded Ukraine. (GZERO Media, 06.03.22)

Ukraine-related negotiations:

• President Biden on June 3 said he thinks a “negotiated settlement” will be necessary to end Russia’s war in Ukraine. Asked whether Ukraine should give up some of its territory to Russia in order to end the war and bring peace to the region, Biden said his policy continues to be that the United States will not make any decisions about Ukraine without Ukraine. (AP, 06.03.22)
• Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said Tuesday that the U.S. supported a peace plan initiated by Italy to end the war in Ukraine. (NYT, 05.31.22)

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

• European Union leaders agreed in the early hours of Tuesday to give Ukraine 9 billion euros, or $9.7 billion, to help the country deal with the economic repercussions of the Russian invasion. (NYT, 05.31.22)
• Finland has begun a charm offensive to win over Turkey to its NATO application, suggesting it could buy Turkish drones and loosen arms sales rules, as well as insisting it was tough on terrorism. (FT, 06.01.22)
• Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has used her first public speech in around six months to condemn the war in Ukraine. “My solidarity goes to Ukraine, which was attacked and invaded by Russia, and to its right to self-defense,” she said at an event Wednesday, adding that she supported all efforts by Germany and international actors to “stop this barbaric war of aggression by Russia.” (WP, 06.02.22)
• Denmark will join the EU’s defense policy in the latest shake-up of Europe’s security architecture following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In the largest ever pro-EU vote in the traditionally Euro-skeptic Scandinavian country, 67% of Danes voted in favor of ending the opt-out in a historic referendum on Wednesday. (FT, 06.02.22)
• Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, has urged the people of the United States to “not get used to this war” as her country reaches its 100th day of fighting with Russia. “Otherwise, we are risking a never-ending war, and this is not something we would like to have,” she told ABC. “Don’t get used to our pain.” (WP, 06.02.22)
• This week, the powerful secretary of Russia’s National Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, said that Poland is poised to seize Ukrainian land—part of the West’s pursuit of its “selfish interests” in the region. (RM, 06.02.22)

China-Russia: Allied or aligned?

• Russian officials have raised increasingly frustrated requests for greater support during discussions with Beijing in recent weeks, calling on China to live up to its affirmation of a “no limits” partnership made weeks before the war in Ukraine began. But China’s leadership wants to expand assistance for Russia without running afoul of Western sanctions and has set limits on what it will do, according to Chinese and U.S. officials. (WP, 06.02.22)
• China’s support for Russia through oil and gas purchases is irking Washington and raising the risk of U.S. retaliation, foreign observers say, though they see no sign Beijing is helping Moscow evade sanctions over its war on Ukraine. (AP, 06.01.22)
• China has barred Russia’s airlines from flying foreign-owned jetliners into its airspace, the Russian news outlet RBK reported, after President Vladimir Putin threw the aircrafts’ ownership into doubt by allowing them to be re-registered in Russia to avoid seizure under sanctions over Moscow’s attack on Ukraine. (AP, 06.01.22)
• China’s top diplomat said June 1 that Beijing will work with Moscow to promote “real democracy,” reaffirming his country’s ties with Russia. (Bloomberg, 06.01.22)

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms control:

• No significant developments.

Counterterrorism:

• No significant developments.

Conflict in Syria:

• No significant developments.

Cyber security:

• U.S. military hackers have conducted offensive operations in support of Ukraine, U.S. Gen. Paul Nakasone, head of U.S. Cyber Command, has said. (Sky News, 06.01.22)
• Christopher Wray, director of the FBI, has told a gathering of cybersecurity professionals that the U.S. law enforcement agency is "laser-focused" on Russian cyber activities and is monitoring them in the context of Russia's war against Ukraine. "We've seen the Russian government taking specific preparatory steps toward potential destructive attacks, here and abroad," Wray said. (RFE/RL, 06.01.22)

Energy exports from CIS:

• The OPEC oil cartel and allied producing countries, including Russia, will raise production by 648,000 barrels per day—a larger-than-expected amount—in July and August, offering modest relief for a global economy suffering from soaring energy prices. The agreement was seen as a gesture of reconciliation to the U.S. and the White House welcomed the deal, which came after months of diplomatic pressure on Saudi Arabia. (AP, 06.02.22, CNBC, 06.02.22, Bloomberg, 06.02.22)
  • Russia, one of the world’s three largest oil producers, agreed with OPEC and nine non-OPEC nations last year to pump more crude each month, but its output is now expected to fall about 8% this year under Western pressure over the war in Ukraine. In May Russia's oil production increased by 5% after seeing one of its steepest drops the previous month, the Vedomosti business daily reported June 3. (WSJ, 05.31.22, MT, 06.03.22)
  • Saudi Arabia has indicated to Western allies that it is prepared to raise oil production should Russia’s output fall substantially under the weight of sanctions, according to people familiar with the discussions. (FT, 06.02.22)
• Gazprom cut its supply at 6 a.m. on Tuesday to the Dutch energy company GasTerra, a spokesman for the latter said. GasTerra, an energy wholesale company and trader of energy sources, said May 31 that it had refused a Gazprom request to settle contracts in rubles, and the Russian company said in response that it would discontinue its supply. (NYT, 05.31.22)
• Gazprom will cut gas supplies to Shell Energy in Germany, after it also refused to use the Kremlin’s ruble payment mechanism. Gazprom said supplies to Shell Energy would stop from June 1, with an annual contract of 1.2 billion cubic meters—or roughly 2.5% of Germany’s gas imports from Russia last year—affected by the move. (FT, 06.01.22)
• Kazakhstan is changing the name of the oil it exports via Russian sea ports to Kazakhstan Export Blend Crude Oil (KEBCO) to dissociate it from oil originating in Russia in order to avoid sanction risks and issues with financing. (Reuters, 06.03.22)

Climate change:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• See sections related to fallout from war in Ukraine and energy exports.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

• Just 38% of Americans say they have something in common with people of another race, ethnic background or political party—but that's 10 points higher than six months ago, the new Axios-Ipsos Two Americas Index has found. Opposition to Russia's invasion of Ukraine may be one factor bringing us together, researchers said. (Axios, 06.01.22)
• See also sections related to war in Ukraine and Cold War/NATO.

 

II. Russia’s domestic policies

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

• Vladimir Putin's health is a subject of intense conversation inside the Biden administration after the intelligence community produced its fourth comprehensive assessment at the end of May. The classified U.S. report says Putin seems to have re-emerged after undergoing treatment in April for advanced cancer, three U.S. intelligence leaders who have read the reports tell Newsweek. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on May 29 denied speculation that Putin was ill, saying there were no signs pointing to any ailment. (Newsweek, 06.02.22, AFP, 05.30.22)
  • The assessments also confirm that there was an assassination attempt on Putin's life in March, the officials say. (Newsweek, 06.02.22)
• Russia’s failure to pay a slice of interest on one of its bonds will trigger $2.5 billion of insurance-like contracts used to protect against debt defaults, according to a panel of derivatives dealers and investors. The ruling by the Credit Derivatives Determinations Committee that a “failure to pay” event has occurred pushes Moscow one step closer to a historic debt default, as Western sanctions following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine choke off Moscow’s ability to make payments to U.S. and European investors. (FT, 06.01.22)
  • Russia said June 2 it was ready to directly settle any disputes with its creditors after missing payments on its foreign debt due to sanctions over Ukraine. (AFP, 06.02.22)
• Russia’s GDP fell by 3% year on year in April, according to the Ministry of Economic Development. (The Bell, 06.01.22)
• Life in Moscow and St. Petersburg remains largely normal. People are out and about; restaurants are full. However, Western sanctions and a massive pullout of Western businesses have left behind half-empty malls and closed doors in places that once buzzed with customers. The variety of goods on sale at Russian shops has fallen across nearly every category this spring, according to research cited by the BBC’s Russian service. (AP, 06.03.22, MT, 06.02.22)
• The billionaire founder and CEO of Russian tech giant Yandex, Arkady Volozh, has resigned from the company after being targeted by European sanctions June 3 for his company's role in “promoting state media and narratives in its search results” and removing “content related to Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine.” (MT, 06.03.22)
• Two Russian lawmakers in the Far Eastern region of Primorye have been thrown out of the Communist Party's faction in the regional parliament after they called on Putin to stop military operations in Ukraine and withdraw all troops. (RFE/RL, 06.01.22)
• Jailed Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny says he has been informed by investigators that he faces new charges, carrying an additional 15-year sentence, for "creating an extremist group" in connection with his Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) and groups associated with it. (RFE/RL, 05.31.22)
• Police in Moscow have searched the homes of several journalists and activists who have openly protested Russia's ongoing unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. The June 2 searches were linked to a probe launched into the alleged distribution of false information about the use of Russia's armed forces for the war in Ukraine. (RFE/RL, 06.02.22)
• Russia is developing a domestic alternative to Europe’s top human rights court, the head of the Association of Russian Lawyers said June 2. (MT, 06.02.22)
• Russian opposition politician and former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov, who has been critical of Moscow's military campaign in Ukraine, said June 3 he had left Russia temporarily but was hoping to return. (AFP, 06.03.22)
• The editor in chief of the independent Moscow-based newspaper Novaya Gazeta, Dmitry Muratov, will be selling his Nobel Prize medal later this month to help Ukrainian refugees, Texas-based Heritage Auctions says. (RFE/RL, 06.02.22)
• Legendary ballet dancer and choreographer Mikhail Baryshnikov has decried Putin's "world of fear" in an open letter to the Russian president after Russia banned the website of a charity he co-founded to benefit Ukraine. Baryshnikov, along with detective-fiction writer Boris Akunin and prominent economist Sergei Guriev founded the True Russia charity in February. The project says it has raised nearly $1.3 million. (RFE/RL, 06.02.22)
• Dmitry Shkrebets, the father of a Russian conscript believed to have been killed in the Moskva battleship’s sinking, said June 2 he has been questioned by security services on suspicion of sending a bomb threat. He denied the allegations, calling them “absurd.” (MT, 06.03.22)
• Muscovites are voting to name a square outside the city’s U.S. embassy in honor of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Residents will choose from three potential names: “Defenders of Donbas Square,” “Donetsk People’s Republic Square” and “Hero of Russia Vladimir Artyomovich Zhoga Square,” in honor of a separatist battalion commander killed in combat. (MT, 05.30.22)
• Pro-Kremlin Russian state TV is airing an extravagant gymnastics festival honoring Putin’s rumored mistress Alina Kabaeva as the brutal invasion of Ukraine rages on. The “Alina Festival,” helmed by the Olympic champion, took place last month but premiered on the Russia-1 channel June 1 to mark the International Day for the Protection of Children. (NY Post, 06.02.22)
• A Russian journalist covering Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine for state media has said that he “doesn’t regret” his time in a far-right group after being pictured with Nazi tattoos. Gleb Erve currently covers the conflict—which the Kremlin claims was launched to “denazify Ukraine”—for the state-run RIA Novosti news agency. (MT, 06.01.22)

Defense and aerospace:

• Russia has held exercises involving the Yars nuclear-armed mobile missile system, the defense ministry said on Wednesday. The exercises, held in the central Russian region of Ivanovo, involved about a thousand soldiers, who practiced moving the missile systems to field positions, camouflaging them and other activities, the ministry said. (FT, 06.01.22)
• See section Military aspects of the Ukraine conflict and their impacts above.

Security, law-enforcement, justice and emergencies:

• No significant developments.

 

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

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

• Czech President Milos Zeman said Russia's invasion of Ukraine was "a cold shower" for him and many others who misjudged Moscow, and he argued that Russian President Vladimir Putin should face a "war [crimes] court" and Russian justice over his actions. (RFE/RL, 06.03.22)
• The European Union’s top court has dismissed the appeal by Kremlin-connected businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin of his inclusion on the bloc’s sanctions list over his role in Libya’s civil war. (RFE/RL, 06.01.22)
• Sri Lanka has banned a Russian-operated plane from leaving the South Asian island pending a hearing later this month as Western sanctions continue to disrupt Russia’s travel industry. (RFE/RL, 06.03.22)

Ukraine:

• Bridget Brink, the new U.S. ambassador to Ukraine promised more weaponry to help the country in its fight against Russia after presenting her credentials to Zelensky on June 2 in Kyiv. Brink told reporters that her No. 1 mission was “to help Ukraine prevail against Russian aggression” and said the delivery of military aid was being accelerated. (RFE/RL, 06.02.22)
• Ukraine’s central bank has raised its benchmark lending rate from 10% to 25%, its first increase since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of the country in late February. (FT, 06.02.22)
• Ukrainian lawmakers have fired Ombudswoman Lyudmila Denisova almost one year before her term's end, saying she failed to help organize humanitarian corridors and citing other alleged inaction related to Russia's invasion. (RFE/RL, 05.31.22)
• In an interview published June 2, Zelensky praised Elon Musk's Starlink—a constellation of satellites that helps provide internet coverage to disconnected areas—for helping Ukraine overcome Russian propaganda after people in areas without internet access were told their country "does not exist anymore" by invading troops. (Insider, 06.03.22)
• Ukraine has granted citizenship to prominent Russian journalist Alexander Nevzorov who fled Russia with his wife after denouncing the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, a senior Ukrainian official said June 3. (Reuters, 06.03.22)

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

• Belarus's Supreme Court has rejected an appeal filed by a group of bloggers, opposition activists and the husband of exiled opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, all of whom were sentenced in December on charges they and their supporters have rejected as being politically motivated. (RFE/RL, 06.01.22)
• A Belarusian labor union activist who took part in a large strike by workers of the Naftan oil-processing company in 2020 was found hanged several days after police questioned him with regard to an unspecified case. (RFE/RL, 06.01.22)
• Ilia Eloshvili, the deputy mayor of the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, has been found dead at his house. The Interior Ministry said June 1 that it is investigating. (RFE/RL, 06.01.22)
• Kyrgyz authorities have added an abuse of office charge against jailed former President Almazbek Atambayev over deadly ethnic clashes in 2010 that claimed almost 450 lives. (RFE/RL, 06.01.22)
• Croatian police have arrested a Russian activist linked to protest punk group Pussy Riot, acting on an international warrant issued by Turkmenistan, a member of the group said June 1. (AFP, 06.02.22)