This Week’s Highlights:

• Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov believes a shared disapproval of the U.S. exit from the Iranian nuclear deal may help bring Russia and European nations closer.
• Russia is not in talks with the Syrian government about supplying advanced S-300 ground-to-air missiles and does not think they are needed, according to a Kremlin aide, an apparent U-turn by Moscow. The comments by Vladimir Kozhin follow a visit to Moscow by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
• It was CIA deputy director Gina Haspel that recommended Donald Trump expel 60 Russian diplomats over the poisoning of Russian intelligence defector Sergei Skripal.
• A year into the special counsel investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 elections, 53 percent of Americans thinks the investigation is politically motivated.
• Russians are most unhappy with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the unequal distribution of wealth in the country.
• Poll: Russians view China as Russia’s most necessary and valuable partner.
• Former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin may be appointed to run Russia’s audit chamber.
• If a British officer named James Blunt had not refused to act on an order from Gen. Wesley Clark to clear the airport in Pristina from Russian paratroopers in 1999, things might have turned out a lot worse in the aftermath of the war in Kosovo. Blunt went on to fame as a rock musician with the hit song “You’re Beautiful.”

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

Nuclear security and safety:

• No significant developments.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• U.S. President Donald Trump says he will meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on June 12 in Singapore. (RFE/RL, 05.10.18)

Iran’s nuclear program and related issues:

• U.S. President Donald Trump on May 8 announced that the U.S. will withdraw from the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, which he described as “defective at its core.” The U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement that “sanctions will be reimposed subject to certain 90-day and 180-day wind-down periods.” (RFE/RL, 05.08.18)
• A summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin is “extremely important” to safeguard global stability in the wake of Trump’s decision to quit the Iran nuclear agreement, according to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov. Russia is firmly committed to continuing to deepen ties with Iran despite the U.S. decision to quit the nuclear deal and impose new sanctions on Tehran, Ryabkov said. (Bloomberg, 05.09.18, The Moscow Times, 05.10.18)
• Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet Yukiya Amano, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in Sochi on May 14. Ushakov added that Moscow was working closely with Iran to convince it not to walk away from the nuclear deal. "We really hope this won't happen," Ushakov said. He also said that a shared disapproval of the U.S. exit from the Iranian nuclear deal may help bring Russia and European nations closer. (RFE/RL, 05.11.18, AP, 05.11.18)
• German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the U.S. decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal undermines confidence in the global order. Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed efforts to preserve the deal by telephone on May 11, according to both Berlin and Moscow. On May 10, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, agreed during talks in Moscow that the deal should remain in force. The leaders of France, Germany and Britain said on May 8 that they were committed to implementing the Iran deal despite Trump's decision to pull out and his threat of sanctions. (RFE/RL, 05.09.18, RFE/RL, 05.11.18)
• Iranian President Hassan Rohani swiftly responded to Trump’s announcement, saying Tehran is ready to resume its nuclear work after holding talks with EU signatories of the deal. "If negotiations fail, the Islamic republic will enrich uranium more than before … in the next weeks," Rohani said. (RFE/RL, 05.09.18)

Military issues, including NATO-Russia relations:

• The U.S. Navy has reactivated a fleet responsible for overseeing the East Coast and North Atlantic—an escalation of the Pentagon’s focus on a resurgent Russia and its expanding military presence. The 2nd Fleet, deactivated in 2011 to preserve funds for new ships, will resume operations in Norfolk on July 1. (The Washington Post, 05.06.18)
• Russia has taken advantage of its military role in Syria to bolster its naval presence in the eastern Mediterranean region, making the region “very crowded,” NATO’s southern Europe commander said. (AP, 05.07.18)
• Flying aircraft carriers that launch and recover fleets of small, inexpensive drones could soon be part of the U.S. military arsenal, as the Pentagon works with private technology partners to engineer that vision into reality. The goal is to build the technology and know-how needed to apply hordes of small drones on the battlefield. (The Washington Post, 05.06.18)
• The U.S. Army is fast-tracking newly configured Stryker vehicles armed with helicopter and drone-killing weapons to counter Russia in Europe and provide more support to maneuvering Brigade Combat Teams in combat. (The National Interest, 05.07.18)
• The U.S. Marine Corps Air Ground Task Force Training Command has filed a solicitation for contractors to provide a Russian-built Mi-24 Hind attack helicopter or an Mi-17 Hip transport helicopter to serve as accurate opposing forces threat simulation aircraft. (Aviationist, 05.04.18)
• If a British officer named James Blunt had not refused to act on an order from Gen. Wesley Clark to clear the airport in Pristina from Russian paratroopers in 1999, things might have turned out a lot worse in the aftermath of the war in Kosovo. Blunt went on to fame as a rock musician with the hit song “You’re Beautiful.” (New York Times, 05.08.18)

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms control:

• The House Armed Services Committee has moved to nullify the INF Treaty, endorsing a measure that would entrust U.S. President Donald Trump to decide whether the United States should scrap the deal. The Republican-led measure, added around midnight on May 10 to a draft of the 2019 defense spending bill, states that the United States will no longer consider the treaty binding without White House verification of Russia’s full compliance. (The Washington Post, 05.10.18)

Counter-terrorism:

• Russian intelligence foiled a terror attack on this week’s massive Victory Day memorial march in Moscow, Deputy Foreign Minister Oleg Syromolotov said. He said several terror groups in western Siberia had stockpiled weapons for the attack. Twenty people have been detained and 17 homes were searched as part of the investigation. The FSB said four members of the suspected IS “sleeper cell” were detained in the Moscow region after they traveled from Novy Urengoi, an oil town in western Siberia. The FSB said they plotted attacks in Moscow and were receiving orders from IS members in Syria via a messaging app. (AP, 05.11.18)

Conflict in Syria:

• Russia is not in talks with the Syrian government about supplying advanced S-300 ground-to-air missiles and does not think they are needed, an apparent U-turn by Moscow. The comments, by Vladimir Kozhin, an aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin who oversees Russian military assistance to other countries, follow a visit to Moscow by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been lobbying Putin hard not to transfer the missiles. After the talks with Putin, Netanyahu sounded upbeat. "In previous meetings, given statements that were putatively attributed to—or were made by—the Russian side, it was meant to have limited our freedom of action or harm other interests and that didn't happen, and I have no basis to think that this time will be different," he said. "Given what is happening in Syria at this very moment, there is a need to ensure the continuation of military coordination between the Russian military and the Israel Defense Forces," Netanyahu said, referring to a hotline designed to prevent the countries clashing accidentally. (Reuters, 05.11.18, The Moscow Times, 05.10.18)
• The Israeli air force came close to shooting down a Russian air force jet that was headed toward Israeli airspace in 2015, former defense minister Moshe Ya’alon said. “At the very beginning of the Russian presence [in Syria], there was a case where one Russian pilot almost crossed our border over the Golan Heights. If it was a Syrian plane, we would have shot it down,” Ya’alon said. He also said contact was made with the Russian-operated Hmeimim air base in Syria alerting it to the danger the plane was in, and following the warnings, the jet changed direction. (The Jerusalem Post, 05.06.18)
• Syrian state media have accused Israel of launching missiles at a target near Damascus, saying Syrian air defenses intercepted and shot down two of the incoming missiles. A war monitor said nine people were killed in the missile attack. (RFE/RL, 05.09.18)
• Confrontation between Israel and Iranian forces in Syria sharply escalated early on May 10 as Israel said Iran launched a barrage of 20 missiles toward its positions in the Golan Heights. The Israeli military said it struck dozens of Iran-linked military targets in Syria on May 10 in response to rocket fire, marking a significant escalation in regional hostilities a little more than a day after the U.S. withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal. (The Washington Post, 05.10.18, The Washington Post, 05.10.18)
• Israel released video of a Delilah cruise missile taking out a Russian-built Pantsir-S1 self-propelled combined gun/missile system during its strike on Iranian Quds targets on May 9 in Syria. (Business Insider, 05.10.18)
• Two pilots of a Russian Ka-52 military attack helicopter were reportedly killed in a crash in eastern Syria late on May 7. According to official figures, Russia has lost seven planes and six helicopters since beginning military operations in Syria in September 2015. (The Moscow Times, 05.08.18)
• Included in the equipment Russia will show off at this year’s annual victory parade is an armed robot that Russia claims saw action in Syria. The Uran-9 looks like a tank in miniature—a 30 millimeter cannon on a turret on top of a small tracked body. But unlike the armored beasts of war seen on battlefields for over a century, there’s no human nestled inside. (C4ISRNET, 05.08.18)
• Iraqi forces in coordination with U.S.-backed Syrian forces have captured five senior Islamic State group leaders. (AP, 05.10.18)
• Paris no longer insists on the resignation of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as a precondition for settling the conflict in that country, French Ambassador to Russia Sylvie Bermann said. (TASS, 05.06.18)

Cyber security:

• Five U.S. military wives received death threats from the self-styled CyberCaliphate on the morning of Feb. 10, 2015. The warnings led to days of anguished media coverage of Islamic State militants’ online reach. Except it wasn’t IS. The Associated Press has found evidence that the women were targeted not by jihadists but by the same Russian hacking group that intervened in the American election and exposed the emails of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign chairman, John Podesta. (AP, 05.08.18)
• The "Locked Shields" exercise conducted last month in Estonia gamed out an attack by the fictional country Crimsonia on its fictional neighbor Berylia. However, Berylia is an obvious stand-in for a Baltic country such as Estonia: It is geographically difficult for NATO to defend and it shares a border with Russia that has made it a special target for Kremlin interest. (The Washington Post, 05.04.18)
• The website of a government agency tasked with promoting Russia’s image abroad has been hijacked by hackers who posted a message with a threat against the state body involved in a campaign to block a popular messaging app. (The Moscow Times, 05.10.18)

Elections interference:

• Renova Group Chairman Viktor Vekselberg was questioned along with his cousin Andrew Intrater, who heads the firm's U.S. affiliate, Columbus Nova, by agents investigating alleged Russian election interference. The Russian businessmen allegedly transferred some $500,000 to former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen's company Essential Consultants in a series of payments after the November 2016 election. New York investment firm Columbus Nova said it retained Cohen as a consultant "regarding potential sources of capital and potential investments in real estate and other ventures." U.S. investigators also asked Intrater and Vekselberg, who was stopped by FBI agents earlier this year after his private jet landed in New York, about $300,000 in political donations Intrater made to Trump's inaugural fund and campaign funds. (RFE/RL, 05.09.18, The Washington Post, 05.09.18)
  • Columbus Nova is listed as the registrant behind a handful of domains for websites named after the alt-right that were created during the 2016 election. It is unclear if any of these websites were launched or ever hosted content. (The Washington Post, 05.09.18)
• There is no evidence that Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election affected the actual vote count, according to the first installment of the Senate Intelligence Committee's Russia report, released May 8. Cyber actors affiliated with Russia's government conducted an "unprecedented, coordinated" campaign against the U.S. election infrastructure, a U.S. Senate committee said on May 8, including successfully penetrating a few voter registration databases. The cyber attacks targeted at least 18 states, and possibly three more. (USA Today, 05.08.18, The Moscow Times, 05.09.18)
• Attorneys for a Russian company accused of funding and overseeing a troll farm operation to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election sparred with the office of special counsel Robert Mueller on May 9 as they appeared in federal court for the first time. Concord Management and Consulting, one of three Russian companies and 13 Russian individuals indicted in February, is set to be arraigned and to enter a plea of not guilty in Washington. (The Washington Post, 05.09.18)
• Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee on May 10 made public for the first time the full cache of more than 3,000 ads that Facebook said were purchased by a pro-Kremlin group, the Internet Research Agency. While the ads might be expected to feature overtly pro-Trump or anti-Clinton messages, most do not. In many cases, the Kremlin-tied ads took multiple sides of the same issue. (Wall Street Journal, 05.10.18, The Washington Post, 05.10.18)
• U.S. Vice President Pence on May 10 urged special counsel Robert Mueller to bring his investigation into Russian election interference to a close, saying “it’s time to wrap it up.” (The Washington Post, 05.10.18)
• White House chief of staff John Kelly said U.S. President Donald Trump is “somewhat embarrassed” by the special counsel’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. (AP, 05.11.18)
• House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes backed away from an open confrontation with the Justice Department on May 10 after a private meeting with senior intelligence officials who said they could not give him top-secret information about an intelligence source who had aided special counsel Robert Mueller. (The Washington Post, 05.10.18)
• A year into the special counsel investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 elections, 53 percent of Americans thinks the investigation is politically motivated, according to a poll by SSRS of Glen Mills, Pa. Nevertheless, three in four Americans still think U.S. President Donald Trump should cooperate if he is asked to be interviewed as part of the investigation. (NBC, 05.08.18)

Energy exports:

• Russia has exported less crude oil to Europe this year as the quality of the fuel on offer deteriorated and tense diplomatic relations prompted it to redirect more volumes to China. Russia increased oil pipeline exports to China by almost 50 percent in January-April from a year earlier to 12.4 million tons. (Reuters, 05.08.18)
• Poland’s antitrust watchdog said Russia’s Gazprom and five companies financing the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline haven’t done enough to make the project comply with Polish law. (Bloomberg, 05.09.18)

Bilateral economic ties:

• No significant developments.

Other bilateral issues:

• U.S. President Donald Trump has congratulated Russian President Vladimir Putin on being sworn in for a fourth term, saying he looks forward to a time when the two nations can have a good relationship, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters May 7.  "However, the United States believes that everyone has a right to be heard and assemble peacefully," she said, referring to the arrest of protesters in Russia. (The Economic Times, 05.08.18)
• Washington is introducing sanctions against Rosoboronexport after Russia has labeled the latest wave of sanctions against its defense sector as the United States’ desire to “get back” for what it said were failed airstrikes in Syria last month. The United States sanctioned six Russian entities for violating its weapons of mass destruction non-proliferation rules for Iran, Syria and North Korea in a Federal Register notice published May 10. Rosoboronexport, the state-owned arms exporter, has been on the sanctions list for trading with the three countries since 2015.(The Moscow Times, 05.10.18)
• Russian lawmakers want to make it a criminal offense punishable by up to four years in jail to observe sanctions imposed by the United States or other foreign countries, Russian news agencies reported on May 11. Russia has been considering how to respond to the latest U.S. sanctions and the lower house of the Russian parliament is due to start voting on specific counter sanctions legislation on May 15. (Reuters, 05.11.18)
• Russia’s parliament plans to adopt a bill on counter-measures to U.S. and European Union sanctions this month after softening the initial draft to remove language that had targeted specific sectors and products ranging from medication to aerospace. (Bloomberg, 05.11.18)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin has issued veiled criticism of the United States in a speech before a Red Square parade marking the anniversary of Germany's defeat in World War II, listing "pretentions to exceptionalism" as a factor that drove Nazi aggression and saying such attitudes remain a threat to global security today. (RFE/RL, 05.09.18)
• Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska has handed back three private jets he was leasing because U.S. sanctions imposed on him last month make it impossible to keep using the planes. (Reuters, 05.11.18)
• As CIA deputy director, Gina Haspel worked closely with MI6 to coordinate the response to the poisoning of Russian intelligence defector Sergei Skripal, and she personally briefed Trump about the case—and recommended the expulsion of 60 Russian spies as punishment. Trump went along, in the toughest action against Russia of his presidency. Haspel has also helped oversee the delivery of highly sensitive Russia files to special counsel Robert Mueller and the House and Senate intelligence committees. Though she never served in Moscow, former colleagues say she ran operations against Russian targets in several postings. (The Washington Post, 05.07.18)
• Documents newly obtained by NPR show how Kremlin-linked Russian politician Alexander Torshin tried to advance Moscow's long-term objectives in the United States, in part by establishing common political interests with American conservatives starting as early as 2009. (NPR, 05.11.18)

II. Russia’s domestic news

Politics, economy and energy:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin was sworn in for the fourth time as president, promising Russians an “economic and technological breakthrough” and reappointing his long-serving prime minister amid the deepest standoff with the West in decades. “We need breakthroughs in all spheres of life,” Putin said on May 7 after being sworn in for a six-year term. The first decree he signed on inauguration day calls for Russia to cut its poverty level by half by 2024, raise the average life expectancy from 72.5 to 78 years and become one of the world’s five biggest economies. (Financial Times, 05.07.18, Bloomberg, 05.06.18, Bloomberg, 05.08.18)

• Russian President Vladimir Putin shook hands with just three people in the audience after he took the oath of office on May 7: the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill; Putin’s longtime prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev; and former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder. (The Washington Post, 05.07.18)
• Russia's lower house of parliament on May 8 confirmed Dmitry Medvedev as prime minister, the job he has held since 2012, with a vote of 374 against 56. When listing the deputy prime ministers he was proposing for his new cabinet, Medvedev left out deputy prime ministers Igor Shuvalov and Arkady Dvorkovich. Other deputy prime ministers not on the list were Dmitry Rogozin, who oversaw the defense sector, Sergei Prikhodko, Alexander Khloponin and Yuri Trutnev. Deputy Defense Minister Yury Borisov was offered Rogozin’s defense industry portfolio, while Medvedev’s university classmate and former presidential aide Konstantin Chuichenko was tapped to take over Prikhodko’s post as Chief of Staff of the Government Executive Office. Medvedev also elevated Finance Minister Anton Siluanov to Igor Shuvalov’s post as first deputy prime minister, while recommending for Siluanov to maintain leadership of the ministry. Ex-Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko has been offered the post of deputy prime minister in charge of construction. Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets was offered to take over Mutko’s sports portfolio as well as take charge of cultural development, while social issues that she oversaw would be overseen by chief of Russia’s Audit Chamber Tatyana Golikova. While Golikova will become a deputy prime minister, Alexei Kudrin may be appointed to run the audit chamber, Dmitry Kozak will cede construction to Mutko and instead will focus on the industrial and energy sectors. Maxim Akimov, former deputy chief of staff of the government’s executive office, was tapped to oversee transport and communications. (Reuters, 05.07.18, The Moscow Times, 05.08.18, TASS, 05.11.18)
• Implementing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ambitious domestic policy goals over his six-year term will cost the Russian economy at least 8 trillion rubles, or more than $126 billion, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has estimated. Putin signed a 17-point executive order after his inauguration May 7, setting out his policy goals. His plan to kick-start growth with spending on healthcare, education and infrastructure had previously been estimated to carry a price tag of $162 billion. (The Moscow Times, 05.08.18)
• Police in Russia on May 5 detained over 1,000 people across the country at protests against Russian President Vladimir Putin. Almost two dozen journalists were beaten or detained during the protests on the eve of Putin’s inauguration for a fourth presidential term. Of the 23 journalist who were harassed at the protests, at least 10 “were injured or encountered police aggression precisely because of their status,” the Russian Journalists and Media Workers Union wrote on its Telegram channel May 7. (The Moscow Times, 05.07.18, The Moscow Times, 05.07.18)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin has issued veiled criticism of the United States in a speech before a Red Square parade marking the anniversary of Germany's defeat in World War II, listing "pretentions to exceptionalism" as a factor that drove Nazi aggression and saying such attitudes remain a threat to global security today. In separate comments Putin said a “break” from the U.S. currency is necessary to bolster Russia’s “economic sovereignty,” especially in light of recent penalties and what he called politically motivated restrictions on trade. The numbers tell a different story. According to the central bank’s latest data, the dollar’s share in its international reserves climbed to nearly 46 percent in 2017 from just over 40 percent the previous year. (Bloomberg, 05.10.18, RFE/RL, 05.09.18)
• The ruble was the biggest gainer in the world on May 10 as it played catch-up with Brent crude’s surge above $77 a barrel. (Bloomberg, 05.10.18)
• The Kremlin said on May 11 that a suggestion by regional lawmakers to change the constitution to allow Russian President Vladimir Putin to serve another presidential term when his current term ends in 2024 was not on Putin's agenda. (Reuters, 05.11.18)
• Russians are most unhappy with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the unequal distribution of wealth in the country, according to the latest independent Levada Center poll. Levada’s April survey found that 45 percent of respondents fault Putin for “failing to ensure an equitable distribution of income in the interests of ordinary people,” up from 39 percent in March 2015. Meanwhile, 47 percent of respondents credited the president for “returning the status of a great respected power to Russia” and 38 percent lauded him for “stabilizing the situation in the North Caucasus.” (The Moscow Times, 05.07.18)
• More than three-quarters of Russians surveyed by the state-run VTsIOM pollster said they do not foresee a repeat of the peaceful revolution in Armenia in the past month as being possible in their country. (The Moscow Times, 05.11.18)
• Five times fewer “foreign agent” NGOs were blacklisted in Russia between 2015 and 2017. The 2016-2017 period saw a threefold decrease in new “foreign agent” additions. (The Moscow Times, 05.10.18)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin has rejected calls for the release of detained filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov to allow him to travel to the Cannes Film Festival. Festival organizers said on May 10 that French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian had written to Putin, asking him to give Serebrennikov permission to attend the screening of his film, Leto. (RFE/RL, 05.11.18)
• Alexei Malobrodsky, the former head of Moscow’s Gogol Center theater, has been hospitalized after suffering a heart attack during court hearings into fraud. (The Moscow Times, 05.11.18)
• Russia has become Europe’s biggest cinema market, overtaking France at the box office in 2017. The Russian gross box office soared to 53.2 billion rubles ($852 million) last year, boosted by an “unprecedented” increase in cinema attendance at more than 212 million tickets sold. (The Moscow Times, 05.10.18)

Defense and aerospace:

• Thousands of troops marched, and heavy weapons such as Iskander missile launchers rolled across the Red Square during a parade marking the anniversary of Germany's defeat in World War II. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said before the parade that some 13,000 people, 159 pieces of military hardware and 75 aircraft would take part. (RFE/RL, 05.09.18)
• As part of the Russian military's effort to enhance its strike capabilities by integrating a number of new hypersonic attack platforms, the  Russian air force has 10 MiG-31 interceptors to deploy Kh-47M2 Kinzhal long range hypersonic missiles and adopt a strike rather than an air to air combat role. (Military Watch, 05.06.18, The National Interest, 05.10.18)

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• Boris Grits, the Russian-Israeli man accused of stabbing Ekho Moskvy radio station deputy editor Tatyana Felgenhauer, was ruled unfit to stand trial and ordered to receive treatment in a psychiatric hospital. (The Moscow Times, 05.11.18)

III. Foreign affairs, trade and investment

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

• Qatar emerged as a major shareholder in Rosneft on May 4 after a $9 billion deal to sell a stake in Russia’s state-run oil producer to China’s troubled CEFC Energy Co. collapsed. Qatar Investment Authority stepped in after the sellers—a consortium of QIA itself and mining giant Glencore—told CEFC it wouldn’t proceed with the original deal announced in October. A statement issued by Glencore didn’t explain why they were canceling the sale, but CEFC has been struggling with debt. (Bloomberg, 05.04.18)
• Germany’s SAP is the clear leader in the Russian business-planning software market, supplying 53 of the top 100 Russian companies by revenue. (AP, 05.10.18)

China:

• According to China’s customs services, trade between China and Russia went up by 27.3 percent in January-April 2018, to reach $31.1 billion. China’s exports to Russia went up by 21.1 percent, exceeding $13.9 billion. Import of Russian-made products and services jumped by 32.8 percent to $17.2 billion. (TASS, 05.10.18)
• Russia has completed delivery of the first regimental set of the S-400 air defense system to China. Also, China’s defense ministry has confirmed that the Sukhoi Su-35 “Flanker-E” multirole fighter aircraft acquired from Russia have entered service with the Chinese air force. (Jane's 360, 05.02.18, TASS, 05.10.18)
• Russians view China as Russia’s most necessary and valuable partner, a poll by Russian polling institute Public Opinion Foundation showed May 10. One third of the respondents chose China, followed by Belarus (13 percent) and the United States (8 percent). Nearly half of respondents said cooperation with China is now most important for the Russian economy. (Xinhua, 05.11.18)
• China's imports from "Belt and Road" countries increased faster that of exports for the first time in 2017. China's trade with Central Asia countries grew at the fastest rate, followed by Eastern Europe. South Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, India and Russia rank among China's top 10 trading partners along the routes, contributing to nearly 70 percent of China's trade with Belt and Road countries. (Xinhua, 05.07.18)

Ukraine:

• Russia's Justice Ministry has reiterated its rejection of a Hague court ruling which ordered the country to compensate Ukrainian companies for losses incurred after the 2014 annexation of Crimea. The Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled this week that Russia must pay 18 Ukrainian businesses and one private entity a reported $159 million for lost assets in the seizure of Crimea. (The Moscow Times, 05.11.18)
• On April 26 the Trump administration removed Ukraine from favored nation trade status. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative in Ukraine has suspended the effect of the generalized system of preferences for 155 Ukrainian goods. (Forbes, 05.07.18, Ukrainian Business Journal, 05.08.18)
• The U.S. House of Representatives Armed Forces Committee has proposed to allocate $250 million worth of security assistance and intelligence support to Ukraine as part of the National Defense Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2019. (Kyiv Post, 05.08.18)
• Antonov Airlines has confirmed its offer to provide additional outsized airlift to NATO following the announcement by Volga-Dnepr that it will no longer support the alliance. (Jane's 360, 05.03.18)
• Ukraine's nuclear energy company Energoatom signed a contract with France's Orano (formerly Areva) "for assessing the feasibility of reprocessing services of spent fuel assemblies of Ukrainian VVER-1000 nuclear reactors in La Hague facility." Ukraine is also constructing a spent fuel storage facility and is working with Westinghouse to use its fresh fuel. (IPFM Blog, 05.03.18)
• Ukraine’s Energomashspetsstalt, owned by Russia’s Atomenergomash of the Rosatom Corporation, will supply the last semi-finished products this summer to equip reactor one of Turkey’s Akkuyu nuclear power plant, currently being built on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast. (Ukrainian Business Journal, 05.08.18)
• The Bellingcat investigative group says that it has identified nine Russian officers who allegedly were directly involved in the rocket attack on the eastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol that killed at least 30 civilians in 2015. (AP, 05.07.18)
• The Ukraine Defense Ministry said on May 7 one of its soldiers has been killed and four wounded in clashes in the country's east. (RFE/RL, 05.07.18)
• Russia-backed separatists who control the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk have held a Victory Day parade despite a ban on that type of celebration in Ukraine as well as on the tanks and other heavy weapons featured in the parade. (RFE/RL, 05.10.18)
• A new report from the Council of Europe finds that, despite significant efforts in Ukraine to adopt European human right standards, law enforcement bodies in the country continue to treat suspects badly. (RFE/RL, 05.05.18)

Russia’s other post-Soviet neighbors:

• Armenia's parliament has elected protest leader Nikol Pashinian as the country's next prime minister in a 59 to 42 vote. The May 8 vote came after the parliamentary faction leader of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK), Vahram Baghdasarian, announced that the HHK would provide Pashinian with 11 votes—enough to give him, together with opposition lawmakers, the minimal amount of support needed to be elected. Pashinian then has five days to name proposed members of his cabinet and another 15 to submit his government program to parliament for approval. He has said that he would form a government of "national accord." (RFE/RL, 05.08.18)
  • Pashinian has promised sweeping changes to the thousands of protesters who rallied around his bid to unseat Armenia's entrenched political elite. But there is one line he won't cross for now: his nation's special relationship with Russia. Speaking outside a Russian military base in April in the Armenian city of Gyumri, Pashinian said his grass-roots movement had no intention of turning toward Europe at the expense of Moscow. "We are not Russia's enemy and certainly not enemies of our own country, inclined to take our country down the path of adventurism," Pashinian said. (Wall Street Journal, 05.08.18)
  • Russian President Vladimir Putin on May 8 congratulated Nikol Pashinyan on becoming prime minister of Armenia. (Reuters, 05.08.18) 
• Two weeks after an investigation found strong evidence that members of the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly had accepted bribes in return for silencing discussion of human rights violations in Azerbaijan, European governments are demanding sanctions against the lawmakers. The lawmakers—including Pedro Agramunt, a former president of the assembly and a senator in Spain’s conservative governing party—have been accused of accepting money, jewelry, prostitutes and paid hotel stays in oil-rich Azerbaijan. (New York Times, 05.06.18)
• Sources close to Uzbek law enforcement authorities have said that Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev has dismissed his personal security chief, Abdurahim Mominov, and that Tashkent traffic police chief Barat Mamenov has been jailed. They said that Mirziyoev was angry over an incident in which a police car with its siren on sped by close to him and visiting Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov while they were walking in Tashkent on April 23. (RFE/RL, 05.07.18)
• Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev is scheduled to hold talks with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington on May 16 (RFE/RL, 05.10.18)
• RFE/RL correspondent Soltan Achilova was forcibly detained and threatened by security forces in Turkmenistan. (RFE/RL, 05.11.18)

IV. Quoteworthy

• “He is putting us on notice that we are not listening to him,” a senior official in the Trump administration said of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and cautioned that we were at an inflection point in American relations with Russia. “We can’t just have half-cocked sanctions legislation. We can’t go around sanctioning everybody without thinking through the implications.” (New York Times, 05.08.18)
• As Reagan's Secretary of State George Shultz said: "[Ronald] Reagan believed in being strong enough to defend one’s interests, but he viewed that strength as a means, not an end in itself. He was ready to negotiate with his adversaries."
• "If you want to speak with the Iranians, you have to speak with the Russians," said Zvi Magen, a former Israeli ambassador to Moscow. "Russia could offer being a broker between Iran and Israel and create a negotiating process. If it happens, it would give Russia many points in the international game against the West."  (Wall Street Journal, 05.09.18)