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

Nuclear security:

• Several sailors on the HMS Vigilant were dismissed after their mission devolved into a drug-fueled booze cruise last month while the sub was docked in the United States to pick up nuclear weapons. (The Washington Post, 10.29.17)

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• No significant developments.

Iran’s nuclear program and related issues:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks with Iran's leadership on the Syria crisis, the 2015 international nuclear agreement and energy cooperation on a Nov. 1 visit to Iran. Putin met first with Iranian President Hassan Rohani and then with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. During his visit, Putin vocally backed the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement and hailed cooperation with Iran on the Syrian conflict. Rohani, Putin and visiting Azerbaijani President llham Aliyev also held a trilateral meeting. (RFE/RL, 11.01.17, RFE/RL, 11.01.17)
• Yukiya Amano, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, says Iran has implemented its "nuclear-related commitments" made under the international agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear program. (RFE/RL, 10.29.17)
• United Nations nuclear inspectors have encountered no problems in checking facilities in Iran to determine Tehran’s compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal. (RFE/RL, 10.31.17)
• Russian oil producer Rosneft and the National Iranian Oil Company have agreed an outline deal for a number of “strategic” projects in Iran together worth up to $30 billion, Rosneft’s head Igor Sechin said Nov. 1. (Reuters, 11.01.17)

Military issues, including NATO-Russia relations:

• Any move by Finland to join NATO would need public approval via a referendum, Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said Oct. 30 ahead of elections in January. (Reuters, 10.30.17)
• Finland is planning large-scale military drills with the United States and other allies, its defense minister said Nov. 3, in a region worried by Russia's increasing military activity. (Reuters, 11.03.17)

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms control:

• No significant developments.

Counter-terrorism:

• The perpetrator of the deadliest terrorist attack in New York City since the 9/11 attacks came from the same city as the St. Petersburg metro bomber. Uzbek-born Sayfullo Saipov is believed to have driven a pickup truck into a Lower Manhattan bike lane on Oct. 31, killing eight people, injuring at least 11 more. Uzbekistan has vowed to assist the U.S. in investigating the attack. Mirrakhmat Muminov, a longtime acquaintance of Saipov, says Saipov had verbal run-ins with others in the Uzbek immigrant community and was a "little aggressive." He was also not “[very] religious” when he arrived in the U.S. (The Moscow Times, 11.01.17, RFE/RL, 11.01.17, New York Times, 11.01.17)
• Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Nov. 1 that Russia regarded the attack in New York that killed eight people as tragic and inhumane and sent its condolences to the people of the United States. (Reuters, 11.01.17)
• Uzbek citizen Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev has been sentenced to 15 years in prison by a U.S. court after pleading guilty to conspiring to provide material support to Islamic State. (RFE/RL, 10.28.17)
• In the early 2010s, officials in Russia’s North Caucasus started creating special commissions designed to persuade insurgents to lay down their arms and return to civilian life. In the past three years, these commissions have taken on a new role: helping people who left, either by mistake or out of foolishness, to join the Islamic State. (Meduza, 10.31.17)
• Islamic State has issued another threat ahead of the 2018 World Cup in Russia, with a photoshopped poster of star players Lionel Messi and Neymar being executed. (The Moscow Times, 10.30.17)

Conflict in Syria:

• Syrian government forces backed by Russia have recaptured the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, capital of an oil-rich region, from Islamic State militants, consolidating their gains in the jihadi group’s last big stronghold. Six long-range strategic bombers took off from their bases in Russia to hit militant targets in the Syrian province of Deir el-Zour on Nov. 1. (Financial Times, 11.03.17, Reuters, 11.01.17)
• With Islamic State near defeat in Syria, Damascus is setting its sights on territory held by U.S.-supported Kurdish-led forces, risking a new confrontation that could draw the United States in more deeply and complicate Russian diplomacy. (Reuters, 10.31.17)
• The Syrian opposition attending the latest peace talks in Astana has rejected the Russian call for a "Syrian Congress on National Dialogue" in Sochi in November. The Moscow-proposed congress was expected to discuss reconciliation, political reform and a proposed new Syrian constitution. (Al Jazeera, 11.01.17, Interfax, 10.30.17, Reuters, 10.30.17)
• Moscow may partially withdraw its forces from Syria as the crisis moves toward political settlement, including a partial roll back of equipment at the Hmeimim air base and part of its military contingent. No final decisions have been made yet. (TASS, 10.30.17)
• Russian reconnaissance drones carry out over 1000 sorties a month in Syria, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said. (TASS, 10.31.17)
• The participants in the seventh round of Syria talks in Astana have drawn up a draft document on the release of hostages and captives. (Interfax, 10.31.17)
• Over 90% of Syria’s territory has already been liberated from terrorists, Russian President Vladimir Putin said. (TASS, 10.27.17)
• Coordination between Damascus and Turkish forces in the Idlib de-escalation area will be carried out under Russian mediation at this stage. (Interfax, 10.30.17)
• Russia and the United States are using various channels for talks on Syria but have not made any tangible progress. Moscow insists that the U.S. shut down illegal military bases in Syria following the end of the operation there. (Interfax, 10.30.17)
• The United States and Russia have circulated rival U.N. resolutions on extending the work of experts seeking to determine who is responsible for chemical weapons attacks in Syria. (The Washington Post, 11.02.17)
• The U.N. reached thousands of beleaguered Syrians with emergency food relief for the first time in over a month on Oct. 30, amid warnings that conditions outside the Syrian capital have deteriorated to desperate levels under a suffocating government blockade. (AP, 10.30.17)
• Government forces will regain control of Syria's eastern border, and Islamic State will cease to exist as a military structure by the end of 2017, Russian State Duma Defense Committee Chairman Vladimir Shamanov said. (Interfax, 10.30.17)
• The Russian air force has flown over 360 missions in Syria in the past week, the Russian Defense Ministry said Oct. 27. (Interfax, 10.27.17)
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif discussed on Oct. 30 coordination between the two countries in the Astana process on Syria. (TASS, 10.30.17)
• A detachment of the Russian Baltic Fleet, the Boikiy and Soobrazitelnyy corvettes and the Kola sea tanker, has passed the Strait of Gibraltar and entered the Mediterranean Sea. (Interfax, 10.30.17)
• Russia expects all “terrorists” in Syria to be destroyed by the end of the year and then plans to keep enough troops in the country to prevent any new conflict. (Reuters, 10.30.17)

Cyber security:

• Kaspersky Labs will likely see a “single-digit” drop in U.S. sales this year as a result of suspicions about its Kremlin ties, but its global revenue should still increase. (Reuters, 10.27.17)
• The hackers who disrupted the U.S. presidential election last year had ambitions that stretched across the globe, targeting many a Putin foe: Ukrainian officers, Russian opposition figures, U.S. defense contractors and thousands of others of interest to the Kremlin, according to a previously unpublished digital hit list obtained by The Associated Press. (AP, 11.02.17)

Elections interference:

• The Justice Department has identified more than six members of the Russian government involved in hacking the Democratic National Committee’s computers and swiping sensitive information that became public during the 2016 presidential election, according to people familiar with the investigation. They could bring a case next year, though discussions about it are still in the early stages. (Wall Street Journal, 11.02.17)
• Paul Manafort, President Trump's former campaign chairman, was indicted Oct. 30 on charges that he funneled tens of millions of dollars through overseas shell companies and used the money to buy luxury cars, real estate, antiques and expensive suits. Also indicted was a longtime associate of Manafort's, Rick Gates. Both men have pleaded not guilty. The indictment focuses on Manafort's lobbying work between 2006 and 2015 for former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Prosecutors said Manafort and Gates hid foreign accounts from tax collectors and the public, failed to disclose their work for a foreign government and misrepresented their work to authorities as recently as 2017. Manafort is also facing investigations by state and local authorities in New York. A lawyer for Manafort said that charges against his client were "ridiculous" and stressed there was "no evidence" of collusion with the Russians. The federal judge overseeing the trial said Nov. 2 she is inclined to impose a gag order in the case and believes that Manafort and Gates pose a flight risk significant enough to require close electronic monitoring. (New York Times, 10.30.17, Wall Street Journal, 11.02.17, RFE/RL, 10.30.17, Bloomberg, 10.30.17, The Washington Post, 10.30.17, Politico, 10.30.17, The Washington Post, 11.02.17, Reuters, 11.01.17)
  • The charges against Manafort and Gates did not reference the Trump campaign, a point the president noted on Twitter Oct. 30: “Sorry, but this is years ago, before Paul Manafort was part of the Trump campaign. But why aren’t Crooked Hillary & the Dems the focus?????” (The Washington Post, 10.30.17)
• Documents were unsealed Oct. 30 revealing that a foreign policy adviser to Trump during the campaign, George Papadopoulos, has pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. According to those documents, a professor with close ties to the Russian government told Papadopoulos in April 2016 that Moscow had thousands of emails that contained ''dirt'' on Hillary Clinton. Papadopoulos' plea revealed that the Trump campaign had early word that Russia had Democrats' stolen emails. According to the plea documents, Papadopoulos repeatedly tried to set up a meeting between campaign officials and the Russian government. (New York Times, 10.31.17, Bloomberg, 10.30.17)
  • Trump, asked about a meeting in which Papadopoulos suggested arranging a meeting with Putin, told reporters Nov. 3: “I don’t remember much about that meeting. It was a very unimportant meeting.” (Reuters, 11.03.17)
  • Papadopoulos made a significant claim in an email: Top Trump campaign officials agreed to a pre-election meeting with Putin representatives. It’s unclear whether Papadopoulos was merely boasting when he sent the July 14, 2016, email to a Kremlin-linked contact. There’s also no indication such a meeting ever occurred. (Bloomberg, 10.31.17)
  • Papadopoulos is the first person to face criminal charges that cite interactions between Trump campaign associates and Russian intermediaries during the 2016 presidential campaign. (AP, 10.30.17)
  • Trump lashed out against media coverage of the first charges unsealed in Mueller’s probe and distanced himself from Papadopoulos. “Few people knew the young, low level volunteer named George, who has already proven to be a liar,” Trump tweeted. (New York Times, 10.30.17, Bloomberg, 10.31.17)
  • An academic at a Scottish university confirmed Oct. 31 that he is the “professor” mentioned in the Papadopoulos probe, but claimed the allegations are exaggerated. Joseph Mifsud was not named in the court documents. He confirmed his identity to the Daily Telegraph, stressing that “I have a clear conscience.” In private exchanges, Mifsud was proud of his alleged high-level Moscow contacts, reporting that they had extended all the way to the top: He told a former assistant late last year that he’d had a private meeting with Putin, and he has made repeated visits to Russia in recent years. (The Washington Post, 10.31.17, AP, 11.02.17)
  • Sam Clovis, a former senior adviser to Trump’s campaign, withdrew himself from consideration for a top post at the Department of Agriculture amid questions about his involvement with Papadopoulos. A lawyer for Clovis said his client had never encouraged Papadopoulos to improve relations between the U.S. and Russia. (Wall Street Journal, 11.02.17, Reuters, 10.31.17)
• During more than six hours of closed-door testimony former Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page  testified Nov. 2 that he mentioned to Jeff Sessions he was traveling to Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign. Sessions' discussion with Page will fuel further scrutiny about what the attorney general knew about connections between the Trump campaign and Russia. (CNN, 11.02.17)
• An Associated Press investigation into the digital break-ins that disrupted the U.S. presidential contest has sketched out an anatomy of the hack that led to months of damaging disclosures about the Democratic Party’s nominee. The hackers tried to compromise Clinton’s inner circle and more than 130 party employees, supporters and contractors. While U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia was behind the email thefts, the AP drew on forensic data to report that the hackers known as Fancy Bear were closely aligned with the interests of the Russian government. (AP, 11.02.17)
• Trump on Nov. 3 called on his Department of Justice to investigate Democrats’ conduct during the 2016 presidential election, saying it was a “disgrace” that Mueller’s probe is continuing. A White House spokeswoman had said earlier that the indictments of two former Trump campaign aides have nothing to do with Trump or his campaign and show no evidence of collusion between the campaign and Russia. (Wall Street Journal, 11.03.17, Reuters, 10.30.17)
• Debate has intensified in Trump’s political circle over how aggressively to confront Mueller, dividing some of the president’s advisers and loyalists as the Russia investigation enters a new phase following charges against three former Trump campaign officials. Republicans, meanwhile, insisted this week that Mueller’s work will not dictate the timeline of the inquiries being run by three separate congressional committees. (The Washington Post, 10.31.17, The Washington Post, 11.03.17)
• Senator Susan Collins, a top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the panel’s probe into possible collusion between Russia and Trump’s campaign is all but certain to push into the 2018 election year. The most likely step for the panel this year would be an interim report examining Russia’s attempts to influence U.S. politics and hack into state election systems, Collins said. (Bloomberg, 10.30.17)
• The results of Mueller’s investigation are “laughable” and baseless, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Oct. 31. “We don’t want to have any part of these processes and of course we would prefer that these proceedings didn’t contribute to increasing the already elevated Russophobic hysteria” in the U.S., he said. Russia’s foreign minister called allegations of Russian meddling “fantasies.” (Bloomberg, 10.31.17, The Moscow Times, 10.31.17, Reuters, 10.31.17)
• Facebook, Google and Twitter faced Congress this week to talk—albeit reluctantly—about just how extensively Russia used their tools to influence voters during last year’s presidential election. And, well, yikes. Facebook acknowledged that as many as 150 million Americans may have seen posts or other content linked to Russia's influence campaign in the 2016 cycle. (Nieman Lab, 11.02.17, Wall Street Journal, 11.02.17, NPR, 11.02.17, RFE/RL, 11.01.17)
  • A batch of ads that Russian agents promoted on Facebook during the U.S. election was released by Congress on Nov. 1. Russian operatives targeted users on Facebook by race, political preference, religion and interests such as gun ownership, according to troves of data released by lawmakers. (Financial Times, 11.01.17, Wall Street Journal, 11.01.17, The Washington Post, 11.01.17, Buzzfeed, 11.01.17)
  • Workers behind Russian-linked Facebook Inc. accounts helped organize or finance real-life events before and after the 2016 election, often working directly with U.S. activists and playing both sides of the same hot-button issue—even on the same day. (Wall Street Journal, 10.30.17)
  • Facebook announced a plan to increase transparency about its role in political advertising on Oct. 27, ahead of the congressional hearings. The company’s profit jumped 79 percent in the third quarter of 2017, but it said it would sacrifice some future growth to invest more heavily in its safety and security operations. (Reuters, 10.27.17, Wall Street Journal, 11.01.17)
• The top Democrat in the House, Nancy Pelosi, is pressing for an "outside, fully independent investigation" to expose Russia's meddling in the election and the involvement of Trump officials. (AP, 10.30.17)
• Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, says lawmakers must make clear to Trump that pardoning any of his associates in the Russia probe would be "unacceptable, and result in immediate, bipartisan action by Congress." (AP, 10.30.17)
• Keith Schiller, a long-time adviser to Trump who left the White House in September after serving as director of Oval Office Operations, is expected to appear Nov. 7 before the House intelligence committee to privately discuss Russia meddling. (CNN, 11.01.17)
• Tony Podesta—a major Democratic donor, lobbyist and brother of Clinton's 2016 campaign chairman, John Podesta—stepped down Oct. 31 from his firm as he came under scrutiny for past work with Manafort. (New York Times, 10.31.17)
• Jared Kushner has turned over documents in recent weeks to special counsel Robert Mueller as investigators have begun asking in witness interviews about Kushner's role in the firing of FBI Director James Comey, CNN has learned. (CNN, 11.03.17)
• The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website funded by a major Republican donor, first hired the research firm that months later produced for Democrats the salacious “Steele dossier,” the website said Oct. 27. But The Free Beacon told the firm to stop doing research on Trump in May 2016, as he was clinching the Republican nomination. Hillary Clinton's campaign and the DNC had begun paying Fusion GPS in April for research that eventually became the basis for the dossier. (New York Times, 10.27.17, The Washington Post, 10.27.17)
  • When Marc Elias, general counsel for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, hired the Fusion GPS private research firm in the spring of 2016 to investigate Donald Trump, he drew from funds he was authorized to spend without oversight by campaign officials, according to a spokesperson for his law firm. After the Free Beacon stopped funding the project, Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson met with Elias at his Washington law office and asked if he was interested, according to people familiar with the arrangement. (The Washington Post, 10.27.17)
• Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya arrived at a meeting at Trump Tower in June 2016 hoping to interest top Trump campaign officials in the contents of a memo she believed contained information damaging to the Democratic Party and, by extension, Hillary Clinton. Interviews and records show that in the months before the meeting, Veselnitskaya had discussed the allegations with one of Russia's most powerful officials, the prosecutor general, Yuri Chaika. (New York Times, 10.27.17)

Energy exports from CIS:

• An affiliate of Russia’s energy giant Gazprom has reportedly spent almost $1 million dollars in the United States lobbying to protect a pipeline from Russia to Germany from sanctions. (The Moscow Times, 11.01.17)
• Brussels is proposing to extend EU rules to cover all pipelines importing gas into the bloc, marking the latest move to regulate the controversial Nord Stream 2 project. The proposed change, if enacted as written, would require Nord Stream 2 to make some operational changes but would not block the project. (Financial Times, 11.03.17)
• The global pact aimed at the reducing bloated oil inventories and supporting weak crude prices could be extended if necessary, but the decision is not imminent, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said Nov. 2. He was commenting on the deal after a meeting with Saudi King Salman in Riyadh. Meanwhile, oil prices advanced to a fresh two-year high, buoyed by expectations for OPEC to extend the deal, by geopolitical uncertainty and by the steady reduction of excess U.S. supply. (Reuters, 11.02.17, Wall Street Journal, 11.03.17)
• Lithuanian officials are lobbying Western governments to help prevent what they describe as a looming nuclear threat straddling the European Union’s eastern frontier: a nuclear power plant being built by Russia in neighboring Belarus. Vilnius worries that the plant is a plot from the Kremlin to elbow into the European Union energy market, using electricity to gain a foothold in the Nordic and Baltic markets to keep the region dependent on Moscow for energy—and thus to keep them under its thumb. (Foreign Policy, 10.31.17)

Bilateral economic ties:

• No significant developments.

Other bilateral issues:

• Trump and Putin may meet next week at an economic summit in Vietnam, a Kremlin spokesman said Nov. 3. Trump said the same late Nov. 2: “We may have a meeting with Putin,” he said. “And, again, Putin is very important because they can help us with North Korea. They can help us with Syria. We have to talk about Ukraine.” (The Washington Post, 11.03.17)
• Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman discussed bilateral relations and international security issues during a meeting on Nov. 2. No details were immediately available. (RFE/RL, 11.02.17)
• The White House acknowledged Oct. 27 that U.S. President Donald Trump pushed to lift a gag order on an informant in a federal investigation into Russian attempts to gain a foothold in the American uranium industry during the Obama administration. (New York Times, 10.27.17)
• Uranium One, the Canadian company with U.S. mining rights that was sold to Russia’s Rosatom, represents only a tiny part of U.S. production, having seen its business shrink rapidly. In 2016, its Wyoming facility extracted 23 tons—2.3 percent of all U.S. production. In 2015, it represented 3.6 percent and in 2014, 11.3 percent. In 2013, it was 20 percent. Two other Uranium One facilities are not currently being mined. (The Washington Post, 10.31.17)
• Hillary Clinton, by all accounts, did not participate in any discussions regarding the Uranium One sale which does not actually result in the removal of uranium from the United States. (The Washington Post, 10.29.17)
• While the FBI was investigating the Soviet Union’s possible involvement in President John F. Kennedy’s 1963 assassination, Soviet authorities were voicing suspicions that U.S. right-wing groups—and even Kennedy's own vice president—were behind the killing, newly released documents show. (RFE/RL, 10.28.17)

II. Russia’s domestic news

Politics, economy and energy:

• The Russian ruble is becoming less and less correlated with oil. The ruble suffered its biggest drop since June in October, down 1.5 percent, even as a near 7 percent surge took Brent crude above $60 a barrel for the first time since 2015. The ruble tends to be more correlated with oil when the price of oil is falling than when it is rising. (Bloomberg, 11.01.17)
• One in six working Russians is unable to provide the bare minimum for their family, according to government data. (The Moscow Times, 10.31.17)
• Russia’s central bank cut its key rate to 8.25 percent from 8.5 percent on Oct. 27, its fifth rate reduction this year. (Reuters, 10.27.17)
• Ships carrying cargo to support the world's first floating nuclear power plant have arrived at the port of Pevek, in the Chukotka district of Russia, Rosenergoatom announced Oct. 30. (World Nuclear News, 10.30.17)
• More than 100 Russians are being held in prisons on politically motivated charges, according to a new list compiled by the Memorial rights group. (The Moscow Times, 10.31.17)
• Amid controversy over his own methods of maintaining control over Russia, President Vladimir Putin has unveiled a memorial dedicated to victims of Soviet-era government repression and said the years of suffering at the hands of the state must never be forgotten. (RFE/RL, 10.30.17)
• The man who stabbed a radio editor in Moscow last week was a “sick person” without political motives, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Oct. 30. Tatyana Felgenhauer, a deputy editor at the liberal-learning Ekho Moskvy radio station, was stabbed last week by a Russian-Israeli man believed to have mental health issues. (The Moscow Times, 10.30.17)
• Journalist Ekaterina Gordon became the second woman to enter Russia’s presidential race, saying she wanted to use the election to campaign for the rights of single mothers and children. (Reuters, 10.30.17)
• Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny says he will sue President Vladimir Putin and his administration over what he called a coordinated effort to thwart his campaign for the March 2018 presidential election. (RFE/RL, 11.01.17)
• A controversial law tightening restrictions on the internet came into force in Russia on Nov. 1, ahead of a March 2018 presidential election that is widely expected to hand Russian President Vladimir Putin a new six-year term. The law signed by Putin on July 29 prohibits the use of Internet proxy services, including virtual private networks. (RFE/RL, 10.31.17)
• Russian lawmakers are set to propose new laws tightening control of lab samples sent abroad amid worries over the foreign collection of biological material. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Oct. 30 said it was important to ask whether Russian samples were being used “purposefully and professionally." (The Moscow Times, 11.01.17)

Defense and aerospace:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared he intends to end the draft, but it's likely an election ploy. (Russian Defense Policy, 10.29.17)

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• Russia's top domestic security agency said Nov. 3 that it has detained a group of suspects accused of planning firebomb attacks on official buildings. The FSB said the group’s goal was to provoke mass riots. (AP, 11.03.17)

III. Foreign affairs, trade and investment

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

• Thorbjorn Jagland, the Council of Europe’s secretary-general, met with Russian officials in Moscow in October to find a way out of a deepening dispute that could ultimately see Russia quit the bloc. Russian officials have been threatening to ignore judgments by the European Court of Human Rights unless Moscow is returned full voting rights on the council's parliament. (RFE/RL, 10.30.17)
• Norwegian rescue officials said Oct. 29 the wreckage of a Russian helicopter that crashed off the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard with eight people onboard has been located on the seabed. (AP, 10.29.17)
• Over the past three years, Russia and Rosneft have provided Caracas with $10 billion in financial assistance, helping Venezuela stave off default at least twice under as much as $150 billion in debt. Russia is effectively taking China's place as Venezuela's principal banker. (New York Times, 10.30.17)
• En+, the Russian hydropower-to-aluminum conglomerate, has priced its London listing at the lower end of a proposed range of values, suggesting that Russia’s first IPO in London since the 2014 annexation of Crimea has struggled to attract high levels of interest from international investors. (Financial Times, 11.02.17)
• Italian exports to Russia are up 22.6 percent in the first three quarters of 2017 compared to the same period in 2016. (Financial Times, 10.29.17)
• Russia has signed agreements with Nigeria to build and operate a nuclear power plant in the oil-rich West African nation that has a deficit of reliable power and faces security challenges by Islamist militants in the far northeast. (Bloomberg, 10.30.17)
• Iraq has demanded that Russia’s state-owned oil company Rosneft provide “clarifications” about contracts signed with Kurdistan’s autonomous regional government, after threatening that deals made without Baghdad’s approval would be considered illegal. (Financial Times, 10.30.17)
• Russia will not hand over to Montenegro a suspect wanted in last year’s coup attempt, identified as Ananie Nikic, as he had earlier been given refugee status by Moscow. (Reuters, 11.01.17)
• Serbia wants to maintain its delicate balancing act between Russia and the West, its foreign minister said Nov. 2, dismissing U.S. calls for it to pick a side. (Reuters, 11.02.17)
• Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son’s ambitious plan for a north-east Asian energy “super grid”—linking South Korea, China, Japan, Mongolia and Russia—has been given a boost after winning the backing of the head of South Korea’s state-run energy group. (Financial Times, 11.02.17)

China:

• Russia’s Norilsk Nickel launched a greenfield copper, iron and gold mine in the country’s remote Far East on Oct. 31. The Bystrinsky project plans to export its production to China, the world’s top iron ore consumer. (Reuters, 10.31.17)
• Dimitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, writes: “It appears however that the new grand design is slowly emerging. Russia is alone, but it is free to move. Its geographical position in the north and center of the great continent of Eurasia both allows and compels it to have a 360 degrees vision of its gigantic neighborhood…. Moscow’s new grand strategy seeks to maximize connectivity with all, while putting Russia’s own interests first. Managing a large number of very different partners is difficult, but not impossible, as Moscow’s recent experience in the Middle East shows. Keeping relations with China on an even keel will be a major long-term task. Creating a new regional order with China, India, Iran, Turkey and others will not be easy either. However, the European Union and Ukraine are also part of Grand Eurasia, and the mission will not be accomplished before Europe and Russia reach a new normal based on empathy in diversity.” (The Moscow Times, 10.26.17)

Ukraine:

• Forty-one percent of surveyed Russians believe Moscow should support separatists in Ukraine’s Donbas, according to a new poll by the independent Levada Center . Thirty-seven percent said Moscow should be a neutral party. Only 6% said Moscow should support Kiev in the conflict with the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics. (The Moscow Times, 10.30.17)
• A September poll posted Oct. 30 by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology and the Levada Center shows that 39.9% of Ukrainians support the independence of Ukraine and Russia and stand for friendly relations between the two. At the same time, 48.4% believe that Ukraine's relations with Russia should be the same as with other countries. Some 3.7% believe that Ukraine and Russia should unite in one state. (Interfax, 10.30.17)
• Russian presidential aide Vladislav Surkov and U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker will hold their next round of talks in the first half of November on neutral territory. (Interfax, 10.30.17)
• Hackers tried to access confidential data in powerful but stealthy phishing attacks launched in parallel with an eyeball-grabbing ransomware strike called BadRabbit last week, the head of the Ukrainian state cyber police said Nov. 2. The discovery suggests Ukraine may have been a key target of last week’s attacks, despite the higher incidence of BadRabbit victims in Russia. (Reuters, 11.02.17)
• Kiev says it warned Facebook and U.S. officials years ago that Russia was conducting disinformation campaigns on its platform, including account takedowns and fake news. (Financial Times, 10.31.17)
• News of Paul Manafort’s indictment Oct. 30 elicited cheers in Ukraine, where activists and politicians seeking to root out political corruption had seethed at Manafort’s counsel to ousted leader Viktor Yanukovych. But while Washington is wondering where the probe led by special counsel Robert Mueller will lead next, Ukrainians are wondering more about what this means for the investigation into the millions of dollars in oligarch wealth that have stubbornly slowed the country’s program of reform. (The Washington Post, 10.30.17)
• Two Washington lobbying firms that aided former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s influence campaign on behalf of Ukraine’s deposed president were paid more than $2 million through offshore accounts tied to Manafort and his business partner, according to prosecutors. Identified in the Oct. 30 indictment only as Company A and Company B, the firms were hired to lobby in the U.S. for Ukraine and former president Viktor Yanukovych, an ally of Russia’s Vladimir Putin. (Bloomberg, 10.30.17)
• Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman, is involved in two investigations being conducted by Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office. (Interfax, 10.31.17)
• Fellow Russians continue to suffer discrimination in Ukraine and the Baltic states, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Oct. 31. (TASS, 10.31.17)
• Combat casualties of the Ukrainian Armed Forces have reached 10,710 servicemen since April 2014. Of them, 2,333 servicemen have been killed, the Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff said. (Interfax, 10.30.17)
• The number of ceasefire violations in Ukraine’s conflict zone has risen significantly, according to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on Oct. 27. (Interfax, 10.27.17)
• Chechen couple Adam Osmayev and Amina Okuyeva, fierce critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, were attacked near Kiev Oct. 30. Osmayev, sought by Russia on charges of involvement in a botched plot to kill Putin, was wounded, and Okuyeva was shot and killed. (AP, 10.30.17)
• Russia temporarily shut down three checkpoints on Crimea's border with Ukraine on Oct. 31 following reports that an act of sabotage could have left part of the peninsula without power and gas. (The Moscow Times, 11.01.17)
• Ukrainian Security Service chief Vasyl Hrytsak says Yulia Prasolova, suspected of killing Col. Oleksandr Kharaberyush earlier this year in Mariupol, has been arrested. (RFE/RL, 11.01.17)      
• Russia and Ukraine are discussing via mediators out-of-court options to settle the dispute over Ukraine’s sovereign debt. (TASS, 10.30.17)
• OSCE Special Representative to the Contact Group on settling the Ukraine crisis, Martin Sajdik, has called for the release of prisoners before the Christmas holidays. (TASS, 10.30.17)
• After months of internal debate, the Trump administration is stalled on whether to provide Ukraine with defensive weapons. National Security Council officials insist the administration is slowly but surely working through the question. The council’s principals committee, which includes Cabinet secretaries, met on the issue several weeks ago. Now officials are formalizing a set of options to present to Trump. (The Washington Post, 10.29.17)
• Hungary has blocked a meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Commission for December 2017, the Hungarian Foreign Ministry said. After the Verkhovna Rada passed the bill "On Education," Hungary promised to use all available diplomatic tools to impede Ukraine's European integration. Hungary is concerned that "the Ukrainian parliament's agenda includes bills on language and citizenship that threaten Zakarpattia's Hungarian community." (Interfax, 10.28.17)
• Another tent protest camp has popped up in Kiev. Though far smaller than the Independence Square rallies of 2014, the new campaign has become the first sustained street movement since then. ''Corruption is flourishing and nothing has changed,'' said Vladimir Makarichev, a war veteran who said he was upset with his shoddy treatment after being demobilized in May. (New York Times, 10.28.17)
• The release of two Crimean Tatars from Russian custody this week was a good sign and hopefully means Russia will take positive steps in eastern Ukraine as well, Kurt Volker, the U.S. special envoy to the Ukraine peace talks said Oct. 28. (Reuters, 10.28.17)

Russia’s other post-Soviet neighbors:

• Some 180 million people belong to the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate worldwide, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia said. (Interfax, 10.30.17)
• An escalating diplomatic and trade dispute between Kazakhstan and its smaller neighbor Kyrgyzstan is hurting companies as far away as London, and pressure is growing on Russia to step in and reconcile its allies. (Reuters, 11.03.17)
• Kazakh Foreign Minister Kairat Abdrakhmanov met with the U.S. Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David M. Satterfield, who arrived in Astana to participate in the Syria talks as an observer. (Interfax, 10.31.17)
• The leaders of Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgia launched an 826 kilometer (500 mile) rail link connecting the three countries on Oct. 30, establishing a freight and passenger link between Europe and China that bypasses Russia. (Reuters, 10.30.17)
• Moldova’s Constitutional Court has endorsed a draft amendment to the constitution to change the official name of the country's language from Moldovan to Romanian. (RFE/RL, 10.31.17)
• Turkmenistan may ship natural gas to Eastern Europe through Russia, a senior Turkmen energy official said Nov. 2, after Moscow stopped buying gas from the Central Asian nation, effectively leaving Turkmenistan with China as the only buyer of its gas and straining its economy due to a drop in hard currency revenue. (Reuters, 11.02.17)

IV. Quoteworthy

• No significant developments.