This Week's Highlights:

• Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper talked by phone this week, Interfax cited the Russian Defense Ministry as saying. In an earlier interview Shoigu had said he was hoping to see a “higher level” of contacts between the Russian and the U.S. military. Meanwhile, newly appointed chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley held a phone conversation on his second day in office with his Russian counterpart, Gen. Valery Gerasimov. The two recognized “the inherent value of regular communication in order to avoid miscalculation and promote transparency,” according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
• Russian lawmaker Vladimir Dzhafarov, a senior member of the senate’s foreign affairs committee, predicted  Russia will not get involved in the conflict between Turkey and Syria, Reuters reports. But President Vladimir Putin warned that the Turkish invasion could result in the freeing of thousands of captured ISIS fighters, and suggested Moscow could use its own security services to respond, according to the Financial Times.
• America’s outgoing ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman told Kommersant that cyber technologies are now such that it has become possible to “paralyze” an adversary’s system of command and control. He also said that senior U.S. and Russian diplomats have discussed the possibility of the two governments allowing each other to expand the number of diplomats they can post in each other’s capitals.
• A person close to Russia’s special services was cited by Vedomosti as saying that “Unit 29155”—reported by the New York Times to be behind  a coordinated, ongoing campaign to destabilize Europe—is a Moscow-based training center where military servicemen undergo short-term training to hone their reconnaissance skills, such as small-arms shooting and radio communications.
• Russia’s revelation that it is helping China to develop its own early warning system indicates that “Moscow and Beijing are moving toward establishing a comprehensive system of security in east and southeast Asia,” according to Alexei Maslov, head of the School of Oriental Studies at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics. Maslov predicts that Russia and China will sign a “formal treaty” this year or early next. “Either a certain alliance will be proclaimed with a clause similar to Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, or it will be a treaty on establishing a military-political alliance but without such a clause,” Maslov told Rosbalt. Georgetown professor Angela Stent likewise wrote this week that “one could conclude that the two countries are indeed moving toward some form of a formal alliance.”

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

Nuclear security and safety:

• “The United States has determined that the explosion near Nyonoksa, Russia, was the result of a nuclear reaction that occurred during the recovery of a Russian nuclear-powered cruise missile. The missile remained on the bed of the White Sea since its failed test early last year," according to a report to the U.N. General Assembly First Committee on Oct. 10 by Thomas G. DiNanno. (Business Insider, 10.11.19)

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• No significant developments.

Iran’s nuclear program and related issues:

• Iran’s economy is set to shrink by as much as 8.7 percent in 2019/2020 following on from the 2018-2019 contraction of 4.9 percent as crushing U.S. sanctions continue to exact a heavy toll, the World Bank said. (bne IntelliNews, 10.10.19)
• Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Oct. 11 said it was too early to assign blame for an explosion on an Iranian oil tanker in the Red Sea near Saudi Arabia, the RIA news agency reported. (Reuters, 10.11.19)
• Iran has freed a Russian journalist, Yulia Yuzik, who had been detained last week, the Russian Embassy in Tehran said on social media Oct. 10. (Reuters, 10.10.19)

New Cold War/saber rattling:

• No significant developments.

Military issues, including NATO-Russia relations:

• Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper talked on the phone on Oct. 7, the Russian Defense Ministry said. No details of the talks have been disclosed. Shoigu said in an earlier interview with Moskovsky Komsomolets that he was hoping to see a “higher level” of contacts between the Russian and the U.S. military: "We also have contacts with the U.S. military at the level of General Staff. These contacts are rather constructive. I very much hope that together with the U.S. we will reach contacts at a higher level," he said. (Interfax, 10.08.19)
• Gen. Mark Milley assumed duties as the 20th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Oct. 1. The next day he held a phone conversation with his Russian counterpart, Gen. Valery Gerasimov. The two leaders recognized “the inherent value of regular communication in order to avoid miscalculation and promote transparency,” according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Milley believes that Russia and China pose the biggest threats to the United States. He has also warned that war with Iran would delay and disrupt the overall National Defense Strategy, which is aimed at great power competition to deter Russia and China. (Department of Defense, undated, DefenseOne, September 2019, Joint Chiefs of Staff, 10.02.19, Military.com, 07.11.19)
• "If we were able to agree with the Americans in Syria, then I don’t see any reasons preventing us from coming to terms with the U.S. on the Baltic region and the Black Sea," chairman of the Russian Federation Council's temporary Commission on Information Policy and Communications Alexei Pushkov said on Oct. 8. (Interfax, 10.08.19)
• U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited North Macedonia on Oct. 4 warning of risks from “Russian bots and trolls” and Chinese economic influence. (bne IntelliNews, 10.06.19)

Missile defense:

• The U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s Next Generation Interceptor program will feature a hit-to-kill missile. (Forbes, 10.08.19)

Arms control:

• "I am deeply concerned by reports that the Trump administration is considering withdrawing from the Open Skies Treaty and strongly urge you against such a reckless action," Eliot Engel, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote in a letter to White House national security adviser Robert O'Brien. (RFE/RL, 10.08.19)
• The latest data on U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear forces limited by the New START treaty shows that the United States and Russia combined, as of March 1, 2019, deployed a total of 1,181 strategic launchers with a total of 2,802 warheads attributed to them. That is very close to the combined forces they deployed six months ago. (Federation of American Scientists, 10.04.19)

Counterterrorism:

• Russian intelligence services claim they have uncovered a secret “charity,” headquartered in Russia’s republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, that had more than 100 members and sent money to the Islamic State in Syria. (The Moscow Times, 10.09.19)
• Asim Umar, who is the chief of al-Qaeda on the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), was killed in a Sept. 23 operation that targeted a Taliban compound in the Musa Qala district of Afghanistan’s Helmand Province, according to the country’s National Directorate of Security. (BBC, 10.08.19)

Conflict in Syria:

• Donald Trump has given the green light to a contentious Turkish military operation in northeast Syria. An Oct. 6 statement by the White House said U.S. forces would “no longer be in the immediate area.” “Turkey, Europe, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Russia and the Kurds will now have to figure the situation out, and what they want to do with the captured Isis fighters in their neighborhood,” Trump said. The area of Syria controlled by the U.S. and its Kurdish allies stretched about 200 miles south from the proposed Turkish safe zone and includes Raqqa. (The Financial Times, 10.07.19, CBS, 10.07.19, Bloomberg, 10.08.19)
• Following Donald Trump’s statement, Turkey launched a military incursion into Syria on Oct. 9. On Oct. 11 Turkish forces pushed deeper into Syrian territory, setting off the displacement of tens of thousands of civilians. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 17 civilians have been killed since the start of the offensive. It said 29 fighters of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces have also died, along with 17 pro-Turkish Syrian fighters. (RFE/RL, 10.11.19)
• Asked to spell out the administration’s red lines vis-à-vis the Turkish incursion, a senior state U.S. State Department official said that they would include “ethnic cleansing[,] … indiscriminate artillery, air and other fires directed at civilian populations.” (The Financial Times, 10.10.19)
• The U.N. Security Council failed Thursday to agree on a statement condemning Turkey’s military operation in Syria, defeating the efforts of Europeans who warned of an ensuing humanitarian crisis. Kelly Craft, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the Trump administration does not endorse Turkey’s military action but stopped short of condemning it. The Russian U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, called for a solution that would “take into account other aspects of the Syrian crisis, not just the Turkish operation.” (WP, 10.10.19)
• Russia will not get involved in the conflict between Turkey and Syria after Ankara launched an operation in Syria’s northeast, according to Vladimir Dzhafarov, the first deputy chair of the foreign affairs committee in the upper house of parliament.   (Reuters, 10.09.19)
• In a phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan before the operation against U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters, Vladimir Putin made clear he hoped the incursion would be limited in time and scale, sources said. In a separate statement Putin then warned that the Turkish invasion could result in the freeing of thousands of captured ISIS fighters, and suggested Moscow could use its own security services to respond. (Reuters, 10.11.19, The Financial Times, 10.11.19)
• Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia understands Turkey’s needs to ensure its security but hopes Syrian territorial integrity will be the priority as Ankara plans military operations. (Bloomberg, 10.08.19)
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Oct. 10 that Moscow had repeatedly warned the U.S. against its Kurdish “experiment in Syria, suggesting it could only end in disaster. On Oct. 7 Lavrov met with the leader of the Syrian opposition party Syria's Tomorrow Movement, Ahmad Jarba, during a visit to Baghdad and with Masoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), in Erbil. (Newsweek, 10.10.19, Kurdistan24, 10.07.19, Interfax, 10.08.19)
• Russia was not informed in advance by the United States or by Turkey about U.S. plans to pull troops back from Syria's northeast border region, the Kremlin said on Oct. 8. (Reuters, 10.08.19)
• The Syrian regime said on Oct. 10 it would defend its sovereign territory from the Turkish military incursion, but diplomats caution that Damascus is unlikely to make good on its threats. Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Maqdad on Oct. 10 attacked U.S.-backed Kurdish-led forces, saying they had betrayed their country. (Reuters, 10.11.19, The Financial Times, 10.10.19)

Cyber security:

• America’s outgoing ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman told Kommersant that cyber technologies have developed to such a level that it has become possible to “paralyze” an adversary’s system of command and control. (Russia Matters, 10.09.19)

Elections interference:

• A report released Oct. 8 by the Senate Intelligence Committee as a part of its investigation of the Kremlin’s meddling in the 2016 election documents how Russian operatives deployed a variety of social media platforms to spread divisive messages among the American electorate. Senate investigators find that Russian operatives worked to boost Donald Trump by focusing on racial and other controversial issues in U.S. politics and then fanning the flames on both sides of the country’s infected political discourse. (Foreign Policy, 10.08.19)

Energy exports:

• No significant developments.

Bilateral economic ties:

• No significant developments.

Other bilateral issues:

• The White House has announced the nomination of John Sullivan, currently the deputy secretary of state, as the next U.S. ambassador to Russia. (The Guardian, 10.11.19)
• America’s outgoing ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman told Kommersant that senior U.S. and Russian diplomats have discussed the possibility of the two governments allowing each other to expand the number of diplomats they can post to their diplomatic missions in each other’s capitals. (Russia Matters, 10.09.19)
• Members of Russia’s lower house of parliament will refrain from visiting the U.S. after the FBI’s questioning in a New York airport of Russian lawmaker Inga Yumasheva, who coordinates the State Duma’s ties with the U.S. Congress, an aide to Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin was quoted by Kommersant as saying. The aide said that the head of the Duma’s financial markets committee, Anatoly Aksakov, has cancelled his visit to the U.S. in the wake of the questioning. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Oct. 7 that Moscow was "deeply concerned" over the incident. (Russia Matters, 10.11.19, RFE/RL, 10.07.19)
• A Moscow court has ruled to extend the house arrest of U.S. investor Michael Calvey until Jan. 13. (RFE/RL, 10.08.19)
• A second suspect has been arrested as part of a U.S. criminal case alleging that a Russian defense executive attempted to steal trade secrets from the aviation unit of General Electric. Maurizio Bianchi, the former director of an Italian company that is a division of GE Aviation, was arrested Oct. 2 in Marino, Italy. (RFE/RL, 10.04.19)
• According to U.S. Treasury, State and Commerce officials, they do not conduct their own assessments of the overall effectiveness of existing sanctions programs in achieving broad policy goals given their limited resources and a range of difficulties, including: the challenge of isolating sanctions’ effects from other factors; shifting policy goals and objectives; and a dearth of reliable data. (GAO, October 2019)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin received congratulations from world leaders for his birthday this week—but none from the president of the United States or his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Kremlin said Oct. 8. (The Washington Post, 10.08.19)
• President Vladimir Putin has presented U.S. astronaut Nick Hague with one of Russia’s top state honors, the Order of Courage, a year after the astronaut survived an emergency onboard a Russian spacecraft. (The Moscow Times, 10.08.19)
• Since the fall of the Soviet Union, rich Russians have emerged as influential patrons of the arts and Western cultural organizations have often been the beneficiaries. Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Brooklyn Academy of Music and Lincoln Center are among those who have received gifts from moneyed Russians or the companies they control over the past decade. (New York Times, 10.06.19)

II. Russia’s domestic news

Politics, economy and energy:

• The World Bank has become the latest organization to cut its outlook for the Russian economy, predicting growth of just 1 percent in 2019 rather than 1.2 percent. Growth is forecast to pick up up to 1.7 percent in 2020 and 1.8 percent in 2021, but remain far below both the global average and other countries in the region (The Moscow Times, 10.09.19)
• Russian consumer price inflation fell back to the Central Bank target level of 4 percent, opening the way to more rate cuts, statistics agency Rosstat reported on Oct. 7. (bne IntelliNews, 10.07.19)
• Maxim Kulinko, a top representative of Russia's state nuclear energy corporation Rosatom, said Russia will build not only eight nuclear-powered icebreakers by 2035 but also 16 rescue and support ships. (The Moscow Times, 10.10.19)
• Russia’s state-owned gas giant Gazprom is the world’s third-largest producer of carbon emissions, The Guardian reported Oct. 9, citing a new scientific analysis by the U.S.-based Climate Accountability Institute. (The Moscow Times, 10.10.19)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed Sergei Glazyev as his advisor and appointed him the minister for integration and macroeconomics of the Eurasian Economic Commission. Glazyev has been sanctioned by the EU and U.S. for his role in coordinating the takeover of Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula. (RFE/RL, Russia Matters, 10.09.19)
• A group of pro-Kremlin lawmakers has drafted legislation that would allow the authorities to block individual email or online messenger users who circulate banned content. (Reuters, 10.08.19)
• Nearly 40 percent of Russians believe that the recent criminal convictions of more than a dozen people over this summer’s Moscow protests were politically motivated, according to new independent polling by Levada Center. (The Moscow Times, 10.09.19)
• The number of attacks and threats on Russian journalists by the authorities has more than doubled since 2017 to over 160 in 2019, according to a new report published by the international Justice for Journalists NGO on Oct. 7. (The Moscow Times, 10.09.19)
• Russia's Justice Ministry has branded opposition leader Alexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation a "foreign agent" under a 2012 law. Navalny quickly rejected the Oct. 9 announcement. Navalny also said on Oct. 11 that Russian prosecutors had asked a court to seize his Moscow apartment as collateral in a lawsuit over opposition protests he helped organize. (RFE/RL, 10.09.19, The Moscow Times, 10.11.19)
• A Moscow court has sent theater director Kirill Serebrennikov’s criminal fraud case back to its starting point a month after the case was returned to prosecutors, and more than two years after he was first arrested. (The Moscow Times, 10.08.19)

Defense and aerospace:

• Anatoly Nestechuk, chief of staff of the 15th army of the Russian Air and Space Forces, said three early warning radars are to begin operations in the next five years—in Vorkuta in 2021, in Olenegorsk in 2022 and in Sevastopol in 2024. (Russianforces, 10.09.19)
• Alexei Leonov, the Russian cosmonaut who was the first human to walk in space, has died at the age of 85 after a lengthy illness. (RFE/RL, 10.11.19)

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• No significant developments.

III. Foreign affairs, trade and investment

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

• First came a destabilization campaign in Moldova, followed by the poisoning of an arms dealer in Bulgaria and then a thwarted coup in Montenegro. Last year, there was an attempt to assassinate a former Russian spy in Britain using a nerve agent. Western security officials have now concluded that these operations are part of a coordinated and ongoing campaign to destabilize Europe, executed by an elite GRU unit, known as Unit 29155. According to a person close to Russian special services cited by Vedomosti, however, Unit 29155 is known as the 161st training center, based in Moscow’s Izmailovo district, where military servicemen undergo short-term training to hone their reconnaissance skills, such as small-arms shooting and radio communications. (New York Times, 10.08.19, Russia Matters, 10.10.19)
• Russia and Saudi Arabia plan to sign 10 deals worth more than $2 billion during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Saudi Arabia on Oct. 14.  (Reuters, 10.10.19)
• Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev pledged to help develop Cuba's energy sector during a visit to the island this week but did not announce any short-term measures. (RFE/RL, 10.06.19)
• Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman is facing questioning in Spain over allegations he illegally laid “economic siege” to an acquisition target, Zed World Wide, while camouflaging his true role. (The Financial Times, 10.07.19)
• Israel said Oct. 11 that it has asked Russia to show leniency to an Israeli tourist sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for possessing marijuana during transit through a Moscow airport. (AP, 10.11.19)

China:

• Russia’s revelation that it is helping China to develop its own early warning system indicates that “Moscow and Beijing are moving towards establishing a comprehensive system of security in east and southeast Asia,” according to the head of the Higher School of Economics’ School of Oriental Studies, Alexei Maslov.  Maslov predicts that Russia and China will sign a “formal treaty” sometime either this year or early next. “Either a certain alliance will be proclaimed with a clause similar to Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, or it will be a treaty on establishing a military-political alliance, but without such a clause,” Maslov told Rosbalt. Georgetown professor Angela Stent likewise wrote this week that “one could conclude that the two countries are indeed moving toward some form of a formal alliance.” (Russia Matters, 10.09.19)

• “Russia accounted for about 70 percent of new renminbi reserves in 2018, and Brazil and Chile account for about 40 percent of renminbi reserve accumulation in 2019,” said Mike Cahill, an economist at Goldman Sachs in London. (The Financial Times, 10.08.19)
• Russia's state communications watchdog will sign an agreement with its Chinese counterpart this month as part of cooperation to combat the circulation of what it calls illegal online content, it said on Oct. 8. (Reuters, 10.08.19)

Ukraine:

• Some 100,000 children live within 10 kilometers of the front line in war-torn eastern Ukraine. The United Nations says more than 100 children have been killed during the five-year conflict. (RFE/RL, 10.08.19)
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Oct. 10 accused Russia of delaying a summit aimed at resolving the conflict between Kyiv and pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine's east. Zelenskiy also said that he would discuss setting up a peacekeeping mission in separatist-held Donbas at the planned summit. “It seems to me that we can’t lose more than a year,” he said.  Zelenskiy said a blueprint proposed in 2016 by then-German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier would be enshrined in a new "special status" law for the separatist-controlled territories and drafted only after the so-called Normandy format discussions take place.  As for Crimea, “this is a complicated story. As you know, Ukraine can't do this [free Crimea] on its own," Zelenskiy said on Oct. 9. (Reuters, 10.01.19, The Moscow Times, 10.11.19, RFE/RL, 10.10.19, RFE/RL, 10.10.19)
  • Thousands of Ukrainians have rallied in the capital, Kyiv, against the government's plan to hold local elections in parts of the eastern Donbas region that are controlled by Russia-backed separatists. (RFE/RL, 10.06.19)
  • Former German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier confirmed he proposed the so-called Steinmeier Formula in 2015 as a way to break a deadlock over implementing the stalled Minsk II process, contradicting former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko who denied the proposal was made. (bne Intellinews, 10.09.19)
• Ukraine must pull back its troops in the country’s restive east before there can be any talk of a fresh meeting between the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany as part of the Normandy format talks, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said on Oct. 10. (Reuters, 10.10.19)
• "The U.S. can undeniably use the influence it has over Kyiv to make Ukraine fulfill its Minsk agreements obligations as soon as possible," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Oct. 8, noting that Moscow would not back Washington joining the Normandy Format talks to settle the conflict. (RFE/RL, 10.08.19)
• Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystayko says he is in the "final stage" of negotiations to return three naval vessels that Russia impounded in November 2018 in the Black Sea. (RFE/RL, 10.10.19)
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says he didn't know military aid from the United States had been held up before a phone call with President Donald Trump that is at the center of an impeachment inquiry. In the July 25 call Trump asked Zelenskiy to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter who had business dealings in Ukraine. (RFE/RL, 10.10.19)
• In the testimony that she gave as part of the House's expanding impeachment inquiry on Oct. 11 former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch testified that a top State Department official had told her Trump had pushed for her removal for months even though the department believed she had “done nothing wrong.” (Wall Street Journal, 10.11.19, New York Times, 10.11.19)
  • Two Soviet-born businessmen who helped Rudy Giuliani investigate Joe Biden have been charged with violating U.S. campaign finance laws. Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman were arrested on the evening of Oct. 9. The indictment alleged that in one case in 2018, the Republican donors made illegal donations to an unnamed congressman whose help they sought in ousting Marie Yovanovitch, then the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. (Financial Times, 10.10.19)
• Fiona Hill, who was until recently President Donald Trump’s top aide on Russia and Europe, plans to tell Congress that Rudy Giuliani and E.U. ambassador Gordon Sondland circumvented the National Security Council and the normal White House process to pursue a shadow policy on Ukraine, a person familiar with her expected testimony told NBC News. The House committees investigating Trump and Ukraine have requested that Hill appear for a deposition on Oct. 14, as well as turn over several documents dating back to January 2017.  (NBC News, 10.10.19, Axios, 10.11.19)
• The State Department directed Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, not to testify before House lawmakers as part of their impeachment inquiry, a lawyer for the ambassador said Oct. 8. (Wall Street Journal, 10.08.19)
• Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives have issued a subpoena to Energy Secretary Rick Perry as part of the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump's dealings with Ukraine. (RFE/RL, 10.11.19)
• The White House gave Michael Duffey, politically appointed associate director of national security programs in the Office of Management and Budget, the authority to keep aid to Ukraine on hold after career budget staff members questioned the legality of delaying the funds, according to people familiar with the matter, a shift that House Democrats are probing in their impeachment inquiry. (Wall Street Journal, 10.10.19)
• Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson told lawmakers last week that the whistleblower whose complaint about President Trump and Ukraine has set off an impeachment inquiry previously had "some type of professional relationship" with one of the 2020 Democratic candidates, the Washington Examiner first reported and Axios' Jonathan Swan has confirmed. (Axios, 10.08.19)
• At least one additional whistleblower with firsthand knowledge of the circumstances around President Trump's July call with his Ukrainian counterpart has come forward, according to lawyers representing both the individual and the CIA officer whose initial complaint helped spark an impeachment inquiry. (Wall Street Journal, 10.06.19)
• American attorney Marcus Cohen spent nearly $100,000 out of his own pocket to boost the profile of Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Washington shortly before—and after—he won the Ukrainian presidency in a landslide. (RFE/RL, 10.07.19)
• The EU's proposed new top diplomat Josep Borrell said the EU's international standing was under pressure from China's ascending power, disputes with the United States and an assertive Kremlin. "We should continue extending the sanctions against Russia until we see tectonic changes" on the part of Moscow, he said. (RFE/RL, 10.07.19)
• A Ukrainian judge has ordered former U.S. Army soldier Craig Lang wanted for a double murder in the United States back into Ukrainian custody amid uncertainty over whether he will be extradited. (RFE/RL, 10.09.19)
• A court in southwestern Russia has sentenced a 72-year-old to 12 years in a high-security penal colony for high treason. The FSB accused Vladimir Morgunov of passing information to a foreign intelligence officer whom he met in person in Ukraine. (RFE/RL, 10.10.19)
• Ukrainian prosecutors have opened a criminal probe into former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s deportation from Ukraine in 2018. (RFE/RL, 10.07.19)
• Investors and Ukraine’s donors were looking for clear statements by Volodymyr Zelenskiy on the future of PrivatBank, which was nationalized in 2016. What they got during Zelenskiy’s 14-hour press conference were prevarications. Zelenskiy said he is going to protect the interests of the state over the snowballing PrivatBank crisis, however he favors attempts to find out "an amicable agreement" with the lender's former owner, Ihor Kolomoisky. (bne IntelliNews, 10.11.19)

Russia’s other post-Soviet neighbors:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States on Oct. 11 of the threats posed by the U.S. military buildup to global security. Putin also said the CIS leaders, gathered for a summit in Ashgabat, would approve a program to fight against terrorism over the next three years. (Xinhua, 10.11.19)
• European Union ambassadors have approved a visa-facilitation plan with Belarus, a step that could eventually lead to smoother travel to the bloc for citizens of the former Soviet republic. (RFE/RL, 10.09.19)
• Azerbaijan's parliament approved former presidential aide Ali Asadov as the new prime minister just hours after Norvuz Mammadov tendered his resignation. (RFE/RL, 10.08.19)

IV. Quoteworthy

• Primakov to Talbott in 1996: “There is one thing that will not change here, one thing that constitutes a real red line for us: If the infrastructure of NATO moves toward Russia… I agree that we should draw red lines, but there are both vertical and horizontal red lines with respect to NATO. The vertical ones include such items as infrastructure… The horizontal ones include such issues as the Baltics and Ukraine.” And yet, Rumsfeld in a 2001 memo to Wolfowitz: “I am leaning quite strongly towards the big bang on NATO expansion. I think we probably ought to go minimum of five and maybe seven added to NATO in the next round. I am less worried about the military effectiveness and more of the opinion that if we do that, we will cause Russia to lean West rather than East.”