This Week’s Highlights:

• Ukraine is at the center of a formal impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump announced this week by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who said Sept. 24 that the House would initiate such a probe. Pelosi accused the president of betraying his oath of office and the nation’s security by seeking to enlist a foreign power to tarnish a rival for his own political gain, Reuters and other outlets report. In a July 25 phone call, revealed by a whistleblower report, Trump told his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy that he would have U.S. Attorney General William Barr and his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, call Zelenskiy regarding Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's involvement in the dismissal of Ukraine’s prosecutor-general Viktor Shokin, according to RFE/RL. Based on a summary of the call released by the White House on Sept. 25, Trump never explicitly told Zelenskiy that U.S. aid was contingent on his investigating Biden, but Trump emphasized the importance of American support before pressing him for action on Biden, Reuters reports.
• President Vladimir Putin has sent a proposal to tens of national leaders calling for a moratorium on deploying short- and medium-range missiles in Europe, the Kommersant newspaper reports. The proposal calls for “additional verification measures.” NATO on Sept. 26 dismissed the Kremlin offer as not credible, according to the Financial Times.
• In an interview earlier this week to Russia’s Kommersant daily, the country’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said “we won’t initiate a war" over Georgia's admission into NATO. Lavrov also said it is “indeed an unpleasant episode” when asked to comment on what the interviewer described as Belarus’ refusal to host a Russian military base.
• More than 100 mercenaries from the so-called Wagner group, linked to Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, arrived at a forward base in Libya in the first week of September to support eastern strongman Khalifa Haftar’s assault on the capital Tripoli, according to Libyan and Western officials cited by Bloomberg. Turkey’s Anadolu agency reported Sept. 27 that eight of the mercenaries have been killed, citing a social media account of the Libyan government.
• Russia, China, India, Pakistan and several Central Asian states held one of the largest joint military exercises in recent years, spanning two continents and involving 128,000 personnel, according to The National Interest. The exercise, dubbed Tsentr 2019 (Center 2019), had two parts: a mock invasion of a hypothetical terrorist rogue state in Central Asia and a series of special forces landing exercises to defend Russia’s Arctic possessions in the event of a surprise attack.

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

Nuclear security and safety:

• The first containers of used nuclear fuel assemblies removed from the Lepse floating technical base at the Nerpa shipyard have been transported to Murmansk. The fuel will be sent to Mayak for reprocessing. (World Nuclear News, 09.25.19)
• Holtec International has announced completion of the pre-commissioning program, or “cold tests,” for the Chernobyl Interim Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Facility (ISF-2) in Ukraine. It is the world's largest dry storage installation. (World Nuclear News, 09.24.19)
• The 63rd annual IAEA General Conference concluded with resolutions adopted on the implementation of the NPT safeguards agreement between the Agency and North Korea, and on the application of IAEA safeguards in the Middle East. Further resolutions were adopted on nuclear and radiation safety and on nuclear security. (IAEA, 09.20.19)

North Korea’s nuclear program and related issues:

• The FSB said on Sept. 27 that 262 North Korean nationals were detained for alleged poaching, and three fishing vessels and five motorboats were impounded in the operation, adding that 30,000 illegally caught squid and prohibited fishing equipment were confiscated. (RFE/RL, 09.27.19)

Iran’s nuclear program and related issues:

• “Iran wanted me to lift the sanctions imposed on them in order to meet. I said, of course, NO!” U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted on Sept. 27 following attempts by Western leaders to get the U.S. and Iran to revive diplomacy during this week’s U.N. General Assembly in New York. (RFE/RL, 09.27.19)
• Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said his country would engage in no new negotiations with the U.S. until Washington lifted its punishing economic sanctions, while signaling that Tehran was open to a new, broader deal if that condition were met. (Wall Street Journal, 09.26.19)

New Cold War/saber rattling:

• No significant developments.

Military issues, including NATO-Russia relations:

• In an interview earlier this week to Russia’s Kommersant daily, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said “we won’t initiate a war" over Georgia's admission into NATO. This statement is consistent with his earlier rhetoric, such as his description of Russia’s red lines in a 2018 interview with the same newspaper. In that interview, he did not identify further expansion of NATO into the former Soviet Union as a redline, though in both interviews he stated Russia’s strong opposition to such expansion. Russia denies having either initiated or participated in an armed conflict in Donbass, in spite of evidence to the contrary, and chief of its General Staff Valery Gerasimov has observed in a speech that attracted much attention that “The 21st century is characterized by a trend, which erases differences between state of war and state of peace … wars are not declared." (Russia Matters, 09.26.19)
• U.S. President Donald Trump has signed a cooperation agreement with his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda. The present U.S. military capabilities in Poland, currently at some 4,500 rotational military personnel, "is expected to grow by approximately 1,000 additional United States military personnel in the near term," the document says. (RFE/RL, 09.23.19)

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms control:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin has sent a proposal to tens of country leaders calling for a moratorium on deploying short- and medium-range missiles in Europe.  The proposal calls for “additional verification measures.” NATO on Sept. 26 dismissed the Kremlin offer as not credible, since it would leave in place batteries of such weapons that Western states say have already been deployed in western Russia and are able to target many European capitals. (Financial Times, 09.26.19, Kommersant, 09.24.19, RFE/RL, 09.25.19)
• Andrea Thompson, who played a key role in U.S. arms negotiations with Russia, is leaving her position as the undersecretary of state. (RFE/RL, 09.21.19)

Counter-terrorism:

• No significant developments.

Conflict in Syria:

• The U.S. has slapped sanctions on Russian company Maritime Assistance LLC, three individuals and five shipping vessels for allegedly participating in a scheme to avoid sanctions while facilitating the transfer of supplies of jet fuel to Russian forces operating in Syria. (RFE/RL, 09.26.19)
• Russia is expanding its Hmeimim airbase in Syria and rebuilding a second landing strip to allow the facility to serve more aircraft. (The Moscow Times, 09.26.19)
• Syrian government forces carried out a chlorine attack in May, the first confirmed violation of the international accord banning chemical weapons since U.S. President Donald Trump authorized a U.S. military strike on Syria in 2018, a new U.S. intelligence assessment says. (Wall Street Journal, 09.27.19)

Cyber security:

• Twenty-seven countries have signed a joint agreement on what constitutes fair and foul play in cyberspace—with a nod toward condemning China and Russia. The statement, released at the U.N., is largely a broadly written agreement that countries should follow international law. (CNN, 09.23.19)
• Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said Russian national Andrei Tyurin has admitted to his participation in stealing the personal data of more than 80 million customers from the JP Morgan Chase investment bank from 2012 until mid-2015. (RFE/RL, 09.24.19)

Elections interference:

• U.S. attorney G. Zachary Terwilliger, whose office investigated interference in the 2018 midterm elections, said Sept. 26 he is certain Russia will try to meddle in the upcoming presidential race in similar ways to the past. (The Washington Post, 09.26.19)

Energy exports:

• No significant developments.

Bilateral economic ties:

• No significant developments.

Other bilateral issues:

• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with U.S. counterpart Mike Pompeo on Sept. 27 for 50 minutes on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. According to Russian media, Lavrov had planned to discuss with Pompeo what the Russian side has described as the U.S. government’s failure to issue visas to a Russian delegation in time to attend the U.N. General Assembly. The Kremlin has earlier threatened "tough" action in response to the visa incident. (Russia Matters, 09.27.19, RFE/RL, 09.24.19)
• The Kremlin says it expects conversations between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump to remain classified as a scandal involving a phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy engulfs Washington. (RFE/RL, 09.27.19)
• The National Rifle Association (NRA) acted as a "foreign asset" for Russia in the period leading up to the 2016 election, according to a new investigation unveiled Sept. 27 by Sen. Ron Wyden. (NPR, 09.27.19)
• Protesters who were jailed over this summer's mass election rallies in Moscow would have been shot dead if they had been protesting in the U.S., Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has claimed. (The Moscow Times, 09.24.19)
• A U.S. federal judge has overturned a jury verdict convicting a onetime business partner of former U.S. national security adviser Michael Flynn of illegally lobbying for Turkey. It was unclear how this decision would affect the criminal case against Flynn. (Reuters, 09.25.19
• A Russian gay couple have asked for asylum in the U.S. after Russian authorities launched an investigation into their adoption of two children. (RFE/RL, 09.26.19)

II. Russia’s domestic news

Politics, economy and energy:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin has criticized his government for “red tape” that is imperiling investment projects—a tacit acknowledgment of rising public discontent over low state spending. Russia’s budget surplus in the first eight months of 2019 totaled 2.56 trillion rubles ($40 billion), and is on track to be roughly double the planned amount for the entire year. Russia’s national wealth fund is expected to have doubled in size over the course of 2019 to about $123 billion. The Russian economy is expected to grow about 1 percent in 2019. (Financial Times, 09.23.19)
  • Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Sept. 23 that the 2020 budget would double spending on healthcare to 320 billion rubles, increase education spending by 20 percent and more than double funding for environmental programs. (Financial Times, 09.23.19)
• Russian Economy Minister Maxim Oreshkin told Russian President Vladimir Putin Sept. 25 that Russia must restore trust in its courts and law enforcement agencies if the government is to have a chance of fulfilling the Kremlin's ambitious economic plans. (Reuters, 09.25.19)
• Most women in Russia get married between the ages of 25-34. Eight years ago, most Russian women got married between the ages of 18-24. (The Moscow Times, 09.24.19)
• Former British Prime Minister David Cameron has said in his new memoir that Russian President Vladimir Putin told him he passed a law against “gay propaganda” to reverse the country’s declining birth rates. (The Moscow Times, 09.24.19)
• Top members of the ruling United Russia party in St. Petersburg meddled in the city’s municipal elections earlier this month, Central Election Commission Head Ella Pamfilova said Sept. 25. (The Moscow Times, 09.25.19)
• Around 2,000 people held an authorized protest in the northern Russian city of Arkhangelsk on Sept. 22 demanding the government drop plans to create a giant landfill. (Reuters, 09.23.19)
• Fifty-six people were injured when a Boeing plane made a rough landing in the western Siberian city of Barnaul. (RFE/RL, 09.26.19)

Defense and aerospace:

• The three-person crew of a Soyuz MS-16 spacecraft has entered the International Space Station, transferring aboard first Arab astronaut Hazzaa al-Mansoori. (RFE/RL, 09.26.19)

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• Aivar Rehe, the missing former chief of Danske Bank in Estonia, who was at the center of a 200 billion-euro money-laundering scandal involving Russian money, has been found dead. (RFE/RL, 09.25.19)
• Russian Orthodox priest Nikolai Stremsky, who adopted 70 children, has been arrested and charged with sexual assault, debauchery and failure to perform parental duties. (RFE/RL, 09.26.19)

III. Foreign affairs, trade and investment

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

• Russia said Sept. 23 it will implement the Paris Climate Agreement to fight climate change after Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev approved a government resolution signifying Moscow’s acceptance of the deal. (Bellona, 09.25.19)
• More than 100 mercenaries from the Wagner group headed by Yevgeny Prigozhin arrived at a forward base in Libya in the first week of September to support strongman Khalifa Haftar’s assault on the capital Tripoli, said Libyan and Western officials. Turkey’s Anadolu agency reported Sept. 27 that eight of the mercenaries have been killed, citing a social media account of the Libyan government. (Bloomberg, 09.25.19, Anadolu Agency, 09.27.19)
• Russia has delivered its second batch of weapons to the Central African Republic in two years, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. (The Moscow Times, 09.27.19)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin told Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro in Moscow that Russia backed dialogue between the government and opposition to find a way out of Venezuela's political crisis. Separately, Interfax reported that a group of Russian military specialists had arrived in Caracas. (RFE/RL, 09.25.19)
• Germany last month arrested a man who goes by the name Vadim Sokolov on suspicion of killing Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, who fought alongside anti-Moscow separatists in Chechnya. Sokolov allegedly received a Russian passport, a French visa and traveled to Europe within a month, according to information obtained jointly by Der Spiegel, The Insider and Bellingcat. The outlets’ joint report published Sept. 27 provides “overwhelming evidence that the arrested assassin acted with the full support of the Russian state,” Bellingcat said. (The Moscow Times, 09.27.19)
• A Russian parliamentary commission says German state-funded broadcaster Deutsche Welle violated the law with its coverage of protests, and that lawmakers will continue to investigate other media outlets, including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, on similar possible legal breaches. (RFE/RL, 09.27.19)

China:

• Russia, China, India, Pakistan and several Central Asian states held one of the largest joint military exercises in recent years, spanning two continents and involving 128,000 personnel. The exercise, dubbed Tsentr-2019 (Center 2019), followed a two-pronged design: its first part is a mock invasion of a hypothetical terrorist rogue state in Central Asia; the second, a series of special forces landing exercises to defend Russia’s Arctic possessions in the event of a surprise attack. (The National Interest, 09.25.19)
• Russia’s space chief Dmitry Rogozin and his Chinese counterpart, Zhang Kejian, agreed to work together on lunar projects, according to a statement from Roscosmos. They plan to build a shared data center, with one outpost in each country, for lunar and deep-space research. (Space.com, 09.20.19)
• China is expected to limit its involvement in a joint naval drill with Iran and Russia to non-combat forces to underline its desire not to be drawn into Middle East conflicts, according to Chinese military analysts. (SCMP, 09.23.19)
• Warning of a “crisis,” Russia’s deputy culture minister Alla Manilova this week proposed a plan to introduce specific days for foreigners to visit popular tourist sites, arguing that huge groups of Chinese tourists were preventing ordinary Russians from enjoying their cultural heritage. (Financial Times, 09.26.19)
• U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned that the world risks splitting in two, with the United States and China "creating two separate and competing worlds." (RFE/RL, 09.24.19)

Ukraine:

• U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced on Sept. 24 that the House would initiate a formal impeachment inquiry against U.S. President Donald Trump, charging him with betraying his oath of office and the nation’s security by seeking to enlist a foreign power to tarnish a rival for his own political gain. Pelosi said new revelations about Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, and his administration’s stonewalling of Congress about them, had finally left the House no choice but to proceed toward a rarely used remedy. (New York Times, 09.24.19)
• U.S. President Donald Trump took to Twitter to rail against Democrats on Sept. 24, seconds after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the formal impeachment inquiry. The president, in a series of tweets, called the Move “Presidential Harassment!” Trump also attacked Rep. Adam Schiff, who is heading up the House's impeachment efforts, saying the chairman of the Intelligence Committee misrepresented the president's conversation with Ukraine's leader and calling on Schiff to resign. Trump also told staff members at the U.S. Mission to the U.N. on Sept. 26 that he wants to know who provided information to a whistleblower about his phone call with the president of Ukraine, saying that whoever did so was “close to a spy” and that “in the old days” spies were dealt with differently. (New York Times, 09.26.19, Wall Street Journal, 09.27.19, CNBC, 09.24.19)
• A whistleblower report released by a congressional panel on Sept. 26 said U.S. President Donald Trump used his office to solicit Ukraine's interference in the 2020 election to advance his personal political interests, risking U.S. national security. The whistleblower complaint concerns a July 25 telephone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Trump told Zelenskiy during that call that he would have U.S. Attorney General William Barr and his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, call him regarding Joe Biden's involvement in the dismissal of Ukraine’s prosecutor-general Viktor Shokin in March 2016, according to a summary of the call that was released on Sept. 25. Trump and his allies accuse Biden of using his position as vice president and point man on relations with Kyiv in 2016 to help Burisma—a Ukrainian energy company that was paying Biden's son Hunter, who was on its board of directors—avoid damage from a criminal investigation. In the summary, Trump never explicitly told Zelenskiy that U.S. aid was contingent on him investigating Biden, but Trump emphasized the importance of American support before pressing Zelenskiy for action on Biden. (Reuters, 09.26.19, RFE/RL, 09.24.19,  RFE/RL, 09.25.19, Reuters, 09.25.19)
• ABC News reported that an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Serhiy Leshchenko, contended that any telephone conversation between Trump and the newly elected leader of Ukraine came with a U.S. precondition that the Biden case would be discussed. (Reuters, 09.25.19)
• According to the whistleblower—an anonymous intelligence official—White House officials restricted access to details of the presidential call by storing the information in a specially classified storage system. Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire has determined the whistleblower's complaint could not be forwarded to Congress. (RFE/RL, 09.24.19, Financial Times, 09.26.19)
• Thirty-seven percent of voters say that U.S. President Donald Trump should be impeached and removed from office, while 57 percent say he should not be impeached, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Sept. 25. (The Washington Post, 09.25.19)
• U.S. President Donald Trump has confirmed he told staff to freeze almost $400 million in aid to Ukraine just ahead of the July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Speaking to reporters at the U.N. on Sept. 24, Trump said that he made the move to combat corruption and push European nations—singling out France and Germany by name—to "put up money" to help Ukraine. “Germany does almost nothing for you. All they do is talk and I think it's something that you should really ask them about. When I was speaking to Angela Merkel she talks Ukraine, but she doesn't do anything,” Trump said, according to a summary of the phone call with Zelenskiy. According to the summary, Zelenskiy responded that Trump was "1,000%" right and thanked Trump for "your great support in the area of defense" and said he planned to buy more Javelins. “You are a great teacher for us,” Zelenskiy fawned. (RFE/RL, 09.24.19. RFE/RL, 09.25.19, Reuters, 09.25.19, Reuters, 09.25.19, Financial Times, 09.26.19)
• "Actually, last time I traveled to the United States, I stayed in New York near Central Park, and I stayed at the Trump Tower," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told U.S. President Donald Trump, according to a rough transcript of the July 25 call released Sept. 25. Zelenskiy's comments mark the first known example of when foreign leaders would try to influence Trump by spending money at his properties and telling him about it. (The Washington Post, 09.26.19)
• U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy have met on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York. In the Sept. 25 meeting, Trump said European countries should "help Ukraine much more than they are doing." Trump also said he hoped that Zelenskiy and Russian President Vladimir Putin could "get together and solve your problem." (RFE/RL, 09.25.19)
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that Moscow wants to end the five-year war in eastern Ukraine, Zelenskiy has said.  (The Moscow Times, 09.26.19)
• Reform-minded secreary of Ukraine’s Security and Defense Council Oleksandr Danylyuk has resigned in part over Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky’s desire to attain a compensation for the PirvatBank, which the post-revolution government of Ukraine had to nationalize and pump money into to prevent it from keeling over, according to Ukraine’s NV online media outlet. (Russia Matters, 09.27.19)
• U.S. prosecutors say U.S. Army soldier Jarrett William Smith allegedly plotted to bomb a U.S. news network, and sought to travel to Ukraine to fight with a far-right nationalist paramilitary group known as the Azov Battalion. Former U.S. Army soldier Craig Lang, who fought for a far-right Ukrainian paramilitary group and who has been linked to the plot, has been detained in Ukraine on charges related to a double murder in the U.S. last year. (RFE/RL, 09.23.19, RFE/RL, 09.26.19)
• Ukraine's industrial output declined by 1.7 percent year-on-year in August following a 0.2 percent year-on-year drop in July, the nation's state statistics service reported Sept. 23. (bne IntelliNews, 09.25.19)

Russia’s other post-Soviet neighbors:

• In an interview earlier this week to Russia’s Kommersant daily, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said it is “indeed an unpleasant episode” when asked to comment on what the interviewer described as Belarus’s refusal to host a Russian military base. (Russia Matters, 09.26.19)
• The foreign ministers of Russia and Georgia met for the first time in 11 years on Sept. 26 on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly meeting, the highest-level meeting between the two sides since they fought a war in 2008. Little was announced about the content of the meeting. (Eurasianet, 09.27.19)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin has approved a government proposal to bankroll the modernization of the armed forces in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia, a government document published online showed on Sept. 23. (Reuters, 09.23.19)
• Flour, rice and other staples are becoming increasingly scarce in Turkmenistan’s state-run stores that offer basic food products at relatively stable and affordable prices. (RFE/RL, 09.27.19)
• Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, who has pledged political reforms, says the country's single-chamber parliament, the Mejlis, will merge with the People's Council and become a two-chamber institution. (RFE/RL, 09.26.19)

IV. Quoteworthy

• No significant developments.