This Week’s Highlights:

• On Oct. 4, the U.S., U.K. and the Netherlands condemned Russia’s hacking and disinformation campaigns, describing the operations in great detail. According to the announcements, Moscow targeted top Olympic athletes, anti-doping organizations, chemical weapons monitors, and sought to hack the British foreign ministry, as well as investigators examining the shooting down of a Malaysian passenger jet over Ukraine in 2014. The U.S. Justice Department announced indictments against seven Russian GRU officers, three of whom were previously indicted for interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, according to The Washington Post.  
• Pew’s 2018 survey of global attitudes across 25 countries shows that Russian opinion of the U.S. and Donald Trump has dropped considerably since last year. Among the 25 countries, a median of 27 percent trusted U.S. President Donald Trump to do the right thing in world affairs, compared to 30 percent who expressed confidence in Russian President Vladimir Putin and a 34 percent vote of confidence in Chinese President Xi Jinping.
• Among Russians, trust in the Russian presidency has dropped to pre-Crimean annexation levels amid rising anger over a new law raising the retirement age. Meanwhile, Putin has continued to relieve regional governors facing tough re-election prospects amid backlash to the pension age hike.
• Russia’s oil production reached a post-Soviet high last month, and Russia also expects to export a record amount of natural gas this year, according to Bloomberg and RFE/RL.
• Units of the Ukrainian armed forces have seized 10 more square kilometers in the “grey zone” along the contact line in Donbass, TASS reports.

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

Nuclear security and safety:

• “A variety of industrial, medical and research applications use radiological source materials of sometimes considerable radioactivity and longevity, and it is critical that we prevent such things from falling into the wrong hands,” U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Ashley Ford said. “In part due to decades of lax security practices in Russia and other portions of the former Soviet Union in the wake of the Cold War—problems that U.S. assistance programs were able for a time to help rectify—we cannot be sure how much R/N material is already out there on the black market.” (U.S. State Department, 09.29.18)

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• Ahead of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to Pyongyang this weekend, Choe Son-hui, North Korea’s vice-foreign minister responsible for handling negotiations with the U.S. on denuclearization, left Pyongyang on Oct. 4 for talks with officials in Beijing before heading to Moscow for more of the same, according to a report by the Korean Central News Agency. (South China Morning Post, 10.05.18)

Iran’s nuclear program and related issues:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin has discussed the impact of the U.S. withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) for Iran’s nuclear program with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Meanwhile, former U.S. secretary of state John Kerry voiced fear on Oct. 5 of conflict with Iran after the U.S. pulled out of a denuclearization deal, saying regional leaders had privately pressed him for military strikes. (TASS, AFP, 10.05.18)

Military issues, including NATO-Russia relations:

• U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said the U.S. Navy can blockade Russia if needed to keep it from controlling energy supplies in the Middle East as it does in Europe. "The U.S. has that ability, with our Navy, to make sure the sea lanes are open, and, if necessary, to blockade ... to make sure that their energy does not go to market," Zinke said. (Washington Examiner, 09.28.18)
• The Russian Embassy in London is objecting to Britain's reported plans to boost its military presence in the Arctic next year to counter what London has called increasing Russian aggression. The objections were raised after British Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson told The Sunday Telegraph that the government is preparing a "defense Arctic strategy" that would deploy 800 army and marine commandos to Norway in 2019 and establish a new military base there. (RFE/RL, 10.02.18)
• Macedonia's weekend referendum on changing its name as part of a deal to end a decades-old dispute with neighboring Greece fell short of the 50 percent turnout required to make the nonbinding vote valid.. Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman warned that Moscow was "observing closely and of course think that all the processes should remain within the framework of the law." (RFE/RL, 10.01.18)

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms control:

• Jim Mattis, U.S. Defense Secretary, said on Oct. 2 that there was “a lot of concern” within the U.S. government and Congress about the new Russian missile program that the U.S. believes is violating the INF treaty. Jens Stoltenberg, NATO secretary-general, said on Oct. 2 that NATO allies thought it a “plausible assessment” that the Russian project violated the INF treaty. On Oct. 3, Mattis again accused Russia of violating the treaty, calling the unresolved and increasingly tense dispute with Moscow "untenable." "Russia must return to compliance with the INF treaty or the U.S. will need to respond to its cavalier disregard for the treaty's specific limits," Mattis said.  (Financial Times, 10.02.18, RFE/RL, 10.04.18)
• Kay Bailey Hutchison, U.S. ambassador to NATO, said Moscow was “on notice” of possible “countermeasures” should it fail to stop development of a new cruise missile that Washington claims breaches the INF treaty. “The countermeasures would be to take out the missiles that are in development by Russia in violation of the treaty,” Hutchison said on the eve of a NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels. Hutchison said later on Twitter that she wasn't referring to a pre-emptive strike. The U.S. State Department said Hutchison was referring to U.S. work on "improving our overall defense and deterrence posture." (Financial Times, 10.02.18, Wall Street Journal, 10.03.18)
• Maria Zakharova, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, said Kay Bailey Hutchison did “not recognize the degree of [her] own responsibility and the dangers of their aggressive rhetoric.” She added: “Who gave this lady the authority to make statements like this? The American people? Are ordinary people in the U.S. aware that their taxpayer dollars are going towards their so-called diplomats behaving aggressively and destructively?” (Financial Times, 10.02.18)

Counter-terrorism:

• U.S. prosecutors said they are seeking the death penalty in the trial of Uzbek immigrant Sayfullo Saipov, accused of mowing down eight people with a truck on a New York City bike path last year. (RFE/RL, 09.29.18)

Conflict in Syria:

• Russia has delivered an S-300 surface-to-air missile system to Syria. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Reuters, 10.02.18)
  • A senior U.S. general on Oct. 4 sharply criticized Russia's deployment of the S-300 surface-to-air missile system in Syria, saying it was a needless escalation. Army Gen. Joseph Votel, who oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East, said the deployment also appeared to be an effort by Moscow to help shield "nefarious activities" by Iranian and Syrian forces in the country. (The Moscow Times, 10.05.18)
  • U.S. military and diplomatic leaders may be up in arms over Russia's decision to provide the Syrian government with S-300 surface-to-air missile systems, but U.S. forces say they are prepared to simply de-conflict airspace with Moscow to manage the issue. (Janes, 10.04.18)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Oct. 3 that the demilitarized zone in Syria's Idlib was effective and no major military actions are planned in the region. "I have every reason to believe that we will achieve our goals," Putin said, referring to the demilitarized zone set up by Russia and Turkey in Idlib. (Reuters, 10.04.18)
• Rebel groups in Syria on Oct. 2 began to withdraw their heavy weapons from a planned demilitarized zone in Idlib. (Wall Street Journal, 10.02.18)
• The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates Russian airstrikes in Syria reportedly killed 18,000 people. (DW, 10.01.18)
• The Russian air force has eliminated 85,000 terrorists in the three years' campaign in Syria, according to Viktor Bondarev, the ex-commander of Russia’s air force and chairman of the Defense and Security Committee in the Federation Council. (Interfax, 10.01.18)
• The Russian military has lost 112 personnel in the Syrian civil war over the past three years, according to Viktor Bondarev, the ex-commander of Russia’s air force and chairman of the Defense and Security Committee in the Federation Council. (RFE/RL, 10.02.18)
• More than 300 military policemen from the 19th separate motorized infantry brigade have returned to Russia’s North Caucasus region of Ingushetia from Syria, TASS reports. (Interfax, 10.02.18)

Cyber security:

• The U.S. and major Western allies on Oct. 4 forcefully condemned Russia's hacking and disinformation operations, announcing indictments and describing in striking detail Moscow's targeting of top Olympic athletes, anti-doping organizations and chemical weapons monitors. Officers operating near Red Square sought to hack the British foreign ministry, anti-doping agencies in Colorado Springs and Canada, as well as investigators examining the shooting down of a Malaysian passenger jet over Ukraine in 2014, Western officials said. The announcement was part of a growing effort by the U.K. and its Western allies to name and shame the GRU and Russia in the wake of the Novichok attack in Salisbury. (Financial Times, 10.04.18, New York Times, 10.05.18, The Washington Post, 10.04.18)
  • U.S. Justice Department officials on Oct. 4 unveiled charges against seven officers with Russia's GRU who, authorities said, were linked to the leak of athletes' drug-test data and efforts to steal information from organizations probing Russia's alleged use of chemical weapons, including the poisoning of a former spy in Britain. Three of the officers had been previously indicted in cases alleging that they conspired to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. The GRU campaign ran from December 2014 until at least May 2018, targeting U.S. individuals, corporations and international organizations based on their strategic interest to the Russian government, officials said. (The Washington Post, 10.04.18)
    • In the summer of 2016, the GRU hacked drug-test results from the World Anti-Doping Agency and leaked onto the Internet confidential information about U.S. Olympic athletes, U.S. officials said. Now, the U.S. government is seeking to punish the cyberspies. Using social media accounts and other computer sites operated by GRU Unit 74455 in Russia—one of two units implicated in July with interfering in the 2016 U.S. election—the cyberspies posed as a hacktivist group calling itself the "Fancy Bears' Hack Team." They leaked medical information and emails stolen from officials with 40 anti-doping and sporting organizations. (The Washington Post, 10.04.18)
    • Five defendants belong to GRU Unit 26165, the other team implicated in Mueller's July indictment. They are Aleksei Morenets, Evgenii Serebriakov, Ivan Yermakov, Artem Malyshev, Dmitriy Badin. Also charged on Oct. 4 were Oleg Sotnikov and Alexey Minin. They were accused of conspiracy to commit computer fraud and abuse, wire fraud and money laundering. (The Washington Post, 10.04.18)
  • The Dutch government outlined an operation in which Dutch counterintelligence forces caught the Russians red-handed as they sought to hack a chemical-weapons agency in The Hague. (The Washington Post, 10.04.18)
    • Russian officers armed with mobile computer equipment traveled to the Netherlands to tap into the headquarters of the world's chemical weapons watchdog, which was investigating the poisoning in Britain a month earlier of a Russian former spy and his daughter. Those officers were caught and expelled. They were named by Dutch authorities as Aleksei Morenets, Oleg Sotnikov, Alexey Minin and Evegenii Serebriakov. In April, Morenets, Serebriakov, Sotnikov and Minin traveled on diplomatic passports to The Hague and sought through WiFi connections to target Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons computers. But Dutch counterintelligence agents were watching, and the GRU plot unraveled when authorities caught the Russians in a rental car parked just outside the agency's building. The spies were carrying taxi receipts for the trip from GRU barracks to a Moscow airport. And one of their phones had been activated on a transmission tower near the barracks. (New York Times, 10.05.18, The Washington Post, 10.04.18)
      • Laptops belonging to the men, which were seized by the Dutch security services, allegedly showed they were involved in cyber operations in Switzerland, Malaysia and Brazil. They were each carrying $20,000 when they were arrested, authorities said. “Basically, the Russians got caught with their equipment, with people who were doing it and they have to pay the piper, they are going to have to be held to account. How we respond is a political decision by the nations involved," U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said after a meeting with his NATO counterparts, although he said there would not necessarily be a "tit-for-tat" response by the West.(The Moscow Times, 10.04.18, Financial. Times, 10.04.18)
      • Serebryakov participated in a Moscow football league as part of what was colloquially known as the “security service team,” a former teammate told The Moscow Times. (The Moscow Times, 10.04.18)
  • The British government accused the GRU of "reckless and indiscriminate cyberattacks,'' blaming it for such operations as the hacking of Olympic athletes' medical records, disruptions on the Kiev subway system and the 2016 theft of emails from the Democratic National Committee. In a statement released by British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, the U.K. listed six separate cyber attacks between July 2015 and October 2017 that it said were “almost certainly” carried out by the GRU or state-backed Russian hacking groups. The National Cyber Security Centre, part of Britain’s communications intelligence service GCHQ, released the names of 12 different aliases for the GRU’s offensive cyber operation, including well-known identities such as Fancy Bear, APT28 and Sandworm, but also less familiar ones such as Tsar Team and Black Energy Actors. (The Washington Post, 10.04.18, Financial Times, 10.04.18)
• A top Russian diplomat is warning that the U.S. is on a "dangerous path" and "deliberately inciting tensions in relations between the nuclear powers" by accusing Russian military intelligence of waging a global hacking campaign against Western institutions. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov in a statement on Oct.4 called on U.S. allies Britain, Australia, Canada and the Netherlands—all of which joined Washington in making the allegations—to reconsider, saying the allegations are a pretext for imposing new sanctions on Russia. (RFE/RL, 10.05.18)
• Russia has dismissed allegations by Britain and the Netherlands of running a global campaign of cyber attacks to undermine democracies, including a thwarted attempt to hack into the U.N. chemical weapons watchdog while it was analyzing a Russian poison used to attack a spy. Speaking at a press conference, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called the reports a "diabolical perfume cocktail" of allegations by someone with a "rich imagination." (The Moscow Times, 10.04.18)
• EU leaders will discuss how to beef up the fight against cyber security threats at a meeting later this month, following revelations of Russian espionage against the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. (Financial Times, 10.04.18)
• A court in Norway extended the detention of a Russian citizen suspected of spying at the Norwegian parliament for another two weeks on Oct. 4, despite Moscow's protests, his lawyer said. The Russian Foreign Ministry has demanded that Norway lifts "the absurd charges" and releases Mikhail Bochkaryov, whom it identified as a staff member of the Russian parliament's upper house. Bochkaryov was detained on Sept. 21 at the Oslo airport before a flight out of the country after attending a seminar on digitalization at Norway's parliament. (Reuters, 10.04.18)

Elections interference:

• U.S. Vice President Mike Pence has accused China of trying to sway the outcome of the midterm elections through propaganda and influence operations. Speaking a week after Trump accused China of election meddling, Pence said Beijing was even more aggressive than Russia in interfering in U.S. democracy.. “As a senior career member of our intelligence community recently told me, what the Russians are doing pales in comparison to what China is doing across this country.” (Financial Times, 10.04.18)
• Two prosecutors on special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation are leaving or have left the probe to return to their previous roles at the U.S. Justice Department. Kyle Freeny, a money laundering expert, will conclude her assignment with the special counsel’s office later this month. Brandon Van Grack, a national security prosecutor, left the team in late August. The departures will leave Mueller’s office with 13 attorneys. (Financial Times, 10.02.18)
• The Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation of Russian interference in U.S. politics unlikely to end this year, according to people involved with the probe who say its challenging final phase risks jeopardizing the bipartisan cooperation that has evaded other congressional panels examining related matters. (The Washington Post, 10.02.18)
• U.S. President Donald Trump’s closest congressional allies said Oct. 3 that a four-hour interview with former FBI general counsel James Baker had “fundamentally changed” their understanding of the Justice Department’s Russia investigation, confirming and furthering their previous convictions that federal law enforcement agencies were biased in their scrutiny of Trump’s campaign. (The Washington Post, 10.03.18)
• The U.S. Senate is considering proposals, aimed at penalizing Russia for alleged U.S. election interference and international aggression, that would in essence cut off Russia’s biggest banks from the dollar and deny Moscow access to foreign debt markets. (Financial Times, 10.03.18)
• Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton drew a comparison Oct. 2 between the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election, saying that in both cases, a foreign power had attacked the U.S., but that in the latter, the president had “done nothing.” (The Washington Post, 10.02.18)

Energy exports:

• Russia’s oil production rose to a post-Soviet high last month as the country completely rolled back the output cuts it had agreed on with OPEC, then pumped some more. The country produced a record 11.356 million barrels of oil and condensate a day in September, according to data released Oct. 2 by the Russian Energy Ministry’s CDU-TEK statistical unit. (Bloomberg, 10.02.18)
• Russia and Saudi Arabia have struck a deal to raise oil output from September through December to cool rising prices. Benchmark Brent crude rose to $85 a barrel this week—up 27 percent this year—as buyers of Iranian crude wound down their purchases to meet the terms of upcoming U.S. sanctions on Tehran. On Oct. 3, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at Moscow's Russian Energy Week that Russia "will be quite satisfied" with oil prices of $65-$75 a barrel. He also said that his country could raise production by up to 300,000 barrels per day to tackle possible fuel shortages and that his American counterpart’s Iran sanctions are largely to blame for current high oil prices. “President Trump considers that the price is high; he’s partly right, but let’s be honest,” Putin said at the Russian Energy Week conference in Moscow on Oct. 3. “Donald, if you want to find the culprit for the rise in prices, you need to look in the mirror.” (RFE/RL, 10.04.18, Bloomberg, 10.03.18)
• Russia expects to export a record amount of natural gas this year, despite U.S. efforts—including through sanctions threats—to convince European states to cut their reliance on Russian gas. Russian business and government officials at an energy conference in Moscow on Oct. 3 said that Russian gas exports could exceed 200 billion cubic meters this year, beating last year's all-time high of 194 billion cubic meters. (RFE/RL, 10.04.18)

Bilateral economic ties:

• No significant developments.

Other bilateral issues:

• A survey of more than 26,000 people in 25 nations released by the Pew Research Center on Oct. 1 found that only 27 percent trusted U.S. President Donald Trump to do the right thing in world affairs, compared to 30 percent who expressed confidence in Russian President Vladimir Putin and 34 percent who voiced confidence in Chinese President Xi Jinping. The poll showed that Russians’ confidence that Trump would do the right thing regarding world affairs declined from 53 percent in 2018 to 19 percent in 2018. The share of Russians who have favorable views of the U.S. declined from 41 percent in 2017 to 26 percent in 2018. Additionally, 55 percent of Russians think relations with the U.S. got worse since 2017, according to the poll. (RFE/RL, 10.02.18, The Moscow Times, 10.02.18, Russia Matters, 10.04.18)
• The U.S. could soon reduce visa processing times for Russian travelers affected by deteriorating relations between Washington and Moscow, Michael Yoder, the State Department’s minister counselor for consular affairs, was quoted as saying on Oct. 2. Yekaterinburg stands at 300 days, while the U.S. consulate in the port city of Vladivostok—more than 6,400 kilometers away from Moscow—offers a three-day wait period. (The Moscow Times, 10.02.18)
• "Problems with NASA, of course, have appeared, but not through the fault of NASA, but through the fault of those American circles that surround NASA, which dictate certain conditions to them," Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin said in an interview on Oct. 1. The head of Russia’s space agency has also accused tech billionaire Elon Musk of trying to squeeze Moscow out of the carrier rockets market by lowballing prices for commercial space flights. (The Moscow Times, 10.02.18, RFE/RL, 10.02.18)
• A Russian space capsule landed safely on the steppes of Kazakhstan, returning to Earth two Americans and a Russian after a six-month mission in orbit. The Soyuz MS-08 capsule touched down late on Oct. 4, local time. (RFE/RL, 10.04.18)
  • The head of Russia's space agency has suggested that the tiny hole discovered in the International Space Station was made deliberately, citing an expert commission investigating the issue. (RFE/RL, 10.02.18)
• On Oct. 9, 2016, a 64-year-old master spy and known scourge of the Kremlin ambled into a Walmart in Florida and acquired a recreational fishing license. For the right to fish along the saltwater shoreline, Alexander Poteyev disclosed his real name and date of birth, as well as a phone number, email and mailing address — an odd choice, because Poteyev was hiding from Russian assassins. (BuzzFeed, 10.03.18)

II. Russia’s domestic news

Politics, economy and energy:

• A plan by Andrei Kostin, the head of Russian bank VTB, for banks and companies to convert dollar settlements into other currencies, has the backing of the finance ministry, central bank and—Kostin said this week—Russian President Vladimir Putin. In addition, the Kremlin has sought to strike deals with major trading partners to use the Russian ruble for imports and exports. Increased trade with China and other Asian partners in recent years has helped reduce the overall contribution of the dollar to its currency settlements, but the dollar still accounted for 68 percent of inflow settlements last year and then for 53 percent in March of this year. (Financial Times, 10.03.18)
  • "It seems to me that our American partners are making an enormous strategic mistake, they are undermining confidence in the dollar as a universal, and in fact the sole reserve currency today, subverting faith in it as a universal tool. They are indeed sawing off the branch they are sitting on. So, this is strange and even surprising," Russian President Vladimir Putin said, speaking at Russian Energy Week. (TASS, 10.03.18)
  • “The government has no plans to give up dollar settlements, ban the circulation of the dollar or impose any other restrictions,” according to a statement from the cabinet’s press service published on official news agencies Oct. 3. But the authorities are working on “the issue of reducing our economy’s dependence on the American currency, including through the creation of stimuli and mechanisms to shift foreign-trade settlements to national currencies.” (Bloomberg, 10.03.18)
• Russia completed loading fuel into the two reactors of its first floating nuclear power plant, Akademik Lomonosov. Rosenergoatom, the operator subsidiary of state nuclear corporation Rosatom, announced the milestone today, saying this is the final key stage before the physical start-up of the plant. (World Nuclear News, 10.03.18)
• Unit four of the Rostov nuclear power plant in Russia has entered commercial operation three months ahead of schedule, Rosatom has announced. (World Nuclear News, 10.01.18)
• Trust in the Russian presidency has dropped to pre-Crimean annexation levels amid rising anger over a new law that raises the population’s retirement age, according to a recent survey. Trust in the Russian presidency has dropped to 58 percent, down 17 points from last year’s rating, according to the results of a survey published Oct. 4 by the independent Levada Center pollster. The president’s rating dropped to levels last seen in a survey conducted by Levada in 2013. (The Moscow Times, 10.04.18)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law a controversial bill on Oct. 3 to raise the retirement age despite nationwide protests and declining polling numbers.  (The Moscow Times, 10.03.18)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin has replaced St. Petersburg Governor Georgy Poltavchenko amid simmering public anger against the ruling party a year ahead of regional elections. Poltavchenko’s resignation after seven years in office continues a week of reshuffles that has seen Putin oust several other regional heads up for re-election in 2019. Putin named presidential envoy to the Northwest Federal District Alexander Beglov to take the reigns as acting governor of St. Petersburg on Oct. 3, the Kremlin announced. Two more governors have quit a week after Russian President Vladimir Putin replaced three regional chiefs facing tough re-election prospects amid unpopular plans to raise the retirement age. The Lipetsk region’s 20-year incumbent Oleg Korolyov and the Kurgan region’s Alexei Kokorin quit. (The Moscow Times, 10.04.18, The Moscow Times, 10.02.18)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin has submitted draft legislation to partially decriminalize a contentious article in the Criminal Code that law enforcement authorities have used to prosecute hundreds of internet users. Article 282 of the Criminal Code has in recent years become a catch-all to target users who post memes and other insensitive online content on grounds that they incite racial, religious or other forms of hate. (The Moscow Times, 10.03.18)
• Thousands of people have demonstrated in Russia's North Caucasus region of Ingushetia to protest against a controversial deal establishing the administrative boundary with Chechnya. (RFE/RL, 10.04.18)
• A gulag historian in northwestern Russia has been reportedly detained on suspicion of pedophilia. The Karelia Investigative Committee announced Oct. 2 that it had apprehended two unidentified men it suspects of committing acts of pedophilia in September. The sentence carries a maximum prison term of 15 years. Local media reported Oct. 3 that the head of a regional museum, Sergei Koltyrin, and his acquaintance Yevgeny Nosov were placed in pre-trial detention until Nov. 27. (The Moscow Times, 10.04.18)
• A top Russian official accused of directing Natalya Veselnitskaya, the lawyer who met with senior Trump campaign officials in Trump Tower in 2016, has died in a helicopter crash. Russian media reported on Oct. 4 that Russian Deputy Attorney General Saak Karapetyan died when his helicopter crashed into a forest on Oct. 3. (RFE/RL, 10.05.18)
• Nearly half of Russian youth say they have never heard of Stalin-era purges, according to a new state-sponsored survey by the VTsIOM pollster. (The Moscow Times, 10.05.18)

Defense and aerospace:

• In his article for SIPRI, Professor Julian Cooper estimated total spending directly associated with Rosatom’s development and production of Russian nuclear munitions: 60.7 billion rubles ($1.8 billion) in 2010 and 140 billion rubles ($2.5 billion) in 2016. In 2010 total estimated spending on nuclear weapons was 194 billion rubles ($5.6 billion), equivalent to 15.3 percent of total spending on “national defense,” compared with 521 billion rubles ($9.3 billion) or 17.2 percent of “national defense” spending in 2016. (SIPRI, 10.01.18)
• The Russian Defense Ministry told journalists that it conducted three missile tests at the Plesetsk test site since December 2017—two ejection tests of Sarmat and one full test of RS-24 Yars. This is the first official confirmation of the Yars test that apparently took place in June 2018. (Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces Blog, 10.04.18)
• Flight tests of the Sarmat missile will reportedly begin "in the beginning of 2019." This follows a series of ejection tests that took place in Plesetsk in December 2017, March 2018 and May 2018. (Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces Blog, 10.03.18)
• The head of Russia’s Radio-electronic Technologies Concern (KRET), has said Russia’s sixth-generation fighter jet will control dozens of electromagnetic weapon-equipped drones capable of jamming enemy equipment. (The Moscow Times, 10.01.18)
• Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry has announced the start of three-day civil defense drills across the country to test the population’s readiness in the case of external aggression. (The Moscow Times, 10.01.18)

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• A man has been sentenced to 15 years in a maximum-security prison on terrorism charges for planning to live-stream a suicide bombing directed against a Russian military unit. Murodbek Kodirov was detained in August 2017 on suspicion of plotting an attack in a crowded place on Sept. 1, the first day of the school year. (The Moscow Times, 10.01.18)

III. Foreign affairs, trade and investment

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

• India agreed a deal with Russia to buy S-400 surface to air missile systems on Oct. 5, the Kremlin said, as New Delhi disregarded U.S. warnings that such a purchase could trigger sanctions under U.S. law. Although there was no public signing, the deal was sealed during Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to New Delhi for an annual summit. (The Moscow Times, 10.05.18)
• Russia has to postpone the delivery of Sukhoi Su-35 multirole fighter jets to Indonesia due to complications caused by U.S. sanctions, Kommersant reported on Oct. 4, citing two top managers from Russian defense industry enterprises and a source close to the government. (Defense Post, 10.04.18)
• A photograph on display at a Russian military academy is adding to the growing evidence identifying a Russian military intelligence officer who was allegedly involved in the poisoning of a former double agent in England. The photo builds on other recent reports that have used data from passport registries, online photographs and military records to focus on a Russian man identified by British authorities as Ruslan Boshirov. Research pinpointed Boshirov's alleged true identity as Anatoly Chepiga, who graduated from the Far Eastern Military Academy and received a medal—the Hero of the Russia Federation—in 2014, and holds the rank of colonel in the GRU. (RFE/RL, 10.02.18)
• Ukraine's interior minister said on Oct. 2 a suspect in the Skripal poisoning case, working for Russian military intelligence, had been identified in Ukraine as a man who helped former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich flee to Russia in 2014, but did not identify which of the two suspects it was. A lawyer for Yanukovich has previously denied that the Skripal suspect had helped Yanukovich. (Reuters, 10.03.18)
• A Russian investigative journalist says he has left the country fearing possible prosecution for his work. Sergei Kanev, who took part in a Bellingcat probe into the identity of the two main suspects accused by Britain in the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, said he was on "vacation" in one of the Baltic states. (RFE/RL, 09.29.18)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Oct. 3 that Sergei Skripal, a Russian former double agent poisoned in Britain, was a scumbag who betrayed Russia. (Reuters, 10.03.18)
• Sergei Skripal, the former Russian spy targeted in a nerve agent attack this spring, fed Britain's Secret Intelligence Service information about a 1990s-era corruption scheme that reached all the way up to Nikolai Patrushev, a top Russian intelligence chief and close ally of Vladimir Putin, a new book by Mark Urban, the BBC's diplomatic and defense editor, contends. (New York Times, 10.01.18)
• A naval officer who worked in Russia's military intelligence service alongside Sergei Skripal, who like him had been caught passing information to Western security services, was found dead in 2004, apparently strangled, in a military hospital after an interrogation by Russian intelligence agents, Skripal told Mark Urban, the BBC's diplomatic and defense editor. The official explanation was suicide, but several of his fingers had been cut off, in a grisly and unmistakable message. (New York Times, 10.01.18)
• Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has thanked his Russian counterpart for protecting Serbia's national interests, as the two leaders met for the second time in Moscow this year. (RFE/RL, 10.02.18)

China:

• A recent survey by Pew shows that 73 percent of Russians think China is playing a more important role today than in the past (the poll’s 25-country median is 70 percent), 16 percent of Russians think the U.S. is playing a more important role today than in the past (the median is 31 percent) and 72 percent of Russians think Russia is playing a more important role today than in the past (the median is 41 percent), according to the recent Pew poll. Additionally, 35 percent of Russians would prefer China as the world’s leader (the poll’s 25-country median is 19 percent) while 13 percent would prefer the U.S. (the median is 63 percent), according to the poll. While 65 percent of Russians have a favorable view of China (the poll’s 25-country median is 45 percent), 21 percent have an unfavorable view (the median is 43 percent), according to the poll. (Russia Matters. 10.04.18)
• After completion of the Vostok-2018 wargames, Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe highlighted the importance of Sino-Russian cooperation at the operational and strategic level, while Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that they had agreed to hold exercises regularly in the future. In a subsequent interview, Shoigu referred to the Chinese participants as allies. (Russian Military Analysis Blog, 09.28.18)

Ukraine:

• At least 23 children were injured or killed in the military conflict zone in Donbass in 2018, the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission has said. As reported, on Sept. 30, four teenagers tripped a mine in Horlivka, which is located on a part of the Donetsk region not under the control of the Ukrainian government; three of them died, another boy was hospitalized in serious condition. (Interfax, 10.01.18)
• Units of the Ukrainian armed forces have seized 10 more square kilometers in the “grey zone” along the contact line in Donbass, according to the Obozrevatel media outlet. (TASS, 10.02.18)
• Russia's Penitentiary System says Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov, who was jailed in Russia on terrorism charges, has stopped his nearly five-month hunger strike, but the information has not been either confirmed or denied by Sentsov or his lawyers. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has earlier demanded access to Sentsov. (RFE/RL, 10.05.18, 09.29.18)
• Russia hopes meetings between Kremlin aide Vladislav Surkov and U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker will be resumed, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said. (TASS, 10.02.18)
• Ukraine has declared a Hungarian consul persona non grata and demanded he leave the country within 72 hours. The move comes after Kiev accused Hungary's Consulate in Berehove of illegally issuing passports to ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine.  (RFE/RL, 10.04.18)
• Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has presented Francois Hollande with one of Ukraine's highest awards in Kiev, praising the former French leader's support in the face of Russia's "aggression." (RFE/RL, 10.01.18)
• Ukrainian anticorruption investigators have launched a probe into alleged illegal enrichment by a top intelligence official whose family reportedly owns three villas worth millions of dollars. National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine Director Artem Sytnyk said on Oct. 3 that the agency opened a case against Serhiy Semochko, a deputy head of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine, after an investigative report aired on television that sparked public outrage. (RFE/RL, 10.04.18)
•  The U.S. Senate has adopted a resolution recognizing that Soviet dictator Josef Stalin committed genocide against the Ukrainian people in the early 1930s, when millions died in a horrific famine known as the Holodomor. (RFE/RL, 10.05.18)
• The Russian Orthodox Church is threatening to sever ties with the leader of the worldwide Orthodox community if he grants autonomy to Ukraine’s Orthodox Church. The move comes amid a deepening row in Orthodox Christianity over the Ukrainian Church's bid to formally break away from Russia's orbit. (RFE/RL, 09.28.18)

Russia’s other post-Soviet neighbors:

• Georgia will one day join the alliance, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said, 10 years after the Western military organization first promised the South Caucasus country it would become a member. "NATO's door remains open," Stoltenberg said in Brussels on Oct. 3 after chairing a meeting between Georgian and NATO defense ministers. (RFE/RL, 10.03.18)
• Russia's Defense Ministry said Oct. 4 that the U.S. appeared to be running a clandestine biological weapons lab in the country of Georgia, allegedly flouting international conventions and posing a direct security threat to Russia—allegations the Pentagon angrily rejected. (AP, 10.04.18)
• A lawyer for Vano Merabishvili, Georgia's jailed former prime minister and interior minister, says he has been transferred from prison to a civilian clinic due to health problems. (RFE/RL, 10.02.18)
• Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian vowed late on Oct. 2 to tender his resignation in an effort to force early parliamentary elections before the end of the year. Rallying tens of thousands of supporters in Yerevan, he also announced the firing of six government ministers representing the Prosperous Armenia (BHK) and Dashnaktsutyun parties, who he accused of hampering his drive for early elections. (RFE/RL, 10.02.18)
• Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and French President Emmanuel Macron have led a memorial service for Charles Aznavour in the famed Armenian-French singer-songwriter's native Paris. (RFE/RL, 10.05.18)
• Dozens of ethnic Kazakhs originally from China appealed to Germany's chancellor for help in seeking the release of relatives from so-called "reeducation camps" in northwestern China. The Kazakh repatriates traveled to the German consulate in Almaty on Oct. 4 to hand over their petition addressed to Chancellor Angela Merkel. (RFE/RL, 10.04.18)
• Uzbekistan's Prosecutor-General's Office has denied a report that Gulnara Karimova, the imprisoned daughter of deceased former President Islam Karimov, had been freed from state custody and had checked into a luxury hotel in Dubai. (RFE/RL, 10.03.18)
• The International Olympic Committee is threatening to drop boxing from the Olympics over "extreme concern" that Uzbek businessman Gafur Rakhimov, accused of having ties to organized crime, is running unopposed to become president of the amateur boxing association. (RFE/RL, 10.04.18)
• Kyrgyzstan's Supreme Court has ruled that the immunity enjoyed by the country's former presidents is unconstitutional. (RFE/RL, 10.04.18)
• Moldova's parliament has overridden a veto by President Igor Dodon, passing legislation that will transfer the site of a former stadium in Chisinau to the U.S. for its new embassy. (RFE/RL, 10.04.18)
• The European Parliament has overwhelmingly passed a resolution condemning the repeated detention and state harassment of journalists and independent news outlets in Belarus. (RFE/RL, 10.04.18)
• The chief of Belarus's secret police says Ukrainian citizen Pavlo Sharoyko, who was sentenced to eight years in prison on espionage charges in May, could soon be pardoned. (RFE/RL, 10.05.18)
• Azerbaijan's ambassador to the U.S. said in an interview that he was impressed with U.S. President Donald Trump's approach to U.S. relations with Russia. "I think we have found a way to build a neighborly relationship [with Russia] with mutual respect. I think one thing that President Putin and Russian society as a whole needs and craves is respect," Elin Suleymanov said on Oct. 3. (The Hill, 10.05.18)

IV. Quoteworthy

• “There’s not much point in naming and shaming someone who doesn’t feel shame,” said Keir Giles, an expert in cyber and information warfare at the think-tank Chatham House after British, Dutch and U.S. governments took the unprecedented step of shattering the code of silence that traditionally characterizes the world of intelligence, publishing painstaking details of cyber attacks and covert international operations carried out by the GRU. (Financial Times, 10.05.18)