This Week’s Highlights

• Biden warned on April 28 that ''No one should be making idle comments about the use of nuclear weapons or the possibility that they could use that.” ''It's irresponsible,” Biden said one day after Putin asserted that “if someone decide to intervene in the ongoing events [in Ukraine] from the outside and create strategic threats to Russia that are unacceptable to us ... our retaliatory-offensive strikes will be lightning fast.”
• Shortly after Austin said the U.S. believes Kyiv can win the war with the "right equipment,” Biden sent Congress a $33 billion request to fund more weapons and provide other assistance to Kyiv. JCS’ Miley warned that "time is not on Ukraine's side," as Russian forces aimed at cutting off Ukrainian troops in the eastern cites of Slovyansk, Kramatorsk, Severodonetsk and Lysychansk. Moscow now has 92 battalion groups fighting in eastern and southern Ukraine—up from 85 a week ago, but below the 125 it had in the first phase, a Pentagon official told NYT.
• Putin has lost interest in diplomatic efforts to end his war and instead appears set on seizing as much Ukrainian territory as possible, people briefed on conversations with the Russian president told FT. Meanwhile Putin’s top aide Patrushev foresees the “disintegration of Ukraine into several states” as the Kremlin reportedly plans referenda that would make the  Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic part of Russia while also establishing a Kherson People’s Republic on May 14-15.
• Finland’s Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air estimates that Russia nearly doubled its revenues from sales of fossil fuels to the EU during the two months of war in Ukraine, according to RFE/RL.
• Russia’s finance ministry estimates that the country’s oil output will decline 17% this year to a level that would be the lowest since 2004. Meanwhile, Russia’s exports of fertilizers, iron ore and grain already fell by 35%, 30% and 14%, respectively, in March compared to February.
• The Bank of Russia prepares to slash the interest rate from 17% to 14% as the ruble rises against the euro to the highest level in more than two years, AFP and Reuters reported.

 

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

Nuclear security and safety:

• An IAEA team led by Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi was at Chernobyl April 26 to deliver equipment requested by Ukraine, check radiation levels and restore safeguards and monitoring systems at the site. (WNN, 04.26.22) 
• Grossi says the IAEA needs access to Europe's largest nuclear power plant, Ukraine’s Zaporozhe plant, for safety inspections and to help carry out necessary repairs. The plant is being operated by Ukrainian staff, but under the control of Russian military forces. It has switched to producing electricity for its own use after damage to external power lines. (WNN, 04.28.22, WNN, 04.27.22)

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• "Today, the DPRK-Russia relations, even in the face of challenges and pressure of the U.S. and its vassal forces, continue to develop and strengthen ... and are contributing to ensuring peace and security in the region and to establishing the international order based on independence and justice," the North's foreign ministry said. (Korea Times, 04.24.22)

Iran and its nuclear program:

• Negotiations to restore the Iran nuclear deal have reached a complete standstill. Despite having a roughly 27-page agreement virtually ready to go, diplomats are still hung up over one final sticking point between the U.S. and Iran: The status of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. (Politco, 04.28.22)

Humanitarian impact of the Ukraine conflict:

• Mayor of Bucha Anatoly Fedoruk said the Russians divided the city into several zones and worked through a list of some 40 names of local politicians and state officials who lived in each zone, detaining and killing those they found. (WSJ, 04.23.22)
• Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, said she was examining more than 8,000 reported atrocities, including summary executions, sexual violence and the forced deportation of children to Russia. (NYT, 04.23.22)
• New satellite images show a mass grave in the Russian-occupied village of Manhush west of Mariupol. (WP, 04.24.22)
• Ukrainian Finance Minister Sergii Marchenko said that the country is asking the Biden administration to provide at least $2 billion per month in emergency economic aid. (WP, 04.25.22)
• While in Moscow, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that he is concerned about reports of possible war crimes in Ukraine and that independent investigations are needed. Guterres then on April 28 visited sites of alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine, decrying war as "an absurdity in the 21st century" and urging Russia to cooperate with an international investigation into atrocities. While he was in the Ukrainian capital on Thursday night, Mr. Guterres said that two missiles hit the city. (RFE/RL, 04.26.22, RFE/RL, 04.26.22, MT/AFP, 04.28.22, WSJ, 04.29.22)
• Michael Carpenter, U.S. ambassador to the OSCE, says there is credible evidence that Russian forces have been rounding up people in areas of Ukraine’s south and east and detaining them in “filtration camps.” (RFE/RL, 04.28.22)
• Ukraine is investigating at least 10 Russian soldiers of the to 64th Motor Rifle Brigade accused of committing war crimes against civilians while occupying Bucha last month, the country’s prosecutor general said. (MT/AFP, 04.28.22)
• Gallup’s new poll has found that 78% of adults in the United States approve of allowing up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees into the country. (NYT, 04.26.22)

• About two hundred Ukrainians were turned back at the U.S. border in Mexico this week, after U.S. authorities closed a border checkpoint near San Diego. (WSJ, 04.28.22)
• Nearly 5.4 million Ukrainians have fled their country since the invasion, according to the United Nations, and more than 12 million others are displaced internally. (MT/AFP, 04.29.22)
• RFE/RL journalist Vira Hyrych has died in Kyiv after a Russian missile strike hit the residential building where she lived. More than 100 civilians have been killed by Russian attacks on the capital since the start of the invasion, including four children, the Kyiv mayor said. (RFE/RL, 04.29.22, WSJ, 04.29.22)
• In the first two weeks of April, about 400 cases of sexual violence by Russian soldiers were reported to Ukraine’s ombudswoman Lyudmyla Denisova. (NYT, 04.29.22)
• The mayor of the city of Mariupol made a desperate appeal to the international community April 29 to save those still trapped at the steel plant that has become the last holdout for Ukrainian fighters and civilians. (NYT, 04.29.22)

Military aspects of the Ukraine conflict and their impacts:

• The Russian Defense Ministry said that one crew member died and 27 are missing due to a fire on the Moskva missile cruiser. (RFE/RL, 04.22.22)
• The Ukrainian military intelligence agency warned on April 23 that Russia was completing efforts to regroup in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region. Some of the elite Russian fighters who had been engaged in the battle for the southern city of Mariupol are now being dispatched to the Donbas region. (NYT, 04.23.22)
• Canada on April 22 announced it had delivered heavy artillery, including M777 howitzers and anti-armor ammunition, to Ukrainian forces. (NYT, 04.23.22)
• According to a senior U.S. defense official, the first group of more than 50 Ukrainian artillery soldiers on April 24 completed their training on 155-millimeter howitzers provided by the United States. (NYT, 04.25.22)
• The United States believes Kyiv can win the war against Russia if it has the "right equipment," Austin said April 25. (RFE/RL, 04.25.22)             
• Ukraine’s defense minister said Western arms deliveries would include 155mm caliber, long-range weapons, tanks, armored vehicles and aircraft. The new equipment would enable Ukraine to strike targets at far greater distances than 20km. (FT, 04.25.22)
• During the 60 days of the war with Ukraine, the Russian army lost at least 317 officers on the battlefield, a third of them senior officers in the rank of major or higher, according to a study of over 1,700 publications on Russian casualties in Ukraine by Media Zona. (RM, 04.25.22)
• Western countries will “keep moving heaven and earth” to supply Ukraine with weapons to defend itself against Russia’s invasion, Austin told a group of defense ministers from over 40 countries. (FT, 04.26.22)
• Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, offered a stark picture of the next phase of the war in his remarks to a gathering of military leaders from 40 NATO and non-NATO countries: Russian attempts to take full control of southeastern and southern Ukraine. "Time is not on Ukraine's side," Milley said. (WP, 04.26.22)
• Germany has agreed to allow the export of heavy weaponry to Ukraine for the first time.  (FT, 04.26.22)
  • Berlin is planning to supply upgraded 4×4 vehicles, armored trucks, tactical buses, and nearly 100 HX81 heavy tractor-trailer systems to Ukraine. (Defence Blog, 04.24.22)
  • Germany wanted Brazil’s help to enable the delivery of anti-aircraft Gepard tanks for Kyiv, Brazilian daily Folha de Sao Paulo reported. A Brazilian diplomat who spoke to Folha de Sao Paulo said, however, that it was "highly unlikely" that the Bolsonaro government would make such a deal with Germany, given its "neutral stance" on the Russia-Ukraine conflict. (BBC, 04.28.22)
• Large fires tore through oil depots on April 25 in Bryansk, a Russian city less than 100 miles from the Ukrainian border that is a key logistical hub in Russia's war effort. The fires took place on the same day that Russian forces targeted critical infrastructure across Ukraine. (NYT, 04.26.22)
• One Western official said Russian forces were making “minor gains” but finding it difficult to overcome Ukrainian resistance. “There is heavy rain. The Russians don’t like to fight in the rain,” an official said. (FT, 04.27.22)
• At least 15,000 Russian troops have been killed since the start of the invasion in February, Western officials estimated. Vadym Omelchenko, Ukraine’s ambassador to France, estimated that 22,000 Russian soldiers had been killed in the invasion, while 4,000 Ukrainian soldiers had also died. His claims cannot be verified. (FT, 04.27.22)

• The CIA is devoting significant resources, current and former officials say, to gathering intelligence with the aim of protecting Zelensky. (NBC News, 04.27.22)
• As Russia launched its invasion, the U.S. gave Ukrainian forces detailed intelligence about exactly when and where Russian missiles and bombs were intended to strike, prompting Ukraine to move air defenses and aircraft out of harm’s way, current and former U.S. officials said. That intelligence-sharing also paved the way for Ukraine to shoot down a Russian transport plane carrying hundreds of troops in the early days of the war, helping repel a Russian assault on an airport near Kyiv. (NBC News, 04.27.22)
• Russia's Defense Ministry said April 27 that its forces had launched Kalibr missiles at the city of Zaporizhzhia, where they destroyed hangars containing a "large batch of foreign weapons and ammunition supplied by the United States and European countries." (WSJ, 04.27.22)
• The Russian advances south of Izyum appear aimed at cutting off Ukrainian troops in the cities of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk. Another Russian advance farther east, toward the city of Lyman, is attempting to encircle the cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk. Analysts said it was as yet unclear whether Russia would seek a large encirclement of Ukrainian troops or smaller pockets. (WSJ, 04.28.22)
• Moscow now has 92 battalion groups fighting in eastern and southern Ukraine—up from 85 a week ago, but still well below the 125 it had in the first phase of the war, the official said. (NYT, 04.28.22)
• The Australian government is providing six M777 155mm lightweight, towed howitzers and 155mm howitzer ammunition to support Ukraine. This is in addition to the gifting of 20 Bushmaster protected mobility vehicles. (Defence Blog, 04.28.22)
• The Pentagon said April 27 that more than half of the 90 howitzers it recently pledged to Ukraine had been delivered. (WSJ, 04.28.22)
• Biden sent Congress a $33 billion request to fund more weapons and provide longer-term economic assistance for Kyiv. (WSJ, 04.29.22)  
  • The proposal includes:
    • $20 billion for security and military assistance, including $11.4 billion to fund equipment and replenish stocks already provided to Ukraine;
    • $2.6 billion to support the deployment of American troops and equipment to the region to safeguard NATO allies;
    • $1.9 billion for cybersecurity and intelligence support;
    • $8.5 billion in economic assistance for the government in Kyiv; 
    • $3 billion for humanitarian assistance and food security funding for Ukraine. (NYT, 04.28.22)
      • The newest U.S. spending pledge is eight times more than the U.S. has spent on Ukraine so far, five times more than the entire Ukrainian defense budget of $6 billion a year, and half of Russia’s budget of $65 billion. (Ben Aris of BNE, 04.29.22)
• The U.S. House of Representatives on April 28 approved legislation to create a lend-lease agreement designed to speed up the transfer of military equipment to Ukraine. (WSJ, 04.29.22)
• "The tendency to pump weapons, including heavy weapons into Ukraine, these are the actions that threaten the security of the continent, provoke instability," Peskov told reporters. Peskov’s words were echoed by Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, who claimed the arms shipments could end up in the hands of terrorists. (MT/AFP, 04.28.22)
• Russia has lost its first soldier on home soil since the start of the country’s war with Ukraine. Conscript Nikita Koshelev, 19, died in the Belgorod region. (MT/AFP, 04.28.22)
• Poland has provided more than 200 T-72 tanks to Ukraine in recent weeks. (Defence Blog, 04.29.22)
• Scott Sibley, identified as a 36-year-old military veteran, is believed to be the first Briton to die fighting in the conflict. Separately, CNN reported on the death of former U.S. Marine and private military contractor, Willy Joseph Cancel, at age 22. (MT/AFP, 04.29.22)
• Shootings erupted in Russia’s Kursk and Belgorod regions, which border Ukraine, Russian regional authorities said. Ukrainian leaders have neither confirmed nor denied the shelling and strikes on Russian infrastructure, military targets and villages. (MT/AFP, 04.29.22)
• Russia's Defense Ministry said April 28 that its forces shot down a Ukrainian Su-24 aircraft in eastern Ukraine and that Russia's air force struck 67 Ukrainian military facilities over the previous 24 hours. (WSJ, 04.29.22)
• Zelensky said in an interview with Time magazine that Russia targeted his compound in the early hours of the invasion of Ukraine and he refused offers from U.S. and British forces to get him and his team out of the country. (WP, 04.29.22)
• Russia is running short of precision missiles in its war against Ukraine and its arms factories lack the ability to produce enough to keep up with demand, western officials have said. (FT, 04.29.22)

Punitive measures related to Ukraine and their impact globally:

• Alina Kabaeva, the woman the U.S. government believes to be Putin's girlfriend and the mother of at least three of his children, has been spared from U.S. sanctions. The belief among U.S. officials debating the move is that sanctioning Kabaeva would be deemed so personal a blow to Putin that it could further escalate tensions. (WSJ, 04.24.22)
• A Dutch court has declared the Russian-owned Amsterdam Trade Bank bankrupt after it was caught up in sanctions related to Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. One of the bank’s largest owners is Mikhail Fridman. (RFE/RL, 04.22.22)
• Russian energy ministry coal official Petr Bobylev told the Duma that there has been a 20% decrease in coal exports year-on-year in recent months. (FP, 04.22.22)
• Bank of America closed the accounts of the Russian consulates general in Houston and New York, Anatoly Antonov, Russian ambassador to Washington, said. (Meduza, 04.24.22)
• Russian social media platform Vkontakte (VK) and tech giant Yandex have both reported difficulties sourcing new equipment, particularly computer servers. Yandex will sell its digital news and blogging products to VK. (MT/AFP, 04.28.22, MT/AFP, 04.25.22)
• Russia says it is expelling 40 German diplomats in retaliation for similar steps taken by Berlin against Moscow's foreign envoys. (RFE/RL, 04.25.22)   
• A court in Moscow has frozen the bank accounts of Google's Russian arm as a guarantee against a possible court decision regarding a lawsuit filed by Gazprom-Media's subsidiary company, which is suing Google for its refusal to restore access to its YouTube channel. (RFE/RL, 04.26.22)                            
• A court in Moscow has fined Meta and TikTok for failing to delete content the government deems illegal. (RFE/RL, 04.26.22) 
• Kazakhstan's industry minister sees no obstacles for Russia’s Ural Motorcycles to move its business to Kazakhstan after international sanctions hampered operations. (RFE/RL, 04.26.22) 
• According to analysts at S&P Global Market Intelligence, it will take the Russian economy 10 years to recover to the level of 2021. (Meduza, 04.26.22)
• Month-to-month fertilizer shipments by Russia saw the biggest decline with a drop of 35%, according to data from the Association of Russian Seaports. Fertilizer exports fell to 1.1 million tons in March, compared with 1.7 million tons in February 2022. Iron ore exports also plummeted by 30% to 700,000 tons, while shipments of ferrous products fell 27% to 1.9 million tons. Grain shipments tumbled to 2.4 million tons, a 14% decrease from February. (MT/AFP, 04.26.22)
• Britain announced it would prevent the export of "products and technology that Russia could use to repress the heroic people of Ukraine," including possibly surveillance and interception equipment. (MT/AFP, 04.26.22)
• Russian Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov said French automaker Renault intends to transfer its 68% stake in AvtoVAZ to the Russian side with the option of buying it back within five to six years. (Meduza, 04.26.22)
• Finland's National Enforcement Authority has confiscated the holdings of the Russian-Finnish oligarch Gennady Timchenko in the former Hartwall Arena. The value of his stake in the holding company was roughly 10 million euros. (YLE News, 04.27.22)
• Moscow says it is expelling several Japanese and Norwegian diplomats and placing sanctions on 287 British lawmakers in retaliation for similar steps against Russians over the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine. (RFE/RL, 04.27.22)
• The Netherlands said it has stopped issuing visas to Russian nationals from April 27. Russia last week expelled 14 Dutch embassy employees from Moscow and one Dutch consulate employee from St. Petersburg. (MT/AFP, 04.27.22)
• Russia's decision to cut off gas exports to Poland and Bulgaria is an "instrument of blackmail," the EU says. But the Kremlin said Russia had been forced into the action by the "unfriendly steps" of Western nations. (BBC, 04.28.22)
  • Bulgaria refused to sign new terms to pay for Russian gas because it assessed it was at risk of losing control over payments and breaching its contract obligations, Bulgaria’s energy minister said. (FT, 04.29.22)
• Boeing took a $1.2 billion hit in the first quarter because of the war in Ukraine. (FT, 04.27.22)
• BASF has pledged to wind down its remaining businesses in Russia and Belarus by the start of July. (FT, 04.27.22)
• Mercedes's decision to suspend business with Russia resulted in expenses of $754 million. (WSJ, 04.27.22)
• From May 15, Trafigura, one of the world’s biggest energy traders, will cease all crude oil purchases from Russian state oil company Rosneft to avoid falling foul of EU sanctions. (FT, 04.26.22)
• French authorities say they have impounded a villa in the city of Biarritz belonging to Kirill Shamalov, the former husband of Katerina Tikhonova, a daughter of Putin. French authorities have also impounded two other villas belonging to Russian billionaires Oleg Deripaska and Musa Bazhayev. (RFE/RL, 04.28.22)
• According to Rosstat, Russian households spent 17.1 trillion rubles ($231 billion) while only earning 15.82 trillion rubles ($213 billion) in January-March this year. The 1.3 trillion ruble difference—an average of 14 billion rubles ($188 million) a day—amounts to a 1.2% drop in annual terms. (MT/AFP, 04.28.22)
• McDonald’s said on April 28 that its 2022 results would include $127million of pre-tax operating expenses to support its businesses in Ukraine and Russia, including the continuation of employee salaries and the cost of unused inventory. (FT, 04.28.22)
• On April 27, German representatives to EU institutions lifted the country's objection to a full Russian oil embargo provided Berlin was given sufficient time to secure alternative supplies, two officials said. (WSJ, 04.28.22)
  • As it is, Germany’s imports of Russian oil have dropped from 35%to 12%of total consumption. (FT, 04.29.22)
• Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told reporters April 27 that Russian oil output could decline 17% this year. Siluanov’s projection means Russia looks set to produce an average of 9.13 million barrels per day this year, the lowest since 2004. (MT/AFP, 04.28.22)
• Russia’s central bank said that Western sanctions will inflict significant economic damage this year, and forecast a decline in the country's GDP of between 8% and 10%. (WSJ, 04.29.22)
• Norway will close its borders and ports to Russian trucks and ships, joining sanctions imposed by the European Union over Moscow's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. (RFE/RL, 04.29.22)

Ukraine-related negotiations:

• Putin has lost interest in diplomatic efforts to end his war with Ukraine and instead appears set on seizing as much Ukrainian territory as possible, according to three people briefed on conversations with the Russian president. (FT, 04.24.22)
• Putin told visiting U.N. chief Guterres that Russia is hoping for “some sort of positive result” from peace talks with Ukraine. Putin said initial progress on the talks had faltered and blamed Ukraine for changing its position. (FT, 04.27.22)
• "We are extremely interested in finding ways in order to create the conditions for effective dialogue, create the conditions for a cease-fire as soon as possible, create the conditions for a peaceful solution," Guterres said as he began a meeting with Lavrov in Moscow on April 26. (RFE/RL, 04.26.22, RFE/RL, 04.26.22)

Great Power rivalry/new Cold War/NATO-Russia relations:

• “I know what you're doing," Austin told Shoigu on Feb. 18 as Shoigu tried to convince Austin, who was visiting Poland at the time, that the buildup of Russian forces to the north and east of Ukraine was only for routine military exercises. (WP, 04.23.22)
• Blinken and Austin met Zelensky in Kyiv on April 24. “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine,” Austin said. Blinken said: “In terms of Russia’s war aims, Russia has already failed and Ukraine has already succeeded.” (Reuters, 04.25.22)
  • U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland told Meduza that America’s goal vis-à-vis the Russian-Ukrainian war is a strategic defeat of Putin. (RM, 04.29.22)
• Adjusted for inflation, defense spending last year grew by 0.7% to hit $2.113 trillion, SIPRI said in its latest report. The largest five spenders were the United States, China, India, Britain and Russia, SIPRI said. (RFE/RL, 04.25.22)             
• “The policy of the West and of the Kyiv regime, which is under its control, can only result in the dissolution of Ukraine into several states,” Russia’s Secretary of the Security Council Nikolai Patrushev told Rossiiskaya Gazeta. “The need for demilitarization results from Ukraine, saturated with weapons, posing a threat to Russia, including due to development and use of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons,” he claimed. “Europe will come regret it [the Ukraine crisis], while America will free itself from its greatest geopolitical fear—the political and economic union of Russia and Europe,” he said. (RM, 04.26.22)

• The United States will "strongly support" NATO membership for Sweden and Finland if they choose to join the military alliance, Blinken told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on April 28. (WP, 04.29.22)

China-Russia: Allied or aligned?

• Chinese President Xi Jinping implicitly criticized the United States’ approach to economic sanctions against Russia on April 21, claiming at the Boao Forum for Asia that he opposed “the wanton use of unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction.” (NI, 04.22.22)
• Russia will cooperate with China in satellite surveillance and communications constellations as is now the case with navigational systems, Head of Russia’s Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin said. (TASS, 04.26.22)
• Russia has officially completed its section of the first rail bridge linking it to China on April 27 ahead of the bridge's expected opening within the next month. The Tongjiang-Nizhneleninskoye bridge was eight years in the making. (MT/AFP, 04.27.22)
• The latest survey by Pew Research Center found that 62% of Americans viewed the relationship between Russia and China as a very serious problem. (RM, 04.28.22)

• "It may seem like a conflict between Russia and Ukraine, however, the actual sides of the conflict are Russia and the U.S., which is represented by NATO," said Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Zhao Lijian. (TASS, 04.29.22)

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms:

• Roscosmos’ Rogozin said the country plans to deploy its first military unit armed with the nuclear-armed ICBM Sarmat by fall. (RFE/RL, 04.23.22)
• When asked to comment on Harvard Professor Graham Allison’s assessment that the current situation is as dangerous as the Cuban Missile Crisis, Lavrov said that risks of a nuclear war are “quite substantial.” “The danger is serious, real. It must not be underestimated,” he said. “Can this be compared to the Caribbean Crisis? In those years, there was a channel of communication that both leaders trusted. Now there is no such channel. Nobody is trying to create it,” he said. (RM, 04.26.22)

• Threatening rhetoric from Russia or any suggestions of nuclear weapons use is unhelpful, Austin said after convening a meeting of about 40 countries to discuss accelerating and coordinating military assistance to Ukraine. “Any bluster about the possible use of nuclear weapons is very dangerous and unhelpful. Nobody wants to see a nuclear war, nobody can win that.” (FT, 04.26.22)
• “If someone decides to intervene in the ongoing events from the outside and create strategic threats to Russia that are unacceptable to us, they should know that our retaliatory-offensive strikes will be lightning fast,” Putin told the Council of Legislators in St. Petersburg on April 27. (Kremlin.ru, 04.27.22)
• Biden rejected Russian suggestions that the United States was waging a proxy war against Moscow and condemned Russian officials' raising the specter of nuclear war. ''No one should be making idle comments about the use of nuclear weapons or the possibility that they could use that,'' Biden said. ''It's irresponsible.'' (NYT, 04.28.22)

Counterterrorism:

• No significant developments.

Conflict in Syria:

• Turkey has banned Russia’s armed forces from using its airspace to reach Syria in a bid to increase pressure on Putin as Ankara tries to revive peace talks with Ukraine. (FT, 04.23.22)

Cyber security:

• In a report, Microsoft said its researchers have determined that Russian hackers have conducted destructive cyberattacks on Ukraine. Starting just before the invasion, Microsoft has seen at least six separate Russia-aligned nation-state actors launch more than 237 operations against Ukraine. It added that in "hybrid" warfare tactics, Russia often matches cyberattacks with military assaults on the battlefield. (RFE/RL, 04.28.22, MT/AFP, 04.28.22)

Energy exports from CIS:

• Since the start of the war, Russia has sold 46 billion euros worth of energy resources to the European Union according to Finland’s Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA). This is about twice as much as the amount of sales in the same period in 2021, according to CREA. (RFE/RL, 04.29.22)
• Gazprom announced a net profit attributable to shareholders of 2.1 trillion rubles ($29 billion) in 2021. This was up from 135 billion rubles in 2020. (MT/AFP, 04.29.22)
• More than half of recent oil shipments from Russia have been carried on tankers belonging to companies headquartered in Greece, according to data compiled by the Institute of International Finance. Most of the rest carry Russian, Chinese, Scandinavian and Singaporean flags. (FT, 04.28.22)

Climate change:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

• Washington and Moscow have completed a prisoner swap involving Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, jailed on U.S. drug-smuggling charges, and former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed, jailed in Russia on charges of assaulting police. (RFE/RL, 04.27.22)
• The latest survey by Pew Research Center found that 70% of Americans viewed Russia as an enemy in March 2022 compared to 41% in January 2022. The same period of time saw the share of Americans who view Russia as a competitor decline from 49% to 24%. (RM, 04.28.22) 
• Moscow is open to cooperation with Washington on Afghan issues, according to a statement by Lavrov. (TASS, 04.29.22)

II. Russia’s domestic policies

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

• The Russian presidential administration has recommended that federal ministries, departments and state companies set up positions of deputy heads who would be responsible for “informational-political work.” (Kommersant, 04.22.22)
• Russian authorities have recently stopped publishing data on government debt, trade statistics and oil production. (WSJ, 04.23.22)
• Russian authorities have added former Ekho Moskvy editor in chief Aleksei Venediktov and exiled Kremlin critic Leonid Volkov and seven others to a list that now targets around 150 entities and citizens for ostracization and burdensome labeling requirements. (RFE/RL, 04.23.22)
• State Duma members came up with a new law on “foreign agents.” The draft proposes to include in the register those who are under "foreign influence" and relatives of "foreign agents." Foreign funding will no longer be required to be included in the register, according to the bill. (Meduza, 04.25.22)
• Leader of the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill urged Russians to rally around the "city of Moscow" and defend Russia's independence from "mighty centers of power.” (Meduza, 04.25.22)
• Russia's budget deficit in 2022 will amount to at least 1.6 trillion rubles, and it will be compensated from the National Welfare Fund, according to Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov. (Meduza, 04.27.22)
• The share of Russians who think the country is heading in the right direction decreased from 69% in March to 66% in April, according to independent pollster the Levada Center. The share of Russians who approve of Putin has also declined, from 83% to 82%, over the same period. (RM, 04.28.22)
• The share of Russians who support the “actions of Russian armed forces in Ukraine” totaled 74% in April, compared to 81% in March, according to Levada. (RM, 04.28.22)
• In the city of Kamyshin in the Volgograd Region, police placed an 11-year-old boy under preventive monitoring for allegedly disseminating “information aimed at discrediting the use of the Russian Armed Forces” on a social network. (Media Zona, 04.28.22)
• Putin's decision to launch a full-scale invasion appears to have stunned senior technocratic officials and some members of the security services, according to two Russian billionaires and a well-connected Moscow-based former state official. (WP, 04.29.22)
• Russian billionaire Oleg Tinkov, who has called Moscow's war against Ukraine "crazy," has sold his 35% stake in TCS Group Holding, the group that owns Russia's second-largest bank, Tinkoff Bank, Interros Capital controlled by Vladimir Potanin, a tycoon close to Putin. (RFE/RL, 04.29.22)
• The Bank of Russia said it was slashing the rate from 17% to 14% from next week, a greater cut than predicted by many analysts. It said this was because "price and financial stability risks (are) no longer on the rise." The bank expects the inflation rate to increase over the coming months and average between 18% and 23% this year. (MT/AFP, 04.29.22, WSJ, 04.29.22)
• The Russian ruble rose against the euro to the highest in more than two years on April 29 and headed towards 70 to the dollar before paring some gains, supported by capital controls and as the market awaited an expected rate cut by the central bank. (Reuters, 04.29.22)
• Russia made what appeared to be a late u-turn to avoid a default on April 29, as it made a number of already-overdue international debt payments in dollars despite previously vowing they would only be paid in rubles. (Reuters, 04.29.22)
• The U.S. government has assessed that Russian intelligence was behind an attack earlier this month on Dmitry Muratov, a Nobel Prize winner and prominent Russian editor who had criticized the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine. (WP, 04.29.22)
• The Ministry of Justice for the first time decided to exclude two people from the foreign agents register. They are election observers of the Golos NTO, Arkady Lyubarev and Lyudmila Kuzmina, according to the agency’s website. (Media Zona, 04.29.22)

Defense and aerospace:

• The Kremlin has not invited any foreign leaders to attend the May 9 parade in Moscow this year, Peskov was quoted by Meduza as saying. (RM, 04.29.22)

• See section Military aspects of the Ukraine conflict and their impacts above.

Security, law-enforcement, justice and emergencies:

• The death toll from a fire at a Russian Defense Ministry research institute in the city of Tver has risen to 17, according to local officials. (RFE/RL, 04.25.22)             
• A fire erupted at a key Russian oil depot and a second military site near the Ukrainian border, Russian authorities said April 25. (MT/AFP, 04.25.22)
• A Russian court has sentenced the former governor of the Sakhalin Oblast Alexander Khoroshavin to 15 years in prison after convicting him on corruption charges for the second time in four years. (RFE/RL, 04.28.22)
• A court in Russia has ruled that former Russian Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev, who is serving an eight-year prison term on corruption charges, can be granted an early release, which can occur in May. (RFE/RL, 04.29.22)
• FSB Col. Gen. Sergei Beseda, whose arrest was previously reported by the Russian media, came to the farewell ceremony for former head of the KGB’s analytical department LTG Nikolai Leonov, RTVI reported. (RM, 04.29.22)

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

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

• France and Germany armed Russia with 273 million euros of military hardware now likely being used in Ukraine, an EU analysis has revealed. They sent equipment, which included bombs, rockets, missiles and guns, to Moscow despite an EU-wide embargo on arms shipments to Russia, introduced in the wake of its 2014 annexation of Crimea. (Telegraph, 04.22.22)

Ukraine:

• Ukraine has criticized Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg for opposing its membership in the European Union, saying such a move will weaken the bloc. (RFE/RL, 04.25.22)             
• Vice President of Gazprombank Igor Volobuev left Russia for Ukraine and joined the Kyiv Territorial Defense. (Meduza, 04.26.22)
• Russian authorities plan for the Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic to hold referenda on May 14 on joining Russia. As for the Kherson region, which Russian troops have occupied, it is supposed to hold a referendum on separating from Ukraine on May 15, according to Meduza sources “close to the Kremlin.” (RM, 04.27.22)
• Blinken told officials in Kyiv that the U.S. would restart its diplomatic presence in the country, beginning this week with day trips to the western city of Lviv. Biden is set to nominate Bridget Brink to be the next ambassador to Ukraine. (FT, 04.25.22)
• In 2021, Ukraine supplied 12% of global wheat, 16% of all corn, 18% of all barley and almost half of the world’s supply of sunflower seed and safflower oil—with all agricultural exports totaling almost $28 billion, much of it to developing countries like India, Indonesia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Turkey and Yemen. Around 55% of Ukrainian wheat was exported to Asia and 40% to Africa. (FP, 04.27.22)
• The European Union is set to temporarily drop all its tariffs on imports from Ukraine. Britain said it has dropped tariffs on all goods from Ukraine. (MT/AFP, 04.26.22, Fortune, 04.27.22)

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

• Biden on April 24 issued a statement memorializing the Armenian genocide that included some phrasing that seemed to be indirectly referencing Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. April 24 is an important date for those who remember and mourn the Ottoman Empire’s systematic killing of as many as 1.5 million Armenians. (Politico, 04.24.22)
• Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev has stepped down as chairman of the country's ruling party, Amanat (Ancestors' Legacy) as part of the constitutional changes he says will allow for greater political diversity. (RFE/RL, 04.26.22)                            
• Moldova’s President Maia Sandu said on April 26 that several alleged attacks in Moldova's Moscow-backed breakaway region of Transdniester were an attempt to escalate tensions, blaming "pro-war factions" within the territory's administration. (RFE/RL, 04.26.22) 
• Weeks after publicly supporting Ukraine's territorial integrity, Uzbek Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Komilov has left his post. (RFE/RL, 04.28.22)
• Russia on April 28 raised the alarm over "acts of terrorism" in Moldova's Moscow-backed breakaway region of Transnistria after separatist authorities reported several attacks there this week. (MT/AFP, 04.28.22)
• Kazakh President Toqaev has proposed holding a national referendum on constitutional reform. Toqaev has this year advanced a number of constitutional amendments meant to decentralize decision-making. (RFE/RL, 04.29.22).
• The Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) will hold wide-scale military maneuvers in Central Asia in October. (RFE/RL, 04.29.22)

IV. Quotable and notable

• Sen. Paul said: “[W]hile there is no justification for Putin’s war on Ukraine, it does not follow that there’s no explanation for the invasion.”  (Responsible Statecraft, 04.28.22)
• Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies professor Sergei Radchenko wrote: “We are staring into the abyss. Even if the worst does not come to pass, something tells me that by the time we are finished saving Ukraine from Russian imperialism, there won't be much left of it to save.” (Radchenko’s Twitter account, 04.28.22)