This Week’s Highlights:

• Foreign-policy hawk John Bolton has been named Trump’s new national security adviser. Bolton advocates a tough stance on Russia and has argued for military strikes against North Korea and Iran.

• The House Intelligence Committee voted to approve a Republican-authored report saying there is no evidence of collusion between the Kremlin and Trump or his affiliates during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. The vote ends the committee’s Russia probe but stoked the fury of Democrats, who have denounced their colleagues’ findings.

• Employees of Cambridge Analytica—the data firm that worked with Trump’s presidential campaign and may have improperly harvested data on millions of Facebook users—had contact in 2014 and 2015 with executives from Lukoil, the Russian oil giant. And Lukoil was interested in how data was used to tailor messaging to American voters.

• Leaders of all 28 EU countries endorsed London’s claim that Moscow was “highly likely” responsible for the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal. As many as 10 countries are considering expulsions of Russian diplomats and an EU summit in Brussels decided to temporarily recall the EU ambassador from Moscow.

• British Prime Minister Theresa May has backed away from new reprisals against Moscow, focusing instead on targeting Putin’s associates in Britain. However, May has not mentioned anything about imposing financial sanctions on Kremlin cronies, some of whom have made London the showplace of their wealth, including hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of real estate holdings.

• Venezuela’s “petro”—the world’s first state-backed cryptocurrency, the use of or trade in which would violate U.S. sanctions—was a collaboration between Venezuelan and Russian officials and businessmen, whose aim was to erode the power of U.S. sanctions, according to a report by Time magazine.

• Among Russian citizens registered to vote abroad, Putin received more than 84 percent of the vote, amid a whopping 98 percent turnout rate.

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

Nuclear security and safety:

• U.S. and Tajik officials have opened a new training center in Dushanbe aimed at preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The United States has funded the $370,000 facility as part of Washington's Export Control and Border Security program. (RFE/RL, 03.21.18)
• An International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) mission has identified areas for improvement in the operation and maintenance of Uzbekistan's only operating research reactor. The team also addressed specific operational challenges faced by the WWR-SM reactor. (World Nuclear News, 03.19.18)
• Countries have made preparations for responding to nuclear and radiological emergencies, but too little has been done to prepare for the lifting of those emergencies, according to the IAEA. It has now released a guide providing advice on the transition to a normal state following an emergency. (World Nuclear News, 03.16.18)
• The U.S. Department of Energy has commissioned a national group of scientists to study the viability of diluting surplus weapons-grade plutonium and storing it permanently at the federal government's underground repository in New Mexico. (AP, 03.17.18)
• U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry told the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 22 that a U.S. failure to build civilian nuclear reactors in Saudi Arabia may allow Russia or China to step in with “no oversight” and potentially without stringent nuclear-proliferation standards. Lawmakers were asking Perry about reports that the U.S. is considering a nuclear technology-sharing agreement that wouldn’t prohibit the Saudis from enriching nuclear fuel into weapons-grade materials. "I always remind people that the alternative is no good—if Russia, China are who is going to be chosen to do the civil nuclear projects in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, there will be no oversight," Perry said, without confirming whether the U.S. was considering such a deal. (Bloomberg, 03.22.18)

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• Former U.N. ambassador John Bolton is the latest foreign policy hawk to join the Trump administration, replacing Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster as national security adviser. Last month Bolton, an unrepentant supporter of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, argued for a preemptive strike against Pyongyang: "It is perfectly legitimate for the United States to respond to the current ‘necessity’ posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons by striking first. … Given the gaps in U.S. intelligence about North Korea, we should not wait until the very last minute." (Bloomberg, 03.23.18)

Iran’s nuclear program and related issues:

• Bolton, the new national security adviser, considers the Iran nuclear deal “a strategic debacle for the United States” and argued in 2015 for disabling Iran’s nuclear program with military strikes. (Bloomberg, 03.23.18)
• "The Iran deal will be another issue that's coming up in May, and right now it doesn't feel like it's going to be extended," Sen. Bob Corker told CBS. Britain, France and Germany have proposed fresh EU sanctions on Iran over its ballistic missiles and its role in Syria's war, according to a confidential document, in a bid to persuade Washington to preserve the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran. (RFE/RL, 03.18.18, Reuters, 03.18.18)

Military issues, including NATO-Russia relations:

• The commander of U.S. nuclear forces, Gen. John Hyten, said on March 20 that Russia has increased its deployment of cruise missiles that Washington asserts are in violation of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, a key Cold War arms-control pact. (RFE/RL, 03.20.18)
• Russian armed forces launched large-scale military exercises on March 19 in southern parts of the country and in Crimea, as well as in the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. (RFE/RL, 03.20.18)

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms control:

• U.S. President Donald Trump spoke by phone with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin on March 20. The two leaders agreed on the need to avoid an arms race, the Kremlin said. Trump's pledge to pursue arms control talks with Putin spotlights possible common ground between Washington and Moscow. Trump has long been interested in participating in arms control negotiations, saying in 1984 that he wanted to be the U.S. point person in nuclear arms limitation talks with the Soviets. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders cautioned that no specific plans for such talks have been made, despite Trump's statements that they would be forthcoming. (The Washington Post, 03.21.18, The Moscow Times, 03.21.18)
  • See also sections below on Other bilateral issues.
• Putin struck a softer tone toward the West on March 19 after winning his biggest ever election victory, saying he had no desire for an arms race and would do everything he could to resolve differences with other countries. “Nobody plans to accelerate an arms race,” said Putin. “We will do everything to resolve all the differences with our partners using political and diplomatic channels.” (Reuters, 03.19.18)

Counterterrorism:

• The head of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Gen. John Nicholson, has accused Russia of supporting and even supplying arms to the Taliban and engaging in “destabilizing activity” in the country. He suggested Russian weapons have been smuggled to the Taliban from Tajikistan, sometimes after Russian-led counterterrorism exercises there, but could not say in what quantity. Russia has denied such U.S. allegations in the past. Nicholson said that “a narrative … that grossly exaggerates the number of ISIS fighters" in Afghanistan has been “used as a justification for the Russians to … provide some degree of support to the Taliban." He believes this direct Russian involvement with the Taliban is relatively new. (BBC, 03.23.18)
• The United States has added an Uzbek militant group fighting in the Syrian civil war to its list of "global terrorists." The State Department said on March 22 that it had designated Katibat al-Imam al-Bukhari (KIB) as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. (RFE/RL, 03.22.18)

Conflict in Syria:

• Syrian rebels have withdrawn in busloads from a town in eastern Ghouta and handed it over to the Syrian Army under a Russian-brokered evacuation deal. The Ahrar al-Sham group's decision to accept the army's terms and abandon the town of Harasta on March 22 puts the government on course for its biggest victory over rebels since the battle of Aleppo in 2016. (RFE/RL, 03.23.18)
• The total number of civilians, mostly children, who have been evacuated from Syria’s besieged eastern Ghouta district since the start of a humanitarian operation there has risen to 79,702, the Russian Defense Ministry said March 20. (Reuters, 03.20.18)
• 2,954 Russian servicemen voted in Syria during the presidential election and they all voted for Putin, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. (Business Insider, 03.19.18)
• Any use of military force by the United States against Syrian government forces is unacceptable, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said. (Interfax, 03.20.18)
• Russia on March 19 blocked a meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the human rights situation in Syria. (The Moscow Times, 03.20.18)

Cyber security:

• The Senate Intelligence Committee is recommending changes to secure the U.S. election system against foreign meddling, including increased use of paper ballots, improved federal communication with state and local governments about cyber threats and more federal money to help replace outdated voting machines. (Wall Street Journal, 03.20.18)
• Telegram, the encrypted messaging app that’s prized by those seeking privacy, lost a bid before Russia’s Supreme Court to block security services from getting access to users’ data, giving Putin a victory in his effort to keep tabs on electronic communications. (Bloomberg, 03.20.18)
• At a March 20 hearing Sen. Maria Cantwell called on the Trump administration to do an assessment of Russian cyberattacks against the electric grid. The Department of Energy is establishing an Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response, which will focus on energy infrastructure security. (NPR, 03.23.18)
• Russia has been calling for rules of engagement in cyber space since the early 1990s—a “code of conduct” of the type that governs the use of nuclear and chemical weapons. “The point was to have a kind of non-aggression pact in the cyber sphere, one that would prohibit such attacks against sovereign nations,” according to Vladimir Rubanov, a former KGB official who worked on drafting such rules shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Their hope was that these rules would eventually be adopted by the U.N. and become international law, but the effort stalled, says Rubanov, in large part because the U.S. wasn’t interested. “Each country wants to have guarantees of security, but it does not want to extend those guarantees to others. So this is where we ended up. In a place where no one is safe.” (Time, 03.23.18)

Elections interference:

• Trump made his most direct attack to date on the Justice Department’s investigation into Russian election meddling being led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the latest sign that a showdown may be brewing over the probe. “Why does the Mueller team have 13 hardened Democrats, some big Crooked Hillary supporters, and Zero Republicans,” Trump said early March 18 on Twitter. “Does anyone think this is fair?” In other tweets, the president questioned the integrity of former FBI Director James Comey and former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe.  (Bloomberg, 03.17.18)
• Trump resumed the criticism on March 21 after a weekend of attacking Mueller against the advice of his own lawyers. In early morning tweets Trump said he was quoting a former Harvard professor stating that Mueller should never have been appointed to be the special counsel to investigate Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election. (New York Times, 03.21.18)
• Trump says he “would like to” testify in Mueller’s Russia investigation. Meanwhile, Trump’s attorneys have provided the special counsel’s office with written descriptions that chronicle key moments under investigation in hopes of curtailing the scope of a presidential interview, according to two people familiar with the situation. (AP, 03.22.18, The Washington Post, 03.19.18)
• The president’s lead lawyer for the special counsel investigation, John Dowd, resigned on March 22, according to two people briefed on the matter, days after the president called for an end to the inquiry. Dowd, who took over the president’s legal team last summer, had considered leaving several times in recent months and ultimately concluded that Trump was increasingly ignoring his advice, one of the people said. Less than a week earlier Dowd himself had called for Mueller’s probe to end, making the statement just hours after the latest high-profile firing at the FBI (see next entry); Dowd had said at first that he was speaking for the president, but later backtracked. The statement was a dramatic shift from the Trump legal team’s previous commitment to fully cooperate with Mueller. Bloomberg, citing “three people familiar with the matter,” reported that Dowd resigned amid friction over the March 19 hiring of a new addition to the legal team—Joseph diGenova, a vocal critic of the Russia probe who has attacked the FBI and the Justice Department. DiGenova has said: "Make no mistake about it: A group of FBI and DOJ people were trying to frame Donald Trump of a falsely created crime." (New York Times, 03.22.18, Bloomberg, 03.16.18, 03.22.18, The Washington Post, 03.20.18)
• U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired the FBI’s No.2 official Andrew McCabe on March 16, prompting McCabe to say he is being targeted because he is a crucial witness into whether Trump tried to obstruct the Russia investigation. McCabe kept contemporaneous memos about his interactions with Trump and his conversations with his former FBI boss James Comey, a person close to McCabe said on March 17. (Reuters, 03.16.18, New York Times, 03.17.18)
• Sessions' testimony that he opposed a proposal for Trump's 2016 campaign team to meet with Russians has been contradicted by three people who attended a March 2016 meeting where the proposal was discussed and who told Reuters they have spoken about the matter to investigators working with Mueller or congressional committees. However, another meeting attendee, J.D. Gordon, who was the Trump campaign's director of national security, told media outlets in November that Sessions strongly opposed the proposal and said no one should speak of it again. (Reuters, 03.18.18)
• The House Intelligence Committee voted March 22 to approve a Republican-authored report stating there is no evidence that Trump or his affiliates colluded with the Russian government during the 2016 U.S. election. While the vote ends the Russia probe for the panel’s GOP majority, it only stoked the fury of Democrats, who have denounced their colleagues’ findings. (The Washington Post, 03.22.18)
• Michael Conaway, a Republican leading the House investigation into Russian election meddling, said revelations that the Cambridge Analytica data firm working with Trump’s presidential campaign may have improperly harvested data on millions of Facebook users didn’t change his plans to shut down the probe this week. (Bloomberg, 03.20.18)
• Last month Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix told the British Parliament that his company, which advised the Trump campaign on targeting voters, had “never worked with a Russian organization in Russia or any other country, and we don’t have any relationship with Russia or Russian individuals.” However, according to company documents and interviews, employees of Cambridge Analytica and its British parent company, SCL Group, had contact in 2014 and 2015 with executives from Lukoil, the Russian oil giant. And Lukoil was interested in how data was used to tailor messaging to American voters, according to two former company insiders who said there were at least three meetings with Lukoil executives in London and Turkey. Cambridge Analytica also included extensive questions about Putin in surveys it was carrying out in American focus groups in 2014. The company said this week that it has suspended Nix after he was caught on camera boasting about the firm’s willingness to use bribes, entrapment with sex workers and other possibly illegal tactics to undermine political candidates. (New York Times, 03.17.18, Bloomberg, 03.20.18)
• Aleksandr Kogan, a Moldovan-born app developer who harvested the personal details of 30 million Facebook users and shared them with Cambridge Analytica, claims he has been unfairly scapegoated by both companies. Kogan, a research associate in the department of psychology at the University of Cambridge, said that Cambridge Analytica “wrote the terms of service for the app” and “provided the legal advice that this was all appropriate.” He also said that Facebook was officially notified of his actions, and did nothing to stop them, and that the personality profiles he gathered ended up not being particularly useful for making predictions needed for micro-targeting. “If I am a Russian spy, I am the world’s dumbest spy,” said Kogan, who has also worked on a study at Russia’s St. Petersburg State University focusing on a series of personality traits called the “dark triad,” including narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism. (The Guardian, 03.21.18, Bloomberg, 03.21.18)
• Facebook executive Alex Stamos—who strongly pushed for investigation and disclosure of Russian activities on the site allegedly aimed at influencing elections—will reportedly leave the company in August. (RFE/RL, 03.20.18)
• The Daily Beast reports that Guccifer 2.0, the online persona that took credit for providing WikiLeaks with stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee, made a critical slip-up—once logging on without activating an anonymizing VPN client—that has led U.S. investigators to identify him as an officer of Russia’s military intelligence directorate (GRU). The Daily Beast likewise writes that Mueller has taken over the probe into Guccifer and brought the FBI agents who worked to track the persona onto his team. (The Daily Beast, 03.22.18)
• Former C.I.A. chief John O. Brennan said Putin may have compromising information on Trump. (New York Times, 03.21.18)
• Former British spy Christopher Steele, who compiled a “dossier” of allegations linking Trump to Russia, must give a deposition in a U.S. libel case, lawyers for the Russian businessman involved said March 16. (Reuters, 03.16.18)
• Elliott Broidy, a top fundraiser for Trump, offered last year to help a Moscow-based lawyer get Russian companies removed from a U.S. sanctions list. Broidy made the offer after an inquiry from Andrei Baev, an energy lawyer at Chadbourne & Parke LLP, both men acknowledged in statements to Bloomberg this week. The plan never went forward, they said, and no such lobbying took place. (Bloomberg, 03.23.18)
  • Broidy has also recently come under the scrutiny of Ukrainian prosecutors for involvement with an alleged multi-million dollar lobbying contract from 2014. The 12-page document, which was obtained by Al Jazeera's Investigative Unit and appears to have been signed by Broidy, outlines his role as providing "political advocacy" on behalf of a now sanctioned Russian bank, VTB. (Al Jazeera, 03.20.18)
  • Broidy is also embroiled in a bitter, long-running civil lawsuit with another Republican fundraiser over a failed Russian oilfield investment. (McClatchy, 03.15.18)

Energy exports:

• Russia is committed to seeing its pact with OPEC through to completion, whether that means starting discussions about a phase-out at the next meeting in June or prolonging output cuts into 2019, Energy Minister Alexander Novak has said. Saudi energy minister Khalid al-Falih suggested this week that production cuts led by OPEC and Russia could remain in effect into 2019 since stockpiles are still above historical average levels. Meanwhile, Brent crude was poised for its fourth consecutive weekly gain, hitting $70 a barrel on March 23, as heightened geopolitical tension coincides with the possibility of continued supply curbs. (Bloomberg, 03.18.18, Financial Times, 03.23.18)
• OPEC and Azerbaijan are in talks about the former Soviet republic joining the group, as the cartel looks to bolster its position amid a surge in U.S. shale oil. (Wall Street Journal, 03.20.18)
• Moscow-based Gazprom will need Ukraine’s gas system, a key route for supplies of Siberian fuel to Europe, well beyond 2019 when the existing transit agreement expires, said Andriy Kobolyev, chief executive officer of Ukraine’s Naftogaz. (Bloomberg, 03.21.18)
• German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is seeking to build a liquefied natural gas industry in Germany basically from scratch to reduce the nation’s dependence on supplies arriving by pipeline from Russia and Norway. (Bloomberg, 03.19.18)
• Citing unnamed sources, Russian newspaper Kommersant has reported that the Russian government is preparing legislation that would ban non-Russian vessels from transporting oil, gas and coal extracted in the Russian Arctic. If passed, the legislation could benefit state-controlled oil giant Rosneft, while hurting other oil and gas companies, including Russia’s largest private producer of natural gas, Novatek. (Russia Matters, 03.22.18)

Bilateral economic ties:

• Russian metal manufacturers risk losing $3 billion from Trump’s recently announced import tariffs, a senior Russian trade official has estimated. Deputy Industry and Trade Minister Viktor Yevtukhov told Russian television on March 23 that Russian steelmakers could lose at least $2 billion and Russian aluminum producers could lose another $1 billion. “At the same time, it should be understood that there are already a considerable number of trade barriers with regard to products from our country, impeding access to markets,” Yevtukhov said. (The Moscow Times, 03.23.18)

Other bilateral issues:

• Putin and Trump spoke by phone March 20:
  • The two leaders discussed the situations in Syria and Ukraine, the Kremlin said, with both sides noting “the importance of swift progress in their settlement." Information on Syria and North Korea was also provided to the president in writing before the call, U.S. officials said.  (TASS, 03.20.18, The Washington Post, 03.20.18)
  • Trump congratulated Putin on his reelection and said they would likely meet soon, even as relations between the two countries grow more strained over allegations of Russian meddling in the U.S. electoral system. "I congratulated him on the victory, the electoral victory," Trump told reporters. (The Moscow Times, 03.21.18)
    • Trump's overture to Putin was criticized by top senators in his own Republican party, who called Russia’s March 18 election a sham. (The Moscow Times, 03.21.18)
    • When Trump congratulated Putin he did not follow specific warnings from his national security advisers including a section in his briefing materials in all-capital letters saying "DO NOT CONGRATULATE.” Trump also chose not to heed talking points from aides instructing him to condemn the recent poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain. (The Washington Post, 03.20.18)
    • Prior to Trump’s call, the White House stopped short of congratulating Putin on March 19, saying his reelection victory was no surprise and that there was no scheduled congratulatory phone call with Trump. "We will work to cultivate the relationship with Russia and we will impose costs when Russia threatens our interests, but we will also look for places to work together when it serves our interests," White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said. "We're not surprised by the outcome," he said of the Russian election. (The Moscow Times, 03.20.18)
  • Putin and Trump discussed "a possible high-level meeting," the Kremlin said. "We'll probably be meeting in the not-too-distant future," Trump said of Putin (The Moscow Times, 03.21.18, The Washington Post, 03.21.18)
• Deep inside the 2,232 pages of text that make up the newly passed $1.3 trillion bill to keep the U.S. federal government open is a direct message to Trump: Russia needs to be punished. The so-called omnibus spending bill, which the Senate passed just after midnight early March 23, includes measures that bar a host of federal agencies from engaging with Russia and sanctions the country for a vast series of grievances. One section bars money from funding a program in which Russia participates; another attempts to punish Russia for its 2014 annexation of Crimea. In a five-page section titled "Countering Russian Influence and Aggression," appropriators flatly outlaw any federal money going to the Russian government and approves $250 million to the Countering Russian Influence Fund, a program aiming to boost the "capacity of law enforcement and security forces … in Europe and Eurasia" and to deepen ties to anti-Russia allies. After threatening early on March 23 to veto the bill, Trump backed down and signed it later in the day. (CNN, 03.23.18, New York Times, 03.23.18)
• John Bolton, who was named Trump’s new national security adviser on March 22, will take office April 9. The sudden but not unexpected move signals a more confrontational approach in American foreign policy. (New York Times, 03.22.18)
  • Bolton is a critic of Putin and fan of NATO. He has called for action against Russia for its meddling in the 2016 election, but has dismissed allegations that Trump's campaign colluded with the Kremlin and even that Russia intended to “advantage or disadvantage any particular candidate.” During the Munich Security Conference this year, Bolton said the indictment of 13 Russians for election meddling offered Trump an opportunity to toughen his approach to Moscow. In a February op-ed, Bolton called for a “decidedly disproportionate” cyber campaign against Russia. He further urged the White House to get Putin’s attention by letting Russia’s president “hear the rumble of artillery and NATO tank tracks conducting more joint field exercises with Ukraine’s military.” He has also called for "a very strong response" to the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in the U.K. Bolton believes that Russia cannot be trusted, any more than China can, or Iran or North Korea. During his Fox News interview on March 22, Bolton declined to say how he would advise Trump on the administration's relations with Putin. (Politico, 03.23.18, The Economist, 03.23.18, Al Jazeera, 03.23.18, Wall Street Journal, 03.23.18)
  • Bolton has been heavily involved in Republican politics over the past few cycles. According to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, Bolton’s super PAC has spent more than $6 million to help elect candidates aligned with him on national security since its formation ahead of the 2014 midterms. (National Journal, 03.23.18)
• The Kremlin says a breakthrough is still remote in Russia-U.S. relations despite talk about a possible meeting between Trump and Putin. "Let's not talk about any breakthroughs; first we should talk about a starting point getting a dialogue going. We have a long way to go before any breakthrough," Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters in a daily conference call on March 22. (RFE/RL, 03.22.18)
• Russia’s government has added the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a think-tank, to its list of foreign entities whose activities are deemed "undesirable" in the country, the Justice Ministry said on March 21. (RFE/RL, 03.21.18)
• Foreign smugglers are trying to ship advanced American technologies—which can be used for weapons and spy equipment—to China, Russia and other adversaries at rates that outpace shadowy and illegal exports during the Cold War, according to United States officials and experts. Since 2013, nearly 3,000 people have been swept up by Homeland Security Investigations alone for trying to smuggle weapons and sensitive technologies. Russian citizen Evgeny Viktorovich Spiridonov described as a gun developer for Kalashnikov Concern, that country's famed maker of assault rifles and a company under U.S. sanctions, is expected to plead guilty to a federal charge of attempting to violate U.S. export controls, according to court filings. (The Washington Post, 03.16.18, New York Times, 03.17.18)
• Venezuela’s “petro”—the world’s first state-backed cryptocurrency, use of or trade in which would violate U.S. sanctions—was a collaboration between Venezuelan and Russian officials and businessmen, whose aim was to erode the power of U.S. sanctions, sources familiar with the effort told Time magazine. (Time, 03.20.18)
• Perhaps the closest Trump came to launching a real estate project in Russia was during the presidential campaign, when he signed a letter of intent in late 2015 for a Trump hotel to be built in Moscow. Ultimately, the deal never materialized. In email exchanges with Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, a Russian émigré named Felix Sater, who had previously helped develop Trump SoHo in New York, talked about trying to secure financing for the Moscow project from VTB, a major state-controlled Russian bank under American sanctions. (New York Times, 03.18.18)
• Italian oil major Eni is discussing the sanctions situation in Russia with U.S. and European authorities to obtain greater clarity on the situation, the Eni CEO said on March 16. (Reuters, 03.16.18)

II. Russia’s domestic news

Politics, economy and energy:

• Putin’s runaway victory in the March 18 election was supported by more voters than any other candidate in the history of Russia's presidential elections, according to results published March 19. With 99.98 percent of the ballots counted by that afternoon, Russia’s Central Election Commission said Putin had gained 76.66 percent of the votes amid a turn-out of 67.5 percent. Despite recorded incidents of ballot-stuffing and citizens being pressured to vote by employers, the commission said there were half as many reported electoral violations this year as in the last presidential campaign in 2012. The number of Muscovites supporting Putin grew significantly since the last elections, from 47 percent to 71 percent this year, and markedly increased in Russia's second-largest city of St. Petersburg, from 59 percent to 75 percent. Among Russian citizens registered to vote abroad, Putin received more than 84 percent of the vote, amid a whopping 98 percent turnout rate. Some 89.7 percent of the 99.2 percent military personnel and their families who showed up at the polls on Election Day gave their votes to Putin, the Russian Defense Ministry has said. (The Moscow Times, 03.20.18, 03.19.18)
• Putin has said that he has no plans to change the country's constitution for the time being, and suggested he would not seek the presidency again in 2030. Putin spoke to reporters late on March 18, as election results indicated that he easily won a new six-year term as president. "I am not planning any constitutional reforms for now," Putin said. Asked whether he might run in 2030, Putin said: "Listen, it seems to me that what you're saying is a little bit funny. … Let's count. What, am I going to sit here until I'm 100 years old? No," Putin said. (RFE/RL, 03.18.18)
• According to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, Putin’s campaign was wholly funded by the ruling United Russia party and 22 affiliated foundations, which jointly contributed the entire 400 million rubles (about $7 million) that any candidate could legally spend on the election. This is the first time Putin’s election has been funded this way. When he last ran for reelection in 2012, a significant portion of the funds were provided by businesses and private individuals. (OCCRP, 03.14.18)
• Lyudmila Sklyarevskaya, a Russian hospital administrator, voted on March 18 in an election that gave Putin another term as president. Then she went to another polling station and voted again, according to Reuters reporters who witnessed her movements. Sklyarevskaya, who denied any wrongdoing, was among 17 people who were photographed apparently casting ballots at more than one polling station in the town of Ust-Djeguta, in southern Russia. (The Moscow Times, 03.21.18)
• The OSCE said on March 19 there had been no real choice in Russia's presidential election and complained it had been marked by unfair pressure on critical voices. "Choice without real competition, as we have seen here, is not real choice," the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe said in a statement, adding that restrictions on fundamental freedoms, as well as on candidate registration, had limited the space for political engagement. The U.S. State Department endorsed the OSCE's preliminary findings, said spokeswoman Heather Nauert, and called Donald Trump's call to Vladimir Putin "protocol." (The Moscow Times, 03.21.18, The Moscow Times, 03.19.18)
• Ella Pamfilova, chair of the Central Election Commission, said pressure on Russia from Western leaders helped to generate the 76.7 percent support for Putin. ''Our people always unite when the chips are down,'' Pamfilova said on live television, in what appeared to be a reference to what Britain has said was a Russian nerve agent attack on one of its former spies, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter in Salisbury, England. Pamfilova also said that violations recorded on Election Day did not change the outcome of the vote. (New York Times, 03.19.18, The Moscow Times, 03.22.18)
• “Turnout is higher than we expected, by about 8-10 percent, for which we must say thanks to Great Britain,” said Andrei Kondrashov, Putin’s campaign spokesman, as preliminary results rolled in. (Financial Times, 03.19.18)
• Margarita Simonyan, the editor in chief of pro-Kremlin TV network RT, wrote that Putin had turned from president to "our leader," or vozhd—a word with medieval roots that was applied to Joseph Stalin in the Soviet era. Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a nationalist presidential candidate who supports Putin, predicted on national television that "these elections were the last ones." (The Washington Post, 03.19.18)
• A grassroots protest has erupted in a Russian town outside Moscow where scores of schoolchildren have been reportedly poisoned by toxic gases from a nearby landfill. Pyotr Lazarev, the mayor of the town, Volokolamsk, told Current Time TV that the children were rushed to hospital on March 21 with symptoms including nausea, vomiting, bleeding noses and fainting. The broadcaster showed footage of hundreds of people gathered outside the hospital yelling and pelting the Moscow region's Governor Andrei Vorobyov with snowballs. Vorobyov's office said on March 23 that he had replaced the chief of Volokolamsk district, Yevgeny Gavrilov, with another regional official. (The Moscow Times, 03.22.18, RFE/RL, 03.21.18, 03.23.18)
• Anti-fascist activist Viktor Filinkov has accused Federal Security Service (FSB) officers of torture after being detained on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government in January. FSB officers justified their use of a stun gun, saying it was the only way to stop Filinkov from resisting arrest and attempting to escape. (The Moscow Times, 03.21.18)
• The State Duma’s ethics committee has dismissed sexual harassment accusations against lawmaker Leonid Slutsky, saying the allegations may have been coordinated to tarnish him. Russian journalists making the accusations faced criticism and insinuation themselves at this week’s parliamentary hearing, according to leaked audio obtained by the Meduza news site. Several Russian media outlets pulled their correspondents from the Duma following Slutsky’s exoneration. (The Moscow Times, 03.21.18, RFE/RL, 03.22.18, 03.23.18)
  • A male journalist with RFE/RL says he was groped and accosted more than a decade ago by Russian lawmaker and perennial presidential candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky. (RFE/RL, 03.23.18
• Two of Russia’s most powerful tycoons, each with a reach that extends into Putin’s inner sanctum, are fighting over one of the country’s most lucrative assets. The dispute between the billionaires—Vladimir Potanin and Oleg Deripaska—runs from Arctic mines to the High Court in London. The legal proceedings provide a glimpse into the rules, written and not, that govern the vast fortunes that exist at the pleasure of the newly re-elected president. (Bloomberg, 03.19.18)
• Russia’s Finance Ministry said on March 16 that it raised $1.5 billion worth of a Eurobond maturing in 2029 and $2.5 billion worth of a top-up Eurobond maturing in 2047. (Reuters, 03.16.18)
• Russia's central bank is considering pumping more than 1 trillion rubles ($17 billion) into two banks it first bailed out last year to shore up their balance sheets, three sources familiar with the discussion told Reuters. The capital injection now under discussion is for Otkritie's Trust and B&N's Rost subsidiaries and would come on top of the money already disbursed, a source close to one of the banks said. (Reuters, 03.16.18)
• Russia, which modeled its sovereign wealth fund after Norway’s more than a decade ago, now wants to take a page from its counterparts elsewhere to take on more risk. The world’s biggest energy exporter may need another couple of years to rip up its investing blueprint, but it’s preparing for a shift after suffering through years of meager returns. (Bloomberg, 03.22.18)
• Mikhail Putin, identified by the Kremlin as a distant relative of the Russian president, has been appointed deputy chair of the management board of state-run gas giant Gazprom, the company said March 23. In 2004-2007 the younger Putin, who studied medicine, headed Gazprom’s medical directorate and he has been on the board of Gazprom’s main insurer, Sogaz, since 2008. Last year, investigative journalists with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project identified him among a group of the president’s wealthy, well-connected relatives. (Reuters, 03.23.18, The Moscow Times, 03.22.18, OCCRP, October 2017)

Defense and aerospace:

• Soviet-made intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) UR-100N UTTKh (NATO reporting name: SS-19 Stiletto) will be the first carriers for hypersonic glide vehicles of Russia’s most advanced Avangard missile system, a source in the Russian defense industry told TASS on March 20. (TASS, 03.20.18)
• Since the start of Putin's second term, a construction boom has been underway at more than two dozen institutes that were once part of the Soviet Union's biological and chemical weapons establishment, according to Russian documents and photos compiled by independent researchers. That expansion, which includes multiple new or refurbished testing facilities, is particularly apparent at secret Defense Ministry laboratories that have long drawn the suspicions of U.S. officials over possible arms-treaty violations. (The Washington Post, 03.18.18)
• The winners of an online Defense Ministry contest to name three of Russia’s recently announced advanced weapons honor a renowned medieval warrior, a seabird and the mythical Greek god of the sea. Some of the names suggested in the contest showed distinctly mordant humor, including “Sanction” and “Thaw.” (AP, 03.22.18)

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• No significant developments.

III. Foreign affairs, trade and investment

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

• Russia expelled 23 British diplomats on March 17 in a carefully calibrated retaliatory move against London, which has accused the Kremlin of orchestrating a nerve toxin attack on a former Russian double agent and his daughter in southern England. Escalating a crisis in relations, Russia said it was also shutting down Britain's consulate-general in St. Petersburg and the activities of the British Council, which fosters cultural links between the two countries. (Reuters, 03.17.18)
• Twenty three expelled Russian diplomats and their families left the embassy in London and headed back to Moscow on March 20 in the deepest crisis in Russian-British relations since the Cold War sparked by a nerve agent attack in England. (The Moscow Times, 03.20.18)
• Leaders of all 28 EU countries gave the UK a diplomatic victory late March 22 by endorsing London’s claim that Moscow was “highly likely” responsible for the poisoning, with as many as 10 countries—including France, Poland and the three Baltic nations—considering coordinated expulsions of Russian diplomats and an EU summit in Brussels deciding to temporarily recall the EU ambassador from Moscow, two diplomats said. Earlier in the day British Prime Minister Theresa May had said European Union leaders must unite to counter a threat from Russia that “doesn’t respect borders” and called the attack on Skripal “part of a pattern of Russian aggression against Europe and its near neighbors from the western Balkans to the Near East.” (Financial Times, 03.23.18, AP, 03.22.18)
• Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the foreign affairs committee in Russia’s Senate, said the EU’s support for the British accusations reflects a pattern of using Moscow as a bugaboo. (AP, 03.23.18)
• May has backed away from new reprisals against Moscow, focusing instead on targeting Putin’s associates in Britain, including new security checks on private flights. May decided to adopt a longer-term approach, toughening Britain’s sanctions on associates of the Putin regime in London and working with Western allies to put pressure on Moscow. “Other measures are being actively considered and we stand ready to deploy them at any time,” said a spokesperson for May. Thus far, however, May has not mentioned anything about imposing financial sanctions on Kremlin cronies, some of whom have made London the showplace of their wealth, including hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of real estate holdings. (Financial Times, 03.20.18, Wall Street Journal, 03.23.18)
• Britain has redoubled its accusations that Putin's government was behind the poisoning of an ex-spy with a nerve agent in England, saying that the trail of responsibility leads to "those at the top" of the Russian state.  Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson spoke on March 21, shortly after Russia again denied involvement and asserted that Britain or the United States could be to blame for the attack that left former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in critical condition. Johnson has earlier said that Russian denials of responsibility were "increasingly absurd" and that Russia has been producing and stockpiling the nerve agent, called Novichok in the West, "within the last decade" as part of a program to develop ways of using nerve agents in assassinations, in a violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention. He didn't elaborate on where the information came from (RFE/RL, 03.12.18, The Moscow Times, 03.19.18, Wall Street Journal Online, 03.18.18)
• The British authorities have been tight-lipped about the investigation, but in recent days intensified their focus on vehicles that the Skripals traveled in, where the agent, in powder form, could have been planted on a door handle or in a ventilation system. (New York Times, 03.21.18)
• Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn has once again set himself at odds with most of the UK’s political establishment, including MPs from his own party, in calling for British authorities to send Russia a sample of the nerve agent that left former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia seriously ill.  (Financial Times, 03.20.18)
• Putin said on March 18 it was nonsense to think that Moscow would have poisoned Skripal and his daughter. Putin said Russia "has no such" weapon of the kind that Britain says was used in the attack. Putin on March 19 told Macron, his French counterpart, by phone that allegations Moscow was behind the poisoning were unsubstantiated, the Kremlin said. (Reuters, 03.18.18, Reuters, 03.19.18, RFE/RL, 03.18.18)
• Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on March 19 that London would either have to back up its assertions that Russia was behind the poisoning of a former spy and his daughter in Britain with evidence or apologize "sooner or later." (New York Times, 03.19.18)
• Speaking in Japan on March 21, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reiterated Russia's complaint that the British accusation against Russia is premature, saying that the U.K. investigation is not finished. He also said that Russia wants Britain to tell it where Sergei and Yulia Skripal are currently located. (RFE/RL, 03.12.18)
• A Russian Foreign Ministry official said on March 21 that Britain may be behind a chemical attack on Yulia Skripal. "Logic suggests that there are only two possible things," said Vladimir Yermakov, head of the ministry's non-proliferation and arms control. "Either the British authorities are not able to provide protection from such a, let's say, terrorist attack on their soil, or they, whether directly or indirectly, I am not accusing anyone, have orchestrated an attack on a Russian citizen." (The Moscow Times, 03.21.18, RFE/RL, 03.12.18)
• The potent nerve agent linked to the poisoning of a Russian ex-spy in Britain may have been developed in the U.S. and the U.K. rather than Russia, a senior Russian has said. "There has never been a ‘Novichok’ research project conducted in Russia," Alexander Shulgin, Russia's representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague, told state television on March 16. "But in the West, some countries carried out such research, which they called Novichok, for some reason," Shulgin told the Rossia-1 television channel. (The Moscow Times, 03.16.18)
• A Russian scientist who worked at the institute that developed the nerve agent believed to have been used in the Skripal poisoning said other countries could have also produced test samples of the substance. But, in an interview with Current Time TV, Vil Mirzayanov, who emigrated to the United States in the 1990s, blamed Russia for the poisoning. Editor’s note: This story identifies Mirzayanov as “the Russian scientist who originally helped develop the nerve agent”; however, two scientists who worked more directly on the poison, Vladimir Uglev and Leonid Rink, have told Russian media that Mirzayonov’s job at their institute involved staving off foreign intelligence gathering, not working directly on the nerve agent. (RFE/RL, 03.17.18)
• A Russian chemist, Leonid Rink, told the RIA news agency that the attack did not look like Moscow's work because Sergei and Yulia Skripal had not died immediately. Russia's Investigative Committee said on March 16 it had opened a criminal investigation into the attempted murder of the Skripals and what it said was the murder of another Russian in Britain. Yulia Skripal is a Russian citizen, the committee said in a statement. (The Moscow Times, 03.20.18, Reuters, 03.16.18)
• The U.S. ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman will skip a special Russian briefing on the poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Britain, Russian news agencies reported, citing the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. Britain's ambassador is not attending the event either. (The Moscow Times, 03.21.18)
• Merkel pushed back against doubts that Russia probably is to blame for the nerve-agent attack. “I would be happy if I didn’t have to name Russia here, but we can’t ignore evidence just because we don’t want to call out Russia,” Merkel said in a speech to parliament on March 21. (Bloomberg, 03.21.18)
• “Poland supports the view that we should show solidarity within the EU and NATO and show Russia that it can’t cross new boundaries,” Michal Dworczyk, who heads Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki’s office, told Radio Zet on March 19. Economic sanctions as well as expulsions of Russian diplomats by some EU nations are being considered, he said. (Bloomberg, 03.19.18)
• Czech Foreign Minister Martin Stropnicky on March 17 denied Moscow's accusation that the nerve toxin used against a former Russian double agent and his daughter in southern England came from the Czech Republic. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told the Rossiya 24 TV channel that the most likely source of the Novichok nerve agent was Britain itself or the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Sweden or the United States. (Reuters, 03.17.18)
• Putin's government must cooperate with investigations into the suspected nerve agent attack on British soil, European Union foreign ministers urged on March 19, as the U.K. tries to drum up international support for a tough line against Moscow. (Wall Street Journal, 03.19.18)
• EU leaders are set to ask foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini to look into ways to improve the 28-member bloc's strategic communication, counterintelligence and cyber defense in the wake of the nerve-agent attack on the Skripals. (RFE/RL, 03.20.18)
• British police said on March 16 they had launched a murder investigation following the death this week of a Russian associate of late tycoon Boris Berezovsky. "A murder investigation has been launched following the results of a post-mortem into the death of 68-year-old Russian businessman Nikolai Glushkov," London's Metropolitan Police said in a statement, adding the cause of death was compression to the neck. (Reuters, 03.16.18)
• In one of his first orders since winning a fourth term in a landslide, Putin on March 20 directed his country's envoys to seek changes in international doping rules that have led to Russia's banishment from major world sporting events since 2015. Meanwhile, the head of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has complained of slow progress by Russian authorities toward making the country's anti-doping agency, RUSADA, compliant with international standards. (RFE/RL, 03.20.18, 03.21.18)
• Britain's Foreign Minister Boris Johnson said on March 21 that Putin will try to bolster Russia's image through hosting the World Cup in a similar way to how Adolf Hitler used the Olympics when it was held in Nazi Germany. The Kremlin said the next day that his remarks were “disgusting, … insulting and unacceptable.” (The Moscow Times, 03.21.18, 03.22.18)
• The European Union’s chief executive, Jean-Claude Juncker, has written to Putin to congratulate him on his reelection, saying that Russia and Europe should “reestablish a cooperative pan-European security order.” Juncker published the letter on his Twitter account March 20, echoing the call for dialogue by Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron in their messages of congratulation. (Reuters, 03.20.18)
• A planned nuclear reactor in western Finland, owned by a Finnish-Russian consortium, will meet its 2024 commissioning target despite delays in licensing, and will not be affected by sanctions on Russia, supplier Rosatom said. (Reuters, 03.16.18)
• Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom, in an apparent effort to expand its portfolio of deals abroad, has said it will build a floating nuclear power plant for Sudan, the troubled central African country, which by many accounts is still in the grip of war that divided the nation in 2011. (Bellona, 03.20.18)
• Russian gas giant Gazprom said on March 16 that it has agreed to purchase two gas turbines from Germany's Siemens for installation at a power plant it is building in Chechnya. (Reuters, 03.16.18)
• Russian whistle-blower Maria Yefimova linked to slain Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia has handed herself in to the police in Greece, saying she feared for her life. A European arrest warrant was issued for Yefimova in November after she was accused of giving Caruana Galizia crucial information for a report she wrote pointing to possibly illicit links between the governments of Malta and Azerbaijan. (RFE/RL, 03.21.18)

China:

• A former FSB officer in Siberia has reportedly been convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison for passing state secrets to China. Investigators accuse Maxim Kondratyev of passing thumb drives detailing FSB activities to China’s Ministry of State Security between 2006 and 2008, according to Russian media reports. (The Moscow Times, 03.21.18)

Ukraine:

• The House-approved Consolidated Appropriations Act for 2018 provides for $620.7 million in aid to Ukraine, according to a statement on the Facebook page of the Ukrainian Embassy in the U.S. (UkrInform, 03.23.18)
• The population of Ukraine decreased by 21,000 people in January 2018 compared to December 2017 and amounted to 42.365 million people as of Feb. 1, 2018. (Unian, 03.20.18)
• Ukraine’s loss of millions of workers to Eastern Europe may not be all bad. While the exodus is triggering staff shortages and weighing on economic growth, the central bank estimates that $9.3 billion was channeled back to Ukraine last year—$2 billion more than it calculated initially. (Bloomberg, 03.23.18)
• Ukrainian and separatist forces in Donbass have observed a ceasefire for two consecutive days as of March 23. (UNIAN, 03.23.18)
• The number of Ukrainians who positively view Russia, compared to the number in 2017, has stayed almost the same—45 percent compared to 42 percent, while the number of Russians who view Ukraine favorably has increased to 33 percent from 28 percent, according to a new survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology and the Levada Center. (Interfax, 03.20.18)
• A Ukrainian military pilot blamed by Russia over the 2014 downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 has killed himself, Ukrainian media report, quoting police. Meanwhile, the Dutch government has sent legislation to parliament that clears the way for prosecution in the Netherlands of any suspects identified in the investigation into the downing of the plane. The justice ministry said in a statement March 21 that the legislation will make it possible for foreign suspects to be tried in a Dutch court in The Hague, including by video links if they aren't extradited. (BBC, 03.19.18, AP, 03.21.18)
• Lawmaker Nadiya Savchenko began a hunger strike on March 23 to protest her detention on charges of planning a coup against the government. A day earlier, the Ukrainian parliament stripped the celebrated former military pilot and presidential hopeful of her immunity as a lawmaker, sanctioning her arrest on charges of plotting an attack on parliament with grenades and automatic weapons. Savchenko earlier told journalists that she saw Andriy Parubiy, a key organizer of the massive protests that drove Ukraine’s former Russia-friendly president from power, leading snipers into a hotel next to the capital’s main square, the Maidan, during Ukraine’s 2014 uprising. (Reuters, 03.23.18, The Washington Post, 03.22.18, AP, 03.15.18)
• The Ukrainian Parliament on March 22 began enforcing a new law requiring lawmakers to check guns, explosives and other weapons at the door before entering the legislative chamber, after a member arrived this month with a pistol and three hand grenades. (New York Times, 03.22.18)
• Supporters of opposition politician Mikheil Saakashvili demonstrated in Kiev on March 18 to demand the resignation of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. (RFE/RL, 03.18.18)
• Ireland’s Ryanair will launch 15 routes from European cities to Ukraine in a deal that Poroshenko called “a sign of quality—the quality of the investment climate and the quality of competition conditions.” (Reuters, 03.23.18)
• Crimean Tatar activist Nariman Memediminov has been taken in for questioning by Russian Federal Security Service officers and may face charges of propagating terrorism. (RFE/RL, 03.22.18)
• Ildar Valiyev, a businessman from Russia's Tatarstan region, says Ukraine has rejected his petition for political asylum. (RFE/RL, 03.21.18)

Russia’s other post-Soviet neighbors:

• Moldova said on March 20 its ambassador to Russia would return soon to Moscow a few months after his recall in response to alleged harassment and intimidation of Moldovan politicians and officials by Russian authorities. (Reuters, 03.20.18)
• Armenia’s outgoing President Serzh Sarksyan said on March 19 he may be nominated for prime minister—an increasingly powerful position—following the election of his ally as president this month. (Reuters, 03.19.18)
• In a very rare move, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev has marked the Norouz new year holiday in the ancient city of Samarkand in neighboring Uzbekistan, a sign of improving ties following the death of divisive Uzbek leader Islam Karimov in 2016. (RFE/RL, 03.22.18)
• Authorities in Georgia's breakaway South Ossetia region have sent the body of a Georgian man who died while in the custody of separatist officials back to government-held territory. (RFE/RL, 03.20.18)
• Uzbek human rights activist Gaybullo Jalilov has been released after serving eight years in prison, his relatives told RFE/RL. (RFE/RL, 03.19.18)
• Thirteen Kyrgyz women have been "rescued from slavery" at a sweatshop in Russia, a police official in the Central Asian country says. (RFE/RL, 03.20.18)

IV. Quoteworthy

• No significant developments.