Russia in Review

Media Feature

August 3, 2012

Belfer Center Programs or Projects: The US-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism

Russia in Review: a digest of useful news from U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism for the week of August 3-10, 2012

Russia in Review: a digest of useful news from U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism for the week of August 3-10, 2012

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

Nuclear security agenda:

·       Republican Senator Richard Lugar left for Moscow on Monday as part of a three-nation trip during which he'll press for extending his signature Nunn-Lugar disarmament agreement, which expires next year. Lugar is also slated to travel to Ukraine and Georgia. When in Moscow Lugar appealed to the Russian authorities to eliminate, together with the United States, the stockpiles of chemical weapons in Syria. But the senator's proposal was met with no enthusiasm among the Russians. (Kommersant, 08.10.12, The Hill, 08.06.12).

·       A federal grand jury toughened the charges against three anti-war protesters who authorities say cut their way through three security fences and spray-painted slogans on the walls of a nuclear weapons plant in Tennessee. (AP, 08.10.12).

Iran nuclear issues:

·       Unless Tehran retracts its lawsuit over Moscow's refusal to deliver S-300 surface-to-air missile systems, Russia will take a tougher stand on the Iranian nuclear issue, a Russian presidential administration source told Kommersant. "Prior to the next session of the six international mediators, we will try to make our position heard once again by sending a government delegation to Tehran," the Kremlin official told Kommersant. "And if Iran once again refuses to do so, it will have to sort out its nuclear issues in the international arena on its own." (Russia Today, 08.10.12).

·       The Iranian ambassador to Moscow announced that, for a long time now, students from his country have not been accepted for enrollment at Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (MIFI). "A tacit instruction was issued, that Iranian citizens may be accepted only in the humanities specialties. Ever since that time, they have not been allowed either into MIFI, or MFTI [Moscow Physics Technical Institute], or MAI," a source close to Russian special services said. (Izvestia, 08.07.12).

NATO-Russia cooperation, including transit to and from Afghanistan:

·        Russia is urging its U.S. partners to clarify plans regarding their military presence in Afghanistan after 2014, if such exist, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said in Dushanbe. (Interfax, 08.09.12).

Missile defense:

·       President Obama has nominated Navy Rear Adm. James D. Syring for appointment to the rank of vice admiral and for assignment as director of the Missile Defense Agency. The move made no mention of the fate of Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly, the current MDA director, who was sharply criticized in a May 2 inspector general’s report for having an abusive management style. (Washington Post, 08.06.12).

·       Poland needs its own missile defense shield while the agreement with the United States on the deployment of an anti-ballistic-missile defense system on its territory was “a mistake,” Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski said. (RIA Novosti, 08.04.12).

·       The United States and its Arab allies are knitting together a regional missile defense system across the Persian Gulf. That would include deploying radars to increase the range of early warning coverage across the Persian Gulf, as well as introducing command, control and communications systems that could exchange that information with missile interceptors whose triggers are held by individual countries. (New York Times, 08.08.12).

Nuclear arms control:

·       United States’ backup supply of nuclear weapons may be next up for major cuts. For the first time a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is suggesting the United States’ nuclear weapons reserve is too large and becoming too expensive to maintain. “We have more backup systems in terms of weapons systems than we actually have deployed,” General Norton A. Schwartz, chief of staff of the Air Force, said. (Boston Globe, 08.06.12).

Counter-terrorism cooperation:

·       No significant developments.

Cyber security:

·       No significant developments.

Energy exports from CIS:

·       No significant developments.

Access to major markets for exports and imports:

·       The House of Representatives didn't even try to take up two time-sensitive Russia-related bills before leaving town: a bill to grant Russia Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) status and a bill to sanction Russian human rights violators, named after Sergei Magnitsky. House Republicans are leery of passing a bill that seems to some like a gift to Russia, although Democrats and the administration argue that the bill does more for the U.S. economy than it does for Russia. Senate aides, noting that the House must go first on the PNTR bill, predict that House leaders' interest in not offending the business community will trump the awkwardness of passing a trade bill with Russia just before the election. (FP, 08.07.12).

Other bilateral issues:

·       No significant developments.

II.                    Russia news.

Domestic Politics, Economy and Energy:

·       President Vladimir Putin said that he twice called Dmitry Medvedev on the eve of the 2008 conflict with Georgia, contradicting the former president's affirmation that he alone had made the decision to send troops. Putin's comments gained special salience after retired top generals openly accused Medvedev of causing unnecessary casualties by acting too hesitantly. (The Moscow Times, 08.09.12).

·       Russians' confidence in Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev has fallen to the level of the protest sentiments of December, 2011. This trend has been revealed by the results of the August poll held by the sociologists of the "Public opinion" Fund (POF).  Only 44 percent of the respondents trust the President. FOM has not ever registered this mood of the society in the past ten years. Dmitry Medvedev is trusted by 39 percent. (Kommersant, 08.10.12).

·       Sixty-nine percent of Russians polled in a recent survey said that the country's authorities have a very poor idea or no idea at all of what ordinary citizens really need, and 59 percent of respondents accused political parties of pursuing only their own interests and ignoring the peoples' interests, Levada Center sociologists said. (Interfax, 08.09.12).

·       A judge in the Arkhangelsk regional city of Velsk on Wednesday reduced former Yukos executive Platon Lebedev's prison sentence by three years and four months, citing changes made to the Criminal Code during Dmitry Medvedev's presidency that eases the maximum punishment for white-collar crimes. (Moscow Times, 08.09.12).

Defense:

·       The Russian armed forces will get new strategic cruise missiles in 2012, First Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Sukhorukov said. (Interfax, 08.08.12).

·       “We are to receive more than 200 new aircraft next year,” Air Force Commander Maj. Gen. Viktor Bondarev said.  (Interfax, 08.08.12).

·       Authors of “The Soviet Biological Weapons Program” book reveal new details about the deadly achievements of Soviet weapons scientists — from multiple-drug-resistant anthrax to “stealth” bugs that elude detection — and they say the strains probably still exist inside the freezers of military laboratories inside Russia. (Washington Post, 08.08.12).

Security and law-enforcement:

·       Three Russian Interior Ministry servicemen were killed on August 6 and three more injured in a double-bombing close to the entrance of the Russian military base at Khankala on the outskirts of Grozny. Russian law enforcement officials say the first bomb was detonated by a militant who died in the blast, and the second shortly afterward as police and military personnel converged on the scene to investigate. Visiting the site of the blast later the same day, Chechen Republic head Ramzan Kadyrov said the attack might have been the work of the Gakayev brothers. (RFE/RL, 08.07.12).

·       Questions are being raised about whether two Chechens held on terror charges in Spain were planning to launch airborne attacks with paragliders. The two Chechens took paragliding lessons this year in a southern Spanish region. A Turkish engineer also under arrest paid for the lessons.  (AP, 08.07.12).

·       The deputy mayor of the city of Khasavyurt in Russia's restive North Caucasus republic of Dagestan was sacked from his post after his son was arrested along with several armed militants earlier this week. (RFE/RL, 08.10.12).

·       A self-described guerrilla fighter urging strict adherence to Islamic law has claimed responsibility for the killing last month of one Muslim leader and the attempted murder of another, in Tatarstan. (New York Times, 08.05.12).

Foreign affairs:

·       "The task remains of protecting our Far Eastern territories from excessive expansion from neighboring states," Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said at a governmental meeting in Moscow. (RIA Novosti, 08.09.12).

·       According to the Pew Research Center, in 2012 substantial changes occurred in the way the Russian Federation is perceived in the world -- its image deteriorated in virtually all Western countries. In the United States it deteriorated by 12 percent (in 2011, 49 percent of Americans had a positive attitude toward the Russian Federation, while in 2012 the figure was only 37 percent), in Spain the figure declined by 10 percent (falling to 36 percent), in Britain it fell 12 percent (to 38 percent), in Germany it declined by 14 percent (to 33 percent), and in France it declined 17 percent (to 36 percent). The current indicators are the lowest in the past four years.  (Kommersant. 08.08.12).

Russia's neighbors:

·       National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) joined the governments of Kazakhstan and the Netherlands in announcing the commissioning of a secure radiological transportation vehicle that will be delivered to the Institute of Atomic Energy – National Nuclear Center of Kazakhstan.  (NNSA, 08.08.12).

·       Kazakhstan will be hosting the international conference "From nuclear test ban to a nuclear-weapon-free world" on 27-29 August. Global security, combating nuclear terrorism, rigorous sanctions against aggressors, and development of peaceful nuclear energy will take center stage at the conference. (Kazwire, 08.03.12).

·       A court in Kazakhstan's western city of Oral has sentenced eight local men for organizing and participating in a terrorist organization.  (RFE/RL, 08.06.12).

·       Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili visited several Georgian villages near the South Ossetian border on Monday evening and promised their residents that Georgia would return the "occupied" lands and that it would enter NATO and the European Union. (RFE/RL, 08.06.12).

·       Less than half of the Russian people believe that Abkhazia and South Ossetia should be independent states (41 percent and 43 percent respectively), although a year ago 53 percent thought so, according to the Levada Center. (Interfax, 08.07.12).

·       Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich signed a bill into law Wednesday that makes Russian an official language in some parts of the former Soviet republic. (LA Times, 08.08.12).

·       Ukraine's Central Election Commission has registered the party ticket of the united opposition Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party without its leader, Yulia Tymoshenko, and ex-Interior Minister Yuri Lutsenko. Ukraine's deputy prosecutor-general said prosecutors plan to indict Tymoshenko on charges of complicity in the murder of a parliament member 16 years ago.  (RFE/RL, 08.09.12).

For more information about this publication please contact the The US-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism at 617-496-0518.

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