Russia in Review

Media Feature

September 14, 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 September 7-14, 2012

Russia in Review: a digest of useful news from U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism for the week of September 7-14, 2012

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

Nuclear security agenda:

• The U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction program in July supported security for six nuclear-weapon train shipments and elimination of 103 metric tons of chemical warfare materials. (GSN, 09.12.12).

Iran nuclear issues:

• The 35-nation board of IAEA censured Iran on Thursday for defying international demands to curb uranium enrichment and failing to address mounting disquiet about its suspected research into atomic bombs. Russia and China joined four U.S.-led Western powers in sponsoring the resolution to display big power unity on Iran. (Reuters, 09.13.12).
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said:  “Unilateral U.S. sanctions against Syria and Iran increasingly take on an extraterritorial character, directly affecting the interests of Russian business, in particular banks.” (AP, 09.07.12).

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

• No significant developments.

Missile defense:

• President Vladimir Putin has lashed back at Mitt Romney's repetitious portrayal of Russia as the U.S.'s "geopolitical foe," saying he's grateful to the Republican contender for making it clear that Moscow would be unwise to trust any future verbal commitments made by any U.S. leader on missile defense. “The most important thing for us is that even if he doesn’t win now, he or a person with similar views may come to power in four years. We must take that into consideration while dealing with security issues for a long perspective.” (AP, CMC, 09.12.12).
• A panel of top scientists and military experts working for the National Research Council has concluded that the nation’s protections against missile attacks suffer from major shortcomings, leaving the United States vulnerable.  In its report, the panel recommended an overhaul that would make the antimissile system “far more effective,” including adding new sensors and interceptor rockets, as well as an additional base in Maine or upstate New York from which interceptors could be fired. (New York Times, 09.11.12).
• Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Frank A. Rose told a Berlin conference that the Department of Defense has begun concept development of SM-3 IIB interceptor, which will be deployed in EPAA Phase Four in the 2021 timeframe. The SM-3 IIB will provide an additional layer for a more enhanced homeland defense against potential ICBM threats to the United States from the Middle East, according to Rose. (State.gov, 09.10.12).

Nuclear arms control:

• Under Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller told the Moscow Non-Proliferation Conference: “We are thinking about how we would verify reductions” in nonstrategic nuclear weapons and how to increase “mutual understanding of NATO’s and Russia’s non-strategic nuclear force postures in Europe.” (State.gov, 09.07.12).
• President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate Rose Gottemoeller for Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. (Whitehouse.gov, 09.10.12).
• On the sidelines of the annual NATO Nuclear Policy Symposium this week, NATO could make some real headway on a proposed diplomatic package aimed at engaging Russia on tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. The focus is on a draft set of transparency and confidence-building measures that NATO intends to propose to Russia that could lend each side greater insight into the other’s tactical nuclear weapons posture in Europe, issue experts said this week. (GSN, 09.13.12).

Counter-terrorism cooperation:

• No significant developments.

Cyber security:

• No significant developments.

Energy exports from CIS:

• Russia must abide by the European Union's internal market rules and stop offering widely varying prices to its member states, EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said on Friday. Oettinger's remarks are the latest turn in a gas pricing row between Russia and the EU. The Kremlin on Tuesday banned its strategic companies, such as Gazprom, from disclosing information to foreign regulators after the European Commission started an antitrust investigation into Gazprom's activities. However, President Vladimir Putin dismissed any talk of a trade war with the EU over the investigation. (Reuters, AP, 09.14.12).
• Russian Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak says Moscow could sell natural gas to Moldova at a lower price if Chisinau denounces its protocol on entering the European Union energy charter treaty.  Russia is also demanding Moldova pay its $4.1 billion debt to Gazprom. (RFE/RL, 09.12.12).
• Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov has called for establishing an international consortium consisting of Ukraine, Russia and the European Union to modernize and manage the Ukrainian natural gas transport system. Also Ukraine, wanting to cut its dependence on expensive Russian natural gas, plans to reduce imports from the neighbouring country next year to 24.5 billion cubic metres (bcm) from 27 billion in 2012, a Ukrainian energy official said. (EurActiv.com, 09.11.12, Reuters, 09.13.12).
• No significant developments.

Access to major markets for exports and imports:

• U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said at the APEC summit in Vladivostok that Barack Obama administration is “working closely” with lawmakers to repeal Jackson-Vanik and hopes that “Congress will pass on this important piece of legislation this month.” (AP, 09.07.12).
• The NPO Energomash engine company, based in Khimki outside Moscow, plans to supply 29 RD-180 rocket engines to the United States between 2014 and 2017. (Interfax, 09.11.12).

Other bilateral issues:

• At their meeting on sidelines of the APEC summit in Vladivostok, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov signed a memorandum of understanding on scientific cooperation and rescue operations in Antarctica and issued two statements encouraging exchanges of regional trade delegations and establishing ties between national parks on either side of the Bering Strait. (NYT, 09.08.12).
• U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said after meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at the APEC summit in Vladivostok: “We haven’t seen eye-to-eye with Russia on Syria.” “If it does continue, then we will work with like-minded states to support the Syrian opposition to hasten the day when Assad falls,” she said. “Russians kept saying they didn’t want him. And I said, ‘Well, you basically own him; you better take him,’” Clinton said of the Syrian president. (AP, 09.09.12, State.gov/CBS, 09.09.12).
• Representative Paul D. Ryan, the Republican nominee for vice president, said that a nuclear Iran was the United States’ biggest foreign policy threat, and that Mitt Romney meant to say that “among the other powers, China and Russia, that Russia stands as a great threat.” (New York Times, 09.09.12).
• Aleksei K. Pushkov, the head of Russia’s parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote via Twitter on Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens’s death in Libya: “Under Qaddafi they didn’t kill diplomats. Obama and Clinton are in shock? What did they expect – ‘Democracy?’ Even bigger surprises await them in Syria.” (NY Times, 09.12.12).
• The Obama administration is opposing a Jewish group’s bid to have civil fines levied against Russia for failing to obey a court order to return its historic books and documents. (AP, 09.10.12).

II. Russia news.

Domestic Politics, Economy and Energy:

• Russia's economy minister stuck to his official forecast that the economy will slow in the second half of the year, bringing growth for the year to 3.5 percent, a week after President Vladimir Putin said the rate could be 4 percent to 5 percent. (Wall Street Journal, 09.14.12).
• The Bank of Russia unexpectedly raised interest rates across the board on Thursday, from to 8.25 percent from 8 percent, for the first time in nine months, as it struggles to contain increases in food prices and inflation while the economy slows. (Wall Street Journal, 09.14.12).
• Deputy Director of Rosatom Nikolai Spassky said that Russia plans to build 38 new nuclear power units by 2030. (Itar-Tass, 09.07.12).
• Rosatom increased a claim against Bulgaria’s National Electricity Co. to $1.3 billion for work on a canceled nuclear power plant project on the Danube.  (Business Week, 09.11.12).
• The Lepse nuclear service ship, which has since 1988 languished at dockside in Murmansk’s atomic icebreaker port, posing enormous radiological risks to the most populous city above the Arctic Circle, was finally towed away for dismantlement.  (Bellona, 09.14.12).
• The Moscow City Court reviewed an appeal to extend the detention time of Yevgeny Yevstratov, the former deputy director general of Rosatom, and decided to reduce the detention time by two months, i.e. until September 27, 2012. (Nuclear.ru, 09.12.12).
• Russia’s parliament voted to strip opposition leader Gennady Gudkov of his seat Friday, making way for a criminal case against him. (New York Times, 09.14.12).

Defense:

• The Caucasus-2012 strategic command-and-staff exercises will be held in Russia's Southern Military District on September 17-22 and will not involve servicemen of Russian military bases outside Russia. (Interfax, 09.13.12).

Security and law-enforcement:

• Formations of federal troops have used drones to discover and attack a group of militants in North Caucasus. (Interfax, 09.12.12).

Foreign affairs:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda oversaw the signing of a memorandum for the $13 billion liquefied natural gas project with Japan’s Agency for Natural Resources and Energy on Saturday. (AP, 09.08.12).
• China and Russia sounded the alarm about the state of the global economy at the APEC summit on Saturday and urged Asian-Pacific countries to protect themselves by forging deeper regional economic ties. (Moscow Times, 09.10.12).
• "As a full-fledged member of this organization, we intend to get rigorously involved in the process of shaping fair rules of international trade," Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a keynote speech to APEC chief executives Friday. (Moscow Times, 09.10.12).
• Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said it's time to revisit an agreement made in June by the big powers at a meeting in Geneva, which would create a transitional government in Syria involving both regime and opposition leaders, write a new constitution, and prepare for elections that would establish a new leadership for the country. (CSM, 09.12.12).

Russia's neighbors:

• A group of experts were to arrive in Georgia on September 12 to analyze the possibilities and necessities of Georgia to provide air defense for the entire territory of Georgia, including the sea area. In the next phase of cooperation will be developed doctrine of defense of Georgia, to be proposed to the Georgian side and technically assured the American side. (Azer-Press, 09.12.12).
• Visiting Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov was in Dushanbe on September 12 for a second straight day of talks with Tajik officials on the future of Russia's military bases in Tajikistan.  (RFE/RL, 09.12.12).
• The entire workload to eliminate the infrastructure for testing nuclear weapons at the former Semipalatinsk nuclear testing ground in Eastern Kazakhstan has been done this year, Erlan Batyrbekov, director of the National Nuclear Center's Nuclear Physics Institute has announced. (Interfax, 09.11.12).
• Uzbekistan has started making regular deliveries of natural gas to China. (AP, 09.13.12).

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

For Academic Citation: