This Week’s Highlights

• Six eminent experts answer questions by Russia Matters on what next steps the U.S. and Russia should take to bolster arms control and strategic stability following the extension of New START. The Belfer Center’s William H. Tobey believes the United States should re-enter the JCPOA to fix it from within, while Laura Kennedy of the Leadership Council for Women in National Security stated that the U.S. should also seek a strategic security dialogue with China to survey the gamut of arms control issues and what might be possible in the near and longer term. The Stimson Center’s Michael Krepon believes re-entering the Open Skies Treaty makes complete sense, but that the INF Treaty is gone. Olga Oliker of the International Crisis Group argues that finding a way for the U.S. back into Open Skies would send a very useful and important message to European countries (including Russia), while Brookings’ Steven Pifer calls for strategic stability talks with Russia that cover nuclear weapons (strategic and non-strategic), missile defense, long-range precision-guided conventional strike systems, third-country nuclear forces and the space and cyber domains.  
• The Atlantic Council’s Daniel Fried, Richard L. Morningstar and Daniel D. Stein share their vision of how to reconcile transatlantic differences over Nord Stream 2, arguing that the compromise should include extending the gas transit agreement between Russia and Ukraine beyond 2024 to ensure a continuing source of transit revenue for Ukraine and creating a regulatory environment under which Nord Stream 2 would be allowed to operate when completed.  
• Dmitri Trenin of the Carnegie Moscow Center dissects U.S. President Joe Biden’s first major foreign policy speech, concluding that the general attitude in Washington toward Russia will remain adversarial and openly supportive of the Kremlin’s domestic opponents. At the same time, Biden’s policy is expected to be cautious when it comes to U.S. national security, and potentially even pragmatic where U.S. interests are involved, Trenin writes, adding that the Kremlin will be on its guard, but can probably live with that. 
• The reviews are in for the EU foreign policy chief’s trip to Moscow last week—and many are brutal, writes Michael Peel for the Financial Times. In a blog post published on Sunday night [Feb. 7], Josep Borrell said his experience indicated that Russian authorities “did not want to seize this opportunity to have a more constructive dialogue with the EU.” Critics would counter that this should have been obvious already, Peel writes. Either way, the pressure has risen further on the Europeans to turn deep divisions over their giant neighbor into a credible policy. 
• Peter Rutland, professor of government at Wesleyan University, believes that despite Alexei Navalny’s wide audience on social media, polls show minimal public support for Navalny as a potential replacement for Putin. It looks unlikely that Navalny will succeed in his quest to topple Putin in the near future, Rutalnd writes, adding that Navalny will probably remain a prisoner, a modern-day equivalent of Alexandre Dumas’ “Man in the Iron Mask.” But his very existence serves as a moral rebuke: a symbol of the Russia that might yet be, according to Rutland. 
• While the richest countries in the world are grappling with shortages of COVID-19 vaccines, some of the poorest worry about getting vaccines at all, write public health professionals Achal Prabhala and Chee Yoke Ling for the New York Times. Yet a solution to both problems may be hiding in plain sight: vaccines from China and Russia, and soon, perhaps, India. Evidence has been accumulating for a while that the vaccines from those countries work well, too. The leading medical journal The Lancet published this week interim results from late-stage trials showing that Sputnik V, the Russian vaccine, had an efficacy rate of 91.6 percent.

NB: Next week’s Russia Analytical Report will appear on Tuesday, Feb. 16, instead of Monday, Feb. 15, because of the U.S. Presidents' Day holiday.

 

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

Nuclear security:

• No significant developments.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• No significant developments.

Iran and its nuclear program:

• No significant developments.

Great-power rivalry/New Cold War/saber rattling:

“The US military must redefine 'readiness',” Charles Q. Brown and Jr. David H. Berger, The Washington Post, 02.01.21. The authors, U.S. Air Force chief of staff and U.S. Marine Corps commandant, write:

• “To compete with the People's Republic of China and Russia, and successfully address other emergent challenges, the U.S. military requires a new framework for assessing readiness. It should focus less on near-term availability and more on future capability and warfighting advantage over peer adversaries.”
• “The current framework is unbalanced and strongly biases spending on the legacy equipment we possess today, much of which was designed in the 1980s and 1990s. … As a starting point, we recommend adding to readiness metrics new layers of analysis utilizing artificial intelligence to leverage the military's data-rich environment … Ultimately, this framework would allow us to deliver the forces that today's combatant commanders need to engage with allies and partners, compete with adversaries, deter conflict and, if necessary, win wars.”
• “Our primary function as service chiefs is to organize, train and equip our forces for employment. We owe the combatant commanders who use these forces the capabilities that produce a warfighting advantage now and into the future, not simply greater quantities of existing equipment unsuited to competition or conflict with great powers.”
• “Achieving this goal will require accelerating investments in capabilities, including hypersonic weapons; AI-enabled remotely piloted aircraft; long-range penetrating strike; truly joint all-domain command and control; unmanned, low-cost, expendable ground, surface and air vehicles; long-range mobile ground-launched missiles; and better integrated air and missile defenses.”
• “To be clear, we do not suggest merely cutting funds for near-term readiness and legacy capacity, but rather redirecting savings toward transformative modernization as part of our proposed new readiness framework and consistent with larger future force design models. Updating how we measure and conceive of readiness will enable the military services, Defense Department and Congress to ‘identify, replace and retire costly and ineffective legacy platforms,’ a critical necessity noted by the Future of Defense Task Force.”

“The Case Against Foreign Policy Solutionism. Why the Biden Administration Should Manage Global Problems, Not Try to Solve Them,” Richard Fontaine, Foreign Affairs, 02.08.21. The author, CEO of the Center for a New American Security, writes:

• “Devising solutions to national security problems might seem all to the good. … But trying to fix the insoluble can often make things worse. … Then there are the opportunity costs. The war on terror’s all-consuming focus left Washington well informed about obscure offshoots of Boko Haram but underprepared and insufficiently informed about a revisionist Russia.”
• “Insoluble problems do not remain that way forever, of course, and the key to success in foreign policy is to attach likelihoods to the possibility of their resolution and seizing the moment when odds change. In the meantime, to deem international problems exceedingly unlikely of resolution does not mean simply abandoning them. Instead, Washington should embrace issue management.”
• “Even great-power competition with China and Russia is ultimately an exercise in management. … Beijing today is powerful, confident, assertive and authoritarian, a combination that poses deep challenges for U.S. interests and values. The new administration has made clear that no ‘reset’ of relations is in the offing. The result will be a long period of competition in which both the United States and China each seek advantage across a broad array of issues, with no neat resolution of differences.”
• “With Russia, similarly, the new administration is neither promising a reset nor dismissing Moscow as a second-tier power that can be cowed or ignored. It will have little choice but to combine pressure, diplomacy and arms control agreements, and vigorous pushback into the indefinite future.”
• “Managing foreign policy issues involves difficult tradeoffs, partial victories and much dissatisfaction. No policymaker seeks a world in which Pyongyang retains nuclear-armed missiles that can reach the United States, Israelis and Palestinians are locked in unending conflict or a sustained U.S. troop presence occasionally clashes with the Taliban. But as with everything in this life, potential outcomes must be weighed against the available alternatives.”

“Standing on Our Own Feet? Opportunities and Risks of European Self-Defense,” Eckhard Lübkemeier, SWP, February 2021. The author, a retired ambassador, writes:

• “Only a Europe that provides for its own defense can be a fully sovereign Europe. As is the case for the U.S., Europe would have to be capable of protecting its core security interests without depending on its transatlantic partner. … Structural incentives as well as recent developments militate in favor of establishing such intra-NATO status parity.”
• “The well-being and security of Russia and that of the European Union are linked in many ways. In addition to their geographical proximity, they have established mutually beneficial economic ties, particularly in the oil and gas sector. … Russia is a medium-sized power in economic and technological terms, but it remains a major military power with a formidable nuclear arsenal. This does not pose a threat in and of itself, because military capabilities only become a source of concern when political actors distrust each other.”
• “We are not seeing a return to the Cold War, and Moscow may not be solely responsible for failing to replace this conflict with a cooperative relationship with the European Union and the United States. Yet Russia has become an aggressive neighbor who arouses suspicion and demands countervailing hedging.”
• “European self-defense has to meet four key requirements: broader and greater European integration, sufficient military capabilities, effective strategy and political leadership. … Defense autonomy requires an independent nuclear deterrent capability. … Europe would have to create a novel type of ‘integrated deterrence.’ Underpinned by a solid community of solidarity and trust, this would be based on French nuclear forces, with the French president maintaining exclusive decision-making authority.”
• “Germany and France would have to seize the initiative … They would have to lead by example, bring about the progressive integration of their armed forces and an alignment of their strategic cultures.”

“How to Keep US-Chinese Confrontation From Ending in Calamity,” Kevin Rudd, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2021. The author, president of the Asia Society and former prime minister of Australia, writes:

• “Both the United States and China are currently in search of a formula to manage their relationship for the dangerous decade ahead. The hard truth is that no relationship can ever be managed unless there is a basic agreement between the parties on the terms of that management. What would be the measures of success should the United States and China agree on such a joint strategic framework?”
• “One sign of success would be if by 2030 they have avoided a military crisis or conflict across the Taiwan Strait or a debilitating cyberattack. … A convention banning various forms of robotic warfare would be a clear victory, as would the United States and China acting immediately together, and with the World Health Organization, to combat the next pandemic. … Perhaps the most important sign of success, however, would be a situation in which both countries competed in an open and vigorous campaign for global support for the ideas, values and problem-solving approaches that their respective systems offer—with the outcome still to be determined.”
• “[T]he most demonstrable example of a failed approach to managed strategic competition would be over Taiwan. If Xi were to calculate that he could call Washington’s bluff by unilaterally breaking out of whatever agreement had been privately reached with Washington, the world would find itself in a world of pain.”
• “A few days before Biden’s inauguration, Chen Yixin, the secretary-general of the CCP’s Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, stated that ‘the rise of the East and the decline of the West has become [a global] trend and changes of the international landscape are in our favor.’ … In reality, there is a long way to go in this race. … Managed strategic competition would highlight the strengths and test the weaknesses of both great powers—and may the best system win.”

NATO-Russia relations:

• No significant developments.

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Arms control:

Expert Survey: “With New START Extended, What Is Future of US-Russian Arms Control?”, Russia Matters, 02.05.21. Russia Matters interviewed a number of experts on the future of arms control:

1. What does the extension of New START entail for the future of strategic stability in the U.S.-Russian nuclear dyad and for the general bilateral relationship in the short to medium term? 

• Michael Krepon, co-founder of the Stimson Center: “For the next five years, one area of competition will be tamped down because of New START. These limits matter, and they are better than no limits whatsoever. … I see nothing akin to the advent of cruise missiles that created such havoc to the central limits in SALT.”
• Olga Oliker, program director for Europe and Central Asia, International Crisis Group: “From the standpoint of the overall bilateral relationship, it solves none of the many problems and disagreements between the two countries—but it does indicate that both states are aware of the dangers of those disagreements escalating.”
• William H. Tobey, director of the Belfer Center’s U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism: “Extending New START offers a period of transparency and predictability, but does nothing to redress very real stresses on strategic stability emanating from both Russia and the United States.”

2. What does the extension of New START mean for the future of bilateral and multilateral arms control in the short to medium term? Where does that future lie: in counting and reducing numbers or focusing on observation of norms, and why?

• Laura Kennedy, Steering Committee member at the Leadership Council for Women in National Security: “We need to start with a serious and consistent strategic stability dialogue with Russia to survey what we can aim for in the medium and longer term, both in terms of constraining numbers and developing and reinforcing norms.”
• Krepon: “Multilateral treaties with numbers seem most unlikely.”
• Emmanuelle Maître, research fellow at the Foundation for Strategic Research: “Counting and reducing numbers will be increasingly difficult as arsenals grow increasingly asymmetric and it may become difficult to find equivalent systems on which similar caps may be imposed.”
• Steven Pifer, Brookings-Robert Bosch Foundation Transatlantic Initiative Fellow: “Counting, limiting and reducing numbers will almost certainly remain part of any U.S.-Russian nuclear arms negotiation. … That does not exclude, however, an emphasis on norms … but those norms might develop with greater weight in multilateral channels.”

3. What next 2-3 steps, if any, would you recommend the U.S. take in either nuclear or conventional arms control and confidence-building or in nonproliferation? Should the U.S. reenter the Open Skies Treaty? What about the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA)? Can and should the INF Treaty be revived or replaced?

• Kennedy: “The most urgent U.S. task is to reengage on JCPOA … The U.S. should seek a strategic security dialogue with China to survey the gamut of arms control issues and what might be possible to deal with in the near and longer term. … Re the lapsed INF Treaty, there’s no prospect now of restoring it, but discussions might explore more limited proposals.”
• Krepon: “Re-entering the Open Skies Treaty makes complete sense. … The INF Treaty is gone, given Putin’s material breach and the number of missiles the General Staff has already deployed.”
• Oliker: “Finding a way for the United States back into Open Skies would send a very useful and important message to European countries (including Russia) and to the world about the U.S. commitment to Euro-Atlantic security and to its treaty obligations. … INF is not coming back.”
• Pifer: “First, launch strategic stability talks with Russia. These should cover the entire range of issues that affect strategic stability … The talks will give the sides the opportunity to better understand one another's concerns and perhaps allay some of them. Second, rejoin the Open Skies Treaty. Third, rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran.”
• Tobey: “The United States should re-enter the JCPOA to fix it from within.”

4. Should the U.S. pursue further dialogue with Russia on arms control and nonproliferation? If so, what kinds of systems and norms should be discussed and, perhaps, covered by future deals?

• Krepon: “Missile defenses are part of the conversation. Another part: working together on a norms-based agenda to reduce nuclear danger, bringing in China and other nuclear-armed rivals.”
• Oliker: “Whether bilateral or multilateral, the challenge for any agreement lies in defining what each participant wants others to limit and what they are willing to limit in return. … Beijing will only sign on to a deal that includes benefits for it, whether those are limitations on U.S. and/or Russian arsenals or some other gain.”
• Pifer: “The Biden team may face a hard question: Is its desire to limit all Russian nuclear weapons so strong that it would be prepared to accede to a Russian demand for limits on missile defense? A strong case can be made that doing so would be in the U.S. interest, but constraining missile defense would be controversial in Washington.”

“The U.S. and Russia kept a bilateral nuclear weapons deal alive. The harder part comes next,” James J. Cameron, The Washington Post, 02.02.21. The author, a postdoctoral fellow with the Oslo Nuclear Project at the University of Oslo, writes:

• “Even with New START's future assured, any follow-up talks to decide strategic arms control after 2026 will face a number of significant challenges. … Emerging technologies will make the next agreement harder … The two sides disagree on how to manage new technologies … Poor U.S.-Russia relations bode ill for further arms control efforts … China is a complicating factor … U.S. domestic polarization could hamper arms control efforts.”
• “The Biden administration could explore alternative non-treaty formats to avoid the need for a two-thirds Senate majority. A congressional-executive agreement limiting strategic arms, for example, would require a simple majority in both houses of Congress. Alternatively, the United States and Russia could coordinate on unilateral measures that would not carry the force of law, though this approach seems unlikely given the low level of trust currently between the two sides.”
• “Such non-treaty-based approaches could also encounter congressional resistance. They would also be politically awkward for Biden, who has previously argued that any agreement limiting ‘deployed U.S. strategic nuclear warheads’ should ‘constitute a treaty subject to the advice and consent of the Senate.’ Even if possible, the path to a new agreement governing the world's most powerful nuclear arsenals is likely to be a long and winding one.”

“A New Start for Arms Control?” Andrey Baklitskiy, Carnegie Moscow Center, 02.03.21. The author, a consultant at the PIR Center, writes:

• “Extending the New START is the first and easiest step in rebuilding the U.S.–Russian arms control system from its ruins. Restrictions on anti-missile defense systems and short- and intermediate-range missiles disappeared with the respective collapses of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, while conventional weapons in space and nonstrategic nuclear weapons have never been regulated by international treaties.”
• “Russia and the United States have different views on all of these areas, but without taking each other’s interests into account, it will be increasingly difficult to ensure national security. Progress in military technology never stands still, and the latest U.S. missile defense solutions have paved the way for a quantum leap, while investment in hypersonic technology has led to the creation of a dozen new systems whose effect can so far only be imagined. Recently, Moscow has been talking of ‘strategic equalization’ with the United States. In any case, talks need to begin now.”

“STARTing Over, or the End of the Line for Nuclear Arms Control? The United States and Russia kick a nuclear can down the road,” Michael Moran, Foreign Policy, 02.03.21. The author, lecturer at the University of Denver’s Korbel School of International Affairs, writes:

• “Allowing New START to expire, with the inevitable buildups that would ensue both in Russia and the United States, would be certain to force China to match its rivals. By deciding to renew the treaty, Biden and his new Secretary of State Antony Blinken have rejected this possibility. Senior administration officials say they hope to use the five-year extension to address the treaty’s shortcomings and to coax Russia into avoiding an arms race it can’t possibly afford to win by rejoining the INF Treaty. Separate talks with China, possibly including other acknowledged nuclear powers such as France, the United Kingdom, India and Pakistan, have also been pushed as a way to expand the treaty, though most analysts see such plans as being on par with Security Council reform: i.e., a non-New STARTer.”
• “The new administration, in effect, is acknowledging its own reality: You go to peace with the treaties you’ve got. And for the next five years, at least, that treaty is New START.”

“Why the New START Extension Could Be the End of Arms Control as We Know It. It’s a new era. The old treaty frameworks won’t work anymore,” Eugene Rumer and Richard Sokolsky, Politico, 02.07.21. The authors, director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a nonresident senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment, write:

• “We should enjoy the moment [the extension of New START] while it lasts, because the version of strategic arms control that has been a major feature of U.S-Russian relations—bilateral, treaty-based, verifiable—is nearing the end of its life. Once the extended New START expires five years from now, there is virtually no chance that another negotiated treaty will be waiting to succeed it. New ways of managing the U.S.-Russian strategic competition are needed to address not only the numerical ‘balance of terror,’ but to also manage new technologies that promise to be far more destabilizing than one side’s mere superiority in strategic nuclear warheads or missiles.”
• “The existing framework limits operationally deployed strategic warheads and delivery vehicles and includes a robust verification regime, which has served both countries well. But it is concerned mostly with numbers, and not qualities, of weapons.”
• “There is much conceptual work to be done here on both sides, and there is little evidence that either side is ready to embrace this approach now. But there are precedents in the history of competition between Moscow and Washington going back to the Cuban Missile Crisis, when restraint and quiet mutual concessions not based on any treaty proved pivotal in steering the relationship from the brink of disaster.”
• “The United States could refrain from deploying new land-based missiles in Europe that could reach targets deep in the Russian heartland, even though it can do so after the demise of the INF Treaty. There are other unilateral steps the United States could consider. If Russia reciprocates, it could be a step toward a new framework for managing the competition; if not, those steps can always be reversed.”

“The Death of Open Skies Means a More Dangerous World,” Andrey Baklitskiy and Sergey Radchenko, The National Interest, 02.04.21. The authors, a consultant at the PIR Center and a professor of international relations at Cardiff University, write:

• “Finger-pointing over who is responsible for the crash of the Open Skies obscures something rather obvious: the treaty’s now probable demise is in reality a godsend to the Kremlin. The ‘Open Skies’ approach was from the start much more beneficial to Washington than it ever was to Moscow.”
• “NATO—formally absent from the treaty text—fundamentally shaped its actual implementation. Since all of the Open Skies data were shared among all participants, a Dutch flight over Russia was an asset to all NATO members, but Moscow couldn’t use information from the German or French overflights of the United States since there were none.”
• “It was all the more surprising, then, to see the Trump administration pull out of the treaty that was actually much more in America’s than in Russia’s interest. Washington simultaneously presented the treaty as unnecessary (because U.S. satellites provided all the needed information) and threatening (Russian planes in American skies were clearly up to no good).”
• “The military utility of the Open Skies Treaty has always been in question. It was joked that the treaty was a solution in search of a problem. Yet, what Open Skies Treaty was good at was maintaining the idea that cooperative security was possible and desirable. Russian and NATO officers formed joint crews on the Open Skies flights, shared the chats and sometimes the laughs. There was information sharing, and joint approval of observation planes. So un-Cold-War-like!”
• “The treaty, for all its flaws in design and in implementation, symbolized the new post-Cold War world. But as that world began to crumble, it began to look like a relic. Can there be a place for such a treaty in the era of great power competition? Perhaps not. That’s why America’s and Russia’s exit is not all that surprising.”

Counter-terrorism:

• No significant developments.

Conflict in Syria:

“How to Win the Influence Contest in the Middle East,” Steven Simon, Josh Landis and Aiman Mansour, Foreign Affairs, 02.03.21. The authors of the article write:

• “Iran’s soft power stems in part from the long history of Sunni Arab domination over regional minorities, whether these have been Shiite, Christian, heterodox or Kurdish. In many parts of the region, ‘secular’ nationalist regimes confront Sunni fundamentalist opposition movements, such as those represented by the Muslim Brotherhood, al Qaeda–aligned militias or ISIS. The non-Sunni Arab populations in such countries see Iran as the only counterweight.”
• “In Syria, for example, minority populations threatened by Sunni militancy saw Iran’s intervention on behalf of Assad’s regime as lifesaving. The United States, by contrast, has crushed those populations with sanctions and armed Sunni militants in the hope of unseating Assad. Such efforts have not succeeded. They have only forced the region’s Shiite and other minorities to dig in their heels and led the Levantine states to pull closer to Russia and Iran.”
• “Both Iran and Turkey have figured out how to project regional influence through a combination of hard and soft power. The United States has relied instead on hard power and economic sanctions, both of which have had the unintended consequence of inviting ever deeper Iranian and Turkish inroads into the region.”
• “Washington might get better results by mobilizing Arab soft power instead. The comparative advantage the Gulf states hold over both Iran and Turkey, after all, is not their military capability but their wealth.”
• “The United States has an opportunity to demilitarize the regional standoff with Iran by helping the Sunni Arab states to recast their role in this regard as well.”

“The Russian Military’s Lessons Learned in Syria,” Mason Clark, Institute for the Study of War, 02.02.21. The author, a research analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, writes:

• “The Russian Armed Forces are applying lessons learned from their experience in Syria to shape their development into a flexible and effective expeditionary force.”
• “The Russian military’s main lesson from Syria is the need to gain ‘superiority of management’ in future conflicts. The Russians define superiority of management as making better decisions faster than the opponent and compelling the opponent to operate within a Russian decision framework.” 
• “The Russian military’s chosen adaptations to its learning from Syria pose several challenges to the United States and its allies. The United States cannot assume its ongoing modernization efforts will incidentally counter the Russian military’s changing capabilities in command and control, expeditionary warfare, and coalition warfare.”
• “The Russian military is supporting its technological modernization of command systems with a campaign to overhaul Russian command culture … The Russian military is developing doctrines to support increased precision-strike capabilities but achieving these goals requires further costly technological investment … The Russian military is likely developing capabilities to challenge the use of unmanned aerial vehicles.”
• “The United States and its allies must prepare to confront an increasingly effective Russian military that is intent on further developing expeditionary capabilities and using them in coalition environments … Additional Russian discussion and testing of ideas, not to mention further combat experience, will likely refine many of the adaptations that the Russian military is still developing from its lessons learned in Syria. The Russian military’s learning from Syria is driving Russian modernization efforts; the United States must understand this learning and adaptation to confront the Kremlin effectively.”

Cyber security:

“Russia is trying to set the rules for the Internet. The UN saw through the ruse,” David Ignatius, The Washington Post, 02.01.21. The author, a foreign affairs columnist for the news outlet, writes:

• “Russia had asked the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to have the group's 193 member states ‘discuss the status of global governance system for … Internet domain names, addresses and critical Internet infrastructure.’ In a curt statement Thursday [Jan. 28], the ITU said simply that it had ‘noted the contribution’ of Russia. In other words, thanks but no thanks.”
• “This seemingly obscure bureaucratic debate matters because it's a rare moment when an international body rebuffs Russia's growing ambition to steer the Internet. Russia has tried to set the rules for what it calls ‘information space’—either by writing new protocols or hacking the ones that exist. This time it didn't work.”
• “Russia has refused to sign the 2001 Budapest Convention on Cybercrime, which went into force in 2004, arguing that its provisions are too intrusive. Since at least 2017, Russia has pressed instead for a new U.N. treaty that would govern cyberspace.”
• “A year ago, with little public notice, Russia won backing from the U.N. General Assembly to begin drafting the new cyberspace pact. The issue got little high-level attention during the Trump administration, but that may be changing. President Biden raised U.S. concerns about Russian hacking and Internet manipulations last week during a call with Putin, the White House said.”
• “It's a grotesque irony that Russia—which is among the world's leading saboteurs of open dialogue on the Internet—is promoting itself as the new guardian of responsible Internet security. Fortunately, the telecommunications experts gathered at last week's ITU meeting saw through the ruse.”

“How the United States Lost to Hackers,” Nicole Perlroth, New York Times, 02.07.21. The author, a reporter for the news outlet, writes:

• “Finding every Russian back door could take months, years even. And climbing out of our current mess will entail a grueling choice to stop leaving ourselves vulnerable.”
• “For individuals, this means making life less convenient. It's not ignoring password prompts and software updates, turning on two-factor authentication, not clicking malicious links. For businesses, it requires testing code as engineers write it, not after it has made its way into consumer hands. It requires adding moats around the crown jewels: using hand-marked paper ballots, removing the controls that govern our nuclear plants, medical equipment and air traffic from anything else.”
• “For the government, perhaps, an easy place to start is setting clear rules that prevent the NSA's own … from doing the dirty work for other governments where the rules that govern our own spycraft do not apply. And it's long past time to shut all the doors and windows that should never have been left open.”
• “Jim Gosler worked for decades to keep Americans, and our secrets, safe, to make sure we never had to know just how close to a catastrophic cyberattack we could come. Now, as the country reckons with scenarios he long feared, he realizes the way forward is understanding just how unsafe we already are.”

Elections interference:

• No significant developments.

Energy exports from CIS:

“Reconciling transatlantic differences over Nord Stream 2,” Daniel Fried, Richard L. Morningstar and Daniel D. Stein, Atlantic Council, 02.02.21. The authors, affiliates of the Atlantic Council, write:

• “The Biden-Harris administration … may look for ways to deal with the risks of Nord Steam 2 at less cost to relations with Germany and signal the return to mutual respect and interdependence by attempting to remove Nord Stream 2 as an obstacle to alliance unity and by focusing on common objectives. Germany, with the pressure mounting against Nord Stream 2, may be ready to find ways to deal with and not dismiss concerns over the project.”
• “A common action plan on Nord Stream 2 potentially could include some or all of the following elements … Extending the gas transit agreement between Russia and Ukraine beyond 2024 to ensure a continuing source of transit revenue for Ukraine. … [The] United States and Germany working together to help Ukraine with much-needed energy reform and energy transition efforts. … Germany increasing its support for the Three Seas Initiative and matching the recent up to $1 billion financing commitment by the United States for projects to reinforce European energy security, which includes a $300 million investment by the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation into the Three Seas Initiative Investment Fund. … Working with the EU, Germany and European stakeholders on the regulatory environment under which Nord Stream 2 would be allowed to operate when completed.”
• “Working for a solution to Nord Stream 2 would take place alongside, not replace, U.S. and European efforts to address malign Kremlin behavior, e.g., with respect to Navalny, cyber aggression or disinformation. This requires a good faith effort, taking into account legitimate concerns on all sides. Resolving this thorny issue would go a long way toward returning the U.S.-European relationship to one of trust and mutual respect and building a U.S.-German partnership, rather than confrontation, on energy.”

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

“George Shultz, 100, Who Helped End the Cold War, Dies,” Tim Weinerm, New York Times, 02.08.21. The author of the article writes:

• “He carried one of Washington's weightiest résumés—labor secretary, treasury secretary and budget director for Nixon and secretary of state under Reagan as the Cold War waned. George P. Shultz, who presided with a steady hand over the beginning of the end of the Cold War as President Ronald Reagan's often embattled secretary of state, died on Saturday [Feb. 6].”
• “Moscow and Washington had not spoken for years; nuclear tensions escalated and hit a peak during his first months in office. The hard work of replacing fear and hatred with a measure of trust and confidence took place in more than 30 meetings with Mr. Shultz and the Soviet foreign minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, between 1985 and 1988. The Soviets saw Mr. Shultz as their key interlocutor; in private, they called him the prime minister of the United States.”
• “Continuous meetings between Mr. Shultz and Mr. Shevardnadze helped ease the tensions between the superpowers and paved the way for the most sweeping arms control agreement of the Cold War, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.”
• “Almost alone among the members of the Reagan team, Mr. Shultz had seen early on that the new Soviet leader, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, and his allies in Moscow were different from their predecessors. … The world seemed on the verge of a lasting peace when he left office … But a lethal force was rising in Afghanistan, where American-supplied weapons in the hands of Afghan rebels killed Soviet occupying forces throughout the 1980s.”
• “Mr. Shultz and Mr. Gorbachev had argued to no avail in a Washington Post op-ed article in 2018 that abandoning the INF treaty ‘would be a step toward a new arms race, undermining strategic stability and increasing the threat of miscalculation or technical failure leading to an immensely destructive war.’ Mr. Shultz agonized over that threat. … ‘There is too much loose talk about not just having nuclear weapons, but using them,’ he said. ‘People have forgotten their power. In my day, I remember nuclear weapons. We knew what they could do. It was very vividly wrong.’”

“Dealing With Biden's America,” Dmitri Trenin, Carnegie Moscow Center, 02.08.21. The author, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, writes:

• “U.S. President Joe Biden’s first major foreign policy speech did not contain any surprises. So far, Biden has been consistent in his talking points. … America is back. … The United States and its allies will deal with the principal challenge of authoritarianism, represented by China’s ambitions and Russia’s disruptive behavior. … At the same time, Washington will engage with its rivals and adversaries in Beijing and Moscow on U.S. interests or where U.S. national security demands it.”
• “The Kremlin will probably interpret Biden’s message as meaning that the United States will double down on waging non-military campaigns against its designated adversaries, including Russia. … Another likely conclusion is that the main thrust of U.S. foreign policy has not changed much. … There may and probably will be stylistic differences, but hardly substantial ones.”
• “Russia will continue to be subject to packages of U.S. sanctions … U.S.-Russian interaction on strategic stability issues … will go hand-in-hand with persistent condemnation and retribution for what Biden calls Russia’s determination to damage and disrupt American democracy. … Like China, Russia will face a more united front of American allies. … The distinction between Russia’s confrontation with the United States and its alienation from the European Union is growing narrower.”
• “At the same time, some elements of President Biden’s speech suggest that there may be room for Russia to cooperate with the United States beyond strategic stability and arms control. This applies to such global issues as climate change; the COVID-19 pandemic; and nuclear non-proliferation. … Overall, the Kremlin sees the Democratic administration as more predictable and more professional on foreign and security policy than its predecessor.”
• “The general attitude in Washington toward Russia will remain adversarial, and openly supportive of the Kremlin’s domestic opponents. At the same time, Biden’s policy is expected to be cautious when it comes to U.S. national security, and potentially even pragmatic where U.S. interests are involved. The Kremlin will be on its guard, but can probably live with that.”

“Joe Biden's Old Russia Start,” Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal, 02.01.21. The news outlet’s editorial board writes:

• “On Sunday [Jan. 31], Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he is ‘deeply disturbed by the violent crackdown’ on Russian protesters and the arrests of thousands demanding the release of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Mr. Blinken said Russians are fed up with ‘corruption’ and ‘autocracy’ and added that Mr. Biden delivered a similar message in a phone call with Mr. Putin.”
• “Good to hear, but the Administration sent a very different signal by embracing an unconditional five-year extension of the New Start nuclear arms treaty, which Mr. Putin made formal on Friday [Jan. 29].”
• “This squanders useful diplomatic work by the Trump Administration. …The U.S. sought improved verification, provisions to address technological developments and a plan for future negotiations to include China. Both sides came close to signing an interim, one-year extension last year before talks were overtaken by the presidential election.”
• “Victoria Nuland, Mr. Biden's nominee for the third-highest State Department post, last year suggested a one- or two-year extension. ‘Washington should not grant Moscow what it wants most,’ she wrote, ‘a free rollover of New START without any negotiations to address Russia's recent investments in short- and medium-range nuclear weapons systems and new conventional weapons.’ Yet that's exactly what Mr. Biden has granted.”
• “This is an echo of the Obama Administration Russia policy of criticizing Mr. Putin while refusing to sell lethal arms to Ukraine. Mr. Blinken said the U.S. is reviewing how to respond to Mr. Navalny's arrest and didn't rule out more sanctions. After its needless unilateral concession on New START, Mr. Putin won't be impressed by critical words alone.”

“How Biden and West could help Russia by reining in Putin,” Garry Kasparov, The Washington Post, 02.04.21. The author, chairman of the Renew Democracy Initiative and the Human Rights Foundation, writes:

• “Navalny knows what Putin cares about, and the West should learn, too, if it wants results.”
• “First, end Putin's asymmetrical advantage and treat his regime like it's the target of a criminal investigation. Even if tracking down all the ill-gotten assets doesn't lead to arrests, exposing that information would be invaluable. No doubt Navalny's organization would know how to use it—his recent YouTube video about Putin's billion-dollar palace has been viewed more than 100 million times.”
• “Second, unite on anti-kleptocracy measures. The recent U.S. ban on anonymous shell companies is a strong move, and Europe should be pressed to coordinate. There will always be another off-shore haven, but they don't all have the security and convenience that Putin's oligarchs crave.”
• “Third, stop giving Putin and other authoritarian regimes leverage and legitimacy with trade deals, memberships and access. Lecturing dictators about human rights is meaningless if you're also taking their oil, gas and cash.”
• “United States and its allies must look inside and examine their principles to break the terrible cycle they helped create in Russia. When that happens, and only when that happens, it will be the end of a very long day.”

 

II. Russia’s domestic policies

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

“Dueling for the Soul of Russia,” Peter Rutland, Jordan Center/ Transitions Online, 02.03.21. The author, a professor of government at Wesleyan University, writes:

• “Putin easily brushed aside the challenge to his masculinity from the women of Pussy Riot in 2012. But now he has met his nemesis: a man who has proved his courage by facing down repeated physical assaults, and who is manifestly willing to die for his cause. Navalny came close to death when he was poisoned with Novichok in August. He spent 18 days in a coma, and almost miraculously returned to life.”
• “So Navalny’s challenge to Putin is not just political—it is personal. Putin has tried to avoid this, refusing to utter Navalny’s name, and referring to him instead as ‘the Berlin patient’ or ‘this gentleman.’ In a 2017 interview, YouTuber Yurii Dud asked Navalny which political figure he most admired. Without hesitation, he replied ‘Jesus Christ,’ citing his role in bringing about a revolution in social values. Navalny himself is not a religious person—but he does see himself as the savior of Russia, and thus Putin’s rival.”
• “Observers disagree about Navalny’s political values. Is he a liberal? Is he a nationalist? But there is really no ambiguity in his political agenda. His goal is revolutionary change. He does not believe that it is possible to hold Russia’s leaders accountable within the existing political system. The investigative journalism, the protests and the election campaigning are just a means to the end of regime change.”
• “Polls show minimal public support for Navalny as a potential replacement for Putin. A September Levada Center poll found 20 percent approved of his political activities—with the strongest backing among the young. … It looks unlikely that Navalny will succeed in his quest to topple Putin in the near future. … But his very existence serves as a moral rebuke: a symbol of the Russia that might yet be.”

“Rising poverty and falling incomes fuel Russia’s Navalny protests,” Henry Foy and Max Seddon, Financial Times, 02.07.21. Foy, the Moscow bureau chief of the Financial Times, and Seddon, Moscow correspondent at the Financial Times, write:

• “While the jailing of opposition activist Alexei Navalny provided the impetus for nationwide protests across Russia over the past two weekends, much of the public anger at president Vladimir Putin’s regime was fueled by a persistent and growing feeling of economic gloom among the country’s population.”
• “Amid stagnant growth, a collapse in investment and austere spending measures deployed by Putin’s government, Russian real incomes have fallen for five of the past seven years. … Household consumption fell 8.6 percent last year as the economy shrank by more than 3 percent. While that is less than other emerging markets, it means Russia’s gross domestic product per capita is now 30 per cent lower than in 2013. … Through the first nine months of last year, 19.6 million Russians were living below the poverty line, equivalent to 13.3 percent of the population. … Much of that economic pain can be traced back to decisions taken inside the Kremlin.”
• “’Economic problems have been the main concern of Russians for many years,’ said Denis Volkov, deputy director of the Levada Center. … Such grievances over falling incomes and rising costs have been amplified by claims of regime graft such as those made by Navalny’s team last month, in a video investigation that alleged oligarchs built a $1.3bn palace for Putin on the Black Sea.”
• “’People are broadly feeling more hopeless and that they have less to lose,’ said [Elina] Ribakova, [deputy chief economist at the Institute of International Finance].’ [Russians] disagree with each other on lots of things. But there is a consensus on what they don’t like: corruption, crumbling social safety nets and the ignoring of average people,’ she added.”

“Vladimir Putin’s Russia is destabilizing itself from within. The persecution of Alexei Navalny provides a focus for social discontent,” Tatiana Stanovaya, Financial Times, 02.07.21. The author, founder of R. Politik, a political analysis firm, and a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Moscow Center, writes:

• “The prison sentence for Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny handed down by a Moscow court last week is an even more radical move than last year’s attempt to poison him. By putting Navalny behind bars for at least two and a half years, Vladimir Putin’s regime is creating far greater risks for itself than if it had managed to secretly do away with him.”
• “Putin’s original success was rooted in his regime’s ability to deliver steady improvements in living standards while inspiring Russians with exploits on the world stage. Now the regime is ruling largely by scaring people and fostering the impression that Mother Russia is once again a ‘besieged fortress.’”
• “Can such hard-edged tactics work while the government continues to ignore the socio-economic and public health challenges unleashed by the pandemic? Falling real incomes and a recent increase in the retirement age have fueled the social discontent that spilled on to the streets after Navalny’s arrest.”
• “Presidential elections are not scheduled until 2024, but this is the first time Putin has had to deal with a real opponent. The Kremlin is no longer capable of deflecting popular discontent and rendering it harmless.”
• “The FSB does not think in terms of political logic or polling data. It resorts to what it does best: repression, prosecutions, kangaroo courts and threats. … By refusing any dialogue with its opponents and the public, the regime all but guarantees that social tensions will morph into political protest. Either the regime must find the wisdom to be more flexible, or it will become an unambiguously repressive state. The latest events set Russia firmly on track to the latter destination.”

“Aleksei Navalny Is Winning,” Editorial Board, New York Times, 02.04.21. The news outlet’s editorial board writes:

• “In this David v. Goliath saga, the 44-year-old Mr. Navalny has succeeded through raw courage and perseverance in putting Mr. Putin on the defensive. The imprisonment was Mr. Navalny's move. Mr. Putin had tried for years to give him only brief sentences to avoid making him a martyr. But by voluntarily returning from convalescence in Germany, and then releasing a devastating YouTube video showing the obscenely opulent palace Mr. Putin was building himself on the Black Sea, Mr. Navalny left the president little choice but to dispatch him to a labor camp, and thus transform him into a powerful symbol of resistance.”
• “It was Mr. Navalny in the glassed-in prisoner's dock. But it was Mr. Putin and his corrupt cohort who were on trial behind the army of riot police officers gathered in central Moscow to prevent the sort of mass protests across all of Russia that followed Mr. Navalny's return to his country on Jan. 17.”
• “Massive police repression and winter frosts may quell the demonstrations. But the vast movement Mr. Navalny has mobilized is quantitatively different from earlier opposition forces, and still growing. The opposition now has 40 offices across Russia, and most of its millions of followers are young people who have not challenged the Kremlin before. Among people ages 18 to 24, Mr. Putin's popularity has slid from 36 percent in December 2019 to 20 percent.”
• “The Biden administration and European governments were quick to condemn Mr. Navalny's imprisonment and may follow that up with more sanctions against Mr. Putin and his lieutenants. That would be well deserved. But Mr. Putin would do well to see that the fiercest challenge to his crooked rule is not from abroad, but from Russian citizens who seek and speak the truth.”

“Pasta and Sugar, Not Navalny, Are Putin’s Main Worries,” Eugene Finkel, Janetta Azarieva and Yitzhak Brudny, PONARS Eurasia, 02.08.21. The authors of the memo write:

• “In late 2020, food prices and the Russian citizens’ access to staple foods have emerged as one of Putin’s main concerns … Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, an average Russian family spent about 40 percent of its budget on food, four times more than an American family did. Russians, especially outside the major cities, are hurting. The problem has not yet led to open discontent and protests, but the regime is clearly worried.”
• “Russia is currently the world’s largest exporter of grain and a major exporter of meat. Paradoxically, both the phenomenal boom of Russian agriculture and the food price crisis stem from the same source: Putin’s view of food as a political, security rather than economic issue.”
• “Whereas the Soviet leadership ignored the problem of citizens’ lack of access to affordable food, Putin does care and is taking forceful action to address the issue … Russians should never forget that food-related protests against the government are high-risk activities that might easily end in bloodshed and brutal repression.”
• “Western media and policymakers often focus on Moscow-based political protests organized by or related to Navalny and fellow opposition activists as the key threat to the regime. Yet what really worries Putin is not the organized opposition, but food-related protests such as those in Novocherkassk or in 1917 Petrograd. The opposition also understands the mobilizing effect of food prices and their potential impact on Putin’s political survival … Navalny explicitly referred to rising food prices in his call for Russian citizens to cease being afraid of the regime. As of now, the crisis seems to be over, but it might spark again if the government is late to react to future changes in food prices.”

Defense and aerospace:

“The Russian Military is Facing a Looming Demography Crisis,” Ethan Woolley, The National Interest, 02.01.21. The author, a student at the European University at St. Petersburg, writes:

• “According to the U.N.’s World Population Prospects report from 2019, there were a projected 14.25 million men aged 20-34 in Russia in 2020. … In 2025, there will be only 11.55 million and in 2030, 11.23 million. This means there will be a roughly 20 percent decrease in the number of eligible male recruits during the 2020s.”
• “Given the projected decline in men aged 20-34 by 2030, to maintain a military of 900,000 Russia would have to increase its militarization rate [from 6.31 in 2020] to 7.79 percent in 2025 and 8.01 percent in 2030. … If there is such a thing as a hypothetical ‘maximum militarization rate’ that a society can bear, Russia is by far the closest major power to reaching it, meaning its capacity to increase recruitment over the medium-term is severely limited when compared to its peers.”
• “Some options, like salary increases to make military careers more attractive, are already a nonstarter, since … the Finance Ministry is already moving in the opposite direction.”
• “Another solution could be to extend the term of conscription to two years instead of one. Due to the highly technological nature of modern warfare, conscripts spend a significant portion of their service in training and are thus only combat-ready for the last few months of their term. If the draft was extended, conscripts would be combat-ready for longer and the MoD would not lose the human capital it spent time and money developing after only a few months.”
• “Altering the MoD’s approach to the role of women in the armed forces could also address the problem, at least in part. As mentioned earlier, there are currently about 45,000 women serving in the Russian armed forces, but they face different physical requirements and are not eligible for combat roles.”

“The Russian Military Police, from Syria to Karabakh,” Emmanuel Dreyfus, PONARS Eurasia, January 2021. The author, a Russia Research Fellow at the Institut de recherche stratégique de l’École militaire (IRSEM), writes:

• “Following the Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement signed in Moscow on Nov. 9, 2020, between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that units of the Military Police (MP) will be part of Russian peacekeeping in the South Caucasus for an initial period of five years.”
• “The deployment of the MP in Nagorno-Karabakh has shed light on the growing role of this relatively recent structure in Moscow’s foreign interventions. The organization was created in 2011 in the wider context of the Novyi oblik (‘new look’) reforms launched in late 2008. Partly drawing on foreign models, it is an interesting case of military emulation. During its first years of existence, the MP was hampered by a lack of legitimacy within the Russian armed forces. Moscow’s intervention in Syria in late 2015 was a turning point: since then, the scope of MP missions has been considerably extended, and it has attained the authority it previously lacked within the Russian armed forces.”
• “Less than a decade after its creation, Russia’s MP has managed to impose itself within the Russian armed forces thanks to a persuasive Syrian experience. Its establishment, adjustment and gaining of legitimacy constitute a telling and successful example of reform within the Russian armed forces. It brings together several key triggers identified by the theory of military change, namely an initial impetus fostered by civilian intervention over a conservative military establishment and a development process partly based on the emulation of foreign models, primarily American, and partly based on military adaptation, i.e., the integration of lessons learned from its operational deployment in Syria. Following recent evolutions, it is poised to play an increasing role not only as the law enforcement agency within the Russian armed forces but foremost as a valuable asset in the Kremlin’s foreign interventions.”

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• No significant developments.

 

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

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

“Borrell’s Moscow mishaps underline EU foreign policy discord,” Michael Peel, Financial Times, 02.08.21. The author, Europe correspondent of the Financial Times, writes:

• “Josep Borrell stands accused of handing the Kremlin a propaganda win and inadvertently undermining Alexei Navalny even as he sought to raise concerns about the jailed opposition activist’s case. Russia’s expulsion of diplomats from Germany, Poland and Sweden capped what Estonian MEP Riho Terras branded a ‘humiliating’ misfired attempt to revive EU-Russia relations.”
• “Borrell’s bother encapsulates a wider failure by leading EU powers such as France and Germany to develop a coherent model for engagement with the Kremlin. It is a chastening backdrop for discussions on Russia among bloc foreign ministers this month and leaders in March. Member states will weigh how to offset deepening political conflict with crucial economic ties.”
• “Borrell’s Moscow foray … was no quixotic jaunt. He travelled with at least the passive consent of a majority of member states; only a small group led by the Baltic trio and Poland strongly opposed the trip. His idea was to look beyond Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and the EU’s subsequent sanction, with a view to possible cooperation in areas including climate change, digital, research and the coronavirus pandemic.”
• “The EU’s Russia hawks made clear that they saw the trip as ill-conceived, ill-timed and ill-executed. They were worried that it lacked a concrete agenda—and gifted the Kremlin a chance to relieve domestic pressure after street protests against Navalny’s imprisonment. Borrell’s press conference with Russia’s veteran foreign minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday seemed to confirm those fears.”
• “Borrell said his experience indicated that Russian authorities ‘did not want to seize this opportunity to have a more constructive dialogue with the EU.’ Critics would counter that this should have been obvious already. Either way, the pressure has risen further on the Europeans to turn deep divisions over their giant neighbor into a credible policy.”

“Russia takes a darker turn with Alexei Navalny’s jailing,” Editorial Board, Financial Times, 02.03.21. The news outlet’s editorial board writes:

• “The jailing of Alexei Navalny may yet prove a turning point in Vladimir Putin’s presidency. … In a scathingly dignified statement, the activist argued his court appearance had little to do with his alleged violations of parole linked to a 2014 fraud conviction (which the European Court of Human Rights called ‘arbitrary and unreasonable’). It was because he had survived a plot to poison him, investigated it and tied it convincingly to Russia’s security services.”
• “Many of those who have turned out in Mr. Navalny’s support do not see him as an alternative Russian leader. His past dalliance with rightwing groups worries some. But he has become a figurehead for a disaffected portion of society.”
• “Mr. Navalny has become a symbol, too, of Russia’s lawlessness, with whom ordinary citizens find it easier to identify than, say, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the oligarch jailed in 2003 after falling out with the Kremlin. The activist is seen as a plucky outsider taking on the system. Yet if someone as high-profile as him can be jailed on such a thin pretext, some Russians reason, what legal protections do they have?  That makes it important for the international community to respond.”
• “West European capitals should also reconsider whether they want to deepen their energy reliance on Russia. That dependence cannot be quickly reversed, but projects such as the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany look ever more ill-conceived. Even some French ministers are now calling for it to be halted. That might not secure the release of an opponent the Kremlin fears as much as Mr. Navalny. But it would show Mr. Putin there is a real cost to his merciless pursuit of his critics.”

“It’s Time to Trust China’s and Russia’s Vaccines. They, too, work, and they can help fill shortages everywhere,” Achal Prabhala and Chee Yoke Ling, New York Times, 02.05.21. Prabhala, an Indian public health activist promoting wider distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, and Chee, a Malaysian public interest lawyer, write:

• “While the richest countries in the world are grappling with shortages of COVID-19 vaccines, some of the poorest worry about getting vaccines at all. Yet a solution to both problems may be hiding in plain sight: vaccines from China and Russia, and soon, perhaps, India.”
• “Chinese and Russian vaccines were initially dismissed in Western and other global media, partly because of a perception that they were inferior to the vaccines produced by Moderna, Pfizer-BioNtech or AstraZeneca. And that perception seemed to stem partly from the fact that China and Russia are authoritarian states.”
• “But evidence has been accumulating for a while that the vaccines from those countries work well, too. The leading medical journal The Lancet published this week interim results from late-stage trials showing that Sputnik V, the Russian vaccine, had an efficacy rate of 91.6 percent. Those confirmed findings released in mid-December by the vaccine’s developers, the Gamaleya Center and the Russian Direct Investment Fund.”
• “The fact is that no COVID-19 vaccine has been developed or released as transparently as it should have been. And while China and Russia may have botched their rollouts more than some Western companies, that doesn’t necessarily mean their vaccines are shoddy. The mounting evidence showing that the Chinese and Russian vaccines are reliable should be taken seriously, and fast, especially considering supply issues throughout the world.”

China-Russia: Allied or Aligned?

• No significant developments.

Ukraine:

• No significant developments.

Belarus:

• No significant developments.

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

• No significant developments.