This Week's Highlights:

• Three experts—American, Russian and German—agree that saving the INF Treaty is a matter of political will. With U.S. withdrawal from the pact looming on Feb. 2, 2019, only six months would remain to resolve the dispute and stave off a nuclear arms race in Europe. William Tobey, Pavel Zolotarev and Ulrich Kühn propose ways for doing this and for mitigating the risk even if the treaty collapses. Brookings’s Steven Pifer, meanwhile, argues that in the “blame game” over the INF’s demise, Washington is losing.
• Russia’s interest in committing resources to influence developments in the Baltics is less now than before, and its willingness to pursue “hostile measures” appears to be greater for other former Soviet republics, including Ukraine, Belarus and the Central Asian states, according to a RAND analysis by Raphael S. Cohen and Andrew Radin.
• If Japan and Russia are to reach an agreement on a peace treaty and a territorial solution for the Kuril Islands, or Northern Territories, they will need to do so in 2019, writes Carnegie’s Dmitri Trenin. But for Moscow it will be a hard sell at home: Based on public opinion surveys, two-thirds of Russians do not want to hand over the islands.
• In Ukraine the success of popular comedian-turned-presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelensky in the southeast “testifies to the bankruptcy of the traditional Russia-friendly camp” and to former Party of Regions members’ inability to create a functional alternative to the government in Kiev, writes journalist Konstantin Skorkin for the Carnegie Moscow Center. Meanwhile, other candidates, such as Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi and former Defense Minister Anatoliy Hrytsenko, appear to be resigned to the prospect of Petro Poroshenko’s reelection, according to Bloomberg columnist Leonid Bershidsky.
• There is nothing in the current situation between Armenia and Azerbaijan that suggests decisive moves toward the resolution of the Karabakah conflict, let alone a “big bang” peace agreement, argues Laurence Broers of Chatham House. If Armenia and Azerbaijan really want to prepare their peoples for peace, he adds, the first step is “to restore agency to them.”

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

Nuclear security:

• No significant commentary.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• No significant commentary.

Iran and its nuclear program:

• No significant commentary.

New Cold War/Sabre Rattling:

• No significant commentary.

NATO-Russia relations:

• No significant commentary.

Missile defense:

“The New Iron Curtain: Russian Missile Defense Challenges U.S. Air Power; The S-400 antiaircraft system hasn't been tested in battle, but its growing deployment threatens America's aerial dominance,” Thomas Grove, Wall Street Journal, 01.23.19: The author, a reporter for the news outlet, writes:

• “North from Syria, along the borders of Eastern Europe and rounding the Arctic Circle to the east, Russia has built a ring of air defenses that threaten the reach of the U.S. military.”
• “As Russia fills orders, the expanding S-400 footprint creates barriers that threaten decades of unchallenged U.S. air superiority in the Middle East, the Arctic and parts of Asia. By selling the S-400 to other countries, Russia spreads the cost of limiting U.S. forces.”
• “The Kremlin in November earmarked another 19 trillion rubles, more than $300 billion, over the next decade to spend on weapons research, development and production. … Almaz-Antey, the Russian arms maker that builds the antiaircraft defense systems, is designing a more advanced S-500 model to counter next-generation hypersonic and intercontinental ballistic missiles.”
• “‘Russia doesn't want military superiority, but it has ended the superiority of the West or the U.S.,’ said Sergey Karaganov, a foreign-policy adviser to Mr. Putin. ‘Now, the West can no longer use force indiscriminately.’”

“How the Trump Administration Is Changing US Missile Defense,” James J. Cameron, The Washington Post, 01.22.19: The author, a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of War Studies at King's College London, writes:

• “The 2019 MDR [Missile Defense Review] places new emphasis on defense against Chinese and Russian regional missile capabilities … This is a policy change from the Obama administration's 2010 Ballistic Missile Defense Review, which sought to cooperate with Russia on missile defense and … held out the prospect of dialogue with China on missile defense and strategic stability.”
• “The MDR also places new emphasis on exploring options to intercept ballistic missiles in the ‘boost phase’ of flight … The MDR emphasizes that these systems … would be used only against rogue states. However, Moscow and Beijing are likely to remain skeptical because such a weapon could theoretically intercept advanced Russian and Chinese missiles.”
• “[T]he MDR also outlines the need for greater integration of attack operations into U.S. missile defense planning … This raises the possibility of integration of strikes and missile defense to limit damage in a regional conflict with Russia or China.”
• “What one country calls preemptive defense can look like an offensive first strike. The dividing line between a regional and strategic conflict is a matter of perception—and one that may not be shared by all sides, particularly if the United States is attempting to discriminate between regional and strategic missile forces in the fog of war.”

Nuclear arms control:

“The INF Quandary: Preventing a Nuclear Arms Race in Europe. Perspectives From the US, Russia and Germany,” William Tobey, Pavel Zolotarev and Ulrich Kühn, Russia Matters, 01.24.19: The authors, a senior fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center, a supervisor of military and political studies at the Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the deputy head for arms control and emerging technologies at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg, write:

• “The INF Treaty faces an existential threat posed by compliance issues that have prompted a U.S. decision to withdraw from it unless its concerns are allayed.”
• “If the INF Treaty falls apart it will have a profound impact on the U.S.-Russian strategic relationship, with implications for all of Europe and likely beyond. It will affect how both sides analyze decisions on extending the New START Treaty, which is due to expire in 2021. It will likely foreclose for the foreseeable future any possibility that another nuclear arms control treaty could be ratified by the U.S. Senate. It will likely prompt deployment of new military systems, and consequent responses. It will spark controversy both in the U.S. Congress and between the United States and its allies. Finally, it would constitute decisive evidence that the United States and Russia have returned to a nuclear competition that was in abeyance for over two decades.”
• “The question of whether or not the INF Treaty will survive is a matter of political will. While the specific concerns that threaten the treaty are years old, they do not appear to have been the subject of productive or detailed discussions between Washington and Moscow.”
• “Washington and Moscow would do well to consider alternatives that would correct their current course toward the INF Treaty’s destruction. With U.S. withdrawal from the pact looming on Feb. 2, 2019, only six months would then remain to resolve the dispute.”

“The Blame Game Begins Over the INF Treaty’s Demise, and Washington Is Losing,” Steven Pifer, Brookings Institution, 01.25.19: The author, a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings, writes:

• “On Jan. 23, the Russians held a briefing outside of Moscow for journalists and foreign military attachés to rehash their charges of U.S. treaty violations and explain their claim that the 9M729 was treaty-compliant. … Russian military officers … exhibited canisters labeled 9M729 and 9M728. Whether the canisters actually contained missiles is anyone’s guess.”
• “The problem for Washington, however, is that the Russian narrative includes far more detail and specifics than the U.S. presentation. American officials handicapped themselves for years by refusing to reveal the basis for their charge about the 9M729 … Losing the public relations battle could have diplomatic consequences.”
• “Taking up the Russian offer and then pressing to make the exhibit meaningful, combined with a readiness to exhibit the Mk-41, would have positioned Washington to show that it was making every effort to find a solution and that Russia … bears responsibility for the end of the INF Treaty. And who knows? It would have created a small chance of finding a way to resolve the sides’ compliance concerns and save the treaty.”

“Can This New Approach to Nuclear Disarmament Work?” Rebecca Davis Gibbons, War on the Rocks, 01.23.19: The author, a fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center, writes:

• “An estimated 14,485 nuclear weapons exist on earth today … The majority of these weapons belong to the United States and Russia. For some in the U.S. government … this number represents significant disarmament progress since Cold War highs of over 70,000 nuclear weapons. In contrast, for many disarmament advocates and officials from non-nuclear weapons states, this number is still far too high. They are now clamoring to ban all nuclear weapons. Because of this divide … we currently face a ‘disarmament crisis.’”
• “Rejecting the traditional step-by-step reductions that U.S. officials and allies have long promoted, and even more strongly rejecting the path offered by the 2017 Nuclear Ban Treaty, [assistant secretary at the State Department’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation Chris] Ford revealed the establishment of the ‘Creating the Conditions Working Group.’”
• “The State Department plans to convene a set of multilateral working groups with 20 to 30 countries each to ‘identify aspects of the real world security environment that present major obstacles to further disarmament movement and to develop specific proposals for how those obstacles might be overcome.’”
• “This can no longer be assumed, and whether via the conditions-based approach or other means, it is critically important that the United States devote considerable time and diplomatic capital to ensuring the [NPT] treaty … endures.”

Counter-terrorism:

• No significant commentary.

Conflict in Syria:

“Kissinger’s Prophecy Fulfilled in Syria,” Kamal Alam, War on the Rocks, 01.23.19: The author, an adviser on Syrian affairs to former Chief of Defense Staff of the British Armed Forces Gen. The Lord David Richards of Herstmonceux, writes:

• “Syria has managed to bring both the Turks and Kurds to its door by skillfully outplaying the two enemies to make itself indispensable to both. … One is reminded of former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s maxim: ‘The Arabs can’t make war without Egypt; and they can’t make peace without Syria.’ … Whilst the EU foreign policy chief spoke of a new Afghanistan for Russia in 2015, it was clear to me that the Russians would succeed where the American interventions had failed since 2001. Assad had survived, albeit on the ropes, till the arrival of the Russians.” 
• “Longtime observers of Syria who had spent real time with the country’s leadership and had meaningful access to the power corridors of Damascus, such as Lesch, Patrick Seale, Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, all cautioned against predicting the demise of Assad. Furthermore, they spoke of a need to work with Assad.”
• “In 2016, leading Syrian activist and academic Mohammed Alaa Ghanem penned an op-ed in The New York Times that sums up how the war against Assad was lost: The men and institutions that mattered remained loyal until the end.”
• “Now, as the Kurds and Erdogan again grudgingly look to Damascus, the Arabs … march back to Damascus, and Lebanon and Israel again revert back to dealing with Assad as the arbiter, the regional situation represents a complete reversal of previous expectation. … It is no coincidence that Assad has won. There is a history behind it — and such repetition of events is eerily the norm in Levantine affairs.”

Cyber security:

• No significant commentary.

Elections interference:

• No significant commentary.

Energy exports from CIS:

• No significant commentary.

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

"Diminishing Returns: How Effective Are Sanctions Against Russia?," Stacy Closson, PONARS Eurasia, January 2019: The author, a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute, writes:

• "In November 2018, the Trump administration announced another set of sanctions on Russian individuals and entities ... Are these and the prior sanctions effective or have we reached a point of diminishing returns? The general problem with sanctions is that historically they are not particularly effective. Moreover, they are hard to implement and require perseverance, multiple partners and sufficient duration."
• "To be effective, sanctions should have clear consequences, be supported by a multinational coalition, have incentives and enforcement mechanisms, and be flexible to change. If this is not the case, over time, the country under sanctions may find ways to mitigate them, and the sender of the sanctions will experience diminishing benefit."
• "One of the main challenges with the Russia-related sanctions is that they aim to punish the largest economy that has ever been targeted, perhaps too large for effectiveness. ... As U.S. sanctions have expanded, some have begun to counteract projects and ventures run by European allies and U.S. companies. Most troubling, the sanctions do not seem to have deterred the Russian authorities."
• "The myriad reasons for punitive sanctions without a long-term plan and the absence of a broader diplomatic effort to link them to carrots and sticks mean that there is seemingly no end to them and likely diminishing returns." 

“A Deripaska-Sized Hint to Wealthy Russians: The U.S. Treasury has just made it clear what other businesspeople have to do to avoid sanctions,” Leonid Bershidsky, Bloomberg, 01.28.19: The author, a columnist and veteran Russia watcher, writes:

• “The story of the U.S. sanctions on billionaire Oleg Deripaska contains some hints for other wealthy Russians about how to conduct their international business despite President Vladimir Putin’s anti-Western stance. The main takeaway: Don’t hold controlling stakes in companies.”
• “[T]he U.S. Treasury Department lifted restrictions on En+ Group Plc, UC Rusal Plc and EuroSibEnergo JSC, saying it was satisfied with the way Deripaska (who remains sanctioned) has reduced his holdings in the companies and ceded his voting rights to independent, non-Russian persons.”
• “According to a study by Deloitte in 2015, 73 percent of Russia’s 120 top public companies had a majority shareholder; 34 of the 120 were state-controlled. What the Treasury did in the Deripaska case is to send a strong signal to move away from this post-Soviet tradition of corporate governance: to reduce the biggest shareholders’ stakes, to make sure the board is adequately populated by independent directors and to ensure that voting rights are sufficiently dispersed.
• “Another lesson is to find and trust top Western professionals to build the new corporate governance systems. … The final lesson is that crawling back to Russia for the questionable safety it can provide is unnecessary. It is possible to satisfy Western regulators even in situations as fraught as that of Deripaska.”

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

“Russia's Hostile Measures in Europe. Understanding the Threat,” Raphael S. Cohen and Andrew Radin, RAND, January 2019: The authors, political scientists and professors at RAND, write:

• “[A]lthough Russia's intentions to use hostile measures in the Baltics remain real, the measures available and willingness to commit significant resources appear to be greater for other former Soviet republics, including Ukraine, Belarus and the Central Asian states.”
• “Russian interest in Southeastern Europe is likely to arise in part from concern about growing NATO military capabilities, including ballistic missile defense capabilities in Romania; the goal of undermining EU and NATO enlargement in the Western Balkans and Moldova; a view that Russia should have influence over the region; and … a desire to maintain Russian economic ties in the region.”
• “[M]ajor U.S. allies in Western Europe present the largest strategic prize to Russia outside of the United States. [However] this region seems comparatively less vulnerable to Russian influence, although Russia might attempt to use a variety of hostile measures against it.”
• “Recommendations: In deploying forces to Europe to counter Russian aggression, the U.S. Army should also prepare to defend against and counter Russian hostile measures. … The U.S. Army should develop counterintelligence, public affairs, civil affairs and other key enablers to better counter Russian hostile measures. Responding to Russian hostile measures places a new premium on political awareness, as well as on crisis management. … preparation for involvement in a wide range of conflicts can help reduce the risk of mismanagement, miscalculation and escalation.”

II. Russia’s relations with other countries

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

“The Kuril Social Contract,” Dmitri Trenin, Carnegie Moscow Center/Vedomosti, 01.23.19: The author, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, writes:

• “If Japan and Russia should reach an agreement on the peace treaty and a territorial solution, they will need to do so in 2019. If not, these questions will remain unresolved indefinitely as the overall situation deteriorates.”
• “Many important details still need to be worked out, but the overall contours of border delimitation are apparent. As a gesture of goodwill Russia would transfer two small island territories—Shikotan and the Habomai group—to Japan, while Japan would renounce its claims to the larger Iturup and Kunashir islands. Japan would furthermore undertake to not allow the United States to set up military facilities on the islands it receives, to respect Russia’s continued right to enter and exit the Sea of Okhotsk and to not interfere with Russia’s ability to exercise this right. Russia and Japan would negotiate a framework on joint economic activities in the South Kuril Islands.”
• “The Kremlin needs to understand clearly that it is up against not just Japan but also the Russian public—and based on public opinion surveys, two-thirds of Russians do not want to hand over the Kuril Islands. The Kremlin … will have to convince them, if it has valid arguments. If not, it will have to pay for the lost opportunities at a later point.”

China:

• No significant commentary.

Ukraine:

“How a Comedian Will Change Ukraine’s Election,” Konstantin Skorkin, Carnegie Moscow Center, 01.28.19: The author, an independent journalist, writes:

• “After throwing his hat into the Ukrainian presidential race, popular comedian Volodymyr Zelensky will likely attempt to woo the country’s Russian-speaking southeast. That will make the race more difficult for incumbent Petro Poroshenko and front-runner Yulia Tymoshenko. It will also challenge Russia, using ideas amenable to the Kremlin to undermine its favored candidate.”
• “Zelensky began to rapidly gain popularity … [B]y December, he captured second place—still behind Tymoshenko, but already ahead of Poroshenko—without even announcing his candidacy.”
• “There are two general explanations for Zelensky’s popularity. The first is that the global trend toward anti-establishment leaders has finally reached Ukraine. The second … presents the Zelensky phenomenon as a political ploy by one of Ukraine’s true masters: billionaire Ihor Kolomoisky, whose goal is to throw off the leading candidates. The truth likely lies somewhere in the middle.”
• “Zelensky puts Moscow in a difficult position. He encroaches on the territory of Yuri Boiko, a protégé of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s associate Viktor Medvedchuk. Zelensky’s success in the southeast testifies to the bankruptcy of the traditional Russia-friendly camp and to the former Party of Regions members’ inability to create a functional alternative to the government in Kiev.”

“Ukraine’s Presidential Race Will Be Fun: The contest will tell whether a broad slate of candidates can overcome a post-Soviet legacy of valuing incumbency above all,” Leonid Bershidsky, Bloomberg, 01.24.19: The author, a columnist and veteran Russia watcher, writes:

• “The campaign for Ukraine’s March 31 presidential election is shaping up to be a big spectacle, if nothing else. But the underlying question is serious: Is Ukraine a typical modern European country with the requisite political diversity and balance of power, or is it still a post-Soviet hybrid regime in which incumbency means much more than simply being familiar to voters? All the major players except one have already thrown their hats in the ring.”
• “The one major player absent from the official race is the incumbent president, Poroshenko, who is expected to announce his candidacy shortly before the Feb. 4 deadline.”
• “The race promises to be livelier than anything Russia has seen since the 1990s and at least as much fun as the most dynamic Ukrainian elections. But is this a real fight, or can Poroshenko use the power of his office to help him seal a victory even though he failed to fulfill the reformist, anti-corruption promise of the 2014 “Revolution of Dignity”?”

“Putin’s Dream of Godliness: Holy Russia,” Michael Khodarkovsky, New York Times, 01.22.19: The author, a professor of history at Loyola University Chicago, writes:

• “On Jan. 5, some 150,000 people lined up in front of the St. Sophia Cathedral in Ukraine’s capital … They came to see a single document called a tomos, issued a few days before by the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew … The document made the Ukrainian Church autocephalous, meaning it is now fully independent from Moscow.”
• “It is a serious blow, on several levels, to the ambitions of … Vladimir Putin, as well as the Russian Church. … Moscow stands to lose millions of the faithful and untold millions of dollars in church property. … With autocephaly, a large portion of the Ukrainian population will now be under the influence not of Moscow on church matters but of an independent church in Kiev. In other words, Russia may have annexed Crimea, but it has lost Ukraine.”

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

“How Ready Are Armenia and Azerbaijan for Peace?” Laurence Broers, Chatham House, 01.24.19: The author, an associate fellow at Chatham House, writes:

• “Is the long-stagnant Armenia–Azerbaijan peace process finally moving forward? … A new political conjuncture suggests that both sides have motives to de-escalate. … The large-scale but short-lived ‘four-day war’ in April 2016 served its purpose as a demonstration of Azerbaijan’s newfound military capability and a vindication of Baku’s massive expenditures on defense since 2007. Yet as a test of readiness for a larger war, both sides were found wanting.”
• “Subsequent skirmishes in early 2017 also indicated that the element of strategic surprise had evaporated … And in May 2017 a ‘spy scandal’ in the Azerbaijani army illustrated the limits of institutional reform, and by implication war readiness, in the Azerbaijani military. Moreover, if the ‘four-day war’ was intended … as a distraction from Azerbaijan’s economic woes, then the relative recovery of the oil price since 2016 also makes diversionary violence less relevant.”
• “For Armenia, April 2018’s ‘Velvet Revolution’ has reset thinking about security and democracy. Armenia’s new leadership … is embarking on an ambitious program of domestic reform.”
• “There is nothing in the current situation that suggests decisive moves towards the resolution of conflict, let alone a ‘big bang’ peace agreement. Rather, there is an opportunity for Armenia and Azerbaijan to re-calibrate what scholars of strategic rivalries call their ‘basic rivalry level.’ … There can be no substantive change, however, for as long as the parties pursue what might be called ‘authoritarian conflict strategies.’ … If Armenia and Azerbaijan really want to prepare their peoples for peace, the first step is to restore agency to them.”

“The Democratic Dream in the South Caucasus. Armenia and Georgia could become models for democratic development elsewhere in the wider region,” Denis Corboy, William Courtney, Kenneth Yalowitz, The National Interest, 01.22.19: The authors, the director of the Caucasus Policy Institute at King’s College London, an adjunct senior fellow at RAND and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University—all former ambassadors—write:

• “Democratic bright spots are emerging in Armenia and Georgia. … Georgia in 2003 and Armenia last year underwent cathartic popular uprisings via the Rose and Velvet revolutions. Frustration with entrenched politics and poor living standards helped spark public demonstrations and political changes that brought reformist leaders to power.”
• “Armenia and Georgia have a good deal of work to do to deepen reforms that will strengthen their democracies and improve living standards. … Both countries seek to consolidate democratic gains and overcome poverty while managing daunting challenges from Russia and separatist conflicts.”
• “While pursuing these priorities, the countries deserve continued, strong Western support. Armenia and Georgia could become models for democratic development elsewhere in the wider region, and the South Caucasus is growing in importance as a strategic and energy crossroads between Europe, the Middle East and Eurasia.”

“Do Not Forget the Azerbaijan 128, Under the Thumb of a Dictator,” Editorial Board, The Washington Post, 01.22.19: The news outlet’s editorial board writes:

• “What does it take to keep attention focused on a dictatorship that arbitrarily throws a probing blogger in prison? The blogger, Mehman Huseynov, has decided it takes a hunger strike. He has been refusing solid food in prison in Azerbaijan to call attention to a threatened new jail term. Other prisoners are taking up the call, joining his hunger strike in protest and demanding an end to political repression.”
• “Azerbaijan under President Ilham Aliyev holds 128 political prisoners … Several of the hunger strikers expressed worry in a statement that the outside world will look the other way. ‘Once the dust settles,’ they wrote, ‘someone from the West will come and a deal will be made in exchange for the release [of] several political prisoners. … They will fill their suitcases with oil, euros and dollars, and go back and wink at the government, giving them the green light for new repressions.’ It is up to the West to make sure this doesn’t happen.”

III. Russia’s domestic policies

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

“Sleeves Up at This Year's Gaidar Forum,” Ben Aris, The Moscow Times, 01.23.19: The author, the founder and editor of Business New Europe, writes:

• “Last year Russia earned a record current account surplus of $114.9 billion, but real incomes in 2018 fell for the fifth year in a row. … Is Russia recovering or not?  The short answer is although at the macroeconomic level Russia is back on an even keel, because of sanctions the government is running an austerity budget and that is hurting.”
• “There is an enormous amount of cash in the system … the sovereign external debt is ridiculously low, 15 percent of GDP, trade is booming and Russia Inc. is currently a more profitable concern than it was in the boom years during the noughties.” 
• “All these numbers are far in excess of what is needed to ensure the stability of the economy or the national currency. Yet … CBR governor Elvira Nabiullina chose to hike interest rates … She was not looking to promote growth, but to anticipate volatility on the currency markets in case the US imposed fresh ‘crushing’ sanctions on Russia in the first quarter. That's no even austerity. That is a war mentality.”
• “The government is starting to pay the price for its austerity. Only last week … VTsIOM released a survey that shows that trust in Putin's ability to run the country has fallen to a 13-year low … Something is going to give unless the Kremlin makes some changes. Starting in 2012, Putin sacrificed Russia’s prosperity by ploughing every spare kopek into the modernization of the army in anticipation of a serious clash with the west … However, with the military modernization drive nearly complete the Kremlin is finally turning its attention back to its people.” 

“New Russian Order: After presidency, yet another role for Putin?” Fred Weir, Christian Science Monitor, 01.22.19: The author, a correspondent for the news outlet, writes:

• “As Vladimir Putin's fourth, and almost certainly final, six-year term as president heads into its second year, the prospect of a Russia without him is becoming real, if not yet urgent. … Experts say there are three basic ideas under discussion for navigating the transition away from Putin, while maintaining Putin himself in some supreme capacity.
• “One is the idea of creating a new state from a union of Russia and Belarus, which would require new political structures to rule it. … A second plan would expand the powers of the State Council … The third idea is the path not taken after the Soviet collapse; turning Russia into a parliamentary republic, and perhaps keeping Putin as symbolic head of state.”

“The Kremlin Deploys Its New Law Against 'Undesirables',” Vladimir Kara-Murza, The Washington Post, 01.25.19: The author, vice chairman of Open Russia, writes:

• “On Thursday, the Russian parliament overwhelmingly passed a bill that authorizes administrative arrest for expressing ‘patent disrespect’ for the government. One would have to go back to Soviet times to find a law prosecuting anti-government speech in Russia.”
• “The first law in modern Russia that criminalized opposition activism as such was signed by Putin in May 2015, but its magnitude was not immediately apparent. That measure gave the government powers to designate foreign and international NGOs as ‘undesirable organizations.’ Any Russian citizen found to be working with them could be criminally liable to up to six years in prison.”
• “As this week's events in Venezuela reminded, the tables can turn quickly—and it is citizens who may one day tell their unelected rulers that it is, in fact, they who are undesirable.”

Defense and aerospace:

• No significant commentary.

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• No significant commentary.