This Week's Highlights:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he may meet U.S. President Donald Trump on the sidelines of a G20 summit next month in Japan and that Russia was fully ready for normalizing relations with Washington as soon as domestic U.S. political conditions permit, according to RFE/RL. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said after his visit to Russia that the U.S. shares several interests with Moscow, including counterterrorism, North Korean denuclearization and Afghan reconciliation. “I know for certain we kept America safe as a result of information that Russia provided us and I know we saved Russian lives with information that we had,” he said on May 16, according to The Moscow Times.
• Former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn gave special counsel Robert Mueller information about several attempts by people associated with the Trump administration or with Congress to obstruct the Russia investigation, according to newly released court documents cited by RFE/RL. A judge has ordered that portions of Mueller's report relating to Flynn, which had previously been blacked out, be made public by the end of the month.
• Foreign ministers from the Council of Europe, the continent's chief human rights watchdog, reached an agreement on May 17 that opens the way for Russia to return to the organization, resolving a dispute that began after Moscow's seizure of Crimea, Reuters reports. The agreement follows efforts by France and Germany to find a compromise among the 47-nation group and means Russia will likely take part in a meeting of the council's parliamentary assembly in June, when key new appointments will be made. 
• Russia’s economy grew 0.5 percent in the first quarter, well below estimates, as expansion stalled after last year’s surprisingly strong performance, Bloomberg reports. The preliminary estimate from the official statistics agency Rosstat came in under the lowest forecast in a Bloomberg survey of 14 economists.
• Prosecutors uncovered nearly $25 million worth of fraud at Russia’s state-run space and defense behemoths Roscosmos and Rostec last year, according to The Moscow Times. Overall, fraud totaled $1 billion in 2018, according to prosecutors. “There’s no end in sight. Billions are stolen,” Investigative Committee chief Alexander Bastrykin was quoted as saying. Meanwhile, two high-profile corruption cases have advanced: Prosecutors have requested a 15 ½-year sentence for Russian police colonel Dmitry Zakharchenko, who was found to have the equivalent of $120 million in cash at home, and have charged a high-level FSB official, Col. Kirill Cherkalin, with accepting $850,000 in bribes, RFE/RL and The Moscow Times have reported. 

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

Nuclear security and safety:

• No significant developments.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• Russian officials told visiting U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that Moscow "is open to cooperation with all interested parties with the aim of creating a stable security mechanism in Northeast Asia. We stressed that it is very important in this context to provide international security guarantees to North Korea in response to its steps on denuclearization," Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said after Pompeo’s talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi. He added that Moscow thinks Pyongyang will not give in to "any type of pressure" and that both countries’ leadership has been happy with the contacts between Russian and U.S. representatives for North Korea. (TASS, 05.14.19)
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, after his meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, said that Russia does support negotiations over nuclear disarmament with North Korea. Although Russian President Vladimir Putin met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last month, Lavrov offered no suggestion that the stalemate in nuclear talks would break anytime soon. “We are ready to support that dialogue,” he said. (New York Times, 05.14.19)
• Before the Sochi meetings, a senior U.S. State Department official had told reporters that the two sides had had constructive discussions on efforts to get Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons. That's occurred, he said, “even though we don't agree with Russia about all the details of how to achieve this goal.” (RFE/RL, 05.10.19)

Iran’s nuclear program and related issues:

• A day after the Pompeo meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow was sorry to see Iran’s nuclear deal falling apart but stressed that “Russia is not a fire brigade” and “cannot rescue everything that does not fully depend on us. We’ve played our part.” He urged Iran not to quit the 2015 agreement but also said that after Washington’s withdrawal Europe could do “nothing” to salvage the deal. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov called Putin and Pompeo’s discussion of the Iran nuclear deal brief and “interesting,” specifying that Russia is “critical of the recent actions of the U.S. administration.” (Al Arabiya, 05.15.19, TASS, 05.14.19)
• After their meeting, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov "spoke a bit" about the situation in the Middle East, particularly Iran. "I made clear that the United States will continue to apply pressure to the regime in Tehran until its leadership is prepared to return to the ranks of responsible nations that do not threaten their neighbors and do not spread instability or terror," he said, adding, “We fundamentally do not seek war with Iran.” Pompeo's remarks came in response to a question about additional U.S. forces deployed to the Middle East to counter what U.S. officials have said is a rising threat from Iran. At a meeting of Trump’s top national security aides on May 9, Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan presented an updated military plan that envisions sending as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack American forces or accelerate work on nuclear weapons. The revisions were ordered by hard-liners led by John Bolton. (CNN, 05.14.19, The Washington Post, 05.14.19, New York Times, 05.13.19, New York Times, 05.14.19)
• “We will try to make sure that the situation doesn’t devolve into a war scenario,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at the news conference with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “How to do it is the diplomats’ business. I got the feeling that the American side is also interested in a political solution.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters May 15 that there had been “no assurances [about Iran] from Pompeo.” (The Washington Post, 05.14.19, Al Arabiya, 05.15.19)
• Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has urged China, Russia and other "partners" to take "concrete action" to safeguard a nuclear deal that the U.S. exited a year ago. Zarif made the call on May 17 upon arriving in Beijing where he held talks with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi. Speaking in Tokyo, Zarif said there was "no possibility" of talks with the U.S. to reduce escalating tensions. (RFE/RL, 05.17.19)

New Cold War/saber rattling:

• Britain has scrambled Typhoon fighters twice in two days in the Baltic to intercept Russian aircraft, the British Defense Ministry said. (Reuters, 05.16.19)

Military issues, including NATO-Russia relations:

• According to current and former U.S. officials, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s office recently directed the State Department to quash a harshly worded statement condemning a “Russian-backed coup attempt” in Montenegro ahead of the Balkan nation’s entry into NATO. The officials suggested his had been done because the secretary wanted to soften combative tones with Moscow ahead of his visit to Russia. (Foreign Policy, 05.10.19)

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms control:

• “[Russian] Foreign Minister [Sergei] Lavrov raised the issue of concerns about compliance with New START today. We’ll continue to work to allow that treaty to be verified exactly as the verification regime exists,” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said after his meeting with Lavrov. “We will gather together teams that will work not only on New START and its potential extension but on a broader range of arms-control initiatives,” Pompeo said. (The Washington Post, 05.14.19, State.gov, 05.14.19)
• U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters after meeting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that U.S. President Donald Trump remains interested in bringing other countries, including China, into an arms-control framework—an idea that has drawn skepticism in Moscow. "[The] president wants serious arms control that delivers real security to the American people," Pompeo said. "To achieve these goals, we'll have to work together and it would be important, that if it's possible, we get China involved as well." (The Washington Post, 05.14.19, CNN, 05.14.19)
• “We paid special attention to the issues of strategic stability. We have reviewed the situation that’s taking place around intermediate-range force nuclear forces treaty. We spoke about the promise of the New START Treaty, considering that it is going to expire in February 2021. We are interested in renewing a professional and specific dialogue on all aspects of arms control. I hope that such an agreement will be positively received by our two nations and the global community on the whole,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a press conference after meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. (State.gov, 05.14.19)
• At a May 15 hearing by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Andrea Thompson, the undersecretary of state for arms control, said that the U.S. administration had not made a final decision about whether to withdraw entirely from the INF Treaty. Senators also pressed Thompson on whether Trump would seek to extend the New START treaty. Sen. Robert Menendez said he supported extending the agreement, but was visibly angry when Thompson appeared reluctant to answer if it was in the U.S. interest. (RFE/RL, 05.15.19)
• Following the U.S. withdrawal from the INF Treaty Washington is laying the groundwork to use nuclear weapons in Europe, the Russian Foreign Ministry's arms control and nonproliferation chief, Vladimir Yermakov, was quoted as saying on May 14. (The Moscow Times, 05.14.19)
• Yleem Poblete, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for arms control, verification and compliance and a prominent Iran hawk has resigned from the State Department after serving just over a year in the position, said U.S. officials and congressional aides familiar with the decision. (The Washington Post, 05.13.19)

Counter-terrorism:

• The U.S. shares counterterrorism, North Korean denuclearization and Afghan reconciliation interests with Russia, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said after his visit to Russia. “I know for certain we kept America safe as a result of information that Russia provided us and I know we saved Russian lives with information that we had,” he said on May 16. (The Moscow Times, 05.17.19)
• Russia and the U.S. should cooperate more actively on a peace settlement in Afghanistan, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He said Putin had noted the “rather good cooperation between specialists of our countries” but had also pointed out that the Taliban is getting stronger, “so we need to step up cooperation and try to achieve the balance of power in this country,” Ushakov said. (TASS, 05.14.19)
• A senior U.S. State Department official noted last week that there are areas where the U.S. is working jointly with Russia, such as the Afghan peace process and counterterrorism. (CNN, 05.13.19)
• A Russian national has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for allegedly plotting a terror attack in the country’s east. According to the FSB’s statement cited by TASS, the suspect planned to travel to Syria after detonating a device in the town of Nikolayevsk-on-Amur to fight alongside Islamic State. (The Moscow Times, 05.15.19)
• A man suspected of funding Islamic State militants fighting in Syria has been detained in Moscow, Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said. "At least 50 million rubles have been transferred by the suspect since 2015," the FSB press center said. (Interfax, 05.16.19)

Conflict in Syria:

• Describing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s talks on Syria, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said they "discussed the importance of jointly fighting against international terrorism and noted that it is very important to finally launch the Syrian constitutional committee." Ushakov noted that "the discussion was business-like and constructive, and it revealed many aspects on which we have similar positions." Ushakov added that Russia favors “a peaceful negotiations process under the auspices of the U.N. with participation of all constructive forces” and that Putin stressed the importance of respecting Syria’s sovereignty and “preserving its territorial integrity.” (TASS, 05.14.19)

• U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he was “excited” about the Syria part of the conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, hinting that some agreement was found on “how to move the political process forward,” specifically on getting various Syrian factions together to discuss forming a non-sectarian government in line with a 2015 U.N. Security Council resolution. But both Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump have limited influence on that process, and Pompeo admitted, “I’m not sure we have all the capacity of that.” (Bloomberg, 05.15.19)
• U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov discussed the escalation of violence in Idlib, Syria. The two also discussed in detail the issue of the U.S. troops’ withdrawal from Syria, according to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov. (TASS, 05.14.19, CNN, 05.14.19)
• "Certainly, there is a common interest in terms of settling regional conflicts. This concerns Afghanistan and Syria, and it concerns some other spots. Unfortunately, there are quite a few of them around the world," Russian President Vladimir Putin said of U.S.-Russian relations at a press conference following negotiations with the Austrian president on May 15. (Interfax, 05.15.19)

Cyber security:

• “We have mentioned several times that we could have renewed professional contact in cybersecurity, and within this context we could discuss any concerns that one party has to another,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a press conference after his bilateral meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. (State.gov, 05.14.19)
• Hundreds of thousands of Russians, including former government officials, have had their passport data posted online in the country’s latest massive data leak. (The Moscow Times, 05.15.19)
• European and U.S. police have dismantled an international crime gang that used malware to steal $100 million from tens of thousands of victims. Europol said on May 16 that the operation involved investigations in the U.S., Bulgaria, Germany, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. (RFE/RL, 05.16.19)
• The EU will directly penalize computer hackers after governments agreed May 17 on a new mechanism to target individuals anywhere in the world, freezing their assets in the bloc and banning them from entry. (Reuters, 05.17.19)

Elections interference:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin told U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that Russia has never interfered in U.S. elections and praised the Mueller report as "objective." "Despite all the exotic work of Mr. Mueller's commission, I have to give him his due: On the whole, he conducted an objective investigation and confirmed the absence of any traces of a conspiracy between Russia and the current administration," Putin told Pompeo. Putin said allegations of meddling had hurt U.S.-Russia relations, but "I'm hoping today the situation is changing." (RFE/RL, 05.14.19, ABC News, 05.14.19)
• At a news conference following three hours of meetings with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and other diplomats, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he had warned his counterpart against any “unacceptable” Russian meddling in U.S. elections and had told Lavrov that any such action by the Russians in the 2020 elections “would put our relationship in an even worse place than it has been.” “There are things that Russia can do to demonstrate that those kinds of activities are a thing of the past,” Pompeo said. “Our elections are important and sacred and they must be kept free and fair and with no outside country interfering in those elections.” (AP, 05.14.19, The Washington Post, 05.14.19, CNN, 05.14.19)
• During his joint press conference with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the U.S. of funding Russian nongovernmental organizations with the intent of interfering in Russia's elections. Lavrov also said he expected the recent publication of the Mueller report to clear the way for Russian-American cooperation. “Passions will subside,” he said. (RFE/RL, 05.14.19, ABC News, 05.14.19, New York Times, 05.14.19)
• A day after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s meetings in Sochi, House Democrats restarted the debate over additional Russia sanctions as punishment for the 2016 election meddling: Draft legislation that would target Russia’s sovereign debt, energy sector and financial institutions was added to the agenda for a May 15 House Financial Services subcommittee hearing on the use of sanctions to address national security challenges. (Bloomberg, 05.15.19)
• Former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn gave special counsel Robert Mueller information about several attempts by people to obstruct the Russia investigation, newly released court documents show. According to the filings, which were unsealed at the prosecutors' request on May 16, the obstruction attempts were made by unidentified people associated with the Trump administration or with Congress. Meanwhile, on May 16, the judge in the case, Emmet Sullivan, ordered that portions of Mueller's report relating to Flynn, which had previously been blacked out, be made public by the end of the month. (RFE/RL, 05.17.19)
• The governor of Florida has said Russian hackers gained access to voter databases in two of the state's counties ahead of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Florida lawmakers are railing against the FBI for taking more than two years to acknowledge Russian hackers penetrated some of the state’s voter files—and for remaining mum about which voters were affected. (The Washington Post, 05.17.19, RFE/RL, 05.14.19)
• U.S. Attorney General William Barr has appointed John Durham, a U.S. attorney in Connecticut, to examine the origins of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Durham is conducting only a review for now and has not opened any criminal inquiry, a person familiar with the matter said on May 14. (RFE/RL, 05.14.19, New York Times, 05.15.19)
• U.S. President Donald Trump warned May 17 of the possibility of "long jail sentences" for law-enforcement and intelligence officials involved in the early stages of the investigation into possible coordination between Russia and members of his 2016 campaign. (The Washington Post, 05.17.19)
• Donald Trump Jr. and the Republican-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee reached a deal on May 14 for the president's eldest son to return for a time-limited private interview with senators in the coming weeks, an accord that should cool a heated intraparty standoff. (New York Times, 05.15.19)

Energy exports:

• A bipartisan group of U.S. senators introduced legislation on May 14 seeking sanctions targeting Nord Stream 2, a planned gas pipeline from Russia to Germany under fire from the U.S. and some EU countries. (Reuters, 05.15.19)
• Russian oil output from May 1 to May 16 fell to 11.156 million bpd, below the 11.18 billion bpd level set as part of the global oil deal between OPEC and its allies. (Reuters, 05.17.19)
• Russia's Gazprom has the technical capability to halt the use of the Ukrainian gas transmission system even if the construction of the alternative Nord Stream 2 route is not completed, Chairman of the Executive Board of Naftogaz Andriy Kobolev said. (Interfax, 05.16.19)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking ahead of talks with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, said the two had something to talk about when it came to stability on global energy markets. (Reuters, 05.14.19)
• Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenka has said that the cost of damages from contaminated oil received via the Russian Druzhba oil pipeline was "enormous" and that Belarus expects compensation from Russia. (RFE/RL, 05.11.19)
• Kazakh oil flowing via Russia to be loaded on tankers at the Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga has been contaminated and Kazakhstan plans to seek compensation from Russian pipeline monopoly Transneft, a senior Kazakh energy official said. (Reuters, 05.17.19)
• French oil and gas major Total said on May 17 that it had suspended operations at some units of the 230,000 bpd Leuna refinery in Germany for technical checks following the prolonged situation of contaminated Russian crude supply. (Reuters, 05.17.19)
• Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on May 17 said he had discussed the purchase of mid-range air defense missiles at a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump on May 13. (Reuters, 05.17.19)

Bilateral economic ties:

• Democratic lawmakers called on the Trump administration on May 16 to review an investment in Kentucky by Russian aluminum company Rusal that they say has raised concerns about Russian influence on the economy and national security of the U.S. Rusal announced on May 16 that its board had approved a $200 million investment in a planned aluminum plant in Kentucky. (New York Times, 05.16.19)

Other bilateral issues:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he may meet U.S. President Donald Trump on the sidelines of a Group of 20 (G20) summit next month in Japan. Trump said on May 13 that he planned to meet Putin at the summit. Putin on May 15 said Russia was fully ready for normalizing relations with Washington as soon as domestic U.S. political conditions permit. (RFE/RL, 05.15.19)
• “I am here because President Trump is committed to improving this relationship,” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said at the start of talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. “Each of our countries will protect its own interests,” Pompeo said. “But it is not destined that we are adversaries on every issue. I hope we can find places where we have a set of overlapping interests and can truly begin to build out strong relationships at least on those particular issues,” he said, citing arms control, nuclear weapons and security cooperation. “I hope this good faith effort … will stabilize the relationship and put it back on a trajectory that will be good not only for our two countries and each of our peoples but the world as well.” (Financial Times, 05.14.19)
• "We'll protect our nation's interests, but there are places that our two countries can find where we can be cooperative, we can be productive, we can be accumulative, we can work together to make our two peoples more, and frankly the world, more successful too," U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in brief remarks prior to his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. "President Trump wants to do everything we can and he asked me to travel here to communicate that." (CNN, 05.14.19)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin told U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo he hoped to "fully restore" ties between Moscow and Washington and thought that U.S. President Donald Trump genuinely wanted to do the same. "As you know, just recently, a few days ago, I had the pleasure of talking with the president of the United States over the phone. I got the impression that the president intends to restore Russian-American relations, contacts and solve issues that are of mutual interest to us together," Putin said. "We, for our part, have repeatedly said that we would also like to fully restore relations. I hope that now the necessary conditions are being created for this." (RFE/RL, 05.14.19, CNN, 05.14.19)
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo ahead of their meeting: “I hope that today we will be able to try to work out concrete proposals aimed at bringing Russian-American relations out of the present sad state in which they ended up due to various objective and subjective reasons … We understand that a lot of suspicion and prejudice has accumulated on both sides. But neither you nor we will gain anything from it,” he added. “On the contrary, mutual distrust increases the risks for our and your security and causes concern to the entire world community.” (Financial Times, 05.14.19)
• Russia continues to hold U.S. citizens, including Paul Whelan and Michael Calvey, in detention, where they have been denied adequate consular services, according to U.S. officials. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he raised the issue during his meetings. Pompeo was also scheduled to meet with members of the U.S. business community, which has been rattled by the arrests. A Russian court on May 17 ordered private equity firm Baring Vostok to surrender control of a bank at the center of a dispute that led to Calvey, its founder, being jailed. (CNN, 05.13.19, CNN, 05.14.19, RFE/RL, 05.10.19, Financial Times, 05.17.19)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin told U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that any U.S. steps that provoke a civil war in Venezuela are unacceptable, according to a Kremlin aide. The sides had "a rather frank discussion" on Venezuela at the talks, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said. "We stressed that different parties in the conflict should start a dialogue and noted that any attempts to oust the current president with the help of outside pressure are, first of all, counterproductive, and secondly, they may have disastrous consequences for the situation in the region," he added. Ushakov also noted that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's future was not discussed at the meeting. (Reuters, 05.14.19, TASS, 05.14.19)
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, after meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, defended Russia’s position on Venezuela and said the threats received by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s government from U.S. administration officials, coupled with opposition leader Juan Guaido’s seeming support for a foreign military intervention, “bear no relation to democracy.” Lavrov likened Washington's push for a new government in Venezuela to the U.S. war in Iraq and the toppling of Muammar Qaddafi in Libya. “Russia is in favor of the people of this country determining its future,” he said. (AP, 05.14.19, RFE/RL, 05.14.19, New York Times, 05.14.19)
• U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has “brought nothing but misery to the Venezuelan people. We hope that Russia's support for Maduro will end. But despite our disagreements, we’ll keep talking.” (RFE/RL, 05.14.19, New York Times, 05.14.19)
• Days before the Sochi meetings, both U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin took care to show their swagger. Trump set the stage for U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo 's first diplomatic trip to Russia by saying: "I think the message is that there's never been anybody that's been so tough on Russia." Meanwhile, the Kremlin released video of Putin's presidential plane landing at a weapons-testing center, escorted by six fighter jets. (CNN, 05.14.19)
• The Kremlin said on May 17 it would respond in kind to a new round of U.S. sanctions on Russian nationals, saying its retaliation would be consistent with Russia's national interest. The U.S. on May 16 imposed sanctions on Chechnya’s Terek Special Rapid Response Team and five people, including at least three Russians, over allegations of human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings and the torture of LGBT people. (Reuters, 05.17.19)
• Maria Butina, who pleaded guilty to not registering as an agent for the Russian government while in the U.S. and was sentenced to 18 months in U.S. prison, has filed an appeal against her sentence. (RFE/RL, 05.15.19)
• Russia's embassy has protested the arrest of Russian software developer Oleg Tishchenko, who was extradited from Georgia and charged by U.S. authorities with trying to obtain user manuals and instructional materials for F-15 fighter jets. (RFE/RL, 05.15.19)
• A U.S. judge has backed a Justice Department ruling that Florida-based RM Broadcasting must register as an agent of Russia under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. RM Broadcasting buys and then resells airtime on the WZHF-AM radio station in the Washington, D.C., area to Sputnik International broadcasting from Moscow 24 hours a day. (RFE/RL, 05.14.19)
• John Weaver, the top strategist for John Kasich’s presidential campaign in 2016, has registered as a foreign agent and plans to lobby against potential sanctions on Russia. Weaver signed a contract last month to lobby on behalf of the Tenam Corporation, a subsidiary of Rosatom, the Russian state-owned nuclear energy company. (Politico, 05.15.19)

II. Russia’s domestic news

Politics, economy and energy:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin has approved a new energy security doctrine preaching self-reliance in the face of geopolitical isolation. (The Moscow Times, 05.15.19)
• Russia’s economy grew 0.5 percent in the first quarter, well below estimates, as expansion stalled after last year’s surprisingly strong performance. The preliminary estimate from the official statistics agency Rosstat came in under the lowest forecast in a Bloomberg survey of 14 economists. (Bloomberg, 05.17.19)
• Two-thirds of Russian families have no financial savings to speak of, according to a new survey published by the Levada Center. (The Moscow Times, 05.15.19)
• Thousands of residents of Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains who have been protesting the construction of a new church in the city’s central park have vowed to keep up their vigil until they hear an official announcement the project has been canceled. More than 20 men and women have been sentenced to several days in jail for taking part in an unsanctioned protest against the new church. (The Moscow Times, 05.17.19, RFE/RL, 05.16.19)
• Russian lawmakers are seeking to criminalize the publication of materials that leads to sanctions imposed against the country or individuals, the latest in a host of legislation to tighten control over the flow of information. (Bloomberg, 05.16.19)

Defense and aerospace:

• Russia is slated to purchase 76 Sukhoi Su-57 fighter aircraft, the country’s first purported indigenously designed and built fifth-generation stealth fighter jet, by 2028, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on May 15. The president also set out the goal of delivering 100 upgraded Mi-28NM helicopters to troops. (The Diplomat, 05.16.19, Interfax, 05.16.19)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin says that new types of laser weapons developed in Russia will significantly enhance the nation's military capability. (AP, 05.17.19)

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• Prosecutors uncovered 1.6 billion rubles ($24.6 million) worth of fraud in the Roscosmos and the Rostec state-run defense corporation last year. Overall, total corruption equaled $1 billion in 2018, according to prosecutors. (The Moscow Times, 05.17.19)
• The prosecutor in a high-profile case has requested a guilty verdict and a prison sentence of 15 1/2 years for Russian police colonel Dmitry Zakharchenko found with the equivalent of $120 million in cash at home. (RFE/RL, 05.15.19)
• The head of a highly secretive branch of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has been charged for $850,000 bribery three weeks after his detention. Col. Kirill Cherkalin headed the FSB economic security department’s financial counterintelligence support unit. (The Moscow Times, 05.17.19)
• A jailed 75-year-old researcher at a Russian rocket- and spacecraft-design facility who is charged with treason has been transferred from pretrial detention to a Moscow hospital. The Federal Penitentiary Service said on May 13 that Viktor Kudryavtsev was transferred to a hospital at his request in order to undergo medical tests. (RFE/RL, 05.13.19)
• The director of Roskosmos' Research Institute for Space Technology, Yury Yaskin, has apparently fled Russia in the midst of audits and inspections of the satellite and ballistic-missile research center that he headed. (RFE/RL, 05.15.19)

III. Foreign affairs, trade and investment

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

• Foreign ministers from the Council of Europe, the continent's chief human rights watchdog, reached an agreement on May 17 that opens the way for Russia to return to the organization, resolving a dispute that began after Moscow's seizure of Crimea. The agreement follows efforts by France and Germany to find a compromise among the 47-nation group and means Russia will likely take part in a meeting of the council's parliamentary assembly in June, when key new appointments will be made. (Reuters, 05.17.19)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin, along with other heads of state and government, has been invited to attend the formal ceremony of new Japanese Emperor Naruhito’s accession to the throne in October 2019. (TASS, 05.10.19)
• Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation, expects to double its annual revenue from foreign projects to some $15 billion by 2024, up from $6.6 billion last year, Alexei Likhachev, the company’s director general said. (World Nuclear News, 05.13.19)
• Greenpeace will receive 2.7 million euros ($3 million) from Russia under a settlement reached between the Dutch state and Moscow The agreement should end years of legal battles following the seizure by Russian authorities of a Dutch-flagged Greenpeace vessel in 2013 and the arrest of 30 people aboard. (The Moscow Times, 05.17.19)
• Russian authorities seized a Finnish-flagged fishing vessel on May 10, according to Russian news agency TASS. The boat's crewmembers were all Estonian, according to the Finnish consulate general's office in St. Petersburg, which said that no Finns were onboard the vessel when it was seized. (Yle, 05.15.19)

China:

• Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Sochi on May 13, the day before U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit. Putin said that developing a comprehensive strategic partnership with China is a Russian foreign relations priority. Wang said he was glad to see that the Sino-Russian political relationship has produced practical cooperation results, and that their bilateral trading volume reached $100 billion last year, the highest in history. Wang also said China-Russia relations “are not vulnerable to obstruction or outside interference” and set an example “beyond compare,” while the world was “in chaos and disorder” with “unilateralism run[ning] rampant”—a thinly veiled criticism of U.S. policy. (South China Morning Post, 05.14.19, China Daily, 05.15.19)
• Boosting ties with Beijing is one of Moscow’s foreign policy priorities, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said at a meeting with Chinese Minister of Public Security Zhao Kezhi in Bishkek on May 15. (TASS, 05.15.19)

Ukraine:

• U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said after the talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that he had told Moscow to free a group of detained Ukrainian sailors and to work with Ukraine’s new president to bring peace to eastern Ukraine. However, asked later whether it was still a precondition that Russia must release the Ukrainian sailors before U.S. President Donald Trump would meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin—as they are expected to at the G20 Summit in June—Pompeo did not answer. Pompeo also reasserted that the Trump administration does not recognize Russia's annexation of Crimea. Putin and Pompeo did not discuss Ukraine "at all," according to Putin's aide Yuri Ushakov. (Reuters, 05.14.19, CNN, 05.14.19, CNN, 05.14.19, Russia Matters, 05.15.19)
• As many as 48.9 percent of Ukrainians would vote for entering NATO, and 57 percent would vote for joining the EU at a hypothetical referendum, the Social Monitoring Center, the Yaremenko Institute for Social Research and the Rating sociological group said in a joint statement on May 16. (Interfax, 05.16.19)
• Seventy-five percent of Ukrainians believe their president should begin direct talks with Russia in order to restore peace in Donbass, the Social Monitoring Center, the Yaremenko Institute for Social Research and the Rating sociological group said. (Interfax, 05.16.19)
• The Servant of the People, the Opposition Platform-For Life, the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko "Solidarity" and the Batkivschyna Party surpass the five-percent barrier for parliamentary elections, according to results of a joint survey conducted by the Social Monitoring center, Yaremenko Ukrainian Institute for Social Research and the Rating sociological group. (Interfax, 05.16.19)
• Ukrainian lawmakers have set May 20 as the inauguration day of incoming President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. (RFE/RL, 05.16.19)
• Ukraine's ruling coalition in parliament has broken up in a possible setback for President-elect Volodymyr Zelenskiy's plans to hold early general elections. Under the constitution, parliament now has 30 days to form a new governing coalition, while the president has no right to dissolve the Verkhovna Rada and announce snap elections during that period. (RFE/RL, 05.17.19)
• Before he was elected president of Ukraine last month, Volodymyr Zelenskiy played a president in a comedy show on television. The owner of that television station, Ihor Kolomoisky, returned on May 16 from self-imposed exile, raising fears that he may now ask the real president to return some favors. The authorities have been locked in a protracted battle with Kolomoisky, the former main owner of PrivatBank, who says his bank was nationalized without justification. He has challenged the decision in court. The central bank would push to nationalize PrivatBank a second time if the court rules to annul the 2016 decision to take Ukraine's largest lender into state ownership, a top central bank official told Reuters. (New York Times, 05.17.19, Reuters, 05.16.19)
• Ukraine’s chief corruption prosecutor on May 16 opened an investigation into “suspicions” that Serhiy Leshchenko, a crusading anti-corruption member of Ukraine’s parliament and former investigative journalist, accepted bribes in 2016 from a Russian source that enabled him to buy a luxury condo far above his means. (The Hill, 05.16.19)
• Ukrainian rock star Svyatoslav Vakarchuk has announced that he is setting up a political party ahead of parliamentary elections later this year. (RFE/RL, 05.16.19)
• A court in the Czech Republic has handed a suspended three-year prison sentence to a soldier after finding him guilty of joining Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. The court in the city of Pardubice also ruled on May 17 to demote Cpl. Erik Estu to the rank of private and expel him from the Czech armed forces. (RFE/RL, 05.17.19)
• The growth of Ukraine's real GDP in the first quarter of 2019 slowed down to 2.2 percent compared to the same period last year, against 3.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2018 and 3.3 percent in 2018 as a whole, according to preliminary data posted by the State Statistics Service. (Interfax, 05.15.19)
• In the year since Russia’s bridge to Crimea opened for business, delays of vessels bound for the Ukrainian Azov Sea ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk have risen from an average of seven hours in June 2018 to more than five days in November, according to data provided by analysts at the Maidan of Foreign Affairs, a Ukrainian think-tank. According to the Ukrainian government, handling of cargo at Mariupol and Berdyansk has fallen almost 70 percent and 50 percent, respectively, since Russia gained control over the Kerch Strait in 2014, incurring nearly $400 million in losses for the ports and region at large. That downward trend had continued since the end of last year, Kiev said. (Financial Times, 05.16.19)
• U.S. President Donald Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, cancelled plans to visit Ukraine to encourage investigations by the country’s incoming government that he thinks would help Trump politically. (RFE/RL, 05.11.19)
• Ukrainian lawmaker Serhiy Leshchenko accused his country's top prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko, of manufacturing a "conspiracy" about U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, adding to a political intrigue playing out from Kiev to Washington. (Bloomberg, 05.13.19)

Russia’s other post-Soviet neighbors:

• The Polish foreign minister has called for an upgraded Eastern Partnership, including closer ties with the EU and the creation of a free-trade zone among the six member nations. Foreign ministers from the EU and the six Eastern Partnership countries have downgraded a celebratory statement marking the 10th anniversary of the partnership. Sources told RFE/RL that the change came because Azerbaijan was unhappy that the text did not mention the issue of territorial integrity. (RFE/RL, 05.13.19, RFE/RL, 05.14.19)
• The European Commission has adopted a new Central Asia strategy with the aim of creating what it calls "a stronger, modern and nonexclusive partnership" with former Soviet republics in Central Asia that are "willing and able" to improve relations. (RFE/RL, 05.15.19)
• Kazakhstan’s authorities have arrested a leading sinologist in the country, Konstantin Syroyezhkin, on charges of high treason. (RFE/RL, 05.17.19)
• The chairman of Kyrgyzstan's State Committee for National Security, Idris Kadyrkulov, has resigned under pressure amid widespread allegations of corruption. (RFE/RL, 05.15.19)
• Rosatom, the Russian state nuclear corporation, and UzAtom, Uzbekistan's nuclear development agency, have signed a contract to perform engineering surveys for the Central Asian country's first nuclear power plant. (WNN, 05.17.19)
• The Latvian parliament has recognized the deportation of Crimean Tatars in 1944 by the government of the Soviet Union as an act of genocide. (RFE/RL, 05.10.19)
• Belarusian authorities have released from custody an Iranian man who has converted to Orthodox Christianity and is wanted by Tehran for alleged murder. (RFE/RL, 05.15.19)
• Former Armenian President Robert Kocharian, has gone on trial on charges of overthrowing the constitutional order during the final weeks of his decade-long rule that ended in April 2008. (RFE/RL, 05.13.19)
• Azerbaijan, Turkey and Armenia have the most restrictive lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality laws and policies in Europe, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association said. (RFE/RL, 05.13.19)

IV. Quoteworthy

• “There’s no end in sight, billions are stolen” from Russia’s space corporation Roscosmos, Investigative Committee chief Alexander Bastrykin was quoted as saying by the Govorit Moskva radio station on May 15. (The Moscow Times, 05.17.19)