This Week’s Highlights

• The U.S. has notified Russia that it is withdrawing from the Open Skies Treaty on May 22, but “may reconsider our withdrawal should Russia return to full compliance with the Treaty,” RFE/RL reports. The U.S. has long complained about what it says is Russia’s refusal to allow flights over Kaliningrad, as well as along Russia’s border with Georgia, according to the Financial Times. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the conditions set by the U.S. in regard to the treaty are completely unacceptable, but that Russia remains committed to the treaty. German and British governments said they remain committed to the treaty, Interfax reports.
• Asked if the U.S. would pull out of New START, Trump’s national security adviser Robert O'Brien said no, RFE/RL reports. He also said the U.S. would “look forward to negotiating with both Russia and China on a new arms control framework,” Financial Times reports. Trump’s arms control negotiator Marshall Billingslea is planning to meet with his Russian counterpart soon to discuss a new U.S. proposal for a far-reaching accord to limit all Russian, Chinese and U.S. nuclear warheads that would replace the New START accord, according to the Wall Street Journal. However, Billingslea said this week the United States is prepared to send Russia and China “into oblivion” in order to win a new nuclear arms race, Reuters reports.
• A bipartisan group of U.S. Senators has called for the Department of Commerce (DOC) to extend the Russian Suspension Agreement (RSA), as recommended by the Nuclear Fuel Working Group, according to World Nuclear News. The current RSA, which has been amended several times since the original 1992 agreement, expires this year and is under review by the DOC. It currently sets a maximum cap for imports of Russian uranium to 20 percent of the U.S. market.
• The Office of the Ukrainian Prosecutor General has launched an investigation into high treason and abuse of office by former president Petro Poroshenko, TASS reports, after current president Volodymyr Zelenskiy called on his law enforcement agencies to investigate leaked audio of private phone calls several years ago between Joe Biden, John Kerry and then-president Poroshenko, and said the conversations "might be perceived, qualified as high treason,” The Washington Post reports. The recordings showed that Biden, as he has previously said publicly, linked loan guarantees for Ukraine in 2015 to the ouster of Viktor Shokin, then the country's prosecutor general. In 2016, the two also discussed firing Arseniy Yatsenyuk from the post of prime minister, according to the tapes. 
• Russian President Vladimir Putin warned May 22 that a second wave of the coronavirus epidemic could hit Russia this fall as he noted that the country’s current outbreak is stabilizing, The Moscow Times reports. Russia confirmed 8,894 new coronavirus infections May 22, bringing the country’s official number of cases to 326,448. Russia is expected to register a spike in mortality for the month of May, Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova said, AFP reports. As the virus spread in Russia, its nominal GDP shrank by 28 percent in April, bne IntelliNews reports, and Economy Minister Maxim Reshetnikov has estimated the lockdown costs Russia's economy $1.3 billion each day in lost output, according to the Wall Street Journal. At the same time, Russia is still running a triple surplus: the trade balance, currency account and federal government are all reporting surpluses of $3.8 billion, $1.8 billion and 0.2 percent of GDP respectively, according to bne IntelliNews.
• “Russia is not just a country, it’s really a separate civilization. If we want to preserve this civilization, we should focus on high-level technology and its future development,” Putin said in an interview. Putin told state television that “it would be impossible to secure the future of our civilization” without artificial intelligence, genetics and unmanned vehicles, as well as hypersonic weapons.

 

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

Nuclear security and safety:

• All construction and installation works at the construction site of the Central Spent Fuel Storage Facility (CSFSF) at the site of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine is expected to be completed by the end of September, the country’s nuclear power plant operator, Energoatom, announced. (World Nuclear News, 05.21.20)
• Alexei Likhachev, head of Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation, has announced a step-down of the company’s precautions against the coronavirus. At Rosatom, Likhachev said 96 percent of the corporation’s 246,000 employees would return to work as usual as of May 18. (Bellona, 05.20.20)
• Russia’s floating nuclear power plant Akademik Lomonosov has been fully commissioned in Pevek in the Chukotka region of Russia's Far East. (World Nuclear News, 05.22.20)

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• North Korea doesn’t plan to hold talks again with the U.S. until the results of the U.S. presidential election in November are known, Russia’s ambassador to Pyongyang said. (Asia Times, 05.21.20)
• Russian efforts to repatriate all North Korean workers have been hampered by the coronavirus outbreak. (Reuters, 05.22.20)

Iran and its nuclear program:

• The U.S. is unlikely to succeed in its attempts to extend a U.N. arms embargo on Iran, Russian Ambassador to Tehran Levan Dzhagaryan said. (TASS, 05.22.20)

New Cold War/saber rattling:

• "The western strategic direction continues to pose the biggest threat to Russia’s military security," Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said at the ministry’s board meeting. In 2020, 28 organizational measures are planned in Russia’s Western Military District for improving the troops’ combat structure. These measures are synchronized with the delivery of advanced weapons, the defense chief said. (TASS, 05.21.20)
• U.S. President Donald Trump’s arms control negotiator Marshall Billingslea on May 21 said the U.S. is prepared to spend Russia and China “into oblivion” in order to win a new nuclear arms race. (Reuters, 05.21.20)
• On May 14, U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell wrote an op-ed expressing concern about not “eroding the solidarity that undergirds NATO’s nuclear deterrent” and calling for the SPD to affirm Germany’s commitment to nuclear sharing. The next day, U.S. Ambassador in Warsaw, Georgette Mosbacher, entered the fray, with a tweet suggesting that U.S. nuclear weapons could be relocated to and housed in Poland, according to former U.S. ambassador Steve Pifer’s account of the events. (Brookings Institution, 05.18.20)
• U.S. Gen. Richard Clarke, commander of special operations command (Socom), told an industry conference that the U.S. needed to develop new capabilities to “compete and win” with Russia and China. He added that Socom must develop cyber skills and focus on influence campaigns rather than “the kill-capture missions” that characterized his own time in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. (Financial Times, 05.16.20)

NATO-Russia relations:

• No significant developments.

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Arms control:

• The U.S. has announced that it will withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty on May 22 because of violations of the agreement by Russia. "We may, however, reconsider our withdrawal should Russia return to full compliance with the Treaty," it said.  "I think we have a very good relationship with Russia,” Trump said. “But Russia didn't adhere to the treaty. So, until they adhere, we will pull out." He said there was a "very good chance we'll make a new agreement or do something to put that agreement back together." Robert O’Brien, the White House national security adviser, said Trump had “made clear” that the U.S. “will not remain a party to international agreements that are being violated by the other parties and are no longer in America’s interests.” The U.S. has long complained about what it says is Russia’s refusal to allow flights over its heavily militarized Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad, along Russia’s border with Georgia and over military exercises. Senior U.S. diplomats detailed their country’s grievances vis-à-vis Russia’s compliance with the treaty at a briefing on May 21. (Financial Times, 05.21.20, RFE/RL, 05.21.20, Financial Times, 05.21.20)
  • Russia remains committed to the Open Skies Treaty, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on May 22. The Russian Foreign Ministry has received an official note from the U.S. embassy that Washington has begun the process of withdrawing from the treaty, Ryabkov said. He also said that the conditions set by the U.S. in regard to the treaty are completely unacceptable and that the U.S. has been flagrantly violating the treaty itself. (Interfax, 05.22.20, Interfax, 05.22.20)
  • Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Grushko said the U.S. departure from the treaty would be a “blow” to European security. Trump was trying to justify the exit from a "fundamental treaty" via "technical issues" that should be resolved within the treaty, Grushko said. "Nothing prevents continuing the discussions over the technical issues which the U.S. is misrepresenting as violations by Russia," he said. (RFE/RL, 05.21.20, AFP, 05.21.20, Financial Times, 05.21.20)
  • Over thirty countries have pledged to keep adhering to the Open Skies treaty, including Russia, America’s NATO allies and Eastern European states. The U.K. stays committed to the Open Skies Treaty, the British embassy in Moscow said in a statement on Telegram May 22. German Federal Minister of Defense Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer also stated that Germany will continue to fulfill its obligations within the treaty, despite U.S. intentions to abandon it. One European official said the U.S. move was consistent with the Trump administration policy of “withdrawal from multilateral fora without consultation of allies.” Another European official said Washington’s decision was “not unexpected,” adding that violations of the treaty by Russia were a “serious concern.” (Interfax, 05.22.20, TASS, 05.22.20, Financial Times, 05.21.20, Carnegie Moscow Center, 05.22.20.)
• Asked by Fox News if the U.S. would pull out of New START, Trump’s national security adviser Robert O'Brien said no. “We are going to enter into good-faith negotiations with the Russians on nuclear arms control,” he said. O’Brien also said the U.S. would “look forward to negotiating with both Russia and China on a new arms control framework that moves beyond the Cold War constructs of the past and helps keep the entire world safe.” In contrast, Trump's new arms-control negotiator Marshall Billingslea declined to say whether or not he would recommend an extension to New START if China is not involved. (Defense News, 05.21.22, RFE/RL, 05.22.20, Financial Times, 05.21.20)
• Trump's new arms-control negotiator Marshall Billingslea is planning to meet with his Russian counterpart soon to discuss a new U.S. proposal for a far-reaching accord to limit all Russian, Chinese and U.S. nuclear warheads that would replace New START, U.S. officials disclosed May 21. The British and French nuclear forces wouldn't be part of the accord under the U.S. plan. The new U.S. proposal would also cover all nuclear warheads, including those kept in storage or which are mounted on short-range systems. The talks will mark the first time the Trump administration has opened negotiations on an agreement to replace the New START accord. "We have agreed that as soon as possible, taking into account the COVID virus, we will get together to begin negotiations," a senior Trump administration official said. (Wall Street Journal, 05.21.20)

Counter-terrorism:

• A Saudi aviation student who killed three people last year at a Florida Navy base had extensive ties to al-Qaeda, top U.S. law-enforcement officials said May 18 as they accused Apple of stalling the probe by refusing to help unlock the shooter's phones. The gunman, Second Lt. Mohammed Alshamrani, a member of the Saudi air force, had been communicating with a number of operatives of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula for years (Wall Street Journal, 05.19.20)

Conflict in Syria:

• Russian Ambassador to Iran Levan Dzhagaryan has refuted allegations that the Russian side is dissatisfied with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. (TASS, 05.18.20)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have had a telephone conversation, the Kremlin press service said. "They expressed their mutual willingness to intensify joint efforts to implement the Russian-Turkish agreements on the Idlib de-escalation area," the Kremlin press service said. (Interfax, 05.18.20)
• Israeli military officials said recently that Tehran has pulled some of its forces from Syria and evacuated military bases near the border with Israel due to an increase in Israeli air strikes on Iranian targets. (RFE/RL, 05.15.20)
• Accusations hurled at Russia for alleged military crimes in Syria are part of information warfare, Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya said. Amnesty International said it has documented 18 attacks in northwest Syria carried out by Syrian government and Russian forces over the past year that amounted to war crimes. (RFE/RL, 05.11.20, TASS, 05.18.20)

Cyber security:

• In private meetings with companies including Facebook and YouTube, Brussels officials are pushing digital giants to share information on how bad actors and states such as China and Russia are manipulating behavior and spreading disinformation, including granular details on their country of origin and target audience. (Financial Times, 05.18.20)

Elections interference:

• The U.S. Supreme Court has temporarily prevented the release of secret grand jury testimony gathered during Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election interference that a House committee has sought for months. The May 20 ruling keeps previously undisclosed details from the 22-month investigation out of the hands of Democratic lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee for another few months. (RFE/RL, 05.21.20)

Energy exports from CIS:

• Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller announced to Russian media on May 18 that the company had begun design and surveying work for the Power of Siberia-2 pipeline, which will pump up to 50 billion cubic meters per year of Russian gas to consumers in China. The pipeline will pump gas all the way from the Russian Arctic, but is unlikely to flow gas before 2030. Gazprom is banking on long-term growth, with Chinese authorities predicting that consumption will rise by almost two and a half times by 2050. (bne IntelliNews, 05.19.20)
• ExxonMobil has again put its stake in Azerbaijan’s largest oil field up for sale despite a historic decline in oil prices linked to a decline in consumption due to coronavirus restrictions. ExxonMobil first tried to sell its 6.8 percent stake in the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) field in the Caspian Sea in 2018. (RFE/RL, 05.20.20)
• One of the world’s largest oilfields has been threatened with closure by local health authorities following a surge in coronavirus infections among its workers. The Tengiz field in Kazakhstan, which produces about 500,000 barrels of oil a day, is being developed by an international consortium headed by Chevron, which said it was taking steps to minimize the spread of the virus and that production had not been affected. The warning is the first time a major oilfield has been threatened by coronavirus (Financial Times, 05.21.20)

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• A bipartisan group of U.S. Senators has called for the Department of Commerce (DOC) to extend the Russian Suspension Agreement (RSA), as recommended by the Nuclear Fuel Working Group. The current RSA, which has been amended several times since the original 1992 agreement, expires this year and is under review by the DOC. It currently sets a maximum cap for imports of Russian uranium to 20 percent of the U.S. market. (World Nuclear News, 05.21.20)

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

• A U.S. military plane carrying ventilators has landed in Moscow to help Russia in its battle against the coronavirus outbreak. The U.S. Embassy said on May 21 that the 50 ventilators were the first tranche of a $5.6 million "humanitarian donation" to Russia that will eventually include a total of 200 U.S.-manufactured ventilators. Russia is extending gratitude to the American side for providing help to counter the coronavirus pandemic, Ryabkov said May 22. (Interfax, 05.22.20, RFE/RL, 05.21.20)
• The U.S. refused to adopt a U.N. text written by Russia May 20 denouncing the use of mercenaries in a supposed plot to overthrow the Venezuelan government. (AFP, 05.20.20)
• An appeals court on May 21 ordered the judge in former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn's case to defend his actions after Flynn's attorneys asked that his conviction be dismissed immediately, as requested by the Justice Department. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit took the unusual step of ordering U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan to answer within 10 days accusations from Flynn. The court also invited the Justice Department to comment. (The Washington Post, 05.22.20)
• The Department of Justice is not likely to open criminal investigations of former president Barack Obama or former vice-president Joe Biden as it looks into the origins of the Russia probe, U.S. Attorney General William Barr said. (Financial Times, 05.18.20)
• Defense witnesses in the trial of former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan have not shown up to a Moscow court hearing because of the coronavirus outbreak. Whelan's lawyer said that three defense witnesses did not come to the courtroom as the trial resumed on May 18. Russian prosecutors are expected to issue their sentencing recommendation on May 25 in the case of Whelan, who is on trial for what the U.S. says are baseless spying charges. (RFE/RL, 05.20.20, RFE/RL, 05.18.20)
• Michael Cohen, a former personal lawyer to Trump, was released from federal prison to home confinement May 21 as part of the Justice Department's push to stem the spread of the coronavirus among inmates. (The Washington Post, 05.22.20)

 

II. Russia’s domestic policies

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

• Russia confirmed 8,894 new coronavirus infections May 22, bringing the country’s official number of cases to 326,448. Over the past 24 hours, a record 150 people have died, bringing the total toll to 3,249—a rate considerably lower than in many other countries hit hard by the pandemic. Overall, 99,825 people in Russia are no longer infected with coronavirus, health officials said May 22. (The Moscow Times, 05.22.20) Here’s a link to RFE/RL’s interactive map of the virus’ spread around the world, including in Russia and the rest of post-Soviet Eurasia. For a comparison of the number and rate of change in new cases in the U.S. and Russia, visit this Russia Matters resource.
• Putin warned May 22 that a second wave of the coronavirus epidemic could hit Russia this fall as he noted that the country’s current outbreak is stabilizing. (AFP, 05.22.20)
• Russia is expected to register a spike in mortality for the month of May, Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova said May 22, as the country battles a coronavirus outbreak. (AFP, 05.22.20)
• Russian medics are 16 times more likely to die from the coronavirus than healthcare professionals in countries with similarly high COVID-19 numbers, the Mediazona news website reported May 19. Nearly 7 percent of Russia’s coronavirus deaths, or one out of every 15 people, have been among medics, according to Mediazona. (The Moscow Times, 05.19.20)
• One out of seven healthy Russians may have been infected with the coronavirus, according to a Moscow-based private lab analysis of voluntary testing published May 22. Out of more than 40,000 people tested between May 18 and May 21 in most Russian regions, the Invitro lab said 14 percent had antibodies. (The Moscow Times, 05.22.20)
• One of Russia's most high-profile virus cases, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, returned to work this week after receiving treatment for the illness in hospital. (The Moscow Times, 05.22.20)

• Russia's nominal GDP shrank by 28 percent in April, of which two-thirds was due to the nationwide lockdown that began on March 30 and another third was due to the collapse in oil prices, the Finance Ministry said, reports RBC. At the same time, Russia is still running a triple surplus: the trade balance, currency account and federal government are all reporting surpluses of $3.8 billion, $1.8billion and 0.2 percent of GDP respectively. (bne IntelliNews, 05.21.20)
• Russia’s economy minister, Maxim Reshetnikov, has estimated the lockdown costs Russia's economy $1.3 billion each day in lost output, while the country's purchasing managers index, a key measure of economic activity, slumped in April to its lowest level since records began in 1997. (Wall Street Journal, 05.20.20)
• Moscow Deputy Mayor Vladimir Yefimov said that last year consumer spending in the city amounted to $197 billion. According to this indicator, Moscow ranks third among European cities. (bne IntelliNews, 05.21.20)
• Russia’s leading petrochemical producer Sibur Holding has successfully closed the order book for its BO-01 and BO-02 exchange-traded bond issues, worth 10 billion rubles ($139 million) and 5 billion rubles ($69 million) respectively, that pay the lowest ever corporate bond yields, the company said in a statement. (bne IntelliNews, 05.22.20)
• Plans by Russia's government to merge the northwestern region of Arkhangelsk, the Nenets Autonomous District and the Republic of Komi have sparked protest among residents who fear losing their ethnic identity. (RFE/RL, 05.21.20)
• Russia has granted citizenship to more than twice as many foreigners in early 2020 than it did in the same period last year as the country moves to ease citizenship laws and boost its flagging population numbers. Authorities issued 161,170 Russian passports to foreigners between January and March compared with 63,249 in January-March 2019, the Interior Ministry’s immigration data said. Two-thirds of the new recipients, 108,500 people, were Ukrainian nationals. (The Moscow Times, 05.19.20)
• Officials at the prestigious Moscow State University are refusing to investigate widespread claims of sexual harassment by faculty members while some students face veiled threats of academic retribution for speaking out, the Meduza news website reported. (The Moscow Times, 05.20.20)

Defense and aerospace:

• “Russia is not just a country, it’s really a separate civilization. If we want to preserve this civilization, we should focus on high-level technology and its future development,” Putin said. He told state television that “it would be impossible to secure the future of our civilization” without artificial intelligence, genetics and unmanned vehicles, as well as hypersonic weapons. (The Moscow Times, 05.18.20)
• The Russian navy has ordered a batch of six Karakurt-class corvettes from Project 22800 for its Baltic Fleet, navy commander-in-chief Nikolai Yevmenov said. (The Moscow Times, 05.18.20)
• The Russian air force has recently conducted testing of a new X-32 hypersonic aircraft missile for a modified version of the Tu-22M3M aircraft. According to Russian state media, the work on the new missile began several years ago and its testing was completed simultaneously with the work on the upgraded bomber. (The National Interest, 05.16.20)
• Using experience gained in local wars, including the Syria campaign, is the priority of the summer and winter training of the Russian armed forces, Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov said. (Interfax, 05.18.20)
• Russia's new Military Engineer Academy will become the main educational establishment training military specialists for Russia's armed forces in this field. (Interfax, 05.18.20)

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• Shareholders in the former Russian oil giant Yukos say a Dutch court has granted them the local rights to the trademarks of two iconic vodka brands controlled by the Russian state. The seizure of the Stolichnaya and Moskovskaya trademark rights is the shareholders’ most recent move to obtain billions of dollars in damages from the Russian government, a spokesman for the shareholders said on May 18. (RFE/RL, 05.19.20)

 

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

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

• Britain and the U.S. on May 19 urged Russia to stop sending mercenaries to the conflict in Libya, after a recent U.N. report confirmed the presence of Russian and Syrian fighters in the country. Russia dismissed the demands at a Security Council video conference, denying again that Moscow has any role in the presence of Russian fighters in Libya, and calling the U.N. report unreliable. (AFP, 05.19.20)
• A Russian-backed militia leader who seized swaths of Libya and marched to the outskirts of Tripoli is pulling back after Turkey intervened, changing the course of a war that has become a sparring ground for rival powers in the Middle East. Renegade commander Khalifa Haftar lost control of two strategic towns on the coast of the Mediterranean over the past month. On May 18, his objective of uniting the country under his command was dealt another blow when government troops with Turkish aid beat back his yearlong advance on the capital and took back control of a pivotal air base to the west of the city, according to the Libyan government. (Wall Street Journal, 05.19.20)
• U.N. experts are investigating the suspected deployment of at least eight Russian-made fighter jets from Syria to Libya in support of Haftar, diplomats and people briefed on the matter said. (Financial Times, 05.21.20)
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Czech officials should reinstall a controversial statue of Soviet Marshal Ivan Konev's statue in Prague after city officials removed it last month. In an interview, Lavrov called the Czech explanation for the move "childish" and "a blatant violation" of the 1993 Russian-Czech agreement on friendly relations. (RFE/RL, 05.15.20)

China-Russia: Allied or Aligned?

• Russia could be the destination for President Xi Jinping’s first overseas trip since the coronavirus hit, with plans for two regional summits still on track, providing a boost to the alliance as Beijing faces a growing backlash over the pandemic “We still hope … that later this year, maybe the second half of the year, we’ll have a number of opportunities [for the leaders to visit] each other, both here in China and in Russia,” Russian ambassador to China Andrey Denisov said. (South China Morning Post, 05.20.20)
• Xi called on the world May 18 to rally behind the World Health Organization (WHO) and support developing countries as he opened a WHO annual assembly after weeks of acrimony between China and the U.S. over a proposal to investigate the origins of COVID-19. For weeks China had been anticipating, and bitterly opposing, a proposal from Western countries to conduct an international probe into the pandemic's origins. But China's opposition has melted in recent days as international support for an inquiry grew to include Russia, Turkey and European and African countries. (The Washington Post, 05.19.20)
• A report to Congress released by the White House says U.S. hopes for a “fundamental economic and political opening” in mainland China have failed, and that Beijing now “promotes globally a value proposition that challenges the bedrock American belief.” (The National Interest, 05.21.20)

Ukraine:

• The Office of the Ukrainian Prosecutor General has launched an investigation into high treason and abuse of office by former president Petro Poroshenko after current president Volodymyr Zelenskiy called on his law enforcement agencies to investigate leaked audio of private phone calls several years ago between Joe Biden, John Kerry and then-president Poroshenko, and said the conversations "might be perceived, qualified as high treason.” The recordings showed that Biden, as he has previously said publicly, linked loan guarantees for Ukraine in 2015 to the ouster of Viktor Shokin, then the country's prosecutor general. In 2016, the two also discussed firing Arseniy Yatsenyuk from the post of prime minister, according to the tapes. (The Washington Post, 05.20.20, TASS, 05.20.20, Gazeta.ru, 05.21.20)
• A Republican-led U.S. Senate committee has voted to subpoena documents for an investigation into Hunter Biden, son of Joe Biden. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted on May 20 along party lines to subpoena information from Blue Star Strategies, a lobby firm that worked with Burisma, a gas company in Ukraine that paid Hunter Biden to serve as a board member. (RFE/RL, 05.21.20)
• The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) opened a criminal investigation on May 6 into high treason by the head of presidential office Andriy Yermak and former president Leonid Kuchma, according to lawmaker Volodymyr Viatrovych. Viatrovych filed a deputy’s appeal to the SBU to investigate Yermak and Kuchma for their actions as members of Ukraine’s delegation to the Minsk negotiations on Donbass. (Kyiv Post, 05.19.20)
• A Russian suspect in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 has said he feels “a moral responsibility” for the deaths of 298. Igor Girkin is one of three Russian and one Ukrainian suspects who are accused by a Dutch-led investigation of shooting down MH17. Asked if his words could be interpreted as an admission of the Russian military’s guilt, Girkin said “people can interpret this as they like” and refused to comment further. In another interview, Girkin told a Ukrainian journalist that as the military commander in the area, he felt "indirect responsibility" for the downing of the passenger jet, but that his forces didn't fire the missile that killed all those on board. (RFE/RL, 05.19.20, The Moscow Times, 05.20.20)
• The U.N. children’s agency is calling for all parties to the deadly conflict in eastern Ukraine to commit to a cease-fire and end more than six years of fighting, as an increase in shelling has resulted in numerous child casualties and damaged schools since the beginning of the year. (RFE/RL, 05.22.20)
• The acting U.S. ambassador to Kyiv, Kristina Kvien, has called on Russia to “stop its legacy of inflicting suffering on the people of Crimea," as Ukraine commemorated the victims of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's mass deportation of Crimean Tatars from their homeland in 1944. (RFE/RL, 05.18.20)
• The EU and several of its member states may break the bloc's own guidelines on contacts with de facto authorities of the Russia-annexed Crimean Peninsula by participating in a Moscow-backed videoconference on the situation in the region. (RFE/RL, 05.21.20)
• The IMF has signed off on a new staff-level 18-month Stand-by Arrangement with Ukraine on the same day that Zelenskiy signed the new anti-Kolomoisky banking bill into law on May 22. The crucial deal opens the way for tens of billions of dollars in multilateral aid and makes default on Ukraine’s large debt repayments and a debilitating crisis much more unlikely. Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko said on May 21 that he expects the first tranche from the new $5 billion program to arrive before the end of the month. (bne IntelliNews, 05.22.20)
• According to a poll conducted by the Rating sociological group on May 12-13, a third of respondents described Zelenskiy's first year as "excellent" or "good," nearly 40 percent said it was "satisfactory" and about a third said it was "unsatisfactory" or "terrible." Zelenskiy scored least in eastern Ukraine, in cities and in the senior group of respondents. Zelenskiy scored the most points for prisoner swaps and measures against coronavirus. (Interfax, 05.18.20).
• Ukraine’s parliament has adopted a draft law on nuclear safety that enables state-run nuclear power plant operator Energoatom to secure a 200 million euro loan from Euratom. (World Nuclear News, 05.20.20)
• The head of the SBU, Ivan Bakanov, holds a top position in a private company registered in Spain, in violation of the anti-corruption law, according to Skhemy (Schemes), a joint project by RFE/RL and UA:Pershy television. (RFE/RL, 05.22.20)
• Dozens of babies born into Ukraine's booming surrogate motherhood business have become marooned in the country as their biological parents in the U.S. and other countries cannot travel to retrieve them after birth. For now, the agencies that arranged the surrogate births care for the babies. Authorities say that at least 100 babies are stranded already and that as many as 1,000 may be born before Ukraine's travel ban for foreigners is lifted. (New York Times, 05.17.20)

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

•  Moldovan prosecutors have charged Vlad Plahotniuc, a powerful oligarch and political figure, for his role in a massive bank theft, and will seek his extradition from the U.S. He has been linked to what is known as the "theft of the century," a scandal involving the disappearance of more than $1 billion—totaling nearly one-eighth of Moldova's GDP—from the country's biggest banks between 2012 and 2014. (RFE/RL, 05.19.20)
• The Belarusian Central Election Commission has rejected documents filed by the initiative group for prominent opposition leader Mikalay Statkevich to nominate him as a presidential candidate for balloting scheduled for Aug. 9. (RFE/RL, 05.19.20)
• The first order for 80,000 tons of U.S. oil to Belarus is likely a test of logistics. The tanker carrying it is expected to arrive in a Lithuanian port in early June, with Poland also acting as an intermediary. (The Washington Post, 05.22.20)
• Georgia’s president says she has pardoned two jailed opposition leaders—a former Tbilisi mayor and an ex-defense minister—in a bid to salvage a foreign-brokered deal between the opposition and the ruling party on election reforms. The two pardoned politicians are Gigi Ugulava, a former mayor of Tbilisi and leader of European Georgia-Movement for Freedom, and former Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili, who leads the Victorious Georgia party. (RFE/RL, 05.15.20)
• Turkmenistan’s authoritarian president, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, has pardoned 1,402 prisoners. (RFE/RL, 05.17.20)
• Arayik (Ara) Harutyunian, the former prime minister of the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, has been sworn in as its de facto president. (RFE/RL, 05.21.20)

 

IV. Quoteworthy

• No significant developments.