This Week’s Highlights:

• Having issued a recommendation for the U.S. to withdraw from the INF Treaty, John Bolton is heading to Moscow to meet Vladimir Putin and his top aides on Oct. 22-23., according to The Guardian.
• U.S. special envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker argues that for the West, sanctions are the best way to maintain pressure on Russia, and says that more sanctions will be imposed on Russia every month or two, Ukrinform reports.
• At the Valdai Forum, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that in the event of a nuclear war, Russian martyrs will go to heaven, while the aggressors who strike Russia “will simply drop dead,” according to Business Insider.
• Vladimir Putin has signed off on new nuclear safety guidelines that warn of “illegal manufacturing of components of nuclear weapons” as well as of “terrorist acts involving nuclear materials and radioactive substances.”
• The top 10 percent of wealth holders owns 82 percent of all household wealth in Russia compared to 76 percent for the U.S. and 62 percent for China, according to Credit Suisse.

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

Nuclear security and safety:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree to approve the Russian Federation’s Principles of the State Nuclear and Radiation Safety Policy Through 2025. The document’s section on “main problems” refers to “the emergence in the world of new technologies that can be used to commit unauthorized actions (including terrorist acts) against nuclear facilities … as well as illegal manufacturing of components of nuclear weapons and devices.” The section also refers to “the threat of terrorist acts against” civilian and military “nuclear facilities and nuclear legacy sites,” as well as “terrorist acts involving nuclear materials and radioactive substances, materials with a high content of natural radionuclides and devices that generate ionizing radiation.” (Russia Matters, 10.18.18)
• The removal of used nuclear fuel from the Lepse floating technical base can now begin thanks to the erection of a special protective cover at the Nerpa shipyard in Snezhnogorsk in the Murmansk region of Russia. (World Nuclear News, 10.16.18)
• Belarus is set to develop, together with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, projects for better food and nuclear safety, Belarusian Prime Minister Sergei Rumas said. (Interfax, 10.15.18)

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• A date for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is being discussed, Russian state news agency RIA cited Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov as saying on Oct. 19. (Reuters, 10.19.18)

Iran’s nuclear program and related issues:

• No significant developments.

Military issues, including NATO-Russia relations:

• Russia is upgrading and modernizing four military installations in a strategic area on NATO's doorstep, satellite images obtained by CNN suggest. Increased Russian military activity has been spotted in Kaliningrad, where the Russians have been carrying out major renovation work at what is believed to be an active nuclear weapons storage site. (Business Insider, 10.19.18)
• NATO was due to officially start accession talks with Macedonia on Oct. 18 despite a Sept. 30 referendum on changing the country's name—the condition set by Greece to lift its objections to Skopje joining the alliance—failed to reach the required minimum 50 percent participation to be valid. (RFE/RL, 10.17.18)

Missile defense:

• The Pentagon’s Missile Defense Review has been completed, according to Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan. Its release date remains unknown. (Defense News, 10.04.18)

Nuclear arms control:

• U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton has issued a recommendation for withdrawal from the 1987 INF Treaty with Russia, in the face of resistance from others in the Trump administration and U.S. allies, according to sources briefed on the initiative. The U.S. says Russia has been violating the treaty with the development of a new cruise missile. “The U.S. has started to warn allies with the possibility of withdrawal. But I don’t believe there has been any kind of interagency process in the administration,” said Jon Wolfsthal, a former senior director for non-proliferation and arms control at the National Security Council. (The Guardian, 10.19.18)

Counter-terrorism:

• The security threat from violent extremist groups has not been eliminated despite a recent shift in Washington's focus to what it sees as growing threats from China, Russia and Iran, Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a conference of over 80 international defense chiefs on Oct. 16. (RFE/RL, 10.17.18)
• In the 1990s, “militants [were] coming mostly from terrorist organizations based abroad, including Al-Qaeda, who were active in this country [Russia],” Russian President Vladimir Putin told the Valdai Forum in Sochi on Oct. 18. “Thank God, we got rid of this but we have not eradicated terrorism per se. Of course, terrorism still poses a great threat to our country as well, which was why we launched these operations in Syria,” he said. (Kremlin.ru, 10.19.18)

Conflict in Syria:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin will discuss conditions for the return of refugees to Syria at a summit next week in Istanbul with the leaders of Turkey, France and Germany. Putin also plans to discuss the reconstruction of infrastructure in Syria at the Oct. 27 summit. (Reuters, 10.19.18)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin told the Valdai discussion forum in Sochi that any talks about the withdrawal of Iranian forces from Syria would be contingent on providing security guarantees for Syria. Putin said Oct. 18 that Russia helped negotiate the pullback of Iranian forces from the border with Israel over the summer. Putin said that the issue could be discussed between Iran, Syria and the U.S., with Russia joining the dialogue. He said Syria should be offered security guarantees by "those who want to see the Iranian forces pull out." (Reuters, 10.18.18)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin told the Valdai discussion forum in Sochi that Islamic State militants had seized nearly 700 hostages in part of Syria controlled by U.S.-backed forces and had executed some of them and promised to kill more. (Reuters, 10.18.18)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin told the Valdai discussion forum in Sochi the Russian military campaign in Syria has “by and large delivered” on its achievements, despite Moscow’s activities in the country dragging into a fourth year. (Financial Times, 10.18.18)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin is hailing Turkey’s efforts to set up a demilitarized zone in Syria’s Idlib. Putin told the Valdai discussion forum in Sochi that even though the Oct. 15 deadline for the withdrawal of Syrian radical groups and heavy weapons from the zone hasn’t been fully met, Russia sees that Turkey is doing its best to accomplish the task. (AP, 10.18.18)
• Some militants have withdrawn from the demilitarization zone in Idlib following a deal between Russia and Turkey on the northwestern Syrian region, James Jeffrey, the U.S. special representative for Syria engagement, told reporters in Ankara during a brief visit with the U.S. secretary of state on Oct. 17. Jeffrey called the deal between Russia and Turkey a “major step,” saying the agreement to clear a buffer zone between pro-Syrian regime forces and the opposition stronghold of Idlib was helping to freeze fighting elsewhere in the country. (Financial Times, 10.17.18, Reuters, 10.17.18)
• Militants in Syria's Idlib failed to meet an Oct. 15 deadline for vacating a buffer zone created under a Russian-Turkish cease-fire deal, prompting a threat from the Syrian government to resume its military campaign. (RFE/RL, 10.16.18)
• Russia and Turkey plan to give more time for the implementation of their de-escalation deal in Idlib, a "great relief" for 3 million civilians in the area, U.N. humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland told reporters on Oct. 18. (Reuters, 10.18.18)

Cyber security:

• EU leaders have commissioned work on a new system for slapping sanctions on the perpetrators of cyberattacks, in the wake of the attack on the world chemical weapons watchdog. (AP, 10.18.18)
• Rome is resisting EU proposals to impose sanctions on countries that carry out cyberattacks, in another move seen as being in favor of Moscow. Diplomats said the new EU sanctions regime would be aimed mostly at Russia. The EU should agree on a sanctions law to target computer hackers by early next year, the bloc's leaders were set to say on Oct. 18, and will also seek a pledge from Russia and China to help stop cyberattacks, internal EU documents show. (Reuters, 10.18.18)
• Former security contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden has said he does not feel safe living in Russia, but feels proud about his role in revealing massive U.S. surveillance programs. (The Moscow Times, 10.19.18)
• “For us professionals, it has long been clear that cyberspace should be under the control of the relevant agencies,” said Sergei Smirnov, deputy director of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB). “Without that, it is impossible to guarantee the required provision of information security and successfully prevent modern terrorist threats.” (Irish Times, 10.18.18)

Elections interference:

• “To think that I would be even thinking about using Russia to help me win Idaho. We're using Russia to help me win the great state of Iowa or anywhere else is the most preposterous, embarrassing thing. And I will say that the Democrats know it and they wink. They're all laughing. And you know if I often hear that Russia likes to sow discord,” U.S. President Donald Trump said in an interview. “Do you really think I'd call Russia to help me with an election? Give me a break. They wouldn't be able to help me at all. Call Russia. It's so ridiculous,” Trump said. (AP, 10.17.18, CBS News, 10.14.18)
• “Do you know these Russian hackers you're talking about from Moscow? They have nothing to do with me. How many people are they? Only 28 people? They have nothing to do with me. They were hackers from Moscow. Some of them supported Hillary Clinton,” U.S. President Donald Trump said in an interview. (AP, 10.17.18)
• In an interview with the Associated Press on Oct. 16, U.S. President Donald Trump defended the actions of his son Donald Trump Jr., who met at Trump Tower in New York in June 2016 with a Russian lawyer who alleged to have had damaging information on Hillary Clinton. Trump called his son a "good young guy" who did what any political aide would have done. (RFE/RL, 10.17.18)
• Asked about Russian interference in the U.S. political system in a television interview, U.S. President Donald Trump said he believes that Moscow did meddle, but he added that “China meddled, too.” (RFE/RL, 10.15.18)
• “Well, so far, we don’t see the kind of Russian meddling we did in 2016. … We are very worried about the question of Chinese interference, not just in individual elections, but more broadly trying to influence the American political discussion with an influence campaign that I think could well be unprecedented,” U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton said. (Hugh Hewitt, 10.12.18)
• Special counsel Robert Mueller is expected to issue findings on core aspects of his Russia probe soon after the November midterm elections as he faces intensifying pressure to produce more indictments or shut down his investigation, according to two U.S. officials. Specifically, Mueller is close to rendering judgment on two of the most explosive aspects of his inquiry: whether there were clear incidents of collusion between Russia and Trump’s campaign, and whether the president took any actions that constitute obstruction of justice. (Bloomberg, 10.17.18)
• U.S. President Donald Trump on Oct. 16 appeared to urge his attorney general to fire Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, who was a contact for the author of a dossier that is the focus of Trump allies trying to discredit the probe into Russia's interference in the presidential election. Trump's tweets came only moments after a joint House panel attempted to conduct a closed-door interview with Glenn Simpson, the head of Fusion GPS, a firm behind the dossier compiled by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele. Simpson invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. (The Washington Post, 10.16.18)
• Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein defended the special counsel's investigation into Russian election interference as "appropriate and independent," a message that contrasts with U.S. President Donald Trump's description of the inquiry as a "witch hunt" and "rigged." (Wall Street Journal, 10.18.18)
• U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows, one of U.S. President Donald Trump's closest congressional allies called on Oct. 18 for Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to step down "immediately" for dodging an interview with lawmakers—just hours before GOP leaders announced Rosenstein would be coming to Capitol Hill next week. (The Washington Post, 10.18.18)
• A senior Treasury Department employee was charged Oct. 17 with leaking confidential government reports about suspicious financial transactions related to the special counsel’s probe of Russian election interference and Trump associates. Prosecutors charged Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards with the unauthorized disclosure of suspicious activity reports and conspiracy. (The Washington Post, 10.17.18)
• The Justice Department on Oct. 19 charged a Russian woman for her alleged role in a conspiracy to interfere with the 2018 U.S. election, marking the first criminal case prosecutors have brought against a foreign national for interfering in the upcoming midterms. Elena Khusyaynova was charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States. Prosecutors said she managed the finances of “Project Lakhta,” a foreign influence operation they said was designed “to sow discord in the U.S. political system.” (The Washington Post, 10.19.18)
• George Papadopoulos, the former Trump campaign aide whose overseas interactions set in motion a series of events that triggered the FBI’s Russia investigation in 2016, is slated to interview with House investigators on Oct. 25. (Politico, 10.12.18)
• In the nearly five weeks since he pleaded guilty, CNN reports that Paul Manafort has become a frequent guest of Robert Mueller, visiting the special counsel’s office in Washington no less than nine times since cutting a deal last month to aid Mueller’s probe in exchange for a reduced set of charges. It is believed Mueller is interested in a number of critical episodes that occurred while Manafort led Trump’s campaign, including the infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting. Other sources told ABC News that Mueller has been asking Manafort about his former business partner Roger Stone. (Vanity Fair, 10.18.18)
• Twitter announced on Oct. 17 it had released a data cache of more than 10 million tweets from accounts suspected of being involved in disinformation campaigns, to allow it to be independently investigated. The data includes 3,841 accounts associated with Russia’s Internet Research Agency, as well as 770 accounts associated with a second attempted influence campaign that Twitter said may have originated in Iran. (Financial Times, 10.17.18)
• EU officials are bracing for attempted meddling by Russia-backed operatives and their copycats ahead of the bloc’s elections in the spring, where far-right parties are set to make gains. “Today’s cyber bullets are getting harder to spot and harder to stop,” said EU Security Commissioner Julian King at a conference Oct. 15. (Bloomberg, 11.16.18)
• Ukraine has set up a group to stop any attempt by Russia to influence next year's elections, a state security body said on Oct. 18. The National Council for Security and Defense, which is headed by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, established the special group ahead of presidential elections in March and parliamentary elections next October. (Reuters, 10.18.18)

Energy exports:

• Russia's Rosneft, which owns downstream assets in Germany including stakes in a number of oil refineries, plans to invest around 600 million euros ($690 million) in the German downstream market, Russian government documents showed on Oct. 18.  (Reuters, 10.18.18)

Bilateral economic ties:

• Russia has begun discussions with Exxon Mobil on possible new oil and gas projects, potentially creating a dilemma as the U.S. government mulls more sanctions against Russia. (Bloomberg, 10.19.18)

Other bilateral issues:

• When asked if he agrees that Russian President Vladimir Putin is involved in assassinations and poisonings, U.S. President Donald Trump said: “Probably he is, yeah. But I rely on them, it's not in our country. And I think, frankly, China is a bigger problem.” (CBS News, 10.14.18)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin told the Valdai discussion forum in Sochi that he believes that U.S. President Donald Trump would like to improve relations with Russia. Putin said Trump aims at “some sort of stabilization and improvement of U.S.-Russian ties,” adding that Moscow is ready for that “at any moment.” Putin pointed at political infighting between the Democrats and the Republicans, saying it blocked any possible effort by Trump to repair the fractured ties with Russia.  "Maybe he acts like that with someone else, but in that case they are to blame. I have a completely normal and professional dialogue with him and of course he listens. I see that he reacts to his interlocutor's arguments," said Putin. (AP, 10.18.18)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin told the Valdai discussion forum in Sochi that U.S. sanctions against his country and others have eroded international trust in the U.S. dollar. (AP, 10.18.18)
• The Kremlin said on Oct. 19 that Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to meet U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton when he visits Moscow on Oct. 22-23. Bolton is also expected to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev. (Reuters, 10.19.18)
  • “I’ve got a trip coming up to Moscow and the Caucasus countries … the reason for that is to continue to carry through on the conversation that President Trump and President Putin had in Helsinki during the summer to talk about U.S.-Russian relations and where we can make progress, where we still have issues and disagreement, and then in the Caucasus to see the very significant geographical role that they have dealing with Iran, dealing with Russia, dealing with Turkey,” U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton said. (Hugh Hewitt, 10.12.18)
• The White House has temporarily lifted an entry ban imposed on Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russia’s federal space agency, to allow him to visit the U.S., the head of NASA has said in an interview with Russian media. (The Moscow Times, 10.19.18)
  • The fees from American, European and Japanese astronauts that use Soyuz spacecraft account for almost 25 percent of the annual Roscosmos budget (the remaining 75 percent comes from the Russian government). (The Moscow Times, 10.12.18)
  • The investigating authorities and the Roscosmos commission, formed to investigate the Soyuz-FG rocket accident, identified the cause: errors were made during the assembly of the rocket at the Baikonur cosmodrome. (Kazakhstanskatya Prava, 10.19.18)

II. Russia’s domestic news

Politics, economy and energy:

• The price of oil, Russia's main export, has risen almost 14 percent since mid-August. This is largely because of the coming resumption of U.S. sanctions against Iran, choking off the supply of crude from that country. Meanwhile, the ruble has declined 15 percent since April, when Washington imposed sanctions on Russia. "Russia is much better off with higher oil and a weaker ruble because, from a budgetary perspective, that's a double positive," said Viktor Szabo, an emerging-markets debt-portfolio manager. (Wall Street Journal, 10.16.18)
• The top 10 percent of wealth holders owns 82 percent of all household wealth in Russia. This is higher than the 76 percent for the U.S., which has one of the most concentrated distributions of wealth among advanced nations, and is also higher than China’s 62 percent. The high concentration of wealth in Russia is also reflected in that Russia is estimated to have 74 billionaires, despite the country’s modest level of wealth per person. (Credit Suisse, October 2018)
• The Russian economy has climbed two spots in an annual rating of the world’s most competitive economies published by the World Economic Forum (WEF).  The WEF ranks 140 countries on a scale from 0 to 100 in its annual Global Competitiveness Index. Coming in at 43rd place, Russia’s standing was buoyed in the WEF rating this year by stable macroeconomics, a large market size, information and communications technology adoption and human capital. (The Moscow Times, 10.17.18)
• Negative attitudes toward various forms of corruption have decreased in Russia by almost one-third in the past 27 years, according to a study by sociologists at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics. Aversion toward bribe-taking has decreased from 85 percent to 58 percent; tax-avoidance from 53 percent to 36 percent; fare-avoidance from 52 percent to 24 percent; and claiming benefits without entitlement from 65 percent to 35 percent, the study said. (The Moscow Times, 10.16.18)
• Between 2013 and 2018, the soccer World Cup brought 952 billion rubles ($14.5 billion) into the Russian economy, according to an organizing committee report obtained by Interfax. (The Moscow Times, 10.16.18)
• Chechnya’s speaker of the parliament says the disputed Chechen-Ingush administrative boundary agreement has come into force amid continuing protests in Ingushetia against the deal. (RFE/RL, 10.16.18)
• Different times require different rules, which is what Valery Zorkin, the chairman of Russia’s Constitutional Court, floated last week in an opinion piece in the official government newspaper, Rossiiskaya Gazeta. "Of course, our constitution has shortcomings," Zorkin wrote. "These include the lack of an adequate balance in the system of checks and balances; bias in favor of the executive branch of government; the lack of clarity in the distribution of powers between the president and the government." (RFE/RL, 10.17.18)
• The Russian public will not get to vote for or against government plans to raise their retirement age as the deadline to file the paperwork has quietly passed this week. (The Moscow Times, 10.18.18)
• Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny was summoned by police one day after his release following 50 days in jail. Navalny could face a new criminal charge. (RFE/RL, 10.15.18)
• The head of Russia’s National Guard troops has turned down opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s invitation to a televised debate, urging him instead to participate in a “sports competition.” (The Moscow Times, 10.19.18)
• Oleg Kozlovsky, a researcher for Amnesty International, has described how he was abducted in southern Russia by men who drove him to a field where they held a gun to his head, made him take off his clothes, beat him and tried to blackmail him. (Reuters, 10.15.18)
• Russian officials this year have shrugged off allegations of a purge targeting LGBT people in Chechnya, including those of Maksim Lapunov, the only gay man to publicly claim he was victimized in the crackdown. (RFE/RL, 10.16.18)

Defense and aerospace:

• “We are improving our attack systems as an answer to the United States building its missile defense system. Some of these systems have already been fielded, and some will be put into service in the coming months. I am talking about the Avangard system … No one has a high-precision hypersonic weapon. Some plan to begin testing it in one or two years, while we have this high-tech modern weapon in service,” Russian President Vladimir Putin told the Valdai forum in Sochi on Oct. 18. (Kremlin.ru, 10.19.18)
• “We are prepared and will use nuclear weapons only when we know for certain that some potential aggressor is attacking Russia … Our nuclear weapons doctrine does not provide for a pre-emptive strike. … Only when we know for certain—and this takes a few seconds to understand—that Russia is being attacked we will deliver a counter strike. This would be a reciprocal counter strike,” Russian President Vladimir Putin told the Valdai forum in Sochi on Oct. 18. (Kremlin.ru, 10.19.18)
• Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexei Krivoruchko announced that the country's air force would receive its much-hyped Su-57 "stealth" fighter jets by the end of 2019. But a review of Russian media reports by The Diplomat indicate that Russia could get just two Su-57s by the end of 2020. (Business Insider, 10.17.18)
• The Russian Defense Ministry said an L-39 aircraft went down Oct. 18 during regular training over the Sea of Azov. It said the pilots bailed out and a search for them is underway. (AP, 10.18.18)
• A Russian soldier has been reportedly charged with extremism for recruiting fellow soldiers guarding Defense Ministry buildings in central Moscow into his budding Nazi party. Before his conscription, Pvt. Oleg Konstantinov formed the National Socialist Workers’ Party of Russia on the popular Vkontakte social media platform. (The Moscow Times, 10.15.18)

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• While Crimean authorities searched for clues that might help explain why a teenager gunned down 21 people at his vocational school before killing himself, the stunned city of Kerch prepared to say farewell to the victims. Thousands of residents were expected to attend the funerals of most of the victims Oct. 19.  Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, portrayed the mass shooting in Kerch as a “result of globalization”—forces that were exporting bad practices into Russia. Speaking at an international policy conference, Putin compared the assault to the numerous school shootings in the U.S. (AP, 10.19.18)
• A resident of Russia’s North Caucasus has been sentenced to 16 years in a maximum-security prison for fighting alongside jihadists in war-torn Syria. Islam Gugov was accused of training at a camp and joining the militant jihadist Caucasus Emirate (Imarat Kavkaz) group between 2014 and 2015. He was detained in the Russian republic of Kabardino-Balkaria in early 2016. (The Moscow Times, 10.16.18)
• Security forces in Russia’s Daghestan region say they killed two suspected militants on Oct. 13 during a counterterrorism operation focusing on the village of Endirei in the northern district of Khasavyurt. Three security officers were injured in the exchange of fire. (RFE/RL, 10.13.18)
• Mikhail Gorbatov, a Federal Security Service colonel and the presidential administration’s former chief of monitoring and inspection, has been reportedly charged with embezzling more than 20 million rubles ($300,000) from a luxury watch pawnbroker. (The Moscow Times, 10.15.18)
• Mikhail Skoblionok, a businessman who heads the Jewish community in the central Russian republic of Tatarstan, has been hospitalized after an unknown package exploded in his office. (The Moscow Times, 10.15.18)
• Authorities in Moscow have detained a deputy prime minister of Crimea’s Russia-imposed government, Vitaly Nakhlupin, for alleged bribe-taking. (RFE/RL, 10.17.18)
• A Spanish court has cleared 17 people, including Russian nationals and officials, suspected of mafia ties of all charges a decade after the start of a high-profile criminal investigation. Those acquitted include State Duma deputy Vladislav Reznik. (The Moscow Times, 10.19.18)
• A court in Finland has sentenced the founder of an anti-immigrant, pro-Russia website to 22 months in prison on charges of defamation and negligence. (RFE/RL, 10.18.18)
• Norway is to release a Russian man held on suspicion of spying, police tweeted on Oct. 19. Mikhail Bochkaryov was detained on Sept. 21 at Oslo airport as he was about to fly out after attending an international seminar on digitalization in Norway's parliament. (The Moscow Times, 10.19.18)

III. Foreign affairs, trade and investment

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

• Russian President Vladimir Putin shrugged off worsening relations with the West and talked up Moscow’s burgeoning diplomatic friendships in Asia and the Middle East, as he hailed the end of a U.S.-dominated unipolar world. Giving his annual foreign policy address on Oct. 18, Putin stressed Russia’s military clout and offered a range of handouts to Moscow’s allies. He said his country was always ready to talk despite a mounting list of accusations of impropriety against his regime from western countries. (Financial Times, 10.18.18)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi signed a strategic cooperation treaty Oct. 17 that is intended to bolster trade and other ties between the two nations. The treaty capped a three-day visit to Russia by the Egyptian leader. During his talks with Putin on Oct. 17, El-Sissi also urged Russia to resume direct flights to Egyptian resorts, which Moscow suspended after a bomb planted by the Islamic State brought a Russian plane down over Sinai in October 2015, killing all 224 people on board. (AP, 10.17.18)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin said in Sochi there is no reason to downgrade relations with Saudi Arabia without a full investigation into the disappearance of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi. Putin also questioned why Russia has been hit by international sanctions for alleged use of chemical weapons, but that no sanctions had been issued against Riyadh over the incident. (Financial Times, 10.18.18)
  • Russia’s sovereign wealth fund has reaffirmed its attendance at next week’s Future Investment Initiative conference in Saudi Arabia, even as scores of Western delegates pull out over the suspected murder of dissident Jamal Khashoggi. (Financial Times, 10.19.18)
  • A Russian delegation of foreign and defense ministry officials traveled to Saudi Arabia and met Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to discuss the crisis in Syria, the Russian foreign ministry said on Oct. 16. The ministry said the two-day visit started on Oct. 14. (The Moscow Times, 10.16.18)
• EU envoys gave a final stamp of approval for a new mechanism to punish chemical weapons attacks by targeting individuals blamed for using banned munitions regardless of their nationality. France proposed the legal regime to combat what Paris and London say is the repeated use of chemical weapons by Russia and Syria. It would allow the EU to impose sanctions more quickly on specific individuals anywhere in the world, freezing their assets in the bloc and banning them from entry. (The Moscow Times, 10.15.18)
• Italy's Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said in Moscow his country will oppose a renewal of EU sanctions against Russia. "If we are asked to confirm, we will say no. It's clear that it makes no sense that they are in place," he told a gathering of Italian businessmen in Moscow. But he stopped short of saying Rome would veto a plan to roll over the sanctions, which is expected to come before a summit of EU leaders in December. The sanctions are due to expire in January. This was Salvini’s second visit to Russia since he was sworn in four months ago. Previously, Salvini has described the EU sanctions as a "social, cultural and economic absurdity." (Reuters, 10.16.18, RFE/RL, 10.18.18, Reuters, 10.18.18)
• Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has indicated that he would suggest at an EU leaders meeting on Oct. 18 that the bloc allow the European Investment Bank and the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development to fund small- and medium-sized enterprises in Russia as they did before sanctions were imposed in 2014. EU sanctions against Russia are damaging Italian businesses, Conte said. (RFE/RL, 10.16.18, Reuters, 10.16.18)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin will attend a ceremony in Paris on Nov. 11 marking 100 years since the armistice ending World War I, the Kremlin says. (RFE/RL, 10.16.18)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the Valdai forum on Oct. 18 that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told him Tokyo could not immediately sign a peace treaty with Moscow without first resolving their territorial dispute. (Reuters, 10.18.18)
• “Total has great ambition in this country, we want to be the largest foreign oil and gas player here,” the company’s chief executive Patrick Pouyanné said on Oct. 15 at the launch of a factory outside Moscow. (Financial Times, 10.15.18)
• Russia’s foreign minister has accused the Bellingcat investigative team of acting as a front for Western intelligence services seeking to manipulate public opinion. (The Moscow Times, 10.17.18)
• India will conduct three major military exercises with the United States, Russia and Japan in November. (Economic Times, 10.19.18)
• Russia said on Oct. 19 it planned to send additional military equipment to the Central African Republic and deploy 60 more instructors to train the country’s armed forces, escalating its most significant military foray in Africa in decades. (Reuters, 10.19.18)

China:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin believes that trade problems between the U.S. and China give Russia new opportunities to enter the Chinese market. "So now we will be gradually entering this market with our soybeans and let the Chinese partners produce soybeans in the Far East if they want to invest their money," Putin said at the Valdai forum. Aircraft construction is another possible area of cooperation, he noted.  (TASS, 10.18,18)
• In September, only 30,000 barrels a day of U.S. oil went to China, down from an average of over 350,000 barrels in the year up till July. As less U.S. crude flows to China, other oil heavyweights are already taking America's place. Saudi Arabian oil exports to China jumped by 258,000 barrels a day in August, while Russian exports jumped by nearly 200,000 barrels a day, according to tanker-tracker Kpler. (Wall Street Journal, 10.15.18)
• Three-quarters of Russians polled by the independent Levada Center said they view China in a positive light, compared to one-third who had the same answer for the U.S. Only 12 percent of Russian respondents said they dislike China, while 54 percent said they dislike the U.S., according to the results published on Oct. 16. (The Moscow Times, 10.16.18)

Ukraine:

• When told that he never says anything harsh about Russian President Vladimir Putin,  U.S. President Donald Trump said in an interview: “I didn't? I'm the one that gave Ukraine offensive weapons and tank killers. Obama didn't. You know what he sent? He sent pillows and blankets. I'm the one—and he's the one that gave away a part of Ukraine … I think I'm very tough with him personally. I had a meeting with him. The two of us. It was a very tough meeting and it was a very good meeting.” (CBS News, 10.14.18)
• The Russian Orthodox Church said on Oct. 15 it had decided to sever all relations with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in protest over its endorsement of Ukraine's request for an "autocephalous," or independent, church. The Russian Orthodox Church has compared Ukraine's moves for independence to the Great Schism of 1054. Several Orthodox churches in former Soviet republics have followed the steps of the Russian Orthodox Church and cut their ties with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. (RFE/RL, 10.18.18, Reuters, 10.16.18)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin told the Valdai Club in Sochi that he hoped a government more friendly to Russia emerges from the Ukrainian presidential election, which is due to take place on March 31. "We need to wait until the internal political cycles are finished, and I really expect that we will be able to build at least some kind of relations and reach some kind of agreement with a new leadership of the country. We're ready for that, we want that," Putin said. (RFE/RL, 10.19.18)
• The U.S. special envoy for Ukraine, Kurt Volker, says he does not expect progress anytime soon toward ending the conflict in eastern Ukraine because Russia appears to be waiting for possible changes coming out of the Ukrainian elections. The best strategy for the West, Volker said, is to maintain pressure on Moscow through the economic sanctions. "You'll see additional sanctions come into play every month or two months or so as we've seen," Volker said. (RFE/RL, 10.19.18, Ukrinform, 10.19.18)
• The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said Oct. 18 it would allow U.S. airlines and codeshare partners to resume flights at three Ukrainian airports and over parts of the Black Sea, citing improved safety and security in parts of Ukraine. (Reuters, 10.18.18)
• The U.S. military has confirmed that a California-based airman was killed in the crash of a two-seat Ukrainian fighter jet during a joint exercise with NATO air forces in Ukraine. A Ukrainian aviator was also killed in the Oct. 17 crash of the Sukhoi Su-27 plane in the Khmelnitsky region. (RFE/RL, 10.17.18)
• Russia would need about 240,000 soldiers to launch a “large-scale invasion of Ukraine,” ex-deputy chief of the Ukrainian general staff Igor Romanenko was quoted as saying. (Russia Matters, 10.16.18)

• Ukraine said on Oct. 16 one of its soldiers has been killed and three wounded as a result of clashes with Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. (RFE/RL, 10.16.18)
• Paris does not see any need to convene a Normandy format summit of Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine, until progress is made in implementing the Minsk Agreements, a French diplomatic source told Interfax. (Interfax, 10.16.18)
• The EU has displaced Russia to become Kiev’s largest trading partner. Ukraine-EU trade made up more than 40 percent of Ukraine’s total in 2017. (Brookings Institution, 10.09.18).
• Thousands of supporters of Ukrainian nationalist groups marched in downtown Kiev on Oct. 14 to mark the 76th anniversary of the creation of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). The UPA was founded in western Ukraine during the Nazi occupation of the country in World War II and fought against both the Nazis and the Soviet Red Army. Its fighters carried out vicious acts of ethnic cleansing in which tens of thousands of ethnic Poles in the region were killed. (RFE/RL, 10.15.18)
• A "high-profile fugitive" from Ukraine who faked his death and lived a "lavish lifestyle" in France has been arrested, Europol says. The EU's law enforcement agency said on Oct. 16 that the man, whose name was not released, was held near the eastern city of Dijon earlier this month, together with three alleged accomplices. (RFE/RL, 10.16.18)
• Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort is due back in a Virginia courtroom to decide whether he will be sentenced on fraud charges before or after he completes his cooperation with prosecutors. (AP, 10.19.18)

Russia’s other post-Soviet neighbors:

• Russia and Uzbekistan began preliminary work on Oct. 19 on the first Uzbek nuclear power plant project, which Moscow estimates will cost $11 billion as Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Uzbekistan. (Reuters, 10.19.18)
• The Central Asian nation of Turkmenistan has opened a chemical plant that cost $3.4 billion to build, its latest effort to diversity its gas-dependent economy. (AP, 10.17.18)
• Kyrgyzstan's longtime foreign minister Erlan Abdyldaev has left his post amid a standoff with Kylychbek Sultan, the nation's ambassador to South Korea, who was dismissed after alleging corruption in the Foreign Ministry and says he is seeking asylum abroad. (RFE/RL, 10.12.18)
• Georgian prosecutors have accused former President Mikheil Saakashvili of authorizing a plot to kill opposition tycoon Badri Patarkatsishvili who died in Britain in early 2008—a charge he immediately rejected. (RFE/RL, 10.17.18)
• Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Oct. 16 he was resigning from his post in order for parliament to be dissolved and an early election held. (Al Jazeera, 10.16.18)
• French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau were among state leaders who attended the Francophone summit in Armenia. (RFE/RL, 10.12.18)
• Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan confirmed that a direct communication has been established with Azerbaijani authorities. "As we agreed with the Azerbaijani side, a reliable direct communication has been established," he said. (News.am, 10.18.18)
• The U.K's National Crime Agency brought two so-called unexplained wealth orders—part of an anticorruption drive to uncover ill-gotten foreign money invested in Britain—against Zamira Hajiyeva, wife of a jailed Baku banker, for her ownership of a central London property and a golf course. (RFE/RL, 10.18.18)

IV. Quoteworthy

• In the event of a nuclear war, "the aggressor should know that retaliation is inevitable, and he will be destroyed," Russian President Vladimir Putin said at an international policy forum in Sochi. "We would be victims of an aggression and would get to go to heaven as martyrs. They will simply drop dead. They won't even have time to repent,” Putin told the Valdai Forum in Sochi. (Business Insider, 10.18.18)