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

Nuclear security:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin has submitted a bill to the State Duma to suspend the U.S.-Russian agreement concerning the management and disposition of plutonium designated as no longer required for defense purposes and related cooperation, according to an October 3 statement published on the Kremlin’s web site. The announcement listed a litany of grievances against Washington, including NATO actions in Europe, and alleged U.S. support for right-wing groups in Ukraine. It demanded Washington compensate Moscow for the sanctions imposed after Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and called for repeal of a 2012 U.S. law known informally as the Magnitsky Act. Following the announcement Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia has no far-reaching plans to suspend further agreements with the United States. Meanwhile, Russia’s nuclear state corporation Rosatom said in a statement that “that Russia adheres to its commitment to utilize 34 tons of plutonium which are excessive for defense needs” that falls under the suspended agreement. In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau lamented the Kremlin decision, arguing that the disposal deal was beneficial to both countries. State Department spokesman Joshua Baker said the agreement "was about cooperation in the sphere of nuclear security," adding that the United States would like that cooperation "to continue” and White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the administration was disappointed by the Russian decision since ''both leaders in Russia and the United States have made nonproliferation a priority.'' The United States offered the Russian side to hold consultations on the methods of plutonium disposition and Russia's rejection causes regret, said U.S. Under Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller. Russia suspended the plutonium deal because Kremlin had “boiled over,” a source close to Russia’s leading foreign policy makers told The Moscow Times. According to the source, the new legislation was triggered by statements of U.S. Department of State spokesman John Kirby who suggested last Wednesday — in the form of “terrorist attacks” on its soil, “lost aircraft”, and “troops in body bags. “The Russian response was “not hard to unpack,” said the source: “It just reads ‘Screw you.’” (Moscow Times, 10.04.16, Interfax, 10.04.16, RFE/RL, 10.03.16, Belfer Center, 10.05.16, New York Times, 10.04.16, Reuters, 10.04.16, Tass, 10.06.16)
• In two decisions published on October 5, the Russian government Suspended U.S.-Russian agreement regarding cooperation in concluding feasibility studies of the conversion of Russian research reactors to low-enriched uranium fuel and suspended the U.S.-Russian agreement on cooperation in nuclear- and energy-related scientific research and development. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the suspension of the 2013 research accord was a response to Washington's "hostile" move to suspend all such nuclear energy cooperation. "So, the ball is fully in the U.S. court. We have just balanced from the legal point of view the things that Americans did in 2014," he said.  The importance of the suspension of the 2013 cooperation agreement decision is difficult to estimate, since the role of the suspended agreement was not entirely clear. The legal framework for most cooperation projects was provided by a bilateral U.S-Russian protocol to the 2003 Framework Agreement on a Multilateral Nuclear Environmental Program in the Russian Federation. In justifying the termination of the reactor conversion agreement, the Russian government said that the work under the agreement has been largely completed and that no new projects under the agreement are being planned. (IPFM Blog, Belfer Center 10.05.16, RFE/RL, 10.06.16)[1]

Iran’s nuclear program and related issues:

• No significant developments.

Military issues, including NATO-Russia relations:

• The American nation faces existential threats from “modern nation-states acting aggressively in militarized competition,” said Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson, Army deputy chief of staff for operations, plans, and training. “Who does that sound like? Russia?” Russia and China are mustering conventionally massive militaries that are increasingly technological — and forcing the Pentagon to contemplate and prepare for “violence on the scale that the U.S. Army has not seen since Korea,” said Maj. Gen. William Hix, Anderson’s deputy. “A conventional conflict in the near future will be extremely lethal and fast. And we will not own the stopwatch.” (Defense One, 10.04.16)
• Adm. Haakon Bruun-Hanssen, Norway's chief of defense, says Russian military activity in the Barents Sea has grown in recent years but still pales in comparison to Cold War levels. What concerns him, he says, is the increased sophistication Norway is seeing in the far north. "The equality between Russian military capability and Western military capability has started to come very close to each other, like it used to be in the Cold War," Adm. Bruun-Hanssen said. (Wall Street Journal, 10.05.16)

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms control:

• The U.S. State Department released aggregate New START numbers from the 1 September 2016 data exchange. Russia declared 1796 deployed warheads, 508 deployed launchers, and 847 total launchers. In March 2016 the numbers were 1735, 521, and 856 respectively. The U.S. numbers in September 2016 were 1367 warheads, 681 deployed and 848 total launchers (1481, 741, and 878 in March 2016). (Russianforces.org 10.06.16)

Counter-terrorism:

• Russia is pressing for a new U.N. resolution that would prohibit and counter “terrorist propaganda” used by extremist groups to recruit young people around the world. (AP, 10.04.16)
• Russian security officials say a member of the Islamic State extremist group and five other militants have been killed in two counterterrorism operations in the Ingush village of Gazi-Yurt and Ingushetia's largest city, Nazran. One of those reportedly killed was identified as Zabairi Sautiyev, who recently returned from Syria, where he is said to have fought alongside IS militants. The NAK said Sautiyev came to Ingushetia to lead terrorist activities in the region. (RFE/RL 10.07.16)

Cyber security:

• Russia is taking another step to reduce dependence on Oracle Corp., Microsoft Corp. and International Business Machines Corp. technologies in the country’s $3 billion software market amid political tensions with the U.S. (Bloomberg, 10.05.16)
• The secretary of U.S. Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, says "malicious" hackers who recently breached electronic safeguards to "scan" voting systems in a number of U.S. states do not appear to have manipulated any data. (RFE/RL, 10.01.16)
• The Federal Bureau of Investigation has charged a government contractor with stealing classified secrets, part of what officials said was a probe into how key U.S. computer-spying tools were removed from the National Security Agency. (Wall Street Journal, 10.05.16)
• The World Anti-Doping Agency says Russian hackers tampered with some of the drug profiles they leaked in a bid to embarrass dozens of star Olympic athletes. (RFE/RL, 10.07.16)

The conflict in Syria:

• The United States has suspended talks with Russia on trying to end the violence in Syria and accused Moscow of not living up to its commitments under a cease-fire agreement .In and statement on October 3, U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby accused Russia and its ally Syria of stepping up attacks on civilian areas. Russia's Foreign Ministry said it regretted the decision by the United States to suspend talks aimed at ending the violence in Syria, saying Washington was trying to shift responsibility for the failure onto Moscow. “Everybody’s patience with Russia has run out,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in Washington. (Bloomberg, 10.03.16, RFE/RL, 10.04.16)
• U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry lashed out at Russia on October 4 after a breakdown in efforts to restore a cease-fire in Syria, accusing Moscow of favoring war over diplomacy amid widening rifts with Washington. "I have to tell you with a great sense of outrage that Russia has turned a blind eye to Assad's deplorable use of these weapons of war that he has chosen: chlorine gas, barrel bombs against his people," Kerry said. He said the United States would continue separate military contacts with Russia to enable both sides to pursue campaigns against the Islamic State.  The United States won’t abandon its pursuit of peace in Syria after suspending direct U.S.-Russian talks on a cease-fire, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on October 4. Washington and Moscow will still discuss Syria as part of larger multilateral negotiations, Kerry said. (Washington Post, AP, 10.04.16)
• U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart resumed discussions on Syria on October 5, despite a U.S. decision earlier this week to suspend direct talks with Moscow on trying to end the conflict. Toner said Kerry had also spoken about Syria with the top diplomats from Britain, the European Union, France, Germany, Turkey, and Qatar.  (RFE/RL, 10.06.16)
• U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has admitted "frustrated" after losing an argument with the White House to back up diplomatic efforts to end the war in Syria with the threat of using U.S. military force. "I think you're looking at three people, four people in the administration who have all argued for use of force, and I lost the argument," Kerry said. Mr. Kerry also lamented being outmaneuvered by the Russians. At one point, Mr. Kerry astonished the Syrians at the table when he suggested that they should participate in elections that include President Bashar al-Assad, five years after President Obama demanded that he step down. (New York Times, RFE/RL, 09.30.16)
• The U.N. Security Council began negotiations Monday on a resolution drafted by France seeking an immediate truce in Aleppo and calling for an end to all military flights over the Syrian city, where over a quarter million people in rebel-held areas are besieged by Syrian forces. But Russia immediately rejected any grounding of aircraft and questioned whether a resolution at this time would actually produce any results. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met in Moscow with French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault on October 6 to discuss the resolution. Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said Moscow was engaged in discussions on the draft text even if he was not especially enthusiastic on its language. (RFE/RL, 10.05.16, AP, 10.03.16, New Europe, 10.07.16)
• The United Nations Security Council will hold an emergency meeting to discuss a new UN proposal to try to stop the bloodletting in Syria's Aleppo by persuading an Islamic militant group located there to leave. The proposal to relocate an estimated 900 members of Syria's Al-Qaeda affiliate to an unspecified "refuge" outside the city was offered by UN Syrian envoy Steffan de Mistura on October 6, prompting Russia to request the council meeting. (RFE/RL, 10.07.16)
• The UN high commissioner for human rights has called for "extraordinary steps" to halt the "ghastly avalanche of violence and destruction" in Syria's northern city of Aleppo, urging the Security Council to introduce a limit on its members' veto power. (RFE/RL, 10.04.16)
• Britain's new Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Russia risks becoming a "pariah" state because of its air strikes on Syrian civilian targets. (RFE/RL, 10.02.16)
• According to lawmakers and staffers in both parties, the White House is secretly trying to water down the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, a bipartisan bill that would sanction the Assad regime for mass torture, mass murder, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The bill would also sanction entities that aid the Syrian government in these atrocities; that includes Russia and Iran. (Washington Post, 10.06.16)
• The German government is considering a push for European sanctions against Russia in response to its behavior in Syria, a person familiar with the German deliberations said on Wednesday. However, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini has dismissed talks of new sanctions against the Assad regime or Russia over the Aleppo bombardment, saying the international community wants to revive a political process to settle the Syrian civil war. (Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, 10.06.16)
• The White House has renewed its considerations of military options, including airstrikes to deter the Assad government from trying to take Aleppo. On September 28, at a Deputies Committee meeting at the White House, officials from the State Department, the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff discussed limited military strikes against the Syrian regime. The options under consideration, which remain classified, include bombing Syrian air force runways using cruise missiles and other long-range weapons fired from coalition planes and ships. One proposed way to get around the White House's long-standing objection to striking the Assad regime without a U.N. Security Council resolution would be to carry out the strikes covertly and without public acknowledgment. Other steps the Obama administration could take involve raising the cost to Russia of its intervention, through such measures as economic sanctions.  The Obama administration has also revived an internal discussion over giving U.S.-vetted Syrian rebels new weapons systems to help them fend off Syrian and Russian artillery and air power. Under another option, Washington could give a green light to partners in the region, including Turkey and Saudi Arabia, to provide the rebels with more weapons unilaterally. (New York Times, 10.05.16, Washington Post, 10.04.16, Wall Street Journal, 10.04.16)
• Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said any U.S. strikes on areas controlled by Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government could jeopardize the lives of Russian servicemen. “I would recommend our colleagues in Washington to carefully weigh possible consequences of the fulfillment of such plans,” Konashenkov said. In an apparent hint at the U.S. stealth aircraft, he added that any “dilettante illusions about stealth planes could collide with disappointing realities.” He also said the range of Russia’s S-300 and S-400 air defense missile systems deployed to Syria would be a “surprise” to any country operating its aircraft over the country.  (AP, 10.06.16)
• The Russian parliament on Friday debated ratifying a treaty with Syria that allows Russian troops to stay indefinitely in the Mideast country, with lawmakers strongly backing the deal in a show of support for embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad. (AP, 10.07.16)
• Russia's Defense Ministry has confirmed that it has deployed an S-300 missile system to its Mediterranean naval base at Tartus, Syria. (RFE/RL, 10.04.16)
• The Russian Navy says one of its corvettes is heading to the Mediterranean Sea to join the country’s group of warships in the region. The Mirazh follows another two Black Sea Fleet corvettes, equipped with Kalibr long-range cruise missiles, which had been due to reach the Mediterranean late on October 5. (RFE/RL, 10.06.16)
• Russia’s first year of military operations in Syria has cost at least 58 billion rubles ($929 million), according to estimates by Russia’s RBC news agency. In that year Russian warplanes flew 13,000 sorties and Russian authorities acknowledged that 20 Russian servicemen were killed in action in Syria, according to RBC. (Belfer Center, 09.30.16)
• The Russian Army is set to introduce short-term contracts for soldiers fighting the Islamic State in Syria. A new bill submitted to Russia's State Duma will allow soldiers to sign contracts for the duration of their overseas combat missions if they last for less than 12 months.  (Moscow Times, 10.06.16)
• Russia says its embassy compound in the Syrian capital has come under shelling from rebels. No one was harmed in the mortar fire, which the ministry said apparently came from an area controlled by two "terrorist groups" fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces. (RFE/RL, 10.04.16)
• Following a meeting with his Iranian counterpart Thursday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said he had discussed "immediate renewal of the coordinated international efforts aimed at an inclusive inter-Syrian dialogue," the news agency Interfax reported. (Wall Street Journal, 10.07.16)
• American intelligence analysts have told the White House that the Russian goal is to help the Syrian military retake the besieged city of Aleppo so that Moscow can resume talks on Syria's future on vastly stronger terms. Lending credence to that assessment, a senior American intelligence official told reporters on Monday that the Russian and Syrian attacks that have been carried out since the Syrian government declared an end to a short-lived cease-fire on Sept. 19 have been some of the deadliest since the conflict began. U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said Thursday that if the violence continued unabated, eastern Aleppo could be destroyed within 2½ months. (New York Times, 10.05.16, Wall Street Journal, 10.07.16)
• U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said that that Russia "broke the deal" with the United States to revive a cease-fire in Syria because Moscow has no respect for U.S. Democratic leaders. "Russia broke the deal, and now they're shooting, they're bombing," Trump told a rally in Arizona on October 4. "It should end and it should end fast. It's very sad." (RFE/RL, 10.05.16)
• "If Russia chooses to be involved and continue...in this barbaric attack on Aleppo, the United States of America should use military force to strike the targets of [Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's] regime," said Republican Donald Trump's running mate  and Indiana Governor Mike Pence during the first and only vice presidential debate on October 4. Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia was slightly more circumspect. “Hillary and I also agree that the establishment of humanitarian zones in northern Syria with the provision of international human aid, consistent with the U.N. Security Council resolution that was passed in February, 2014, would be a very, very good idea,” he said. (RFE/RL, New York Times, 10.05.16)

Energy exports from CIS:

• Drilling activity in Russia has actually risen by 25 per cent since 2014, driving a steady rise in Russian oil output. The typical Russian barrel of oil resides far down the cost curve, generating economic value even at oil prices below $20 per barrel.  (Financial Times, 10.03.16)
• Oil held near $50 a barrel after Russia cast doubt over a deal any time soon with OPEC, following the group’s pledge to reduce output. (Bloomberg, 10.06.16)
• Ex-chancellor of Germany Gerhard Schröder has become the Chairman of the Board of Nord Stream 2 Company. (Tass, 10.05.16)

Bilateral economic ties:

• No significant developments.

Other bilateral issues:

• Two U.S. officials traveling with diplomatic passports were drugged while attending a conference in Russia last year, and one of them was hospitalized, in what officials have concluded was part of a wider, escalating pattern of harassment of U.S. diplomats by Russia. According to the U.S. government official, and another former official also knowledgeable about the case, the drugged diplomats were part of a delegation of Americans attending the Conference of the States Parties to the United Nations Convention against Corruption, held on November 2-6 in St. Petersburg. However, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov rejected U.S. reports that two officials were drugged. Ryabkov asserted that Russian diplomats had also been subject to harassment, saying that U.S. intelligence agencies had stepped up efforts to recruit informants or spies. (RFE/RL, 10.03.16, RFE/RL, 10.04.16)
• During the first and only vice presidential debate on October 4 Republican Donald Trump's running mate and Indiana Governor Mike Pence had to repeatedly defend Trump against charges from Democratic candidate Tim Kaine that the real estate mogul idolizes Russian President Vladimir Putin. "He loves dictators," said Kaine. Pence tried to turn the tables by accusing the Democrats of stoking Russia's belligerence. “The weak and feckless foreign policy of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has awaked an aggression in Russia that first appeared in Russia a few years ago," Pence said. Mr. Pence also used very different words from Mr. Trump to characterize Putin. He described him as “the small and bullying leader of Russia,” who he said was “now dictating terms to the United States to the point where all the United States of America — the greatest nation on Earth — just withdraws from talks about a cease-fire while Vladimir Putin puts a missile defense system in Syria.” (RFE/RL, New York Times, 10.05.16)
• US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has backed off from praising Vladimir Putin, saying he was unsure of his relationship with the Russian president. “I don't love [Putin], I don't hate. We'll see how it works. We'll see," Trump said. Statements being made by the U.S. presidential candidates, including Donald Trump, are merely election rhetoric, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said when asked for a comment about changes in the tone of statements regarding Russia being made by the Republican candidate. To our regret, we know that the Russian card and mentioning our president have practically become an inseparable part of America's election campaign," Peskov said. (Al Jazeera, 10.06.16, RFE/RL, 10.05.16, Tass, 10.05.16)
• Donald Trump’s distorted view of Russian President Vladimir Putin — or his “schizophrenia,” as Lindsey Graham put it Thursday morning — is disturbing, the South Carolina senator said.  (Politico, 10.06.16)
• "How will you feel if Hillary Clinton wins and then we're in a nuclear war with Russia?" Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein said at a campaign event. (Boston Globe, 10.04.16)
• American man Julio Prieto is facing up to a two year prison sentence in Siberia for illegally entering Russia from Kazakhstan. (Moscow Times, 10.06.16)
• A U.S. citizen and two Russian nationals were arrested on Thursday on charges relating to the alleged illegal export of sensitive military technology from the United States to Russia, the U.S. Justice Department said. (Reuters, 10.06.16)
• The U.S. Justice Department charged eight people, including six soldiers, with stealing more than $1 million worth of sensitive U.S. Army equipment and selling it on eBay to buyers in Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Moldova, and other countries. (RFE/RL 10.07.16)
• New York City police are looking for whoever draped a gigantic banner portraying Russian President Vladimir Putin over the side of the Manhattan Bridge. (RFE/RL, 10.07.16)

II. Russia’s domestic news

Politics, economy and energy:

• The old model of the Russian economic growth, based on oil prices, is exhausted, and a new model should be based on investment, governor of the Central Bank Elvira Nabiullina said on Oct. 2. (Tass, 10.02.16)
• Oil and gas resources in Russia may run out by 2030 and the country doesn't have much time to diversify its economy to minimize reliance on energy income, Sberbank CEO Herman Gref said. (Russia Today, 10.04.16)
• "I am confident we will settle political discord with other countries over time and will openly trade and develop relations, including mutual investments with the East and the West. This is inevitable, considering high growth rates we want to achieve," head of the Center of Strategic Research Alexei Kudrin said. (Tass, 10.04.16)
• "This year we (the Russian economy) will still have decline of 0.6%, statistically, but next year we'll have approximately 0.5-0.8% growth. I repeat, that is statistically not as much as one would like, but we are no longer nose-diving," head of the Center of Strategic Research Alexei Kudrin said. (Tass, 10.04.16)
• IMF now sees a shallower contraction in Russia’s output this year than predicted in July, due to a modest rise in oil prices. (Bloomberg, 10.04.16)
• The ruble’s 3.7 percent advance in the last month is almost double that of Indonesia’s rupiah, the second-best performer during the period, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. (Bloomberg, 10.06.16)
• Dmitry Tulin, the first deputy governor of Central Bank of Russia in charge of monetary policy, will replace Alexei Simanovsky and take over banking regulation and supervision starting Oct. 17, according to a statement on Monday. Deputy Governor Mikhail Sukhov, who was also responsible for bank oversight, will leave.  (Bloomberg, 10.03.16)
• Fifteen percent of all Russian bank employees have lost their jobs since the start of the country's economic crisis in 2014, new data has revealed. (Moscow Times, 10.06.16)
• State-controlled oil giant Rosneft may ultimately “privatize itself," the Vedomosti newspaper reported Wednesday. Russian media recently reported that Rosneft would also be allowed to purchase the 50.8 percent controlling stake in state oil company Bashneft for 316 billion rubles ($5.2 billion).  The proposed "self-privatization" would solve any potential problem with finding a buyer for Rosneft's government stake after the Bashneft deal. Russia gave permission for Rosneft to buy the government’s 50.08 percent stake in Bashneft, according to an order published Thursday. (Moscow Times, 10.05.16, Bloomberg, 10.06.16)
• The real number of Russians emigrating abroad is between three and four times higher than official data, according to a report published by Russia’s Committee of Civil Initiatives. Official U.S. data for 2014, for example, registered 4.7 times as many Russians immigrating to the country than Russia’s state statistics agency Rosstat, with the same tendency apparent with Germany (5 times higher), Spain (19 times higher) and the Czech Republic (20 times higher).(Moscow Times, 10.06.16)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced that "being powerful" is the key to Russia's “statehood, independence and mere existence.” Addressing Russia's new State Duma on its first official day of work, Putin said that the new parliament should continue to keep the country in a position of influence. (Moscow Times, 10.05.16)
• Just 46 percent of Russians believe that last month’s State Duma elections were carried out fairly, a survey by independent pollster the Levada Center revealed Monday.  (Moscow Times, 10.03.16)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin has decreed to name Rosatom chief Sergei Kirienko, 54, the Kremlin’s first deputy chief of staff in charge of domestic politics, responsible for formulating a broad range of policies. Kirienko replaces Vyacheslav Volodin, who has been elected the speaker of the newly elected lower house. Kirienko has been replaced at Rosatom by Alexey Likhachov, deputy minister of economic development and trade since 2010.  (AP, 10.05.16, World Nuclear News, 10.06.16)
• President Vladimir Putin has dismissed the acting governor of Kaliningrad, Evgeny Zinichev, after just two months on the job. Zinichev, one of Putin’s former bodyguards, was appointed by the president on July 28. (Moscow Times, 10.06.16)
• Officials in Russia's second largest city, St. Petersburg, are now required to report about their contacts with foreign entities every three months. (RFE/RL, 10.05.16)
• Officials in a remote region of Siberia have proposed killing off 250,000 reindeer by Christmas to minimize the possible spread of deadly anthrax bacteria, according to the Siberian Times. (Washington Post, 10.01.16)

Defense and Aerospace:

• Russia's military spending is set to increase by 679 billion rubles ($10 billion) despite the welfare budget decreasing by 375 billion rubles ($6 billion), the Gazeta.ru news website reported Tuesday, citing a source in the government. (Moscow Times, 10.04.16)
• Main checks for 2016 will start on Oct. 3 in the Russian Armed Forces, the Defense Ministry’s department of information and mass communications said noting that checks will involve over 300 formations and units. (Tass, 10.03.16)

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• Suspect and alleged accomplices deny being contracted to kill Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, who was slain in Moscow. The five Chechen men accused of murdering Nemtsov received at least 15 million rubles ($240,000) to kill the opposition politician, the prosecutor in the case told a Moscow military court on 3 October at the opening of the trial. (Transitions Online, 10.04.16)
• The U.S. State Department has urged Russian authorities to find those who ordered the 2006 murder of prominent Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya. On October 7, the OSCE representative on freedom of the media, Dunja Mijatovic, said that "it is unacceptable that 10 years on after this horrific murder the masterminds behind [the Politkovskaya] assassination are still at large." (RFE/RL 10.07.16)
• Russian authorities have reportedly foiled a plot to kill the Kremlin-backed leader of Russia's North Caucasus region of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov. The independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta quoted sources on October 3 as saying dozens of young Chechens had been arrested over the alleged assassination attempt in spring. (RFE/RL, 10.03.16)
• Russia's Supreme Court has annulled the records of arrest, conviction, and sentence of two activists who demonstrated against President Vladimir Putin's reelection on Moscow's Bolotnaya Square in 2012. The court issued the ruling on October 5 after the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled last month that the arrests of Ilya Gushchin, Artyom Savelov, and another Bolotnaya protester, Leonid Kovyazin, were illegal. (RFE/RL, 10.05.16)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin in his decree on the Russian National Guard allowed the force to have seven deputy directors. Also the guard has been granted the powers to conduct expert assessment of the antiterrorist protections of facilities. (Tass, 10.07.16)

III. Foreign affairs and trade

General developments:

• The Russian military is considering the possibility of regaining its Soviet-era bases on Cuba and in Vietnam, the Defense Ministry said Friday, a statement that comes amid growing U.S.-Russia tensions over Syria. (AP, 10.07.16)
• Russian jets may have violated Finland's airspace twice in the past 24 hours, the Finnish Defense Ministry has announced. (Moscow Times, 10.07.16)
• Russia has taken over presidency of the United Nations Security Council from Oct. 1 (Tass, 10.01.16)
• Diplomats at the United Nations say Portugal’s former Prime Minister Antonio Guterres is likely to be the next UN secretary-general after receiving unanimous support in a key secret ballot by the UN Security Council. (RFE/RL, 10.06.16)
• An aide to Vladimir Putin says the Russian president will visit Turkey on October 10 for talks with Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (RFE/RL, 10.04.16)
• President Vladimir Putin will visit Paris on Oct. 19 to discuss the situation in Syria and Ukraine with his French counterpart Francois Hollande. (Reuters, 10.06.16)
• Blunt-spoken Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to "break up" the country's longstanding alliance with the United States and buy arms from Russia and China instead.  (RFE/RL, 10.05.16)
• Russian Airborne Troops will hold joint drills in Africa for the first time together with Egyptian forces in mid-October and practice at destroying illegal armed group in the desert, the Russian Defense Ministry’s press service said on Oct. 3. (Tass, 10.03.16)

Ukraine:

• U.S. State Department Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland has met with Russian presidential aide Vladislav Surkov and foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov in Moscow. U.S. and Russia reiterated that disengagement from the first sites on the line of contact represents an important initial step toward improved security, but far more work remains to fix a conflict in Eastern Ukraine, according to a statement published on U.S. embassy website. Negotiators also reviewed the ongoing work on the political, security, and humanitarian aspects of the Minsk agreements. (Bloomberg, 10.05.16) 
• German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin have discussed the need to renew efforts to implement the Minsk agreements, the Kremlin press service reported Thursday. According to the Kremlin statement, Putin agreed in the telephone conversation with Merkel to return to discussions in the Normandy format. (Moscow Times, 09.30.16)
• Rebel attacks doubled to 68 from 32 in the past 24 hours, with artillery and heavy mortars being used in place of the light weapons seen in recent days, the Ukrainian military said Wednesday. The army has ignored last month’s agreement for a partial pullback in three small areas near the front line, rebel spokesman Eduard Basurin said on the website of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. The deadline to begin the pullback expired Oct. 5, he said. Ukraine’s military says it can only begin after seven days with no weapons fired. The Ukrainian military and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine had earlier announced a pullback from the frontline city of Zolote as agreed upon in a demilitarization deal agreed to last month. Representatives of the Ukrainian government and the separatists had reached an agreement in Minsk in September to withdraw all heavy weapons and fighters from Zolote, Stanytsya Luhanska, and the Donetsk region town of Petrovske. (RFE/RL, 10.01.16, Bloomberg, 10.05.16)
• Ukraine has summoned the Russian consul in Kyiv after Moscow detained one of its state media journalists for alleged espionage. Roman Sushchenko, a Paris-based correspondent of the Ukrinform news agency, was detained in Moscow on September 30 and later charged with espionage. (RFE/RL, 10.06.16)
• Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says the people responsible for shooting down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine two years ago could be known by the end of 2016 and will be prosecuted. (RFE/RL, 10.02.16)
• The Joint International Investigation (JIT) into the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 has received no radar information from Russia, the Dutch Public Prosecution Service said Thursday. (Moscow Times, 10.07.16)
• Ukraine, a key transit nation for Russian natural gas supplies to European households and power plants, started the six-month winter heating season that began Oct. 1 with the lowest inventories since at least 2014 after halting purchases of the fuel from Russia 11 months ago amid a price dispute. (Bloomberg, 10.05.16)
• Russia is financing pensions and state salaries in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, a separatist leader has claimed.  (Moscow Times, 10.06.16) 
• The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is urging Ukraine to show progress in fighting corruption and pushing through other reforms. “Tackling corruption and reducing the influence of vested interests on policy making remain key challenges,” the Washington-based lender said in a report published on October 3. (RFE/RL, 10.03.16)
• The National Bank of Ukraine has shut down 82 ailing banks and brought clearer accounting and better disclosure of bank ownership. But it has stalled out at Privatbank, the country's largest private financial institution. The lender is controlled by Ihor Kolomoisky, who bankrolled armed formations supporting the Ukrainian military in its fight against Russia-backed separatists in the country's east. It holds a third of the country's total deposits and handles about 75% of all payment transactions. (Wall Street Journal, 10.05.16)
• Construction has been completed of the dividing walls between units 3 and 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, against which the New Safe Confinement (NSC) over unit 4 will be placed. Completion of the new cover is scheduled for November 2017. (World Nuclear News, 10.07.16)

Russia’s other post-Soviet neighbors:

• With opinion polls suggesting no party will win a clear majority, the political giants behind Georgia's two leading political forces have taken center stage to talk up their respective parties' chances in this weekend's national elections. To compensate for their lack of popular support, the former ruling United National Movement and the Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia have sought not so much to persuade voters of their own potential as to pillory the other and accuse it of trying to destabilize the country. (RFE/RL 10.06.16)
• EU ambassadors have given the green light to negotiations between the European Council and the European Parliament on visa liberalization for Georgia. It is expected that both the European Parliament and EU member states will give their final approval for visa-free travel for Georgians later this year. (RFE/RL, 10.05.16)
• Azerbaijan’s Central Election Commission has announced that a whopping 91.2 percent of 2,669,430 voters approved the extension of the presidential term to seven years and 4.7 percent voted against, while 4.5 percent of the votes were invalidated. It all adds up to an odd total of 100.4 percent. (Eurasia.net, 09.28.16)
• Pope Francis ended a one-day visit to Azerbaijan by meeting various religious leaders in Baku's Heidar Mosque. The pope’s visit to Baku follows a stop in neighboring Georgia that was marred by a snub by the local Orthodox Christian authorities. (RFE/RL, 10.03.16)
• Firms from Kazakhstan and Russia have signed a deal on uranium-enrichment services. The agreement was signed on October 4 in Astana by representatives of Kazakhstan's uranium operator Kazatomprom and Russia's Center for Uranium Enrichment during Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Kazakhstan's capital. (RFE/RL, 10.04.16)
• Russia has returned the skull of leader of the Kazakh national liberation movement Keiki Batyr to Kazakhstan for burial. (RFE/RL 10.06.16)
• Kyrgyzstan’s President Almazbek Atambaev thanked all Kyrgyz citizens for their support after suffering what he called "an unexpected heart attack." Atambaev returned to Bishkek on October 1 after being discharged from a Moscow hospital where he was treated for heart problems, officials said. (RFE/RL, 10.03.16)
• The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatovic has expressed concern over the "harsh sentences" handed down to two prominent media personalities in Kazakhstan. Seitqazy Mataev, head of the Kazakh Journalists Union, and his son Aset, the director of the KazTAG news agency, were sentenced on October 3 to six and five years in prison, respectively. (RFE/RL, 10.04.16)
• Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenka says his country is negotiating with Iran about purchasing oil. (RFE/RL 10.07.16)
• Andrian Candu, the speaker of Moldova’s parliament accused Russia of meddling in the country’s politics ahead of a presidential election on Oct. 30 that could cement the former Soviet republic as a contender for European Union membership or further Russian control. (AP, 10.04.16)

[1] An unofficial translation of the terminated and suspended agreements is available here https://saradzhyan.wordpress.com/2016/10/05/on-russias-curtailing-of-nuclear-cooperation-with-u-s/

News items for this digest curated by Simon Saradzhyan, director of the Russia Matters Project.