Russian Digest
Top stories I'm keeping an eye on!
Russia conducts test launch of intercontinental ballistic missile
The Russian Defense Ministry conducted a test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile, Russian state-controlled media reported on April 11.
The missile was reportedly launched from the Kapustin Yar rocket launch complex in Russia's southern Astrakhan Oblast and hit a target at a training ground in Kazakhstan.
Earlier on March 29, the Russian Defense Minsitry announced that strategic military training had begun with the Yars intercontinental ballistic missile system.
Yars, or RS-24, is a strategic solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile system. It was adopted by the Russian Federation in 2009 and has a stated range of 11,000 kilometers and an explosive power equivalent to a million tons of TNT.
Russian propagandists claim that no air defense system is capable of shooting the missiles down, which are each capable of completely destroying a small city.
https://kyivindependent.com/russia-tests/
Iran in secret talks with China, Russia to acquire sanctioned missile fuel
China and Russia are in advanced secret talks with Iran to replenish the Islamic Republic’s supply of a key chemical compound used to propel ballistic missiles, diplomats familiar with the matter say, a move that would mark a clear violation of United Nations sanctions and possibly help Moscow replenish its depleted stock of rockets.
Tehran has held concurrent negotiations with officials and government-controlled entities from both countries, including the state-owned Russian chemical maker FKP Anozit, to acquire large amounts of ammonium perchlorate, or AP, the main ingredient in solid propellants used to power missiles, said the diplomats, who requested anonymity in order to discuss confidential information.
In Beijing, Iranian diplomat Sajjad Ahadzadeh, who serves as Tehran’s “technology counselor” in China and the broader region has led the talks to acquire AP, according to the diplomats familiar with the matter. The diplomats said they didn’t know which Chinese companies were involved, however.
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Russia starts fuel supplies to Iran by rail -sources
Russia started fuel exports to Iran by rail this year for the first time after traditional buyers shunned trade with Moscow, according to three industry sources and exports data.
Russia and Iran, both under Western sanctions, are forging closer ties in order to support their economies and to undermine Western sanctions which both Moscow and Tehran cast as unjustified.
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https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russia-starts-fuel-supplies-iran-by-rail-sources-2023-04-11/
Leaked US intel: Russia operatives claimed new ties with UAE
U.S. spies caught Russian intelligence officers boasting that they had convinced the oil-rich United Arab Emirates “to work together against US and UK intelligence agencies,” according to a purported American document posted online as part of a major U.S. intelligence breach.
U.S. officials declined to comment on the document, which bore known top-secret markings and was viewed by The Associated Press. The Emirati government on Monday dismissed any accusation that the UAE had deepened ties with Russian intelligence as “categorically false.”
But the U.S. has had growing concerns that the UAE was allowing Russia and Russians to thwart sanctions imposed over the invasion of Ukraine.
The document viewed by the AP includes an item citing research from March 9 with the title: “Russia/UAE: Intelligence Relationship Deepening.” U.S. officials declined to confirm the document’s authenticity, which the AP could not independently do. However, it resembled other documents released as part of the recent leak.
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https://apnews.com/article/intelligence-leak-russia-uae-pentagon-9941a3bb88b48d4dbb5218649ea67325
Russia begins to close borders to men
The system of electronic summonses, which is being launched in Russia amid plans to increase the size of the army by hundreds of thousands of people, will include an automatic ban on leaving the country, following by a bill on a new conscription mechanism.
“Citizens who are subject to conscription for military service and who have received a summons from the military commissariat, from the day when such a summons is considered to have been served, as a temporary measure aimed at ensuring their appearance on the agenda, are prohibited from leaving the Russian Federation,” the document says, published in the base of the State Duma.
At the same time, the summons will be considered "delivered" from the moment it is posted in the citizen's personal account in the "Gosuslug" system. If there is no personal account, and delivery by registered mail failed, the summons is considered to be delivered automatically - seven days after it appears in the register of summonses. Thus, it will be impossible to refuse to receive the subpoena de facto.
“If a citizen refuses to receive a summons from the military commissariat sent by mail, or from its personal delivery, the summons to the citizen is considered to be served on the day of such refusal,” the bill says.
According to the agenda, you must appear at the military registration and enlistment office within 20 days. If this is not done, then, according to the project, a citizen loses the right to conduct real estate transactions, drive a car, receive loans, and also be self-employed or an individual entrepreneur.
The new norms, which were developed against the backdrop of the Kremlin's plans to increase the size of the army to 1.5 million people, will start working in the coming weeks. The bill is expected to be adopted by the State Duma in the second and third readings on Tuesday, April 11, and its entry into force will take place immediately after the official publication - without delay.
Simultaneously with the system of electronic summonses, a single register of persons liable for military service will be launched, which the Ministry of Defense will collect on the basis of data from other state departments. It will be joined, in particular, by the Federal Tax Service, courts, the Pension and Social Insurance Fund, universities, and the Ministry of Education, which will collect information about students.
The law on electronic subpoenas, a Russian “know-how” that has not been tested anywhere in the world, is not connected with plans for a new wave of mobilization, which “have not been and are not,” said Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
“It has to do with military registration,” which “should keep up with the times,” he said, adding that work to modernize military enlistment offices is “absolutely necessary” and that the new system will be “quick and easy” for all citizens.
In the near future, governors and local authorities have been instructed to find 400,000 volunteers and contract soldiers for the army fighting in Ukraine, sources close to the Kremlin told Bloomberg. According to them, in this way the authorities hope to avoid open mobilization, the first wave of which hit the president's ratings and dropped support for the war.
But in reality, the prospects for mobilization will depend on the situation at the front: if Ukraine breaks through the defense line, then no political arguments will prevent this, political scientist Tatyana Stanovaya believes.
The first wave of mobilization provoked mass emigration from Russia on a scale that statistics had not seen since the collapse of the USSR. Demographer Aleksey Raksha estimates the number of those who left at 500-800 thousand people, and Alfa-Bank analysts call the figure up to a million.
But the Kremlin is confident that this will not happen this time. The bill on "digital agendas" is primarily intended to streamline the call, so its adoption should not cause panic among the population, Peskov said on Tuesday.
https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2023/04/11/rossiya-nachinaet-zakrivat-granitsi-dlya-muzhchin-a39669
IMF: Russia's economy is facing years of stagnation, it will miss almost 11 trillion rubles
The war unleashed by Russia threatens its economy with long years of stagnation, according to IMF economists. Although nominal GDP may even grow slightly, its values reflect the quality of life of Russians less and less, and today forecasts have to be made on the basis of data from third-party sources, supplemented by sensations and assumptions. One thing is certain: by their actions, the Russian leadership has deprived the economy of the potential for development.
In its forecast released today, the IMF raised GDP growth in 2023 to 0.7% from a January estimate of 0.3%. But even with that in mind, the effects of the war will put growth rates through 2027 7 percentage points lower than the fund had previously expected.
Seven percentage points is 10.74 trillion rubles, based on the estimate of GDP by Rosstat (153.435 trillion rubles in 2022). And this almost corresponds to the growth rate for the four pre-war years, when from 2018 to 2021. the economy added 7.9%.
“The outflow of multinational corporations, the loss of human capital, isolation from global financial markets, and limited access to advanced technological goods and know-how will hurt the Russian economy,” an IMF official quoted Reuters as saying. In this regard, the fund revised its expectations regarding the potential growth rate of GDP in the medium term, reducing them from the pre-war estimate of 1.5% to 1%.
The IMF also lowered its 2024 forecast from 2.1% to 1.3%. Meanwhile, in the last pre-war year, the Russian economy grew by an adjusted Rosstat estimate of 5.6% as a result of a strong recovery from the covid pandemic. But the very next year, hostilities provoked a decline of 2.1%.
Shortly after the start of the war in Russia, many economic and corporate indicators ceased to be published, and analysts now have to base their estimates largely on indirect evidence. “We use what we can from official sources, as well as indicators provided by third parties, including on exports and imports [of countries trading with Russia], as well as information that will allow us to look at the numbers in a broader context,” explained The Wall Street Journal Petya Koeva Brooks, Deputy Director of the IMF's Research Department.
Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor and senior vice president of the Yale School of Management who tracks the exit of Western companies from Russia, generally believes that it is impossible to trust any official indicators from it today. University of Chicago professor Konstantin Sonin believes that after the start of the war, GDP ceased to reflect the real situation in the economy. Consumption and retail trade, for example, fell nearly 10%. But the decline in the economy as a whole turned out to be much less, because the production of weapons is also taken into account in GDP, but the resources spent on it are actually taken from the population, and the loss of tanks on the battlefield does not affect GDP, explains Sonin.
Due to problems with collecting statistics, analysts' forecasts vary greatly. For example, the most optimistic estimate of GDP growth this year is from JPMorgan Chase (+1%). Below the scale are not only the IMF but also the World Bank (-0.2%), Morgan Stanley (-0.6%), the Ministry of Economic Development (-0.8%), Goldman Sachs (-1.3%), and the OECD (-2.5%). The Bank of Russia gives a spread from -1% to +1%.
GDP figures do not fully reveal the damage that the economy and the welfare of the population have suffered, World Bank President David Malpass points out:
People in Russia have suffered greatly because of its invasion of Ukraine. This is due to their quality of life, standard of living and the flight of many young people from Russia.
Romania Aims To Buy F-35 Fighter Planes To Boost Air Defenses
Romania aims to buy the latest generation U.S. F-35 fighter planes to boost its air defenses, the country's supreme defense council (CSAT) said in a statement on Tuesday.
The European Union and NATO state has raised defense spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product this year from 2%, in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The country, which shares a 650-km (400 mile) border with Ukraine, is host to a U.S. ballistic missile defense system and, as of last year, has a permanent alliance battlegroup stationed on its territory.
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Dossier Center translation: "Hail Petrovich"
The story of Dmitry Utkin - the man who gave the name to the Wagner group
The Wagner group, which is controlled by businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, appeared more than eight years ago and still exists outside the legal field in Russia. It is the Wagnerites who are credited with the rare successes of Russia during the war in Ukraine, including attempts to encircle Bakhmut. They are called "Wagnerites" in honor of their first commander - Dmitry Utkin with the call sign "Wagner". Officially, Russia is fighting in Ukraine against the "Nazis". But photographs of a man who looks like Dmitry Utkin are circulating on the Internet, in which Nazi tattoos are visible. Even his call sign can also be associated with an interest in Nazism. From the internal documents of the Wagner group, it turns out that the matter is not limited to tattoos alone - Utkin signs with the runes "zig" and uses the appeal "Heil Petrovich", referring to the owner of the Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
U.S. Envoy Urges Firmer Action To Counter Russian, Chinese Disinformation In Western Balkans
Western Balkan countries are vulnerable to Russian and Chinese disinformation, “a big chunk" of which comes out of Serbia, a U.S. diplomat whose job involves exposing and countering foreign propaganda said on April 11 in an interview with RFE/RL.
James Rubin, coordinator for the U.S. State Department's Global Engagement Center, said the distribution of the disinformation and propaganda out of Serbia is a major problem that needs to be dealt with.
Asked about RT Balkan, an online Serbian-language project launched in November by the Russian state-controlled media operation formerly known as Russia Today, Rubin said, "We would not like to see Russia Today or Russian media outlets anywhere in the world. We'd like them shut down.”
Rubin said the West has been slow to realize the dangers of disinformation and information manipulation not only from Russia but from China as well.
“They've been spending billions and billions of dollars on [projects] in the information domain for many, many years. And I think we need to step up our game,” he said.
The European Union banned broadcasts by RT and Sputnik, another Russian state media outlet, in March 2022 just days after Russia invaded Ukraine. Around the same time Google Europe said it was blocking YouTube channels associated with RT and Sputnik.
Rubin said it’s no secret that there are outlets in the Western Balkans that repeat Russian lies and disinformation. He cited an example of reports about biological weapons in Ukraine, saying this has been rejected by the Biological Weapon Convention in Geneva.
“All these flat-out disinformation lies, unfortunately, in the Western Balkans are too prominent and too pervasive,” said Rubin, speaking to RFE/RL in Pristina. “I've come here to talk to the governments that can do something about it.”
Read More:
https://www.rferl.org/a/balkans-russia-china-disinformation-rubin/32359395.html