Tag Archives: Cold War

Russia says it will respond in kind to West’s expulsions

A general view shows the U.S. embassy in Moscow, Russia March 27, 2018. REUTERS/Tatyana M

By Christian Lowe and Katya Golubkova

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia said on Wednesday it would respond in kind to the mass expulsion of Russian diplomats by the West over the poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal in the English city of Salisbury.

What began as a row between London and Moscow after Britain accused Russia of using a nerve agent to poison Skripal and his daughter has now snowballed into an international chorus of rebuke for the Kremlin, with even some friendly governments ejecting Russian diplomats.

Adding to the list on Wednesday, Slovakia, Malta and Luxembourg each recalled their ambassador in Moscow for consultations, while Montenegro said it would expel a Russian diplomat. Slovakia and Montenegro, while both members of the U.S.-led NATO alliance, are traditionally close to Russia.

The biggest demarche came from the United States, which on Monday said it was expelling 60 Russian diplomats. That dented Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hopes of forging a friendly relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump.

Valentina Matviyenko, a Kremlin loyalist and speaker of the upper house of parliament, said Russia would retaliate.

“Without a doubt, Russia, as is diplomatic practice, will respond symmetrically and observe parity when it comes to the number of diplomats,” RIA news agency quoted her as saying.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said a Russian military aircraft had, for the first time since the Cold War, conducted a training flight via the North Pole to North America, RIA news agency reported.

There was no immediate indication that the flight was linked to Russia’s standoff with the West. The U.S. navy is holding a five-week training exercise in the Arctic Circle.

COLD WAR ECHOES

In total, more than 100 Russian diplomats are to be sent home from states ranging from Denmark to Australia, the biggest Western expulsion of Russian diplomats since the height of the Cold War.

Moscow has denied being behind the attack on the Skripals and says its adversaries are using it to whip up a campaign of “Russophobia.”

Skripal, 66, a double agent who was swapped in a spy exchange deal in 2010 and went to live in England, and Yulia Skripal, 33, were found unconscious on a public bench in a shopping center in Salisbury on March 4. They remain critically ill in hospital from the attack in which, British authorities say, a Soviet-era nerve toxin called Novichok was used.

Russia has already expelled 23 British diplomats, a tit-for-tat response to Britain’s expulsion of the same number of staff at the Russian embassy in London.

Adding to a drum beat of tough rhetoric coming from Moscow and London, the Russian foreign ministry raised the prospect British intelligence services had poisoned Skripal and his daughter.

“If convincing evidence to the contrary is not presented to the Russian side we will consider that we are dealing with an attempt on the lives of our citizens,” the ministry said in a statement.

In Australia, whose government said on Tuesday it would expel two diplomats, the Russian ambassador, Grigory Loginov, told reporters the world will enter into a “Cold War situation” if the West persists with its bias against Russia.

Two days after the United States announced the expulsion of Russian diplomats, there was still no sign of how exactly Russian planned to respond – an indication, perhaps, that the scale of the Western action caught Moscow off guard.

Interfax news agency quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying Moscow would assess the level of hostility in Washington and London before deciding how to retaliate.

(Additional reporting by Reuters bureaux; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Soviet-era scientist says he helped create poison in UK spy attack row

ILE PHOTO: Sergei Skripal, a former colonel of Russia's GRU military intelligence service, looks on inside the defendants' cage as he attends a hearing at the Moscow military district court, Russia August 9, 2006. Kommersant/Yuri Sen

By Andrew Osborn

MOSCOW (Reuters) – A Cold War-era scientist acknowledged on Tuesday he had helped create the nerve agent that Britain says was used to poison an ex-spy and his daughter, contradicting Moscow’s insistence that neither Russia nor the Soviet Union ever had such a program.

However, Professor Leonid Rink told the RIA news agency that the attack did not look like Moscow’s work because Sergei and Yulia Skripal had not died immediately.

The Skripals remain alive but in critical condition more than two weeks after they were found unconscious in the English cathedral town of Salisbury. A policeman who helped them is also in hospital in a serious condition.

Rink said he worked under the Soviet Union at a chemical weapons facility where the Novichok military-grade nerve agent was developed. Asked if he was one of Novichok’s creators, he told RIA: “Yes. It was the basis for my doctoral dissertation.”

Moscow has denied any involvement in the Skripals’ case or that the Soviet Union or its successor state Russia developed Novichok at all.

Echoing a theory floated in Russian state media, Rink said the British could have been behind the attack.

“It’s hard to believe that the Russians were involved, given that all of those caught up in the incident are still alive,” he said. “Such outrageous incompetence by the alleged (Russian) spies would have simply been laughable and unacceptable.”

Inspectors from the world’s chemical weapons watchdog have begun examining the poison used in the attack which London blames on Moscow.

Rink told RIA he had worked at a Soviet chemicals weapons research facility in the town of Shikhany in Russia’s Saratov Region for 27 years until the early 1990s. Novichok was not a single substance, he said, but a system of using chemical weapons and had been called ‘Novichok-5’ by the Soviet Union.

“A big group of specialists in Shikhany and in Moscow worked on Novichok – on the technologies, toxicologies and biochemistry,” he said. “In the end we achieved very good results.”

Rink confessed to having secretly supplied a military-grade poison for cash that was used to murder a Russian banking magnate and his secretary in 1995. In a statement to investigators after his arrest, viewed by Reuters, Rink said he was in possession of poisons created as part of the chemical weapons program which he stored in his garage.

Rink received a one-year suspended prison sentence for “misuse of powers” after a secret trial, according to a lawyer involved in the case.

‘HEIGHT OF IDIOCY’

Rink told RIA it would have been absurd for Russian spies to have used Novichok to try to kill the Skripals because of its obviously Russian origin and Russian name.

“There are lots of more suitable substances,” he said. “To fire the equivalent of a powerful rocket at someone who is not a threat and to miss would be the height of idiocy.”

He dismissed British media reports that Yulia Skripal could have unwittingly carried Novichok from Moscow as “utter nonsense”, saying Novichok would not have survived the journey.

Once secret, Rink said the technology behind Novichok was now known to many countries including Britain, the United States and China, who he said were capable of manufacturing a version of Novichok.

However, he said the exact formula devised by the Soviet Union was unique and that it should be possible, based on a sample of the toxin used in the Salisbury attack, to say it was not “cooked up” in Russia.

Another Russian scientist called Vil Mirzayanov had done a lot to publicize the formulas used to produce Novichok, Rink said.

Mirzayanov, who now lives in the United States, told Reuters this month that only the Russian government could have carried out the attack.

Rink said he knew of “about five” scientists familiar with the Novichok technology who had left Russia in the 1990s.

“Permission to let them leave generated great surprise in our institute,” Rink told RIA.

(Corrects in third para to “two weeks” from “three weeks”.)

(Editing by David Stamp)

Russia to expel UK diplomats as crisis over nerve toxin attack deepens

A coat of arms is seen on a gate outside of the Russian embassy in London, Britain, March 16, 2018. REUTERS/Toby Melv

By Olzhas Auyezov and Guy Faulconbridge

ASTANA/LONDON (Reuters) – Russia is set to expel British diplomats in retaliation for Prime Minister Theresa May’s decision to kick out 23 Russians as relations with London crashed to a post-Cold War low over an attack with military-grade nerve agent on English soil.

After the first known offensive use of such a weapon in Europe since World War Two, May blamed Moscow and gave 23 Russians who she said were spies working under diplomatic cover at the London embassy a week to leave.

Russia has denied any involvement, cast Britain as a post-colonial power unsettled by Brexit, and even suggested London fabricated the attack in an attempt to whip up anti-Russian hysteria.

Asked by a Reuters reporter in the Kazakh capital if Russia planned to expel British diplomats from Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov smiled and said: “We will, of course.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia could announce its response at any minute.

Britain, the United States, Germany and France jointly called on Russia on Thursday to explain the attack. U.S. President Donald Trump said it looked as though the Russians were behind it.

A German government spokesman called the attack “an immense, appalling event”. Chancellor Angela Merkel said an EU summit next week would discuss the issue, in the first instance to seek clarity, and that any boycott of the soccer World Cup, which Russia is hosting in June and July, was not an immediate priority.

INDEPENDENT VERIFICATION

Russia has refused Britain’s demands to explain how Novichok, a nerve agent developed by the Soviet military, was used to strike down Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, in the southern English city of Salisbury.

Britain has written to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague, which monitors compliance with the global convention outlawing the use of such weapons, to obtain independent verification of the substance used.

Skripal, a former colonel in the GRU who betrayed dozens of Russian agents to British intelligence, and his daughter have been critically ill since March 4, when they were found unconscious on a bench.

A British policeman was also poisoned when he went to help them is, and is in a serious but stable condition.

British investigators are working on the theory that an item of clothing or cosmetics or a gift in the luggage of Skripal’s daughter was impregnated with the toxin, and then opened in Skripal’s house in Salisbury, the Daily Telegraph said.

President Vladimir Putin, a former KGB spy who is poised to win a fourth term in an election on Sunday, has so far only said publicly that Britain should get to the bottom of what has happened.

In a sign of just how tense the relationship has become, British and Russian ministers used openly insulting language while the Russian ambassador said London was trying to divert attention from the difficulties it was having managing Britain’s exit from the European Union.

“SHOCKING AND UNFORGIVABLE”

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Britain had no quarrel with the Russian people but that it was overwhelmingly likely that Putin himself took the decision to deploy the nerve toxin in England.

“We have nothing against the Russians themselves. There is to be no Russophobia as a result of what is happening,” he said.

“Our quarrel is with Putin’s Kremlin, and with his decision – and we think it overwhelmingly likely that it was his decision – to direct the use of a nerve agent on the streets of the UK.”

The Kremlin’s Peskov called the allegation that Putin was involved “a shocking and unforgivable breach of the diplomatic rules of decent behavior”, TASS news agency reported.

British Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson sparked particular outrage in Moscow with his blunt comment on Thursday that “Russia should go away, it should shut up.”

Russia’s Defence Ministry said he was an “intellectual impotent” and Lavrov said he probably lacked education. Williamson studied social science at the University of Bradford.

“Well he’s a nice man, I’m told, maybe he wants to claim a place in history by making some bold statements,” Lavrov said. “Maybe he lacks education, I don’t know.”

In London, opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn struck a starkly different tone to that of the British government by warning against rushing into a new Cold War before full evidence of Moscow’s culpability was proven.

Corbyn said Labour did not support Putin and that Russia should be held to account if it was behind the attack.

“That does not mean we should resign ourselves to a ‘new cold war’ of escalating arms spending, proxy conflicts across the globe and a McCarthyite intolerance of dissent,” he said.

(Additional reporting by William James, David Milliken and Kate Holton in London, and Maria Tsvetkova, Jack Stubbs and Andrew Osborn in Moscow; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Hawaii to resume Cold War-era nuclear siren tests amid North Korea threat

Hawaii to resume Cold War-era nuclear siren tests amid North Korea threat

By Steve Gorman

(Reuters) – Hawaii this week will resume monthly statewide testing of its Cold War-era nuclear attack warning sirens for the first time in about 30 years, in preparation for a potential missile launch from North Korea, emergency management officials said on Monday.

Wailing air-raid sirens will be sounded for about 60 seconds from more than 400 locations across the central Pacific islands starting at 11:45 a.m. on Friday, in a test that will be repeated on the first business day of each month thereafter, state officials said.

Monthly tests of the nuclear attack siren are being reintroduced in Hawaii in conjunction with public service announcements urging residents of the islands to “get inside, stay inside and stay tuned” if they should hear the warning.

“Emergency preparedness is knowing what to expect and what to do for all hazards,” Hawaii Emergency Management Agency chief Vern Miyagi said in one video message posted online. He did not mention North Korea specifically.

But the nuclear attack sirens, discontinued since the 1980s when the Cold War drew to a close, are being reactivated in light of recent test launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles from North Korea deemed capable of reaching the state, agency spokeswoman Arlina Agbayani told Reuters.

A single 150-kiloton weapon detonated over Pearl Harbor on the main island of Oahu would be expected to kill 18,000 people outright and leave 50,000 to 120,000 others injured across a blast zone several miles wide, agency spokesman Richard Rapoza said, citing projections based on assessments of North Korea’s nuclear weapons technology.

While casualties on that scale would be unprecedented on U.S. soil, a fact sheet issued by the agency stressed that 90 percent of Hawaii’s 1.4 million-plus residents would survive “the direct effects of such an explosion.”

Oahu, home to a heavy concentration of the U.S. military command structure, as well as the state capital, Honolulu, and about two-thirds of the state’s population, is seen as an especially likely target for potential North Korean nuclear aggression against the United States.

In the event of an actual nuclear missile launch at Hawaii from North Korea, the U.S. Pacific Command would alert state emergency officials to sound the attack sirens, giving island residents just 12 to 15 minutes of warning before impact, according to the state’s fact sheet.

In that case, residents are advised to take cover “in a building or other substantial structure.” Although no designated nuclear shelters exist, staying indoors offers the best chance of limiting exposure to radioactive fallout.

The siren tests are being added to existing monthly tests of Hawaii’s steady-tone siren warnings for hurricanes, tsunamis and other natural disasters. Those alerts also undergo monthly tests on radio, TV and cellphone networks.

When emergency management officials initiated the new warning campaign, “there were concerns we would scare the public,” Miyagi said in a recent presentation. “What we are putting out is information based on the best science that we have on what would happen if that weapon hit Honolulu or the assumed targets.”

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Trump to sign Russia sanctions, Moscow retaliates

FILE PHOTO - U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with Russia's President Vladimir Putin during their bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany July 7, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo

By Eric Beech and Andrew Osborn

WASHINGTON/MOSCOW (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump will sign legislation that imposes sanctions on Russia, the White House said on Friday, after Moscow ordered the United States to cut hundreds of diplomatic staff and said it would seize two U.S. diplomatic properties in retaliation for the bill.

The U.S. Senate had voted almost unanimously on Thursday to slap new sanctions on Russia, forcing Trump to choose between a tough position on Moscow and effectively dashing his stated hopes for warmer ties with the country or to veto the bill amid investigations in possible collusion between his campaign and Russia.

By signing the bill into law, Trump can not ease the sanctions against Russia unless he seeks congressional approval.

Moscow’s retaliation, announced by the Foreign Ministry on Friday, had echoes of the Cold War. If confirmed that Russia’s move would affect hundreds of staff at the U.S. embassy, it would far outweigh the Obama administration’s expulsion of 35 Russians in December.

The legislation was in part a response to conclusions by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and to further punish Russia for its annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Late on Friday, the White House issued a statement saying Trump would sign the bill after reviewing the final version. The statement made no reference to Russia’s retaliatory measures.

Russia had been threatening retaliation for weeks. Its response suggests it has set aside initial hopes of better ties with Washington under Trump, something the U.S. leader, before he was elected, had said he wanted to achieve.

Relations were already languishing at a post-Cold War low because of the allegations that Russian cyber interference in the election was intended to boost Trump’s chances, something Moscow flatly denies. Trump has denied any collusion between his campaign and Russian officials.

The Russian Foreign Ministry complained of growing anti-Russian feeling in the United States, accusing “well-known circles” of seeking “open confrontation”.

President Vladimir Putin had warned on Thursday that Russia would have to retaliate against what he called boorish U.S. behavior. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters on Friday that the Senate vote was the last straw.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson by telephone that Russia was ready to normalize relations with the United States and to cooperate on major global issues.

Lavrov and Tillerson “agreed to maintain contact on a range of bilateral issues”, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

The ministry said the United States had until Sept. 1 to reduce its diplomatic staff in Russia to 455 people, the number of Russian diplomats left in the United States after Washington expelled 35 Russians in December.

‘EXTREME AGGRESSION’

It was not immediately clear how many U.S. diplomats and other workers would be forced to leave either the country or their posts, but the Interfax news agency cited an informed source as saying “hundreds” of people would be affected.

A diplomatic source told Reuters that it would be for the United States to decide which posts to cut, whether occupied by U.S. or Russian nationals.

An official at the U.S. Embassy, who declined to be named because they were not allowed to speak to the media, said the Embassy employed around 1,100 diplomatic and support staff in Russia, including Russian and U.S. citizens.

Russian state television channel Rossiya 24 said over 700 staff would be affected but that was not confirmed by the foreign ministry or the U.S. embassy.

The Russian Foreign Ministry’s statement said the passage of the bill confirmed “the extreme aggression of the United States in international affairs”.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov met outgoing U.S. ambassador John Tefft on Friday to inform him of the counter measures, Russian news agencies reported. The U.S. Embassy said Tefft had expressed his “strong disappointment and protest”.

Most U.S. diplomatic staff, including around 300 U.S. citizens, work in the main embassy in Moscow, with others based in consulates in St Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Vladivostok.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said it was also seizing a Moscow dacha compound used by U.S. diplomats for recreation, from Aug. 1, as well as a U.S. diplomatic warehouse in Moscow.

In December, the outgoing Obama administration seized two Russian diplomatic compounds – one in New York and another in Maryland – at the same time as it expelled Russian diplomats.

Trump and Putin met for the first time at a G20 summit in Germany this month in what both sides described as a productive encounter, but Russian officials have become increasingly convinced that Congress and Trump’s political opponents will not allow him to mend ties, even if he wants to.

The European Union has also threatened to retaliate against new U.S. sanctions on Russia, saying they would harm the bloc’s energy security by targeting projects including a planned new pipeline to bring Russian natural gas to northern Europe.

A European Commission spokesman in Brussels said the bloc would be following the sanctions process closely.

(Additional reporting by Dmitry Solovyov, Polina Devitt, Jack Stubbs and Denis Pinchuk in Moscow, Patricia Zengerle and Ayesha Rascoe in Washington; Editing by Kevin Liffey, Grant McCool and Christian Schmollinger)

Germany says to keep soldiers in Baltics as long as needed

German Foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel speaks during a news conference in Riga, Latvia, March 1, 2017. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins

RUKLA, Lithuania/AMARI, Estonia (Reuters) – German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel on Thursday criticized Russia’s military build-up on its borders with the Baltic states as irrational and said Germany would keep troops in the region for as long as needed.

Gabriel visited about 400 German soldiers stationed in Rukla, Lithuania, as part of a German-led battle group of 1,000 troops that will be joined this year by a U.S.-led forces in Poland, British-led soldiers in Estonia and Canadian-led troops in Latvia.

NATO is expanding its presence in the region to levels unprecedented since the Cold War, prompted by Russia’s annexation of Crimea and accusations – denied by Moscow – that it is supporting a separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine.

The NATO presence will swell further for a series of exercises this summer, but is dwarfed by the Russian military build-up, U.S. officials say.

“The military potential that the Russian Federation has built up here at the border is completely irrational in my view because there is zero threat emanating from these countries,” Gabriel told reporters.

Gabriel gave no further details, but said the German troops would remain at the Lithuanian base “as long as needed”.

Russia has said it has noticed German soldiers deploying along its borders for the first time since World War Two and said it views the deployment of NATO troops and military hardware to the Baltic states as a threat.

Moscow has described its own military deployments as being either defensive and a direct response to NATO, or as part of a sweeping program to modernize its armed forces.

“SOLID PROTECTION”

German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen, who visited the Lithuanian base last month after the German troops arrived, told reporters at an air base in Amari, Estonia, that Germany was committed to ensuring the safety of the region.

German air force units have been stationed in Estonia to provide air defense since 2005 but their presence was increased in 2014 for air policing operations.

“Estonia, and our friends from Lithuania, Latvia and Poland, can rely on us,” von der Leyen said. “We Germans know what it means to be at the eastern border and to have the solid protection of the alliance.”

Von der Leyen and Gabriel both addressed concerns about increasing Russian disinformation campaigns after a fake report surfaced about a Lithuanian being raped by German troops that NATO said was traced to Russia.

“No one expects a real military confrontation to happen here, but what there is, and what has been reported in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, are attempts at massive disinformation and influence campaigns,” Gabriel said.

Von der Leyen said Germany and Europe were seeing clear signs of “efforts to destabilize” similar to Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election reported by U.S. intelligence services.

“That is why it is so important that we investigate these cases, put them on the table and make them public so we can recognize the patterns,” she said.

Russia has categorically denied it ran an influence campaign designed to sway the U.S. presidential election and has dismissed as absurd allegations it intends to meddle in European elections this year.

Such allegations are motivated by a desire to whip up anti-Russian sentiment and are being used by Western politicians to distract voters from pressing domestic problems, says Moscow.

(Reporting by Sabine Siebold in Rukla and David Mardiste in Amari; Writing by Andrea Shalal; editin by Janet Lawrence and Richard Lough)

Trump recommits to U.S. allies but says they must pay ‘fair share’

President Trump addresses Joint Session of Congress. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

By Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Tuesday reaffirmed support for the United States’ longstanding security alliances around the world but insisted that friends and partners from Europe to the Middle East to the Pacific must “pay their fair share of the cost.”

In his first nationally televised speech to Congress since taking office on Jan. 20, Trump sought to reassure allies still uneasy over doubts he raised during the 2016 presidential campaign about his commitment to their defense and to maintaining a U.S. global leadership role.

But he also made clear that he expects those countries to shoulder more of the burden of their own security needs, echoing a campaign message that some allies had taken advantage of Washington’s generosity in providing them a security umbrella.

“Our foreign policy calls for a direct, robust and meaningful engagement with the world,” Trump told a joint session of Congress. “It is American leadership based on vital security interests that we share with our allies across the globe.”

He specifically assured NATO allies of his new administration’s continued commitment to the decades-old alliance. However, he made no mention of one of the main sources of European concern: his friendly overtures during the campaign toward Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“We strongly support NATO, an alliance forged through the bonds of two World Wars that dethroned fascism and a Cold War that defeated communism,” Trump said.

“But our partners must meet their financial obligations,” he said. “And now, based on our very strong and frank discussions, they are beginning to do just that.”

Then, deviating from his prepared remarks, Trump added: “In fact, I can tell you the money is pouring in. Very nice.” But he offered no specifics.

Some critics had accused Trump of failing to recognize the benefit that accrued to the United States of having strong democratic allies helping to stabilize volatile areas like the Middle East, Ukraine and South Asia.

Trump’s remarks followed the deployment earlier this month of senior Cabinet members to Brussels, Bonn and Munich, Germany, aimed at calming European worries.

The Europeans heard from Defense Secretary James Mattis that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization military alliance was not “obsolete” after all, despite Trump’s suggestions to the contrary.

Vice President Mike Pence told them that Russia would be “held accountable” for its actions in Ukraine.

Mattis made his first foreign trip to South Korea and Japan, where he sought to ease concerns about what Trump’s self-styled “America First” strategy means for U.S. foreign policy in Asia.

While seeming to tackle some of the doubts of U.S. allies, Trump still made clear that he wanted them to do more.

“We expect our partners, whether in NATO, in the Middle East, or the Pacific, to take a direct and meaningful role in both strategic and military operations, and pay their fair share of the cost,” he said.

(Reporting by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Russia looks for positive signals in Trump’s speech to Congress

Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov sits near the Syrian national flag as he addresses a news conference in Damascus in this file photo dated June 28, 2014. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s deputy foreign minister said on Tuesdays that relations with the United States were at their lowest ebb since the Cold War, but hoped they could improve under U.S. President Donald Trump.

Russia will analyze Trump’s debut address to Congress later on Tuesday for signs of any change in the U.S. stance, Sergei Ryabkov told parliament in Moscow.

“It will be important to analyze those signals and approaches which will be a part of Trump’s first appearance as the head of a superpower,” the RIA news agency quoted Ryabkov as saying.

“It would be desirable to believe that changes in Washington will create a window of opportunity for an improvement of a dialogue between our countries.”

In Washington, Trump’s opponents accuse him of already getting too close to Moscow. A U.S. congressional committee is investigating contacts between Trump’s election campaign and Russia to see if there were any inappropriate communications.

Relations between the two nuclear powers are strained over a number of issues, including Ukraine, the war in Syria, and relations with Iran.

Ryabkov said Russia had not discussed with Washington the sanctions imposed over the annexation of Crimea, but said it would be easier for to work with the United States on the Syria crisis if they were lifted.

“We did not discuss and we do not discuss criteria for the lifting of sanctions. Restrictions in a number of areas are of course affecting us, but no more than the damage they cause to American exports,” the Itar TASS agency quoted Ryabkov as saying.

(Reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic; Editing by Polina Devitt and Robin Pomeroy)

The Art of the Deal: Why Putin needs one more than Trump

woman passes billboard of Trump and Putin together

By Andrew Osborn

MOSCOW (Reuters) – In his book, ‘Art of the Deal,’ Donald Trump said the best deals were ones where both sides got something they wanted. His credo, applied to a potential U.S.-Russia deal, flags an awkward truth for Vladimir Putin: He wants more from Trump than vice versa.

As aides try to set up a first meeting between the two presidents, the mismatched nature of their respective wish lists gives Trump the edge, and means that a deal, if one is done, may be more limited and longer in the making than the Kremlin hopes.

“What the two countries can offer each another is strikingly different,” said Konstantin von Eggert, a commentator for TV Rain, a Moscow TV station sometimes critical of the Kremlin.

“The U.S. has a stronger hand. In biblical terms, the U.S. is the three kings bearing gold, while Russia is the shepherds with little apart from their good faith.”

Appetite for a deal in Moscow, where parliament applauded Trump’s election win, is palpable. The Kremlin blames Barack Obama for wrecking U.S.-Russia ties, which slid to a post-Cold War low on his watch, and with the economy struggling to emerge from two years of recession, craves a new start.

Trump’s intentions toward Moscow are harder to discern, but seem to be more about what he does not want — having Russia as a time-consuming geopolitical foe — than his so far vague desire to team up with the Kremlin to fight Islamic State.

Trump has hinted he may also push for a nuclear arms deal.

Putin’s wish list, by contrast, is detailed, long and the items on it, such as getting U.S. sanctions imposed over Moscow’s actions in Ukraine eased, are potentially significant for his own political future.

He is looking to be given a free hand in the post-Soviet space, which he regards as Russia’s back yard.

Specifically, he would like Trump to formally or tacitly recognize Crimea, annexed from Ukraine in 2014, as Russian territory, and pressure Kiev into implementing a deal over eastern Ukraine which many Ukrainians view as unpalatable.

The icing on the cake for him would be for Trump to back a Moscow-brokered Syrian peace deal allowing President Bashar al-Assad, a staunch Moscow ally, to stay in power for now, while crushing Islamic State and delivering regional autonomy.

For Putin, described in leaked U.S. diplomatic cables as an “alpha-dog,” the wider prize would be respect. In his eyes, a deal would confer legitimacy and show Russia was a great power.

But, like a couple where one side is more interested than the other, the expectational imbalance is starting to show.

Trump spoke by phone to five world leaders before talking to Putin on Jan. 28 as part of a bundle of calls. The White House readout of the Putin call was vague and four sentences long; the Kremlin’s was effusive and fifteen sentences long.

Nor does Trump seem to be in a rush to meet. Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, said the two might only meet before a G20 summit due to take place in July.

Trump has good reason not to rush.

‘A HUGE BONUS’

With U.S. intelligence agencies accusing Moscow of having sponsored computer hacking to help Trump win office, a deal would hand fresh political ammunition to Trump’s opponents, who say he has long been too complimentary to the Russian leader.

A delay would have the added advantage of postponing a chorus of disapproval from foreign allies and Congress, where there is bipartisan determination to block sanctions relief.

For Putin though, in his 17th year of dominating the Russian political landscape, a deal, or even an early symbolic concession such as easing minor sanctions, matters.

Expected to contest a presidential election next year that could extend his time in the Kremlin to 2024, he needs sanctions relief to help lift the economy out of recession.

U.S. and EU financial sector sanctions have cut Russia’s access to Western capital markets and know-how, scared off foreign investors, and — coupled with low global oil prices — have exacerbated an economic crisis that has cut real incomes and fueled inflation, making life harder for millions.

Since Putin’s 2012 election, consumer prices have risen by 50 percent, while a fall in the value of the rouble against the dollar after the annexation of Crimea means average salaries fell by 36 percent from 2012-2016 in dollar terms.

Official data puts inflation at 5.4 percent, but consumers say the real figure is much higher, and fear of inflation regularly ranks among Russians’ greatest worries in surveys.

An easing of U.S. sanctions could spur more foreign investment, helping create a feel-good factor.

“It would be a huge bonus if it happened,” said Chris Weafer, senior partner at economic and political consultancy Macro-Advisory Ltd, who said he thought Putin wanted to put rebuilding the economy at the heart of his next term.

The economy matters to Putin because, in the absence of any more land grabs like Crimea, greater prosperity is one of the few levers he has to get voters to come out and support him.

With state TV affording him blanket and favorable coverage and with the liberal opposition still weak, few doubt Putin would genuinely win another presidential term if, as expected, he decided to run.

But for the win to be politically durable and for Putin to be able to confidently contemplate serving out another full six-year term, he would need to win big on a respectable turnout.

That, an election showed last year, is not a given.

Around 4 million fewer Russians voted for the pro-Putin United Russia party in a September parliamentary vote compared to 2011, the last time a similar election was held.

Although the economic benefits of a Trump deal might take a while to trickle down to voters, its symbolism could boost turnout, helping Putin prolong a system based on himself.

“It would be presented to the Russian people as a huge victory by Putin,” said von Eggert. “It would be described as a validation of his strategy to go to war in Ukraine regardless of the consequences and to turn the country into Fortress Russia.”

(Additional reporting by Andrey Ostroukh; Editing by Peter Graff)

U.S. intelligence study warns of growing conflict risk

US Soldier walks in front of tank in Iraq

By Jonathan Landay

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The risk of conflicts between and within nations will increase over the next five years to levels not seen since the Cold War as global growth slows, the post-World War Two order erodes and anti-globalization fuels nationalism, said a U.S. intelligence report released on Monday.

“These trends will converge at an unprecedented pace to make governing and cooperation harder and to change the nature of power – fundamentally altering the global landscape,” said “Global Trends: Paradox of Progress,” the sixth in a series of quadrennial studies by the U.S. National Intelligence Council.

The findings, published less than two weeks before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20, outlined factors shaping a “dark and difficult near future,” including a more assertive Russia and China, regional conflicts, terrorism, rising income inequality, climate change and sluggish economic growth.

Global Trends reports deliberately avoid analyzing U.S. policies or choices, but the latest study underscored the complex difficulties Trump must address in order to fulfill his vows to improve relations with Russia, level the economic playing field with China, return jobs to the United States and defeat terrorism.

The National Intelligence Council comprises the senior U.S. regional and subject-matter intelligence analysts. It oversees the drafting of National Intelligence Estimates, which often synthesize work by all 17 intelligence agencies and are the most comprehensive analytic products of U.S intelligence.

The study, which included interviews with academic experts as well as financial and political leaders worldwide, examined political, social, economic and technological trends that the authors project will shape the world from the present to 2035, and their potential impact.

‘INWARD-LOOKING WEST’

It said the threat of terrorism would grow in coming decades as small groups and individuals harnessed “new technologies, ideas and relationships.”

Uncertainty about the United States, coupled with an “inward-looking West” and the weakening of international human rights and conflict prevention standards, will encourage China and Russia to challenge American influence, the study added.

Those challenges “will stay below the threshold of hot war but bring profound risks of miscalculation,” the study warned. “Overconfidence that material strength can manage escalation will increase the risks of interstate conflict to levels not seen since the Cold War.”

While “hot war” may be avoided, differences in values and interests among states and drives for regional dominance “are leading to a spheres of influence world,” it said,

The latest Global Trends, the subject of a Washington conference, added that the situation also offered opportunities to governments, societies, groups and individuals to make choices that could bring “more hopeful, secure futures.”

“As the paradox of progress implies, the same trends generating near-term risks also can create opportunities for better outcomes over the long term,” the study said.

THE HOME FRONT

The report also said that while globalization and technological advances had “enriched the richest” and raised billions from poverty, they had also “hollowed out” Western middle classes and ignited backlashes against globalization. Those trends have been compounded by the largest migrant flows in seven decades, which are stoking “nativist, anti-elite impulses.”

“Slow growth plus technology-induced disruptions in job markets will threaten poverty reduction and drive tensions within countries in the years to come, fueling the very nationalism that contributes to tension between counties,” it said.

The trends shaping the future include contractions in the working-age populations of wealthy countries and expansions in the same group in poorer nations, especially in Africa and South Asia, increasing economic, employment, urbanization and welfare pressures, the study said.

The world will also continue to experience weak near-term growth as governments, institutions and businesses struggle to overcome fallout from the Great Recession, the study said.

“Major economies will confront shrinking workforces and diminishing productivity gains while recovering from the 2008-09 financial crisis with high debt, weak demand, and doubts about globalization,” said the study.

“China will attempt to shift to a consumer-driven economy from its longstanding export and investment focus. Lower growth will threaten poverty reduction in developing counties.”

Governance will become more difficult as issues, including global climate change, environmental degradation and health threats demand collective action, the study added, while such cooperation becomes harder.

(Reporting by Jonathan Landay; Editing by John Walcott and Peter Cooney)