May 4:
The usually-robust strategic partnership between Moscow and Beijing has hit a rough patch over allegations that China is pirating one of Russia's premier military projects. According to Defense News, suspicions are mounting in Moscow that the PRC is creating an unlicensed variant of its Sukhoi Su-33 fighter jet. Russian defense industry officials are said to be "closely monitoring" the situation, and have halted negotiations to sell China the multi-role aircraft. China is said to interested in the carrier-borne fighter as an extension of its plans - aired earlier this year - to build its first indigenous aircraft carrier.
The Moscow Times reports that, according to a new poll, less than half of all Russians now believe their country is heading in the right direction. The survey, carried out by the independent Levada Center, found just 43 percent of respondents to be satisfied with the current state of Russia's politics and economy - a decline of some 16 percent since Russian president Dmitry Medvedev was inaugurated a year ago.
[Editor’s Note: Given the effect of Russia’s increasingly authoritarian political climate on pollsters and respondents alike, the results of public opinion surveys in Russia should be viewed with some caution.]
May 5:
The Kremlin is denying reports that it orchestrated a coup attempt in neighboring Georgia, with whom Russia went to war last year. "We reaffirm once again that Russia is not interfering in Georgia's internal affairs in principle," the Russian Foreign Ministry has said in an official statement. "We do not believe in scenarios imposed from the outside." The denial, the Kyiv Post reports, comes on the heels of an abortive mutiny at the Georgian military base at Mukhrovani - an episode that officials in Tbilisi say was instigated by Moscow.
May 6:
A new spy scandal is simmering between Russia and NATO. In late April, the Atlantic Alliance announced that it was removing two Russian "officials" believed to be spies from its headquarters in Brussels. Now, the New York Times reports that Russia has retaliated to the "provocation" by declaring that it would expel two NATO employees. Russia's leadership is chalking the move up to a diplomatic tit-for-tat. “These are the rules of the game,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said. “Our NATO partners, at least those who initiated the expulsion of the two Russian diplomats, could not have expected anything else from us.” The move comes on the eve of wargames between NATO and the former Soviet republic of Georgia.
May 8:
Ahead of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's visit to Tokyo, the Kremlin is trying to lower expectations that the trip could lead to a breakthrough in the "favorite territorial problem" between the two countries. The trip will be a forum for "calm, constructive conversation" about the decades-old dispute over the Kuril islands, Putin deputy chief-of-staff (and former Russian Ambassador to the United States) Yuri Ushakov has said in comments carried by Japan Today, but those talks should take place "without some sort of inflated expectations." Russia has claimed sovereignty over the four Kurils since Soviet troops seized them in 1945, but Japan believes the islands - which it calls the Northern Territories - to rightly belong to it.