May 21:
An investigative report by Reuters has shed new light on one recent instance of massive graft perpetrated under Vladimir Putin’s administration. According to the news agency, a state program launched by the Kremlin in 2005 to improve Russia’s health facilities became a vehicle for massive theft of state assets - with suppliers of medical equipment charging hospitals two or three times the actual cost for their wares, with much of the ill-gotten loot ending up “in the hands of intermediaries with links to Putin.” Perhaps the most egregious outcome of the graft is a $1 billion estate on the Russian Black Sea coast, near Sochi, which is believed to be owned by the Russian president himself (something Putin has denied).
Russia and China have inked a mammoth 30-year, $400 billion natural gas deal, reports the Guardian. Under the agreement, signed in Beijing by GAZPROM chief Alexei Miller and Zhou Jinping, chairman of the China National Petroleum Corporation, Russia will provide the PRC with 38 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually for the next three decades. The deal, observers note, comes amid souring Russian relations with European energy consumers - as well as a European push, propelled by the recent crisis over Ukraine, to diversify energy sources away from the continent’s current, heavy dependence on Russian supplies.
The Hill reports that the U.S. House of Representatives has adopted a proposal to block the Pentagon from entering into commercial deals with Russia’s state arms giant ROSOBORONEXPORT. The bipartisan amendment - drafted in response to Russia’s continued support for the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Damascus – dictates that new contracts would henceforth be permitted only "if the Defense secretary, secretary of State and director of national intelligence certify that the firm ceased transferring weapons to Syria.”
May 22:
On the heels of its announcement of an end to cooperation with the U.S. in space, the Kremlin is now devising a new space strategy. The Moscow Times reports that the Russian government has tapped the Chinese, Indian and European space agencies as potential partners for future “deep-space exploration” initiatives. The strategy, discussed by ROSCOSMOS head Sergei Savelyev in St. Petersburg, is still being developed by the Russian space agency. According to Savelyev, however, it will look beyond U.S.-Russian space cooperation - currently centered on the International Space Station - in favor of “new projects with new partners.” To that end, the Kremlin has already signed a space cooperation agreement with China and unveiled a $53 billion plan to modernize its space industry.
Russia’s strategic cooperation with Iran may soon take a significant step forward. Reuters reports that the Russian government intends to sign a contract with the Islamic Republic later this year dramatically expanding collaboration in the nuclear sphere. The planned deal, according to the agency, would include the construction of two additional nuclear reactors in the southern Iranian port city of Bushehr, as well as the building of as many as six more nuclear plants elsewhere in the country.
Russia’s deteriorating relationship with the United States is being roiled by another controversy - this one over Jewish texts. The Forward reports that a Russian court has demanded the U.S. Library of Congress return seven valuable ancient volumes, which comprise a small part of the so-called “Schneerson collection.” The rest of the vast collection - which numbers in excess of 6,000 volumes - is located in Russia. Moscow and Washington contest ownership over the texts, originally gathered by rabbi Yosef Schneerson, who fled the USSR in the 1920s and eventually settled in New York. Last year, a U.S. judge leveled a $50,000-per-day fine on the Russian government in an effort to compel it to turn over the rest of the collection to the U.S.-based Chabad-Lubavitch group, of which Schneerson was a part. The recent Russian court ruling was accompanied by a reciprocal demand and penalty; that the U.S. would be forced to pay $50,000 per day until the seven texts - which were originally loaned to the U.S. in 1991 - are returned to the Russian Federation.
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