Russia Reform Monitor: No. 1901

May 27:

Russia’s prestigious Academy of Sciences is raising the alarm over statistics highlighting the increasingly young age at which Russian girls are losing their virginity. The Moscow Times reports that a new study has found that more than 40 percent of adolescent girls in Russia have lost their virginity by age 15 - a year younger than the national age of consent. By contrast, in 1995 the number of girls who were no longer virgins at that age stood at 30%.

May 28:

The Moscow Times reports that in a $406 million deal, Peru will receive eight new Russian-made helicopters this November with sixteen more to come next year. The contract will additionally allow Russia to build a helicopter maintenance and repair center in Peru by 2016.

In a sign of increasingly strained ties between Russia and the United States, The Moscow Times reports that Alexander Gusev, head of the Russian Supreme Court’s judicial department, has recommended judges and state officials avoid traveling to U.S.-friendly countries this summer. Russian citizens “could be arrested abroad under a supposed U.S. ‘hunt’ in response to Moscow's annexation of Crimea,” Gusev has warned.

May 30:

Russia has pulled thousands of troops back from its common border with Ukraine, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has confirmed. The Washington Post reports Hagel calling the development “promising” - but also noting that thousands more still remain deployed near Ukraine. NATO officials have termed the redeployment “a step in the right direction from Russia.”

According to the Washington Post, there is growing concern in the United States regarding an unhealthy national security dependency: reliance on Russian rocket engine imports. Russia has threatened to ban the export of rocket engines to the United States - a move that would cost taxpayers “billions of dollars” and cause debilitating delays. The move has spurred considerable domestic debate in the U.S., with some calling for complete Amerian self-sufficiency in the rocket market and others hoping to have “business as usual” with Russia.

May 31:

Russia is brandishing its energy weapon against Ukraine. The Washington Post reports that the Kremlin, now mired in disputes with the Ukrainian government over the bilateral energy relationship between the two countries, has threatened to cut off natural gas supplies to Ukraine. Ukraine is being forced to make the choice “between expensive energy and political sovereignty on the one hand or cheaper energy and political submission to Russia on the other hand,” the paper reports. Ukraine is currently dependent on Russia for 60 percent of its natural gas imports, making Moscow’s threat a real one. Newly-elected Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko has announced that “freeing Ukraine from Russia’s gas-powered hold over the economy” ranks as one of his top priorities.