September 7:
Russia's HIV/AIDS epidemic is worsening. "Despite the fact that the population of European countries outnumbers that of Russia by more than four to one, Russia now has more HIV-infected people than all of the European countries taken together," writes Russia expert Paul Goble in his Window on Eurasia blog. Moreover, the situation "appears likely to worsen given that the spread of HIV in Europe is slowing while in Russia it is intensifying."
The crisis, Goble notes, has a surprising culprit. The trendline likely reflects "the availability of anti-viral drugs in the West and their declining availability in Russia" as a result of protectionist measures - such as bans on foreign-made condoms - that have been imposed by the Kremlin.
September 8:
Pentagon officials are raising the alarm over Russia's new submarine project, the Washington Free Beaconreports. According to Defense Department officials cited by the paper, Russia is building a nuclear-armed drone submarine with a blast capability of several million tons of TNT, enough to take out key ports and entire coastal regions. The drone submarine is shrouded in secrecy, and Pentagon officials have code-named it "Kanyon." "This is an unmanned sub that will have a high-speed and long-distance capability," says one official, although its development is still in its early stages.
September 9:
Increasingly, foreign media companies are selling their Russian assets and withdrawing from the Russian market. The trend, The Moscow Times reports, follows President Putin's enactment last year of new legislation limiting foreign ownership of Russian media organizations from 50 percent to just 20 percent. Those restrictions, the Kremlin claims, "are aimed at protecting Russians from harmful Western influence." But their impact on foreign media within the Russian Federation has been profound. Media conglomerates like Switzerland's Edipresse and Germany's Axel Springer, owner of Forbes and OK! magazines, are selling all of their Russian assets because a 20 percent stake in Russian media holdings is not a worthwhile investment. Many other companies, meanwhile, are choosing to restructure their ownership under the new law in order to stay in Russia.
The intensity of the fighting in Ukraine may be abating somewhat, but Russia is hunkering down for the long haul. Reuters reports that the Russian military has begun construction of a massive base outside the village of Soloti, near the Ukrainian border. The facility, which includes both ammunition depots and barracks, will ultimately be comprised of more than 6,000 square meters, boast quarters for 3,500 soldiers, and contain warehouses for rockets, artillery weapons, and other munitions, according to official tender documents released by the Russian government.
The Kremlin is increasingly dipping into the country's hard currency reserves in order to keep the national economy stable. The Moscow Times reports that the Russian government spent 900 billion rubles ($13.30 billion) from its Reserve Fund on official projects during the first eight months of 2015.
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