March 30:
Vladimir Putin's government is lashing out at what it sees as foreign interference ahead of this Fall's parliamentary elections. Various organizations "continue to actively try to influence our country," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying. "They continue to rock the boat in our country." Among the offending organizations identified by Peskov is the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a journalistic consortium of reporters from more than 65 countries which is based in Washington, DC.
Sputnik has been blocked in Latvia. According to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Russian state-controlled news outlet has been blacklisted and censored because it has been deemed a "propaganda tool" by the Latvian government. "We don't regard Sputnik as a credible media source but as something else: a propaganda tool," Latvian Foreign Ministry spokesman Raimonds Jansons has told reporters. The official move stems in part from concerns raised by Latvia's Foreign Ministry that the head of Sputnik, Dmitry Kiselov, is personally identified on the European Union's sanctions list.
March 31:
Rumors of a "drawdown" notwithstanding, Russia's military continues to be present in force on the Syrian battlefield. As a result, Defense News reports, Moscow has continued its dialogue with Jerusalem regarding the "deconfliction" of Syrian airspace. New talks between military officials of both countries are set to take place in coming days. "When Putin said they were leaving, he didn't say all his forces were leaving," Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Brig. Gen. Avi Peled has explained. "They still have their troops, their aircraft and I'm sure the S400 and other capabilities, and that's the reason we're going to set up a new meeting to make sure safety measures continue to be in place."
Russia's wealthy are increasingly fleeing the country. According to a new report by British financial consultancy New World Wealth, some two thousand people with a net worth of $1 million or more left the Russian Federation last year. The causes for the exodus include an "unhealthy level of government intervention in the local business sector" as well as an isolationist "anti-U.S. stance" that depresses foreign direct investment, The Moscow Times reports the study as saying.
April 1:
Russia's declining economic fortunes are shrinking its market share in Europe. According to The Moscow Times, Russia has fallen out of the category of "main" trading partners with the European Union as its trade with the Eurozone has declined dramatically. According to EUROSTAT, the the EU's statistics agency, Russia's share of total EU now stands at just 6 percent ($238 million) annually. Europe, however, remains Russia's main trading partner.
Russia's ongoing military modernization involves a significant expansion in the sophistication of the country's strategic arsenal. That is the assessment of a new Pentagon intelligence summary, which notes that Russia is effectively doubling the number of its strategic nuclear warheads by mounting multiple, independent reentry vehicle (MIRV) warheads on their existing strategic missiles - and doing so despite restrictions on such capabilities agreed to under the 2010 New START arms control treaty. "The Russians are doubling their warhead output," one Pentagon official has confirmed to the Washington Free Beacon. "They will be exceeding the New START levels because of MIRVing these new systems."
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