April 27:
The Kremlin is seeking to buttress its military operations in Syria via the United Nations. The Voice of Americareports that Russia's government has asked the UN Security Council to blacklist two Syrian rebel groups, Jaish al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham. Both are "closely connected" with al-Qaeda or the Islamic State, Russia's Ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, has argued, and should therefore be internationally proscribed.
The United States won't break its dependency on Russian rocket technology any time soon, a top Administration official has told lawmakers. In testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee covered by Breaking Defense, Defense Secretary Ash Carter suggested that the United States needs to "hold our noses" and continue to rely on the Russian RD-180 rocket engine as a booster - at least until it has tested reliable alternatives to facilitate its space launches.
April 28:
Recent protests at a movie festival at Moscow's preeminent House of Cinematography involving attacks on the contestants and their mentors are just the latest sign of a new culture of intolerance that is increasingly prevalent in Russia, according to Human Rights Watch. "In contemporary Russia, more and more, no public dissent from the 'official line' on Russia's contemporary history is tolerated by the authorities, and those who publicly express divergent viewpoints are increasingly subject to attacks, ranging from defamation to physical violence," notes Tanya Lokshina, who directs the organization's Russia programs. "Even children are apparently not exempt."
April 29:
In the face of increasingly belligerent rhetoric from Russia, several Nordic states are examining anew the possibility of joining NATO. But renewed calls in Finland and Sweden for membership in the Alliance are being tempered by worries over a potential "harsh" response from Moscow. According to the Associated Press, a new study by a panel of leading defense experts has laid out a range of potential scenarios for the Finnish government. It would be "considerably more benign for Finland," the study notes, if it and Sweden acceded to the bloc at the same time. Conversely, "a Swedish decision to join NATO and a Finnish decision not to join would leave Finland isolated and exposed."
The potential consequences are a source of considerable concern for both Helsinki and Stockholm. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has warned that the Kremlin will retaliate by "military-technical" means if its "neutral neighbors" chose to join NATO. "It's one thing to have neutral neighbors in the north and another to have neighbors who are members of the North Atlantic alliance," Lavrov told a Swedish newspaper in a recent interview.
May 1:
The outgoing commander of U.S. forces in Europe has warned of the potential for future Russian aggression and the need for a continued resolute European response to the Kremlin. "We see that Russia has not accepted the hand of partnership but has chosen a path of belligerence. We need to readdress where we're heading," Breedlove - who has served as the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) since 2013 - told the Wall Street Journal in an interview. "We weren't focused on Russia when I came in three years ago because we were still trying to cast a paradigm that brought Russia into the fold of Western values. Russia chose a different path or they were on that path and we didn’t recognize it."
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