June 25:
Deteriorating U.S.-Russian relations have prompted an uptick in Russian harassment of American diplomats.Columnist Josh Rogin writes in the Washington Post that at a recent Washington meeting of Russian and European diplomats, many Western diplomats complained of regular harassment from Russian intelligence officials, ranging in threat level from nuisance to downright terror. "Since the return of Putin, Russia has been engaged in an increasingly aggressive gray war across Europe," says former U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic Norm Eisen. "Now it’s in retaliation for Western sanctions because of Ukraine. The widely reported harassment is another front in the gray war. They are hitting American diplomats literally where they live."
The U.S. State Department has launched a training program for targets of Russian aggression, and has reached out to Moscow for an official explanation. The Kremlin, for its part, has defended the widespread harassment, claiming it to be merely retaliation for "U.S. provocations and mistreatment of Russian diplomats in the United States."
June 26:
Russian authorities are attempting to better understand the scope of Islamic radicalism in the restive republic of Dagestan. "The police in Daghestan have been ordered to carry out a census of Islamist extremists in that republic," reports Paul Goble in his Window on Eurasia blog. The measure, however, is likely to be inaccurate, because - as Goble notes - "the numbers they report are likely to be much exaggerated given that officers have been told that they will lose their jobs if they report lower figures than their bosses expect." Goble citesNovaya Gazeta journalist Elena Masyuk as saying that this initiative - colloquially called the "Wahhabi count" - will be "used to limit the rights of Daghestanis and mosques," and as a result will have counterproductive results, "radicalizing society and leading more people to join the Islamists in the hills of the republic or in the Middle East."
June 27:
Russian president Vladimir Putin's political party is expanding its influence in the Balkans. In an official statement published on its website, the "United Russia" party has announced the signing of new political agreements with political factions from Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Bulgaria. The agreements, according to the party's Deputy General Secretary, Sergey Zhelezniak, lay the groundwork for a "new detente" between Russia’s dominant political power and sympathetic forces on the the country's periphery - with the goal of deepening cooperation between Russia and the Balkan states.
June 29:
After considerable speculation to the contrary, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has confirmed that her government plans to uphold the extension of European sanctions against Russia. According to the Wall Street Journal, a recent meeting of European leaders has led to a consensus that the EU must renew sanctions levied against Russia for its aggression against Ukraine, because Moscow has failed to uphold the terms of the February 2015 ceasefire concluded in Minsk, Belarus.
June 30:
President Putin is shaking up the Russian Navy. UPI reports that the Kremlin has sacked some 50 high-ranking officers attached to Russia's Baltic Fleet following a month-long inspection and review that found "incompetence, deficiencies in training and misinformation regarding the state of the fleet." Admiral Viktor Kravchuk, the commander of the Baltic Fleet, and his chief of staff, Sergei Popov, were among the officials relieved of duty.
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