September 13:
The two Russian citizens that British law enforcement has named as suspects in the Skripal poisonings earlier this year came to England solely for tourism – or so they claim. According to the Huffington Post, state-owned RT aired an interview with the suspects, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, in which both maintained that they were merely victims of "a fantastical coincidence." The pair claim that they visited Salisbury because friends had recommended it as "a wonderful town," and both firmly denied any ties to the Russian government or intelligence services.
Washington and Moscow continue to spar over the contentious Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Most recently, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty writes, Energy Secretary Rick Perry raised the stakes by confirming that the United States remains open to imposing sanctions on entities involved in the project as a way of preventing Russia from weaponizing its dominance in the European energy market. Perry made his statement during a bilateral meeting with his Russian counterpart, Aleksandr Novak, in Moscow, adding the caveat that "getting to the point of sanctions is not where we want to go." However, the pipeline has long been a source of concern for the United States and its Eastern European allies. Meanwhile, the Kremlin maintains that the pipeline benefits European consumers and that U.S. opposition merely disguises its true motivation to promote sales of American liquefied natural gas in Europe.
September 14:
The recent threats made by Viktor Zolotov, the head of the Russian National Guard, against opposition activist Alexei Navalny are drawing domestic outrage - and a response from lawmakers. The chairman of the Russian State Duma’s liberal "Yabloko" faction, Emilia Slabunova, has appealed directly to President Vladimir Putin, calling for Zolotov's dismissal and urging him to be held criminally liable for violating parts of the country's Criminal Code. "Zolotov's actions discredit the honor and dignity of an officer and are incompatible with his position," the party declared in an official press release. Slabunova "is confident that such a high-ranking official accused of corruption by civil society representatives does not have the right to respond to the complaints made by citizens in this way, with the threat of physical violence."
On the contested Crimean peninsula, a cross-border ecological disaster has Kyiv and Moscow trading accusations while scrambling to mount a response. According to the New York Times, an airborne wave of industrial pollution from an old titanium dioxide factory in Russian-controlled Armyansk has caused widespread pulmonary and stomach ailments, forcing the evacuation of 4,000 children and leaving the region blighted and desolate as residents flee to protect their health. The Ukrainian government blames the factory for failing to control its pollution in its daily operations, but Russia claims that the true root cause is Kyiv's decision to cut off all water supplies to the peninsula, which dried up the effluent reservoir that once contained the plant's toxic byproducts and enabled the residue to blow into nearby towns.
Parts of Russia's massive "Vostok-2018" military exercises are currently taking place in the narrow waterways just off the coast of Alaska, drawing international attention and causing concern. Reuters reports that the Russian Ministry of Defense has released footage of two warships drilling rescue operations in the Bering Sea, along with footage of long- and medium-range missile launches and Siberian paratrooper landings, as part of the week-long drills. The large-scale military maneuver has involved 300,000 troops, two fleets, and 1,000 aircraft – all against a backdrop of heightened tensions with the West.
September 15:
The recent arrest of two Russian spies in The Netherlands has unearthed evidence of a different Kremlin campaign - one targeting the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). The Russian agents, who were apprehended by Dutch intelligence earlier this year, are said to have been planning an attack on the Bern-based Spiez laboratory, which is involved in the investigation into the poisoning of ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, England. But the operatives have actually been on the radar of Dutch authorities since March of 2017, "due to a cyber-attack against the World Anti-Doping Agency," an official affidavit from the Swiss Attorney General’s office cited by the Agence France Presse details. The attack, aimed at WADA's Swiss office, has garnered the attention of authorities in Geneva, prompting them to link the two - at first seemingly unrelated - cases.
The U.S. Air Force is no longer relying solely on traditional European bases to counter Russia. According to the Air Force Times, the service is rapidly increasing its presence all over the continent, guided by the National Defense Strategy's charge to strengthen partnerships and reorient towards great power conflict. Areas of increased engagement include large-scale joint training exercises with fifth-generation assets, efforts to pre-position basing systems, and projects to improve airfields, refueling infrastructure, and storage facilities across Europe. The service's significant budget requests for fiscal year 2019 signal that this trajectory will only continue: U.S. European Command has requested a total funding increase from $4.7 billion to $6.5 billion, while Special Operations Command has requested an additional $16 million for training facilities at a single Estonian air base alone.
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