Russiabot Newsletter 5 [08.01.2020]
Russia reax. to arrest of mercs. in Belarus, Ministry of Health announces mass COVID-19 vaccine coming, borders open between Abkhazia and Russia...
The Russiabot Newsletter
Saturday, August 1st, 2020
Sukhumi, Abkhazia - (WikiCommons)
Here are your top stories, as reported by Russian media today:
Russian National Security Council Discusses Detainment of Mercenaries in Belarus
Ministry of Health Plans Mass COVID-19 Vaccinations Across Russia this Fall
COVID-19 Border Restrictions Lifted Between Abkhazia and Russia
Russian Embassy in Iran Refutes Report of a Planned Attack on Consulate-General
Russian Space Agency to Send Tourists to the International Space Station in
1. Russian National Security Council Discusses Detainment of Mercenaries in Belarus
President Vladimir Putin held a video conference with Russia’s National Security Council to discuss the detainment of 33 Russian citizens in Belarus, all ostensibly under the employ of the Wagner Private Military Company.
The arrest of the Russian nationals on July 29th has caused a stir in the region, with neighboring Ukraine filing an extradition request over suspicions of the Wagner PMC’s involvement in the ongoing war in Eastern Ukraine.
Belarus accuses the mercenaries of instigating disorder in the country prior to presidential elections on August 9th. In an unexpected turn of events, Belarusian authorities tied the presence of the 33 mercenaries to the case of opposition leader Sergei Tikhanovsky, who attempted to challenge Alexander Lukashenko’s 26-year tenure as the country’s president. Tikhanovsky was arrested on May 29th while attempting to gather signatures to support his presidential campaign (Belarusian authorities claim the opposition politician was inciting unrest and was receiving funding from abroad).
Official statements from the Russian government express hope over a clarification to the story, but offer no explanation as to why the mercenaries were in Belarus. Radio Svoboda analysis of the arrest footage released by Belarusian authorities highlighted the presence of Sudanese currency in the evidence pool, suggesting that the Wagner personnel were in transit to Sudan.
Belarusian political scientists underscore that allegations of ‘foreign threats’ to the election cycle is a routine event during Belarusian presidential elections under Lukashenko, with similar allegations emerging during the 2006 election cycle of an attempted armed overtake of the Belarusian government by foreign-backed factions.
Svetlana Tikhanovskaya –the wife of the detained opposition figure—replaced her husband as a challenger to Lukashenko’s on the August 9th ballot. Meanwhile, mass protests continue in Minsk against Lukashenko’s government attracting up to 60,000 participants.
(Vedomosti, Lenta, Lenta, MediaZona, Twitter, NavalnyLIVE)
2. Ministry of Health Plans Mass COVID-19 Vaccinations Across Russia this Fall
The Russian Ministry of Health announced plans to issue vaccinations against COVID-19 this October, with priority falling on teachers and employees of the healthcare sector. These vaccinations –according to the Russian Ministry of Health—will be completely covered by the Ministry’s budget, at no additional cost to the population.
Russian media reported that The National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology in Moscow conducted trials for a vaccine jointly developed with the Ministry of Defense in late July. All participants are believed to have demonstrated an immunity to COVID-19 at the conclusion of the trials.
(Interfax, Fontanka, Novaya Gazeta)
3. COVID-19 Border Restrictions Lifted Between Abkhazia and Russia
Russia and Abkhazia jointly lifted border crossing restrictions previously in place as part of response protocols against the global COVID-19 pandemic. No preventative measures are currently in place at this border, meaning individuals traveling from Russia to Abkhazia are not required submit to any temperature checks or present documentation of a negative COVID-19 test. Abkhazia plans to send all Russian citizens who become ill with COVID-19 back to the Russian Federation.
In the first day of these reduced border controls, some 300 cars crossed into Abkhazia from Russia, some of which had been waiting at the border since the night before. In large part, these visitors are vacationers seeking to catch the tail end of the summer holiday season on Abkhazia’s Black Sea coast, which remains a critical source of income for the region—an estimated 4.8 million Russia tourists visited Abkhazia in the 2019 vacation season alone, providing a much needed influx of economic activity to a territory which is caught in an unrecognized independent status since the 2008 Russo-Georgian War.
The Republic of Georgia views Abkhazia as an autonomous region within its borders, and denies any sort of legitimacy to Abkhazia’s self-proclaimed status as a sovereign nation. Although recognized by Russia, Syria, Venezuela, and Nauru, Abkhazia falls into a sort of ‘international black hole’, which limits the region’s access to global markets, and severely limits opportunities for engagement in the global tourist industry (despite the capital city of Sukhumi’s former status as a premier resort destination for Soviet leadership).
As such, Abkhazia is reliant on Moscow’s continued economic and political backing to maintain its functions as a state independent of Georgia, something which contributed to a level of economic strain on the region during the COVID-19 shutdown in Russia —with 35% of Abkhazia’s GDP dependent on the arrival of Russian tourists every year.
4. Russian Embassy in Iran Refutes Reporting of a Planned Attack on Consulate-General
The Russian Embassy in Iran denied allegations of a thwarted attack on its Consulate General in the Iranian City of Rasht, the capital of the country’s northwestern Gilan Province.
Earlier, Iranian state media issued a report that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) thwarted plans to strike the Russian Diplomatic Facility following their arrest of Jamshid Sharmahd, the spokesperson for the “Kingdom Assembly of Iran”, an exiled monarchist opposition group. The attack on the Russian Consulate was to be part of a greater series of operations planned by the group, which the IRGC claims involved the use of chemical and biological weapons.
The Russian Embassy referred to these allegations as “unverified rumors.”
The Kingdom Assembly of Iran seeks to restore monarchist rule in the country, effectively undoing the current political institutions in place since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The organization claimed a 2008 bombing in Shiraz which killed 12 during prayers at the Hosseynieh Seyed al-Shohada Mosque.
There is no clear reason as to why the Kingdom Assembly of Iran would target a Russian diplomatic facility. However, the prospect for an attack on a diplomatic facility in the Middle East is no doubt a sensitive issue for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, particularly given the assassination of the Russian Ambassador to Turkey in a 2016 shooting in Ankara.
(Interfax, Kommersant, RIA, Jamestown Foundation)
5. Russian Space Agency to Send Tourists to the International Space Station in 2021
Roscosmos –the state corporation responsible for Russia’s space-exploration activities—announced that it will be flying two civilian tourists to the International Space Station in 2021.
This endeavor will be conducted in cooperation with Space Adventures, an American space tourism company, which has flown eight “space tourist missions” via the Soyuz-series Russian spacecraft since 2001.
The names of the two ‘space tourists’ will be announced at the start of 2021.
As it stood during the Cold War, Space exploration remains one of the continuously stable channels for diplomatic cooperation between the United States and Russia, particularly as relations have experienced a level of tension following the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Russian cosmonauts and American astronauts presently staff the International Space Station.
In 1975, at the height of Cold War tensions, the Apollo-Soyuz mission symbolically docked American and Soviet spacecraft together, embodying the spirit of the coming short-lived détente between the two nuclear powers.