0815GMT//Lavrov to meet Rubio for 2nd time; white collar prisoners to work in labour gangs

RELATIONS WITH THE US: Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, will meet with Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, on the sidelines of the ASEAN foreign ministers forum in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday. (COMMENT: This is Lavrov and Rubio's second meeting. The previous one was in Saudi Arabia in February. A detente between Russia and the US has stalled, making this meeting more important.)

RELATIONS WITH NORTH KOREA: Lavrov will fly to Pyongyang on Friday to meet with his North Korean counterpart Choi Son Hee for "strategic consultations", the Kremlin said on Wednesday. (COMMENT: Bilateral meetings between Russia and North Korea are coming thick and fast. They highlight Russia's new dependency on North Korea as an ally to supply artillery shells and missiles, as well as soldiers for its army and labourers to work in its fields and factories.)

RELATIONS WITH AZERBAIJAN: Russian police detained and deported Elshan Ibragimov, an Azerbaijani diaspora chief in the Moscow region, on Wednesday. He has also been stripped of his Russian citizenship for "committing actions" that pose a threat to Russian security. (COMMENT: This is all part of the row playing out between Russia and Azerbaijan. On Wednesday, emergencies ministers from both countries met in Baku for talks.)

RELATIONS WITH ARMENIA: Armenian President Vahagn Khachaturyan signed a bill to nationalise Electric Networks of Armenia from Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan. Karapetyan, who holds entrenched pro-Kremlin views, has been arrested for organising a coup. (COMMENT: Electric Networks of Armenia is the national power grid system and an important piece of Armenian infrastructure. Karapetyan's arrest, and now the seizure of his main asset in Armenia, is a source of tension between Armenia and Russia. The Kremlin has said that it is "monitoring" the situation.)

MANPOWER CRISIS: To tackle a major manpower shortage in Russia, the Russian parliament on Wednesday approved plans to expand forced labour practices to people convicted of minor crimes. People imprisoned for financial crimes could now find themselves pressed into building roads. (COMMENT: Russia sees criminals as a vital source of manpower for both its army and to power its economy. It has already allowed companies such as car maker AvtoVAZ and internet marketplace Wildberries to hire prisoners.)

In Nizhny Novgorod, officials are planning to relax rules in fast food stalls and restaurants to allow businesses to hire more migrant labour. In the Urals, senior industry leaders have talked up the potential of importing thousands of workers from India to plug labour shortages. (COMMENT: There are more indications of the labour shortages facing Russian businesses.)

GRAIN EXPORTS SLUMP: Russia will export only 2m tonnes of grain in July, half the level of 2024, agricultural insiders told Russian media on Wednesday. They said that a poor harvest and increased competition abroad have heavily dented Russian grain exports. (COMMENT: Grain is an important export commodity for Russia, so this is more bad news for the economy.)

NEWS MATRIX:

It's debatable how important and surprising the news is that Russia's grain exports have slumped. The slump is greater than expected and grain is a significant export earner for the Kremlin but it is not as important as oil and gas sales.