Bloomberg: “Vladimir Putin outlined a raft of proposed constitutional changes aimed at strengthening the powers of the parliament and other government bodies, fueling speculation that he’s laying the groundwork for keeping power beyond the end of his current term in 2024.”

“The plans, announced unexpectedly at the end of his annual state-of-the-nation speech Wednesday, come as Putin is widely expected to seek a way to hold onto control in some form beyond the constitutional limit at the end of his current term.”

CNN: “The entire Russian government is resigning.”

New York Times: “Deploying its international propaganda arms, the television channel RT and the Sputnik news agency, the Kremlin is honing this message: While Western Europe and the United States are continuing a centuries-old tradition of exploiting Africa, Moscow is ready to engage with Africa on mutually beneficial terms. Russia is also benefiting from a desire by African countries to lessen their reliance on China, even as Moscow acknowledges that it cannot come close to matching Beijing’s financial firepower.”

“Moscow has already injected itself into the geopolitics of Libya and the Central African Republic. Now it is looking for inroads in public opinion and the political elite across the continent.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin “appeared to revel in the ongoing political maelstrom in the U.S., jokingly admitting to plans for future election meddling,” Politico reports.

When asked if Russia would interfere in the 2020 election cycle, Putin leaned into the microphone on stage and mimicked a whisper: “I’m going to tell you a secret. Yes, sure, we’re going to do that. Don’t tell anybody.”

“The Kremlin said on Monday that Washington would need Russian consent to publish transcripts of phone calls between President Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin,” Reuters reports.

“Congress is determined to get access to Trump’s calls with Putin and other world leaders, the House Intelligence Committee’s chairman said on Sunday, citing concerns that the Republican president may have jeopardized national security.”

“Russia hopes the U.S. doesn’t release transcripts of President Donald Trump’s conversations with Vladimir Putin as it did this week with his talks with the Ukrainian leader,” Bloomberg reports.

Said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov: “We would like to hope that things won’t come to such situations in our bilateral relations, which already have plenty of quite serious problems.”

“A sharp and sometimes bitter disagreement broke out between President Trump and several G7 leaders over whether to allow Russia back into their club during a welcome dinner on Saturday,” CNN reports.

“Trump, as he did in public over the course of the summit, ardently advocated for it… As the leaders discussed issues like Iran and fires in the Amazon rainforest, Trump interjected and asked why Russia should not be included in the talks, given its size and role in global affairs.”

“That met sharp resistance from some of the leaders, principally German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.”

Two U.S. senators said that Russia had denied them visas, NBC News reports.

“Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said that he had planned to visit Russia as part of an upcoming congressional delegation including Democrats and Republicans. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) said that he was also denied a visa. Both lawmakers are members of the chamber’s Foreign Relations Committee and have been critical of Russia in the past.”

“President Trump is expected to name John Sullivan, the deputy secretary of state, to be the next ambassador to Russia, replacing Jon Huntsman Jr. as his liaison to Moscow,” the New York Times reports.

“The post of ambassador to Moscow is a prestigious diplomatic position that is challenging always, but even more so after a two-year federal investigation into the Trump campaign’s possible ties to the Kremlin.”

“For the second consecutive weekend, Moscow police conducted mass arrests as Russia’s biggest political crisis in several years continued to escalate and pose a challenge to the Kremlin’s heavy-handed approach toward public dissent,” the Los Angeles Times reports.

“More than 600 people were detained for participating in an unsanctioned rally in downtown Moscow, which opposition leaders had called to demand the inclusion of independent candidates in next month’s city council elections. At a mass rally on July 27, police took almost 1,400 people into custody and violently clashed with the thousands of protesters, beating some with truncheons.”

“The United States plans to test a new missile in coming weeks that would have been prohibited under a landmark, 32-year-old arms control treaty that the U.S. and Russia ripped up on Friday,” the AP reports.

“Washington and Moscow walked out of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty that President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed in 1987, raising fears of a new arms race. The U.S. blamed Moscow for the death of the treaty. It said that for years Moscow has been developing and fielding weapons that violate the treaty and threaten the United States and its allies, particularly in Europe.”