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A harrowing video of an inmate’s beating shone a bare-bulb spotlight on Russia’s prison-torture problem. And a second summit meeting between presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin was pushed into 2019 while the United States reaffirmed its rejection of Moscow’s takeover of Crimea, raising further questions about Russia’s concrete gains from the Trump-Putin talks in Helsinki.

Here are some of the key developments in Russia over the past week, and some of the takeaways going forward.

Torture Claims

After hammering an inmate’s heel with a truncheon while others hold him down with his legs splayed and beat other body parts, the camouflage-clad prison guard steps back to take a break, grunts, and jokes: “Changing of the guard.”

With other officers milling around the room as the prisoner moans and cries out, the harrowing video shot at a prison in the sleepy city of Yaroslavl makes torture look routine.

Other reports from Russia over the past week also make it look that way: One says that a lost iPhone 6 at a student party in Voronezh led to the police torture of several young men whom officers bound to a chair with handcuffs and questioned after tying ammonia-soaked plastic bags over their heads.

In the Bryansk region, meanwhile, a prison guard was charged with murdering an inmate whom authorities said he asphyxiated with a piece of cloth.

Accounts of torture in Russian prisons, jails, and police precinct houses are nothing new.

Supporters of whistle-blower Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Moscow jail in December 2009, say he was denied medical care in what amounted to torture, and the Kremlin human rights council said there was evidence that he was beaten to death.

And as Putin was preparing to return to the presidency in 2012 after four years as prime minister, the death of a man who told relatives he had been beaten by four police officers and sodomized with a Champagne bottle fueled demands for reform and the rule of law.

'Detrimental Effects'

The newer cases suggest there has been little change since Putin – who started a six-year, fourth term in May – came back to the Kremlin more than six years ago.

In a submission to the UN Committee on Torture on July 6, Human Rights Watch said alleged violations of Moscow’s “most basic obligations” under the International Convention Against Torture are taking place “against the backdrop of a broader deterioration of the human rights climate in Russia, with detrimental effects in particular on freedom of expression, assembly, and association as the authorities have moved to narrow the space for dissent.”

At a hearing on Russia’s record on July 25, UN experts said Russia has one of the highest rates of prisoner death from torture among Council of Europe members and urged the authorities to prosecute alleged widespread cases including beatings, electric shocks, and suffocation.

"Torture is practiced widely," UN committee Chairman Jens Modvig said, yet "there is no rule ensuring that punishment for torture corresponds to the seriousness of the crime.”

The concerns about abuse and torture of inmates and others in state custody in Russia come at a time when more attention is arguably focused on Moscow’s actions abroad than on developments at home.

Putin’s July 16 summit with Trump was widely seen as a big success for the Russian president, and the White House said three days later that Trump had asked his national security adviser, John Bolton, to invite Putin to Washington in the fall.

Mr. Putin Doesn't Go To Washington

In some ways, such a visit could have been a victory lap for Putin, flying into the U.S. capital and heading to the White House despite persistent concern about what U.S. intelligence agencies say was an “influence campaign” -- ordered by Putin himself -- targeting the 2016 election won by Trump, the underdog and the clear Kremlin favorite.

But plans for an autumn meeting fell apart fast, their demise suggesting queasiness on both sides about a relationship that was already as toxic as Novichok for some in Washington – and became more so after the summit press conference in Helsinki, where critics said Trump came down on Putin's side on the issue of election meddling.

First, the Kremlin responded to word of the invitation with a marked lack of enthusiasm. Putin’s foreign policy aide, Yury Ushakov, made clear on July 24 that Russia was not ready to accept it, saying it would be “wise to let the dust settle” after the Helsinki summit.

“You know what kind of atmosphere there is around its outcome,” he said.

The next day, Bolton said that Trump wants to meet with Putin “after the Russia witch hunt is over, so we’ve agreed that it will be after the first of the year [2019].”

The “witch hunt” is Trump’s term for U.S. Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Moscow’s alleged meddling and whether his campaign colluded with Russia in a bid to influence the vote. There is no set time limit on the probe, but Trump – who argues adamantly that there was no collusion – has repeatedly called for it to end.

Midterm Meddling?

For Trump, the postponement of a second summit could be a chance to avoid the potentially unappealing optics of hosting Putin shortly before or after the November midterm elections, in which his Republican Party will be seeking to retain control of both houses of Congress – and any accusations that he is seeking or getting help from Putin in the polls.

Trump has tried to turn any such notion on its head by saying he fears Russia will try to meddle – in favor of the other side.

“Based on the fact that no President has been tougher on Russia than me, they will be pushing very hard for the Democrats,” Trump tweeted on July 24.

The next day, at about the same time Bolton said that Trump wants to meet with Putin again in 2019, rather than this fall, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made an announcement reaffirming the U.S. “refusal to recognize the Kremlin’s claims of sovereignty over territory seized by force in contravention of international law” – Crimea.

For Putin, steering clear of Washington in the fall could be a way to avoid wading too deep into turbulent U.S. political waters at an uncertain time.

Russian political analysts have said that Putin’s comment at the summit press conference, when he stated publicly for the first time that he wanted Trump to win the 2016 election, marked a new and risky step toward open involvement in U.S. politics. He took another step, Moscow-based political analyst Vladimir Frolov said, when he suggested to Russian diplomats days later that Trump's efforts to improve ties were beset by unnamed "forces" ready and willing to "sacrifice Russian-American relations to their ambitions in the domestic political struggle in America."

Wading In Or Waist-Deep?

Putin's statements mark a shift to "a direct political alliance with Donald Trump personally in the fight against his domestic foes" -- the Democratic Party, the intelligence and foreign policy establishment, the "deep state" -- Frolov wrote in an opinion article for the Russian media outlet Republic.

"This is already not so much interference in elections...as it is Moscow joining openly joining the domestic political battle on one of the warring sides.

Stepping back from a fall summit could lessen the risks of going all-in.

But the postponement of a second meeting also leaves the question of what concrete gains Putin can claim from Helsinki even less clear than it was in the days after the summit.

That question cuts both ways, though. And even after Pompeo moved to dispel concerns that Trump might recognize Russia's claim to Crimea as part of some deal with Putin, it remains largely uncertain -- with Russian claims of "agreements" left unconfirmed by U.S. officials -- what they might have agreed upon.

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From Washington to Moscow, the summit in Helsinki was widely seen as a big win for Vladimir Putin. But despite President Donald Trump's follow-up invitation for Putin to visit the White House within months, the meeting may have fallen short of some of the Kremlin's more ambitious expectations.

And when it was over, Putin returned home to a country facing the prickly problem of pension reform, with trepidation over planned retirement-age hikes denting his popularity.

Here are some of the key developments in Russia over the past week, and some of the takeaways going forward.

'Better Than Super'

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called it "fabulous," while opponents of Donald Trump -- and some fellow Republicans -- were aghast over a meeting at which the U.S. president seemed to side with Putin on alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election and put no public pressure on Moscow over that issue or any other.

Headlines in both hemispheres spoke of a win for Putin, and three days later the White House announced a glittering prize: An invitation for Putin to meet Trump in Washington in the fall.

But despite Lavrov's assessment -- "better than super" - the Kremlin may still wish Putin had left with a little more to hold onto.

It's true that Putin didn't need any major, concrete deals to put the stamp of success on the summit.

It's also true that he didn't get any, as far as we know.

The Russian ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, said on state television two days after the summit that he believes "important verbal agreements were made." And on July 19, Putin called the summit "successful overall" and said it led to "some useful agreements."

What's The Deal?

Those remarks are causing concern in the United States, particularly among critics of Trump who fear he could have made concessions to Putin during their more-than-two-hour one-on-one meeting with only translators present.

But the only actual agreement announced by the U.S. side so far is for "working level dialogue between the two security council staffs," which White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders mentioned in her tweet about Trump's invite for Putin to come to Washington.

Those developments will clearly please Putin, providing vital fuel for the Kremlin's argument that Russia is far from isolated despite U.S. and European sanctions.

But to the naked eye, at least, there was no grand bargain struck in Helsinki, no sign of sanctions relief, no specific agreement on nuclear arms control.

And while the comments in which Trump seemed to side with Moscow on election meddling caused an uproar that may not soon subside, some of the presummit fears about what Trump might do to please Putin were not borne out by the public comments from the two presidents.

"Trump didn't recognize the Russian annexation of Crimea, announce a troop pullout from Syria, promise to disband NATO, withdraw U.S. troops from Germany or stop the deployment of U.S. anti-missile defenses in Eastern Europe," Bloomberg Opinion columnist Leonid Bershidsky wrote.

Bromance With Benefits?

After waiting nearly 18 months after U.S. Inauguration Day for a full-fledged meeting with Trump, Putin may have hoped the summit would turn their long-distance courtship into a "bromance with benefits."

Instead, according to Bershidsky, the Trump-Putin relationship "increasingly looks like a love affair that won't be consummated."

"Each would like to do something for the other. But Putin has nothing to offer that the U.S. media and the Republican establishment might support, and Trump is mindful of where he stands with both and is blocked by the Constitution from giving anything away," he wrote.

That point seemed to borne out by the fate of Putin's proposal that the United States let Russian prosecutors who are pursuing Kremlin critic William Browder question several Americans, including former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, in exchange for Russia letting U.S. officials interview Russians such as the 12 military intelligence officers indicted by U.S. authorities three days before the summit over the alleged election interference in 2016.

A day after she indicated Trump would consider the proposal -- prompting howls of protest from his opponents and a pithy assessment from the State Department, which called it "absurd" -- Sanders said the president "disagrees" with the idea, making clear it wouldn't happen.

For Trump, of course, the fact that no deliverable was delivered may also be a disappointment, despite efforts by both sides ahead of time to play down the prospects for concrete agreements.

After a summit that "accomplished very little of substance," the closing press conference "left Trump & team with all the blowback, but no deals," Olya Oliker, director of the Russia and Eurasia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote in a "cooling-off take" on Twitter.

Amid the firestorm over his press-conference performance, Trump tweeted on July 18 that he and Putin "discussed many important subjects" and promised: "Big results will come!"

Trump did not explain what those might be, beyond stating that "Russia has agreed to help with North Korea," but Russian officials have given hints about some of the results they want to see.

One appears to a be Crimea-style referendum that could tear the parts of two eastern Ukrainian provinces held by Russia-backed forces further from Kyiv's grasp – but this time with the imprimatur of the U.S. president and international backing in place to lend the vote legitimacy.

Bloomberg News quoted two people who attended a closed-door speech by Putin on July 19 as saying he told diplomats that he made the referendum proposal to Trump at the summit but agreed not to disclose it publicly, in order to give Trump time to consider it.

Whether the referendum idea gets anywhere or not, the dissonance between the White House and State Department on the proposal for questioning Americans seems to underscore two things about Putin's approach to the United States.

On the one hand, many analysts say one of Putin's main goals is to sow discord both between Western countries and within them. So he can check that box in this case.

But it also seems to show how closely tied Putin now is to Trump in terms of Russian relations with the United States.

When U.S. elections roll around, Russian officials normally make a show of saying they are ready to work with the winner, whoever it may be. But Kremlin bosses have also often relied on personal relationships with foreign leaders in the hope of plowing past the checks and balances in countries like the United States and getting what they want done –and done faster.

In Helsinki, Putin again denied that Russia meddled in the U.S. election. But for the first time, he acknowledged publicly what has seemed obvious for about two years -- that he wanted Trump to win.

Ties That Bind

Trump's critics say he bent to Putin's will.

But Dmitry Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, says Putin took a risky step closer to Trump at the summit, where he says the two presidents "held a common front" against U.S. Democrats, special prosecutor Robert Mueller's investigation, and the U.S. media.

Putin "evidently decided to make a serious bet on Donald Trump in his confrontation with the greater part of the American political establishment," Trenin wrote.

"Russia, having publicly stepped into the domestic political arena of the United States, had better be prepared for various unpleasant surprises," he wrote, depicting U.S. politics as a "rollercoaster" -- the Russian term is "American hills" -- that can send you soaring for the heights at one moment and screaming toward the ground the next.

'Like A Serf'

Back home, Putin faces the task of pushing through a nearly unprecedented, highly unpopular pension-reform plan that would increase the retirement age for men to 65 from 60, and for women to 63 from 55.

While one of the Kremlin's mantras is that Putin does not worry about opinion polls, its approach to the pension reform so far has seemed to contradict that assertion.

A day after Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev outlined the proposal in mid-June, Putin's spokesman said that the president was "not taking part in that process" and that the situation had changed since Putin promised, in 2005, not to raise the retirement age while he was president.

Polls show that Putin's ratings have dropped since the announcement, and independent outlet Dozhd TV (TV Rain) has quoted sources as saying that the Kremlin has asked media, pro-government bloggers, and members of the pro-Putin ruling party United Russia not to use the phrase "pension reform."

Amid protests outside the State Duma on July 19, the measure passed in its first of three readings in the lower parliament house -- with every single "yes" vote cast by United Russia.

Among those voting against was flamboyant firebrand Vladimir Zhirinovsky. He called the pension reform "a yoke around the neck" that would leave the ordinary Russian citizen "like a serf who can only leave work feet-first" -- that is, when he dies.