Top stories from the Russian press on Monday, May 16th, prepared by TASS
Izvestia: Who may interfere with Finland and Sweden joining NATO
Helsinki and Stockholm have decided to join NATO. This statement was made on May 15 by Finland’s President Sauli Niinisto and Prime Minister Sanna Marin and Sweden’s ruling Social Democratic Workers’ Party (SAP). They are planning to submit their applications to the alliance simultaneously in the middle of this week. While both countries assure that their goal is exclusively a defensive one, Moscow asserts that NATO’s northward expansion is a direct threat to Russia’s security. And although the majority of the alliance’s member states are ready to accelerate the admission of Helsinki and Stockholm, there are some who may block it - Turkey has already expressed its potential disagreement.
"Finland has a leading role here - it declared the intention to join the alliance first. In Finland, this decision is much more widely supported than in Sweden (according to polls, 76% of Finns and 57% of Swedes support the decision to join to NATO - Izvestia)," Head of the Center for Arctic Studies at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences Valery Zhuravel told the newspaper. "Helsinki invests 1.96% of its GDP in defense which is close to the 2% that NATO members are obligated to spend on security. Overall, Finland’s cooperation with the alliance is well-established, it has already been much closer to joining this organization than Sweden. If Helsinki refuses to join NATO, then, most likely, Stockholm won’t go there either," the expert added.
"President Erdogan is bargaining with the West, mainly with the US and the UK on many issues," Turkish political scientist Kerim Has told Izvestia. "There are quite a few issues in Turkish-American relations, for example, one of the issues is the modernization of American F-16 fighter jets in Turkey given that following US sanctions for the deliveries of Russian S-400 systems, it was unable to purchase American F-35s. With regards to Finland and Sweden, it is possible to presume that Ankara is hoping that PKK members located in these countries will be extradited.
According to the expert, there is another reason for this rhetoric. In this manner, Turkey is giving Russia a hint that it supports contacts on NATO expansion and does not want to irritate Moscow on such a sensitive issue.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Moscow accused of waging ‘grain war’
Western politicians are accusing Russia of a "grain war" and price hikes on food products. That said, food prices began increasing two years ago. According to the US Department of Agriculture, global wheat production in 2022 will be higher than in any year from 2016 to 2020. A possible decrease in Ukrainian wheat exports will be more than compensated for by increased supplies from Canada, Europe and Russia, the US thinks. The global food price hikes are causing protests in various countries - from Iran to Indonesia and Sri Lanka.
"Global wheat prices are impacted by various and numerous factors. Sometimes even the fact of a local storm may elevate global prices if the elements of port infrastructure are destroyed at a port of large export supplies," Director of RANEPA’s Center for Agri-Food Policy Natalia Shagayda said. According to her, the total volumes of wheat production worldwide are not causing any worries. Nevertheless, a military conflict which involves such major grain exporters as Russia and Ukraine contributes to raising market anxiety and higher prices, and here experts concur. "Ukrainian ports remain blocked, yet Russia also risks transport problems, in particular, due to the changed conditions of insuring vessels, and the tense Black Sea situation. Due to the geopolitical atmosphere, food is not listed in the sanctions programs against Russia. The situation is aggravated by the fact that the countries that earlier could replenish their funds for purchasing food products for needy countries now can find more important problems and cut their support. So the problem with food products is critical," the expert thinks.
She reiterated that the wheat price hike began in mid-2020. In addition to the coronavirus infection which caused structural changes in food consumption (a greater shift towards relatively cheap products, and transportation problems), there were many other non-coronavirus-related reasons. For example, China has significantly increased wheat imports which surpassed even the growth of the global supply. Nowadays, the problems with the sowing campaign and transportation issues in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict zone remain a very significant factor which keeps high prices up, the expert thinks.
Rossiyskaya Gazeta: EU eyes shelving embargo on Russian hydrocarbons
The European Union is considering the possibility of postponing an embargo on Russian oil. This was caused by disagreements between its members on this issue. Hungary is among the main opponents of the oil embargo since Budapest thinks that the ban on Russian oil will bring down the Hungarian economy.
According to analysts, even if the EU manages to agree on the oil embargo in the end, this won’t be catastrophic for Russia. Finam’s experts note that the bulk of lost volumes can be redirected to the markets of the Asia-Pacific region, primarily to India and China.
"Due to this, a paradoxical situation may emerge from the point of view of logistics. As compensation, Europe will begin to purchase some of Middle Eastern oil which earlier was supplied to APR [Asia-Pacific] countries, while Russia will occupy this freed up niche," the company’s study said.
Vedomosti: Central Asian countries compelled to adapt to anti-Russian sanctions
Due to deep political, economic and infrastructural mutual dependency with Russia, Central Asian countries could definitely feel the repercussions of large-scale sanctions introduced by Western countries over the Ukrainian crisis, Stanislav Pritchin, Senior Researcher with the Center for Post-Soviet Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of World Economy and International Relations, says. And this is not just about the fact that some countries in the region are partners in the Eurasian Economic Union (Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are full-fledged members while Uzbekistan has observer status since December 2020). Practically for all of them even without the EAEU, Russia is a key trade partner and investor. The integration only makes the existing deep interaction more institutionalized and systemic. All Central Asian countries have an expansive bilateral legal base of relations with Russia and intensive political dialogue at the level of the countries’ leadership, agencies and regions.
According to him, the main restraining factor in their readiness to help Russia is not in infrastructure-related restrictions. The countries of the region remain under serious pressure by the US and its allies who keep a close eye on any attempts to bypass the sanctions. Lately, increasingly more frequent visits to Central Asia by high-ranking US diplomats and officials have been observed. All of this proves that any support for Russia under the current conditions is unacceptable for Washington.
This is not an easy dilemma for the Asian countries: they either increase cooperation with Russia using the window of opportunity while running the risk of coming under Western pressure, or, due to fears of Western sanctions, they decrease the level of interaction with their largest partner to their own detriment, the expert concluded.
Rossiyskaya Gazeta: Western companies set for Russia comeback
The world-renowned American fast food multinational McDonald’s may resume operations in Russia under a different brand, and Shell, the UK-Dutch oil and gas multinational, will soon change its signs to Lukoil, while Sweden’s IKEA will continue to pay salaries to its staff until the end of the summer. According to experts, large foreign enterprises with investments in the Russian market will soon make their return.
"The parade of foreign brand departures from the Russian market largely did not have any rational, or economic justification. That was an act of psychological pressure aiming to show that the usual world of an ordinary Russian is crumbling and will never be the same," said Director of the Institute of Social and Economic Research at the Russian Government’s Financial University Alexey Zubets. In 90% of the cases, the departed companies can be easily replaced either by manufacturers from non-Western countries or by local suppliers, the expert explained.
Additionally, the foreign brands on Russian streets and store shelves are a strong tool of cultural influence which the West is interested in now, perhaps, more than ever, since the attempts to cause an impact via sanctions have not been successful, he concluded.
